Delhi’s Education Revolution

Delhi’s Education Revolution

Teachers, agency and inclusion

Kusha Anand and Marie Lall

First published in 2022 by

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800081383

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

List of figures, table and box

List of abbreviations

1Setting the scene

2Education policy and politics in India and in Delhi

3Teachers, training and capacity building: what do teachers want?

4Teachers and the Delhi classroom: what has changed?

5Teachers and inclusion: success for all?

6Teachers and Covid-19: challenges of a pandemic

Epilogue: was it a revolution?

References

Index

Acknowledgements

In 2019 I was asked to lead an Indian research team to look at what works in classrooms across India. Dr Kusha Anand joined me to put together and train this team of young researchers. I am very grateful for her unwavering support throughout the project.

Just before we were to start the fieldwork in March 2020, the pandemic struck, schools shut and borders closed. The data collection had to be moved online and completely reconfigured. My thanks go to the research team – Dr Megha Bali, Dr Aditi Banerji, Dr Samta Jain, Dr Feroz Khan and Dr Anviti Singh, who with Kusha’s help interviewed the teachers. I am grateful for the funding received from the Board of Trustees, Modern School, which made this project possible.

While those who collect data are important, this book would not have been possible without the cooperation of 110 teachers from 15 Delhi schools. They shared their experience of the massive changes to education undertaken by the AAP government, their thoughts on what had improved and what was still ‘work in progress’. It would have been impossible to understand the reach and importance of the AAP reforms without their contribution. I hope this book gives an accurate reflection of their voices.

Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues Prof. Geetha Nambissan, Prof. Saumen Chattopadhyay, Prof. Nandini Manjrekar and Dr. Shivani Nag, for advice and support during the data collection and writing-up phases. While the pandemic has kept me away from India, I cannot wait to see you all again.

As always, I am grateful for my husband’s support. This book is dedicated to our silver wedding anniversary this year.

Marie Lall, January 2022

Organising and collecting data, in the pandemic, from over 100 participants is a huge task that could not have been shouldered by a few. Consequently, there are many people to thank.

Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Marie Lall for daily online meetings, where countless issues on literature review, research training, ethics and online fieldwork were discussed and decisions were reached. This book would not have been possible without the support of Professor Lall, with whom the journey has been shared.

I am also grateful to the research team who specifically supported my decisions in the online fieldwork. Thank you for your advice, ideas, collegiality, and laughs over many months. It was a pleasure to work and learn with you.

I would also like to thank all the participants for bringing intellectual richness to the interviews. Finally, I wish to thank my family in Delhi and my husband for their tireless support and encouragement.

Kusha Anand, January 2022

Dedication

For my son Kian (KA)

&

For our silver anniversary (ML)

List of figures, table and box

Figures

1.1Map of Delhi

3.1Structural flow of in-service teacher training for government primary school teachers

3.2Training session by a mentor teacher

Table

1.1Timeline and key events in Delhi politics between 2012 and 2020

Box

1.1 Main characters in the Aam Aadmi Party

List of abbreviations

1

Setting the scene

Figure 1.1 Map of Delhi

(Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/administrative-political- street-map-national-capital-783694765)

This book reviews education policy and practice in Delhi government schools, focusing on six years during which Delhi schools experienced major reforms led by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. AAP, a party that emerged in India’s capital and was at the time of writing only in power in Delhi, was elected in 2015 and reelected in 2020 based on improved public¹ service provision. They had promised to make government schools as good as private provision – a promise they seem to have largely delivered on, according to the media and the wider electorate.

Teachers are at the heart of any changes in education and this is an account of what teachers experienced as part of the reforms affecting their profession and practice, and how far such changes have improved education for all children, no matter from what background. It is based on 110 interviews with government school teachers from 15 high-performing Delhi government schools, in the summer of 2020 (during the Covid-19 pandemic). Interviews were conducted online and resulted in over 700 pages of data. The teachers reviewed the new programmes rolled out by AAP, discussed issues of inclusion and the pressures of achievement and examinations when working in classrooms with often more than 50 students. Apart from a brief account written by Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia, this is the the only narrative that focuses on what happened in Delhi government schools as a result of the education reforms spearheaded by the AAP. The book critically evaluates the AAP government’s education policy through the eyes of those most affected by the changes – the teachers. Since their role is critical in delivering quality education, it is pertinent to listen to teachers’ voices when discussing education reforms.

