Debate: Why Segregating School Children Based on 'Skill' Is a Bad Idea

An article in The Wire on the physical segregation of students in Delhi government schools, and the consequences in terms of increase in bullying, lack of peer learning and undermining of teachers, drew a response, surprisingly, from a member of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Instead, we hope the statutory body would take serious note of and stall processes that discriminate children on the basis of their 'ability to read'.

We, a group of school teachers and teacher educators whose students intern in Delhi government schools, want to present our findings through our association with ability-based separation of school students, which we have been forced to implement in our classrooms. Our names must be protected as there are serious consequences of critiquing any policy of the Delhi government.

Here is our response.

While making a case for ‘foundational learning skills’, the author never really mentions what these are. There has now been enough research into reading to highlight that it is a complex task, of which ‘foundational skills’, such as the ability to make letter-sound connections, are only a small part. The idea that ‘foundational reading skills’ come before actual reading has been discredited.

Children learn to read by reading, not by mechanically practising drills of letters and their sounds. Contrary to the claims of new research made by the author, this discredited way to teach reading has dominated Indian classrooms for decades. It is precisely because reading in the early grades focuses on the mechanical practice of these skills from a ‘barahkhadi’ (a primer or the practice of varna and matras, such as क + ी = की) that children become so disenchanted that they lose interest and confidence and even drop out.

Children from low-literacy backgrounds, instead of a skill-and-drill approach, need interesting books and stories in the classroom and opportunities to meaningfully and fearlessly engage with them.

Even the idea of reading 'fluency' which the Delhi government has focused on as a reading ‘skill’ needs to be probed. Fluency must be seen as an outcome of reading, not as an end in itself. Children will become fluent readers with greater reading volume. In other words, the more opportunities children have to read meaningful and interesting material, to engage with it as a social process, with support from teachers and peers, the better will become their reading fluency.

Also read: Thousands of Delhi Government School Students Face Being Pushed out of Education System

Teachers who might constantly keep prompting or correcting do not really help in the process. Struggling readers read less because they are made to constantly do practice worksheets on ‘foundational skills’, without any context that helps them make sense of the text. Proficient readers become more proficient because they get to read more, and feel confident to grapple more with things they may not easily understand. And this sets up a cycle which struggling readers are not able to break. Segregating them into different sections or groups makes things much worse.

Experienced teachers understand the diversity of learning levels in their classrooms and, within the limited time available to them, try to teach according to the multiple levels of students. They use dynamic groupings in class, changing which children sit with whom, to keep children motivated and supported.

As teachers, we ensure that our students read different kinds of reading materials from their print environment – ranging from calendars, posters, newspapers, storybooks, to their own textbooks – to become readers who can understand different kinds of texts. Merely drilling ‘foundational skills’ teaches children to only sound out the words, but not to understand them. Understanding comes not from repeating or knowing the meaning of an unconnected word (as is traditionally done through drills of word-meaning), but through nuanced ways of making associations and meaning.

The fear of the non-completion of syllabus which the original report pointed out, can be lessened by working closely and in confidence with the teacher. This is what Delhi government needed to do instead of throwing children in separate classrooms and labelling them (which humiliates them) with the help of a Pratham tool, leaving teachers too demotivated, especially when assigned to teach the so-called 'weaker' section.

The reason why this was not done is because governments have brought in an ‘interventionist’ approach to pedagogical reform in public-funded schools, based on ASER reports which constantly spoke of a ‘learning crisis’ that generally discredits government-school teachers as a professional group.

Undermining the pedagogical freedom of teachers and side-stepping them to the extent of merely seeing them as implementers of change without being allowed to select what works for their students, is not the best approach. In countries with the best education systems, it is the teacher who is at the centre of school reform.

A ‘skills’ approach belittles the goals of education; it dilutes the teacher’s intellectual role and expectations from her students.

Also read: Debate: There is Evidence to Back Policies on Ability-Based Education

As teacher educators with several years of guiding student teachers during their internship in government schools in Delhi, and as practising teachers, we can say that the reading processes which are the most satisfying for teachers, teacher interns and their students are: reading aloud, setting up small classroom libraries, engaging individually and in groups with story books (the words, the pictures), enjoying rhyme, rhythm and poems.

Children participate in these kinds of group work and form reading buddies to support each other. Children with different abilities create supportive environments for better learning for all, even those who may be more fluent.  They look forward to independent reading time, when they flip through books and attempt to read, even if they struggle. This helps them to see themselves as readers. These processes make children into readers. In diverse classrooms, where children come from low-literacy backgrounds we need more of this: teachers who are readers and can engage their students in the pleasure of reading right from the beginning.

Let us remember that what research you undertake or choose to quote is also an ideological question. It is indeed curious that such political or partisan observations claim to have all the 'evidence', while pointing 'ideological' fingers at educational practitioners.

This article has been bylined 'Anonymous' at the request of the authors, who are a group of Delhi-based teachers and educators. 

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