The article discusses the issues surrounding the effectiveness of education delivery in India, particularly for the socio-economically disadvantaged. It highlights the high dropout rates in schooling, attributed to factors such as lack of economic support, poor quality of education, and inadequate infrastructure. The authors propose innovative teaching methods, including storytelling, to improve educational access and outcomes for marginalized communities.

1.
"Enhancing effectiveness
of education delivery"
A Journal of
the Bombay
Management
Association
Prof. Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya
&
Mr. Ravi Balgi
Volume : 15
E-REVIEW: March 10

2. Page | 1
Dear Members,
Hope you found reading our last e‐review interesting, which had an article
written by Mr. K. R. Bhargava, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Nhava Sheva,
Mumbai, who had emphasized the need for constructive skepticism.
In this e‐review, we bring you an article by Prof. Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya
of NITIE & Mr. Ravi Balgi, on how education can reach more effectively to
socio‐economically poorest sections of the society. They recommend
cartoocation, reusing the ancient technique of story telling through a pictorial
depiction!
Happy reading.
Best regards,
Abhijit Phadnis
Chairman, Editorial Board
Note: The views expressed by the author/s in BMA E-review are their own. The
editorial committee neither endorses nor necessarily agrees with the views.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Chairman
Mr. Abhijit Phadnis
Members
Dr. Pradeep B. Kakkad
Mr. S. Mohan
Dr. Anil Naik
Mr. Gladwyn A. Pinto

3. Page | 2
Cartoocation; A new way of educating the poor Indian
1. Introduction
Indians, for long have pondered as to how India can become a developed nation. Before one
seeks answer to it, it is important to find out, what is the definition of a developed nation?
One way of looking at this would be that in a developed nation every citizen has access to a
good quality of basic amenities of life like food, clothing, shelter and health-care. Further the
citizens have easy and equitable access to justice and education for living an economically
self sustainable life.
India is a land dominated by village landscape. According to an estimate by an agency there
are 638596 (IndiaDevelopmentGateway, 2009) villages in India, where more than 68.2% of
India’s population resides. This means, that about 7 out of every 10 Indians live in villages.
The primary source of income for the majority of Indians is agriculture or agriculture related
businesses since villages have primarily agriculture as a dominant livelihood sector. In spite
of being an agrarian country, Indians have made mark in many other fields like in as
Information Technology professionals, manufacturing experts, space scientists to name a few.
For other developing countries India is a beacon of hope and inspiration. India has also been
christened as an emerging economy. India is charting its own path to become a developed
nation in the next quarter of this century.
It is also true that India is a land of contrasts. This statement can be substantiated by the
number of billionaires India has in the World’s Top 50 rich individuals, while 33% of India is
still resides below poverty line. India has some of the world’s best quality higher level
educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of
Management. On the other hand 300 million Indians have not been able to get even basic
education after 60 years of Indian independence. The sharp contrast in which the haves of
India and the have-nots of India live can be appreciated across many aspects in terms of
health care benefits, access to justice and many other quality of life parameters. Thus, only
when majority of the people at the base of the economic pyramid that is the people in the
Indian villages and slums are developed, one can state that India is truly developed.
It is very important to note that education is a pivotal factor which provides an individual
the opportunity and scope to earn food, clothing and shelter and helps in uplifting his/her
quality of life lived. Swami Vivekananda famously stated “Education is the manifestation of
the divinity within”. Further many thinkers have argued that educated mind is an
independent mind and has a huge role to play in the development the self, the society, the
organization, the state and above all towards the development of nation.
Education provides an individual the power to rationalize and make decisions and find
acceptable solutions to problems. In other words education instigates individuals to look at
problems as challenges and opportunities. The theme of providing education to all is perhaps
one of the most significant challenge that the government, United Nations, Non-
Governmental Organizations, private institutions and individuals all trying to address.

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Even though providing education to all has been an important issue to various sectors, but
over the years, what the statistics reveal are alarming regarding the collective performance of
all these educational initiatives. Thus, a new approach towards providing education to all has
to be sought.
In this paper, the authors attempt to provide a perspective study of Indian education system
and attempts to figure out an innovative teaching mode to teach the have-nots of Indian
society.
In this land of Mahatma Gandhi, who remarked, “The real difficulty is that people have no
idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we
assess the value of land or of shares in the stock market. We want to provide only such
education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the
improvement of the character of the educated. The girls, we say, do not have to earn; so why
should they be educated? As long as such ideas persist there is no hope of our ever knowing
the true value of education“. Mahatma Gandhi introduced the concept of ‘Nai Talim’ (NCRI,
2009), which has the potential of making India self sufficient and sustainable.
The authors also acknowledge the character building role education has and this would be
included in the education content to be provided. But all is not as bad as it was in the era of
Gandhi. As presently, it should also be noted that in urban India and in many parts of rural
India, girl students not only enroll for studies but outperform the boys in academic
performance (HT, 2007). Further it must be brought to notice that, poor people are investing
in education at the cost of food security (Sadagoppan et al., 2007). As they have understood
the value and significance of education.
2. Current Scenario of School Education in India
In India schooling is divided into four levels Pre-Primary or Kinder Garten Schools which
familiarize and introduce a child to a collective learning environment. This starts from a
three- five year old kid. The next part of education is Primary School education which spans
for the next five years of the child. The next level of schooling is the secondary school
education which spans for the next five years and takes the child to the teen age. The last
stage of the school education is the higher education which spans two years. This schooling is
(2/3+4+3+2) in some or (2/3+5+5+2) in others, thus spanning a minimum of 12 to maximum
15 years of ones life. The KG, the primary, the secondary school education provides a basket
of educational content from different streams for an integrated holistic development of the
child. The basket of courses offers languages, subjects like history, civics, geography,
mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, economics etc. In the last two years
of school based education, functional expertise and streams of specialization is provided to
the students. In this article the authors are primarily concerned towards developing a model
for primary and secondary school education. The next question arises as to how many
Indians have access to different levels of schooling.

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A look at the latest figures in year 2008 will provide a better perspective regarding the same.
98% of India’s habitation has primary schooling facility, while 90 % of Indians have upper
primary schooling facility (SSA, 2008a). For every five primary schools there are two
secondary schools. Also in certain primary schools the current infrastructure is being
upgraded to provide secondary school education at the sites of primary school education.
Over the years the government has taken many steps to improve the education system
through various innovative steps, like public private partnerships, NGO’s involvement, pure
private initiatives in the school education system etc. Still the national average drop-out rate
between standard I to X is 62.69% (Dongaonkar, 2006). This is a matter of grave concern
because out of every 10 enrolments 6 individuals (majority) are not able to finish their
schooling.
More than two third of the student population are not able to enter into functional streams of
higher education which is important from the livelihood perspective of the individual. A
large section of these drop-out children belong to the socio-economic backward communities,
which according to some estimates form 70-80 percent of the student population (NIC-RDIS,
2009).
The drop-out rates of students vary across different levels of schooling in India. 31.47% of the
enrolments at the initial level of primary education do not finish their primary education.
This is very serious as every third individual enrolling for primary education is not able to
complete even the very basic primary education. One step higher at the upper primary level,
52.32% of the enrolments drop-out. That is every second enrolment is not able to complete
the education at the upper primary level. Coming to the secondary level, 62.69% of the
enrolments are not able to complete the secondary level education as has been mentioned
earlier. The drop-out rates of students at different levels of school education also vary across
different states of India. Like the dropout rate is highest for Bihar at 82.5% and lowest for Goa
at 37.9% which means for every ten student enrolments in Bihar two individuals complete
the intended levels of education, while in Goa the number is six (Dongaonkar, 2006).
Bihar is one of the socio-economically poorest states in India, while Goa is one of the most
advanced. Many thought that in India hard infrastructure in education that is school
buildings, books etc are the bottle necks for the delivery of superior education. But this has
been contested of late. Some reports have found out that in spite of providing infrastructure,
and schools in neighborhood, kids don’t complete school based education. It is important to
find out, what are the major impediments in generating the hunger to learn at the first place
and secondly to satiate the hunger for learning.
It must be noted that, the term drop-out has been defined by the concerned authorities in the
wrong light. Because many kids don’t drop-out but walk-out of school. Here some light must
be shed on the term walk-out. The children in rural India come from large poor families,
mostly run by single male member. Formal school education does not help in supporting
these families economically. Hence, children from these families choose to walk-out from
schools to help run their families. In some cases, they have to take care of their younger
siblings, while their parents earn livelihood (Sadagoppan et al., 2007).

