The Marks Race. India’s Dominant Education Regime and New Segmentation

New publication by Jos Mooij and Manabi Majumdar

Jos Mooij and her Indian colleague Manabi Majumdar have published a new paper ‘The Marks Race. India’s Dominant Education Regime and New Segmentation’. 

The paper describes and critiques the practice prevailing in many Indian schools that stresses rote-learning and getting higher marks, turning schools into factories and shops that churn out material ready for use in the market.

Based on fieldwork in two Indian states, the paper illustrates how social discrimination of various kinds is reflected in the classrooms, stifling the spirit of enquiry and the quest for knowledge among the students. The paper ends with a discussion of a few issues that could be relevant to redress the problems:

• a new facilitating and guiding role of a ‘Centre’ in a more decentralized structure; 
• professional networks of teacher; and
• the idea of multicultural yet inclusive education.

The paper appeared in a book edited by Christine Sleeter et al (2012), titled School Education, Pluralism and Marginality. Comparative Perspectives (Orient Blackswan, Hyderabad).

About the authors

Jos Mooij is Deputy Rector Education Affairs at ISS

Manabi Majumdar is a fellow in Political Science at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta