EducationWorld April 16 Archives

Young Achievers

IIT Kharagpur inventors

While autonomous (driver-less) automobile technology is being tried and tested worldwide, a 13-member team from India’s premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur is making waves nationwide with its ground-breaking dual-mode (manual + autonomous) bicycle. The IIT Kharagpur team comprising Ayush Pandey, Subhamoy Mahajan, Adarsh, Dhananjay, Aniket, Vikas, Shubh, Aashay, Hrishyank, Sourabh Dash, Arnab Mondal, P.N. Vamshi and Himanshu Chaudhary, won the bumper Rs.5 lakh prize for its revolutionary ‘i-Bike’ in KPIT Sparkle 2016 staged in Pune on February 2. Organised by the Pune-based Kirtane & Pandit Info Technologies (estb. 1990) — a tech consulting and product engineering services & solutions provider — in association with the 162-year-old College of Engineering, Pune, the competition based on the theme ‘Smart Solutions for Energy and Transportation’ attracted 1,700 entries from over 10,000 students in 500 engineering colleges countrywide. Of them, 54 teams made it to the grand finale at College of Engineering, where product designs and innovations were reviewed and evaluated by a high-powered jury comprising eminent scientists, industrialists and academics. The prize-winning i-Bike looks like an ordinary bicycle. But it runs on electric power and can self-navigate to a location specified in an SMS sent from an android device. It uses a global positioning system (GPS) for automatic manoeuvre, and responds to the GPS coordinates of the destination received via SMS. “We had ideated the i-bike way back in 2014 bearing in mind the limited transport options of differently-abled, especially leg/arm amputees with steering/pedalling difficulties. Our job was to design the final prototype working model within three months. In the process, we learned the value of teamwork as we wrote endless algorithms, customised and sourced the mechanical parts to put the i-Bike together,” recalls Ayush Pandey, currently a fourth-year electrical engineering student and team spokesperson. Looking to the future, the team is focused on filing a patent for the i-Bike (current cost: Rs.30,000) with the intent of marketing the innovation. “We are now working on reducing the per-unit cost to make our invention market-friendly,” says Ayush. Way to go! Baishali Mukkherjee (Kolkata)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

People

McGraw Hill’s digital driver: Mark Dorman

Mark Dorman is president of McGraw Hill Education International and Professional, a division of McGraw Hill Education, the well-known multinational teaching development and learning solutions company based in New York (successor to The McGraw Publishing Company, estb.1888). As divisional president, Dorman manages the company’s international operations and professional reference business, which includes a 6,000-titles ebooks programme and online content for medical, engineering and science education. Newspeg. Last October in Pune, Dorman was the keynote speaker at the Vice Chancellors Retreat 2015 sponsored by McGraw Hill Education India. The august assembly discussed and debated ways and means to enable institutions of higher education to improve teaching-learning and research outcomes through innovative new technologies. History. An alum of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Dorman resigned his commission in the Corps of Royal Military Police and began his corporate career in 2000 with LexisNexis UK, a unit of Reed Elsevier, as head of strategy. Subsequently, he served with Gartner Inc. as head of global product management (2004-2005) and as president and CEO of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, a multinational information technology solutions company, where he was appointed vice president of the Legal Markets Group in 2008. McGraw Hill Education (India) Pvt. Ltd, the company’s Indian arm, began operations in 1970 as Tata McGraw Hill and was rechristened in 2013 after the parent completed acquisition of the Tata Group’s equity in the company. Since then, McGraw Hill has been transitioning from a publisher of textbooks to a multimedia learning sciences company. From its print-based business model, the company is gradually switching to delivery of customised digital content sold through subscription. “We are leveraging our experience in creating education content to deliver digital solutions that are personalised and adaptive. A unique feature of our digital platforms is that the instructor receives constant feedback from the learner which helps him to enable the learner to progress at her own pace,” says Mark Dorman. According to Dorman, market response in India to the company/division’s digital learning programmes is “very encouraging”. Currently, subscriber institutions include the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Banaras Hindu University, NIT-Uttarakhand, IIT-Mandi and IIT-Roorkee, MNIT Jaipur, NIT-Agartala, IIM-Udaipur, IIT-Madras, IIT-Kozhikode, and National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai. Future plans. McGraw Hill plans to launch its Digital Learning Ecosystem (DLE) this year. “DLE will enable educators, students and developers to personalise and enhance McGraw-Hill Education’s courseware by creating new content that leverages the power of the company’s adaptive and analytics platforms. This will be a step forward in instructional technology that will support the demands of educators and students to combine learning elements from multiple sources to create distinctive and personalised learning experiences,” says Mark Dorman. The company’s strategy for India is not to entirely replace textbooks with digital platforms, but to grow the share of its digital business. By 2020, digital products will account for 20 percent of the company’s business, he says. Jeswant J. M (Bangalore)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

People

CUP explores new horizons: Ratnesh Kumar Jha

Ratnesh Kumar Jha is the Delhi-based managing director (South Asia) of Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd (CUP). An alumnus of JNU and Delhi universities and the Kellogg School of Management, USA, Jha began his professional career with Citibank, USA, and served with GE Capital, Reliance Telecom, Vodafone and Educomp Solutions (2010-2013) prior to signing up with CUP. Newspeg. CUP and its Chennai-based division, Cambridge English Language Assessment, organised the second edition of the Cambridge English South Asia Partnership Summit on February 23-24 in New Delhi in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce of India (FICCI). The objective of the summit: provide a platform to discuss the future of education and the skill-sets required to excel. CUP history. CUP is an affiliate of the top-ranked University of Cambridge, UK (estb.1209), engaged in the business of publishing academic textbooks, monographs, journals and education material for schools. Since it began its South Asia operations in 2006, CUP has established an excellent reputation for publishing high quality K-12 English, maths, science and social sciences textbooks prescribed by over 10,000 schools affiliated with CISCE, CBSE, CIE, IBO and state examination boards. Currently, the company has 53,000 titles in print, and produces 4 million academic texts and supplementary reading books per year. Direct talk. “High-quality content is the USP of our textbooks written by accomplished authors from the South Asian region. All content is approved by a syndicate of Cambridge University — routinely ranked among the best universities of the world. We want to support learning in India and therefore we have also ventured into digital learning and higher education resources,” says Ratnesh Kumar Jha. Last year, Cambridge University Press India entered into a partnership with Vidyanta Skills Institute, Gurgaon (Haryana), a National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) partner, to develop content for vocational education and training (VET) programmes. Under the partnership agreement, CUP and Vidyanta Skills will develop content for nursing schools and VET students in state government secondary schools. “This content and training will be delivered digitally and/or in hybrid mode,” says Ratnesh Kumar Jha. Future plans. At present only 18 percent of CUP content is offered in digital mode. This percentage is likely to rise significantly with a number of digital products/solutions from communications and teacher development to English language learning services set for launch. “India has the world’s largest student population. Therefore, CUP which has been at the forefront of school textbooks publishing for over a century, now wants to extend its outreach to train and skill students through the digital medium. Our goal is to transform into a multimedia and multi-platform learning solutions provider which will have a positive impact on K-12 and higher education,” says Ratnesh Kumar Jha. Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

People

New-age company founders: Bhupendra Acharya and Bhavana Sharma

Mumbai-based Bhupendra Acharya and Bhavana Sharma are founder-directors of Taj Eduglobe Ltd (TEL, estb.2015), a new-age company offering aptitude testing and career development services to students individually and through educational institutions. Under its Discover Brain programme, the company offers psychometric testing services — Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Tests (DMIT) and mark enhancement techniques (MET) — which enable students to identify their special intelligences and competencies. Test results are supplemented with professional career counselling services. Newspeg. In January, the company launched a countrywide initiative to offer students its Discover Brain Psychometric Tests (Rs.2,500) free-of-charge. Since then, TEL’s 110 trained counsellors have administered over 200,000 free psychometric tests to students in more than 15 cities including Mumbai, Pune, Rajkot and Chandigarh. Moreover, it has signed up 250 franchisees to set up its testing centres across India. History. A commerce graduate of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Andhra Pradesh, Acharya is a serial entrepreneur. Earlier he launched Acharya Tours and Travels and Global Shine before promoting Taj Technotech Ltd in 2012, an IT company which also provided aptitude testing services. In September last year, he registered Taj Eduglobe to exclusively offer psychometric testing products and career counseling to students. “The objective of TEL is to enable students to discover their learning styles, special intelligences and aptitudes through tried and tested psychometric tests and to make informed career decisions,” says Acharya, chairman of TEL, which already boasts 35 client schools including Singapore International School and RBK International Academy, Mumbai and Delhi Public School, Siliguri, among others. Direct talk. “Our DMIT test not only helps identify students’ aptitudes and strengths, but also provides parents and teachers the basis for remedial programmes. On the other hand, MET helps students to improve their memorisation and recall skills through scientifically proven brain exercises,” says Bhavana Sharma, an alumna of St. Joseph’s College, Darjeeling and a former fashion and lifestyle entrepreneur who signed up as TEL’s founder-managing director last year. Fees: Rs.8,500 per student for DMIT and MET. Future plans. With its complimentary psychometric tests being received enthusiastically and generating word-of-mouth publicity, Bhupendra Acharya is bullish about the future. By year-end, TEL plans to extend this service to 700,000 students in 1,800 schools countrywide. “Over 35 schools have already signed up for our testing and counselling services and we are confident we can expand it further. With growing awareness of the critical importance of high-quality education, this sector is poised for expansion. Therefore we have also drawn up plans for providing education consultancy, teacher training and retailing school uniforms and other education accessories,” says Bhupendra Acharya. Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Also read: Mindler: Revolutionising career counseling in the post-Covid-19 era

