I know some German, and follow events in Germany. In 1999, an official enquiry in Germany threw doubt on the desirability of coeducation; this is my reaction to it, published in Business Standard of 2 October 1999.
IS COEDUCATION SUCH A GOOD IDEA?
In India today, it is taken for granted that schools
should be coeducational. Some private boys’ schools, and fewer girls’ schools,
survive from colonial times; but the newer ones are all coeducational. When we
read of separate education for girls in Muslim countries, we smirk: what do you
expect of these Muslim backwoodsmen? It appears self-evident that if women have
to live and work with men through their lives, they should get used to doing so
early in their lives. If boys and girls are to be equal, the simplest way of
ensuring equality in education would seem to be to give them the same education
– and a taste of life to come. The presence of girls may also be expected to
help in the socialization of boys. And yet, the idea that girls benefit from
separate schools is gaining ground in western countries.
Girls do less well than boys in science and mathematics.
Is it due to an inherent weakness, or is it a social phenomenon? The education
ministry of Baden-Württemberg commissioned a study by educationists which
investigates this fact. Its conclusion is that girls’ schools offer a more
favourable atmosphere for girls’ development. The reason is that in any school
with boys, children spend considerable energy establishing a space in a
competitive and often conflictual social field; girls save on that energy in a
girls’ school where aggression is less prized. Psychological studies indicate
that under stress, girls become introverted and sensitive, whereas boys become
active, aggressive and unstable.
The difference is most striking in the intervals. In
schools where boys are present, recesses are noisy, and children are
hyperactive. These characteristics also exhibit themselves at outings and
visits, to the despair of accompanying teachers and drivers. In subjects that
require deep, individual submersion, such as literature, music and art, boys
are unwilling to sit down and bury themselves.
In the subjects at which boys are better, such as
mathematics and sciences, girls do better when educated separately. The girls
who enter university courses in information technology come overwhelmingly from
girls’ schools; so do girls who enter managerial and supervisory grades in
later life. This can be related to the fact that the roles of leaders in
coeducational schools (monitors, editors of school magazines, organizers of
events) are mainly filled by boys.
Do these generalizations, based on German reality, apply
to India? There is no doubt that boys, and in later life men, dominate public
life and institutions as much in India as in Germany. Boys’ behaviour at school
is perhaps less violent and destructive in India than in Germany. But this may
be related to the lower spread of education. As education spreads downwards
from the middle class to the poor, the standards of boys’ behaviour also
change. Boys take after fathers. If the fathers have a hard struggle in life,
if they regard fighting for their place to be the norm, their aggressiveness
will be inherited by their sons. In households that are better off, where the
struggle for survival is not so harsh, where conflicts are more muted, boys
also grow up more civilized.
Many traditional families in India are unwilling to send
girls to school. Girls in Gujarat are entitled to free schooling, but still,
less than half of them go to school.
We may regard this the result of their families’
undeniable backwardness. In a society where the majority of women are
illiterate, illiteracy cannot be socially shaming. But in reaching such a snap
judgment, we are perhaps missing something of our social reality. These
backward families are afraid that their daughters will be “dishonoured” – that
their names will be so tarnished that they would not find husbands. But there
are degrees of dishonour, all the way from eve teasing to rape. Delhi is
notorious for eve teasing; although other cities do not get into the press with
the same frequency, horrific incidents are reported from them from time to
time.
It is right, even for backward families, to expect that
their daughters should not have to suffer any of these in the course of
education. It is possible that Indian boys create an environment in schools
which is as deleterious to girls’ development as it is in Germany. So what
should be our solution? Purdah? Purdah may be acceptable to a large proportion
of our population; but in an unequal society which we are trying to make less
so, it is unacceptable as a part of social policy. Even if women get separate
education, it must be equal.
This is why I am against separate women’s schools and
colleges. I have often given talks in women’s colleges. Our male students are
in general inarticulate, lacking in quick response, public speaking ability,
and self-confidence; but the atmosphere in women’s colleges is funereal. Often
there are no questions after the talk; if there are, they seldom show a brain
ticking away. The Germans find their women more reflective; I still have to
find them in India.
My solution is separate boys’ schools. Boys should have to
qualify for admission to coeducational schools. They should have to take a
test. It would involve being able to sit quietly and work alone for two hours
at a time. It would require being able to talk intelligently with girls for 15
minutes. It may involve ballroom dancing.
The rest of the boys should be sent to corrective schools.
They should have a chance every year to take the qualifying examination and be
admitted to a coeducational school. But until they pass it, they should be
confined to boys’ schools. And as long as they are not qualified to be coeducated,
they should not be admitted to university buses, or students’ canteens, or to
any public facilities where men and women mingle. Believe me, if coeducation
comes at a price, boys will give their lives to be with girls.
