Revitalization of Cultural Creativity

Revitalization of Cultural Creativity

Development must aim at meaningful and effective tapping of the massive unutilized reservoir of skills and creative social and cultural energy of the poor and socially neglected majority of our people. Nurturing of the folklore and cultural expressions of the urban and rural poor, the tribals and other peasants is an investment in social capital and also a motivation for participation in adult education (MHRD, 1980: 7).

Following are some of the reference points in designing content and curriculum and the T-L processes that include awareness-oriented interactions, lectures and demonstration. The purpose behind benchmarking these reference points is to treat them for a reality check of their reflection in the literacy movement during the 90s and thereafter in programme design as well as in pedagogy.

The perspective towards national development, the society envisioned and the requisite elements of adult education were viewed as a basic human need and also a part of the right to education. It is a necessary basis for the nation’s striving for democracy and development, and a necessary part of any Basic Minimum Needs nation-wide programme. This entailed a number of implications for curriculum design and pedagogy in the wider sense.

Presaging NPE, 1986 and POA - An Adult Education Movement

The Review Report recommended that the programme of mass adult education has to be a national movement, in which all official, non-official, educational and development agencies are closely involved. It should receive full support of the Government – at the Centre, State and local levels. It should enjoy the goodwill and support of all political parties and the various mass organizations of workers, peasants, women, youth, etc. The educational institutions, the teaching community and students have a special responsibility towards the programme. A large section of the potential learners are workers in industry, mines, plantations, etc. It would, therefore, be essential for employers to make their employees and their families literate and to provide appropriate incentive to them. The media, both traditional and modern, will have to play a far bigger role than at present. There are in the country voluntary organizations devoted to social uplift established under the inspiration of our great leaders. They have a very significant role to play, in promoting innovation and in reaching areas and sections of the population which generally tend to be neglected (MHRD, 1980: 15).

As would be evident later, the points were repeated in NPE, 1986 and it’s POA. Taking note of the successes scored and weaknesses remained in NAEP, the views of the Committee about the future of the programme in scope and organization served to inspire and guide the vision of adult education along the same lines, as borne out, firstly, from the perspective of NPE, 1986 and POA and NLM and the literacy movement through the 1990s and beyond. In respect of widening and deepening of the content, the Committee urged that a programme of adult education should include, besides higher level of literacy to guard against relapse, integration with formal education and to include knowledge of the basic principles of the Constitution, promotion of national integration, and a deepening of the cultural background and awareness about health and family planning, the importance of conservation of environment, the relevance of science and scientific temper for shaping the future. These, as can be seen below, constituted the fourth objective of the NLM.

Functionality

The aim of functionality is improvement of vocational skills and for more productive use of time. Functionality should also include acquisition of skills to supplement one’s income through village industries and activities such as poultry farming and dairying (MHRD, 1980). In the immediate future, these objectives served as guides for curriculum and content to the MPFL as well as other ongoing programmes of adult education (R.Rajan, 2003: 83).

Awareness

Not easy to define, its scope was seen to depend much on the perception, competency and commitment of instructors and supervisors. Awareness means that the poor should become conscious that, to a great degree, they can shape their own future through the interlinking of learning, reflection and concrete action; understand the reasons for their deprivation as embedded in the unequal socio-economic order, and laws and policies for protecting them against such deprivations, and organized action to secure the benefits of such laws (MHRD, 1980).

The assertion in the policy statement that (i) the illiterates and the poor can rise to their own liberation through literacy, dialogue and action; (ii) adult education should emphasize the imparting of literacy skills to persons belonging to the economically and socially deprived sections of the society; and (iii) motivation also depends on awareness among the participants that adult education programme will lead to the advancement of their functional capability for the realization of liberation. These assertions, policy premises and assumptions, first of all, neither did get converted into such liberation -igniting curriculum and content, nor it actually led or was even capable of leading to liberation from socio-economic oppression. Literacy is too feeble an instrument, bereft of other socio-economic transformational changes, to lead to liberation.

During the early 80s, there were a number of programmes in operation under different agencies – such as (i) Rural Functional Literacy Projects (RFLP), (ii) State Adult Education Preogramme (SAEP), (iii) Adult Education Through Students and Youth (under UGC); (iv) Nehru Yuvak Kendras; (v) Non-formal Education for Women and Girls; (vi) Shramik Vidyapeeths; (vii) Central Board of Workers’ Education; (viii) Functional Literacy for Adult Women (FLAW); (ix) Post-Literacy and Follow-up Programme; (x) Adult Education through Voluntary Agencies, (xi) Mass Programme of Functional Literacy (MPFL), etc. Doubtless, every one of these programmes must have had its own primers, specifically aligned to the needs of its learners.

Curriculum Implications of Policy Postulates and Strategies: NPE, 1986 and POA, Bear out Perspectives Envisioned in 1980

The National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 and its Programme of Action (POA), 1986, made clear that “all existing Adult Education Projects would be reviewed and re-organised”, as presaged in 1980. In the context of the strategy for re-organisation and making the existing programmes more effective, the NPE and its POA felt that in respect of certain specific group of beneficiaries, as covered in IRDP, NREP programmes, specific learning inputs would be needed. But, in respect of all other beneficiaries, there would be no change in the curriculum and content (GOI, 1986: 131-32).