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Cover Story

Licence-Permit-Quota Raj Crushing India’s Private Schools

Instead of focusing their attention on the country’s crumbling dysfunctional 1.2 million government primary-secondaries, politicians and bureaucrats of the Central and state governments are tying up the nation’s private schools in swirls of red tape even as admission queues lengthen outside their gates – Summiya Yasmeen India’s private schools — some of them of centuries’ vintage which have schooled almost the entire 300 million-strong middle class — are under siege. Across the country, private unaided (financially independent) school managements are being targeted by Central and state government education officials for alleged failure to comply with a bewildering plethora of rules and regulations covering tuition fees, admission procedures and government-mandated reserved quotas for children from socio-economically underprivileged households. Instead of focusing their attention on raising rock-bottom teaching-learning standards in the country’s crumbling, dysfunctional 1.20 million government primary-secondaries, aided and abetted by populist politicians, education bureaucrats of the Central and state governments are tying up the nation’s 319,000 private schools in swirls of red tape even as admission queues lengthen outside their gates. Licence-permit-quota raj, which cabined, cribbed and confined Indian industry for over five decades until liberalisation of the economy in 1991, has switched tracks and permeated into education creating chaos, confusion and frustration in the country’s private schools and colleges. In Punjab, during the past year the state government has reportedly shut down 1,170 ‘budget’ private schools — increasingly preferred by aspirational poor households to dysfunctional government schools — for failure to comply with the infrastructure norms stipulated by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009. In Tamil Nadu, a state government-appointed Private Schools Fee Determination Committee has mandated way-below-cost tuition fees for 2013-16 for the state’s 6,566 private schools. Similarly, the governments of Maharashtra and Rajasthan have enacted legislation to regulate tuition fees charged by private unaided schools. The latest attack on independent schools has been launched in the national capital by the populist Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of Delhi state. On January 6, it abolished the 20 percent management quota of the city’s 6,600 composite private school managements under which they had the discretion to admit nursery students of their choice. Earlier on December 1, the AAP government piloted two education bills through the Delhi legislative assembly — Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill and the Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill — to proscribe admission screening processes in nurseries and regulate (and refund) “excess fees” levied by private schools in the state. Even though a Delhi high court order of February 16 has restored the 20 percent management quota, private school promoters are wary of the AAP government using the two recently legislated Acts to impose further controls. “The autonomy of private schools in India and in particular in Delhi, is under serious threat. State governments across the country are pursuing vindictive regulatory policies to force private schools into accepting absurd admission and fees policies. In Delhi, the state government has made its anti-private schools prejudice clear by…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Expert Comment

New opportunity in early years education

Dr Jeremy Williams is the academic director of Asian International College (India) India — like many other countries — is in the midst of a paradigm shift in education driven by the very economic and technological forces that have transformed Indian industry. Learning via the Internet — formerly known as ‘e-learning’ — started to become popular in the early 2000s, but has remained largely outside the mainstream. Now people have begun to question why digital technologies that have become such an integral part of our personal and work lives are still on the periphery of education. High-quality education can now be delivered online at price points that offer great value for money to learners. Technology is fundamental in this regard, but the greatest hazards for traditional institutions lie in areas of curriculums and pedagogies which in most cases are seriously outdated. In particular, the opportunity to rapidly upgrade teacher training in the early childhood education (ECE) sector should not be missed as numerous longitudinal studies have demonstrated that quality ECE programmes can have a dramatic impact on a child’s life chances and, by extension, the well-being of entire societies. In short, the prospect of realising the much-publicised ‘demographic dividend’ will be significantly heightened if we harness the power of the Internet to access contemporary curriculums and the latest digital pedagogies to produce better ECE educators. It’s indisputable that there’s a chronic shortage of well-trained teachers. The problem is particularly acute in the ECE sector, where it’s common for people with no formal training to be employed as teachers. Even when teachers have ECE qualifications, premium privately operated preschools find it necessary to put them through their own training programmes because fresh ECE teacher graduates are simply not job-ready. Based on data collected for its annual rankings of preschools, EducationWorld estimates there are 300,000 standalone private preschools in India with an aggregate enrolment of 15 million children, employing around 1.5 million teachers. In this neglected but vital segment of the education sector, a conversation is taking place about how to address the teacher education problem and the related issues of talent retention. Sadly, this conversation does not extend to the government-run anganwadis, which — according to the official government of India statistics — approximately number 1.6 million and employ an estimated 2 million workers. The primary focus of anganwadis is basic nutrition and healthcare, with only rudimentary early childhood education, if it is offered at all. Herein lies the greatest irony surrounding the current discourse on India’s demographic dividend, because if there were a single initiative that will yield the greatest return on investment, it would be early childhood education within poorer sections of the community. The evidence in support of this assertion is both voluminous and compelling and includes a Nobel Laureate in economics, James Heckman, among its firmest advocates. Academic literature on brain development produced in the last decade or so tells us that the years 0-5 are the most critical, and interventions during this period can have a profound…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Special Report

(Union Budget 2016-17) Children Neglected by Fudged Budget

Despite the steady devaluation of post-independence India’s human capital, the BJP/NDA government’s second full-fledged budget shows no awareness that agricultural productivity and rural regeneration are intimately connected with improved learning outcomes in education Ever since EducationWorld was launched on the eve of the new millennium with the mission to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda,” your editors have been disappointed with every Union budget presented to Parliament and the people. For some inexplicable reason, developing the country’s high-potential human resource has been — and continues to be — a low priority of the Central and state governments for the past 68 years since independence. And regrettably, academia and the intelligentsia (including the media), which should know better, have been complicit in the neglect of early childhood, primary, secondary and higher education with the country and society paying dearly for continuous under-investment in development of India’s abundant human capital. Prolonged under-investment and societal failure to provide meaningful, qualitative education to two generations of post-independence India’s children has burdened the country with 300 million adult illiterates, a community equal to the entire population of the United States of America. The rest of the populace, except for a tiny sliver at the top of the pyramid, is at best semi or functionally literate. For a start, 53 percent of the 200 million children enrolled in the country’s 1.2 million state government schools at the start of every academic year, drop out of the education system prior to completing elementary education (class VIII). Moreover, the learning outcomes of children in government primaries, as conscientiously reported by the highly-respected NGO Pratham in its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), are rock bottom. Consequently, even the 30 million children who complete secondary education annually, have weak foundations and are ill-prepared for higher study. Unsurprisingly, learning attainments in the great majority of India’s 35,000 colleges and 800 universities, which host 27 million students, are poor. Only two of the country’s universities are ranked among the Top 200 in the World University Rankings league tables of the authoritative London-based rating agencies QS and Times Higher Education, and several studies (McKinsey World Institute, Aspiring Minds) indicate that the overwhelming majority of graduates of India’s higher education institutions are not fit for employment in multinational companies. The accumulated burden of inferior quality education and poor learning outcomes across the spectrum is that industrial shopfloor and farm productivity in India compares unfavourably with developed OECD, China and most newly-industrialised countries of South-east Asia. Despite this dismal scenario and steady devaluation of the country’s human capital, the proclaimed agriculture and rural development-oriented Union Budget 2016-17, presented to Parliament and the nation on February 29 by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, shows no official awareness that agriculture productivity and rural regeneration are intimately connected with improved education in rural primaries. In his 101-minute budget speech, Jaitley ritually included “education, skills and job creation to make India a knowledge-based and productive society” among his…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Special Report

Union Budget 2016-17 reactions

Given the recent amendment of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2014 our expectation was that the budget for child protection which is less than 0.4 percent (of the total budgetary outlay) should have been prioritised to strengthen the JJ system. As this is the first year of the United Nation’s new development framework — the Sustainable Development Goals — a special focus on education, health and protection of children was necessary — Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children Fund The Union budget with its focus on critical areas of the economy such as education, employability, rural development, agriculture and infrastructure development, is realistic. It will help in the journey to make India a knowledge-based productive economy — Anish Srikrishna, President, Times Centre for Learning Ltd The Union budget has taken a 360 degree view of the needs of India’s education sector. The special emphasis on skills development is crucial for employability while the deeper issues of quality and reach are addressed — Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and CEO, Educomp Solutions Ltd The budget, which has provided Rs.1,800 crore for setting up 1,500 multi-skill institutions and scaling up PMKVY to cover 10 million youth in the next three years, is a step in the right direction — Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT We welcome the strong measures to strengthen skills development and entrepreneurship through continuous support to NSDC. The Higher Education Financing Agency is also path-breaking and will help deserving students who want to pursue higher education — Ambarish Datta, CEO, BSE Institute Ltd and Director, NSDC The focus on education, skills development, jobs creation and entrepreneurship in this budget is very welcome. The initiative to promote excellence in higher education by supporting ten private and ten public higher education institutions to attain world-class status is also a welcome move — Vijay Thadani, Managing Director, NIIT Ltd I don’t think education is a money problem. It’s an ideas problem. While this budget like previous ones, has changed allocations, there are no ideas on how to transform education. There are so many good ideas on how we can expand education at all levels without necessarily spending large amounts of public funds, yet the government seems to be content with more of the same — Nitin Pai, Director, Takshashila Institution The emphasis given to skills development is overdue and welcome. The provision of Rs.1,800 crore for establishing 1,500 new skill development centres is realistic — Nikhil Rajpal, Partner and Head of Education, Ernst & Young (India)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Special Report

Squeezing the budget for human capital development

Even though some informed monitors of the economy maintain that the infirmity of Indian education is inefficient spending rather than adequacy of education outlays, your editors have steadfastly maintained that the two prescriptions are not mutually exclusive. We believe greater expenditure on infrastructure, landscaping, buildings, classrooms, teacher training and development, sports facilities, and especially libraries, laboratories and lavatories of government primaries is necessary to attract and retain children from low-income households in government schools. Therefore in 2008, we persuaded Dr. A.S. Seetharamu to draw up a budget to equip government primaries in need with basic lib-lab-lav (libraries, laboratories and lavatories). Last year Prof. Seetharamu estimated that a sum of Rs.1.10 lakh crore would be required to attain this objective. Your editors believe that within the substantial Rs.19.78 lakh crore Union budget 2016-17, and by trimming unmerited middle class subsidies, there are substantial opportunities for savings in the budgeted amounts on the expenditure side and for additional resource mobilisation on the revenue/receipts side for redeployment and funding the lib-lab-lav programme and early childhood care and education (ICDS’ anganwadis programme). We believe that through savings in budgeted expenditure and modest, painless additional resource mobilisation initiatives, a substantial sum aggregating Rs.3.60 lakh crore (Rs.360,000 crore) can be raised by the Centre for developing the nation’s human capital. The calculus is set out below.