The book has two aims. First, to review the education reform process and draw out the lessons learnt for Delhi’s government and citizens. The account presented aims to be policy-relevant. Second, to give voice to those most implicated in and affected by the changing landscape of Delhi’s education and wider public service reform process. This is important because the voices of teachers are rarely heard. If policymakers (and others) are to understand what has been successful or not, and why, we must look at the effects of reforms on the ground and in the classroom, and how practice has responded.

The voices of participating teachers show that listening to stakeholders is critical for the continued success of Delhi’s reform processes. This supports the argument that the AAP reforms have largely been successful in delivering higher-quality and more appropriate education to a broad section of society. However, there have been costs to teachers’ lives and practice, and children from the poorest sectors receive a reduced level of education through the practice of setting (ability grouping) in order to improve a school’s and a city’s overall achievement score. This in turn raises questions about AAP’s overall policy aims of propagating inclusion and social justice. While the AAP government overhauled the infrastructure of schools, it remained unsuccessful in recruiting the required numbers of permanent teachers. Despite its new programmes, enrolment and retention fell. AAP’s declared ‘revolutionising’ of government school education remains a work in progress.

As part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda, governments worldwide have committed to delivering inclusive and equitable high-quality education for all children (United Nations, 2015). India’s Right to Education Act (RTE) has ensured a quantitative expansion so that all eligible schoolgoing students are brought within the formal education system at the elementary/primary education level (classes I–VIII) (Government of India, 2013). However, the key problems in government schools are high dropout and low retention rates. It is not just years of education that matter – quality of education provided at school level is equally important (Jain and Prasad, 2018). Most research into Indian government schools has concluded that government education provision is of poor quality (Azim Premji Foundation, 2017; Bhattacharjee, 2019; Kundu, 2019; Khatua and Chaudhury, 2019). This is underpinned by an exodus of the middle and lower-middle classes to private provision (Lall, 2013). Anecdotal evidence shows that even teachers teaching at government schools often choose a private alternative for their children.

An essential criterion for the RTE Act to succeed is the role and the quality of teachers. According to the RTE Act, teachers should behave as reflective, empowered, professional practitioners, working within a constructivist orientation (Wolfenden, 2015). There are hardly any studies, reflecting on the Indian context, that identify indicators affecting student learning outcomes, teachers’ efficiencies, quality of teaching practices or the understanding of teacher perspectives on quality education. However, research from across the globe consistently demonstrates that teachers are essential factors in determining the learning and achievement level of students. Hence, improving the process and quality of teaching may be effective in raising pupil achievement levels.

As a reaction to the voicelessness of quantitative research in the social sciences, this book focuses on ‘giving voice’ to teachers. Teachers’ voices are important for reconceptualising and redefining the current model of their professional development. This book offers insights for teacher educators, administrators and policymakers in India, to better understand how to facilitate shifts in teachers’ beliefs and practice towards a child-centred paradigm. The voices of the Delhi teachers who reflected on their classroom practice and gave a critical account of what had changed and worked or not worked since AAP came to power help explain the quantitative results published in government reports and elsewhere.

Teachers’ voices and educational reforms

The Incheon Declaration reaffirmed the international community’s commitment to ‘establish legal and policy frameworks that promote accountability and transparency as well as participatory governance and coordinated partnerships at all levels and across sectors, and to uphold the right to participation of all stakeholders’ (UNESCO, 2015, 9). Global education agendas developed by policymakers and international organisations such as the World Bank and UNESCO have played an integral role in driving the direction of education development since at least the 1990 conference in Jomtien. Yet while the importance of mobilising all stakeholders has long been acknowledged, the voices of researchers, policymakers and international organisations continue to dominate the scene, while the voices of teachers, the most important school input influencing student outcomes (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2011), continue to be neglected both in literature and in policymaking. Despite public commitments internationally and nationally to include the voices of all stakeholders, the voices of teachers have continued to be marginalised in the literature and policymaking related to global educational development.

