EducationWorld August 09

It is prayer time at the Nur madrassa (Islamic religious school) in Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province on the northern coast of Mozambique. At this school, education does not stop at religious studies; on Saturdays, the malimo (teacher), Mitilage Rashid, talks to the 120 students about HIV and AIDS.In 2008 Rashid attended a course on HIV run by the Islamic Council of Mozambique, in partnership with other organisations, where he and 30 other teachers learned about the epidemic and how to conduct education campaigns at their schools. Mozambiques national prevalence rate is 16 percent; in mainly Muslim Cabo Delgado, which borders Tanzania, it is 10.6 percent, the lowest in the country. Although some teachers still shun the subject, others understand the importance of discussing it, but the HIV message in the madrassas is quite different from that in regular schools. According to Sheikh Mohammed Abdulai Cheba, director of Cabo Delgados 54 madrassas, the message has two parts: the first makes it clear that HIV is a divine punishment; the second reinforces the idea that the only way to prevent it is through abstinence and fidelity. The mouse cannot see the peanut, or else he will want to eat it. If you carry a condom in your pocket, youre going to start thinking things. People have sex illegally but this is a grave mistake, because it occurs outside the authorisation of the family. If they want to commit this act, they must prepare all of the requisites: get married, bring their families closer and legalise the life theyre going to lead, says Cheba. Condoms are not discussed, as the teachers feel they could lead pupils to have sex, which is haram (‘forbidden in Arabic). Yet associating HIV with forbidden behaviour must not encourage prejudice or discrimination. If someone is sick — Muslim or not — they deserve to be counselled, and we support them, morally and materially, says Cheba. As a teacher, I always advise students to use condoms, says Adamo Selemani Daudo, who teaches history at the Fraternidade Secondary School, which is supported by the Islamic community and is located next to one of the most conservative mosques in Pemba. In the madrassas they defend not using condoms in order to practice fidelity, but there is no fidelity nowadays in Mozambique. I tell my students that condoms are an individual matter, says Daudo. (Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)

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An international ombudsman to uphold the principles and values of higher education should be established alongside a global index of academic freedom. These are the key recommendations made by senior figures in European education who gathered in Romanias capital Bucharest, in early summer (May) to attend the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisations (Unesco) forum on higher education. The proposals are made in the ‘Bucharest Message, which was submitted for validation to Unescos 2009 World Conference on Higher Education held in Paris in July.The key recommendations are the creation of an international ombudsman and a global index to rank nations according to their commitment to university autonomy and academic freedom. The Bucharest Message says: Institutions of higher education promote values essential for democratic society, as well as for the cultural development of society and the personal development of individuals. For this very reason, higher education cannot be separated from values and ethics. They are, together with academic freedom and institutional autonomy, key tenets of higher education. Bastian Baumann, secretary general of Italys Magna Charta Observatory, who led the debate on ‘values at the meeting, said that discussions focused on the need for an ombudsman, rather than the details of how it would work. The Bucharest Message also calls for international support for plans to set up a global index on academic freedom. Baumann said that the index would provide transparent information about obstacles to academic freedom in specific countries. This could result in a ranked table, similar to Transparency Internationals Global Corruption Barometer, he said. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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As you enter Lille III (the Universite Charles de Gaulles arts faculty), you are greeted with the words Le Capitalisme etouffe nos facs! Tuons-le! (Capitalism is suffocating our universities! Lets kill it!) spray-painted on the pavement.The graffiti, and barricades made up of tables and chairs, summed up the character of the blockade that ran at Lille III from March 23 to May 18. Lectures were cancelled and entrances were guarded by les bloqueurs, student activists who allowed only staff and postgraduate students through their checkpoints. Students occupied the university buildings to resist the Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities (LRU) law, which was passed on August 11, 2007, and is set to be implemented in 2010-12. Forty-three of Frances 83 universities have been affected by student and staff strike action since January this year. The blockade of the final university affected, the University of Toulouse II (Le Mirail), ended on June 3 when activists were ejected by French riot police. Under Operation Campus, as the LRU law is known, the French higher education budget will gain an extra Euro 5 billion (Rs.35,000 crore) over five years, but staff and students across the country are not buying into the idea. The reforms already in place at 20 institutions since January 2009, give