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Cover Story

Edupreneurs’ obstacles race

The vice-like — and tightening — chokehold of the Central and state education bureaucracy over primary and secondary education has made promotion of private greenfield schools a formidable challenge which can only be broken by very determined and persistent edupreneurs. From the stage of land acquisition, obtaining permissions from civic planners, securing electricity and water supply connections, to obtaining the all-important NOC (no objection certificate), school promoters have to get between 14-32 clearances and permissions (without time limits) from government officials/departments. Among them: Registration as a society/trust. Profiting from education is prohibited by several Supreme Court judgements which stretch back several decades. Therefore private groups, whether a collection of like-minded people or a corporate entity promoting a school must first be registered under the Societies Recognition Act, 1860 or Public Trust Acts of the states or set up as a not-for-profit company as prescribed by s. 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. Land acquisition. If the society/trust wishes to buy land from government, it will be required to obtain an Essentiality Certificate (EC) from the state’s department of education to ascertain whether a private school is required by the public in the proposed area of location. To establish a legally permissible private primary/secondary school, the following documents are usually required by state governments: 1. Registration certificate of society/trust 2. Essentiality certificate 3. Certificate of recognition 4. Certificate of upgradation 5. Certificate of affiliation (CBSE, CISCE or state board) 6. Affidavit swearing legal purchase of land and adherence to civic Master plan 7. Site and building plans 8. Building fitness certificate 9. Health certificate 10. Water testing report 11. List of first batch of students 12. Construction completion certificate 13. Duly constituted boards of trustees and management 14. Land use permission certificate (for rented land/buildings) 15. Fire compliance certificate 16. RTE Act compliance Local authority sanctions. Moreover, clearance certificates have to be obtained from municipal/fire/transport authorities regarding sanitary conditions, water/fire/transport safety. These certificates need to be renewed every five years. CBSE/CISCE schools. All proposed CBSE/CISCE-affiliated schools must obtain an NOC/Recognition letter from the state government in addition to the above listed permissions. (Source: Anand Rathi Financial Services — indicative list, approvals may vary from state to state)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Letter from the Editor

Licence-permit-quota raj, which was the dominant development blueprint of post-independence India and devastated the country’s economy reducing the average annual rate of GDP growth to 3.5 percent (cf. the Asian average of 7-10 percent) for over four decades until liberalisation and deregulation in 1991, is alive and flourishing in Indian education. Although the ease of doing business has marginally improved in the post-liberalisation era, reaching education to the masses and classes has become more difficult than ever before. Curiously, the Central and state governments which have made a mess of managing the country’s 1.2 million public primary/elementary schools and the great majority of government colleges and universities, see nothing amiss in neta-babu interference with the administration, syllabuses, curriculums, and finances of the country’s 319,000 private primary-secondary schools, estimated 20,000 private colleges and 154 private universities. They are subject to a bewildering plethora of laws, rules, regulations and administrative fiats, which have not only made the promotion of private greenfield institutions a great obstacles clearance race, but have also endangered their financial viability. This despite it being plain as a pikestaff that privately-promoted schools in particular, are far superior on the parameters of infrastructure, learning outcomes, leadership quality, faculty competence etc. Proof of this assertion is the reality that the overwhelming majority of the country’s 60 million middle class households prefer to enroll their children in fees-levying private schools rather than in free-of-charge government primary-secondaries. Indeed, even the poorest households entertain this aspiration which explains the mushrooming of an estimated 300,000 ‘unrecognised’ private budget schools with a staggering reported enrolment of 60 million children across the country. But the country’s rampaging neta-babu nexus, driven by political populism and rent-seeking opportunities, is crushing India’s private schools, which host over 40 percent of in-school children through myriad levelling-down rules which are drying up the flow of investment into private education. Our cover story written by managing editor Summiya Yasmeen blows the whistle on the neta-babu conspiracy to dumb down India’s beleaguered private schools, islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity. And in what’s become an annual ritual, we lament another myopic Union budget in which the finance minister has yet again missed the opportunity to make adequate provision for developing the country’s abundant human capital. According top priority to feathering its own nest and self-aggrandisement, the very same neta-babu nexus wastes taxpayers money on a grand scale, leaving little more than crumbs for investment in public education and human capital development, while the apathetic middle class, intelligentsia, academia and media are silent — perhaps collusive — spectators.

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Editorial

Critical importance of law & order

According to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the two-day Haryana Global Investors Summit 2016, which concluded on March 8, was a great success. Over 2,300 delegates from 12 countries attended, and foreign and domestic memoranda of understanding valued at Rs.5.84 lakh crore were signed. Such unbridled optimism and unique inability of politicians to make realistic assessments based on ground realities, raise serious doubts about the cognitive and logical-thinking skills of the country’s political class. On February 20, just 15 days before the investors’ summit, the Haryana government had conspicuously failed to prevent or control full-scale riots staged by the state’s powerful and relatively prosperous Jat community demanding backward class status which would entitle their youth to reserved quotas in higher education and government jobs. During the riots which lasted over ten days, lumpen elements went on the rampage attacking citizens, setting public and private vehicles on fire, and destroying property including shops, commercial establishments and businesses in Rohtak, a town 70 km from Delhi. The Punjab and Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that apart from 19 deaths and 170 injured, property worth Rs.34,000 crore was destroyed. Against this backdrop, the Haryana government’s decision to press ahead with the Global Investors Summit within five days after the riots were brought under control, is indicative of utter ignorance of the huge extent to which maintenance of law and order influences investment decisions of business enterprises and entrepreneurs. If the chief minister truly believes foreign or domestic investment on the scale proclaimed will actually flow into the state, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. Unfortunately, Khattar is not in a minority. Almost all ministers and politicians in general, seem unable to make the connect between investor confidence and law and order. They seem unaware that states of the Indian Union which have the worst crime records — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam — are the country’s most industrially backward. Unfortunately, the vital importance of maintenance of law and order is not sufficiently understood by the intelligentsia and the public either. According to UN data, the ratio of police personnel and judges to population in India is a mere 131 and 1.3 per 100,000 against the global averages of 222 and 5. Moreover, despite the lackadaisical judicial system groaning under the weight of a 30-million case backlog, there are 1,016 judicial vacancies against sanctioned strength in India’s 24 high courts and 5,000 in the country’s subordinate courts. Unless the government, media and the intelligentsia acknowledge that the primary duty of the State is rigorous enforcement of law and order — whatever the cost — investor summits showcasing the country’s lawless states are likely to remain exercises in futility. Address teacher accountability problem The recommendation of niti aayog — the policy think-tank, chaired by renowned economist Dr. Arvind Panagariya, which has replaced the disastrous Soviet-style Planning Commission — to introduce minimum learning goals for classes I-VIII under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE)…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Mailbox

Red tape chokehold

The cover feature ‘The Shirpur Rural Regeneration Model’ was informative and enlightening (EW March). Engineering this one-of-its-kind success story in the rural hinterland is a truly remarkable achievement of Amrish Patel. His development model combining education, water management and conservation, employment generation and environment sustainability is the magic formula for transforming India’s 600,000 villages into prosperous communities. In reality, it’s red tape which is preventing the regeneration of our villages. There are thousands of committed people in India who want to start schools, colleges, and small businesses. But red tape kills their projects even before they begin. Manish Kulkarni Mumbai Unwarranted optimism You have written an overly optimistic story on massive open online courses (Moocs) in your latest issue (EW March). The potential of Moocs to revolutionise higher education in India is very limited. First, the large majority of the population doesn’t have access to broadband internet, which is a must for accessing Moocs. Second, all Moocs are in English language which again a majority of the student population cannot understand sufficiently to learn independently. Third, in a country where exam cheating is routine and plagiarism is rampant, students cannot be trusted to study and submit assignments for independent grading. So unfortunately, Moocs will only help privileged students studying in elite colleges, while those in tier II and III cities and villages will be left to contend with sub-standard faculty and obsolete curriculums. Parvati Sengupta Delhi Make music compulsory! Tanuja Gomes has presented an excellent case for the compulsory introduction of music in schools (EW February). Music doesn’t recognise man-made boundaries and helps to bridge differences between people from different countries, cultures and religions. Schools should introduce music education not just to improve their students’ learning outcomes but to also transform them into humane, caring and peace-loving citizens. Mahesh Kapasi Delhi Dismal & depressing Your cover story ‘Heavy price of education neglect’ (EW January) is revealing. In the story, you have reported that India spends 4 percent of its GDP on public health. You have also observed that it’s a doubtful figure as it may include private spending. You are right: 4 percent is public plus private spending on health. Sadly, public spending on health in India is only 1.3 percent of its GDP (2013) against China’s 3.1 percent and Japan’s 8.5 percent. India’s public expenditure on education (less than 3 percent) and health (less than 1.4 percent) is dismal and depressing. Your plea for greater public spending on education and health is timely and merits serious consideration. Prof. A.S. Seetharamu Bangalore Survey dissatisfaction It’s a matter of great pride for Seth Anandram Jaipuria School, Ghaziabad to be rated among the country’s best schools in your EW India School Rankings (September 2015). But, on the parameters of teacher welfare, competence of faculty, leadership/management quality, we are not satisfied with the ratings awarded to us. Moreover, we would like to state that no formal data was collected from the school or any other reliable source for the purpose of rankings. We…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

Delhi: Beyond budgetary allocations

FOR THE SECOND YEAR in a row, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government — which swept to power in the Delhi state legislative assembly last year routing the fancied BJP — tabled an education-focused Budget 2016-17 on March 29. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, also the finance and education minister, announced an outlay of Rs.10,690 crore for education, equivalent to 23 percent of the Rs.46,000 crore annual budget for Delhi. “We are increasing the education budget every year, whereas the Central government, irrespective of the political party in power, has been decreasing the percentage of budget allocation for education every year,” said Sisodia, taking a dig at the BJP-led Central government. “As in 2015-16, the increase in budget for the education sector will improve the infrastructure of government schools.” Although the education outlay for 2016-17 is 8.6 percent higher than last fiscal (Rs.9,836 crore) and the highest in the history of Delhi state, educationists and academics point out that adjusted for inflation, the proposed spending on education is not as impressive, and is an attempt to complete the projects the AAP government promised in its maiden budget last year. Of the 236 new schools promised to be promoted by the end of fiscal 2015-16, not even one is operational with a mere 25 under construction. Moreover, the 50 model schools announced by the government in last year’s budget, are yet to take shape. All Delhi government colleges were to be wi-fi enabled which still remains a promissory note. “Lackadaisical project implementation and unspent funds from last year’s budget have raised questions about the AAP government’s execution capabilities. Moreover, the state government’s priorities are confusing with allocations being made for the same projects. Instead of building new schools, AAP should focus its attention on improving the quality of education delivered in its own government schools through teacher training and better learning outcomes. Clearly, the AAP government needs to improve its expenditure efficiency,” says Ambarish Rai, convenor of the Delhi-based RTE Forum, a network of 10,000 civil society groups working on effective implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Also, instead of minding its own schools, to curry favour with Delhi’s influential middle class, the AAP government’s education ministry has spent disproportionate time controlling and regulating Delhi’s 1,800 private unaided schools. For instance, it made several failed attempts to scrap management quotas of schools (the Delhi high court dismissed the order finding “no merit in the move”) and has also introduced two bills — The Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill, 2015 and Delhi School Education Act and Rules 1973 (Amendment) Bill, 2015 — to regulate fees, admissions and pay scales of teachers in private schools. These two bills are awaiting approval of the President who is advised by the Central government. “With generous resources allocated for education, the AAP government needs to get its priorities right. Delhi needs more private schools and colleges. Therefore, instead of hindering them with…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

Maharashtra: Language populism calculus

THE BJP-SHIV SENA government of Maharashtra (pop.112 million), which swept to power with a huge majority in the state’s legislative assembly election of October 2014, is set to make Marathi a compulsory subject for primary (class I-VII) children in all schools, no exceptions. Hitherto primary-secondaries affiliated with the pan-India Delhi-based Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and schools affiliated with offshore examination boards including Cambridge International Examinations, UK (CIE) and the International Baccalaureate Organisation, Geneva (IBO) and several American boards had the choice to teach any second language including French and German. Moreover, the BJP-Sena government wants all examination boards to include an approved biography of Maharashtra’s iconic 16th century warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in their history syllabus. According to state education minister Vinod Tawde, the textbooks prescribed by the CISCE, CBSE, CIE and IB exam boards offer “just a few lines on Shivaji Maharaj’s life” which is a great deficiency in children’s education. In a veiled threat to the managements of private schools affiliated with pan-India and offshore exam boards, the minister said the mandatory NOC (no objection certificate) that the state’s education ministry has to issue every two years, will be denied to non-compliant schools. However, educationists in the state say the minister doesn’t need to flex his muscles. Most institutions have already introduced Marathi into their school curriculums following an August 2009 government order (GO) to all schools to teach Marathi as a second language till class VIII. However following a writ petition filed by the Mumbai-based Unaided Schools Forum, the Bombay high court stayed the GO in 2011. Nevertheless, most schools affiliated with pan-India and international boards already teach Marathi as a third language till class VII. “Though CIE and IBO boards follow international curriculums, learning the host country’s language is encouraged and we already teach Marathi in our school,” says Dr. Vandana Lulla, principal of the CIE, IBO and CISCE-affiliated Podar International School. However, while most school principals and teachers accept that their students need to be familiarised with the language and culture of host states, they resent the imposition of ad hoc electorally-motivated regulations upon education institutions. “Amendments and additions to syllabuses and curriculums need to be made at the start of the academic year, and after thorough discussion and debate because school managements need to prescribe the best textbooks, recruit language teachers and conduct assessments. The government needs to understand the logistical and administrative problems such ad hoc announcements create for school managements,” says Jasmine Madhani, principal of the IBO-affiliated Jamnabai Narsee International School. Opposition parties are much less diplomatic and are well aware that the burst of nationalism and sub-nationalism that the BJP and other right-wing political parties are experiencing in Maharashtra and elsewhere, is driven by political populism. “Children in CBSE, CISCE and foreign board schools are mainly from households with parents in the all-India services, defence and the corporate world, and likely to be transferred every few years. What benefit will…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

Tamil Nadu: Uncertain reprieve

THE MANAGEMENTS OF TAMIL NADU’S 580 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and 52 Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) schools got a respite on January 28 when the Supreme Court passed an interim order restraining the Justice S.R. Singaravelu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee (PSFDC) from interfering with tuition fees charged by CBSE and CISCE schools in the state. According to the apex court’s order, the powers of the PSFDC will be limited to verifying if the tuition fees levied by CBSE and CISCE schools are commensurate with the facilities provided by them, to hear complaints and recommend disaffiliation of schools charging exorbitant fees. The interim order has ended a three-year struggle by CBSE and CISCE schools for exemption from the ambit of the Tamil Nadu Schools Regulation of Collection of Fee (TNSRCF) Act, 2009, enacted by the erstwhile DMK government (2006-2011). Under the Act, the DMK government appointed the first Justice K. Govindarajan PSFDC in 2010  to determine the tuition fees chargeable by all 5,934 private unaided Matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu) currently affiliated with the Tamil Nadu State Board of School Examinations (TNSBSE) and 5,000 private nurseries/primaries registered with the state’s Directorate of Elementary Education. However, CBSE school managements challenged the state government’s presumption that the TNSRCF Act, 2009 is applicable to them because issuance of a NOC (no objection certificate) by the state government is a precondition of commencement of operations. In September 2012 when the Association of Managements of Private Schools (CBSE) challenged the applicability of the TNSRCF Act to CBSE schools in the Madras high court, the court ruled in the government’s favour. In February 2013, the association filed an appeal in the Supreme Court where its counsel argued that since CBSE schools were separately mentioned in s.7 (3), which invested the committee with investigative and verification powers, the committee was not empowered to determine or regulate their tuition fees. Accepting the appellants’ argument, a Supreme Court bench passed an interim order on January 28 stating that: “The regulatory mechanism of the PSFDC will be limited (during the pendency of the present controversy) to the one contemplated under s. 7 (3) of the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fees) Act, 2009.”  This ruling has been widely welcomed by CBSE school managements in the state which were struggling to meet expenses as the tuition fees prescribed by the PSFDC were inadequate to provide quality education.  “Parent-teacher associations should jointly discuss and determine school tuition fees,” says C. Satish, director, Paavai Group of Schools, Namakkal. Unsurprisingly, the state’s 5,934 private Matriculation schools, which provided high-quality K-12 education until they were deprived of their autonomy and brought within the purview of the common TNSBSE under the populist pretext of providing “equity in education”, feel left out of the CBSE/CISCE celebrations. Although several petitions were filed by private Matriculation school managements in the high court and Supreme Court opposing the poor-quality TNSBSE curriculum and challenging the PSFDC fixed tuition fee structure, the courts…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

Uttar Pradesh: Continuous exodus

AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE engineered to track the number of children in government primary schools with the objective of controlling wastage of social benefits — free mid-day meals, textbooks, uniforms etc — has yielded unexpected data. Of the total 159,625 state government primary-secondary schools, 6,898 have less than 25 students on their muster rolls while 22,959 schools have between 26-50 students, all told. This picture of primary education in India’s most populous (212 million) state could prove to be worse as data for only 139,411 (87.3 percent) government schools has thus far been uploaded. Only 60,875 (43 percent) government schools report more than 100 children on their rolls. The significance of this data is that it is possible that in the 6,898 government primaries with less than 25 students, the number of teachers and employees drawing generous Seventh Pay Commission-awarded pay scales may well exceed the number of students — a huge wastage of taxpayers’ money. This public trust deficit in the efficacy of the government school system within even bottom-of-pyramid households who prefer to enroll their children in private ‘budget’ schools has set alarm bells ringing in Lucknow. On March 19, the education ministry announced an initiative to grade primary schools to determine which schools need quality upgradation. Under the plan, a two-member team, comprising a member from the block education resource centre and principal of the District Institution of Education and Training, will visit every primary school and grade it on 100 points divided over a number of parameters such as exams performance (55 points), physical infrastructure and community participation (5 points each), attendance (15 points) and standard of teaching (20 points). The small minority of monitors of UP’s government school system defined by ramshackle buildings and infrastructure, chronic teacher absenteeism and poor learning outcomes, attribute loss of public confidence to a general lack of seriousness about primary education in successive state governments and particularly the incumbent Samajwadi Party government elected in 2012. For instance, in the final exams for class II-VIII students held between March 6-21, the education ministry had announced that students would also be tested in physical education, moral science, art and environment studies to bring them on a par with private school children. However, in many districts including the state capital Lucknow, question papers didn’t reach schools on time. This, despite sufficient financial provision (Rs.18.2 crore) having been made for conducting primary school exams. “We need to re-look where new government schools are sited. Where reasonable quality private schools exist, the focus of the state government should be on improving the quality of existing government schools rather than starting new ones. Likewise, a greater proportion of the state government’s education budget needs to be spent on teacher training and development so they can improve classroom learning,” says Sarvendra Vikram Singh, director of UP’s State Council for Educational Research & Training. However Juhie Singh, chairperson of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, who has been on a surprise school visits spree, believes that the…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

West Bengal: Student politics shadow

CAMPAIGNING IS IN FULL swing in West Bengal for the state’s 16th legislative assembly election which begins on April 4 and concludes on May 5. During its first term in office, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government led by the fiery trade unionist Mamata Banerjee, who improbably ended the uninterrupted 34-year rule over the state of the Communist Party of India (CPM)-led Left Front government in May 2011, has not been able to quell campus unrest in the state’s higher education institutions, a defining feature of Communist rule. In 2014, police assaulted students on the Jadavpur University (JU) campus after they demanded an independent investigation into the molestation of a woman student. In 2015, the vintage Presidency University (estb.1955) witnessed continuous protests by students over several issues including demands for resignation of vice chancellor Anuradha Lohia. Most recently on February 26, a mob attacked over 100 students with sticks and nail-studded batons inside the state government-run Burdwan University (BU) campus. Sited 100 km from Kolkata, BU, which sprawls across 316 acres, offers undergrad, postgraduate and professional degrees in more than 65 disciplines to 25,000 students. Trouble began brewing in BU, awarded the status of a ‘four star’ university by NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) in 2001, following delay in releasing year two BA results which were withdrawn and declared afresh three times in February. Several students who were declared to have passed the exams when the first two versions of results were published, were declared failed in the third revised version. Despite this confusion, on February 19 the varsity administration announced final exams on March 18. Reacting with outrage, students from the 73 colleges affiliated with BU demanded postponement of the final year exams. During the protests, 12 students were injured in a police lathi-charge on February 23. Binod Ghosh, a committee member of the CPM-affiliated Students Federation of India (SFI) alleged that the lathi-charge was unprovoked. “We had announced the protest rally well in advance and the police was aware of it. Despite this, they started beating us without provocation. At least 25 SFI supporters, including district secretary Dipankar Dey, were injured,” says Ghosh. Three days later on February 26, 13 SFI students who staged a hunger-strike demanding postponement of the third year exams for 30 days, were allegedly assaulted by members of the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad — the youth wing of the ruling TMC. Pabitra Sarkar, former vice chancellor of the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata and former vice chairman of the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education, blames maladministration and student indiscipline on campus which the TMC government hasn’t been able to curb. “The turmoil at BU is not a one-off incident but a manifestation of rising anarchy in West Bengal’s institutions of higher education. Rampant student unrest at several colleges and universities in the past five years is proof of the failure of the state government to manage the education sector to which chief minister Mamata Banerjee had promised to give special importance and focus,”…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education News

They said it in March

“Sedition is an anachronistic crime but it is unfortunate if a country starts using it more actively.” Amal Clooney, human rights lawyer, addressing the India Today Conclave in New Delhi (March 18) “What we give to the poor are called subsidies but what we give to the rich is known as incentive. The government gives thousands of crores in bailout packages to corporations. On the other hand, a university budget is usually much smaller in scale.” Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the JNU Students Union who was recently released on bail in a sedition case (Outlook, March 21) “The tirade against the public education system and RTE Act is a classic case of giving the dog a bad name with intention to kill it, so that a wolf of their choice could replace it in the name of guarding the house.” Rohit Dhankar, professor at Azim Premji University, on alleged machinations of “the private schools lobby” against public education (The Hindu, March 26) “The bigger point is, we have reached a stage where we either have growth or equity. We have to admit that without greater equity we cannot sustain growth. You need a Budget or economic policy which understands that.” Harsh Mander, director, Centre for Equity Studies on Union Budget 2016-17 (Business Today, March 27) “There’s an epidemic in our country of girls and women feeling bad about themselves based on what 0.5 percent of the human race looks like.” Melissa McCarthy, Hollywood actress, arguing for more-inclusive beauty standards, especially in fashion (Time, March 28) “Between them, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, who ruled India for 37 of its first 42 years of independence, presided over one of Asia’s great economic flops.” Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, on dynastic politics in post-independence India (Times of India, March 28)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education Notes

Odisha Aiding & abetting teachers arrested Three teachers, including a headmaster, were arrested for allegedly messaging answers through a mobile phone to a student examinee during the recently concluded class X state board examinations in Ganjam district. The teachers have been charged under several sections of Odisha’s Conduct of Examinations Act, 1988, police informed mediapersons in Berhampur on March 6. During a routine check by invigilators, a mobile phone was recovered from the pocket of a class X student, said Ramakanta Mahallick, inspector-in-charge of Ganjam police station. The invigilators also retrieved answers of the maths exam paper from the phone, following which the police registered a first information report. Haryana Women education initiatives rain The (BJP) state government is set to promote 41 greenfield senior secondary schools for girls, education minister Ram Bilas Sharma announced in the legislative assembly in Chandigarh on March 21. He was replying to a question raised by independent MLA Jasbir Deswal on government initiatives to improve women’s education in the state. According to the minister, 34 of the proposed schools will be sited in the backward Mewat district. In addition, a military school for girls will be constructed in Khudana village of Mahendragarh district; two schools in the Morni Hills and one each in Zainabad and Dhokia in Rewari district, Bhiwani and Sonepat. Moreover, 32 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and 36 girls’ hostels are being built in educationally backward blocks of the state. Sharma added that class IX and X girl students of 1,536 government schools are being trained in self-defence and martial arts. “A proposal to open six government colleges for women is also under consideration,” he said. Madhya Pradesh Student suicides investigation committee State legislative assembly speaker Sitasharan Sharma has constituted an expert committee to investigate rising student suicides in MP. On March 4, opposition Congress MLAs raised the issue of rising student suicides in the assembly, prompting chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to urge the speaker to set up a committee to look into the issue. Intervening, Chouhan said: “It’s important for children to receive education that is stress-free. To achieve this, we must change the education system to enable children to realise their potential. Schools, teachers and parents are all to blame for exerting excessive pressure on students to score well in exams.” Chouhan also announced new initiatives to curb the student suicide epidemic. “From class IX onwards, counseling sessions for students, parents and teachers will be conducted, and physical education will be made compulsory together with yoga and meditation,” he added. Assam CID enquiry into school fire The state government has ordered a CID inquiry into a fire at the Sankardev Seminary School, Jorhat, which destroyed over 600 answer-scripts of class X students who wrote the exams conducted recently by the Secondary Education Board of Assam (SEBA). According to an official communique issued by SEBA in Guwahati on March 4, students whose answer-scripts were damaged in the fire will be given the option to re-write the exam on a notified…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Education Briefs

BJFSI Academy’s Mumbai kick-off

Boca Juniors Football School India (BJFSI), an affiliate of the Argentina-based Club Atletico Boca Juniors, one of the premier football clubs in the world, launched its Mumbai academy in collaboration with The Sports Gurukul, Mumbai on March 1. The BJFSI Academy was launched by Club Atletico’s technical director Petros Sideris, who announced that Antonio Lopez will be the head coach of the Mumbai academy. “We are in the third year of franchised operations in Bangalore, and very impressed with the talent we have seen so far. There is so much talent in India with limitless potential that we would like to tap it early. We want to create a unique experience for all the youngsters in and around Mumbai, and greater expansion of our operations is on the cards,” said Sideris, speaking on the occasion. “We are proud to bring the best football coaching practices to Mumbai. We have already selected a talented child who will be sent for international coaching to Argentina and we look forward to scouting for more children from the schools of Mumbai,” says Jay Shah, co-founder and director of The Sports Gurukul. Bayer Science Camp scholarships The Calgary (Canada)-based Bayer Science & Education Foundation will award 25 scholarships for the Bayer Science Camp to be convened in Denver, Colorado, USA from July 25-August 8. Ten scholarships will be awarded to school students from Germany, five each to teens from the US and India, and for the first time, another five to students from Africa. “Through our Science Teens Program, we want to get talented junior scientists excited about medical advancements and network them internationally,” explains Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord, executive director of the foundation. According to a press statement, the theme of the science camp is ‘Life Science and Medical Health Issues’. The camp will be conducted this year in partnership with the prestigious STEM Harmony Education Center of the University of Colorado. The selected teens will research scientific and medical health issues under professional guidance, interact with scientists and conduct experiments in the mountains surrounding Denver. Students in the 14-16 years age group with good grades in science subjects, strong interest in medical health issues and good command of the English language are eligible to apply. The application form should be downloaded from www.bayer.in and submitted together with a one-page English language essay on the ‘Role of the life sciences in health and society’. The deadline for applications is March 31. Education UK Alumni Awards The British Council, Delhi, honoured the achievements of distinguished Indian alumni of British universities of the past ten years. Awardees were selected from three categories: professional, business and social impact. The Education UK Alumni Awards 2016 were presented in Delhi on March 19 at a gala event attended by distinguished guests including Lord Jeffrey Mountevans, mayor of London, and Baroness Amos, director of the School of Oriental and African Studies. “Indian students have been studying in the UK for over 100 years, and 160,000 have graduated from British universities over…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Young Achievers

Mother’s Public School design duo

Nirmal Kumar Mahapatra (16) and Sailesh Ranjan (15) — class X students of Mother’s Public School (MPS), Bhubaneswar — were crowned champions at the National CBSE Science Exhibition 2015-16 staged in Delhi on February 8-10. This annual science competition — open to class VI-XI students — conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, drew 400 entries from 300 schools countrywide. The MPS duo impressed the jury with their well-researched Wonder D-Rone, a robotic wheelchair designed for people with loco-motor disabilities, whose eye movements (left, right, straight, shut), determined by infra-red sensors, enable the wheelchair to move in the appropriate direction. The theme of this year’s National CBSE Science Exhibition was ‘science and mathematics for inclusive development. “We began to develop the initial prototypes in the Creya XEL Design studio on our campus using building blocks and miniature sensors. Subsequently, we acquired a life-size wheelchair and began sourcing infra-red sensors and powerful motors to put our full-fledged prototype working model together. Finally, we programmed the robotic brain which drives the wheelchair. By repeatedly testing for design accuracy and reliability, we ensured mission success,” explains Nirmal. The duo freely acknowledges the guidance and enablement of their parents, school faculty and Creya facilitator Sumanth. “We are very grateful to our Creya mentors for their support and help in designing our robot by working continuously and beyond school hours with us. And without the support of our principal and science teachers, we would never have been able to complete the project,” says Sailesh. Inspired by the slew of innovations showcased by other finalists, their next challenge is to improve the model design through more competitions before signing up for engineering degree programmes after Plus Two. “My dream is to design robots for the benefit of humanity,” says Nirmal, while Sailesh dreams of becoming an IT entrepreneur. Wind in your sails! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Institution Profile

Jamnabai Narsee School, Mumbai

Its focus on holistic education — Jamnabai Narsee School is ranked among the country’s Top 10 co-ed day schools and #3 in Mumbai — has won it the patronage of Mumbai’s cognoscenti – Dipta Joshi Located in Mumbai’s tony JVPD Scheme area — a favoured address of Bollywood stars — over the past half century, Jamnabai Narsee School (JNS, estb. 1971) has emerged as one of the commercial capital’s most preferred day schools. This K-12 school, currently celebrating its 45th anniversary, is ranked among the Top 10 co-ed day schools countrywide and #3 in Mumbai in the EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) 2015. Its focus on holistic education — Jamnabai Narsee School is ranked among the Top 10 day schools countrywide on the parameters of academic reputation, competence of faculty, life skills and co-curricular education — has won it the patronage of Mumbai’s cognoscenti. Promoted by the Narsee Monjee Educational Trust (NMET), JNS is affiliated with Delhi-based Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). In response to community demand for international certification, in 2004 the trust also promoted the Jamnabai Narsee International School (JNIS) which offers the IGCSE (class X) curriculum of Cambridge International Examinations, UK and the IB Diploma Programme (class XI-XII) of the International Baccalaureate Organisation, Geneva. Moreover, last July, JNIS introduced IBO’s primary years programme (PYP) and middle years programme (MYP). Though the two schools are differentiated for administrative purposes, students share infrastructure and other facilities spread over the 200,000 sq. ft campus. Currently, the two schools boast an aggregate enrolment of 4,900 students mentored by 350 teachers. “The school’s founders — Chatrabhuj Narsee, Pratap Narsee and Dharamshi Narsee who named the institution after their mother Jamnabai — set high benchmarks not only for academics and infrastructure but also for extra-curricular and sports education. Over the years, the school has built upon this broad vision and developed and upgraded pedagogies and facilities to ensure that every student receives high-quality education enabled by excellent academics, sports and arts facilities,” says Sujay Jairaj, an NMET trustee whose grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the school. Jairaj is also vice president of Golden Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. The management’s emphasis on well-rounded education and provision of enabling state-of-the-art infrastructure has paid rich academic dividends. In 2015, of the 274 students who wrote the class X (ICSE) exam, 146 scored 90 percent-plus while in the class XII (ISC) exam, 87 students (out of 150) averaged above 90 percent. In the IGCSE (class X) exam conducted by CIE (UK), 18 students (out of the 62) scored 90 percent-plus. Similarly, of the 100 students who wrote the IB diploma exam last year, three recorded a score of 44 grade points (out of a maximum possible 45). Unsurprisingly, JNS school-leavers are welcomed by the world’s top universities including Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale, Johns Hopkins and London School of Economics, among others. According to Zeenat Bhojabhoy, principal of JNS, a distinguishing feature of the school is its…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Institution Profile

Imperial College London

This science and technology university (Imperial College London) is routinely ranked among the world’s Top 10 institutions by all major rating agencies – SUMMIYA YASMEEN Scattered across nine campuses in London, Imperial College (estb.1907) is routinely ranked among the world’s Top 10 universities for its high-quality academic programmes and research. Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rank Imperial College London (ICL) #8 in their World University Rankings 2015, while the Sunday Times University Guide 2016 ranks it #3 in the UK. A science and technology university (it doesn’t offer arts and humanities programmes), UK’s latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) rates 91 percent of Imperial research as “world-leading” or “internationally excellent” — the highest rating of any varsity in the UK. Currently, Imperial college London offers undergrad, postgraduate and doctoral programmes in the faculties of medicine, engineering, natural sciences and business to 14,700 students from 125 countries around the world. Over the past 109 years, Imperial College London has contributed numerous cutting-edge innovations to society including discovery of penicillin, development of holography and the principles of fibre optics. Imperial College faculty and alumni include 14 Nobel laureates, two Fields medalists, 73 fellows of the Royal Society, 81 fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 81 fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Unsurprisingly, ICL graduates are highly sought after: the New York Times (2012) ranked ICL graduates among the Top 10 most-welcomed in the global job market. A member of the Russell Group of 24 research-intensive universities, Imperial College London was established in 1907 following the amalgamation of the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines and the City & Guilds College. In its centenary year (2007), it became independent of the University of London and was awarded the status of a university in its own right. London. With a population of 8.5 million — of whom over 300,000 are students — London boasts some of the world’s best-known monuments, buildings, museums, galleries, sports clubs, restaurants, clubs, shopping centres and theatres. The nine campuses of Imperial College are scattered across London, and offer students easy access to museums, art galleries, the British Library, as well as the archives of numerous professional organisations. Moreover, ICL students are ideally located to network with globally respected corporates and employers for internships and job placements. There are also many part-time work opportunities in London for students needing to work while studying (international students are permitted to work 10-20 hours a week during term and full-time during vacations). Campus facilities. Imperial College London sprawls over nine campuses in Charing Cross, Chelsea and Westminster, Hammersmith, White City, North West London Hospitals, Royal Brompton, Silwood Park, South Kensington and St. Mary’s. The main South Kensington campus is a compact site in the heart of ‘Albertopolis’ which offers a range of architectural styles from the Edwardian Royal School of Mines building to the ultra-modern Norman Foster-designed Business School. There’s plenty of green space too, including a beautiful landscaped square, with the famous Queen’s Tower. Facilities in South Ken…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Career Focus

Rising worldwide demand for digital artists

This 21st century career, which involves creating computerised commercial artwork and designs, is a hot and happening career option – Swati Roy To the ever-growing list of tech-driven careers spawned by new IT and computer technologies, add digital art. This 21st-century career, which involves creating commercial artwork and designs using the computer, has emerged as a hot and happening option for IT savvy and artistically inclined professionals, with advertising agencies, design firms, publishing houses, television production companies, electronic media, website and internet businesses scrambling for their services. A digital artist uses computer software programmes such as Photoshop, Corel Draw and Cinema 4D, to create computer/multimedia concepts, design and simulations for mass production. In this, she is different from a traditional artist who uses raw materials such as master pencils, brushes, paints, etc to create exclusive art. With sophisticated computer technologies at her command, a digital artist is capable of combining painting, filmmaking, photography, digital design, video, installation art, sculpture, animation and sound to produce multimedia digital art. Because it is relatively cost and time effective compared to traditional creations, digital art is being increasingly preferred for advertising purposes and by filmmakers to produce mindblowing visual effects. Digital art customers comprise the electronic and print media, video games, website design and the film industries, but almost as often, it is printed out and hung on walls. Study Programmes A bachelor’s degree in fine arts/graphic design/visual arts is a good foundation for a career in digital art. Among the well-reputed design institutes offering fine arts programmes are the Sir J.J. School of Applied Art, Mumbai; National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore and Maeer’s MIT Institute of Design, Pune. Digital art is offered as an elective in the degree programmes of these institutions. Moreover, the dedicated Indian Institute of Digital Art and Animation, Kolkata, offers certificate/diploma programmes in digital art. For those keen on studying this subject abroad, Pennsylvania State University (USA) and University of Kent (UK) offer bachelor’s degrees in digital arts. An online certificate programme is also offered by Pennsylvania State Online University while www.iversity.org offers a Mooc (massive open online course) in digital art. After acquiring a basic grounding in the principles of art and design, it’s important to familiarise yourself with, and master computer software used to produce digital commercial art. A number of IT training and education institutes including Aptech, NIIT and Maya Academy offer short-term learning programmes of popular computer/multimedia software packages. Pay and Progression Although digital art is in its nascent stages, for those with unconventional ideas and creative flair, there’s rising demand and an array of choices. Freshers start at Rs.30,000-40,000 per month with Rs.1-1.5 lakh normative for experienced digital artists. There’s also the option to work freelance after acquiring five-six years work experience. “With online media businesses and enterprises growing exponentially, there are huge opportunities worldwide for artists with digital conceptualisation and design skills and deep knowledge of design software. For artists who love to create and innovate,…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Career Focus

Your counselor replies

I’m a class XII (science) student interested in studying medicine. If I don’t qualify for medical school, what related specialisation should I choose in my B.Sc degree programme? Raju Iyengar, Chennai Your best options are pharmacy and biotechnology, which offer good employment opportunities. You may also want to consider microbiology, life sciences, genetics, and zoology. To improve your career prospects, sign up for an M.Sc degree programme. I’m a class X student interested in the forensic psychology degree programme offered by John Jay College, New York. Which other foreign universities offer this programme? Aditi Patil, Pune The forensic psychology degree offered by John Jay College is undoubtedly highly reputed. But the Alliant International University, California School of Forensic Studies and the American School of Professional Psychology are equally reputed. The Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology also offers a degree programme with forensic psychology concentration. In the UK, the University of Portsmouth and London Metropolitan University are well-known for forensic psychology. After completing class XII (science), I want to study chemical engineering. What are my job opportunities? Mario D’Souza, Panjim Chemicals are used in almost all manufacturing industries from toiletries, medicines, fertilizers, petrol additives, lubricants, construction chemicals, and pesticides, to plastics. Unsurprisingly, there are over 70,000 enterprises manufacturing chemicals across India. So there’s no shortage of employment opportunities. To qualify, a B.Tech/BE degree in chemical/ biochemical engineering is a prerequisite. The job profile of a chemical engineer involves designing, monitoring and developing chemical/biochemical equipment and processes; ensuring production units are safe and environment-friendly; evaluating costs and preparing production reports; conducting research; supervising maintenance staff; and using software packages to design plant and equipment. Job opportunities are in production, operations, R&D, quality management, plant maintenance, logistics, procurement, health, safety and environment management. Remuneration is also attractive. I’m currently in my second year B.Sc degree programme and wish to sign up for a Masters in environment sustainability and ecology abroad. Which universities in the US and UK offer these programmes? Ragini Advani, Mumbai In the US, Yale University offers a Master of environmental management programme and University of Pennsylvania a Master of environmental studies degree programme — both of which are highly-reputed. Syracuse University also offers a Masters programme in environmental engineering, and in the UK, Lancaster and Buckingham universities offer postgrad programmes in environmental engineering. I’m a BA (history) student. After completing my Masters, I want to make a career — other than in teaching — in a related field. Please advise. Neerja Mukherjee, Kolkata There are three main specialisations related to history — archaeology, museology and archival studies. With an undergrad degree in history, you are eligible to sign up for a Masters in any of these specialisations. As an archaeologist, your work will be research-based or field-oriented (or both). Excavation work or digs is only one aspect of archaeology. Most archaeologists specialise in chosen areas of historical interest and become experts, for example on coins (numismatist), weapons, sculpture and inscriptions (epigraphist). Archaeologists are employed by the Archaeological Survey of India…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Teacher-to-Teacher

New learning paradigms

I returned to India in 1968 after graduating from Cambridge and 11 years of teaching physics at Gordonstoun — the well-known British public school. I was immediately struck by the glaring lack of hands-on learning in India’s best schools. Science is an observational subject, and doing, observing and interpreting are integral to the scientific process. Memorising laws and formulae is secondary. Yet more than 40 years later, reports of several official commissions chaired by well-known educationists indicate that teaching of science in India’s schools remains as textbooks-bound as before. Rather, dependence on memorised formulae to solve problems form the core of science teaching in the country today. It’s particularly wasteful to stuff and clutter children’s brains with potentially defunct knowledge because we have little idea of what knowledge and skills will be required five years from now. Did we have the slightest inkling at the turn of the century that within 15 years the smartphone would be so essential for contemporary living that nearly a billion people, poor and rich, would own one? The unlikeliest of people use smartphones today and when questioned, they all say it has helped them increase their business, whether it’s a thelawala talking to a supplier who wants to know when he’s available, or a ragpicker calling for help as she has located a large dump of plastic bags! It’s incontrovertible that Indian children are very bright — even those who have limited access to knowledge. Today with the ubiquity of television and mobile phones, children are more aware of their world than we were. Information is flowing at unimaginable speeds and children are keeping up. They learn very quickly about which button to press on the remote! They seem to be genetically hardwired. I have given a computer and an internet connection to my housemaid’s children without teaching them anything except how to switch it on and off and connect with the internet. But they’ve promptly learned to download songs and games. At this point in their lives, they don’t need to learn more. I’m confident that as time goes by, they will learn to use Google and other search engines to acquire information and enhance their knowledge. In this rapidly changing world, the role of the teacher has also changed. This is a particularly critical and important issue. Since information is now available at an instant click, dispensing it through textbooks has become less important than how information is used. So children have to be taught how to access information and how to use it. To learn this, I believe there are five qualities that need to be developed in children to make them genuine learners. I describe them as the 5 Cs — curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication and learning to make choices. In fact, human progress through the ages has depended on these five attributes of the human mind. It is curiosity that led to each and every discovery but no good would have come of it but for inherent creativity,…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

People

Higher education facilitators: Gaurav Surana

Gaurav Surana is founder-director of the Kolkata-based Tutors Circle Education Pvt. Ltd (TCE, estb.2011), a company providing education consultancy services including test preparation and application assistance to students aspiring to study abroad. Currently, TCE’s team of five alumni of top-ranked universities (London, IIT-Kharagpur, IIM-Bangalore) provide counseling to students to facilitate their admission into undergrad, postgraduate and MBA programmes of premier institutions abroad. Newspeg. Tutors Circle is adding two new verticals this year. The first will provide test prep and counseling services to students for undergrad and postgraduate education within India. The other project, ICudB (International Colleges & Universities Data Base), launched in mid-March, is a user-friendly one-stop shop for all information required by Indian students wanting to study abroad. “ICudB will extensively provide college profiles and scholarships information together with applications tracking services,” says Gaurav Surana. History. A finance postgraduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Surana began his professional career with Merrill Lynch (2004-08) in the US, before returning to Kolkata, and started mentoring students for study abroad prior to promoting TCE three years later. Since then, the company has prepared and placed over 2,000 students in premier universities abroad, including Oxford (UK), MIT (USA), Princeton (USA), Warwick, London School of Economics, St. Andrews University (UK), RWTH Aachen (Germany) and ETH, Zurich (Switzerland). In March 2014, Surana together with Priyamvada Agarwal — an alumna of Calcutta University with postgrad certification in special education and counseling from Cambridge University — promoted BONDs which helps students prepare for GMAT, GRE, SAT, TOEFL, PTE & IELTS. “Our students are put through a series of intensive mock tests to strengthen and sharpen their skills to crack these exams. With class size restricted to six and students coached by highly-qualified mentors, we have a 92 percent success record,” says Agarwal. Prices for services range from Rs.5,000-50,000. Direct talk. “Our USP is that we are a team of graduates from top universities abroad and in India. We offer globally equivalent services based on our own experiences with education abroad. Two mentors are assigned to each student to prepare them to write exams and choose the appropriate college/university,” says Gaurav Surana. Future plans. With the explosive growth of e-commerce and internet usage worldwide, Surana has drawn up plans to transform TCE into an online business enterprise helping students from small cities to cross every hurdle as they plan their higher education in India or abroad. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