There is a rising body of international research indicating the critical significance of focusing on teachers’ voices. Munby (1984) argues that if teachers’ voices are at odds with the expectations underpinning the reform effort, what results is a discrepancy between the change intended by the training and what gets expressed in the classroom. Teachers’ voices are barely heard in these macroscale policy discussions about competences to implement reforms in the classroom. This means there is very little recognition of how teachers perceive reforms and how they fit with teachers’ own aspirations, competences and daily classroom practices. It could be classed as undemocratic to neglect dialogue with these educational professionals. Yet teachers’ input could also bring about the final realisation of education policy and reform. Specifically, it is apparent that the implementation of educational reforms or innovations and their impact may be understood when policymakers harmonise with teachers’ aspirations and perceptions of their work (März and Kelchtermans, 2013).

This book highlights the importance of teachers’ views on educational reforms for a number of reasons. First, the reform models, even if they were loosely structured, originated outside the school, so efforts were mostly not teacher-led. Often, the opportunity to adopt a model was brought to teachers by district and/or school administrators, generally because schools were deemed to be underperforming. What unfolded thereafter was a story of power and politics, not documented in this volume. A hierarchical approach was often evident in reform adoption processes (Datnow, 2000, 361). This led some schools to adopt reforms when they weren’t entirely committed or fully informed. Teachers, therefore, often felt relatively powerless in the reform process. Predictably, the fact that teachers were not fully engaged with the idea of reform at the outset negatively affected implementation. Gratch (2000) argues that teachers are expected to implement the reforms but are ‘marginalized in the discourse regarding development, implementation, and improvement of reform efforts’ (44). In India there is a dearth of studies to assess the needs of teachers in educational research given the diverse sociocultural background of both teachers and students. To date, a strong engagement with teachers’ beliefs has not found its way into educational research or reform efforts in India (Jha and Jhingran, 2005; Brinkmann, 2015; Anand, 2019; Lall and Anand, forthcoming 2022).

Scholars have also emphasised how the absence of teachers’ voices and agency in policymaking and implementation processes, inadequate appreciation from immediate stakeholders such as higher authorities and parents and the absence of meaningful peer-engagement forums for self-development have led to demotivation among government school teachers (Smail, 2014; Brinkmann, 2019; Batra, 2005; Mooij, 2008). Aligned with these studies, this book provides a deeper and more engaged understanding of the concerns and challenges surrounding teachers’ work in the classroom, which in turn can guide the nature of policies around this issue. At a ground level, Majumdar and Mooij (2011, 67) capture such imagination in terms of the multiple ambivalences and contradictions in the work life of teachers in India. These have to do with grand policy goals on the one hand versus inadequate resources on the other; lofty ideas regarding the role of teachers versus lack of motivation; the declining social status of teachers versus their upward social mobility; and the simultaneous control and neglect that characterises their relationship with the educational administration. Through such an understanding, these studies ‘converge on a trope’ that highlights the absence of both ‘voice and agency’ in the professional life and work of teachers (Batra, 2005; Brinkmann, 2015; Anand, 2019; Lall, Anand et al., 2020). For instance, the findings from an explorative study by Ramachandran et al (2008), based on data collected from Kerala, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, found that the actual classroom practices are not evaluated. Rather, teachers’ performances are monitored based on administrative norms and not educational norms, which supports the view that educational reform policies, as formulated in consultation with multiple actors, leave little scope for teachers’ voices (Batra, 2005). Due to the bureaucratic and social conditions levied on teachers’ pedagogical ideas or the teaching profession as a whole, this leads to constructing education as a technical input which requires external borrowing and enhanced resources, with a notable absence of teachers’ voices and perspectives (Batra, 2005).

The aim is thus to present teachers’ voices on the reforms by AAP in order to understand the viability and effectiveness of these reforms. Teachers’ voices help to arrive at new understandings of competences and aspirations and how they can be integrated into relevant and feasible reforms. To provide a holistic portrayal of teachers’ voices, we invited them to share their perspectives on the progress, challenges and innovations, in light of the reforms by AAP.

This chapter first reviews the 2020 Delhi State Elections, which were won by AAP, extending their mandate by another five years (see Table 1.1 for the timeline of AAP). Born out of the anticorruption movement, AAP’s politics are rooted in reforming services, especially education. This section will briefly review Indian national politics, explaining how the AAP government is quite different from other Indian state governments, especially in its approach to public services. The review of AAP’s governance tenure and the elections sets the scene for the rest of the book, which details AAP education policies and how teachers have experienced the reforms.

Table 1.1 Timeline and key events in Delhi politics between 2012 and 2020.

aThe Lok Sabha (or House of the People) is the lower house of parliament.

Note: This table is a summation from data sources and adapted from AAP,² Diwakar (2016), Forbes India (2020).

The chapter then reviews the methods used to access the teachers, how the interviews were conducted and how the data was analysed. The last section turns to the content of the book, with chapters on teacher agency, inclusion and inclusive education, teacher training and the digital divide experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no overall theoretical framework linking the chapters, as the aim is a review of the changes in Delhi schools – however, each chapter in turn engages with the wider education literature around its main theme.

The Aam Aadmi Party and the 2020 Delhi Elections

AAP was born from an anticorruption social movement and politics of activism that started in 2010 (see Box 1.1 below for the main characters of the organisation). At base was the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, led by Anna Hazare but including known personalities such as Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Kiran Bedi. In 2012 Kejriwal decided to found a political party³ – although other leaders of the anticorruption movement such as Hazare and Bedi were against that move.

Box 1.1 Main characters in the Aam Aadmi Party

Anna Hazare is a social activist who headed movements to encourage rural development, increase government transparency and inspect and punish official corruption (Britannica, n.d.). The birth of AAP as a political entity is rooted in the legacy of IAC, a people’s movement started by Hazare and a ‘rainbow’ coalition of activists demanding the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill through parliament to work towards ending corruption (Siddarth et al., 2021). A splinter group from the movement jointly headed by Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav, Anand Jha, Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan decided to form a political party in 2012, naming it after the common man. Hazare opposed the move and stayed away from advocating IAC’s entry into direct politics, as he feared that ‘elections require huge funds, which will be tough for activists to organise without compromising on their values and it would be difficult to ensure that candidates are not corrupted once elected’ (NDTV, 2012 cited in Siddarth et al., 2021).

Arvind Kejriwal formed AAP along with several prominent leaders, most of whom were well known to the public during the IAC movement (Sengupta, 2012). Kejriwal, himself a charismatic figure and author of Swaraj, a best-selling book on self-rule, slowly consolidated power and support within AAP. This process came to a head in 2015, when several of the other prominent leaders and party officials were ousted for ‘anti-party activities’ (Sriram, 2015). This left Kejriwal as the sole remaining public figure associated with the party’s IAC origins and as the single head of AAP, ‘crystallising’ AAP as a personalistic party centred around his leadership (Subrahmaniam, 2015).

Manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister and education minister of Delhi, is a senior leader of AAP and a member of the Political Affairs Committee. In the past he was a journalist with Zee News and All India Radio, after which he became active in the struggle to get the Right to Information Act passed in parliament and played a key role in founding the Jan Lokpal Movement (Raghunath, 2020). His significant contribution to reforming the education system in Delhi has gained him a reputation as one of the best administrators and educationists in the country. The infrastructural transformation of Delhi government schools, launching curricula such as the Happiness Curriculum, the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum and, more recently, the Deshbhakti Curriculum, the introduction of ‘Mission Buniyaad’ to improve children’s learning in state- and municipal-run schools, sending teachers and principals abroad for training, all were initiatives taken by Sisodia (PTI, 2020).

Atishi Marlena worked as an adviser to Manish Sisodia during the period 2015–18. In her interviews and speeches at seminars in Delhi, Marlena has recounted how at the beginning of the term the problem in Delhi’s government schools was even greater than shown by the miserable data in government reports (Sandhu, 2021). With regard to overhauling teacher education, more than the struggle for resources she found the main difficulty was to get the system