Education

Using data from the India Human Development Survey, this examination of toilet possession and personal hygiene in India shows that the strongest influences on households in India having a toilet were their circumstances: standard of living, educational level, and whether they possessed ancillary amenities. However, toilet possession depended also on households’ social environment; households in more developed villages were more likely to have a toilet than those in less developed villages. Open defecation is due to a lack of development and not because caste, ritual pollution, and untouchability instil in rural Indians a preference for defecating in the open.

The dominant discourse in relation to education of Scheduled Tribes and other so-called weaker sections remains mostly concerned with logistics of providing a package. The inherited colonial dispensation that controls education, its institutions, and governance, is treated as a given absolute. It is to be recognised that not merely education for all, but the democratisation of education lies at the core of justice in education. The struggles for self-determination and self-governance by Adivasis have provided ample legal space to alter the present governance in education to democratise and establish community self-governance in education.

Why have three decades of pedagogical reforms failed to translate the learner-centred vision of national documents into reality? This paper presents empirical research that corroborates what Indian educationists are increasingly noting, that there are entrenched cultural mindsets restricting a shift in India’s education system. The research finds three central worldview beliefs widespread among government teachers that contradict the assumptions of policy documents and in fact of the Constitution: a belief in inequality vs equality, knowledge transmission vs liberty of thought, and purpose as individual advancement vs fraternity. In turn, teachers simply reflect the worldviews they themselves experience, creating a vicious cycle.