International News

Europe: Exemplary public universities

When US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders painted a picture of the perfect model of higher education, he didn’t reference Harvard, Yale or Stanford; instead he cited universities in Germany and Scandinavia. He held up their education systems as ones the US should emulate when pledging to make tuition free at public colleges and universities last year. “This is not a radical idea,” he wrote on his campaign website. “Last year, Germany eliminated tuition because they believed that charging students $1,300 (Rs.87,815) per year was discouraging Germans from going to college… Finland, Norway, Sweden and many other countries around the world also offer free college to all of their citizens. If other countries can take this action, so can the United States of America.” A new ranking published on March 10 by Times Higher Education lends weight to the senator’s rosy view; Germany, Finland and Sweden are among the highest-performing countries in a list of the Top 200 universities in Europe. The ranking is based on the data and methodology used to compile the THE World University Rankings 2015-16. Institutions are measured on their teaching and research environments, citations (research influence), industry income and international outlook. While the UK dominates the table, taking nearly a quarter of places (46), including seven of the Top 10, Germany is the second most-represented nation, with 36 universities, almost a third of which (11) are in the Top 50. The nation’s institutions score particularly highly for their teaching environment: a measure based on reputation for teaching, as well as metrics such as income and numbers of students and doctorates per staff member. They also achieve high average scores for research citations and links with industry. While Finland and Sweden are much smaller nations, they both punch above their weight relative to their population size and gross domestic product (GDP). Both countries have about 11 universities in the Top 200 per 10 million of the population — beating the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. Other strong performers on those measures include Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and (per head of population) Switzerland. When assessed on the number of universities in the Top 200 in relation to GDP per capita, which reflects spending power, the UK and Germany rank highest. “The top research universities in northwestern Europe… have considerably lifted their performance and profile at world level in the last 15 years,” says Simon Marginson, professor of international higher education at the UCL Institute of Education. “The first international ranking systems more than a decade ago played a role by energising them to lift their performance in the face of the very strong American sector. On the whole, they have had strong support from government.” Jussi Valimaa, professor at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at Finland’s University of Jyvsskyla, says one reason for the country’s success is that some “strong academic fields” can be found in “every Finnish university”. “This means every Finnish university reaches the highest international standard in one or more disciplines. Normally, this…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

International News

Australia: Mainstreaming Indigenous students

A rise in indigenous (aboriginal, equivalent to India’s scheduled castes and tribes) student enrolments in Australia should not obscure the need for “culturally appropriate and continuous support” to improve low completion rates, an academic has cautioned. Recent federal government figures show that aboriginal and Torres Strait islander enrolments grew 7.6 percent in the first half of 2015. Universities Australia says this, along with a rise in enrolments for disadvantaged students, show that the removal of student number caps coupled with ongoing support programmes “continue to drive an expansion of access… for traditionally under-represented groups”. Yet there remain calls for universities and the government to address low graduation rates among Indigenous students. A 2015 paper for the Australian Council for Educational Research found that among students who began courses in 2005, completion rates were 47 percent for Indigenous students against 74 percent for the non-indigenous. Indigenous students are seen as more likely to experience financial pressures, particularly if they have travelled long distances from rural homes to study in cities. Critics argue that payments from Abstudy, the federal government financial support programme for Indigenous students, have failed to keep pace with cost of living increases and claim that other support has been cut back. Belinda Robinson, chief executive of Universities Australia, explains that in 2011, the organisation produced a best practice framework for “indigenous cultural competency in Australian universities”, which “was developed in partnership with aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people and has been an invaluable resource” in sharing successful strategies. There have been a number of appointments of Indigenous senior staff, including Shane Houston at the University of Sydney, the first Indigenous person to be appointed to a deputy vice chancellor post. Peter Buckskin, a Narungga male from the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, is dean of Indigenous scholarship, engagement and research at the University of South Australia and chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium. Buckskin says the work of universities includes “university familiarisation programmes for indigenous high school students, lifting the numbers of indigenous academics… including promoting indigenous leadership to senior executive positions, building indigenous content into the curriculum and campus life, offering cultural awareness professional development for academics and creating culturally appropriate spaces on campus where indigenous students can go for support”. Despite the rise in enrolments, Indigenous students comprise only 1.1 percent of all students. Prof. Buckskin highlights the rising number of Indigenous students completing high school. He says there’s “obviously still some way to go” before university enrolments are “on par with the fact that our people make up 3 percent of the Australian population — but these recent trends of strong growth are heading in the right direction”.

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

International News

United Kingdom: Brexit tremors in academia

The UK leaving the European Union (‘Brexit’) would create “a huge problem” for British universities in new barriers to European research collaboration while damaging higher education across Europe, according to senior officials in German education. Universities UK (UUK) has been running a campaign to highlight the benefits of membership to the nation’s universities that will gain increased momentum now that David Cameron has set the date of the referendum on the nation’s EU membership for June 23. The future of relations between universities from the UK and Germany — the EU’s most populous nation, its largest economy and one of its leading players in higher education — could be altered by a Brexit. Horst Hippler, president of the German Rectors’ Conference (the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz or HRK, Germany’s equivalent of UUK), told Times Higher Education: “To have Britain no longer belonging to the EU would be a disaster for international research in Europe.” He added that “we have this problem already with Switzerland”, referring to the fallout after Swiss voters backed tougher restrictions on immigration in a 2014 referendum. After the vote, the EU temporarily suspended talks with Switzerland, which is not an EU member, over its participation as an associated country in the union’s Horizon 2020 research and Erasmus+ student mobility programmes. Higher education opponents of a Brexit argue that the Swiss case shows the UK may find it hard to leave the EU while retaining access to key programmes in research and student mobility. “When you’re no longer a member and just want to do some ‘raisin picking’, there will be a problem,” says Prof. Hippler, a former president of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. A Brexit would represent “a huge problem because research and science is always international”, he warned. “It would just increase barriers between Germany and Great Britain for exchange and all these things, which at the moment is very open.” Bernd Huber, president of LMU Munich and former chairman of the League of European Research Universities, says his personal view is that “Britain leaving the EU — whatever this means, that’s part of the debate — would really be a catastrophe.” He adds that “one of the reasons is that the UK always stands for competition and for performance (in higher education) — that’s a very important element in the European debate”. The president of LMU, the highest-ranked German institution in the 2015-16 THE World University Rankings (#29), adds: “The whole approach to higher education policy within the rest of Europe… that would change without the membership of the UK, because the UK has these very good universities, has this idea of performance incentives. This philosophy, this view and this perspective would be lost on the (European) higher education scene.”

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

International News

China: Unique Masters programme

Is it realistic for an academic programme to set out with the explicit aim of identifying, educating and, crucially, networking future world leaders, as a business school might do for future company chief executives? This is the ambition of Schwarzman Scholars, a new scholarship programme that is backed by American money, based in China and led by a British academic. Sir Nigel Thrift, former vice chancellor of the University of Warwick, is moving to New York to head the programme, which will be taught 7,000 miles away at Tsinghua University in Beijing and will include modules on Chinese history, economics and language. It was established with a $100 million (Rs.670 crore) donation from hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Schwarzman, a pledge that has since been bolstered with a further $275 million from other sources. So does Thrift see any symbolism in the different contributions made by the US (financial), the UK (leadership) and China (academic focus)? “It shows that higher education has become incredibly international now, and that’s something that’s evident from looking at the students on the course as well,” he told Times Higher Education. “They come from the most remarkable range of backgrounds, not just the US.” The goal is for about half the students to be American and a fifth Chinese, with the remainder coming from other countries. The first cohort will consist of 111 students, selected from a pool of 3,000 candidates after an interview process that was reportedly conducted in part by a former CIA director. The teaching on the one-year Master’s course will be delivered primarily by Chinese professors, supported by high-profile visiting scholars such as the former Harvard president and economist Lawrence H. Summers. It will be taught in English — unusual in China — but students will also be required to take classes in Mandarin, and will pursue one of three degree options: public policy, economics and business, or international studies. “We’re aiming to give these students serious exposure to China in all sorts of ways, whether that’s language teaching, Chinese history and culture — the idea is that when they leave, their leadership qualities will be enhanced, but so will their understanding of China and, of course, their contacts,” says Thrift. It is inevitable, given the nature of the Schwarzman Scholars programme, that questions will be asked about the underlying motivation. Is it ultimately an attempt to improve US-Chinese integration at a political and economic level: education as a strand of diplomacy? “It’s a kind of declaration,” Thrift replies. “China is there, and we need to have good relations with China. It doesn’t matter whether the students are from the US, Europe or elsewhere. This is about making sure that those links are forged early on, and I think that’s absolutely crucial. There are, inevitably, misunderstandings between people from different nations, and the only ways I know to solve most of those are patient diplomacy and building from ground up.”

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

International News

South Africa: Slide towards academic anarchy

First they came for the statues. Last year students in Cape Town sparked national protests by calling on the University of Cape Town (UCT) to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist who, like most Englishmen of his time, held racist views. The statue was removed but students were still angry. Many marched on South Africa’s parliament to complain about high college fees, among other things. That prompted a cash-strapped government not to raise fees after all. Protests about statues of dead racists soon spread worldwide. Students demanded that Oriel College, Oxford take down its statue of Rhodes. (It refused.) The University of Texas at Austin has moved a bronze of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president, and will place it in a museum. Meanwhile, back in Cape Town, UCT students starting a new academic year after the long summer break were quick to resume protests, this time over gripes such as not having enough spaces in university dormitories. They stormed through the campus grabbing artworks and burning them. Most paintings they heaped on a bonfire were portraits of white historical figures. They were, declared one protester, “symbols of the coloniser”. Another protester proudly posted pictures of the bonfire on Twitter, showing flames licking at the edges of a plaque commemorating Jan Smuts, a British-educated general who was twice South Africa’s prime minister and helped write the preamble to the UN’s founding charter. The tweet accompanying it proclaimed: “Whiteness is burning”. In UCT, some students recently started a shisa nyama, grilling sausages and chops over charcoal. The flames spread. The small band of students refused to remove the shack, which university officials said was blocking traffic, and went on a rampage. They burned a car, a bus and the office of Max Price, the university’s vice chancellor. “It is utterly regrettable that a movement that began with such promise and purport to be fighting for social justice matters has now deteriorated into a group that engages in criminality,” says Price. Little seems left of the lofty aims that prompted students to take to the streets last October, when they garnered widespread support for their argument that high tuition fees put university education out of reach for black students from poor families. The shortage of housing at UCT is partly due to the success of those protests: enrolment has increased thanks to lower fees and measures to reduce student debt. Students arrested for damaging property at UCT included several who are not obviously poor, such as the son of the chief executive of Eskom, the state power utility. Other universities have seen violent protests, too, largely over fees and overcrowding. A student leader at Walter Sisulu University told the Daily Sun, a tabloid: “We’re going to destroy everything.”

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Interview

“We plan to build a strong community of IB schools in India”

Dr. Siva Kumari is director-general of the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), Geneva, which has 3,800 affiliated schools in 147 countries worldwide. An alumna of Cincinnati and Houston (USA) universities, Dr. Kumari was formerly provost of K-12 initiatives at Rice University, Houston before to being appointed regional director (Asia-Pacific) of the IBO in 2009. In January 2014, she became the first Indian-origin woman to be appointed director-general of IBO. Excerpts from a telephone-cum-email interview: The number of IB schools in India has grown from a handful in the 1990s to over 120 currently. How satisfied are you with this pace of growth? Quite satisfied. We aren’t looking for growth in terms of number of affiliated schools. Our objective is to create a community of mission-aligned schools which can add value to the country’s education system. We are satisfied that Indian students now have access to a set of standards and curriculums which are internationally benchmarked. IBO’s school-leaving IB diploma has proved popular around the world. To what factors do you attribute this phenomenon? The diploma is an academically rigorous programme which prepares students around the world for higher education with a time-tested standardised curriculum. The best universities in the world regard an IB diploma holder as having been thoroughly tested and prepared for university. The diploma programme contains subjects of study which are unique to IBO. Students are not only prescribed a wider range of subjects than other national and international examination boards, they are also trained in research skills and undertake projects which have real world impact, often within their own communities. Consequently, they are equipped with critical thinking and research skills of undergraduate students, giving them an early advantage. What would you say are the distinguishing characteristics of IBO curriculums and pedagogy? Our primary, middle years and IB diploma programmes are learner-centric and strike a balance between rigorous academics and life skills such as creativity and experiential learning which enable students to apply theoretical learning and knowledge. We incorporate best teaching and learning practices from around the world and our curriculums from PYP (primary years programme) onwards encourage students to think critically and apply knowledge to local and global problems. Our objective is to teach students to think, analyse and develop specific skills to manage their learning for life. It’s widely believed that teacher training and development which IBO insists upon as condition of granting affiliation, is very expensive. What’s your comment? We are aware of feedback from our schools about the relatively high cost of teacher training. But we insist on high investment in teacher development to prepare teachers in affiliated schools for IB-type teaching. We believe students and parents need teachers who can make a 180 degree difference, and we have a large network of teacher educators throughout the world who can train and prepare teachers of newly affiliated schools. Sharing of best practices across international boundaries is also an invaluable part of what we offer. That said, we are continually creating new teacher education models to…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Sports Education

Enjoying flow of play experiences

More than three decades of research shows that focus on effort — not intelligence or ability — is the key to success in school and in life — Carol S. Dweck Psychologists involved in studying the motivation and achievements of sportspersons over the past three decades are now almost unanimous that the traditional winner-takes-all philosophy does little to encourage performance. Instead, there’s an emerging consensus that focusing on improvement and mastery is the key to achievement, enjoyment and staying power for all athletes — professional to recreational. One of the brightest stars on the subject of motivation and achievement, is Dr. Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University. In her fascinating book Mindset (2006) she contradicts the popular belief that talent and innate ability are the prerequisites of success. Instead, she argues that while talent is important, the key to success in any field of endeavour is having the right mindset. She distinguishes between a “fixed” mindset — one in which we believe that our intelligence, personality and character are carved in stone — and a “growth” mindset in which we perceive that natural talents are simply a starting point for development through sustained effort. In Mindset, she demonstrates how people with growth mindsets can develop habits of learning and personal improvement which can propel them to great heights of achievement. And she demonstrates how all of us can develop a growth mindset. The two mindsets Dr. Dweck has identified have enormous implications for athletes, coaches and sports-loving parents. If your child or teen does something well, either on the playing field or in the classroom, Dweck’s research offers clear guidance on how to build on achievement and move towards perfection. For example, you might say, “Wow, that was great play. You are really good!” This focus on talent reinforces a fixed mindset and the idea that your child has little or no control over her development. A tough challenge in the future becomes even tougher because talented people aren’t supposed to be stumped by a challenge. On the other hand, you could say, “Wow, that was great play. You’ve really been working hard, and it’s paying off.” This reinforces a growth mindset that good performance is a result of effort. Such intelligent encouragement prompts children to try harder when confronted with challenges. Whenever possible, coaches and parents should stress the importance of effort in helping people improve and learn. This means consciously stopping short of attributing any success that your son or daughter attains to talent or intelligence. Focusing on talent rather than effort endangers a person’s ability to strive when faced with unanticipated challenges. In my work with young people today, I feel successful if I can get students and young athletes to make unprecedented effort. But I’m overjoyed if I can help them enjoy the process of making the effort. Often, it isn’t clear to sportspersons how much they enjoy making the big leap forward until the experience is over. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow: The…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Books

Victim of his virtues

On my terms: from the grassroots to the corridors of power by Sharad Pawar tiger publishing; Price: Rs.699; Pages: 264 One of post-independence India’s most durable and dominant figures in national politics is Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar. In his long — and still enduring — career as an MP/MLA which began in 1967, Pawar has never lost an election from Baramati (pop. 54,415) or its assembly segments. Perennially in the heart of politics and action, he has served four terms as chief minister of Maharashtra — India’s most industrialised state — and in key ministries at the Centre, including defence and agriculture, for over a decade. After finishing this chronologically complete but typically non-argumentative and non-recriminatory autobiography, the conclusion of this reviewer is that Pawar, now in the twilight of his political career, (narrowly) failed to make it to the prime minister’s office in Delhi for precisely the very qualities which facilitated his rise in politics: his patient listening, consensus-building skills and genuine commitment to democracy. These rare traits were interpreted as lack of will, manipulative capability and not enough steel required to get to the top of the political firmament. Born into a large family, the ninth of 11 children of Sharadabai and Govindrao Pawar, the latter a senior officer in the Neera Canal Cooperative Society, Baramati, Sharad had the good fortune of being blessed with a relatively well-educated (class VII) and politically active mother who, he readily acknowledges, was “the biggest influence” in his life. By this account, Sharadabai who became the first woman to be elected to the Pune Local Board, was a woman of strong political convictions who was a life-long member of the Left-wing Peasants & Workers Party (PWP) despite her husband, as also Sharad, opting to join the Congress. Modestly schooled in Baramati, Sharad received his higher education in the Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, Pune, where he readily confesses, his prime focus was on extracurricular activities as an elected students’ representative who organised debates, theatre performances and conducted elections in Pune University’s colleges. In 1958, he registered himself as an active member of the Congress party and attracted the attention of Yeshwantrao Chavan, a much-admired politician who two years later, when the Bombay Presidency was divided into the two states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, was appointed the first chief minister of the latter. Given his political activism and organisational abilities, within a short period Sharad was elected secretary of the Pune Youth Congress, secretary of the western Maharashtra youth wing and in 1962, president of the Maharashtra Youth Congress. Five years later, despite stiff opposition, he was elected MLA for the first time from Baramati. This launched his political career, establishing him as a grassroots and party worker, which impressed the Congress leadership. In 1972 at age 32, Pawar was inducted into the state cabinet. Having built a solid foundation, Pawar was on his way to becoming one of the country’s most influential political leaders of the next three decades. It needs to be noted…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Eduleader Bytes

Ashok Wasu, Director, Summer Valley Group of Schools

Ashok Wasu, Founder-director, Summer Valley Group of Schools, Dehradun Where would you place education on your national list of priorities? Education is core to creating a capable and vibrant India and to bring about economic and social transformation. How best to upgrade government schools? Ensure adequate quality manpower supported by continuous teacher training and new technologies implementation. Thinker/philosopher you admire the most. Swami Vivekananda and Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Your favourite Nobel laureate. Rabindranath Tagore and Dr. Hargobind Khorana who won the Nobel Prize for medicine. Your leadership style. I believe in leading and learning by collaboration and including everyone in the decision-making process. Your favourite book on education. How People Learn by John D. Bransford. It’s a must-read for all teachers. For or against the RTE Act’s 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools? Children should be sent to private schools only if government schools cannot accommodate them. Also read: Why the RTE act should be scrapped How satisfied are you with the growth and development of the Summer Valley Group of schools? It is hard to ever be satisfied with the growth and development of education institutions. But we’re moving in the right direction. Pessimistic or optimistic about the future of education in India? These are good times for education. Great technological advances are happening, there are new subjects, career paths and many qualified people to teach, and so much talent. I am very optimistic.

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Postscript

Flamboyant fraud

Less than five years ago, the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM, estb.1973), fronted by its flamboyant pony-tailed promoter-director Arindam Chaudhuri, was one of the biggest advertisers in the mainstream press with a penchant for full-page ads in the Times of India which trumpeted IIPM as one of the Top 10 B-schools in India — globally networked, ahead of its time and daring to dream. Well, that era is over. According to online magazine Scroll.in (March 24), Chaudhuri, who had filed criminal and civil defamation cases in courts all over the country — Assam, Haryana and Uttarakhand apart from Delhi — against Maheshwer Peri, publisher of Careers360, for daring to allege that the tall claims made about the six-figure salaries and fantastic capabilities of IIPM graduates were fictional, has withdrawn all of them and shut down IIPM’s 18 branches across the country. Nevertheless, it has to be conceded that for over four decades, the promoters of IIPM, first Dr. Malay Chaudhuri who claims to have been a professor at IIM-Bangalore and later his Saville Row-styled offspring, managed to lure thousands of gullible students mainly from small town India who paid up Rs.5-6 lakh per year for IIPM’s patchwork, home-brewed two-year MBA diploma programme, which wasn’t approved by UGC or AICTE. However, even the hard-nosed managers of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), which owns the Times of India, were fooled into signing their famous equity-for-advertising ‘partnership treaty’ with the Chaudhuris, which explains the very expensive full-page ads IIPM was able to afford in TOI. Today BCCL’s shareholding in IIPM is as worthless as the MBA diplomas awarded to thousands of the institute’s graduates done in by the Chaudhuris. Contrary to what Abraham Lincoln famously said, you can fool all the people, even if not all the time, for long enough to make a fortune. And in the Indian socialist soft state, you may get away with it. Neta-babu victory Institutionalisation of corruption is proceeding apace in the southern state of Karnataka which until recently enjoyed the reputation of being the most well-administered in the country. Now that’s history. In recent decades, as the state transformed into a hub of industry and commerce, it has steadily acquired a notorious reputation for government and institutional corruption. To his credit, in 1984 the late Ramakrishna Hegde, then chief minister of Karnataka took the initiative to appoint the country’s first Lok Ayukta (‘people’s friend’) aka ombudsman, to independently entertain, investigate and adjudicate charges of corruption against politicians and government employees. Although the seven ombudsmen — all of them retired Supreme Court or high court judges — appointed under the state’s Lok Ayukta Act were not able to stem Karnataka’s rising tide of corruption, the Lok Ayukta’s office in Bangalore investigated an average of 2,000 complaints against government officials per year, infusing some fear into the rampantly corrupt state machinery. In February 2013 after Justice Bhaskar Rao, a former chief justice of the Karnataka high court was appointed Lok Ayukta, the contagion of…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda