NATIONAL CHILDRENS’ SCIENCE CONGRESS:
By
The first National Childrens’ Science Congress (NCSC) was held, ten years ago, in 1993. The CSC concept had so excited and enthused school children (and teachers alike) at the time that, within a few years, it should have spread to every school (and every science teacher) in the country. And in ten years time, that is by now, several other countries should have been doing it, in some form, in their own way! And, in ten years of implementation in India, a whole lot of things ought to have happened with NCSC! It is as good a time as any to look at what has or has not happened in this respect.
It appears that the total number of participating projects, countrywide, and the average number of projects per district (overall, as well as in each State) have leveled off during the three or four years past. It would seem that the initial target we had set for ourselves (i.e. to get some 100 schools per district to participate in the NCSC) had never really been met squarely. We really do need to investigate the following in every State and to take corrective steps for improvement in participation: (i) percentage of districts where no CSC activity has taken place during these past ten years, and of those where children/schools are not even aware of the CSC; (ii) modus operandi of District Coordinators (DCs) in terms of what they do to inform/contact and approach schools/children and to inform about, and to encourage participation in, the CSC; (iii) whether the DCs have the capability themselves, or help in terms of resource persons, to be able to authoritatively and confidently explain the NCSC concept to children/teachers and principals and to dwell on all the advantages of participation by children and how it would help them learn science better by doing it; (iv) whether, in a given district, a conscious effort is being made to see and ensure participation of children from newer/different sets of schools every time; (v) whether there were any schools that wanted to participate but were not able / allowed / encouraged to take part; and the like. Such an investigation can help pinpoint areas where appropriate action would help improve participation quantitatively. We need to quickly aim to achieve our original target of an average of 100 schools per district in terms of participation – of course, keeping in my mind our other criteria of roughly equal gender and urban/rural participation.
This is an aspect which ought to be at the very top of our NCSC agenda. Consciousness about quality must begin at the very beginning itself. Already, a minimal set of criteria have been laid down for projects to qualify for entry into CSC. It is quite clear that they are not always followed with equal vigour/rigour everywhere. For, a small number of projects, presented at the NCSC every year, should not even have made it to the State level because they just did not meet even the entry-level eligibility criteria. In cases where such a thing happens, there ought to be a detailed inquiry into the performance/conduct of the concerned State and District Coordinators to determine lapses which led to such situations and to take corrective action. The problem areas here could be one or more of the following: inadequate or incomplete knowledge and understanding of the basic criteria for projects (and their selection and formulation); less than adequate internalization of the basic philosophy behind the NCSC idea/concept; and consequent inadequate selection and training of teacher guides; and finally inadequate orientation and briefing of the “judges” at various levels (district/state) in regard to the criteria for evaluation and selection of projects.
This is a very crucial aspect of the whole conduct of the NCSC project. On this rests the very credibility and efficacy of the entire project. Judging or assessment of projects takes place at the district, state and national levels. (In a small number of cases, school and block levels may also precede the district level assessments.)
At each level, prior to the Congress taking place, the selected judges ought to be adequately briefed about the basic idea/concept behind the NCSC and its main objectives. They should be made aware of the entry-eligibility criteria for projects and provided a written brief on judging/assessment of projects to be presented. At the orientation meet, this brief should be discussed in detail. The judgements/assessments should not only be, but also appear to be, fair, just and as objective as humanly possible. It is assumed that while selecting the judges it would be ensured that they have the language and subject expertise required for the task – and that none of them is a close relation of any of the participants to be judged/assessed.
We know that the above methodology and procedure have been followed at the national level CSC, to a large extent, even though a claim of hundred percent compliance may be hard to sustain (in view of exceptional circumstances or situations that always seem to arise and on which organisers have no control at all! Whatever be the gap, it certainly is not because of any lack of intention to achieve perfection.) But how well (and to what extent) has this been, or is being, done at the state and district levels is something that needs to be studied to ensure that there is no cause for concern. On investigation we may find that, in many a State, proper procedure and methodology are being followed at least as well as at the national level, if not better. This may, however, not be true of all the States. What worries one even more is the situation at the district-level CSCs. I hope I am proven wrong but this needs to be looked into every year, in each State, and a report prepared to be sure – and to take corrective steps wherever necessary.
How to do this needs to be discussed at the Netrwork-level and a mechanism devised to do it at the State and District levels in a way so as to have these reports available by the time we reach the venue of the NCSC. Doing this at the national-level is not difficult and can be implemented from this year itself.
We have been through ten NCSCs and yet if one were to look into the state of NCSC documentation, it still is no better than pathetic. Though we have discussed this subject very often, we have been able to put very little into solid action. Clearly, CSC documentation in some of the States has been done much better than what has been done at the national level. With many more technological innovations in information technology now available, we can certainly do much better than what has been possible thus far. Let me begin by trying to list the minimum documentation required at the national level: (i) A complete listing, in three languages, of all the projects presented at the NCSC – in English, Hindi and the language of presentation if other than English or Hindi; each entry would consist of the project title, project statement/objectives, brief description of what was done, and outcome or inferences vis-à-vis objectives; (ii) directory with full details of the sixty-odd projects picked for presentation at the annual Indian Science Congress Association Session to be held in January of the following year; (iii) Basic data about participation from different states and districts, and essential statistics about participants; names, mailing addresses, contact phone numbers and email addresses of all the State and District Coordinators, venues, dates and lists of participants of all the district and state-level CSCs; lists of judges/assessors (names, brief biodata and complete addresses, contact details etc.) employed at the national level CSC; (iv) of the projects presented at the national level, there are a certain number (usually two to three percent of the total) which need follow-up actions of various kinds – full details of these with mention of possibilities of specific follow-up action in each case; these need to be taken up for further action and pursued appropriately; and (v) manuals for judges and assessors of projects at different levels, for State and District Coordinators, for guide teachers and participating children (in addition to the Activity Guide itself), and for organization of national, state and district-level CSCs.
Likewise, similar and corresponding documentation would have to be there for the State and District level CSCs.
Apart from awards that selected projects receive at various levels, projects which hold promise for something tangible and can lead to commercial exploitation need to be picked up and pursued to their logical conclusion. In the process, the concerned project teams ought to be made parties to reaping the benefits of commercialisation.
There may be other aspects of the NCSC that need looking into and introspection, which find no mention in the above. But then this is only a preliminary attempt to launch the process. The opportunity to initiate some action in this direction should not be missed.
ncscintrospection/December2003/nksehgal