a priority, the political party in power handled its education policy decisions with utmost
seriousness. Issues such as teacher-pupil ratios, gender bias, and infrastructure were
diligently dealt with. In addition, good governance encouraged community efforts in
participation in school matters. This not to say that Himachal Pradesh has successfully
achieved the goal of quality education for all children, but it has been successful in
perfecting some of the prerequisites to the path of a strong, beneficial education system.
Undoubtedly, political power has responded appropriately to the needs of its people in
this case (Govinda, 2002).
Elitism, Education and the Widening Rural -Urban Gap
One common theme that I identified in all my interactions, whether with teaching
staff, NCERT officials or officials at the Department of Education, was their
acknowledgement of the prevalent socio-economic inequality in the education system of
India. Unfortunately, they are, perhaps unintentionally, even contributing to the
promotion of this socio-economic inequality. While pointing out the pros and cons of the
new curriculum, a couple of teachers referred to the new textbooks as being ‘more at the
level of understanding’ of children enrolled in government schools. For instance, a
teacher said,
“ Earlier textbook examples were about children and their parents traveling in an airplane
or shopping at the mall. These children were unable to relate to that. The new books have
examples of street vendors, cobblers and vegetable vendors. Since most of the children
understand this terminology because their parents have those jobs, they are able to relate
to it.”
On the one hand, such textbooks reflect the effort on part of the curriculum
developers to make content more relevant and relatable to children, but at the same time