6. Page | 5
Taking this further to understand the context of high student drop-out rate an understanding
of the overall attendance of the teachers and the students at various levels would provide a
better perspective. Graph 1 and 2 provides the track of teacher- student attendance at the
primary levels and the upper primary levels.
Graph-1 Tracking Teacher and Student Attendance (Primary Level) (SSA,2008).
Thus the lowest student attendance at the primary level are in the states of Bihar(42%), Uttar
Pradesh (57%), Rajasthan (63%) while the lowest teacher attendance are in the states of
Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh (70%), Chhattisgarh (75%), Bihar(76%).
Graph-2 Tracking Teacher and Student Attendance (Upper Primary Level) (SSA,2008).
Thus the lowest student attendance at the upper primary level are in the states of Bihar
(37%), Uttar Pradesh (60%), Orissa (69%), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (70%).While the

7. Page | 6
lowest teacher attendance are in the states of Assam (52%), Madhya Pradesh (67%),
Chhattisgarh (73%), Bihar (75%).
The graphs 1 and 2 and the discussions so far paints a hard hitting and gloomy picture about
the Indian school level education system. It is important to reiterate here, the fact that most of
rural India is below poverty line (BPL). The figures are estimated around 33crores according
to the definition of BPL by the Indian government (NIC-RDIS,2009). With this context, a large
number of kids study up to class IV (primary) and drop out at upper primary and above
school level. The drop out girls and boys are relatively same. Reasons for the drop out are as
follows:-
• Upper primary schools are located far away from their villages and hence commuting
to schools regularly is a problem as that incurs commuting costs on a daily basis which
they cannot afford given their poor and fragile economic status.
• Most students are from BPL families and have to support their families’ needs (BBC,
2009).
• There are students who stay in disputed or naxal affected that is low intensity violence
zone areas which add to the fallout rates.
• Teaching as a career is considered as one of the last options in India, and hence finding
talented, motivated individuals to educate children is hard to find. Thus the quality of
education suffers.
• Education sector pays relatively less salaries, though it is one of the most profitable
sectors and does not suffer from cyclicity of demand. This becomes more important
because education sector will keep growing in India for the next few decades because
India has a large proportion of kids between 6-14 years of age and if India is not able
to provide quality education to these individuals then India’s future is not secured.
• Teachers also default on attendance, thus motivating children to attend schools
becomes more difficult (SSA, 2008; Dongaonkar, 2006).
These kids are given such education, which does not encourage “creativity” and “curiosity”,
the fundamental requirements for getting knowledge and hence are de-motivated to come to
school. There are reports, that the attendance is seen improving only because of the mid-day
meals (initiative by Government of India) and also by illegal methods like employed by
teachers in some schools (Dongaonkar, 2006). Thus it is the promise of food that attracts the
students and their parents to send their children to school. Good quality education means
greater cost and hence can’t be afforded by poor rural people. Also more than 90% of the
good quality institutions are located in semi-urban and urban areas, leaving rural places with
fewer options (Dongaonkar, 2006).
Some other significant reasons for lack of education in India could be better understood by
understanding the proportion of population living in the slums of urban India. Slum
population is approximately 4% of India’s population. It is estimated that approximately 23.7
% of urban population lives in slums. By 2030, approximately 50% of urban population will
live in slums (UNDP,2009). This shift is largely due to the migration of rural Indians to cities
which is due to marginal and sub-optional existence in villages. Often families stay in make

