EducationWorld February 13 Archives

Young Achievers

Jashrit Dubey

In a country where littering and indifference to civic cleanliness is a national malaise, Jashrit Dubey (14), a class IX student of the Gujarati-medium state board-affiliated Hiramani School, Ahmedabad, has assumed the burden of Mahatma Gandhi’s mission of maintaining clean and sanitary local environments, besides stirring fellow students into action. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and I decided to step out alone, never mind if others were not so willing,” he says. Starting from the bottom up, Jashrit’s campaign began in his own neighbourhood in the Chankheda area of Ahmedabad in 2010. Since then he has introduced clean-up drives in six wards of Ahmedabad, conducted workshops in 20 primary-secondary schools and mobilised a cohort of 5,500 students to spread his message. “I am well aware of the magnitude of the task I have undertaken since littering, spitting etc are regarded as natural and harmless activities. But as our cities become more populated, these activities can pose major health hazards,” says Jashrit, who drew his inspiration from a visit to Gandhiji’s Sabarmati Ashram and read about the Mahatma’s commitment to cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation. The schoolboy’s evangelism comes from his father Virendra Dubey, a physically challenged instructor in the Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Ahmedabad. Committed to vocational education and training of the physically disabled, Dubey was adjudged best employee in the state (2005), and received a special award from chief minister Narendra Modi. “I have been greatly inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and have taken Jashrit and his friends to Sabarmati Ashram on several occasions,’’ says Dubey. It’s not surprising that this young social activist is also a brilliant student averaging 90 percent in academics year upon year. With a long-term career goal to qualify as a physiotherapist, Jashrit is currently working on developing a website which will provide supplementary education to underprivileged children and also counsel them about health and hygiene issues. “Recycling and maintaining clean, green, safe and sanitary local environments is of utmost national importance. Healthy citizens transform into productive workers which is good for national development,’’ says Jashrit. Evidently this young crusader knows things most grown ups don’t. R.K. Misra (Gandhinagar)

Already a subscriber

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

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

Cover Story

New light in an area of darkness

Fully persuaded by the logic that social return per dollar invested in early childhood education is higher than equal investment in K-12 and tertiary education, EducationWorld organised major ECE global conferences in 2010 and 2011. On January 19, the 3rd ECE Global Conference 2013 was staged in Bangalore. Dilip Thakore reports It can be strongly and plausibly argued that the gender crimes stalking the country — highlighted by the vicious rape on December 16 in Delhi of the braveheart 23-year-old physiotherapy intern and her subsequent death in Singapore on December 29 — have a direct connection with the persistent neglect of early childhood education in post-independence India. Although informed opinion within the communities of neurosciences and brain researchers is near unanimous that children’s brains are almost fully developed by age eight, early childhood education (ECE) has remained an area of darkness for Indian educators and academics in the country’s 611 intellectually backward universities. Ditto the omniscient pundits of the Delhi-based Planning Commission who have been entrusted with the task of centrally planning the orderly growth and development of the Indian economy. In particular, the sins of the Planning Commission inspired by the Soviet model in the first rush of blood after the nation attained independence from British rule in 1947 (and of the political class across the spectrum persisting with Central planning), are manifold. Not only did it fail to sufficiently provide for the world’s first national birth control (family planning) programme as a result of which independent India’s population tripled from 350 million in 1950 to 1.2 billion currently, it has compounded this failure by not allocating sufficient resources for elementary education and literacy. While the global average for allocation of resources for education is 5 percent of GDP and developed industrial nations routinely invest 6-7 percent, in post-independence India the national outlay (Centre plus states) has never crossed 4 percent per annum. Even of these meagre annual allocations for education which is a defining feature of India’s pusillanimous national development effort, an average 30 percent is spent on excessively subsidised higher education. Consequently 65 years later, almost 30 percent — over 300 million Indians — are comprehensively illiterate and another 50 percent quasi-literate. Ironically, sustained under-investment in elementary education has not only torpedoed the national family planning programme (because literacy and economic development are the best contraceptives) but has also lumbered the nation with the world’s largest cohorts of under-employed and unemployable youth and adults who are incrementally taking to crime. The cardinal sin of neglecting elementary education has been compounded by the neglect of ECE. Although the Union government’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme for early childhood care and nutrition of infants and lactating mothers was introduced in 1975, right from the start, anganwadis (child care centres) established under the programme received token rather than adequate annual allocations in the Union budget. For instance the budgetary allocation for the country’s 1.3 million anganwadis in 2012-13 is a mere Rs.15,800 crore for 72 million infants (40 million according…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Mumbai: MU-affiliated colleges to stay online till Feb 22

Special Report

Mumbai University’s downward spiral

Founded in 1857 and one of the first three universities to be established in the British presidencies, this once highly-reputed varsity with a roll-call of illustrious alumni including Lokmanya Tilak and Dr. Ambedkar, is facing an unprecedented meltdown, with its academic reputation at its nadir. Summiya Yasmeen & Praveer Sinha report At an impressive convocation ceremony of the University of Mumbai held on the last day of 2012 at its 156-year-old heritage Fort campus, dominated by its landmark Indo-Saracenic Rajabai clock tower, chief guest President Pranab Mukherjee exhorted India’s institutions of higher education to reinvent themselves to deliver relevant knowledge and actionable skills. “All universities in India will need to reinvent themselves as enablers of society and not remain just gatekeepers of higher education,” Mukherjee said in his convocation address. The President’s clarion call to India’s 611 universities to reinvent themselves is particularly apposite advice for the state government-funded University of Mumbai (MU) which boasts 667 affiliated colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 650,000 students in India’s commercial capital. Founded in 1857 and one of the first three universities (Calcutta and Madras (1857) are the other two) to be established in the British presidencies, this once highly-reputed university with a roll-call of illustrious alumni including Lokmanya Tilak, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Nani Palkhivala, is facing an unprecedented meltdown, with its academic reputation at its nadir. From shortage of faculty and administrative staff, obsolete curriculums, exam malpractices and marks card scandals to widespread political interference in faculty appointments and administration, MU seems to be afflicted with every conceivable malaise. 2012 was a particularly bad year for MU, marked by a string of administrative gaffes. Exam hall tickets that were supposed to be issued online could not be accessed; exam centres were re-allotted to more than 2,100 students just hours before they took the first exam; the marketing and human resource management question paper of the third year B.Com degree programme was leaked and disseminated through sms and mobile apps, landing the issue in the Bombay high court; and distance and open learning B.Com students got a “wrong” question paper in 19 centres. In 2011, there was a four-month delay in the declaration of results of the M.Com exam and in 2010, discrepancies in the university’s optical mark recognition (OMR) code system led to answer sheets of 100 students getting mixed up. While these instances could be excused as administrative failures perhaps inevitable in an institution with the size and diversity of MU, consistently slipping administrative and academic standards are widely attributed to political interference, especially the improper and suspect top-level vice chancellor and pro vice chancellor appointments in this 156-year-old university. With its huge budget of Rs.376 crore per year, MU is a rich prize for Maharashtra’s notoriously corrupt politicians, adept at generating illegal income streams and building patronage networks while simultaneously pushing sons-of-the-soil and caste-based employment agendas, academic standards be damned. The routine interference of the state’s avaricious politicians in MU’s affairs bears an uncanny resemblance with the modus operandi of…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Expert Comment

