Is assessment contrary to Integral Education?

These words of The Mother, from A Dream, often form the basis of an argument against examinations and certificates. Does this affect the status of New Era Senior Secondary School (NESS), affiliated with India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), as an Auroville school?

Started in 1992 as After School, NESS now serves 123 students in grades 9 to 12. Of these students, 28 are Auroville children. The school offers two academic streams – science and humanities – for grades 11 and 12. Apart from academics, NESS students participate in the daily Dehashakti sports programme as well as other organised sports, such as volleyball and football. Art and music are offered as co-curricular activities. Students participate in programmes on reproductive health, in debates on educational reform and in field trips on ecology and culture. All in all, NESS provides a fairly well-rounded education for its students.

The question of whether this education is “integral” or not is based on two assumptions. One assumption is that a CBSE school must, by definition, be a cram school. The other is that assessments are inconsistent with the idea of Integral Education.

Any school that is affiliated to an examination board will be tempted to “teach to the test” in order to improve its exam results. But there are many affiliated schools, in India and elsewhere, that take a much more progressive approach to education. Perhaps Auroville’s Future School, where students take the Edexcel International GCSE (grade 10) and International Advanced Level (grade 12) exams, is an example of such a school (Edexcel is a brand owned by Pearson, the world’s largest education company).

While there may be shortcomings in the way the CBSE curriculum is implemented in many schools, the programme itself is based on an educational philosophy and approach that is holistic and child-centered. The key document that describes this framework is the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) of 2005. Considered to be one of the most progressive educational policy documents anywhere in the world, it addresses the “deep disquiet about several aspects of our educational practice: (a) the school system is characterised by an inflexibility that makes it resistant to change; (b) learning has become an isolated activity, which does not encourage children to link knowledge with their lives in any organic or vital way; (c) schools promote a regime of thought that discourages creative thinking and insights; (d) what is presented and transmitted in the name of learning in schools bypasses vital dimensions of the human capacity to create new knowledge; (e) the ‘future’ of the child has taken centre stage to the near exclusion of the child’s ‘present’, which is detrimental to the well-being of the child as well as to the society and the nation.”

Rod Hemsell, who was instrumental in getting the CBSE affiliation for NESS, wrote a very interesting essay in 2011 titled, The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF) and Integral Education. In this essay, Rod makes the compelling point that the educational approach described in the NCF can be linked directly with the writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on education. For example, he compares the constructivist approach to education described in the NCF with Sri Aurobindo’s writings as follows:

“In the body of NCF, after an elaborate description of the problems of a memory and examination-based system of education, the constructivist approach is stated explicitly: ‘Child-centered pedagogy means giving primacy to children’s experiences, their voices, and their active participation (p. 13). … Learners actively construct their own knowledge by connecting new ideas to existing ideas on the basis of materials/activities presented to them through experience (p. 17). … Active engagement involves enquiry, exploration, questioning, debates, application and reflection, leading to theory building and the creation of ideas’ (p. 18).

In Sri Aurobindo’s writings, the first principles of a child-centered pedagogy were stated succinctly, very early in the process of educational development which, we may perhaps say, is now in its completion phase, and these are the most oft-quoted of his statements on the subject: ‘The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is not an instructor or task-master, he is a helper and a guide. … The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth. The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or the teacher is a barbarous and ignorant superstition. It is he himself who must be induced to expand in accordance with his own nature. … The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be. The basis of a man’s nature is almost always (in addition his soul’s past), his heredity, his surroundings, his nationality, his country, the soil from which he draws sustenance, the air which he breathes, the sights, sounds, habits to which he is accustomed … and from that then we must begin. … The past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit’.”

Apart from describing the educational philosophy and its epistemological foundations, the NCF provides comprehensive guidelines on stages of learning and subject-based pedagogy. For example, here is how it describes the stages of learning:

“At the early stage of learning, from pre-school to the primary school years, an important place must be given to language and mathematics in all activities across the curriculum. The division into subjects is not very significant, and the knowledge areas discussed above can be totally integrated and presented to children in the form of learning experiences of the environment. This should include an enriching interaction with the natural and social environment, working with one’s hands, and understanding of social interactions, and developing one’s aesthetic abilities. These early integrated experiences of the natural and social environment would later become demarcated into science and the social sciences in the middle school years.

