Culture and Life of Government Elementary Schools

Government elementary schools are layered institutions that are affected by a bureaucratic administration, the specificities of local societies, and the agency of teachers. Although promoted as an agency and institution of democracy, modernity and development, these schools are characterised by a thin democracy, both in their everyday culture and in their linkage to local communities. Routinisation of teaching-learning practices, training fatigue among teachers whose agency has been eroded, and programme overload result in learning loss among children. The average government elementary school represents both the promise and the perils of a mass elementary education system. In its effect on society, the government elementary school is neither reproductive nor transformative, but disjunctive.