India’s Time To Transform Education Is Now

He was recently on a four-day visit to India as part of a high-level business delegation from Canada facilitated by Opportunity New Brunbswick and Indo-Canadian Business Chamber. This certainly was not his first visit to India. But this time round, he realised that the time is right to really bring about profound change for all children in India, giving all children the opportunity to thrive. J. Douglas Willms, the Founder and President of The Learning Bar Inc, a member of the US National Academy of Education, past President of the International Academy of Education and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, minces no word in admitting that India has made tremendous strides in the last 10 years, or last two decades really, in expanding access to education and enrollment. For him, it is particularly heartening to see how even private schools have begun focusing on the NEP goals.

Speaking to Bizz Buzz, Dr J Douglas Willms, Founder and President, The Learning Bar Inc, explains how the methodology and framework that he has developed through decades of experience and research can come in handy to Indian teachers, students and schools

Where does Indian education system stand vis-a-vis other developing and developed countries?

The first thing to say about India is that it has made tremendous strides in the last 10 years, last two decades really, in expanding access to education and enrollment. That’s first step is getting kids into school, and it's really had a tremendous focus and been very successful in doing that, more so than other low and middle-income countries. It's a country with one of the largest and most diverse populations, so that's no small feat to get there. India's gross national income per capita is about $2,400 that places it, not in the lowest-income countries, but sort of between the low and the middle income. World Bank would define it as low-middle income.

There’re only a few countries that have really engaged in assessment in a serious way. India participated in PISA, the Program of International Student Assessment, in 2009, and it was going to participate last year, but because of Covid and everything, it didn't participate. It is going to be participating this year, 2025, that's a really big step. It’s among about 10 countries that are really very low-income countries. So, that's a tremendous step.

Now, amongst those 10 countries, it's not very high, like it's right in kind of the middle. But the fact that it's taken that step to say - we want to know how well we're doing, that's a tremendous step. When they participated in 2009, there were just two states, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Now, in the next one, they're going to bring in a couple more states until eventually you have the whole country.

This is important, too, because countries like China, they only did Shanghai, and Shanghai is a very special case compared with all the other regions in China. India's on the right track, and it's a huge step to say - we want to expose ourselves on how well we're doing and take a look, not just at our best-performing states, but the whole country. So, that's huge.

Have you studied India's new education policy? And from your long experience, what is your take on this?

I've certainly studied it and the first thing I want to say about is - it's a national mission. It's a consistent thing that we want to achieve educational prosperity for all of our children. It's a national thing. The teachers are the national treasure in this, and achieving greater support for teachers, I would even say bigger salaries, too, because you want to attract a good teaching force. It's a national mission, and the teachers are your national treasure and need to be really honoured and valued.

A few of the factors that are important is, first of all, it focuses on improving quality of teaching. That's number one. Second, it tries to build those foundations for school success that I mentioned for all the students. It's not just for the rich kids, or it's not focused just on children from poor families, either. It's for everyone. It also emphasizes teacher professional development.

The point that's really near and dear to my heart is it focuses on data-driven decision-making. It's saying, we want to have data, and that comes back to, all of a sudden, India's participating in PISA, that's great. But you also need very local contextualized data in order for principals to make decisions.

What exactly is your methodology and framework, and how does it help the students, the teachers, and the school?

In 2005 or 2006, I did a report called Learning Divides for UNESCO, and then in 2018 I did another report, it's called Learning Divides Number Two, and so that was with UNESCO, and the framework is called the Educational Prosperity Framework, and it's, the first thing to say about it, it's a life course, a life course perspective. So, when you think about the outcomes of, say, children when they enter school or children in grade 10 or grade 12 or whatever, they think, oh gee, this is all about the teaching.

It is about teaching, partially, but the child's chances of reaching a very good outcome by grade 12 and going on into university, that not only starts at birth, it actually starts before birth. So, the Educational Prosperity Framework, it starts with the prenatal stage, then you have the infancy stage, ages 0 to 1, the toddlerhood or very early childhood, ages 3 to 5, and then you're into the early childhood space, and that's where the learning bar operates, we started there, and that's where the schools start as well.

When you look at the kids' outcomes as they enter school, it's the cumulative effect of everything that's happened right from conception, and even earlier, parents getting ready for babies, right? That's a huge part of the understanding, because you can't make much success, you can't make as much success as a society unless you take care of all those early steps as well.

So, then you look at early childhood, early primary school, late primary school, maybe grades 4 or 5, and then 4, 5, 6, 7, and then into secondary school. So that's the first thing about this approach. There's two big points - success is cumulative, so you have to have good outcomes at one stage to be able to go on to the next stage. If you don't have really a strong home environment, and good parenting skills, and good community support during those early years, then the children aren't as ready for school, and then it's much more difficult for the schools. The school system can't compensate for everything, right? That's where you need to begin, and as we talk about educational prosperity, you need health, prosperity, and so on for bringing kids up to the school door, ready to learn.

That's the first point. Success is cumulative, but also as children are moving through these stages, right, from infancy all the way up to secondary, their success at each stage depends on having the really strong foundations for success at each stage. When they're in primary school, even secondary school, we really look at what are the core foundations, we look at various surveys, there's like, you get a long laundry list of like 20 different factors, but it really boils down to good quality teaching, having a safe and inclusive school, having enough learning time, so that learning time is not wasted, you're making the best use of your school hours, and then materials. A lot of governments focus on the material side, but you can't do it with just materials. You need that classroom teaching that's absolutely key to the process.

Any last thoughts?

I'm so excited being here. And, you know, during our early years of assessment. I was asked by the World Bank to come to India and Jordan to look at developing an early childhood assessment. That's more than 20 years ago. Now all of a sudden, I'm back here again and the World Bank had to start and the Canadian government got us going on it. And now we're right across Canada with developing a common framework and a common understanding amongst teachers and leaders of what needs to happen. Now here we are. It's very exciting to be here because I think the time is right to really bring about profound change for all children, giving all children the opportunity to thrive.