4.1 Introduction

In this chapter AI academic attainment, mainly in India but also in England, is discussed. The findings of a number of researchers are presented along with their explanations for why AIs fail to attain academically. The chapter emphasises a recent study of AI academic attainment in India conducted by Lobo (1994).

4.2 The AI Sub-Culture and its Success Model

Unlike many other Indians who have a strong tradition of academic attainment most AIs have quite a different "success model" (Gist and Wright, 1973: 124). AIs have shown a strong "preference and aptitude for technical work" many of them have done extremely well in their apprentice courses. This finding is in stark contrast to the view that they lacked academic ability and motivation (Gist and Wright, 1973: 125).

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the AIs in India developed a particular "success model". Gist and Wright (1973: 124) explain how this model came about:

For many decades [AIs] served British imperial interests in India through their occupational roles in developing and operating such strategic institutions as the railways, telegraph and postal services, police forces, and the like. For these services they were amply rewarded monetarily and through as near-monopoly of jobs were assured of considerable economic security. These jobs were generally mechanical or clerical in nature, and although a degree of literacy was necessary they did not ordinarily require college or university training. In fact, a skilled mechanic could generally command a higher income than many [Indian] professionals.

Unlike many other Indian families, there was no strong tradition of academic and intellectual attainment. The AIs had a very different "success model" that resulted from their AI "subculture" (Gist and Wright, 1973: 124).

The rewards available to [AIs] were therefore not dependent on higher education or intellectual inquiry and interest. Rather, the tradition was that of 'hewers of wood' and drivers of locomotives. But it was a prideful tradition, not in intellectual and cultural achievement but in achievement of a more mundane character (Gist and Wright, 1973: 124).

These ideas are very similar to Ogbu's concept of a caste group's "folk theory of success". Just as the Afros saw little need to attain academically because of the job ceiling, similarly AIs saw little need to attain academically.

4.3 AI Academic Attainment in India

While the issue of education has always been of "central importance" to AIs (Grimshaw, 1959: 236) their academic attainment in India has, if not always, then certainly for most of this century, been considered to be poor (Bhattacharya, 1978; Cressey, 1935; Gist, 1967a; Gist, 1967b; Gist and Wright, 1973; Hedin, 1934; Varma, 1979; Younger, 1987; Lobo, 1994). While their academic attainment has been called into question, practically all AIs are literate and have usually been educated to secondary level (Cressey, 1935; Hiro, 1973; Hedin, 1934).

Hedin (1934: 170) claims to be surprised, given the "poverty" of many AIs, that they "are fairly well educated" by Indian standards, but very few are university graduates. The relatively poor academic attainment of present day AIs has not always been a characteristic of the group. In the late 18th century official government reports considered the AIs to be one of the most literate communities in the world. They were certainly better than other Indian communities and in the opinion of some commentators were more literate than the inhabitants of England (Varma, 1979: 54).

There is some evidence to suggest that the reason many AIs failed to achieve tertiary qualifications, up to the period of the mid 1950s, was because they were "unwilling to attend Indian universities in competition with Indian students" (Varma, 1979: 68). This was a difficult time for the AIs as they tried to adjust to the transfer of power from the British to the Indians. They were still adjusting to the idea that their new masters were the Indians. Further, the AIs lacked the financial resources to afford an education in England for their children (Cressey, 1935: 265). As a result, the AIs would either have to study in Indian institutions with Indians, who they had been brought up to believe were not their equals, or they would just have to stay out of the universities.

While AIs did not attend university in any numbers, AI parents made "desperate efforts" to send their children as far as possible up the educational ladder in high school. This was because they always appreciated that a certain amount of education is and was a prerequisite to obtain employment (Hedin, 1934: 170). During the period when the British had needed AI technicians to help build the railways and telegraphs services, they had needed AIs with technical training rather than university degrees gained in the classics.

According to Gist (1975: 41) the AIs had been "over protected" by the preferential treatment of the British, who reserved some jobs for the AIs. This eventually resulted in their being unprepared educationally for the open competition with Indians in the post-war years. Writing just before the Second World War, Cressey (1935: 267) made a similar point, suggesting that with the "Indianization" of the public service AIs would have problems competing effectively with other Indians:

...many of whom, while having a less expensive standard of living, are equipped with superior educational training and greater financial resources.

Maher (1962: 33-34), an AI, concurs, suggesting that "these reservations... were of transitory and illusory benefit" since in the long run:

they drew the community's attention from the independence, freedom and competence with which industrial occupations would have rewarded it.

Gist (1967), writing more recently, points out that the economic decline of the community in India has adversely effected the educational attainment of AI children. According to Gist (1967: 373) AI children, when compared to children from other communities, "are at or near the bottom of the achievement scale". Further, most AI children have "low level[s] of educational aspiration". Maher (1962: 69) adds that the AI student pays "considerably more" in school fees than the Indian from a similar socio-economic class. This is because they attend English language AI schools which are popular with the Indian middle classes.

Gist (1967a: 373) suggests that, in the case of the young AI, there is strong motivation to get a job with its "immediate pecuniary gratification". Gist (1967a: 373) concludes that the lack of academic attainment may be attributed to two main causes. Firstly, it is a direct result of economic adversity, where AIs could not pay for an elite school or a university education. Secondly, it stems from the lack of "a tradition of learning and scholarship". Further, it should be emphasised that the purpose of AI schools from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century was primarily "to feed the demands of the subordinate services of Government (Snell, 1944: 24)."

From the very beginnings of the AI community their education emphasised their British heritage. According to Goodrich (1952: 93) the East India company established a school in Madras in 1673 for the education of children having British or Portuguese patrilineal heritage. At this first AI school the child was taught in English about English history and customs, so that the company could "insure the continuation" of British customs and attitudes and to "provide trained recruits" for the East India Company.

There was criticism of this practice of teaching AI children using a system that was relevant to students brought up in England rather than India (Maher, 1962; Varma, 1979; Lobo, 1994). The switch in emphasis to an education system that mostly emphasised technical and trade skills occurred in the 1880s (Varma, 1979: 98). At the time the emphasis on trade skills was welcomed by many AIs but the long term effects of this approach was the tendency to cap aspiration levels by expecting AI students to settle for technical positions and to avoid tertiary education.

Another issue raised by Gist (1967b: 205) is that, after Indian independence in 1947, students in AI schools had to study an Indian language. He believes that there could be "psychological resistance to learning a 'foreign' language". This is supported by Bhattacharya (1978: 169) who found that while 72 percent of his AI sample spoke a local Indian dialect only 28 percent could read and write that dialect. Frustration and failure at coming to terms with the Indian language would be one more factor precipitating academic failure.

Gist and Wright (1973: 124-125) explain the lack of academic attainment using a synthesis of cultural difference and structural theories. The British rewarded the AIs with jobs in the technical areas involved with railways, telegraph and postal services. Those AIs with jobs in technical areas were well paid compared to most Indians, in many cases they earned more than University educated Indian professionals (Gist, 1967a: 368; Gist and Wright, 1973: 64). As a result the AIs failed to develop a commitment to higher education.

Apart from the economic handicap, an absence of a tradition of academic and higher learning, and the fear of the loss of their ethnic identity through learning of an Indian language, another possible reason for poor academic performance is job discrimination. According to a community leader, interviewed by Gist and Wright (1973: 123) many educated young AIs lacked the motivation to attend a University because they believed that they would be wasting their time and money. They believed that once they got their qualification they would not be able to find a job, because of alleged "job discrimination".

4.3.1 Preferred Subject Type

It was recognised late in the 19th century that most AI males would have to find: ...some form of active, out of door or industrial pursuit and some occupation in which bodily strength and manual dexterity was essential...

since they were unlikely to "get into offices" (Varma, 1979: 79). A Government Committee recommended that special grants should be made to the European and AI schools to provide training in "such subjects, which promote physical strength and manual aptitude" (Varma, 1979: 79). There was a general awareness that the "problem[s] of the poor" AI could only be solved "by a vocation oriented education" (Lord Lytton cited in Varma, 1979: 75). Further, it was recognised that if the AIs were educated "they would serve [the British Government] more cheaply than the Europeans" (Lord Canning; cited in Varma, 1979: 68).

Gist and Wright (1973: 126) concluded that AI students are "less oriented to strictly academic disciplines". Compared to Hindus and other Indians, AIs preferred "non-academic subjects involving hand work" or a combination of academic and non-academic subjects. Further, two thirds of the AI students said they liked school because it would help them get a job with only 15 percent saying that they "enjoyed studying" (Gist and Wright, 1973: 127).

