Yamini Aiyar is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Saxena Center and Watson Institute, Brown University, and the former President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research. Her X handle is @AiyarYamini.
Unlike what the author says, learning has no measurable outputs nor is it time bound. It is more about cognitive development and adaptation, which furthers learning and positively oriented mindsets. It is an ongoing process and stays with an individual into adolescence, adulthood and later, thus helping a person navigate the world with better decisions, adaptive behaviors and possibly successful outcomes (labor market, higher ed, etc). Nutritious food, healthy family (nurture) and ecosystems (teachers) all play a part in the early cognitive development, and probably why Anganwadis are super crucial.
Also, ASER assessments are education outcomes and NOT learning outcomes as they are projected. The measurement template looks for input (numerical literacy) and output (number counting), and at best can be used as a mild proxy for learning, and not necessarily of all kids taken as a whole unit (due to differing individual baselines). Any cognitive psychologist with focus on children will tell you that. The process of measurement is so flawed and rudimentary but unfortunately all our ‘evidence’ draws from research of existing interventions and uses policy logic (district level, panchayat SMCs, etc) to ‘strenghten’ our systems. Junk ASER, create a new cognitive template, build healthy pathways to the process of learning, offer learning options that allow for conversations in family/communities, provide holistic counseling and learning will happen in a self-motivated way. Learn from experiences of adults who cracked the exam coming from Tamil, Hindi and Marathi medium instructional schools, into highly competitive institutions (civils, IITs, etc) and you may get a sense of these motivations. Please dont write lazy commentaries on complex topics with very minimal understanding, it is a disservice really.
Unlike what the author says, learning has no measurable outputs nor is it time bound. It is more about cognitive development and adaptation, which furthers learning and positively oriented mindsets. It is an ongoing process and stays with an individual into adolescence, adulthood and later, thus helping a person navigate the world with better decisions, adaptive behaviors and possibly successful outcomes (labor market, higher ed, etc). Nutritious food, healthy family (nurture) and ecosystems (teachers) all play a part in the early cognitive development, and probably why Anganwadis are super crucial.
Also, ASER assessments are education outcomes and NOT learning outcomes as they are projected. The measurement template looks for input (numerical literacy) and output (number counting), and at best can be used as a mild proxy for learning, and not necessarily of all kids taken as a whole unit (due to differing individual baselines). Any cognitive psychologist with focus on children will tell you that. The process of measurement is so flawed and rudimentary but unfortunately all our ‘evidence’ draws from research of existing interventions and uses policy logic (district level, panchayat SMCs, etc) to ‘strenghten’ our systems. Junk ASER, create a new cognitive template, build healthy pathways to the process of learning, offer learning options that allow for conversations in family/communities, provide holistic counseling and learning will happen in a self-motivated way. Learn from experiences of adults who cracked the exam coming from Tamil, Hindi and Marathi medium instructional schools, into highly competitive institutions (civils, IITs, etc) and you may get a sense of these motivations. Please dont write lazy commentaries on complex topics with very minimal understanding, it is a disservice really.