The upper primary or middle school period may be the place for the emergence of better defined subject areas, taking into consideration the above-mentioned forms of knowledge. At this stage it should be possible to create spaces across subjects in which children engage in the process of data collection, natural, social, mathematical or linguistic, to classify and categorise, and also analyze the same through certain knowledge areas such as ethical understanding and critical thinking. The creation of a space for explorations into social issues and knowledge without boundaries could at this stage go a long way in encouraging rational thinking.

By the time children reach the secondary stage of education, they have acquired a sufficient knowledge base, experience, language abilities and maturity to engage with different forms of knowledge in the full sense: concepts, structure of body of knowledge, investigation methods and validation procedures. Therefore, the subjects could be more closely linked with the basic forms as listed above and the disciplines as they are recognised in higher education today.”

With its lofty vision and detailed guidelines, the 159-page National Curriculum Framework has become required reading for anyone interested in educational reform and practice in India. The NCF also addresses the question of assessments, which leads us to the second assumption that gives rise to the question of whether a school such as NESS can provide Integral Education – this is the assumption that assessments are inconsistent with the idea of Integral Education.

In 1946, The Mother, replying to a question about regrouping classes based on student ability, said, “I consider an examination as quite necessary. In any case there will be one in French.” Later in 1965, she said, “It is not by conventional examinations that students can be selected for a class. It is only by developing in oneself the true psychological sense. Select children who want to learn, not those who want to push themselves forward.” Clearly, The Mother was asking us to use evolved assessments, not conventional examinations.

Her most direct statement regarding examinations comes in 1960: “And the thing that becomes most important for them [students] is to prepare themselves to pass examinations with success, for with diplomas, certificates and titles they will be able to find good positions and earn a lot of money. For them study has no other purpose, no other interest. To learn for the sake of knowledge, to study in order to know the secrets of Nature and life, to educate oneself in order to grow in consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to become master of oneself, to overcome one’s weaknesses, incapacities and ignorance, to prepare oneself to advance in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster, more generous and more true... they hardly give it a thought and consider it all very utopian. The only thing that matters is to be practical, to prepare themselves and learn how to earn money. Children who are infected with this disease are out of place at the Centre of Education of the Ashram. And it is to make this quite clear to them that we do not prepare them for any official examination or competition and do not give them any diplomas or titles which they can use in the outside world.”

The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, commonly known as the Ashram school, follows the above guideline. However, “when a student successfully completes the Higher Course, a Certificate to this effect is given to him, if he requests it.” This is a pragmatic approach in the short term, keeping in mind that most institutes of higher education require a certificate of school completion.

How does CBSE address the question of assessments? Of course, there is an end-of-school board examination. But there is great emphasis on Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). The CCE Manual for Teachers says, “If properly understood, evaluation or assessment will not be perceived as something administered by the teachers and taken by the learners on the conclusion of a period of learning. When evaluation is seen as an end of the learning exercise, both the teachers and the learners will tend to keep it outside the teaching-learning process, rendering assessment broadly irrelevant and alien to the curriculum. Further, such a perception associates anxiety and stress with evaluation for learners. On the contrary, if evaluation is seen as an integral part built into the teaching-learning process, it will become continuous like both teaching and learning. When evaluation is subsumed into teaching-learning, learners will not perceive tests and examinations with fear. It will rather lead to diagnosis, remedial action and enhancement of learning.” The Manual goes on to say, “The major emphasis of CCE is on the continuous growth of students ensuring their intellectual, emotional, physical, cultural and social development and therefore it will not be merely limited to assessment of a learner’s scholastic attainments.”

Reading the NCF and the CCE Manual, it becomes quite clear that NESS, if it is able to implement the guidelines from these documents, can be a school that provides valuable education. And its affiliation with the CBSE might actually provide a scaffolding for the school to become a centre of true Integral Education.

What challenges will NESS face in its attempt to become a centre of educational excellence? Perhaps teacher quality and funding will be the most pressing challenges. But if these are solved, it is not impossible to imagine that the combination of Integral Education, the Auroville context and the CBSE structure might even help NESS influence change in the larger educational context of India.