Streaming system is discriminatory

The streaming system, as against the comprehensive one, consists of the classification of students by age and ability. The bright, academically gifted, highly motivated and those of average mental attainment are grouped in the A and B classes, and they are usually under the charge of experienced teachers, known for their high sense of duty and school discipline. Generally, these teachers are held in high esteem and prestige by the parents. Those learners below average intelligence or unmotivated are placed in classes further down the alphabetic order.

This arrangement, though benefiting those pupils of high and average intelligence quotient, has its corresponding adverse effect on the truly educational development of those attending lower streams. This ultimately results in creating two different classes of society; one feeling socially inferior to the other. Besides, in large schools, the selective process provides the probability of the difficult and problematic children congregating in one class. The unenviable position of teacher taking charge of such a class can only be imagined!

It may be true, that in a well-organised school, the syllabus of the lower stream classes is somehow modified, making it more adapted to the level of such learners, with emphasis being put on the secondary subjects of the curriculum like history, geography, simple scientific experiments, citizenship and art and craft. Examinations are of the same standard for all classes; but the marking of these learners' papers is less rigid and marks given are fairly generous. "The present division in educational system", comments R.S. Peters, an eminent English philosopher, in his treatise Ethics and Education, "tends to perpetuate class attitudes which encourage lack of respect for persons."

Though normally, classes of backward children are smaller in size than those in higher streams, teaching these children is more strenuous and far less rewarding.

During prize days, prizes are mainly awarded to those students excelling in academic achievement, and very few, if any at all, are publicly praised for their exemplary behaviour, diligence, sportsmanship and uncommon generosity.

Yet another flaw of the streaming system is the fact that the educational success of a school by the authorities is unfairly measured and judged by the number of the students successfully passing the competitive Junior Lyceum Exams. It is unfair because a number of schools, situated in culturally deprived and depressed areas, where parents take little interest in their children's educational progress and where school attendance is very irregular, is grouped with schools enjoying more advantageous positions.

It is asserted by critics of the streaming system of education that, owing to the pressure exerted by the school head and by the parents to achieve the greatest number of successful students at the annual Junior Lyceum Exam, teachers in charge of the classes of selected learners are often tempted to neglect the other important subjects like practical and creative activities.

Quoting R.S. Peters again, he claims that "the Americans are so averse to children from the same community going to different schools that they are prepared to tolerate mammoth-size institutions in defence of this interpretation of the maxim that equals should be treated equally. This leads to the insistence that differences in provision must be made within the same school, whatever the differences in educational aims."