more power to university presidents and introduce rigorous financial controls. Salaries are capped and teacher-training students lose their second year of paid training, while still having to complete a two-year Masters programme. A new recruitment process for academic staff threatens tenure, while a national-level assessment exerts more pressure on institutions, with government funding allocated according to examination performance. These represent fundamental changes, although the reality is that the French higher education system is not, and never has been, egalitarian. The elitist and highly prestigious Grandes Ecoles, the French equivalent of the US Ivy League institutions, provide well-structured, intensive courses, but accept only 4 percent of students. The alternative system (the universities) could be successful if it provided high-quality service, but it lacks resources, while students and staff lack motivation. Just 40 percent of students complete their degrees in three years. The reasons are not hard to find. The most critical problem is not the lack of funding but the poverty of the student experience. There is nothing to motivate students, and their hard work goes unacknowledged. They enter unnoticed and exit unnoticed. There are no union buildings, no winter or summer balls, no graduation day — not even a handshake. Their degrees are seen as second class compared with the qualifications of high-flying Grandes Ecoles graduates. Only through blockades and the re-enactment of the myth of 1968 can some students find significance. But the soixante-huitards (68ers) had clear political goals. Todays movement is less focused, its only agenda is despair. The paradox is that by trying to save their universities from change, les bloqueurs threaten to destroy them. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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Chinas education revolution, which has seen an explosion in the number of university entrants, could be stalled by bottlenecks in the supply of talented students, a meeting of leading Asian university heads has heard. Xu Jialu, director of the College of Chinese Language and Culture at Beijing Normal University, told a meeting of university presidents in Hong Kong that China had achieved great success over the past 30 years. Our overall economic output, which is fundamental to social advancement, is already ranked third in the world, he said. However, to sustain this extraordinary economic growth China must nurture huge additional numbers of creative and talented people, who will not spontaneously appear, warned Prof. Xu.In an address titled ‘From Bottleneck to a Broad Avenue: Preparation and Development of Chinese Teachers in the New Century, he said: In a world of rapid developments in science and technology, individual creativity is critical. Schools are the backbones for inheriting, promoting and developing human civilisation. In Chinese education, the development of a creative mindset and abilities among students is urgently needed. However, the system… is not suited to this goal. Prof. Xu, who is a former vice-chairman of the standing committee of the National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China, was speaking at the inaugural Asian Round Table of Presidents of Universities of Education, hosted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education recently. There are more than 11 million teachers in China, helping to produce about 7 million high school graduates each year, and 1.8 million annual entrants into tertiary education. University enrolments have reportedly risen from 10 percent of young people in 1999 to more than 20 percent today. There are some 182 ‘normal universities in China — institutions focused primarily on teacher education — which enrol about 600,000 students every year. Nevertheless, Prof. Xu suggested this may not be enough, adding that it is common for secondary schools to have too many students in each class. He says that despite heavy investment in education, in many ways, the education system in China has not been able to satisfy the needs of the Chinese people, such as providing enough places in universities. In light of this, he urged the Chinese government to make further commitments and to continue to expand the scale of its education institutions between now and 2020. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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Americas universities are the best in the world, but the kindest verdict on its schools is could do better. The country spends enough on them — around the rich-world average of 3.8 percent of its massive $ 13.8 trillion (Rs.66,739,000 crore) GDP — but its pupils do poorly in tests of reading, writing and mathematics, and too many drop out before completing school. Teaching attracts few ambitious and able graduates; school leaders have little autonomy. The solution, to free-marketers, seems obvious. Give taxpayers money not to a state-run monopoly, but to independent schools.Since Minnesota started the experiment in 1991, most states have introduced independent, or charter schools in some form. Evaluations have been broadly positive, but their enemies, including the politically powerful teachers unions, can fairly claim that more research is needed. Do charter school pupils do better at tests because they have been coached intensively at the expense of a broad education? Do charters mean the most motivated students cluster in a few schools, to the detriment of the majority? Do they kick out — or coax out — the toughest to teach? The answers to such questions should soon become clearer. Newark, New Jersey, one of Americas grimmer cities, also has one of the countrys highest concentrations of charter schools and is on course to have more. Seventeen schools run by 12 charter-management groups teach almost a tenth of the 48,000 children in its public-school system; by 2015 that share is likely to double. That is turning Newark into a magnet for education policy wonks. The Newark Charter School Fund, established last year with money from, among others, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will help new schools navigate the bureaucracy, find buildings and recruit the best teachers. But it will also gather a mountain of data on the performance of every charter school, and pupil, in Newark. Newarks charters are convinced they have a compelling story to tell. We have never expelled a single child from any of our schools in Newark, says Ryan Hill, the director of the three schools run in the city by the Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP), Americas largest charter chain. Great teachers prevent problems from developing in the first place. Drew Martin, a KIPP principal, is proud of his schools record in getting lagging children back on course. More than four-fifths of our pupils were reading below grade level when they arrived aged ten, he says. Three years later, fewer than a quarter of them still are. Even if they are right, the debate will not be over. The final charge against schools such as those run by KIPP is that their longer hours and demanding work environments make them impossible to sustain, let alone replicate. Hill thinks part of the solution lies in better management and training. The KIPP schools with the best teacher retention are also the oldest, he notes, suggesting that, over time, school leaders work out how to make the job manageable. League tables appreciation Academics love…

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Is English Indias first or second language? For a minority of Indians who have had the good fortune to be educated in the countrys 11,000-plus elite CISCE and CBSE English medium schools it is, clearly, the first language. For the rest of the population, including children who attend state board affiliated vernacular and so-called English medium schools, the status of English is ambiguous. I say ‘so-called, because most of these schools are only nominally English medium institutions. Their lingua franca is the local language, or the mother tongue.In vernacular and nominally English medium schools, besides having to cope with learning English in English classes, children struggle with the language while studying other subjects as well. This is a traumatic experience for most of them. Vernacular school children suffer more because complete unfamiliarity with the language apart, the pedagogies used to teach English do not train them to speak the language. They learn English by rote as they do maths or science. Contrary to the assertions of language chauvinists and parochial politicians, parents from all economic strata want their children to learn English. Theres wide-spread awareness that learning this universal language will make ladies/gentlemen of their children, and they will have the opportunity to enter the professions in India, and perhaps even study and work abroad. And so, whats wrong with English teaching in Indian primary and secondary institutions? To my mind, first of all, a conducive environment has to be created. Children learn from their environ-ments. Unless they hear good, correct English, they will never learn it. Since English is not organic to Indian soil, it will take years before they understand its finer nuances, but meanwhile they can learn it well. Thats where the catch is — our teachers. Besides acquiring high level of proficiency in the language, teachers of English should master the various ways of teaching it. There is a responsibility here, because when we teach a language, we are also giving children tools for thinking. Next, English has to be taught scientifically, as a foreign language. Though the stress is on spoken or communicative English, teaching grammar is critical, if children are to write correctly. The language teaching principles advanced by Erasmus and Comenius still hold good. We need to tweak them to our situation. Children have to first understand the content and then master linguistic nuances. Therefore it is imperative that teachers of English are bilingual, so they can use the vernacular to explain a point. Moreover, for children to understand words, visuals should be used to connect every word with an article or action. To this end, playing word games and group inter-action makes English learning fun, and grammar and vocabulary evolve from such activities, which triggers the motivation for further learning. Ideally written English should be introduced from class I onwards. Care should be taken to teach children the print form of writing (an adaptation of the Marion Richardson writing system), followed by cursive writing of letters of the alphabet from class II.…

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The Supreme Courts sharp reprimand to the Karnataka government while upholding a high court judgement striking down the states 1994 language policy mandating Kannada (or the mother tongue) as the medium of instruction in all primary schools in the state, has come as a welcome relief to right thinking citizens countrywide. While delivering the apex courts interim judgement, chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan forbade the BJP-led Karnataka state government from closing down any private school teaching in the English medium, and rebuked it for imposing the vernacular as the medium of instruction in the states primary schools for over 15 years. Strongly disapproving of government intervention in the right of parents to choose English as the medium of instruction for their children in private unaided primaries, the judgement noted that knowledge of English is necessary for securing even clerical jobs, and vernacular medium students stood at a lesser footing as all competitive exams are in English.The apex courts rebuke to the incumbent and predecessor governments of this southern state, which once enjoyed a nationwide reputation for academic excellence, was long overdue. On July 2 last year, a three-judge bench of the Karnataka high court, in a lengthy and reasoned judgement, upheld the right of promoters/owners of private unaided primary schools to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, and simultaneously of parents/students to choose the medium of instruction they deemed fit for their children. Despite this unanimous verdict, the state government refused to grant permission for promotion of new English medium primaries and/or ‘recognise existing ones. That the incumbent BJP governments medium of instruction policy for primary education is on all fours with that of the previous Janata Dal (S) and Congress governments, is indicative of a deep conspiracy cutting across all party lines to impose Kannada and/or vernacular languages upon all 56,000 primary schools with an aggregate enrolment of 5 million students statewide. And given that the overwhelming majority of the states politicians, educrats and language chauvinists enrol their own progeny in English medium schools, its painfully apparent that beyond their professed love of Kannada language and culture, the prime motivation is perpetuation of the captive market for Kannada language textbooks of dubious quality and scholarship. The state governments obstinate refusal to acknowledge that even the poorest of the poor aspire to English fluency for their children, as the passport to the best universities and jobs, is indicative of cynicism of the worst kind. Surely they are aware that even the poorest parents are deserting free Kannada medium government schools in favour of fee-charging private English medium schools? Now that the Supreme Court has sharply reprimanded the state government for cynically jeopardising the future of millions of children by denying them English language learning, one hopes it will apply closure to this contentious issue. Its high time the Karnataka government falls in line with the other states of the country, leaving selection of the medium of instruction to parents not only in private, but also in government schools. Resist…

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Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats — David Brooks, New York TimesIf there is a common threat that confronts us all, its that we live in a world that has become increasingly individualistic, competitive, and contentious. But in recent years theres been growing awareness that we need to see beyond the limitations of raw, in-your-face competition between groups and nations and learn the value of cooperation. Theres an emerging consensus that the problems of the 21st century (global warming, the economic crisis, disease, poverty, etc) can only be solved through cooperation and collaboration. Therefore together with EduSports, a Bangalore-based sports advisory and consultancy company, I have devised a programme for parents titled, ‘Making the perfect team: How to help your kids use sports to succeed in school and life. This programme has been developed to help parents collaborate with schools, coaches, and others to enable their children to engage with sports and games and transform into healthy, happy, productive adults. For example, the progra-mme offers useful advice relating to the sports education of children. Some pointers: • Identify and grab teaching and learning moments in sports • Develop realistic expect-ations for your kids (in sports and life) • Support your kids, their coaches, teachers, and school • Evolve into role models • Dont live vicariously through the success of your children • Relax and enjoy your childrens accomplishments • Become your childrens mentor and cheerleader • Promote the values you want your kids to adopt in the schools physical education and sports programmes • Dont regard your children as extensions of yourself • Develop a relaxed, playful spirit in relation to sports • Articulate your ideas of good sportspersons Yet how should parents prepare themselves to become good sports parents? Its beneficial to solicit help from the growing number of sports education and advisory firms. They usually conduct parent workshops where you can learn about ways and means to intelligently support your children to get the most out of their games and sports experiences. Professional sports develo-pment advisories and academies are often engaged by schools, colleges etc, to hold workshops for parents. In these workshops they counsel parents to: Be reflective. The best parents — not only in sports arenas, but in life — are introspective and willing to think deeply about their role as parents. Most of us would benefit by making the time to review how we handled a certain issue or problem with our kids to become better parents tomorrow. Focus on long-term goals. Its useful to identify and bear in mind your long-term objectives for your children. Search for words or phrases which describe them as you would want them to be when they attain adulthood. Then assess whether your daily behaviour is helpful for your kids to grow into the kind of people youd like them to be. Put the relationship first. Theres no…

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After completing my bachelor in management science degree next year, I want to qualify for entry into a people-oriented career such as counselor in a hospital, or psychologist. Please advise.Shirin Mistry, Mumbai A postgraduate programme in social work (MA social work) will help you become a counselor in the health sector. Alternatively, you could opt for a postgraduate programme in human resource management (HRM). Study programmes in social work and HRM are offered by several universities/institutions including University of Mumbai and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Please provide information on special education programmes offered by education institutes in Singapore. Colleen Fernandes, Panjim The NGEE Ann Polytechnic in Singapore offers an advanced diploma in early childhood intervention (special needs), while the Modern Montessori Training Centre offers a diploma in Montessori education. Im in class XII (science) and wish to qualify as an aeronautical engineer. Please suggest some reputed colleges which offer this study programme. Bhaskar Rao, Bangalore Some well-known colleges offering aeronautical engineering degree programmes include Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh (www.pec.ac.in); Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (www.jntu.ac.in); Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, Secunderabad 500 011; Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Valsad (affiliated to Gujarat University); and Hindustan College of Engineering, Chennai 603103. Ive been working for the past 15 years after completing a four-year diploma in production technology post class X. I want to sign up for a degree course in management. To qualify, do I have to write the class XII exam? Nalini Patil, Pune Theres no need for you to complete class XII before enroling in a bachelors degree programme. You can apply directly for admission into bachelor degree programmes offered by open universities such as IGNOU or Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (www.ycmou.com) after completing a preparatory programme. Keep track of admission notifications which appear in newspapers. You could also check with the Institute of Distance Education (www.mu.ac.in), Mumbai on eligibility criteria for admission into its B.Sc (IT) and allied programmes. Ill be graduating with a science degree in 2010. Which colleges in India offer an MBA in aviation? Nikhil Iyengar, Chennai MBA in aviation is offered by a few institutions in India. They include Hindustan University, Chennai (www.hindustanuniv.ac.in); University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (www.upes.ac.in); Noorul Islam University, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil Thuckalay (www.niceindia.com). You could also consider signing up for an MBA in marketing or finance, and still find employment in the aviation industry. Im in third year BA and want to become a teacher. Do I have to write the CET exam for admission into a B.Ed programme? Which are the top-ranked institutes offering Montessori training? Meena Desai, Ahmedabad In general, CET or an admission test is the most common route for admission into B.Ed colleges. Montessori training centres are listed on http://www.montessoriindia.org/training.htm. Also explore options offered by the Indian Montessori Centre (http://indianmontessoricentre. org/tsep.0942/inc_det.php). A diploma course in early childhood care and education is a good alternative. Im interested in enroling in a postgraduate course in geographical information systems (GIS) after completing…

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On July 6, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the Union governments 2009-10 budget. It was a staid and sober effort, representative of the personality of the man himself. Its highlight was his focus on the governments determination to spend on projects targeting the poorest of the poor — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Bharat Nirman and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All), among others. He clearly told Parliament that the government proposed to allocate significant revenue to these programmes, and warned upfront this would make a hole in the governments balance sheet.What he didnt say, and rightly, was what government will do to bridge the gap. The revenue details were included in the Presidents address to Parliament a few weeks before. In her address, which is a speech vetted by the cabinet, President Pratibha Patil spoke about disinvestment in public sector units, reforms in the foreign investment regime and various other plans the government has formulated to provide a big stimulus to stave off global recessionary trends. It made little sense, as Mukherjee said later, to repeat what was placed before Parliament earlier. However, the media reacted with irrational pessimism as journalists and commentators went hammer and tongs at the government, prompting the stock market to tank. Judging from its reaction, the media responded to Budget 2009-10 in the manner of Chicken Little, the apocryphal bird who felt an acorn fall on her head. Alarmed, she assumed that the sky was falling and ran aflutter to tell the king. On the way, she met other subjects of the avian species and alarmed an excited flock. In the event, they didnt meet the king but bumped into a fox who made a meal of them all. The impact of the media hype about a perfectly sensible budget was immediate and palpable. As the finance minister spoke in Parliament, hysterical media coverage and analyses on television and websites projected the speech as a throwback to the bad old days of socialism. The markets reacted instantly and indices went into a dive which resulted in investors losing billions of rupees. With no sense of irony, several political parties accused the government of not doing enough for the poor and disadvantaged. Mercifully, sanity has been restored following the governments efforts to calm things down. The media have also quieted down and moved on to their usual trivial stories, and the markets have regained a sense of balance. In his presentation, finance minister Mukherjee did what many proponents of free markets have always demanded: reduced the budget speech into a dry recitation of the govern-ments spending and taxation plans for the next fiscal year. In no country is the budget a major media event or market mover. Only in India, do captains of industry appear on television with notebooks in hand jotting points as the finance minister speaks. Media hype feeds market hysteria. On July 6, the two combined to send stockmarket indices plummeting. Viewed in conjunction with similar exuberance with which the markets…

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The Delhi-based HCL Infosystems Ltd has signed an agreement with Delhi University (DU) to dispense ICT training to students. DUs Campus of Open Learning (COL) has introduced several short-term professional training programmes to bridge the skills-gap of its students. As part of this initiative, COL has signed an MoU with HCL Infosystems for conducting programmes on ICT and web technology at DUs Centre for Professional and Technical Training in Delhi.We believe that our students should be equipped with skills required by industry. These courses have been designed in consultation with industry and include hands-on training as well, says Dr. Savita Datta, director of COL. HCL courses have been designed to transform young students into industry-ready professionals, prepared to take on industry responsibilities without further on-the-job training. We have designed our study courses together with leading corporations such as IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat and Oracle to develop state-of-the-art curriculums while adopting best IT global practices, adds George Paul, executive vice president of HCL Infosystems. SPACE solar eclipse expeditions Delhi-based NGO Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), which has been promoting its Heliodyssey expeditions during solar eclipses since 2006, flew 100 school students from different parts of India to Taregna village, 30 km south of Patna (Bihar), to observe the total solar eclipse of July 22. The children conducted scientific experiments to measure temperature, humidity, wind speed, shadow band recording; practised sky photography, and studied diamond ring, plant and animal behaviour. The students experiments were conducted at the Patna Planetarium and the Shri Krishna Science Centre. In addition, SPACE organised a special Eclipse Flight in collaboration with ECA (Eclipse Chasers Athenaeum) for citizens who were flown from Delhi and Kolkata, to Taregana. The objective behind organising the total solar eclipse Heliodyssey expeditions is to generate interest in the science of astronomy within the citizenry, explains Sachin Bahmba, the promoter chairman of SPACE. Asia Pacific Future 100 program The Hong Kong-based Foundation of Youth Entrepreneurship (FYSE) has launched its inaugural Asia Pacific Future 100 program, with the objective of inspiring young people to become entrepreneurs. As many countries cannot create adequate jobs to integrate all young people into the economy, FYSE believes that there are many potential young entrepreneurs and social change makers in Asia. For that reason we identify 100 young entrepreneurs annually, who will be extensively profiled to young people in Asia through blogs, interviews and videos to inspire other young people through their stories. To reach out to them, Future 100 fellows will visit schools and universities and share their experiences directly with youth, says Andreas Krause, executive director of FYSE. The nomination period for the program began on May 1 and will be open until August 31. All young entrepreneurs and social change makers under 30 years of age from the Asia-Pacific region (including India) are eligible to apply. Through their one-year fellowship, Asia Pacific Future 100 fellows will receive mentorship and technical assistance as well as access to a network of like-minded entrepreneurs to improve their…

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“Were pushing for dramatic reform. We have to educate our way to a better economy.” US education secretary Arne Duncan (Chicago Tribune, July 6) “Let there be creativity. Let there be competition among universities. Its not the governments policy to introduce uniform syllabus in universities.” Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal (Business Standard, July 13) “I believe talent is distributed equally, but not opportunity. It is important for all of us to try and narrow that gap between talent and opportunity. Every child deserves to achieve his/her potential.” US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton at an education event in St. Xaviers College, Mumbai (July 19) “I am a 24-hour technology person. I am not that big at text messaging and I am impressed with the young people doing that. I get 10,000 friend requests everyday on Facebook. It gets so irritating.” Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Delhi (July 24) “In an economy where knowledge is the most valuable commodity a person and a country has to offer, the best jobs will go to the best educated, whether they live in the United States, India, or China… In a world where countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow, the future belongs to the nation that best educates its people.” US President Barack Obama (Economic Times, July 26) “You can have all the knowledge, but you need different contexts in which to use that knowledge. A good university provides that. It isnt a factory that creates the same kind of students by giving them the same kind of instruction.” Yash Pal, former chairman University Grants Commission (India Today, July 27) “I believe we need to free education from the licence-permit raj. Let colleges set their own fees and salaries, and curriculum and exams and expansion plans. The current system obstructs the ethical and promotes the unethical through over regulation.” Rahul Bajaj, well-known industrialist and Rajya Sabha member (Times of India, July 30)

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A decades old tradition institutionalised in the Indian academic examination process — from school board to university levels — is that answer scripts, once submitted, are never seen again by examinees. This tradition is being increasingly challenged in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 80 million) where the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government has been ruling uninterr-uptedly since 1977. In 2008 two writ petitions were filed in the Calcutta high court challenging grades awarded by Calcutta University and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and demanding that the respondents produce the answer scripts for inspection. Both CalU and CBSE refused and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) which endorsed their right of refusal, was joined as the third defendant.While hearing the petitions of aggrieved students Pritam Rooj and Aditya Bandopadhyay, the court observed that it is possible their losses are beyond repair — a valuable year has been lost or an employment opportunity sorely missed in these fiercely competitive times, thereby resulting in untold misery and harassment to them. In an order dated February 5 the court directed CalU and CBSE to grant inspection of the answer scripts to the information seekers/examinees concerned. Instead of complying with the high court order, the defendants filed an appeal in the Supreme Court which granted a stay order. Since then the boards have declined to produce the answer scripts for examination. According to WBBSE president Prof. Mamata Ray, the state board has already instituted a re-evaluation process. If any candidates are dissatisfied with their grades they can apply to us for post-publication review and scrutiny. But our review and scrutiny decision is final and can only be challenged in court. If the court so directs, the board will show the answer scripts to the court, but not to aggrieved candidates. Moreover our post-publication rules are that scripts are stored only for six months. They are then disposed off, usually by burning. Given the huge logjam of the Indian legal system in which 25 million cases are pending, the case may drag on for decades in the Supreme Court The important question of law adjudicated by the Calcutta high court will remain buried in the paper mountain of Supreme Court until the petitioners become grandparents, laments Kanpur-based advocate Robby Sharma. Yet evidently the petitioners efforts to introduce a measure of transparency into the countrys opaque examination culture has not been entirely in vain. Obviously influenced by the reasoned judgement of the Calcutta high court, on July 10 the autonomous Delhi-based Council of Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), with which over 1,500 of Indias top private schools are affiliated, suo motu announced that the 200,000 students who write its ICSE (class X) and ISC (class XII) school leaving exams will be given inspection of their answer scripts. The council is an autonomous body which doesnt accept government grants. But it is also a public body and we dont feel there is any harm in providing information to…

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Quite obviously the control-and-command obsessed education bureaucracy in Karnataka is determined to tighten rather than relax, its iron grip over the education sector in the state. Stung by high court and Supreme Court verdicts, which recently struck down its retrograde proposal to make Kannada or vernaculars the compulsory medium of instruction for children enroled in classes I-V in private unaided schools, the states politico-bureaucratic nexus has now targeted upscale private unaided CISCE, CBSE and international schools.The government will soon bring in a law to regulate the fees of private unaided schools. We will approach the Centre for certain clarifications in this regard, education minister Visweshwar Hegde Kageri informed the states legislative assembly on July 22. Earlier, in 2006, the Karnataka education department had constituted a committee to regulate the admission processes and fees levied by pre-primary schools. Pre-primary and K-12 private schools apart, the government is also intent upon regulating the tuition fees of private unaided colleges and institutions of professional education. The new vice chancellor of Bangalore University, Dr. A.N. Prabhudeva has threatened to disaffiliate private colleges charging high fees. As we cannot cancel affiliations, now I have decided to take it up as a challenge to initiate disaffiliation proceedings against erring colleges, he said in a press statement. These comments which are common within the states educracy, are indicative of chronic ignorance of the basic laws of economics on the part of education officials. Tuition fees are calculated on the basis of infrastructure investment, teacher training, fees payable to affiliation boards and costs of providing pastoral care to students. They arent fixed arbitrarily, or on perceived capacity to pay basis. A talk-n-chalk school obviously has lower costs and hence can charge low tuition fees. Its absurd to believe in the concept of normative tuition fees, explains Anu Monga, principal of the Bangalore International School and chairperson of TAISI (The Association of International Schools of India). If government officials tend to be ignorant of pricing economics, parents from within the great Indian middle class tend to be even more so. Its pertinent to note that the state governments proposal to regulate and cap tuition fees charged by private schools has the overwhelming support of the parents community. Most parents are badly educated themselves. Theyll never understand that rising fees and the annual rush for admission into English medium private schools is because of corruption-driven licence-permit-quota raj in government, which restricts the supply of new private schools, says the principal of an upscale K-12 school which receives 5,000 applications annually against 45 vacancies. Curiously, despite witnessing the huge mess that five decades of licence-permit-quota raj has created in industry and higher education, middle class Indias parents community believes that government controls and regulation of K-12 education will work to their advantage rather than to the advantage of the democratic worlds most corrupt bureaucracy. Its a telling indicator of the poor quality education they themselves received. Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)

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The Yash Pal committee report titled Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education, submitted to Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal on June 24, which recommends severe dilution — if not abolition — of all apex-level regulatory bodies of Indian higher education, has created a flutter within the somnolent bowers of Indian academia. The higher education regulatory organisations recommended to be effectively wound up include the University Grants Commission (estb. 1956), All India Council for Technical Education (1987), National Council for Teacher Education (1994), Distance Education Council, Indian Council for Agricultural Research, Bar Council of India, Rehabilitation Council of India, Medical Council of India, among others. The committee has proposed these organisations be superseded by an all-encompassing National Commission for Higher Education & Research (NCHER).The 94-page report also recommends that empowered, autonomous universities be made responsible for academic content, quality and delivery; establishment of multi-disci-plinary universities with rich undergraduate programmes allowing curricular mobility, and inclusion of vocational and teacher education within the purview of universities. The pain-stakingly prepared report reflects the views of eminent scientist, former chairman of UGC, and former secretary of the department of science and technology Dr. Yash Pal, and 23 other eminent academics including chair-persons of UGC, AICTE, and NAAC, vice chancellors (current and former) of publicly funded universities, directors of IIT (Madras), IIM (Bangalore) and NCERT, and Dr. Ramdas Pai, chancellor of Manipal University. Yet the recommendation of the committee which has attracted most attention is a proposal to crack down on private aka deemed universities whose number has mysteriously ballooned from 55 in 2005 to 127 in 2008. And its hardly a national secret that a large number of private colleges and institutions of professional education have acquired deemed university status by making huge pay-offs to UGC, AICTE and MCI office bearers. The arrest by CBI on July 17 of K. Narayan Rao, member secretary of AICTE, for assets disproportionate to income and possession of blank college inspection reports signed by ‘visiting expert committee members did nothing to dispel such suspicion. Comments the Yash Pal Committees report: The practice of according status of deemed university be stopped forthwith till NCHER takes a considered view on it. It would (sic) be mandatory for all existing deemed universities to submit to new accreditation norms to be framed on the lines proposed in this report failing which the status of university should be withdrawn. Unsurprisingly, private/deemed university managements have inter-preted the committees report as being hostile to private initiatives in education. Painting all private universities with the same brush, doesnt help the cause of higher education. It takes 20-30 years for a new university to settle down. The remedy is not to prevent promotion of private initiatives in higher education, but to punish corrupt and law-breaking managements severely, says Dr. G. Vishwanathan, former MP and Tamil Nadu minister turned founder chancellor of the highly-rated VIT University, Vellore. The viewpoint that the higher education sector requires greater private participation rather than more regulation as proposed by the Yash…

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