The AIs showed significantly less interest in the academically oriented subjects such as maths, science and literature and a much stronger preference than the other groups for subjects such as carpentry and metalwork. These findings are similar to those made by Gaikwad (1967: 141) in an earlier study. Gist and Wright (1973: 128) concluded that many AI students were "indifferent" to those aspects of their education that did not relate directly to their "pecuniary and narrowly vocational objectives."

While AIs in India lack higher educational qualifications most still seem to recognise its "importance" when it comes to getting jobs. Further, there are serious attempts being made to encourage AIs to achieve academically and to go on to tertiary education (Gist and Wright, 1973: 128).

4.3.2 The Effect of a European Lifestyle on Academic Attainment

Gist (1967b: 203) characterised the AIs as being "hedonistic" with the emphasis on "immediate rather than delayed gratification [with] [p]rofligacy rather than frugality" characterising their lifestyle. He then goes on to describe the type of activities that AIs involve themselves in:

drinks, cinemas, fancy clothing, dining in fashionable restaurants,... sports of various kinds...[d]ancing to western-style music. On festive occasions... they spend lavishly, following the behaviour patterns of Western people...(Gist, 1967b: 203).

A little further Gist (1967b: 203) asserts that one of the main problems that AIs have to cope with is the "... effort to maintain a Western standard of living with an Eastern income." Whilst Gist (1967b: 203) has characterised the AI lifestyle as being "excessive" in Indian terms, the AIs see it differently. For AIs maintaining a Western lifestyle was part of their "British character" (Varma, 1979: 139), or ethnic heritage. AIs see their Western lifestyle and customs as something valuable to be preserved and that distinguishes them from other Indians. In recent decades they have begun to be joined by many middle class Indians in their dress and life-style (Bose, 1979; Gist, 1967b).

Because of their need to maintain their ethnic identity through their Western lifestyle many AIs drop out of school early and attempt to obtain a job as soon as they are able to do so. If one is to drink, and go to the cinema and restaurants, one needs money, especially if one is male and wanting to "date" AI females (Bhattacharya, 1978: 166; Gaikwad, 1967: 148, 156). AI parents, unlike most other Indian parents, do not arrange marriages for their children.

Maher (1962: 16), an AI writer, contends that some Indians have taken the view that AIs must lower their standard of living. But according to Maher this view is an "obvious fallacy". Maher goes on to suggest that the AI life-style is more than just a standard of living but inherent to their culture, which is a "hybrid" containing elements of both the East and West and as such deserves to be preserved. This view that the AIs had to maintain a high material standard of living since they had been "nurtured in English modes of life" has been suggested by AIs for over a century and is often rejected by Indians (Varma, 1979: 50). This is possibly because with the claim for a higher material standard of living goes an implicit understanding of cultural and moral superiority.

4.3.3 Student Aspirations and Expectations in India

Gist and Wright (1973) conducted a survey dealing with levels of occupational aspiration and occupational expectation for AIs in India. The majority of AI males had high levels of job aspiration and expected eventually to have careers in Professional and semi-professional areas. According to Gist and Wright (1973: 73) these aspirations and expectations were "highly unrealistic" given their educational "handicaps" and "probable" job opportunities.

In contrast to the males the majority of female AIs had much more realistic levels of aspiration in that they aspired to clerical work and expected to get clerical jobs. This was a realistic assessment of the type of job which most AI women do get.

4.3.4 Attitudes Toward Employment Opportunities

Gaikwad (1967: 219) asked his AI respondents how they felt about their employment opportunities in India, and if they were improving or getting worse. The vast majority of respondents (75 percent) indicated that they believed employment opportunities had "deteriorated" for AIs since Indian independence in 1947.

Gaikwad (1967: 228) then asked his AI respondents how they felt about their employment opportunities overseas in a country such as Australia. The vast majority of respondents (74.5 percent) indicated that they believed employment opportunities would be much better in an overseas country. Further, about 78 percent believed that they would do better job-wise in an overseas country.

When the issue of discrimination and prejudice was raised the majority of respondents (60.3 percent) indicated that they would be less likely to experience prejudice or discrimination in an overseas country compared to their treatment in India (Gaikwad, 1967: 228).

4.4. The Main Problem as Perceived by AIs in India

To put the issues of education, prejudice and discrimination in perspective it should be noted that what most AIs in India (49 percent) perceived as the community's main problem was unemployment (Gaikwad, 1967: 217). A further 12.8 percent said that the next biggest problem was the high cost of living. The majority (74 percent) felt conditions in India were in general getting worse for AIs (Gaikwad, 1967: 215).

4.5 A Recent Study of AI Academic Attainment in India

Past research, much of it quite old, has consistently shown that AIs in India failed to perform academically. A recent study conducted by Lobo (1994) has supported past findings. Lobo (1994) conducted over 650 interviews with AIs and Indians in India in an attempt to explore the issues of AI academic failure.

Lobo's (1994: 15) main finding was that only about five percent of AIs are completing high school. The main reason for this lies with the apparent reluctance of AIs to thoroughly grasp an Indian language. While the apparent inability of AIs to grasp an Indian language was of little consequence when the British ruled India, it is now the main cause of the academic failure and eventual inability to gain a job.

Passing Indian language exams is a precondition to higher and university education. Further, if an AI is to gain a job with either the government or private sectors, AIs have to be competent in an Indian language. According to Lobo (1994: 16) the reason for this academic failure can be laid squarely at the feet of the AI educational system.

The AI schools do not have an appropriate policy to teach Hindi, for example, as a second language to the AIs. Their language programs are structured to teach English as a second language to Indians. The result is that by about the age of 16 years the Indian is fluent in both the Indian language and in English while the AI has a substandard grasp of Hindi. As a consequence "poverty and disadvantage remain endemic in the [AI] community" (Lobo: 19).

The problem of poor academic attainment is not an issue that has arisen in the 1990s. It is a problem that has occurred all through AI history. One of the main causes has been due to the lack of control that AIs have exercised over their own educational systems. During the days of the Raj, it was the British who dictated what type of education AIs were to get. Since Indian independence, it has been the wealthy Indian who has had an increasing say in the curriculum and the running of the AI schools.

The academic attainment of AIs in India is being stifled by the AI schools themselves. The AI schools have:

...suffered from falling rolls [during the late 1950s] because AIs were emigrating in large numbers. The schools had to survive. The schools allowed the curriculum to be dictated by the needs of the wealthy Indians (Lobo, 1994: 117).

Offering bright AI students from poor families scholarships to attend elite schools has been a failure. Lobo (1994: 120) suggests this was because:

The school offered the educational and other social conditions of an elitist school to students who were not the social equals of the wealthy Indians.... The [AI] students were apathetic, disruptive, truanted and did not show any inclination to return after they repeated a class.

4.5.1 Summary of Language Skills Among AIs

While all AI students interviewed by Lobo (1994: 269-270) could speak English fluently, 42 percent could not read English fluently; 60 percent wrote English sentences with spelling errors; and 85 percent of AI students could not write simple sentences in an Indian language without receiving assistance. Further, only 10 percent could read an Indian language and 9 percent could write in an Indian language.

4.5.2 The Effect of English Maintenance on the Failure of AIs to Acquire an Indian Language

AI students had a negative attitude toward acquiring an Indian language which "was linked to their cultural and social position in Indian society" (Lobo, 1994: 270). English was a cultural and ethnic marker for the Indian AIs. The important status value of English was put in the following terms by one AI student: English is very important to me. English is very important to my Indian friends. English is spoken all over the world, and sometimes I don't need any other language (Lobo, 1994: 270).

The AIs used English to communicate with the teachers and their peers and "rarely" used an Indian language in a "social" situation (Lobo, 1994: 272). The educational and social situation is one where AIs have few opportunities to use an Indian language at an advanced level. The result is that they never develop a substantial grasp of an Indian language, which they need to attain academic and job success.

4.5.3 Teacher Expectations: the Effects of Language Inequality in the Class Room With the mass exodus of the middle class AIs after Indian independence, the AI schools lost most of their motivated students who did well academically. Those AIs who remained behind often came from extremely poor families, and they usually failed to perform well at school. In the words of an AI, the AI community in India "... is a community without a middle class" (Lobo, 1994: 383-384).

The poor AI school performance resulted in a general perception that all AI students were "...either lazy or low ability" (Lobo, 1994: 275). One of the main reasons for this perception was due to the AI unwillingness to learn an Indian language. In the words of a young AI woman:

I dropped out of school because I failed Hindi when I was 14. I was useless in Hindi, I really don't know why I could not study it (Lobo, 1994: 391).

Failure to master an Indian language resulted in having to repeat the year at school and being labelled as failures. The AI students were usually the worst academic performers in the class and were separated from the other students. Lobo (1994: 408) gives the example of a young AI boy:

He sat separately from the rest of the class, because he was called the 'mustiwallah' (naughty boy) in the class.

In general the teachers "expected" the AI students to fail. According to one AI woman, the teachers at her school:

showed surprise that I passed the Class XII (VCE) examination. They really expected me to flunk it. I'm a bit cynical about this anyway, because they didn't help me one bit. If you try to do independent work, which is what they did not teach you, they call you a bombastic student (Lobo, 1994: 278).

Further, teachers believed that:

the [AI] boys were good with their hands and excellent sportsmen. [The girls in their turn were] ...neat and tidy in their appearance. Their good looks would go a long way when they get work as secretaries.

With the inability of AIs to compete academically, they began to rely on their ability in the sporting arena to get them positions on company sports' teams and then a job (Lobo, 1994: 278). In many ways how the AIs are perceived in India has changed little with the departure of the British. What has changed is that there are few if any job preferences directed the way of the AIs.

Lobo (1994) has focused primarily on poor Indian language competence as the reason for AI academic failure in India. In England, where the AIs are taught only in English, their mother tongue, there still appear to be problems in attaining academically (Lobo, 1988). It appears that more than Indian language competence is involved and that the issue of caste status and identity maintenance is even more important in accounting for poor academic and job achievement.

4.6 AI Academic Attainment in England

Lobo (1988: 2) conducted a study dealing with three generations of AI academic attainment in England. According to her only "a very small minority" of AIs have achieved any semblance of academic success. While the AIs recognised that "if you don't learn, you don't earn" they were failing to educate themselves to tertiary level. Lobo suggests a number of reasons for this lack of academic attainment.

First, the fictive kinship system resulted in a need to remain with the group that was predominantly working class (Lobo, 1988: 2-3). Secondly, she believes racism, in education and the work place, to be entrenched in Britain (Lobo, 1988: 51). This racism has resulted in the AIs remaining in the working class after three decades in England (Lobo, 1988: 3). Thirdly, she argues that the AIs in India were "softened" by the British privileges in certain jobs they enjoyed, which resulted in their losing "their competitive edge" (Lobo, 1988: 3). As a result of this "softening" process they use a "Third World yard-stick", where they compare their academic and job success not with the middle class English but with AIs in India (Lobo, 1988: 4).

When analysing the academic and socio-economic attainment of the AIs in England, Lobo (1988) took up a strong structuralist stance. She emphasised the work of scholars who were either Marxist (Bowles and Gintis, 1976) or who viewed poor academic and socio-economic attainment as being caused by inequalities in the structure of society (Ogbu, 1978). Lobo is not alone in her opinion that many of the English are racist, with other researchers making similar findings (Figueroa, 1984; Taylor, 1981). Figueroa (1989: 227) in his study of attitudes toward West Indian's and Asian's found that English student teachers "... operated within racist or at least ethnicist frames of reference". These negative attitudes are likely to inhibit academic attainment among non-White immigrants in England.

In England, minority pupils "desire to stay on in school and acquire qualifications", [their desire often] "far exceeds that of White pupils" (Tomlinson, 1989: 15). But because of the negative attitudes of the British toward them many leave school prematurely. In general:

ethnic minorities in Britain face greater difficulties and disadvantages than white people... The rate of unemployment is twice as high... than among whites.... Despite attempts to oppose racial discrimination by law, there is still a substantial amount of discrimination by employers... if comparisons are made between ethnic minority men and white men with similar qualifications, differences in rates of unemployment and job levels remain the same [high] (Tomlinson, 1989: 18-19.

4.7 Chapter Summary

In the most recent study dealing with AI academic attainment in India (Lobo, 1994) has suggested that the reason that AIs are failing to attain academically in India was primarily because of their difficulties with developing a competent grasp of an Indian language. While this is undoubtedly one of the main reasons, it is not the major reason. It appears perverse to suggest that AIs who have spent many generations in India cannot master an Indian language. AIs in England who do not have to master an Indian language still fail to attain well academically.

The problem that most AIs have in India is that of unemployment which results in extreme poverty. If parents do not have jobs they cannot afford to send their children to school. If they do manage to send them to school they provide their children with the message that only unemployment awaits them when they complete their schooling. Further, the mainly working class AI students have to compete, usually to their detriment, with middle class Indians. It appears more likely that AIs are not developing their Indian language skills because of their attempts to maintain their own identity and English language skills.

To conclude, it is Ogbu's caste theory that appears to offer the best explanation for why AIs fail to attain academically in India and England, but do attain in Australia. Ogbu's theory will be explored in more detail in Chapter's 7 and 8, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies.