What is Happening Inside Classrooms in Indian Secondary Schools?

Abstract

The Government of India launched Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) in March, 2009 which is along the lines of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan but with the focus on secondary education. The key objectives of the scheme are to enhance access to secondary education and to improve its quality. It envisages achieving universal access to secondary level education by 2017, and improving quality of education imparted at the secondary level by making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms. The objective of this study is to document and analyse the current use of classroom time and identify good practices to improve classroom teaching in Mathematics and Language in secondary education in support of the implementation of the RMSA scheme. This study has been carried out as part of the WorldBank’s initiative with concurrence from Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India (GoI).This study builds upon an earlier study on time-on-task which was carried out by the World Bank forelementary schools in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in 2006-2007.That study was instrumental in providing valuable insight on time spent and the nature of teaching in elementary classrooms. The current study aims to achieve the same in secondary schools, teacher quality is a relatively new and expanding area of research that includes several components –teacher qualifications, attendance, instructional practices, governance and accountability. While several of these areas have been investigated in the Indian context, observing teachers’ classroom practices has received little attention especially at the secondary level. This study, for the first time, gathered information on teachers’ time-on-task in secondary classrooms in India. The study systematically documented teacher practices in grade 10 classrooms across 150 schools in 6 districts in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu to better understand how teachers are spending their time on instructional and non-instructional activities,the kinds of teaching-learning materials being used for instruction and the extent to which the teaching practices used are able to engage students in these classes. The findings indicate that while the majorityof teaching time is spent on instruction, the use of materials beyond the blackboard and textbook is very limited. Further, instruction is most often directed at the entire class or a large group of students in theclass with few instances of the teacher focusing on small groups or individual students. The findings from this initial study have several implications for policy and further research. More and better evidence from classroom observations is needed to gain a more holistic picture of teachers’ instructional practices in secondary classrooms and to identify teachers’ training needs.These tools can be used by principals, district officials and teachers themselves to generate discussions on effective classroom practices and provide direct and timely feedback on practices that could potentially improve the quality of teaching and learning in secondary schools.