Contextual Challenges for Primary School Education

Abstract

This chapter attempts to explore the relevance of Mono-grade methodology for teaching-learning processes in primary schools, considering their contextual and spatial specificities. The analyses employ the findings from fieldwork done in rural schools of the Rishi Valley Education Centre (RVEC), Andhra Pradesh and government primary schools in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, investigating the meaning of Mono-grade methodology and RVEC’s Multi-Grade Multi-Level (MGML) methodology. These comparative meanings are informed by the promise and practice of MGML in RVEC and primary schools that function amidst the precarity induced by disasters and low-cost private schools in Uttarkashi. In conclusion, it locates the possibilities of context specific teaching-learning process in schools outside the paradigm of standardized Mono-grade teaching-learning processes in primary schools in India.