However, it needs to be noted that some strategies declared also had the scope and possibility of being reflected as learning and awareness inputs and potential: (i) “active cooperation will be sought from political parties and the mass organizations of workers, peasants, women, youth and students”, and “the district, tehsil and thana level administrative machinery will be involved in National Programme of Adult Education (NPAE) to ensure the support for awareness-oriented adult education programmes — these are examples of such “strategies”, advocated in NPE, 1986 and its POA(GOI, 1986: 131-32). The POA was convinced that adult education is both a process through which effective delivery mechanisms are created for the deprived sections of society, and a forum through which such sections secure information and understanding regarding the processes of development. Hence, it delineated the ways to establish effective linkage between adult education and the various development programmes, like IRDP, NREP, ICDS, FLAW, NYKS, etc (GOI, 1986: 128-29).

NPE 1992 Acknowledged National Involvement in Literacy Movement

Six years after its initial formulation, at time of its revision in 1992, the NPE and its POA acknowledged how the whole nation, as well as its different agencies within and outside the government, as pledged by NPE, 1986, indeed got mobilized and involved itself in the Total Literacy Campaigns of NLM. The NPE came up for revision in the wake of the post-Mandal agitation and Babri Masjid demolition. It was concerned about the erosion of essential values and an increasing cynicism in society, which “has brought to focus the need for readjustments in the curriculum in order to make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values”. Vividly reminiscent of the 1980 Review Committee’s recommendations about the future of adult education, the NPE argued that in “our culturally plural society, education should foster universal and eternal values, oriented towards the unity and integration of our people”, so as to “eliminate obscurantism, religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism” (MHRD, 1992: 36). In the same vein, it went on to assure that NLM will be geared to mount the TLCs to the achievement of national goals such as alleviation of poverty, national integration, environmental conservation, observance of small family norms, promotion of women’s equality, universalisation of primary education, basic health care, energisation of cultural creativity of the people and their active participation in the development process (MHRD, 1992: 15).

The POA (1992) reiterated the NPE’s conviction to forge adult education as a means for reducing economic, social and gender disparities. But, it reminds that previous experience has brought out the fact that programmes of literacy can become meaningful only when they come along with package comprising practical information and skills relevant to day-to-day needs of learners. Therefore, the POA articulated the main features of the implementation strategy to include, among others:

.               Application of science & technology, and pedagogical research for improving the pace and environment of learning,

.               Establishing linkage between adult education and the developmental programmes, and

.               A distinct slant in favour of women’s equality, and taking of all measures in pursuance of this resolve.

These are strong opinions and policy statements that used to get reflected in the curriculum of adult education programmes, as before.

The promotion of literacy became an important “national mission”, as postulated and declared by the NPE, 1986 and its POA. It is important to remember that the “functional literacy” articulated in the NLM was what was conceptualized in NAEP and further endorsed in the NAEP’s Review in 1980. The functional literacy implied: (i) achieving self-reliance in basic literacy and numeracy; (ii) becoming aware of the causes of one’s deprivation and moving towards amelioration of conditions through organization and participation in the process of development; (iii) acquiring skills to improve the economic status and general well-being; and (iv) imbibing the values of national integration, conservation of the environment, women’s equality, observance of small family norms, etc. These were again reiterated in the revised NPE, 1992 and its POA (MHRD, 1988; MHRD, 1992). This expanded concept of functional literacy can be viewed as literacy in rights, empowerment, development and improvement, requisites for the all-round development of individuals and the country as a whole, in the same way as the NAEP’s Review envisaged and recommended, and as formed the staple of literacy primers in TLCs and other learning materials developed for PLP and CE programmes all over India during the 1990s and until 2007 when the NLM lasted. Brevity considerations preclude details of their curriculum and contents.

National Curriculum Framework for Adult Education, 2011

A recent example of the assertive demand about the desired vision for adult education and its curriculum and contents as put forth by the Expert Group on National Curriculum Framework for Adult Education (NCFAE) is worth recounting.

A nation that is literate is one where its citizens are empowered to ask questions, seek information, take decisions, have equal access to education, health, livelihood, and all public institutions, participate in shaping one’s realities, create knowledge, participate in the labour force with improved skills, exercise agency fearlessly and as a consequence, deepen democracy. Systems are to be in place to build a nation that builds citizenship which is truly informed and literate … It is only when there is a credible, and institutionalized effort on a long term basis that the learner would take the programme of adult education seriously. The first step, therefore, is to understand adult education programme as a continuous and lifelong education programme, with all structures and institutions from national to habitation levels, on a permanent basis, as part of the education department. The principles of curriculum framework for adult education would need to be much more than literacy and post-literacy; it is the convergence of education, democracy, cultural practice, developmental practices, gender empowerment and much more (www.jkeducation.gov.in).