8. Page | 7
shift shelters after migration from rural areas, and hence pursuing education from
neighborhood school too becomes difficult, because the future of child’s shelter too is
unknown. The children do not pursue education due to various reasons, prominent among
them being that they are bread-winners in their family and hence education is not a priority
issue to them. Also it must be added that the children do not go to schools because of the
poor quality of education imparted (UNDP, 2009).
Although the mentioned reasons portrays a negative state of affairs but there are individual
cases which provides a positive light like in the case of a poor village girl named Chumki
Hajra, whose motivation to satiate the hunger to learn makes her pursue her schooling in the
evening after serving as house hold worker in Murshidabad, West Bengal in the daytime.
From the above discussion, it is clear that the strategies and the structures implemented to
reform education in India are either not implemented properly or are generally biased
towards achieving other motives. It clearly indicates that, the authorities and institutions
which govern the education system in India have failed to implement and bring into place
education curriculum, which is equitable (Sadagoppan et al., 2007). Although public schools
in India are the largest in numbers, but a study conducted by IIM-A in more than 13 states on
India confirmed that due to absenteeism by teachers and poor quality education, more than
50% Indians preferred private schools (TOI, 2006). This brings us to another interesting
solution to address the education problem. In the last 10 years India has seen a growth in
privately run schools, which serve better quality education as compared to the public
(government) schools. More than 50% urban slum kids and in villages 22.5% kids go to such
schools to seek education. The number of private schools has increased, because the poor
even though they manage with much difficulty, have realized the importance of education
and the huge economic benefits that come from it (Nilekani,2009).
The above discussion has led to the following conclusions:-
• Infrastructure for school education is not a problem in India
• Children ‘walk out’ of schools and not ‘drop out’ to support their families and add to
local economy. Hence, the current education system (curriculum, teaching and
evaluation methods, educational pedagogy) is unable to suffice the needs of the rural
as well as urban poor.
• The quality of teachers, teaching methods, curriculum do not encourage holistic
development of students and hence, expecting students to be interested in learning
and returning to schools each day is not of any value.
• The various initiatives taken by the Government with public-private partnerships are
either not implemented properly or are mechanical strategies which will collapse
sooner or later.
One can argue that work based education will provide a better solution to the education
problems in India for the secondary and higher levels of secondary schools. Not only will it
help in educating children, but it will also be instrumental in reforming young minds to take
lead and spearhead nation’s progress. It is rather implied to set ‘Nai Talim’ based model
schools of learning. The reasons, why ‘Nai Talim’ based educational systems have not been

9. Page | 8
implemented on a large scale is not within the scope of this paper and hence the authors have
not included the same in this paper, though the ‘National Focus Group on Work and
Education’, talks about it (Sadagoppan et al., 2007).
3. Solutions
To address the challenges mentioned in the previous section various institutions are working
to implement an equitable system in place. Multiple methods are being employed by the
government to improve the education system and to achieve ‘zero out of school kid’ plan
which means reducing drop-outs to near zero level. Many corporate houses have realized
that the educated mass alone can form their work force and such business houses have joined
hands with government initiatives to bring education to the masses. NGOs are playing an
active role at their own level and also in aligning corporate educational initiatives with their
own for educating the masses. The Teach India initiative is a very apt example for the same.
Thus a synergy amongst private sector, government and NGOs is emerging in educating
India (TeachIndia, 2009).
But, there are certain basic questions that need to be answered like;
• Is the education encouraging ‘creativity’ and ‘curiosity’ in the kid?
• Is he motivated to return back to school day after day?
• Is the education gained in school helping him to develop a scientific and rational
outlook in this world?
• Is the education being presented in an unbiased manner so that the sentiments and
feelings of minorities, kids with special needs and such others are not affected by any
means?
• Is education touching the poorest of the poor and the most far flung Indians?
• How does one ensure that the teacher is carving a moral individual through
education?
There have been over the years some initiatives which are worth mentioning as they have
addressed the questions mentioned in a suitable and commendable way. These initiatives
have been tabulated in Table-1.

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Table-1 discusses some of the commendable education initiatives in India in the recent past
Table-1
Sr
No
Initiative Description Impact/Benefit Disadvantage
1.
Universal
Enrolment
(SSA,2008)
To reduce
76 lakh out of
school kids to
zero, for class
standard (I to
X)
--Bridged social gap
between kids from
various groups
(SCs, STs, Muslims)
--Brought more girl kids
to schools, thus
increasing girl child
education
--The education syllabus is
not equipped to equip kids
with practical skills to
support themselves; hence
these mechanical strategies
will collapse (Sadagoppan
et al., 2007).
2.
Learning
Enhancement
Program
(SSA,2008)
To improve
quality of
education,
for class
standard (I-III)
--Better regional level
learning specific to
languages, science and
mathematics.
--In spite of this, the kids do
not drop-out but walk-out,
because they have to
support themselves and
their families (Sadagoppan
et al., 2007).
3.
Parallel
Implementation
Structures
(SSA,2008)
Education
beyond formal
classrooms
--To make education
equitable by including
diversified curriculum
based on various factors
(Sadagoppan et al.,
2007).
--Poor management and
incomplete implementation
has led to failure as there is
no formal grant of degree or
certificates.
4.
Zero Single
Teacher Schools
(SSA,2008)
All schools
must have
more than two
teachers
--To maintain a healthy
Student:Teacher ratio
-- Teachers specifically
with science and
mathematics
background to teach
respective subjects.
--Hiring quality teachers is
difficult and hence, the
overall quality of education
is poor.
5.
Mobile Schools
(SSA,2009a)
To bring back
children of
brick kiln
workers,
nomadic
workers by
making a
school in a
mobile van
which travels
through
various
--Aggressive
implementation of
School in neighborhood
--Teachers + NGO+
private partnership has
bore fruit.
--Is being done at a very
small scale level.

11. Page | 10
Sr
No
Initiative Description Impact/Benefit Disadvantage
locations
repeatedly.
6. Mid-Day Meals
For all public
school kids, to
make them
come to school
by providing
them food
during lunch
time.
--Promise of food
motivates families to
send their kids to school.
--Improved performance
due to nourishment
from food.
--Attendance of kids in
some parts is seen to
increase only during the
meal time, defeating the
purpose entirely.
7.
Learning
Guarantee
Program
(SSA,2009b)
By Azim
Premji
Foundation, to
assess the
quality of
learning by
children.
--Aim to assess whether
kids have understood
what they have been
taught and whether the
children have put it to
some use.
--Is being run in five states
and assesses kids with the
current curriculum, which
itself has many flaws.
8.
Information and
Communication
Technology
(ICT)
To deliver
education
services
conveniently to
masses.
--To implement IT
enabled multimedia
content to be delivered
to schools with private-
public partnership
(ET,2006).
--Less than 0.2 percent of
the work force has been
engaged in this sector and
has been over hyped
(Sadagoppan et al., 2007).
9.
Education
Collaboration
Network
(IBM,2006)
By IBM,
through
collaboration
with teachers,
schools and
experts in
various fields
to facilitate
high quality
education.
--To improve India’s
Education system
through IT.
--To create a
collaboration for
knowledge and
information sharing for
improving education.
--Involves multiple partners
and due to lingual barriers,
poor infrastructural
facilities it is not becoming
very effective.
Apart from institutional level initiatives there are certain commendable individual level
initiatives which are worth mentioning and they have been briefly discussed as follows:-
• Students in a Kolkatta school teach street children basic mathematics, science and
languages and help to educate the kids (BBC-Sanjay, 2009).
• Babar Ali from Murshidabad, West Bengal, a school student himself teaches
approximately 600 students outside his house after attending his own school, which is

12. Page | 11
10kms away. The village kids cannot go to school due to their poor economic
condition, but are having the Hunger-To-Learn (BBC, 2009).
Subsequent to the discussion on these success stories relating to the extant initiatives
regarding education content preparation and delivery the authors in the next section discuss
a new teaching mode.
4. Cartoocation; Cartoon based education
Everybody likes watching movies. Further one can state that cartoons are liked by all
children between the age-group of (6-14) years as also the adults do. Kids remember stories
and it has been a very effective method by which knowledge of Hindu mythology and
ancient scriptures has been passed to next generation until art of writing was discovered.
Story telling is an art and is one of the most innovative and creative methods by which a
concept can be explained or a moral can be taught to a student. And, if the story can be
converted into a movie or a cartoon film students would be more than interested to learn the
same. This would also pull children to schools and be a solution to generate interest in
learning and make learning fun. This would further lead to hunger to learn, which would be
satiated in the same process of learning through cartoons. It has been studied and observed
by an agency that, cartoon based education has been very effective and has been used in the
past by schools and institutions at a pilot project level to measure the efficiency of the
concept, though cartoon-based education was implemented in various forms and methods.
Some examples of education through cartoons:-
• The ‘Mittu and Meena’ series on Door Darshan (DD) has been over the years one of
the most innovative ways in which awareness is being spread.
• Education through cartoons would be one of the most innovative methods to impart
education in quality (teacher, education, infrastructure) starved country. 200 public
schools in Delhi used Pokemon; a cartoon character to teach kids and to make learning
fun. This idea of teaching through cartoons is going to be implemented in another 300
more schools (SSA,2009c).
• Amar Chitra Katha series regularly publishes cartooned stories of Indian historical
heroes and mythological characters. Hence, they play an instrumental role in
educating children about history and figures of national importance.
CD and DVD players are easily available in India, and the price of a CD, DVD and CD/DVD
player is very low. If cartoon based education can be produced in vernacular languages and
can be distributed among the masses using CDs and DVDs then this model of delivery can be
quite effective and successful in imparting knowledge and also spreading education to
masses because of low price, high volume, and standard quality. The process of Cartoocation
has been shown below in Figure-1.

13. Page | 12
The process of Cartoocation has been diagrammatically explained in figure 1. The process can
be further explained in words as follows. It must be noted that one of the factors, which
enables a student to develop interest to learn more is determined by the ability of the
teaching skills in a teacher. As discussed previously, it is difficult to find such teachers in
large numbers in India. This paucity of quality teachers is perhaps the reason behind the
genesis of this paper. The first step that the authors here propose is to bring together experts
in instructional pedagogy who would be able to develop or modify the current educational
curriculum so that, it helps to develop the all round personality of the kid. The second step
after the curriculum is created would be that, a group of good quality subject expert teachers
and story-board experts would brainstorm to create a story from a particular chapter. The
third step once the story-board is made would be, a group of illustrators would create
illustrations from the story-board using technology. The fourth step would be to create
animation from the illustrations. Though all the steps discussed so far are important, the fifth
step would be to add voice over the animation to explain the educational concepts in the
story created from the chapter. This would result into a synergy of best instructional methods
with the best methods of education. The product formed after applying the above five steps
would be pilot tested with a group of kids and the effectiveness of the content thus created
would be studied and used for process improvement. It should be noted that each of the five
steps discussed would have its own individual as well as over all feedback loop for
improvement and optimization. The educational content will form a part of the knowledge
repository, which will be distributed to the target audience which is group of kids from
slums, rural population, schools and various education institutes through various methods
for various purposes. Figure-2 explains the process of cartoon based education delivery
model diagrammatically.
Figure-1 Cartoocation
Step-2.Pilot testing the best
method of teaching to get
the most effective method as
well as content
representation
Step-1.Developing
Educational Curriculum
Step-3.Converting
educational content
into cartoon based
content
Step-4.Adding voice on to
the educational content in
vernacular language
Step-5.Producing
content on CDs and
other modes of mass
communication and
reaching to the kids
Feedbac

14. Page | 13
Tata Sky/Airtel/Dish etc.
It should be noted that in India, the number of homes having television as well as television
viewers have grown significantly in the last decade. Hence the authors feel that it would also
be good to provide the cartoon based educational content through mass modes of
communication/entertainment. Here the authors are making a significant point because
providing good quality education through mass modes of communication would not only
overcome the paucity of good quality teachers but also be able to provide the good quality
education from very few quality teachers. The various modes of delivery of the educational
content can be explained further. According to an agency report it is estimated that 119
million homes have a television set in India of which 62 million homes have a cable
connection. It has been found that DD, India’s national television channel, which is also one
of the largest broadcasting companies in the world reaches up to 89.6% of India’s one billion
population (KPMG,2007). DD has also setup various regional television channels. Hence, the
authors strongly feel that the cartoon based educational content can be broadcasted over
Door Darshan channel in various languages, thus leveraging the available facilities to
provide good quality education.
The authors realize that setting up of infrastructure at the national level is costly and hence,
have suggested alternate delivery modes as shown in figure-2. As discussed previously India
has ample infrastructure and has community centers in the form of schools. The authors
suggest using these schools to deliver the educational content to the students through Direct
to Home (DTH) services, which are playing a significant role in bridging the digital divide
Figure-2 Making Cartoon based
Content Available to Students
Soft copy
of Content
DTH CD TV Channel
Home Community
Based
Community
Based
(Schools)
Computer/
VCDs etc.
Home Community
Based
Students
Feedback
Feedback

