Arjit Kansal
Arjit Kansal (16), a class XI science student of Delhi’s Maharaja Agrasen School, Pitampura, is the first Indian national to win a Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship, staged annually for the past 14 years. In the 2014 championship held in Disneyland, California, from July 27-30, Arjit bested 123 finalists from 41 countries in the PowerPoint 2010 category, to win the $5,000 (Rs.3 lakh) top prize. Launched in 2000, the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship is a platform for students in the 13-22 age group to showcase their mastery over Microsoft Office applications of their choice. This global contest is conducted in two phases — a national championship followed by an international final. This year’s competition attracted 750,000 entries internationally including 20,000 from India. Under the rules of the MS Specialist World Championship, competitors are required to first clear a certification test. Toppers qualify for the National Compudon Championship — sponsored by Noida-based Cyber Learning Pvt. Ltd — in which judges watch them work, and award them scores based on the speed at which they find and use the appropriate MS tools. At the World Championships, finalists compete to demonstrate their skills in designing PowerPoint presentations. “I’m happy my persistence and determination finally paid off. This was my third attempt,” says Arjit, who was awarded a perfect ten for his presentation. This PowerPoint champ, whose school has regularly encouraged and groomed students for the competition, has been fascinated by computers ever since the subject was introduced in class VIII. “With the support of my teachers and mentors at Cyber Learning, I spent three hours daily practising and experimenting with animation, transitions and new features focusing my attention on structure and design rather than on content,” he says. Unsurprisingly, Arjit intends to study engineering after completing his school education. “I plan a career in computer engineering and I believe my expertise in PowerPoint will be useful for future innovations and research,” he says. Wind in your sails! Autar Nehru (Delhi)
RTE Act lunacies and lacunae
Dr. Geeta Kingdon is chair of education economics and international development at the Institute of Education, University of London Four years after the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 became law on April 1, 2010, followed by an inconclusive Supreme Court judgement, there’s still widespread dissatisfaction with the provisions of the Act, its ambiguities, contradictions, and uneven application across India’s 29 states. Recently Smriti Irani, the newly appointed Union HRD minister, expressed an intent to revise the Act — an initiative long overdue to remove its lunacies and lacunae. In particular, the controversial s.12 (1) (c) of the Act — which obliges private schools to surrender 25 percent of class I capacity to socio-economically disadvantaged children in their neighbourhood, and partially upheld by the Supreme Court — is far from a closed chapter. This provision bristles with practical and moral problems. For instance, while s.12 specifies no such condition, the Uttar Pradesh state government requires private schools to admit poor neighbourhood children only if the capacity of neighbouring (within a 1 km radius) government schools is full. The stated intent of this condition is that it saves taxpayers’ money as the fees of poor students admitted in private schools have to be reimbursed by government. Yet the question arises whether the UP government is legally entitled to make this interpretation of s.12 to avoid wastage of taxpayers’ money. Moreover, s.12 says the state shall reimburse private schools on the basis of (a) the actual fees charged by the school, or (b) the average per pupil expenditure (PPE) of government schools, whichever is lower. Uttarakhand has estimated its PPE at Rs.860 per month, Delhi at Rs.1,190 and Uttar Pradesh at Rs.450. On the other hand, the average private primary tuition fee in rural UP is Rs.90 per month, a mere 20 percent of the state government’s PPE. This wide differential is a temptation to low-end budget private schools (which constitute the vast majority of private schools in UP) to report inflated fees and enrolments, promote shell private schools and/or admit more than the prescribed quota of 25 percent to be reimbursed the government benchmarked tuition fee of Rs.450 per month per child. These shenanigans make it very difficult for the government to budget the reimbursements of private schools. The problems of the state government apart, private schools have their own plethora of grievances relating to s.12. Inevitably, high-end urban private schools contend that the government’s reimbursement ceiling of Rs.450 per month is too low. They want transparent disclosure of the state government’s PPE calculations. Some estimates put the UP government schools’ actual PPE at Rs.2,000 per month in primary and Rs.2,500 in upper primary classes, excluding costs of school uniforms, books, stationery, computing, excursions, functions, etc. Another complaint (confirmed by experience in states where s.12 provisions have been enforced for two-three years) is that the fee reimbursement process is prone to corruption and delays, without any penalty or compensation. Moreover, there’s also widespread apprehension that by accepting government…