Experiments with truth
It has all the elements of a slugfest among eminent personalities in the public sphere. It would have made great entertainment; only it has to do with education. Science education, actually, in village schools with poor facilities.
In an August 8 order, Amita Sharma, secretary (elementary education) to the government of Madhya Pradesh (mp), directed collectors of 15 districts of the state that a uniform curriculum, textbooks and examination system would be followed across the state. It said that if any schools wished to use the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (hstp), it would be supplementary to the main curriculum notified by the state government. This brought to an end a 30-year-old partnership involving the state government, non-governmental organisations and well-known academics in a programme that was to create an alternative to the learn-by-rote approach to science education. hstp explains science through experiments, observations and analyses, rather than mugging up books and concepts that children may not have understood even. (For a background on the hstp see box: For those who came in late ).
It was the culmination of events set into motion in December 2001, when member of the legislative assembly from Itarasi, Sitasharan Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), complained to the district planning committee (dpc) of Hoshangabad, hstp's birthplace, that the programme be discontinued. He reasoned, among other things, that the programme had no link with the way students were taught before or after classes six to eight.
On February 7, 2002, the committee recommended that the state government close the programme in the district. The minister chairing the meeting declared the decision was unanimous. But things weren't that simple. Nine of the 12 members of the dpc wrote to the collector of Hoshangabad, also the secretary of the committee, to review the decision, points out Eklavya, the ngo created to run hstp in 1982. The review meeting was held on May 9, chaired by another minister. But the nine members who had asked for the review were not willing to put their money where their mouth was. The dpc reiterated its earlier decision and left the matter to the chief minister as a government review of the programme was underway.
On July 3, the secretary of elementary education sent an order to the Hoshangabad collector, with copies marked to collectors of 13 other districts that had schools running hstp. It said that schools in Hoshangabad would employ standard teaching methods used across the state. Schools were free to use hstp as long as it was supplementary to the main curriculum. Eklavya representatives say government was so high-handed that it didn't bother to inform them of the decision, and they found out only on July 11. The government says its decision is based on a transparent review. This point onwards, everything is controversial.
Counterpointing vibes Eklavya's response was almost immediate. It urged the chief minister, Digvijay Singh, to withdraw the order and base his decision on an in-depth and independent academic review. The organisation started writing to its large network of academics and activists, organised a press conference and later a dharna to protest the decision. Eminent scientists, educationists and technocrats
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