15. Page | 14
between rural and urban India. Compact Discs (CDs) and CD players are also available for
very less cost and hence community centers can easily setup these facilities through collective
contributions. The authors emphasize learning through CDs, as it would enable the students
to learn at their own pace. It would be like having a good teacher anywhere whenever
needed. Thus the authors propose to make the cartoon based educational content available to
the children primarily through CDs and television channel.
Thus, cartoon based education can become a very potent tool for educating the uneducated.
Its enhanced potency comes from the benefits of Cartoocation. The benefits of education
through cartoons could be following:-
• Learning becomes more interesting, because everybody likes to watch cartoons e.g.
Tom & Jerry, Mickey Mouse and others. The concepts of mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, civics, geography, history and other subjects can be taught through
cartoons with more fun.
• Cartoon characters will pull the students to the class as seen with the Pokemon
experiment in Delhi Public Schools (SSA,2009c).
• Lesser number of efficient, passionate teachers can be put together to create content to
explain studies in the form of story and presentation.
• With the increasing use of technology and animation tools making presentation and
movies has become simple.
• This can aid in upgrading the teachers’ skills and ensure quality education is imparted
among students.
• Children would love to learn at their own pace through CD based education and
would partially eliminate the requirement of pool of good quality teachers required to
teach. This will have a leveraging impact given the resource constraints a country like
India faces.
• The audio content embedded on the education content imparted would help the
students to learn better language skills like pronunciation and vocation.
The authors strongly feel that, because cartoons are easily accepted by all age groups, hence
adult education can also be a very big domain for cartoon and CD based education. Even
management education can be taught effectively at grassroots. Many latest techniques of
agriculture, animal husbandry and other rural livelihood related subject domains can be
effectively delivered through cartoons. Awareness about health education, water harvesting,
disaster management and other similar areas can be effectively delivered through cartoon
based education.
The authors are also aware that cartoon based education does not impart practical training
and hence does not align with the ‘Nai Talim’ based method of teaching and learning, but
this method of providing cartoon based education will at least provide the correct knowledge
required to take up practical training. Here, the authors are making a very strong point
because it should be noted that in a huge country like India in spite of having huge human
resources and potential for growth in all fields, India still lacks skilled resources which
reflects the poor state of education in India time and again. Hence, it is imperative to state
that cartoon based education may not permanently solve the problem of lack of ‘Nai Talim’
based education in India, but it can act as a bridge to smoothly transit to ‘Nai Talim’ based
education from the current poor quality education.

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5. Limitations of Cartoocation and future direction
The discussions in the previous sections highlighted the benefits of cartoon based education,
but Cartoocation has some limitations. The limitations of Cartoocation have been mentioned
as follows:-
• Creating animations takes time and requires highly creative and skilled resources.
• This system of education although innovative, does not align with ‘Nai Talim’
objectives which help in holistic development of individual.
• It requires CDs and CD players and display device, which could be somewhat
expensive.
• Some topics might not be covered effectively in CD based teaching.
Once Cartoocation starts in practice, the authors firmly believe that new and incremental
methods and methodologies can be ushered in to make the Cartoocation system more robust
and effective.
This article has attempted to highlight the state of affairs of the Indian education system, and
discovered some areas of concern which need immediate attention and solution. It also has
drawn significant attention to the various government initiatives being taken to improve the
condition of education in India. In the end, it has given reasons, why Cartoocation is one of
the best methods to educate the have-nots of society.
Education through cartoons just teaches essentially the same education content albeit, in a
different way at a lower cost with superior quality. Because of this process, it triggers interest
in the students to learn and further triggers creativity and curiosity in the individual to make
him a more resourceful individual in the society. One important point that must be taken
care is that, Cartoocation should necessarily have a strong grounding on ethical and moral
perspectives. This could be delivered again as a story telling matter. The subject domain
expertise content supplemented with the ethical dose will help develop the child into a moral
citizen. This was precisely what was expounded by Mahatma Gandhi in his ‘Nai Talim’
method of teaching. This will surely be a very big step in our dream to make India a morally
strong developed nation.
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