Rakesh Gupta is Managing Partner of LoEstro Advisors which advises clients on strategy, fund-raising and M&A. An alumnus of IIT KGP and ISB, Hyderabad, Gupta was former head of finance and strategy, People Combine Educational Initiatives and management consultant with McKinsey & Co. What’s your outlook on India’s K-12 sector? India has the largest enrolments in K-12 schools globally with more than 276 million students attending classes from pre-primary to secondary. It is also one of the very few markets which have had a solid growth in enrolment numbers (2.4%) year on year. Today education takes the largest share of non-food expenditure in an urban Indian household. Increasingly, state and central governments, education boards have also started to take more a pragmatic approach towards regulations in the sector – paving way for more private capital to flow in. Historically very few PE Investments / M&A Activity have happened in the Indian K-12 Space, While globally it is one of the preferred sectors – why is that ? Despite very attractive macros, the number of scaled private K-12 businesses in India is dismally low. Out of the more than 1500 companies listed with the National Stock Exchange, less than ten are directly in the education space and even fewer in the K-12 space. This state of private K-12 businesses in India can be attributed to the absence of quality growth capital. We attribute this to the following three main reasons: K-12 investment is typically a long gestation investment. Schools take minimum 5-7 years to reach scale and to start generating returns. There is not much patient capital available in the market. Secondly, private growth capital requires clear and multiple exit possibilities. The primary and secondary market for K-12 business is not deep enough. Finally, the regulatory environment has been the biggest overhang on the sector. In the last few months, we have seen a few large size cross-border M&A transactions in the K-12 space. LoEstro Advisors was involved in a few of them. Can you share your views on how global investors are looking at the Indian K-12 Space ? Globally, there are at least a dozen K-12 chains which have rapidly grown over the last decade or so. Key amongst them would be Nord Anglia Education, Cognita, Inspired Education, GEMS and International School Partnerships apart from the education platforms of various large PE funds like KKR, Barings PE, CDC, etc. In the last few months, we have seen many of the largest K-12 investors making big bets in India – Nord Anglia Education, Morgan Stanley, KKR and Cognita. Each of them have big plans for the Indian market and are looking to acquire quality schools. Given the sheer attractiveness of the market, other global operators will also look to actively participate. Do you also see private equity investors and domestic K-12 operators increasing their allocation for investment into the sector? Apart from a few investments, which PE funds made 5-7 years back, they have stayed away from the education sector…
Ashish Jhalani is the global chief technology officer and managing director of the Mumbai-based Square Panda (India) Pvt. Ltd (SPI, estb. 2018), the India subsidiary of Square Panda Inc, USA (estb. 2014). The California-based company designs auditory, visual and tactile learning systems to enable children in the 2-8 age group to develop reading readiness skills and fluency in English language through the guided phonics method. Globally, the company’s multisensory phonics learning products have enabled 100,000 children and over 2,000 schools to develop English language skills. Newspeg. SPI recently launched two new products — SquareLand and SquareTales — to boost early literacy and English language learning. History. Square Panda Inc. was founded in 2014 by Andrew Butler, a Stanford-educated Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Frustrated by the lack of learning resources for his dyslexic daughter, Butler ideated engaging games to help her identify, spell and read the English alphabet. Butler’s success with his daughter prompted him to develop phonics-based learning play-sets based on latest neuroscience research and AI technology, to enable English language learning and cognitive development in preschool children. Subsequently, in 2016, American tennis legend and eight Grand Slams champion Andre Agassi came aboard as an investor in Square Panda. The India operations of the company were launched in Mumbai earlier this year (February) by Agassi. The company’s year-old India operations led by Ashish Jhalani, who shuttles between Beijing, New York and Mumbai, has quickly transformed it into Square Panda’s largest office worldwide with a headcount of 107 employees. Direct talk. “English is the global language of business and communication, and India with its large population of almost 500 million children and youth, is one of the world’s biggest markets for English language learning. But unfortunately, in the overwhelming majority of schools, the shortage of English teachers and obsolete pedagogies prevent children from developing English literacy skills. The objective of Square Panda (India) is to enable young children to learn English through a neuroscience research-backed multisensory learning system which engages their auditory, visual and tactile senses. Most important, all our products are interactive and adaptive, adjustable to every child’s learning level, and provide feedback to monitor progress. For the Indian market, we have localised our products and early next year, all our products will include instruction in Hindi and English,” says Jhalani, an alumnus of the blue-chip Stern School of Business, New York, with 20 years experience in sales, marketing and entrepreneurship in the US and India (MySolitaire, eTailing India, and International School of eBusiness). In 2018, Jhalani joined Square Panda India as managing director and is currently its global chief technology officer as well. Future plans. The SPI management has planned a nationwide roll-out of its products beginning next year (2020), targeting parents and schools. “We are confident of impacting our products quickly because Indian parents and schools are eager to help children develop English literacy skills. It is a known fact that the foundation of language learning is built in the early years, before the age of seven. Utilising the…
To compile the 2019-20 league table of model anganwadis, C fore field researchers interviewed 455 sample respondents including anganwadi teachers and SEC (socio-economic category) ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ parents in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Last year, in the cause of supporting the Central government’s ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) programme (estb. 1976), EducationWorld introduced the first-ever ranking of government anganwadis — essentially nutrition centres for lactating mothers and children in the age group 0-5 years from poorest households which are also mandated to provide early childhood education — in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore to serve as models for the country’s 1.4 million anganwadis. With the inaugural rankings of Top 3 anganwadis in the three metros receiving encouraging feedback from our readers, to compile the 2019-20 league tables of best anganwadis, field researchers of the Delhi-based market research company Centre for Forecasting and Research (C fore) interviewed 455 sample respondents including anganwadi teachers and SEC (socio-economic category) ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ parents in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. “The sample respondents were asked to rate anganwadis that they were aware of on a ten point scale under six parameters. The parameters of assessment were competence of teachers, infrastructure, individual attention to students, nutrition/child care, safety and hygiene, and leadership quality. Schools assessed by less than 25 persons were eliminated from the rankings exercise. All the parameters were given equal weightage except competence of faculty which was given double weightage,” says Premchand Palety, chief executive of C fore explaining the rankings methodology and parameters specially devised for government anganwadis. In the Union Budget 2019-20, the Central government allocated Rs.19,834 crore for the ICDS programme — a mere Rs.2,361 per child per year — a sum clearly inadequate to provide nutrition, leave alone professionally administered ECCE. Ab initio, EducationWorld has been demanding and has also repeatedly published detailed schema for providing an additional Rs.110,000 crore for the ICDS programme. In the pages following, we present league tables ranking the top anganwadis in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore with the twin objectives of acknowledging/highlighting the excellent work being done by these role model anganwadis, and building the pressure of public opinion to force the government to raise the budgetary allocation for the ICDS programme.
Noida’s transformation into a major IT/ITES hub has prompted several go-getting edupreneurs to promote proprietary and franchised preschools for the young children of thousands of skilled professionals working and living in this new satellite city of Delhi. Although it falls within the administrative jurisdiction of the socio-economically backward state of Uttar Pradesh, Noida has emerged as a major IT (information technology) and ITES (IT enabled services) hub because of its proximity to Delhi, the national capital, and its inclusion in the National Capital Region (NCR). Consequently, this new satellite city (pop.630,000) which has mushroomed on the Delhi-UP border, hosts the India offices of several new-age blue-chip/IT multinationals including TCS, IBM, HCL, Wipro Technologies, and Accenture, among others. Voted the best city in Uttar Pradesh by ABP News in 2015, Noida’s transformation into a major IT/ITES hub has attracted thousands of young skilled professionals to live and work in it. In turn, this has created pressing demand for high-quality early childhood and K-12 education. Therefore, several nationally top-ranked K-12 schools such as Step by Step, Gyanshree, Shiv Nadar School, and Amity International have sprung up in this newly established city. Not to be left behind, several go-getting edupreneurs have promoted a clutch of proprietary and franchised pre-primaries to provide high-quality ECCE (early childhood care and education) to youngest children in the 0-6 age group. To compile the EW Noida Preschool Rankings 2019-20, field personnel of the well-known Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb.2000) interviewed 673 parents of preschool-going children and 79 teachers/principals in Noida. PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS Last ranked #1 in 2015-16, the Windows Play Group & Nursery School, Sector 50 (estb.2003) has regained its #1 position after a four-year hiatus with top score under the parameters of teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, infrastructure, individual attention to students, value for money and parental involvement. The Gaia Green School, Sector 93, ranked #1 for three successive years, has ceded top spot and is ranked #2 jointly with the previously unranked The Ardee School, Sector 100 which has made an impressive debut. Amiown, Sector 44 and Pathways Early Years, Sector 100 are tied at #3. And the top table is completed by Khaitan Preschool, Sector 40 and Stimulus Preschool, Sector 39, jointly ranked #4 and ASPAM Preschool, Sector 62 at #5. Monica Baluja, founder-principal of the Windows Play Group & Nursery School, is gratified that “Noida’s pioneer new-age preschool” has regained its “rightful” #1 rank. “The entire team is elated that after three years, we have been voted #1 again. Clearly, Noida’s parents and teachers communities recognise that we encourage children to develop socially, emotionally and cognitively through directed play and that our teachers are thoroughly trained for this as reflected in our top score under the parameter of teacher competence. The EW#1 ranking endorses the feedback we get from parents praising us for the excellent foundational education we provide,” says Baluja, a psychology graduate of Delhi University who promoted Windows Nursery…
Field researchers of the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore) interviewed 582 parents and 65 preschool principals/teachers of this buzzing city to rank 34 pre-primaries in two categories — owned/proprietary and franchised. Technically within the administrative jurisdiction of the state government of Haryana (pop.25.4 million) but popularly included in Delhi NCR (National Capital Region), the new steel-n-glass city of Gurgaon (pop.877,000) has quickly emerged as one of the country’s premier industrial and financial hubs. This newly emergent city hosts offices of 250-plus Fortune 500 companies including Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft and is an automobile manufacturing hotspot (Maruti-Suzuki, Hero Honda, TVS Sundaram). Simultaneously, because of its proximity and good connectivity with Delhi, Gurgaon has also emerged as a new education hub with several globally benchmarked K-12 schools (GD Goenka, Heritage, Shiv Nadar) and universities (Ashoka, O.P. Jindal) having established sprawling campuses to educate children of the city’s large and expanding pool of professionals employed in the IT/ICT, automobiles and BPO among other industries. Inevitably, this satellite city has also experienced a rapid mushrooming of early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres demanded by its young and upwardly mobile workforce. Field researchers of the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore) interviewed 582 parents and 65 preschool principals/teachers of this buzzing city to rank 34 pre-primaries in two categories — owned/proprietary and franchised. OWNED/PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS The highlight of the EW 2019-20 league table of Gurgaon’s proprietary preschools is that the six-year uninterrupted reign of Pallavan, Sohna Road/DLF Phase I is over. This year’s 647 sample respondents have decisively voted Anand Preschool, DLF Phase I, which debuted in the 2018-19 league table at #3, and Amiown, Amity’s Caring Preschool, Sector 27 — ranked #1 in 2018-19 and #2 in 2017-18 — Gurgaon’s jointly ranked #1 proprietary pre-primaries. Moreover this year, Pallavan is obliged to share the #2 rank with iDiscoveri Preschool, Sector 46 which was #2 last year. The high end of the Top 10 table comprises Safari Kids, DLF Phase IV ranked #3 (#6 in 2018-19), Shalom Hills Nursery School, Sushant Lok and Little Pearls, Cyber City jointly ranked #4 and Early Learning Village, Sushant Lok, Phase I and The Shri Ram Early Years, Sector 48 tied at #5 (8 & 5). Unsurprisingly, Devicka Arora, principal of Anand Preschool, DLF Phase 1 (APDLFP1, estb.2007) is delighted with the swift ascent of this 12-year-old pre-primary unranked until 2016-17 and #3 last year which has vaulted to the very top of Gurgaon’s 25-strong proprietary league table with high scores under the parameters of teacher welfare and development, individual attention to students, parental involvement, and special needs education. “This is a proud moment for us. We are happy to have lived up to the expectations of our parents’ community and thank them for actively supporting our initiatives. We are also thankful to our dedicated teachers for innovating new teaching-learning practices and sparing no effort to provide joyful early years education to our children. Rising awareness in Gurgaon of…
The number of preschools — proprietary and franchised — ranked in the EW Ahmedabad league table has risen from 26 in 2017-18 to 34 in 2019-20 with ten new pre-primaries debuting this year. Here are Ahmedabad’s best preschools 2019-20. The early childhood care and education (ECCE) sector in Ahmedabad (pop. 5.7 million) is humming with activity. With parental awareness about the importance of professionally administered ECCE within the city’s middle and upper middle classes rising daily, a new tribe of edupreneurs have stepped forward to meet the demand for contemporary — proprietary and franchised — English-medium preschools in the commercial capital of the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop. 69 million). Moreover, with the state’s BJP government having ill-advisedly enacted the Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017 which caps annual school fees at Rs.30,000, edupreneurs are opting to invest in early childhood education as it offers freedom from government interference. Consequently, the number of preschools — proprietary and franchised — ranked in the EW Ahmedabad league table has risen from 26 in 2017-18 to 34 in 2019-20 with ten new pre-primaries debuting this year. And uniquely, the city is emerging as the hub of several homegrown franchisor preschool chains including Kalorex, Shanti Juniors and Rangoli which are signing up franchisees statewide as well as in neighbouring Rajasthan and Maharashtra. For instance, Rangoli has 75-plus franchised preschools in Gujarat and Maharashtra and Shanti Juniors has 350 in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. To rate and rank the textile city’s most admired preschools in the proprietary and franchised categories in 2019-20, the Delhi-based research company Centre for Forecasting and Research (C fore) interviewed 511 parents with at least one preschool-going child and 67 ECCE educators in Ahmedabad. PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS Although the 2019-20 league table of Ahmedabad’s best proprietary preschools has been shaken up, the 578 sample respondents have reaffirmed Redbricks Early Years Centre, Satellite (estb.2009) as the city’s #1 pre-primary for the fourth year in succession with top scores on nine of the ten parameters of ECCE excellence including teacher competence, professional development, innovative teaching and leadership. Vedant International Preschool, Maninagar is promoted to #2 (#4 in 2018) while Olive Green Kids School, Navarangpura (2) and Rising Kids Preschool, Bapunagar (3) are jointly ranked #3. The previously unranked Satellite School for Children has made an impressive debut at #4 followed by Bodakdev School for Children, which has retained its #5 rank jointly with the previously unranked Toddler’s Den, Bodakdev. “It is a great achievement for Redbricks to be ranked #1 by this year’s informed sample respondents as well. Our top scores on nine of ten parameters is the outcome of our adherence to our core principle — fulfilling young children’s needs in a developmentally appropriate manner. Since inception, a sharp focus on implementing age-appropriate ECCE pedagogies has helped us achieve excellence. This year, we organised two Reggio-inspired exhibitions displaying children’s projects in public art galleries in Ahmedabad, which received rave reviews from a stream of visitors. I believe these…
In the ninth EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2019-20, 19 sufficiently reputed proprietary and 11 franchised preschools in Pune are rated and ranked by 551 parents of preschool children and 61 ECCE teachers and principals. Here are Pune’s best preschools 2019-20 Maharashtra’s second most industrialised city after Mumbai, Pune (pop. 3.1 million) — seat of the once mighty Maratha empire — is the academic and cultural centre of India’s most industrialised state (pop. 115 million) which produces 17 percent of the country’s annual industrial output. It also hosts several top-ranked higher education institutions including Symbiosis International University, College of Engineering, Pune, Armed Forces Medical College, National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla and the Film and Television Institute of India among other higher ed institutions of eminence which annually attract an estimated 22,000 foreign students from 85 countries. Over the past decade, Pune has also emerged as a preferred destination of IT (information technology), biotech companies and start-ups pitching tent in India, making it a promising destination for job seekers. The city’s growing population of business, engineering and biotech professionals has spurred demand for preschools and early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres which have mushroomed in the city and its sprawling suburbs. In the ninth EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2019-20, 19 sufficiently reputed proprietary and 11 franchised preschools in Pune — of which seven are debutants — are rated and ranked by 551 parents with at least one child in preschool, and 61 ECCE teachers and principals. PROPRIETARY/OWNED The second preschool promoted by the Bangalore-based Indus Trust (which has also promoted the top-ranked Indus International schools in Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad), Indus Early Learning Centre, Bhosale Nagar (IELC-BN, estb.2014) has emerged as the natural successor of IELC, Koregaon Park (IELC-K, estb.2014), ranked Pune’s #1 proprietary preschool for the past three years which downed shutters in April (2019). Obviously, there is insufficient demand for two high-end (annual tuition fee: Rs.1.8-2.7 lakh) Indus preschools in this essentially middle income city. Be that as it may, Indus trustees who have presumably invested IELC-K’s human and other resources into IELC-BN haven’t lost sleep over the shut-down of their pioneer preschool in Pune because the leadership mantle had devolved on IELC-BN, ranked #4 in 2017-18 and #3 in 2018-19. With top scores under five of EW’s ten parameters of ECCE excellence including teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, innovative teaching and leadership, IELC-BN has bested Primrose Nursery, Koregaon Park ranked above it in 2018-19. “We are delighted to have successfully stepped into the rather large shoes of IELC-K. I am thankful to the Indus Trust management for the extra support it has given us this year. This has enabled us to step up our professional development programmes and improve our infrastructure including safety and hygiene,” acknowledges Viveka Mistry, an English literature graduate of Delhi University with a diploma in Montessori training from the UK, 16 years of teaching experience in international schools (Hong Kong, India and Indonesia) and centre head of IELC-BN since 2015. Currently, this superbly equipped and…
No matter how old you are, if you are Indian, you can probably recall the first time you heard the story of Rama. The memory could be your grandmother’s voice in a room lit only by an oil lamp, or a book such as Rajagopalachari’s rendition, or pictures in the Amar Chitra Katha or the televised version. Every Indian household has children who have grown up hearing tales from the Ramayana. To those with a humanities background, the idea of many renditions of the Ramayana has never been better captured than in Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’ which starts with the memorable lines, ‘How many Ramayanas? Three hundred? Three thousand?’ The epic is indeed one that means different things to different people. Every one of us has his favourite character or event in this glorious epic. Lest we forget, the spell of the Ramayana is not restricted to India but has its versions in the form of ballet and theatre in many South East Asian cultures. Its appeal is universal. The premise of Chaitanya Charan’s book is that there can be no greater source of inspiration than the life of Rama. The book seeks to help the reader improve his relationships (and the way he perceives life) by following the sublime values of the Ramayana. The author begins by setting the context of the teaching. Rama is of course Vishnu in human form descended for the express purpose of ending Ravana’s atrocities. He is unaware of his divinity though. Rama is human and subject to the moral forces of his milieu, and is influenced by his relationships with others. The reader can, therefore, identify with the characters of the epic. Nineteen incidents from the epic are chosen to highlight difficulties in relationships common to us all. Events such as the Manthara/Kaikeyi nexus (harmful advice, improper motives and fear of loss of power and position); Sugriva and Vaali (lack of communication and understanding); Rama’s acceptance of Shabari’s gift (understanding of intention) and Vibhishana’s desire to do right, conflicting with his loyalty to his brother, are explained so that the reader is forced to reflect on his own relationships in a new light. The solutions appear as truisms. This is inevitable; after all, we know the answers — how to change our behaviour is the dilemma. The author’s approach is to link intellectual understanding to an emotion that will drive the change. However, most readers have some prior knowledge and understanding of the epic. Consequently, they have preconceived notions and explanations for motives of the characters. That apart, as with life, contradictions abound not just in the stories but in ourselves as well. When does compassion become weakness? When does faith in one’s beliefs become an inflexible point of view? These and several other questions don’t have simple answers. Another interesting issue covered in this book is the eternal question of fate. Is our behaviour pre-ordained or is it something we can shape? The author…
Professor of world history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, the globally acclaimed author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2104), an international phenomenon which was on the Sunday Times (UK) bestseller list for over 25 weeks and has been translated into 40 languages worldwide, is one of the foremost anthropologists of the new millennium. As your reviewer had stated while reviewing Sapiens four years ago (https://www.educationworld.in/ecce-homo/), the merit of Harari’s first book is that it prompted the newly-emergent global community of homo sapiens connected everywhere and at all times by the Internet, instant telecommunication and ease of jet travel, to start thinking about the future of mankind in the post-digital age. In a telling “timeline of history” in his previous book, Harari reminded us that homo sapiens is a parvenu on the 4.5 billion-year-old Planet Earth, having evolved in East Africa only 200,000 years ago, and that humankind’s advanced cognitive capabilities became discernible a mere 70,000 years ago. Moreover in his timeline, he made the case that far from being a great achievement in the history of mankind, the agriculture revolution (aka organised farming) — which it is sobering to note was discovered only 10,000 years ago — is “history’s biggest fraud” and the starting point of the descent of mankind. It prompted demarcation of property for farming, the need for man-made laws to protect property rights which led to leaders of strongest bands of marauders becoming kings and emperors who introduced taxes to feed their armies. Harari’s latest warning to humankind to mend its ways is Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, the author’s equally brilliant sequel to Sapiens. “At the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up, stretches its limbs and rubbing its eyes,” reads the first sentence of this fantastic crystal-ball gazing work. In the new millennium, the three great scourges of humankind — famine, plague and war — are history. While there are undoubtedly some regions of the world still afflicted by these pestilences, natural famines (cf. man-made or political) on the scale of routine famines of the medieval world in Europe, Bengal famines of 1770 and 1943, the famines of Stalinist Russia, Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution are inconceivable in the 21st century because “technological, economic and political developments have created an increasingly robust safety net separating human kind from the biological poverty line”, writes Harari. Similarly, the great epidemics which felled millions of people every few decades are also history. For instance the Black Death plague which wiped out between 75-200 million people in Eurasia, including 40 percent of the population of England and 50 percent of the Italian city of Florence, is beyond the realm of possibility, due to advances in the medical sciences and greater store of knowledge about preventive health and hygiene. The outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, Ebola and AIDS which at one time threatened the entire world, have been contained despite the humongous leap in international travel and trade.…
There is something surreal about the anti-tuition and other fees agitation of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) which has let loose mayhem and rioting on the streets of Delhi. It’s instructive to learn that for most study programmes of this 50-year-old postgrad varsity, its 8,500 students pay tuition fees of Rs.200-300 per year, unchanged for 14 years. Moreover, students residing on the sylvan 1,101-acre campus of the university in the heart of Delhi are paying a mere Rs.10 per month (Rs.0.30 per night) for a double room and Rs.20 (Rs.0.60) for a single by way of rent. Unsurprisingly, student fees contribute 0.5 percent (cf. the global norm of 20 percent) to this show-piece postgrad university’s annual budget of Rs.200 crore. Despite this massive subsidisation, civil war has been declared by JNUSU because the management has raised the monthly rent for a double room to Rs.300 and single to Rs.600. It’s astonishing that these aspiring leaders of a country in which the per capita income is Rs.351 per day are demanding such gross over-subsidisation without a trace of embarrassment. JNUSU spokespersons make a big deal of the varsity’s inclusive character, shouting from the rooftops that 40 percent of enrolled students are from bottom-of-pyramid households across the country. Yet none of them has suggested cross subsidisation of poor students through the other 60 percent paying the actual cost of education provision. Nor do they seem to have heard of student loans or payback schemes from future earnings. In an era when impoverished farmers are committing suicide by the thousands because of poor allocations for rural infrastructure, and government primary schools are in deplorable condition, it’s shocking that the intellectuals (including faculty) of JNU have no compunction about siphoning away an estimated Rs.353 crore per year by way of outrageous grants and subsidies. Something very self-serving about the commitment of this pampered lot to Nehruvian socialism which everyone but them, knows has ruined the Indian economy.
The widely reported decision of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre to privatise Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) is like a whiff of oxygen to the stagnating Indian economy in which all indicators — GDP growth rate, employment generation, aggregate demand, exports, agriculture productivity — are flashing red. The Union Budget 2019-20 has factored in an income of Rs.1.05 lakh crore accruing to the Central government from disinvestment, i.e, sale of equity shares of the country’s floundering public sector enterprises (PSEs) promoted with great hopes of funding rural and social (education and health) development in the heyday of the socialist era of the Nehru-Indira dynasty. However, this tepid privatisation programme which Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman insists will be completed before the end of this fiscal year is clearly born out of necessity to balance the budget, rather than ideological conviction. Curiously, despite the BJP being the direct descendant of the ideologically pro-private enterprise Jan Sangh party established by BJP icons Shyama Prasad Mookerji and Atal Bihari Vajpayee among others, the Modi government has exhibited little appetite for denationalising the country’s perpetually bleeding PSEs, which are a huge strain on the economy and the Union budget. Thus far, the BJP/NDA government 2.0 has been pussyfooting around privatisation by forcing public sector financial companies such as LIC to buy equity shares of PSEs at inflated prices and book capital gains to balance the budget. Everyone knows that the Ambanis and Adanis — the hate totems of Lutyens Delhi’s champagne socialists — if given ownership of PSEs, would quickly turn them around into profitable tax-paying companies. That’s why the market capitalisation (aggregate value of equity) of the Ambani-managed Reliance Industries is all set to hit the unprecedented Rs.10 lakh crore on the National Stock Exchange. Therefore, the BJP leadership’s reluctance to boldly privatise the Central government’s 300 PSEs, which are a millstone around the country’s neck, can only be attributed to awareness that they are too rich a source of patronage (jobs for kith and kin) and cuts, kickbacks and commissions. On this issue there’s evidently an all-party consensus.
The audio-visual media and entertainment industry is experiencing severe disruption worldwide. Despite this, Barkha Dutt — once India’s answer to Oprah Winfrey — persuaded former Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal, the country’s most successful Supreme Court counsel who reportedly files an annual income tax return of Rs.50 crore-plus earned from the country’s dysfunctional legal system, to bankroll yet another English news channel headed by her. On January 26, a new Tiranga (tricolour) 24×7 television news channel with a reported investment of Rs. 100 crore was launched to serve as a propaganda medium for the Congress party. But with the Congress suffering an even worse defeat in the May 2019 general election and Tiranga making little headway, it was peremptorily closed down in July. Since then, a war of words on Twitter and other social media channels has broken out between Dutt and Sibal and his reportedly hard-as-nails wife Promila. According to Dutt, Sibal had assured her that the news channel would be kept alive for two years, long enough to make, an impact, and that every employee would be given six months notice and severance pay. But notwithstanding that Sibal is an officer of the apex court — and as such perhaps well-aware of the law’s agonising delay from which he has profited mightily — he had no compunction about breaking his promises and commitments. Meanwhile, Dutt, once the undisputed news and chat show queen of Indian television, has been cast into the outer darkness of the harsh media world, with few so poor to do her reverence.
Vijay Krishnamurthy, Bangalore-based corporate coach and also a sports research scholar at Mysore University The 2020 Tokyo Olympics is less than a year away. Already there’s a buzz: How many medals will India win this time? These discussions will increase in intensity as the date of the quadrennial Olympics draws closer. As the event begins, media will lament systemic problems, starting from the quality of municipal playgrounds to world-class athlete preparation. A few months after the Olympics, life will go back to normal, and citizens will become resigned to the also-ran status of India. A child goes to school to learn how to read, write and articulate. For the majority of Indian parents, education is synonymous with proficiency in English, science, and mathematics. However, the draft National Education Policy 2019 recommends sports as a compulsory subject and advises that sports education should not be labelled ‘extra-curricular’ or ‘co-curricular. While most school managements are aware of the importance of sports education, few are aware of ways and means to introduce sustainable sports education programmes. The four basic requirements of a sports programme are infrastructure, coaches, curriculum and scientific assessment. Infrastructure. Access to playgrounds is a fundamental prerequisite. A recent survey conducted by the Odisha state government revealed that 78 percent of schools in the state don’t have playgrounds for children. Likewise, in Karnataka, a state which fares well in inter-state athletics, field games and sports, a similar survey of government schools indicates that only one-third have playgrounds. Poor civic planning and under-budgeting for education are endemic in all 28 states and nine union territories of the Indian Union. In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that India produces such few sports — especially in athletics and field sports — champions. In this connection, it’s noteworthy that all developed countries have faced similar challenges, and found solutions. In the UK, a national initiative for physical education, school sport and club links (PESSCL) was formulated in 2002 by the department for education and skills and the department for culture, media and sport to multiply opportunities for children and youth to access well-equipped sports venues for training and competition. As a result by 2008, England established 313 school sports partnerships across the country. The lesson to be learnt is that educators and school managements need to take the initiative to build partnerships between infrastructure providers — schools, clubs and sports academies — in every neighbourhood. Sports coaches. India hosts a huge number of retired national champions of all sports and games. They need to be provided employment and utilised as coaches in schools, colleges and universities. BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) has successfully enabled retired test cricketers to start cricket coaching academies. As a result during the past two decades, India has emerged as the world’s #1 cricket playing country in all formats of the game (test, ODI and T-20). The BCCI model needs to be adapted to all sports, including athletics. Currently, the sports coaches/PE teacher-pupil ratio in schools is abysmal.…
Hosting large offices of IT multinationals, this business-friendly city has attracted a swarm of edupreneurs who have quickly established dozens of new-genre proprietary and franchised pre-primaries to meet growing demand from well-educated young professionals for high-quality ECCE for their progeny. The ancient city of Hyderabad (pop. 6.8 million), admin capital of India’s newest state Telangana (estb.2014) and de jure capital of Andhra Pradesh, rivals Bangalore not only as a major IT hub but also as a centre of early childhood care and education (ECCE). Hosting large offices of corporate behemoths such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Deloitte and Accenture, this business-friendly city in its new avatar has also attracted a swarm of edupreneurs who have quickly established dozens of new-genre proprietary and franchised pre-primaries to meet growing demand from well-educated young professionals for high-quality ECCE for their progeny. This year, 89 sufficiently reputed pre-primaries (preschools rated by less than 30 sample respondents are eliminated) of Hyderabad — the largest number after Bangalore — are rated and ranked by 685 parents and 84 teachers/principals based in Hyderabad who were polled by field researchers of Delhi-based market research company Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore). PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS Promoted by the Bangalore-based Indus Trust which has established three top-ranked IB-affiliated Indus International primary-secondaries in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune, the Indus International Primary School, Jubilee Hills (IIPS-JH), has been voted Hyderabad’s #1 proprietary preschool for the third consecutive year by the city’s 769 sample respondents. Ranked #1 (jointly with IIPS-JH) between 2015-2017 and #3 last year, CHIREC, Jubilee Hills, founded by well-known educationist Ratna Reddy in 1989, is jointly ranked #2 with Oi Playschool, Jubilee Hills, the model preschool of Hyderabad-based People Combine Educational Initiatives Ltd, followed by Glendale Edufun, Somajiguda and Indus International Junior School, Gachibowli, tied at #3. “I am delighted that IIPS-JH has been voted Hyderabad’s #1 preschool again by this year’s sample respondents. I believe widespread awareness of our continuous efforts to improve curriculum and create pedagogies to enable the social and emotional development of children, is behind this top ranking. Joyful induction of music, dance, drama and learning into our age-appropriate curriculum is also one of our distinguishing features,” says Pushpita Balakrishnan, head of IIPS-JH. A commerce graduate of Osmania University with nine years’ experience of the IT industry, in 2010 Balakrishnan switched tracks and signed up as a teacher at the Glendale Academy and Srinidhi International Schools in Hyderabad, and subsequently in 2014 with the Indus International School, Hyderabad. Last year, she was appointed head of IIPS-JH. Balakrishnan is especially pleased that the Hyderabad sample respondents have awarded IIPS-JH top scores on the parameters of teacher competence and development, infrastructure, individual attention to students, parental involvement, innovative teaching, leadership quality, and safety and hygiene. “In all Indus schools, highest importance is accorded to teacher training and development. In IIPS-JH, our 35 teachers regularly attend in-house and external professional development programmes, and are encouraged to innovate ECCE pedagogies which joyfully educate the hearts and minds of our children. Therefore,…
The number of preschools included in the proprietary and franchised league tables of the garden city, Bangalore — fast transforming into garbage city — is 113, highest of the 16 urban habitats covered by the EW India Preschool Rankings 2019-20. Awareness of the value and importance of professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) is arguably highest in the southern city of Bangalore (pop.12 million), aka Silicon Valley of India. The number of preschools included in the proprietary and franchised league tables of the garden city — fast transforming into garbage city — is 113, highest of the 16 urban habitats covered by the EW India Preschool Rankings 2019-20. With India’s Silicon Valley hosting a large number of well-qualified professionals employed within its IT and ITES (IT enabled services) companies, the demand for professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) is on the upswing. Therefore, pre-primary schools delivering globally benchmarked ECCE, which is mercifully exempt from the regulatory supervision of Karnataka’s infamously corrupt education ministry inspectors, have proliferated in all neighbourhoods of this bustling metropolis. Intense competition between them has raised the standard of privately dispensed pre-primary education to high levels of excellence. To compile the EW Bangalore Preschool Rankings 2019-20 league tables, field personnel of the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore) persuaded 694 parents with preschool-going children and 122 ECCE teachers/principals of Bangalore, to rate the city’s sufficiently well-known proprietary and franchised preschools (preschools rated by less than 30 sample respondents are excluded from the league tables) on ten parameters of ECCE excellence including teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, infrastructure, individual attention to students, value for money, parental involvement, innovative teaching, safety and hygiene, leadership quality and special needs education. Bangalore’s best preschools 2019-20 (PROPRIETARY) Last ranked #1 in 2015-16, the Indus Early Learning Centre, Whitefield (IELCW) has regained its #1 rank after a three-year hiatus besting Head Start Montessori, Koramangala ranked #1 last year and Neev, Indiranagar, ranked #1 in 2017-18. Jointly ranked #4 in 2018-19, Greenwood High Preschool, Whitefield and Indus Early Learning Centre, Koramangala are jointly ranked #3 this year. “We are euphoric about IELCW regaining its natural #1 rank in the latest EW league table of Bangalore’s best preschools. I ascribe the excellent public reputation IELCW enjoys among Bangalore’s young parents to our child-friendly curriculum which integrates best international ECCE practices,” says Priyanka Khurana, head of IELCW, promoted in 2011 by the Bangalore-based Indus Trust which also owns and manages the highly acclaimed IB-affiliated Indus International schools in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune — all ranked among the Top 10 international day-cum-boarding schools in the EW India School Rankings 2019-20. Currently, IELCW has 120 students and 19 teachers on its muster rolls. Khurana is especially pleased that IELCW has been given top score on seven of the ten parameters of ECCE excellence including teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, infrastructure, innovative teaching and parental involvement. “Our carefully selected teachers are rigorously trained to deliver…
In the EW Chennai preschools 2019-20 league tables, 44 proprietary and 22 franchised pre-primaries are rated on 10 parameters of ECCE excellence by 662 parents with children in preschool and 72 principals/teachers based in Chennai. The port city of Chennai (pop. 9.8 million), the admin capital of the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million), has an ancient reputation for hosting high-quality education institutions. The city’s educationists and edupreneurs have always been quick to embrace innovative pedagogies and education philosophies from preschool to higher education. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that Chennai hosts an estimated 800 pre-primaries delivering professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) and offering diverse pedagogies ranging from Montessori and Waldorf to Reggio Emilia. It’s also noteworthy that the incumbent AIADMK state government is in the process of designing a holistic draft syllabus for the state’s 150,000 preschools to give ECCE due importance and a place in the sun. In the EW Chennai preschools league tables, 44 sufficiently well-known proprietary and 22 franchised pre-primaries are featured and rated on 10 parameters of ECCE excellence — competence of teachers, infrastructure, innovative teaching, safety and hygiene, individual attention to students etc — by 662 parents with children in preschool and 72 principals/teachers based in Chennai. CHENNAI’S BEST PRESCHOOLS 2019-20 – OWNED/PROPRIETARY Chennai’s 2019-20 proprietary preschools league table has witnessed a mild churning. This year, Vruksha Montessori School, Alwarpet ranked #2 in 2018-19, has regained its prime position as the city’s #1 pre-primary followed by last year’s #1 ranked SEED, Adyar at #2 jointly with the Indus International Primary School, Neelankarai ranked #3 in 2018-19. Vels International Preschool, Neelankarai ranked #3 and Learning Tree, Adyar at #4 have both retained last year’s rankings and are obliged to share top table with Sprouts Montessori House of Children, Mylapore, ranked #5. Promoted by Jayashree Radhakrishnan in 2002, Vruksha Montessori School, Alwarpet (VMSA) is awarded top score in four of the ten parameters of ECCE excellence including teacher competence, individual attention to students, parental involvement and innovative teaching. Jayashree Radhakrishnan, principal of VMSA, attributes this 17-year-old preschool’s consistently high ranking to the management’s sharp focus on teacher training, welfare and development. “All our teachers are thoroughly trained in Montessori pedagogy and attend regular in-service workshops. We maintain a low 1:10 teacher-pupil ratio to enable individual attention to children. There’s growing awareness among parents and educators in the city that inducting youngest children into the education system requires special skills, and that in VMSA we practice them. That’s the explanation behind our consistently high ranking,” says Radhakrishnan, a Madras University and IMC Chennai alumna with considerable teaching and admin experience acquired at the Chettinad Vidhyashram and Abacus Montessori Schools in Chennai before she promoted VMSA. Currently, Chennai’s top-ranked proprietary preschool has 200 children nurtured by 20 teachers on its muster rolls. Adds Nandini Joshi, a commerce alumna of Pune University and Indian Montessori Centre (IMC), Chennai, and coordinator of VMSA, “We are delighted to be back at the top again and thank our teachers and…
While the subject of early childhood care and education (ECCE) was unfamiliar within the rest of the country, pre-primary schools such as West Wind, Breach Candy (estb.1947) and Besant Montessori (1948) had already started providing professionally administered ECCE to infants in the 2-5 age group. Here are Mumbai’s best preschools 2019-20. Until the mid 19th century the western seaboard city of Bombay — now known as Mumbai — played second fiddle to Calcutta (now Kolkata) which was India’s commercial capital under the East India Company, the world’s first and arguably largest and most powerful multinational. But after India under the brilliant leadership of Mahatma Gandhi wrested freedom from foreign rule, and especially after the state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million), which has Kolkata as its admin capital, elected the CPM (Communist Party of India)-led Left Front government that uninterruptedly misruled it for 34 years (1977-2011), Mumbai has emerged as the country’s undisputed commercial capital and business and finance hub. Moreover, as a port city, it had historically been open to Western influences and best practices in business, finance, and education. Therefore while the subject of early childhood care and education (ECCE) was unfamiliar within the rest of the country, pre-primaries such as West Wind, Breach Candy (estb.1947) and Besant Montessori (1948) had already started providing professionally administered ECCE to infants in the 2-5 age group. Since then the number of pre-primaries or preschools has multiplied manifold and they have mushroomed in all localities and street corners. However, only 58 of them are sufficiently well-reputed to be included in the 2019-20 EW league table of Mumbai’s best proprietary pre-primaries. Under the ranking methodology of the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb. 2000) which interviewed 700 sample respondents (parents with children in preschool, principals and teachers), low-profile preschool evaluated by less than 30 respondents are eliminated from the rankings exercise. Therefore, the 2019-20 league table has rated and ranked 58 of Mumbai’s sufficiently well-known preschools in proprietary and 15 in the franchised categories. Moreover based on public feedback and demand, we have rated and ranked proprietary and franchised preschools in neighbouring Thane separately this year (see p.62). PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS For the past five years, the league table of Mumbai’s most admired proprietary preschools has been dominated by the vintage Besant Montessori, Juhu, (BMJ, estb.1948) and this year’s sample respondents have reaffirmed their faith in this pre-primary whose management has moved with the times and introduced contemporary best practices into this 71-year-old preschool’s operations. This year, BMJ has been awarded highest score on six of the ten EW parameters of ECCE excellence, including teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, individual attention to pupils, and innovative teaching. “Although we are simultaneously humbled and delighted to be ranked Mumbai’s #1 pre-primary for the fifth year in succession, we accept this honour with a heavy heart. Our director Mme. Dolly Wadia who had joined this preschool in the 1950s and had succeeded our founder Tehmina…
In the 2019-20 Kolkata league tables of proprietary and franchised preschools, there’s only one new entrant in each category, perhaps indicative that the ruling TMC has not yet reversed the toxic legacy of 34 years of Marxist rule. Political volatility supplemented by capital flight, corruption scams and varsity campus violence — the legacy of 34 years of toxic Marxist rule over the state which the ruling Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress party (TMC) has been unsuccessful in reversing — perhaps explains why the 2019-20 Kolkata league tables of proprietary and franchised preschools has only one new entrant in each category. This is in marked contrast to the league tables of other metros — Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — which feature several newly promoted pre-primaries this year, indicating an entrepreneurial boom in the early childhood care and education (ECCE) sector which it is pertinent to note, is not subject — as yet — to the bull-in-china-shop regulations of government. PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS Promoted in 1964 as one of Kolkata’s first Montessori-inspired pre-primaries, Mongrace Montessori House, Short Street (MM-SH), has firmly established itself as the city’s pre-eminent preschool. In the EW Kolkata Preschool Rankings 2019-20, MM-SH is ranked the city’s #1 proprietary preschool for the seventh consecutive year with top scores under the parameters of teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, leadership, value for money and safety and hygiene. “EducationWorld was the first publication to highlight the critical importance of early childhood care and education and rank the country’s best preschools. Therefore, we are honoured and proud to be repeatedly adjudged #1 by this pioneer publication. I am especially happy with MM-SH’s top score under the parameters of teacher competence and teacher welfare and development because the continuous training of our 32 teachers is a top priority of the management. Almost all our teachers have completed the British Council’s online certificate courses on global citizenship and 21st century skills, and regularly attend professional development programmes. In 2019, the Early Childhood Association also conferred MM-SH the ECA Hall of Fame Award for teacher development and promoting best practices in reading. With a legacy of over 55 years, I am very satisfied that MM-SH has emerged as a model preschool for introducing new pedagogies and practices to enable children to learn joyfully,” says Suman Sood, a graduate of Panjab and Madurai Kamaraj universities who took charge as principal of MH-SH in 2011. Currently, this pre-primary has 300 students mentored by 32 teachers. Though the 647 sample respondents including parents of preschool children and ECCE principals and teachers interviewed in Kolkata by the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore) have retained MM-SH as the #1 preschool, they have voted for a major reshuffle of seating order further down the top table. Swarnim International Preschool, NSC Bose Road, ranked #5 last year, has forged ahead to #2 pushing Mongrace Montessori House and Day Care Centre, New Town — an affiliate of MM-SH — to #3. Prarambh Preschool, BT Road has retained its #3 position even…
Although the preference in the national capital is for composite K-12 schools, standalone proprietary and franchised pre-primaries which often admit less than two-year-olds are a godsend for young double-income parents in nuclear households. Here are Delhi’s top-ranked preschools 2019-20. Perhaps no urban habitat in India is more appreciative of the importance of giving children an early start in education than Delhi (pop. 19 million), the administrative hub and national capital of India. The sight of anxious parents wrapped up in woollens and braving the toxic early morning air of the world’s most polluted city — a dubious distinction conferred recently on this imperious city of wide avenues, gardens, impressive tombs and palaces by the World Health Organisation — is commonplace every winter. These huddled parents line up for admission forms of the national capital’s top-ranked pre-primaries aka preschools. Although the longest queues are before the gates of composite K-12 schools which offer young parents the inviting prospect of their much-loved progeny availing high-quality private education all the way up to class XII, the queues before standalone top-ranked proprietary and franchised pre-primaries which often admit children less than two-year-olds are, if at all, only slightly shorter. For double income young parents in nuclear households, the country’s rapidly multiplying standalone preschools and ECCE centres are a godsend. DELHI’S TOP RANKED PRESCHOOLS 2091-20 – PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS Ever since the pioneer annual EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings were introduced in 2010, the league table of Delhi’s most admired proprietary pre-primaries promoted by visionary edupreneurs acquainted with the teaching and work of Western ECCE educators such as Dr. Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget and Rudolf Steiner, has been dominated by a handful of carefully conceptualised, child-centric preschools. Quick to adapt with the temper of the times and adopt best ECCE practices from Finland, Italy (Reggio Emilia), the US and UK where the cognitive sciences are deeply researched and quickly implemented, Delhi’s vintage pre-primaries continue to be held in high esteem by knowledgeable young parents and seasoned educators. Therefore, there has at best been a minor readjustment of seating at the Top 5 table of the national capital’s most respected proprietary preschools. Step by Step, Panchsheel (SbS, estb.1992) which was jointly ranked #1 last year with The Magic Years, Vasant Vihar (TMY), promoted by the legendary Shirley Madhavan Kutty in 1984, has been placed a notch above in 2019-20 by Delhi’s sample respondents with Little Pearls — also in Vasant Vihar — jointly ranked #2 with TMY. They are accorded pride of place among the Top 5 together with Ardee School, Friends Colony which retains its #3 ranking of 2018-19, and Amiown, Pushp Vihar at #4 (4). The new entrant into the Top 5 is the Wonderland Play School, Chanakyapuri jointly ranked #4 (6) followed by Petals Preschool, Nirmal Vihar ranked #5 (4) together with Tender Feet, Vasant Kunj (12) which has made a great leap upward in the esteem of the national capital’s sample respondents. “I am delighted to learn that SbS has been exclusively voted Delhi’s #1…
Against the backdrop of early childhood care and education about to be — even if belatedly — accorded high importance in the imminent National Education Policy 2019, the ninth consecutive EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2019-20 survey highlighting the country’s most admired pre-primaries and their best practices, assumes special importance – Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen In the celebratory 20th anniversary issue of EducationWorld published last month, an unsparing internal jury awarded this mission-driven publication low social impact grades on several national objectives including our mission statement viz, “to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. On this prime objective EW was awarded a mere two stars (out of a maximum five). Similarly, on other affiliated objectives such as education liberalisation advocacy, propagating VET (vocational education & training), autonomy for higher education institutions, financial autonomy for private schools and defending private budget schools etc (see https://www.educationworld.in/ew-impact-assessment/), we received modest ratings. However, the rating awarded for sustained advocacy of professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE), was a higher three stars. Perhaps a four-star rating equivalent to the score awarded for popularising credible preschool, school and private university rankings would have been more appropriate. Because since 2007 when your editors belatedly experienced an epiphany about the critical importance of ECCE in the cognitive development of children following US-based economist Dr. James Heckman’s research indicating that a dollar invested in ECCE saves $16 in the education continuum to university — for which he was co-awarded the Nobel economics prize in 2000 — EducationWorld has been in the vanguard of a growing national movement for provision of high-quality ECCE to all children in the 0-6 age group. Since then, EducationWorld has relentlessly promoted universalisation of professionally administered ECCE for youngest children, whose physical and mental well-being is of paramount importance for the emergence of this country as a global force in the 21st century. Consequently, we have also been ardent supporters of the Mumbai-based Early Childhood Association (ECA, estb.2010), a preschools affiliating organisation which prescribes minimum standards and best ECCE practices to member and socially disadvantaged preschools. Simultaneously, we have been exerting continuous pressure on government to upgrade and professionalise the country’s 1.36 million Central government-promoted anganwadis which also receive state government support by way of wages and salaries. Promoted in 1976, anganwadis are essentially nutrition centres for lactating mothers and infants which are also mandated to provide ECCE to pre-primary children. However it’s noteworthy that the 1.36 million anganwadis accommodate only 50 percent of the country’s 165 million children in the 0-6 age group. Moreover, government anganwadis are severely under-funded and under-staffed with a per child allocation of a mere Rs.2,361 per year. In a detailed calculus sent by your editors to the PMO (prime minister’s office) and the Union HRD ministry after presentation of the Union budget to Parliament and the people, for the past several years, we have been forwarding a schema for mobilising a sum of Rs.6.37 lakh crore for investment in…
Mississauga (Canada)-based UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) evangelist Ayush Chopra (17) has every reason to feel elated. In July this year, this teen was conferred the prestigious Diana Award 2019, established by the UK government in 1999 in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, to acknowledge outstanding young leaders for selflessly creating and sustaining positive social change in their communities around the world. This award is a prerequisite to qualify for the next grade Diana Legacy Award. In 2017, Ayush founded a twitter online community @SDGs for children — now registered under Canada’s Not-For-Profit Corporation Act — to support Agenda 2030 of the United Nations globally. The @SDGs community continuously reminds the public of the 17 SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 with a 2030 deadline and offers children around the world a unique platform to connect, create and collaborate for a better and sustainable world. The elder of two children of Hemant Chopra, scientist at the National Informatics Centre, Delhi, and Jyoti, director of an IT company, Ayush is a class XII student of the Rick Hansen Secondary School, Mississauga. Born and raised in India, he is an alum of Delhi’s top-ranked Ahlcon International School, and began his ‘advocacy’ in 2016 when he was 13 years old. He moved to Canada in 2018. “The SDGs are a prescription for equitable and sustainable development for the entire world,” says Ayush. Among them: no poverty; zero hunger; good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation. Looking to the future, Ayush is now focusing on higher education options and ways and means to expand @SDGs footprint worldwide. “I am exploring bachelor’s degree programmes in computer science. Simultaneously, I am working on my next book in consultation with 50 global educators titled SDGs White Book for teachers. In an increasingly polluted world running out of natural resources, actualisation of the SDGs is the only hope for the survival of humankind. Therefore, there’s no time to lose for implementing them,” says Ayush. Clear the gangway! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Coimbatore-based social entrepreneur Padmanabhan Gopalan (26), founder of an NGO christened No Food Waste (NFW, estb.2014), is winner of the National Youth Award 2019 of the Union ministry of youth affairs and sports. NFW collects leftover food from weddings and other festivals and distributes it to the poor and needy in 16 cities and towns of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh through a 3,800-strong volunteers brigade. Earlier this year in March, Gopalan was conferred the Commonwealth Youth Award 2019 for Asia which included a cash prize of £3,000 (Rs.2.78 lakh). A batch topper engineering graduate of the city’s Government College of Technology, Padmanabhan partnered with college friends — Dinesh Manickam and Sudhakar Mohan — to co-promote NFW in 2014 under the auspices of the SPICE (Society Promoting Innovation Creativity and Entrepreneurship) Foundation, provoking severe parental censure and displeasure for forsaking a corporate career for voluntary service. “During weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and even public functions, mountains of food is prepared to entertain guests, friends and relatives. And it’s a national tradition to cater for larger than expected number of guests. On the other hand, within the radius of a few kilometres there are inevitably thousands of people who go to bed on empty stomachs. In NFW, our objective is to prevent leftover food from going waste — to ‘feed people not landfills’,” says Gopalan. Currently, NFW’s volunteers collect, package and distribute food to 900 hungry and destitute people per day in 14 urban habitats in Tamil Nadu and two in Andhra Pradesh, thus saving 321 tonnes of cooked food valued at Rs.487 crore per year, and have fed 9.74 lakh needy people thus far. Enthused by the warm reception accorded to NFW by all sections of society, Gopalan has drawn up an ambitious plan to meld latest digital technologies in this NGO’s operations. “I am exploring ways to design and develop superior technology to reduce food wastage at the production stage and develop better logistics. Every year, over 25 million tonnes of foodgrains and 40 percent of the country’s horticulture produce — fruits and vegetables — are wasted. This huge waste has to be reduced to zero because the number of poor and hungry is increasing. That’s our larger mission,” says Gopalan. Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)
Bangalore, November 7. Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) announced winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 in six categories — engineering and computer sciences, humanities, life sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences and social sciences. The prize for each category awardee is a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize purse of US$100,000 (Rs.72 lakh) this year. A panel of accomplished jurors comprising renowned scholars and professors selected the winners of Infosys Prize 2019 from 196 nominations from around the world. Winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 in the six categories are: Sunita Sarawagi of IIT-Bombay for engineering and computer science; Manu V. Devadevan, assistant professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi for humanities; Manjula Reddy, chief scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad for life sciences; Siddhartha Mishra, professor, department of mathematics, ETH Zürich for mathematical sciences; G. Mugesh, professor, department of inorganic and physical chemistry, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore for physical science; and Prof. Anand Pandian of the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, USA, for social sciences. Band-It Season 3 winners Mumbai, November 19. The G-Minor band of the Gopalan International School, Bangalore, was adjudged the winner of Band-It Season 3 music festival grand finale of the Furtados School of Music held on November 16 in Mumbai. Unsatisfied Musicians (Oberoi International School, Mumbai) was adjudged runner up. The festival received a record number of entries across categories including band competition, solo vocals, solo instrumental, choir/group singing and beatboxing from across the country. The grand finale was judged by a jury comprising India’s original boy band, A Band of Boys. “Music is regaining popularity in India, not just as a profession but also for its positive impact on mental health. More and more schools are adding music to their curriculum to give students a chance to unleash their creativity,” said Dharini Upadhyaya, co-founder of the Mumbai-based Furtados School of Music (estb.2011). Added Tanuja Gomes, co-founder and CEO: “Our objective is to promote music education and the talent of our young population. We pride ourselves on the talent we discover every year.” Manipal-SFL agreement Mumbai, November 26. The Manipal Global Academy of BFSI (banking & financial services and insurance), a division of Manipal Global Education Services Pvt. Ltd (MaGE), signed an agreement with the Chennai-based Sundaram Finance Ltd (SFL) to jointly conduct a 12-month learning programme to develop the skills of SFL employees. The programme, commencing in February next year, will train over 100 SFL professionals to strengthen their functional knowledge and negotiation skills, and improve productivity. “This tie-up with SFL will enable us to bridge the skills gap of SFL professionals engaged in mutual funds, housing finance, general insurance, IT, BPO and retail distribution businesses of the company. Our programme has been fine tuned to suit their niche requirements,” said Robin Bhowmik, chief business officer, Manipal Global Academy of BFSI. Firstcry.com acquires Oi Playschools Hyderabad, November 26. Hyderabad’s LoEstro Advisors (LLP), exclusive financial advisor to Oi Playschools (Oi Ps),…
Noida (UP), November 7. India Inc tycoons Ratan Tata and G.M. Rao were conferred honorary doctorates by Amity University at its annual convocation which awarded degrees to 6,900 graduates and 42 doctorate scholars. Union human resource development minister, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal was the chief guest. While Tata was honoured in absentia, Rao, chairman of the Delhi-based GMR Group, a big name in infrastructure industries including civil airports construction, said it was an honour to receive the doctorate together with his “role model”. Addressing graduating students, Pokhriyal said: “The Central government will soon be releasing its National Education Policy after a gap of 33 years which will empower the country based on the prime minister’s vision of ‘new India’.” Andhra Pradesh English medium fiat Ongole (prakasam), November 14. Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy launched the state government’s nadu-nedu (language provision) programme to introduce English as the medium of instruction in classes I-VI of government schools. “There will be some difficulties in implementing this scheme, but they can be overcome,” said the chief minister at a function organised at PVR High School to mark the occasion. The nadu-nedu programme will be implemented in 15,715 state government schools in the first phase, and will gradually be extended to cover all schools in the state within three years, at an estimated expenditure of Rs.12,000 crore. For the first year, Rs.3,500 crore will be spent on infrastructure development, says an official statement. Under the scheme, the government will also equip all public schools with requisite infrastructure including English language learning labs, separate toilets for girl students, drinking water, compound wall, blackboards etc. Haryana Climate change learning Chandigarh, November 16. Haryana’s deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala has written to the Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, urging him to introduce climate change and sustainability lessons in school curriculums from the academic year beginning 2020-21. “Climate change is a major challenge faced by developing countries, including India, having a severe impact on the health of our citizens. Therefore, climate change and sustainability lessons must be introduced in school curriculums countrywide. Such learning and awareness must begin from primary education so that future generations realise the importance of climate and sustainable development,” he wrote. Odisha Water drinking initiative Berhampur (Odisha), November 24. Following in the footsteps of India’s southern states (Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh), Odisha is all set to introduce water break bells in its schools. “This is to ensure that children drink adequate quantities of water and remain hydrated,” said Ganjam district collector Vijay Amruta Kulange, addressing media personnel. All schools in Ganjam district including government, private and anganwadis, have been instructed to ring three ‘water bells’ daily with immediate effect, she said. Meghalaya Small schools shut-down plan Shillong, November 28. The state government has drawn up a plan to shut down or withdraw financial aid to government schools with enrolments below ten students, and reallocate its grant to improve and upgrade other education institutions. About 221 lower and upper primary schools in the state…
“Recently, we’ve launched a report, which says 54 percent of the young people within the South Asian region do not have the skills they need for employability in 2030. It means these countries cannot contribute to the growth of the world economy.” Henrietta H Fore, executive director of UNICEF (Forbes India, November 6) “Public education gives you tremendous exposure. Your perspective matures, it shows you the challenges, it makes you empathetic and makes you very patient. You know reality very fast in public education when compared to private education.” Dr. R.S. Praveen Kumar, IPS officer, in ‘JNU protests: Why public education is crucial in a country like India’ (The News Minute, November 18) “Why have the children of affluent people studied in English medium? But when it comes to protecting Telugu language and culture, is it only the responsibility of the downtrodden and rural youth? This is not fair, we have to give everyone a level playing field. Most of the people from the SC/ST communities are celebrating today.” Suresh Audimulapu, Andhra Pradesh education minister, defending the government’s decision to introduce English medium in government schools (Mint, November 18) “As a child, I promised my mother I would win the Nobel Prize in physics. 50 years later, I said to my mother, ‘See, I have kept my promise. I won the Nobel Prize.’ ‘No,’ said my mother, ‘You promised it would be in physics!’” Kenzaburo Oe, who was awarded the 1994 Noble Prize in literature (twitter.com, November 20) “Why are people being forced to live in gas chambers? It is better to kill them all in one go, get explosives in 15 bags at one go. Why should people suffer all this? Instead, a blame game is going on in Delhi, I am literally shocked.” Justice Arun Mishra of the Supreme Court, admonishing the government for failing to curb Delhi’s air pollution (November 25)
The Karnataka government is confronted with a formidable challenge of finding teachers for 1,000 newly decreed English medium schools (‘sections’) established within Kannada medium government schools. In July 2018, a Congress-JDS coalition government led by chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy which ruled the state for 14 months (May 2018-July 2019) introduced this initiative with effect from June this year. Given the precarious condition of the state’s finances (fiscal deficit: Rs.42,000 crore in 2019-20), the department of public instruction (DPI) was directed to train the required 1,000 teachers from the host schools in English language proficiency over two-three months to teach in class I of the English-medium sections. With just seven months for the next academic year to begin, the DPI has to urgently identify another 1,000 teachers for training as the already recruited teachers will move to class II with their students. In the state’s 45,000 government primaries (class I-VIII), children have been exclusively educated in the Kannada medium since 1994 when a government order to this effect was passed by the then Congress government. Despite a three-judge Karnataka high court 2008 order which ruled that parents of school children have the right to choose the medium of instruction, which was upheld by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in 2014, the language lobby and Kannada Development Authority (KDA) continued to oppose English medium, and even teaching of English as a subject. Kumaraswamy’s initiative decreed that bottom-of-pyramid household children should be given equal opportunity to learn English, the language of business and commerce in India and the world. Inevitably, this overdue proposal was opposed by the Kannada language lobby and KDA whose chairperson is endowed with cabinet minister status. Yet, it’s hardly a state secret that the real motivation behind the language lobby is bagging Kannada textbooks writing and printing contracts as also teaching jobs for kith and kin. Therefore, for over a quarter-century, during which millions of children have been denied English language learning, KDA has been stridently opposing the introduction of English even as a subject, let alone medium of instruction, ruining the employment options of an entire generation of Karnataka-born citizens. The outcome of persistent denial of English language learning to underprivileged but aspirational households, has been the rise of the private budget schools (PBS) phenomenon. These are affordable schools which offer — or claim to offer — English medium education and English language proficiency. Many — if not most — of the PBS are ‘unrecognised’ by the state government but are functioning because Karnataka’s infamously venal school inspectors are bribed to overlook their grave sin of meeting public demand for English language education. Yet the threat of closure always hangs over them because s.19 of the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, prescribes minimum infrastructure norms with which they are not compliant. Currently, an estimated 13,000 PBS, with an aggregate enrolment of 3.5 million children, are operational within the state (pop.63 million). A quarter-century after Kannada was decreed as the medium of instruction in all greenfield…
Ever since general election 2019 in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 18 of the 42 seats allotted to West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in the Lok Sabha, and the number of seats of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party dropped from 34 to 22, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been on the back foot. Although high rankings awarded to the state government-run Calcutta and Jadavpur universities by the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) World University Rankings (WUR) was a morale booster, statewide protests by teachers of West Bengal’s 92,000 government and government-aided schools in November have plunged Banerjee into another sea of troubles. On November 6, the state’s primary school teachers demanding a 72 percent pay increase choked south Kolkata for over six hours. Moreover, since November 11, more than a thousand para-teachers are demanding upward rationalisation of their pay scales. Primary school teachers want education minister Partha Chatterjee to fulfil his promise to increase their salaries and bring them on a par with their counterparts in other states. They claim that while government primary teachers’ pay scales in neighbouring states are in the Rs.9,300-34,800 per month range, in West Bengal the scale is Rs.5,400-25,200. In support of this parity demand, teachers had gone on an indefinite hunger strike on July 25 which lasted for 18 days. They temporarily withdrew the strike after the state government agreed to meet their demands with effect from August 1. Four months later with no progress in this matter, the disgruntled teachers have launched renewed protests. Simultaneously, thousands of para-teachers from Bengal’s government schools are protesting under the banner of Para Teachers’ Aikya Mancha in front of Bikash Bhavan, education minister Partha Chatterjee’s office, for over three weeks demanding the pay scale of assistant teachers. After the protest reached its sixth day on November 15 without any response from Chatterjee, 34 of the protesting teachers launched an indefinite hunger strike. Moreover in solidarity, 48,000 para-teachers across West Bengal have been boycotting classes since November 18. The para-teachers’ grievances are that they are assigned the duties of regular teachers and made to work long hours without the financial benefits accruing to regular teachers. On August 16, they began a hunger strike, but s.144 (IPC) was imposed in the area forcing them to take their agitation to Kalyani, 55 km from Kolkata, where the police brutally lathi charged them. According to service rules of the Pay Commission, state governments pay 40 percent of the salaries of para- teachers with the remaining 60 percent transferred to the state by the Central government. The protesting teachers allege that they only receive the state government’s 40 percent. The Centre’s allocation is received by the state government but diverted for expenses such as decorating government buildings and running various populist schemes. Para-teachers are non-permanent teachers of the West Bengal education ministry who were appointed between 2007-2009 by the CPM (Communist Party of Marxist)-led Left Front government to maintain a healthy teacher-pupil ratio. At that time, they started with a…
-Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) The tragic suicide of Fathima Latheef (19), a first-year student of the five-year integrated humanities and development studies postgraduate programme, on the campus of the top-ranked Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M, estb.1959) on November 9 — the fifth student suicide in this institute during the past 12 months — has deeply embarrassed the management of this Central government-promoted globally renowned institute of multi-disciplinary higher learning. Fathima’s suicide and her poignant phone messages naming three professors in the humanities department for being responsible for her death, have generated a national furore on mass media and triggered relentless trolling of the institute on social media alleging harassment and Islamophobia. Students’ organisations in IIT-M have launched campus protests and political parties have jumped into the fray demanding justice for Fathima. Meanwhile, the case has been transferred to the Central crime branch of the Tamil Nadu state government and the accused three faculty members are being interrogated by the police. Fathima’s suicide is the fifth in 12 months on the sprawling 620-acre IIT-M campus which houses 10,299 students and 631 faculty. A final-year student of ocean engineering from Kerala committed suicide in September 2019; a first-year M.Tech student from Uttar Pradesh and a research scholar from Jharkhand took their lives in January this year, and an assistant professor recently took this extreme step in the staff quarters. The IIT-M management is dismayed because this vintage institute which hosts humanities and business faculties apart from engineering, has a reputation to lose. It is ranked the #1 engineering institute countrywide in the National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) 2019 of the Union government and #3 countrywide in the QS India University Rankings 2019. Fathima’s suicide has created greater embarrassment for the IIT-M administration because there’s widespread suspicion on social media even if not in IIT-M itself, that Fathima was driven to suicide because of the Islamophobia of some faculty members. According to her father Abdul Latheef, a Kerala-based Muslim who works in Saudi Arabia, his daughter had complained about faculty members subjecting her to religious discrimination and harassment. Fathima left no suicide note and even her cell phone messages don’t detail any specific charges, except alleged “harassment”. On its part, the IIT-M management is tight-lipped on the ground that the case is sub judice. On November 15, it issued a statement in which it appealed to the media to “desist from coming to conclusions till the enquiry is completed”. “As soon as the incident came to the knowledge of the IIT-M authorities, the police was immediately informed by the institute. IIT-Madras is committed to do whatever is required as per law, and ensure fair play,” says the statement. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an IIT-M professor ridicules the Islamophobia charge against faculty members. “This is a 60-year-old institution which has graduated thousands of Muslims and minority community students. This unfortunate girl was from a very sheltered, protected background who couldn’t cope with the rigours and independence of hostel life. The Islamophobia charge is political…
Three years after its accreditation status expired in April 2017, Maharashtra’s oldest varsity, University of Mumbai (estb.1857) has applied for National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) ranking. The university, funded by the state government, which has 810 affiliated colleges statewide with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students, was awarded grade ‘A’ status for the period 2012-17. However, soon after the expiry of its accreditation, it suffered a setback when a switch from the manual to online assessment system ran awry, resulting in prolonged delay in announcing collegiate exam results in 2017. Self-evidently, that would have been a wrong time to apply for reaccreditation as it would have endangered its ‘A’ grade rating. Therefore, the 162-year-old varsity’s management prudently resolved to clean up its act before reapplying for accreditation. This precaution was well-advised because Mumbai University (MU) has been plagued with chronic delays in declaring exam results. The delay went from bad to worse in 2017 when former vice chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh decreed replacement of the manual assessment of students’ exam papers with online evaluation. Since the firman was issued without adequate preparation, technological disruptions delayed declaration of final exam results in 447 of the university’s undergrad and postgraduate courses for an unprecedented three months. This delay hit 425,000 students who wrote their exams in March-May 2017, with many aspirants seeking admission into foreign universities losing an academic year. To tide over the crisis, the vintage MU had to suffer the humiliation of roping in technical experts and faculty from younger varsities including Nagpur University, Savitribai Phule University (Pune) and the Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad to complete the assessments process. Heads had to roll for this contretemps which prompted a huge students’ outcry. Vice chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh was fired in October 2017. The incumbent vice chancellor Dr. Suhas Pednekar was appointed in June 2018. As on September 2019, only a small fraction of the country’s 39,000 colleges and 993 universities are certified by NAAC (estb.1994) a subsidiary of the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC). Without NAAC certification — the certification process is elaborate and expensive — higher education institutions cannot receive UGC or RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan) infrastructure development grants or offer distance learning programmes. According to MU sources, the varsity lost a Rs.100-crore academic development grant under RUSA despite RUSA’s state development council recommending it, because of lack of NAAC certification during the past three years. With application work for NAAC accreditation, which inter alia requires preparation of a self-study report (not more than 200 pages), is in full swing, the MU administration is pitching for grade ‘A+’ certification — an improvement of its previous ‘A’ grade — which will make it eligible for enhanced funding under RUSA. With NAAC gradation processes also mandating inspection by a peer task force, the MU administration has been holding meetings to prepare department reports and appraise all faculty members. “It was unfortunate that MU was unable to reapply for NAAC certification in 2017 which has already cost us the Rs.100-crore funding…
Formulation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 is now in its final phase even as a 55-page leaked draft is ubiquitous on social media. All indications are that the final NEP will be formally released by the end of the year. The official NEP 2019 is likely to accept 80 percent of the recommendations made in the 484-page draft NEP report of the Kasturirangan Committee released on May 31 for public comment and suggestions. The window for public comment was kept open until August 15 during which time more than 200,000 comments and recommendations (including detailed recommendations made in two cover stories, July 2019 and November 2019, by EducationWorld) having been received by the Union human resource development ministry. NEP 2019 has been in the works for almost five years since 2015 and will be the outcome of two drafting committees, the first chaired by former Union cabinet secretary, TSR Subramanian, and the second by former ISRO chairman, Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan. What’s clear from the leaked NEP is that the Kasturirangan (KR) Committee’s recommendation to establish a National Commission for Education or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA) chaired by the prime minister has been rejected. Instead of deference to criticism that it would further centralise education, which was moved from the state to the concurrent jurisdiction list in the 1980s, NEP 2019 in its final form will declare that RSA will be chaired by the Union HRD minister. However, the leaked NEP 2019 report is vague on the critical issue of greater investment in education. Way back in 1966, the Kothari Commission had recommended allocation of 6 percent of GDP for education, which has been ignored by every government at the Centre and in the states for five decades with disastrous consequences for post-independence India’s polity and economy. Mysteriously, instead of endorsing this matrix, the KR Committee recommended that the annual national outlay for education should be increased from the current 11-12 percent to 20 percent of public expenditure over a period of ten years. Currently, the annual expenditure (Centre plus states) is estimated at 3.5 percent of GDP. Doubling this in ten years is too gradual an approach. Your editors have consistently argued for immediate doubling of the outlay and have repeatedly presented a comprehensive schema for one-time investment of Rs.6.37 lakh crore for a massive infrastructure boost to the public education system (see EW March 2019, p.42). In a valedictory address to the FICCI Higher Education Summit convened in Delhi on November 28, Kasturirangan reiterated that the KR committee’s modest recommendation is feasible. “Implementation of NEP 2019 will be a challenge but certainly it is doable. But current government spending of 11-12 percent of public expenditure on education has to rise to 20 percent over a 10-year period. It must be made possible,” he said. Speaking at the same event, Dr. G. Vishwanathan, founder-chancellor of the top-ranked Vellore Institute of Technology and Vellore Medical College and former president of the Delhi-based Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI), also…
I have been a regular reader of EducationWorld for over a decade. With every issue, you set higher standards of education journalism. In the November anniversary issue, you have outdone yourself by featuring an insightful and informative cover story ‘2030: Will India recover its lost education momentum?’ This story is a balanced assessment of the country’s education system, with words of caution for the future. I believe your mission statement: “to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 priority on the national agenda” should be written in golden words, framed and hung in all government offices to constantly remind our leaders of their duty towards India’s children. Dhriti Yadav Gurgaon Insightful essays Congratulations on EducationWorld’s 20th anniversary. The anniversary issue was information-packed and insightful, especially the seven essays written by eminent educationists. In particular Shiv Viswanathan’s perspective on ‘Are authoritarian leaders good for education?’ was well-argued. There is no doubt that the current dispensation at the Centre is trying to curb freedom of speech and expression in academia. However, the parallels drawn with Mao and Hitler’s interventions in education are far-fetched. I agree with Viswanathan that the merits of dissent are many. Dissent, as Supreme Court judge D.Y. Chandrachud rightly describes it, “is the safety valve of democracy”, but unfortunately Indians tend to label people with dissenting views as troublemakers. Sanjana Hegde Mangalore Stagnant education system Thank you for Dr. Krishna Kumar’s brilliant anniversary essay ‘Death of scientific temper’ (EW, November). Schooling in India is characterised by dwindling appreciation of the ‘spirit of inquiry’, thanks to the cookie-cutter teaching-learning system bequeathed to us by our imperial rulers. No, we cannot expect our obsolete schools to churn out a Greta Thunberg. India’s children are passive victims of a failed education system. So who do we hold accountable for prolonged stagnation of Indian education? I believe apart from educators, institution leaders and bureaucrats, parents and citizens of this country are also responsible. They need to speak up boldly and loudly for education reform. Vandana Sharma Noida Rankings endorsement I enjoy reading your September India School Rankings issue and the letters of frustration that followed in subsequent editions from heads of schools which didn’t make it to the top. Personally I have mixed feelings about these rankings. Nevertheless, I endorse the idea of ranking and rating schools and colleges on 14 parameters of education excellence (academic and non-academic), as such exercises promote healthy competition between them. Instead of complaining about low rankings, heads of education institutions should be more accepting, and introspect about striving to work harder. Vijaya Sarmah Guwahati Positive fallout I agree with your views on the abrogation of Articles 370 & 35A (Editorial, EW September). I don’t think it is a step in the right direction and is likely to further alienate the people of Kashmir. But one positive fallout of the abrogation is the way Kashmir’s crafty, self-serving political leaders of all hues have been stymied (at least for now). They had capitalised on the…
The continuous smog pollution which has enveloped Delhi — India’s showpiece national capital — for the past month since Diwali (October 27) and several cities of north India, is the natural outcome of post-independence India’s ill-advised adoption of the Soviet-inspired Centrally planned economic development model over half a century ago. At the time of independence, agriculture had pride of place in India’s economy with 80 percent of the citizenry engaged in this sector, contributing 52 percent of GDP. Instead of according priority to agriculture and rural development as advised by Mahatma Gandhi, after his assassination in 1948 and the demise of Sardar Patel two years later, under prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the country undertook a great leap leftward to implement the Soviet-style heavy industry-led economic development model. Worse, the abrupt transformation of the largely agricultural Indian economy was spearheaded by newly established public sector enterprises (PSEs) led by business illiterate bureaucrats. The PSEs consumed mountains of resources to produce negligible if any, surpluses for investment in rural development, public education and health. Post-independence India’s captains of private industry such as G.D. Birla, JRD Tata, Walchand Hirachand, Lala Shri Ram, Ambalal Sarabhai and Kasturbhai Lalbhai among others, who had established successful business conglomerates in the teeth of British opposition (and funded the freedom struggle) and could have generated re-investible surpluses and huge tax revenues for the Central and state governments, were demonised, vilified and bound up in red tape of Nehruvian licence-permit-quota raj. As a result, rural infrastructure was never built, the terms of trade between urban and rural India became increasingly adverse, and hundreds of millions of farmers remained mired in illiteracy and deep poverty. In the circumstances, rural India’s ill-educated, historically neglected and financially stressed farming community whose archaic stubble-burning practices are contributing heavily to air pollution in metropolitan Delhi, have no time or sympathy for the suffering of residents of Delhi and other urban habitats because of air pollution. Unsurprisingly, the Central and state governments of Punjab and Haryana which lavishly spend up to 20 percent of revenue on establishment expenses, and another 20-30 percent on unwarranted subsidies for the middle class, can’t afford to massively import specialised tractors which could be leased to farmers to convert farm stubble into fertiliser or marketable produce. The pollution crisis of urban India is the natural outcome of the continuous neglect of rural India and establishment of hundreds of non-performing PSEs (including coal-fired thermal power plants) which have created a mutually antagonistic divide between urban India and rural Bharat.
The unanimous judgement of the Supreme Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi Case (RJC) delivered by the apex court on November 9, brings a religious dispute followed by formal litigation in courts of law which began over a century ago, to closure. This historic judgement should be welcomed by all — as mandated by post-independence India’s social contract and the Constitution — in the interests of ushering a new era of Hindu-Muslim unity. According to the Archaeological Survey of India whose evidence was accepted by the five-judge bench, the Babri Masjid (mosque) was constructed over the ruins of an ancient temple of uncertain origin, although there is no clear evidence that the Mughal Emperor Babur (1483-1530) had destroyed a Hindu temple to construct the mosque on its foundations. Curiously, the court declined to take judicial notice that in that era of militant Islam, it was normative for idolators’ temples to be demolished and replaced by mosques. Subsequently, as detailed in the 1,045-page unanimous judgment of the five-strong constitutional bench, the issue of whether the mosque remained in the exclusive possession of Islamic clergy, is doubtful. Records maintained during the British Raj indicate that Muslims and Hindus worshipped in the inner and outer courtyards of the mosque. However, in 1949, some unidentified Hindu zealots surreptitiously placed two Ram idols in the inner courtyard directly under the central dome, which according to several ancient Hindu texts is the exact spot where Lord Rama was born. This desecration of 1949 and eventual destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 by Hindu militants were adjudged “serious violations of the rule of law” by the judges in the instant case. Despite this, because the Sunni Waqf Board, representing the Muslim community, was not able to prove exclusive possession of the mosque, on the basis of a “preponderance of possibilities,” the inner and outer courtyard areas have been awarded to the Hindu litigants of RJC in the larger public interest. Although fodder for pedantic scholars and office seekers disguised as political and community leaders, these and other complexities of this centuries-old case should not overly concern lay citizens. Final judgement on this faith-based dispute that has provoked much bloodshed and disharmony between the Hindu and Muslim communities for centuries, has been pronounced by the highest court of the Republic, constitutionally mandated to end all legal disputes. Therefore, the apex court’s deeply considered verdict should be acknowledged and accepted — notwithstanding reservations — by all right-thinking citizens. It is important to bear in mind that the five judges who unanimously pronounced this verdict, are steeped in legal scholarship, and between them combine over 200 years of experience in the practice of law and interpretation of the Constitution. Therefore, their Solomon-like judgement needs to be given greater weightage than the self-serving fulminations of rabble-rousing political office seekers and shallow 800-words media essayists.
Deconstructing disdain for for-profit education
Drawing from the draft prepared by the K. Kasturirangan Committee, the leaked final National Education Policy 2019 document posted on social media sites, laments “rampant commercialisation and economic exploitation of parents by many for-profit private schools”. There are several problems with this presumption. First, commercialisation which implies managing or running an enterprise for financial gain is not an evil in India or in most countries world over. Secondly, legally speaking, all schools are not-for-profit as they have to be registered as societies or charities. If extant regulations prohibiting for-profit schools have failed to prevent economic exploitation, the authors of NEP 2019 should have examined why, rather than reiterate the same failed solution. There’s some awareness of this within the Union government. Way back in 2011, a mid-term appraisal of the 11th Plan (2007-12) called for greater private participation in education and reconsideration of the not-for-profit precondition. It suggested easing of entry barriers including land acquisition for education institutions and legislation to facilitate private participation in education, and viable models for public-private partnerships. Responding, Dr. Jandhyala Tilak, former professor and vice chancellor of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi, opposed this review proposal and criticised the mid-term report of the Planning Commission (dismantled in 2014). In a detailed and considered rebuttal of the proposal, not advanced before or since, published in Economic & Political Weekly (February 26, 2011), Tilak offered five arguments against for-profit education: (i) private institutions indulge in unfair practices; (ii) the 25 percent quota in private schools for poor neighbourhood children under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 encourages profit-making at public expense; (iii) no country worldwide has ever successfully achieved universal K-12 education through for-profit education; (iv) private schools avail subsidies and concessions and therefore, they shouldn’t be allowed to earn profit; and (v) even a strictly regulated private sector cannot significantly contribute to universal education. Tilak’s first objection to the pragmatic approach recommended by the 11th Plan appraisal is prevalence of unfair practices in private institutions. The brunt of Prof. Tilak’s argument is that because some private schools indulge in unfair practices, no private education institution should be allowed to earn a profit. By this logic, if a few software companies (such as Satyam) dupe their shareholders, all for-profit software companies should be banned. If some politicians distribute cash or liquor to buy votes, no politician should be allowed to contest elections. The second objection is that since s.12 (2) of the RTE Act partially compensates private schools for the expenditure incurred by them to educate poor neighbourhood children admitted under s.12 (1) (c), they are in effect being subsidised by the state to the extent of 25 percent of their expenditure. This argument is also deeply flawed. On the contrary, s. 12 (1) (c) of the RTE Act in fact nationalises 25 percent of primary education capacity in all private unaided schools. The third argument that no country has been successful in…