Brewing crime tsunami

Ashish Puntambekar is a Mumbai-based corporate planner and project designer of the Indian Education Megaproject The national outrage over the vicious gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in a bus coursing through the national capital, and her subsequent death in a Singapore hospital on December 29, will serve no purpose unless the root causes of the pervasive culture of misogyny and degradation of women are deeply analysed. We need to identify the prime reasons behind the crime wave (including gender crimes) sweeping the nation. A thorough diagnosis is the precondition of short, medium and long-term strategies to make women feel safe in India. Latest (2011) census and employment statistical data indicate that overall crime (mostly theft) is likely to increase by 300-500 percent in 2018. The data indicates that more than 200 million young people will be entering the working-age group by 2018 (in addition to 112 million already unemployed). This number, equivalent to two-thirds of the entire population of Europe, will enter an economy in which too few new jobs are being created. This is not to say that the majority of unemployed youth will take to crime, but there are established correlations and adequate historical proof globally, linking rising crime to unemployment. If to rising unemployment, we add a skewed sex ratio, we are staring at a looming national crisis which could make India the most dangerous place on earth for women. The police and the judiciary cannot be blamed for everything, as they are only dealing with the first ripples of a crime tsunami that is likely to sweep the country between 2018 and 2020. To a substantial extent, the current upsurge in crime can be directly traced to lack of directional inputs from the PMO (prime minister’s office) and a non-serious Planning Commission which failed to act, despite being aware in 2004 that a “demographic supernova’’ had exploded in the 7-11 age group. Despite this, the Congress-led UPA-II government has dismally failed to initiate a genuine mass employment generation project over the past eight years even though it was fully aware that an additional 200 million youth are likely to enter the national work force by 2018. In this connection it needs to be pointed out that MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and AADHAR (national unique identity scheme) do not — and cannot — create nearly sufficient productive capacity and employment. These are essentially hand-out schemes and therefore unsustainable. Even the much-trumpeted FDI (foreign direct investment) in retail will generate only 10 million jobs at best. Therefore the government needs to move quickly and clear large infrastructure projects, preferably agriculture/irrigation projects in rural India and construction projects in cities to provide productive employment for the huge number of youth entering the workforce. The problem is also snowballing because the UPA government which pays lip service to liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy, has failed to repeal antiquated, hare-brained labour laws which encourage capital-intensive (rather than labour-intensive) projects, and have led to…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Cover Story

Time to refocus lenses: Keynote address by Rabiatul Adawiah

Of late there’s been a wave of global rediscovery of the vital importance of early childhood education (ECE). In countries around the world, there is growing acknowledgement of the critical contribution that education in the early years makes towards the overall development of children. Of greater significance though, is growing research data which suggests that investing in preschool education pays well, not just for children, but for societies and countries as a whole. Economics Nobel laureate Dr. James Heckman, author of the Heckman equation, has conclusively demonstrated that countries which invest in high-quality preschool education, are reaping a wide range of benefits — better health and education outcomes, increased global competitiveness, social mobility and inclusiveness. He estimates that annual returns on investment in early childhood education range from 8-17 percent. Moreover in the Perry Preschool project, the return on ECE was calculated at seven times the investment for its lifelong effects. And with countries around the world including Singapore and India encouraging women’s participation in the workforce, there’s urgent need to increase child care and education centres. With such rising awareness and social need, it’s no wonder there’s exponential increase and rapid expansion of ECCE (early childhood care and education) programmes, particularly in Asia. According to a recently released report of Unicef and Unesco, pre-primary enrolment in South Asia has nearly doubled, from 25 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2009. Inevitably, with increasing awareness of the importance of early childhood education for individual and national benefit, there’s been a mushrooming of ECE programmes giving rise to issues of availability, affordability and quality. Issues of availability centre round the question of whether ECE constitutes a legal right, for at least one year. In most countries, there is a legal obligation to universalise primary and secondary education. But in several countries including China, Japan and India, among others, this right does not extend to preschool education. This may lead to a situation in which children from socio-economically disadvantaged households won’t be able to enjoy the positive impact of early education, leading to pernicious social and income inequalities. The next issue is affordability of preschool education which is typically worst in countries where availability of ECE is limited, resulting in preschool education being expensive, often prohibitively so. In China for example, the monthly tuition fees of preschools in Beijing are up to six times higher than demanded by top local universities. Studies show that in general, the more widespread and available early education programmes are, the more affordable and accessible ECE becomes for children and families. The next critical issue is of quality — the most important determinant of ECE. The key drivers of high-quality ECE are excellent teacher training, transparent curriculum guidelines and norms, and proactive parental awareness, engagement and involvement. In the matter of teacher education, countries which insist on rigorous qualifications perform best in world rankings. Finland and South Korea, for example, require a minimum bachelor’s degree qualification, and governments proactively recruit the top 30 percent of graduates…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Parents prefer homeschooling over online

Cover Story

Focus on young children and play: Keynote address by Dr. S. Anandalakshmy

I would like to begin with a true story, an episode of a few decades ago. A young woman had come to her parental home during her first pregnancy. Her father was a reputed doctor in a small temple town called Srivilliputtur. The delivery was normal and the baby was healthy. Baths and diets were all taken care of in traditional style. When the baby was five months old, travel arrangements were made for the mother and baby. New clothes for her husband’s family, and loads of the customary sweets and snacks, personal effects of the young mother and the infant’s silver cup and spoon — all were packed. Every detail was checked and they reached the station in the doctor’s car followed by a jutka (horse-cart) with the luggage. When they reached the station, each asked the other, “Who is holding the baby”? No one was. They rushed back to find the baby fast asleep in his crib, where he had been forgotten. They managed to get back to the railway station in time, catch the train, with the baby safe in the mother’s arms. A happy ending! You might wonder how this anecdote is connected to the theme of focusing on young children. Well, it’s a metaphor for what often happens in schools and particularly in preschools. There is a curriculum, neatly typed on every table, daily time tables up on the wall, age-appropriate play materials, colourful furniture, the loud school bell, well-turned out and often well-trained teachers, and airy classrooms. The focus is on the setting. In the process of organising everything, the child is often neglected. And such diffusion of focus is not only in schools. I have attended seminars and conferences on early childhood, where one would hear three or four learned presentations in a session, with no specific mention of the words “child” or “children”. Of course, the child’s presence was implicit, but I am keen to make that presence explicit and remind this audience of the wonderful talent children have for creativity and spontaneity. Odi vilayadu paappa is the first line of a well-known song by freedom fighter and patriot-poet Subramania Bharati. It’s addressed to a young girl, urging her to run and play with her friends and be joyful. It celebrates childhood and the spontaneous play of young children. The play experiences of children form the first source of their education. As teachers, through our interventions we should guide and stimulate, nurture them through play, assisting them to enhance their observations, allowing each child to make joyful discoveries of nature. We should promote their talent for forming natural friendships, provide settings where they can develop confidence and sense of self. Singing, dancing, miming, story-telling, painting and clay modeling are activities in which every child can participate and experience delight and empowerment. Most parents focus on cognitive learning or the development of specific physical skills, which result when children play. What adults often miss is the emotional development inherent in play activities. Starting…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Cover Story

Panel Discussion: ‘Is Indian academia/society ignorant about ECE?’

Against the backdrop of early childhood education (ECE) being described as an area of darkness in Indian education, at the EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013, a panel discussion on the subject ‘Is Indian academia/society ignorant about ECE?’, evoked spirited debate. Chaired by EducationWorld editor Dilip Thakore (DT), the specially constituted panel comprised Dr. Venita Kaul (VK), director of the School of Education Studies and Center for Early Childhood Education and Development, Ambedkar University, Delhi; Swati Popat Vats (SPV), president of the Podar Education Network and Early Childhood Association (India); Reshma Shrinivas (RS), founder and managing director of WeCare Learning (estb. 2008), Bangalore’s largest wholly owned early childcare and learning centres company; and Suman Kapoor (SK), founder and CEO of Your Kids ‘R’ Our Kids, one of India’s largest corporate childcare chains with 25 centres and an aggregate enrolment of 4,500 children in six cities across India. Excerpts from the 100-minute panel discussion which also provoked much comment from the floor. DT: Is serious research being conducted on ECE in India’s 611 universities? Why do we always have to rely on research studies done abroad? Also, why haven’t the country’s 1.6 million anganwadis been transformed into preschools? VK: We tend to become disheartened because we are unaware of the considerable work being done in ECE, possibly because India is vast and information dissemination is abysmal. However, when I visited China recently, I was surprised to discover that it has only recently begun to experiment with ECE, whereas our Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme was started way back in 1975, and our women and child development ministry was the first in South-east Asia to propagate this important initiative. With reference to your question on anganwadis, the answer is the pathetic salaries of anganwadi workers. The total budget per anganwadi is only Rs.1 lakh per year, and with most of it spent on child nutrition, practically nothing is left for education. DT: Therefore the burden of ECE delivery has devolved on private education providers. Swati, how easy was it to promote the Early Childhood Association (ECA)? What are the objectives of the association? SPV: There isn’t much enthusiasm for the association because we advocate that preschool teachers should be paid the same salaries as other school teachers, given the equal if not greater, importance of professionally delivered ECE. Our objective is to thoroughly professionalise preschools in India by researching ECE, accrediting preschools, disseminating best practices, and training preschool teachers. We are also ready to provide ECA services to government anganwadis. The Central and state governments are making a big mistake by not cooperating with us. DT: Reshma, as a pioneer in delivering on-site early childhood care and education (ECCE) to corporates, how easy was it to sell the idea of childcare centres to Indian industry and parents’ communities? RS: When we started operations five years ago, both communities were receptive from the start. On-site ECCE was welcomed by women in employment and corporates anxious to get trained women back to work. However, the common perception is that care and early childhood education are synonymous. They are not.…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Cover Story

Panel Discussion: ‘Dangers of age-inappropriate ECE’

At the EducationWorld ECE Global Conference 2013, a panel discussion convened to discuss the dangers of age-inappropriate ECE, drew a packed house. The panel chaired by Summiya Yasmeen (SY), managing editor of EducationWorld, included Dr. K.R. Maalathi (KRM), a Chennai-based education consultant and advisor to the Ashok Piramal Group, Mumbai, and Children Welfare Society, Dubai; Dr. Shekhar Seshadri (SS), professor, department of child and adolescent psychiatry, NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences), Bangalore; Lina Ashar (LA), founder-promoter of 56 Kangaroo Kids preschools and 18 Billabong High International schools in 20 cities in India; and Priya Krishnan (PK), founder-CEO of the Bangalore-based VBHC Education Services. Excerpts of the 90-minute panel discussion. SY: There are an estimated 220,000 private preschools countrywide. But they lack standardised syllabuses and curriculums. Lina, do you agree that most of them are developmentally inappropriate? LA: I don’t want to comment on the curriculums of other schools. In Kangaroo Kids preschools, we pay great attention to delivering age-appropriate ECE. But more than age-appropriate curriculums, there is a great need to upgrade the country’s teacher training institutions and extend their coverage to include ECE. All over the developed world, four years of higher education is mandatory for preschool teachers. Here teacher training colleges offer a one-year programme with some certifying them after three months, which is clearly inadequate. SY: Maalathi, preschool teachers say parental pressure is forcing them to teach literacy and numeracy to very young children. What’s your comment? KRM: Professional ECE educators won’t dream of imposing age-inappropriate literacy and numeracy education in preschools. But parental pressure often determines their curriculums. Ignorant parents anxious to give their children an early start, influence private preschool promoters to impose age-inappropriate early learning curriculums which damage, rather than develop little children. And this is happening because of increasing privatisation and commercialisation of ECE. SY: Dr. Seshadri, what do you think is the psychological and emotional fallout of forcing age-inappropriate learning in early childhood? SS: Our research on development methodologies suggests that too much is being taught too soon in preschools in India. Parents and ECE teachers must understand that information is not knowledge. There’s no point in loading little children with information as it will fast disappear from their reverberatory circuits and conversion won’t happen. Both these communities must understand — or be made to understand — that the basic objective of ECE is to teach little children to learn how to learn. Teaching too much too soon makes children believe there is a certain expectation of outcomes. Great expectations and over emphasis on right answers feed fear and anxiety. SY: Most preschool promoters say the reason why they begin to teach too much too early is because parents are anxious about preschools preparing children for admission into top primary schools. And whether we like it or not, most primary schools have admission tests and interviews. Priya, what’s your comment? PK: Yes there is constant pressure from parents who have a wish list of primary-secondary schools into which they want their children admitted. Therefore we assume the burden of educating parents about RTE Act guidelines to enable…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Special Report

“All stakeholders must work together”

Praveer Sinha interviewed Dr. Rajan M. Welukar, vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai (MU) at his office in the Fort campus. Excerpts: Mumbai University’s academic reputation has been sliding over the years with acute shortage of faculty, question paper leaks and errors in marks cards becoming normative. To what factors do you attribute MU’s decline? When I took over as vice chancellor in 2010, no academic bodies were in place. All areas, from teachers, students, to colleges and courses were outdated and needed improvement. I accepted the challenge of addressing the many problems of the university. I admit, of late there have been a few errors. I don’t subscribe to errors, they are unacceptable. But at the same time one has to take into account the vast system of operations and a single person cannot be blamed. In almost 300 affiliated colleges of mu the offices of principals are vacant, or there are no full-time principals. What’s your comment? This is not just a problem of Mumbai University and its affiliated colleges, but of all higher education institutions across the country. Most senior academics don’t want to take on additional responsibilities for the same salary or go as principals to semi-urban and rural colleges. Do you agree mu has been a victim of persistent political interference? No, I do not believe politics and academics should be mixed. Politics has to be kept out of education; it has no role in academics. In the World University Rankings published by THE and QS, MU’s ranking has been consistently slipping. Why? There is an ongoing debate around the world on the issue of ranking higher education institutions. The parameters on which universities are ranked should be uniform. The kind of intellectual capital Harvard University can get with its huge endowment and budgets, even premier Indian institutes such as IIT-Bombay can’t match. Since there is no uniformity in ranking parameters, it’s debatable whether universities should be ranked at all. The feedback from Indian industry is that mu graduates are not job-ready. What measures has the university taken to improve market confidence in its degrees? The gap between the education a student receives at university and what is required by industry is a global phenomenon. A university education equips students with general thinking skills and develops each student’s knowledge of a core discipline. The specific skills required by companies are acquired only after exposure to its culture and industry. However, taking into consideration that a university should graduate ‘employable’ youth, the University of Mumbai has made concerted efforts to train students in soft skills and offer professional education. Moreover, we have undertaken a major initiative to involve India Inc with our academic programmes and infrastructure. Currently only six affiliated colleges of MU have been conferred autonomy. Are there plans to increase this number? Autonomy will give colleges greater exposure, which they cannot get otherwise. It should be given to help them improve, not reduce MU’s burden. In three years, 20 other colleges affiliated to MU may…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Letter from the Editor

By any yardstick the 3rd EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013 held in Bangalore on January 19, was a resounding success. Perhaps more so than its predecessor global conferences (2010 and 2011) staged in Mumbai. Although the Mumbai conferences attracted greater participation from abroad — these are global conferences on a subject in which allegedly socialist India has a lot to learn from foreign countries in which governments and societies are more generous and caring about early childhood care and education — the recently concluded first-ever early childhood education (ECE) conference staged in the garden-turned-garbage city, attracted greater and more enthusiastic participation of native preschool promoters, principals and teachers. Indeed against the budgeted capacity of 200 delegates, ECE Global Conference 2013 drew over 300 from across the country. Quite obviously, ECE, hitherto an area of darkness in Indian education, is being regarded more seriously and is coming of age in our benighted republic in which infants and children are the most neglected — and vulnerable — segments of the citizenry. The contingent of ECE experts at the Bangalore conference — staged in the ITC Gardenia, the city’s most preferred upscale hotel whose staff (under the supervision of Afairs, the Kolkata-based transnational exhibitions and events management company) provided excellent service and facilities — was also top calibre. It included Rabiatul Adawiah, chief operating officer (South-east Asia) of the Singapore-based Knowledge Universe (the world’s largest private preschools company); the Chennai-based Dr. S. Anandalakshmy, one of the country’s most respected ECE experts; Dr. Venita Kaul from Ambedkar University, Delhi; ECE pioneer Lina Ashar from Mumbai and other knowledgeable practitioners who grace this issue’s cover. Our grateful thanks to our keynote speakers, panelists and also delegates, who with their enthusiastic interventions and comments from the floor, enlivened the conference. Another departure from past practice is that this year, your editors took the decision to report the conference immediately after its conclusion. Our previous practice was to report the conference in the second month after the event, given the time required to put the conference story together. But this year, our editorial team burned the midnight oil to piece together the cover story on an issue of utmost national importance, immediately after, when memories are fresh in the minds of delegates who attended the ECE Global Conference 2013. We believe that we haven’t compromised depth of coverage for speed. Tell us if we have. Feedback is always welcome. The emphasis given to early childhood education and care in our cover story, is balanced by a special report feature on the sad decline of the University of Mumbai, at one time among the country’s most respected institutions of higher education. Our Mumbai correspondent Praveer Sinha, aided and abetted by managing editor Summiya Yasmeen, recounts how and why this once-great university has been reduced to its present sorry state. The lead features apart, there’s much more in this early year issue of EW. In particular check out our Parenting Education section and EW India Preschool Rankings…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Editorial

Implement overdue police reforms

A thin silver lining to the dark cloud of shame that hangs over the republic following the gangrape incident in Delhi on December 16, is that it has brought the full weight of public opinion to bear upon the long-pending issue of police reforms. It’s shocking but true that reports of several high-powered commissions and detailed guidelines of the Supreme Court on this vital issue, have been ignored by successive governments at the Centre and in the states. Over three decades ago in 1979, after the Janata government was swept to power in Delhi following the massive rejection of the Emergency imposed upon the nation by the Congress party in 1975-77, a National Police Commission (NPC) produced eight reports, dozens of topic-specific recommendations and also a Model Police Act to replace the Police Act, 1861 whose purpose and intent was to serve the interests of the British Raj by keeping the natives in their place through brute force. Shockingly, despite sustained pressure by citizens and the judiciary for over 35 years, there’s been no progress in implementing the NPC recommendations to curb the criminal excesses and persistent dereliction of duty by the police in Delhi and the state capitals. In 1996, two public-spirited former directors-general of police filed a PIL (public interest litigation) in the Supreme Court praying for a directive to the Central and state governments to implement the NPC report. In 2006, the apex court delivered a judgement requiring the respondents to implement seven directives — establishment of State Security Commissions (SSCs) to ensure that governments don’t exercise unwarranted influence or pressure on the police; appoint DGPs (directors-general) in the states through merit-based, transparent processes for minimum terms of two years; ensure that other police officers on operational duties (including superintendents of police in charge of districts and police stations) are also provided a minimum tenure of two years; separate the investigation and law and order maintenance functions of the police; establish Police Establishment Boards (PEBs) in every state to decide transfers, postings, promotions and other service-related matters of police officers; establish Police Complaints Authorities in each state and Union territory; establish a National Security Commission (NSC) in Delhi to prepare a panel for selection and placement of chiefs of the Central Police Organisations (CPO) — by January 3, 2007. Since then despite repeated extensions being granted by the apex court and several contempt petitions, politicians cutting across all parties and ideologies, have refused to comply with the seven directives of the Supreme Court. Clearly, this stalemate is unacceptable. An immediate step should be prompt action on the NPC recommendations and the seven directives of the Supreme Court. There is plenty the apex court can do including issuing show-cause contempt notices to chief ministers, and/or threatening to close down the courts if its writ is not enforced. In the tragic rape case of the Delhi braveheart as in most cases of gender rights violation, the police has been proven uncaring and villainous. This is the time for the…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Mailbox

Big dreams

I read your cover story on the Manipal Education & Medical Group’s ambitious plans to go global (EW January) with great interest. This is the first time I’ve heard of an Indian education ‘exporter’ with established campuses in Dubai, Malaysia, Nepal and Antigua. Of course, the parent Manipal University in Udupi enjoys an excellent reputation across the country, and is perhaps India’s only world-class university in terms of infrastructure and facilities. But it’s a great idea to apply the knowledge and expertise developed over the years in the university to promote institutions abroad. You rightly state in the story that Manipal has mastered the art of providing high-quality professional education at affordable price. Students in developing countries such as Malaysia and Kenya — where the group is building campuses — are sure to appreciate India’s ‘soft power’. Congratulations to Dr. Ranjan Pai and Mohandas Pai for dreaming big! Shivshankar Kumar Delhi Forced flight The January cover story ‘Asia’s premier higher education multinational goes global’ (EW January) was informative. Though the Manipal Group’s global expansion plans need to be applauded and supported, we should be ashamed that such an excellent group of education institutions is being forced to venture abroad, when there is a huge unfulfilled demand for higher education in India. At the Central and state government levels, the procedures and processes for clearing new projects in higher education are so cumbersome and slow that even the most determined edupreneurs get disheartened and frustrated. The Central government has set a target of increasing gross student enrolment ratio in higher education from the current 13 to 30 percent by 2020. There is no way we can get anywhere near this target without participation of the private sector, given that the Central and state governments are bankrupt. Anil Desai Mumbai Brazen subversion It’s shocking beyond belief that the annual household income limit set by the Karnataka government for admission of students under the RTE (Right to Education) quota is Rs.3.5 lakh (Education News, EW January). In a country where over 70 percent of the population survives on less than Rs.20 per day, it’s impossible to understand with what logic the education department has defined households with annual income of upto Rs.3.5 lakh as ‘poor’. The objective of the RTE Act’s 25 percent quota is to provide children from below poverty line households and families access to quality private education. It’s plain as a pikestaff that the s.12 (1) (c) provision is being brazenly subverted by self-serving bureaucrats intent upon grabbing free private education for themselves. Government officials who stipulated this provision must be publicly exposed. Manish Srivastava Bangalore Regulate preschool education! Your December cover story featuring the EW India Preschool Rankings 2012 (EW December) made interesting reading. Obviously a lot of time, money and effort was expended in compiling the rankings of preschools in six major cities. I am sure the Top 20 league tables of preschools will serve as a useful guide to parents. However as an educationist, I am concerned about the unregulated mushrooming…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

Delhi: AIES-8 sneak peak

The provisional 8th All India Education Survey (AIES-8) — the census of all recognised schools in the country — released by the Delhi-based National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) on January 23 with a reference date of September 30, 2009, doesn’t spring any surprises. It’s in line with academic estimates relating to growth in number of schools and student enrolment. According to the survey, the number of schools countrywide has grown from 1.04 million in 2002 to 1.30 million in 2009 — an increase of 27 percent. Conterminously student enrolment has increased by 13.67 percent and on September 30, 2009 almost 230 million (228,994,454) students were enroled in government recognised schools countrywide. Like the DISE (District Information System on Education) which is a comprehensive school data collection exercise and includes details such as school, physical and ancillary facilities, teacher qualifications, teaching of sciences, availability of ICT equipment and internet, provisions for physically challenged children, mid-day meal scheme etc in primary education, AIES-8 also paints a grim picture of the school education system in India. The survey reveals that only 20 percent of schools offer children drinking water, 30 percent are bereft of usable toilet facilities and half don’t have playgrounds. AIES-8 confirms that the pervasive lack of usable toilets is the prime factor behind miserably poor girl children’s education with 42.25 percent dropping out before secondary school. The timing of AIES-8, which is essentially an audit of the national school infrastructure and evaluates its sufficiency for the child population, is apposite. March 31 is the final deadline for all schools countrywide to become fully compliant with the provisions of s. 19 of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act) and Schedule of the Act. The RTE Act mandates that all elementary schools countrywide must meet nine specified infrastructure norms and provide for adequate teachers. The infrastructure norms include usable toilets, boundary wall, playgrounds, drinking water facilities, library, one teacher per classroom; school building, kitchen for preparing mid-day meals, teaching and sports equipment. According to the AIES-8 provisional report, between 2002-09 maximum growth rate was witnessed in the number of upper primary schools (49.15 percent), higher secondary schools (46.8 percent), secondary schools (28.95 percent) and primary schools (16.68 percent), in that order. The survey also reports a 30 percent increase in the number of teachers countrywide, and a 34 percent growth in higher secondary teachers, which has favourably impacted the teacher-pupil ratio which has declined from 1:42 to 1:32 nationally. Although in keeping with tradition, the survey is silent about quality improvement in school education, it’s disturbing that despite the impressive increase in the number of upper primary schools and decline in teacher-pupil ratios between 2002-09, learning outcomes as reported in Pratham’s ASER 2012 (see report from Maharashtra below) are deteriorating. It’s clinching proof that the quality of teachers being recruited is plunging. “We are not satisfied with the 13.67 percent increase in school enrolment claimed by AIES-8. The survey doesn’t tell us how…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

Maharashtra: Primary ed tailspin

Notwithstanding tall claims to the contrary by the Congress-led UPA-II government which is now in the final year of its five-year term in office at the Centre, primary education in India is in a tailspin. This is confirmed yet again by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012 — a nationwide survey which measures the learning outcomes in (government and private) rural primaries (classes I-VIII) annually. Conceptualised and brilliantly executed by the highly-respected Mumbai-based education NGO Pratham (estb. 1994), its latest annual report/survey is the outcome of 30,000 volunteers (mainly college students) fanning out to 16,000 villages in 567 of India’s total 640 districts, and actually testing the (vernacular) language and maths skills of 600,000 sample children. Damningly, ASER 2012 reveals that in most of the 29 states and five territories of the Indian Union, the learning outcomes of primary school children are three years behind the expected level. In 2010, 46.3 percent of class V students in the country couldn’t read and comprehend class II textbooks. Two years on, 53.2 percent can’t. Likewise, the percentage of class III students who can’t grasp class I textbooks has increased from 54.4 percent in 2010 to 61.3 percent. In numeracy as well, learning outcomes of primary children are plunging. In 2010, of all class V children, 29.1 percent couldn’t solve a two-digit subtraction problem. This has leapfrogged to 46.5 percent in 2012. According to Madhav Chavan, the promoter-chief executive of Pratham, the decline in primary learning outcomes has been steeper since 2010, when the RTE Act came into effect. “There’s general agreement that the RTE Act has led to relaxation of classroom teaching since all exams and assessments are scrapped, and every child is automatically promoted until class VIII,’’ says Chavan. This analysis which can’t be faulted, proves yet again that government intervention driven by populist motives does more harm than good. Moreover, it’s not just deteriorating learning outcomes which question the efficacy of the RTE Act in improving standards of elementary education in the country. The report also confirms there is a swelling exodus of children to private schools. According to ASER 2012, 29.1 percent of rural primary children (classes I-V), and 28 percent of upper primary children (classes VII-VIII) are in private schools against 23 and 25 percent respectively in 2010. “Private school enrolment in rural India is increasing at about 10 percent every three years or about 3 percentage points per year. In the election year of 2014, 41 percent of all of India’s primary age children will be in private schools, and by the time elections come around in 2019, the private sector will be the major formal education provider in India,” comment the authors of ASER 2012. Maharashtra has emerged as one of the states experiencing the steepest decline in reading-skill levels of children. More shockingly even in private schools in Maharashtra (40 percent of primary students are enroled in private schools), there’s been a decline in reading and mathematics learning outcomes across all age groups.…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

Gujarat: Education epiphany

The road from Gandhinagar capital of the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop. 60 million) — which chief minister Narendra Modi dominates like a colossus — to Delhi is through numerous global capitals. To counter popular domestic resistance to his emergence as the BJP front-runner in the 2014 prime ministerial sweepstakes, Modi has taken to showcasing his international acceptability. Last October, the British high commissioner James Bevan visited Modi in Gandhinagar to advise him that the persona non grata status imposed upon him for his alleged involvement in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, has been revoked. And two days prior to the recently concluded bi-annual Global Gujarat Investors Summit (January 11-13), Modi convened a two-day International Conference for Academic Institutions (ICAI)-2013 in Gandhinagar. This pre-summit global education conclave was attended by representatives of 145 education institutions from 56 countries, 52 from 14 Indian states and 67 from Gujarat. Political analysts and observers in Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad interpret Modi’s sudden interest in education as a strategy to court the youth vote. Emphasising that India is the world’s youngest country with 65 percent of its population below 35 years, in his inaugural address to ICAI-2013 Modi said: “By 2020 this average will be down to 28-29 years. Therefore we need to focus all our schemes and projects to turn this youthful manpower into a world-class skilled workforce. For this we urgently require to upgrade our educational institutions to global standards. And the journey begins here.’’ Even at the main investment summit, ICAI-2013 was accorded pride of place with the Modi government consciously breaking from the past practice of broadcasting agreements hypothetically valued at astronomical sums, and highlighting knowledge partnerships instead. The 118 MoUs (memoranda of understanding) for higher education signed at ICAI-2013 were described by Modi as the most important outcome of the Vibrant Gujarat investors summit. The Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat was partnered by the Institute of International Education, British Council, Confederation of Indian Industry, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Over 140 foreign universities and academic institutions participated in the academic conclave including Cambridge University; the London School of Business and Finance; International Institute of Education, New York; Toronto University; Times Higher Education, UK; and Stanford and Columbia universities (USA). Lead speakers at ICAI-2013 were global knowledge experts including Dr. Renu Khator, president, University of Houston; Judith Wolfson, vice-president University of Toronto; Franscisco Momolejo, chief economist Human Resource Network of the World Bank; Phil Baty, editor of World Institute Rankings, Times Higher Education, UK; Prof. Craig Mohoney, chief executive, UK Higher Education Authority; and Dr. B.V.R. Chowdhari, National University of Singapore. From within the country Dr. Narendra Jadhav, member, Planning Commission and Dr. S.S. Mantha, chairman AICTE, attended the conference. According to Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, principal secretary (education) of the Gujarat government, ICAI-2013 was a major initiative towards internationalisation, promotion of research, and innovation and skills development in higher education. “This can only be achieved through forging strategic partnerships between international institutions, industry and state and national institutions,” says Adhia. However details of the MoUs are still not available. “It is a…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

Karnataka: Inconvenient charge

At an inconvenient time when the incumbent BJP government of Karnataka is confronted with a split in its ranks following the exit of former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, and the state scheduled to go to the hustings in May, it is taking heat for infiltrating hindutva propaganda (“saffronisation”) into textbooks of primary and secondary children in over 50,000 state board-affiliated schools. In early January, a Mangalore-based Committee for Resisting Saffronisation of Education (CRSE) submitted a memorandum to Union human resource development minister M. Pallam Raju and the Delhi-based National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), alleging that class V and VIII textbooks published by the Karnataka Textbook Society (KTS) “instill non-secular values, religious fundamentalism and the idea of a Hindu rashtra in crores of young and impressionable minds”. CRSE’s memorandum cites several examples of “saffronisation” culled from prescribed class V and VIII textbooks printed by KTS. For instance, in the social science class V textbook, the kings of the Keladi dynasty (1499-1763) are portrayed as promoters of Hinduism who fought against neighbouring Muslim kingdoms, while their battles with neighbouring Hindu kings are not mentioned. In the same text, the history of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region is depicted as a history of Muslim kings persecuting their Hindu subjects, and some Roman Catholic churches of Bangalore have been inaccurately been described as British built. In a class VIII Hindi textbook in a lesson titled ‘Punyakoti’, a tiger takes an oath saying “consumption of cow’s meat is a bad thought; henceforth, I will not eat cow’s meat”, whereas the original Kannada version of the fable contains no reference to any such oath. Several high-profile educationists and minority organisations in the state including the Karnataka Regional Commission for Education (KRCE), Karnataka Unaided Minorities Schools Management Association, and Karnataka United Christian Forum have joined the fray. On January 12, at a seminar organised by KRCE, top-level academics and activists criticised the state’s beleaguered BJP government. “The social science textbooks of classes VI and VIII, as well as English, Kannada and Hindi textbooks, have been embedded with hindutva ideology. In a pluralistic society, it’s important that all regions and social groups are able to relate to textbooks. We have submitted a memorandum to governor H.R. Bhardwaj demanding withdrawal of the social science and language textbooks,” said Sr. M. Genevieve, KRCE secretary and former principal of Mount Carmel College. Research scholar Francis D’souza, whose book Right Wing Ideology in the Textbooks of Karnataka — A Critical Appraisal was released at the seminar, believes the state’s textbooks writing and prescription processes need to be de-politicised and professionalised. “It’s common for political parties in power to tamper with school texts to propagate their ideologies. The textbook writing process should be depoliticised with genuine academics given full freedom to develop content. The benchmark for all textbook writers should be the National Curriculum Framework, 2005 which propagates a liberal, inclusive and egalitarian school curriculum,” says D’Souza, a Ph D student of Kuvempu University, Shimoga. This is not the first time the BJP government…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

Tamil Nadu: Cosy nexus

The rash of scandals including charging prohibited capitation fees, faking the number of minimum faculty members, and other forms of malpractices rampant in several of Tamil Nadu’s 19 government and 23 private medical colleges and one government and 26 private dental colleges, which have been hitting newspaper headlines in Chennai for the past year, have cast serious doubts over the quality of the over 4,000 allopathic doctors and 2,710 dentists churned out annually in the state. The latest scandal to rock this south-eastern seaboard state (pop. 72 million) involves five prominent people — Dr. S. Murukesan, vice principal and associate dean of the high-profile SRM Dental College, Chennai, and Dr. R. Gunaseelan, medical director of the Rajan Dental Institute, both members of the Dental Council of India (DCI: the statutory body which regulates dental education countrywide) and the Tamil Nadu Dental Council (TNDC); T. Palani, a former MLA of the AIADMK and two others. They were arrested by the Union government-controlled Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs.1 crore from the management of Adi Parasakthi Dental College and Hospital (ADCH) in Kancheepuram, in return for DCI’s permission to start postgraduate (MDS) dental courses. According to media reports, the DCI team which inspected the college last October denied it permission to introduce MDS courses as it didn’t meet required infrastructure standards. However, when the management approached the inspection team with a bribe offer, Dr. Murukesan accepted a sum of Rs.25 lakh as advance to grant approval to the college. In the course of subsequent raids and investigations, the CBI also seized bribe money to the tune of Rs.75 lakh collected from dental colleges in the state by TNDC president Dr. Gunaseelan, son of Dr. V.K. Rajan, former vice chancellor of the Dr. M.G.R. Medical University and state government nominee to DCI. On January 19, the state government distanced itself from the brewing scam by with-drawing its nominations of Gunaseelan and Murukesan to TNDC and DCI. The CBI investigations and arrests have clearly exposed the dental colleges-DCI corruption nexus in the state, involving people with huge political patronage. The DCI scam follows the massive corruption scandal in the Medical Council of India (MCI) involving its chairman Ketan Desai who was arrested by the CBI in April 2010, and has clearly proved that neither elections nor nominations to the DCI and TNDC are transparent. Of the 29 dental colleges in Tamil Nadu, 23 including one government college are affiliated with Tamil Nadu’s Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, and six with private deemed universities. The Tamil Nadu Government Dental College offers 35 postgraduate seats, 11 private colleges offer 420 seats and private universities 200 postgrad seats. And with pressure and inducements for admission into dental colleges continuously increasing, private college managements are prepared to pay handsomely for TNDC/DCI sanction to increase student intake in undergrad and postgrad courses. Informed academics, doctors and senior dentists are unsurprised by the rampant corruption in private dental colleges offering undergrad and postgraduate…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

West Bengal: Postgrad CET storm

The ruling Trinamool Congress government of West Bengal, after ousting the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) led-Left Front government which ruled this eastern seaboard state uninterruptedly for 34 years in the historic state legislative election of 2011, is set to celebrate the second anniversary of that famous victory in May. One of its major pre-election promises was to overhaul the higher education system and raise overall standards of education in West Bengal. But two years on, this pre-poll promise has remained unfulfilled. Specifically, one of the pre-poll promises of the TMC was to discontinue the routine reservation of postgraduate seats by top-ranked colleges and universities for their own graduates. In pursuance of redeeming this promise, on September 4 last year the West Bengal Higher Education Council (WBHEC) decreed a common entrance test (CET) for admission into postgraduate courses of all colleges and state universities for the academic year 2013-14. Under a revised exam-inations time-table, WBHEC directed all higher ed institutions to complete conducting their final year undergrad part III exams between March 15-May 15, to facilitate holding of the postgrad CET exam in June. The exam was proposed to be held within three weeks of the completion of the undergraduate exams as the level of preparations needed for both are same. However, the TMC government’s postgrad CET admissions decision, applicable to all colleges and universities statewide, has less than enthused undergrads in Kolkata’s elite Presidency College and Jadavpur University (JU). Having swotted furiously in their higher secondary years to enter the state’s most cherished institutions of higher education, and looking forward to easy passage into their Masters programmes through internal evaluation, they don’t appreciate the prospect of swotting again for CET. Even the faculties of Kolkata’s elite colleges/universities are content to teach these institutions’ upper middle class students. The prospect of teaching students from colleges in the hinterland is far from inviting. Prof. Omprakash Mishra of JU’s faculty of International Relations, believes that admitting CET top-rankers will alter the unique character and camaraderie of JU. “Different universities have different standards. Imposing CET on autono-mous universities will erode their autonomy and change their character,” he warns. West Bengal’s top-ranked universities are opposed to CET for esoteric reasons. “Students signed up for under-grad programmes under the faculties of comparative literature and international relations and who wish to study further, have no alternative but to continue in Jadavpur because other colleges and universities don’t offer these subjects. Besides, a highly-competitive CET requiring intense preparation will decrease the number of students opting for postgraduate studies. A better option would be to increase postgrad capacity to admit external students,’’ says Rubaiyat Biswas, a comparative literature student and member of the Arts Faculty Students’ Union of Jadavpur University. Furious opposition to the CET has prompted rethinking in the state government. “We are taking note of reactions of academia, teachers and students. But it’s important to appreciate that CET creates a level playing field for all postgrad aspirants and serves the objective of social inclusion. Opposing CET is elitist and…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education News

They said it in January

“The president takes the salute on the Raj Path from a parade that is spectacular for the most part but rather reminiscent, with its tanks and missiles of Soviet-style hubris that is unbecoming of a democratic republic.” Gautam Adhikari, well-known journalist, on India’s Republic Day celebrations (Times of India, January 26) “For India (or any society) to realise its demographic dividend, at least three factors are critical: its youth need (a) quality education, (b) good health and (c) jobs that pay a decent wage and enhance their intellectual and other skills. The story of India’s post-independence development has been one of failure across all three of these sectors.” Sankaran Krishna, political science professor at the University of Hawaii, on why the Indian republic has failed to achieve broad social progress (The Hindu, January 26) “It will be an undignified and vulgar statement but the fact is that most of the corrupt come from the OBC, the scheduled castes and now increasingly the scheduled tribes.” Ashis Nandy, renowned sociologist, at the Jaipur Literature Festival (Times of India, January 27) “There is nothing that has gone to the heart of the matter more than the visual image people have of little six-year-old kids riddled — not shot by a stray bullet but riddled, riddled — with bullet holes in their classroom.” Joe Biden, US vice president, on the Sandy Hook shoot-out in which 20 school children were killed (Time, January 28) “I avoid most requests, for I can’t stoop to the Indian anchors’ level of journalism and their provocating manner… they say when tempers rise in the studios, it’s good TV.” Hamid Mir, Pakistani journalist, on why he refuses requests from Indian news anchors to appear on India vs. Pakistan debates (Outlook, January 28) “Mr. Hasan doesn’t need to move out of TN or India. It is the ban seekers that need to move to China or Taliban-nation. Try such stunts there.” Chetan Bhagat, author, on the controversy over screening of actor Kamal Hasan’s movie Viswaroopam in Tamil Nadu (twitter.com, January 31)

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education Notes

Kerala AES Kerala debut Aakash Educational Services Ltd, (AES, estb. 1998), a well-known Delhi-based test prep (medical and engineering) services company, inaugurated its first centre in Kerala in Kochi on January 11. Addressing media personnel on the occasion, Aakash Chaudhry, AES director, said by end January two more centres will be opened — one at Thiruvananthapuram and a second in Kochi. The company, which has 62 centres with 60,000 students countrywide, plans to increase aggregate enrolment to 80,000-90,000 students by 2013-14. “AES’ quality study material and teaching methodologies have benefited thousands of students over the years, and specific classroom programmes have been introduced recently for class XI and XII students,’’ said Chaudhry. Himachal Pradesh Kangra Poly upgradation The Kangra Polytechnic, Tanda will be upgraded into an engineering college under Himachal Pradesh University, G.S.Bali, state technical education minister, said at a media conference in Dharamsala on January 5. Instructions have already been issued for upgradation and affiliation of the polytechnic to the HP University-affiliated Shimla and Technical Education University, Hamirpur. “The decision will help students in the Kangra and Chamba districts to receive quality engineering education under supervision of the Shimla and Technical Education University,” he said. Punjab Absentee teachers sacked The Punjab government formally dismissed 206 teachers and non-teaching employees in the state’s education department who have failed to report for duty over the past several years. Those dismissed include 166 teachers of the master cadre, 25 Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and six computer teachers apart from nine non-teaching employees. This was announced by Kahan Singh Pannu, director-general, education (school), in an official press release on January 20 in Chandigarh. According to Pannu, the education ministry has received 1,100 dereliction of duty complaints against government school teachers. “They will be scrutinised and strictly dealt with,’’ he said. Uttar Pradesh Girl child education scheme Fulfilling the promise of providing education grants to girl students in the state, on January 10 the Uttar Pradesh government distributed cheques valued at Rs.4.98 crore to 1,660 girls under the Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme. “There is no dearth of funds for girls desirous of completing their education. In this connection, almost 80 percent of promises made by the Samajwadi Party during the election period have been fulfilled,” said Durga Prasad Yadav, minister of state for civil defence, stamp and court fees, speaking to the media in Mathura. The UP state government has also pledged an additional Rs.5.63 crore for the education of 1,878 girl children, according to Yadav. “The Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme for girls was launched for students from families which cannot afford education,’’ he explained. Goa New child safety guidelines The education department of the Goa government promised guidelines for safety of students in state schools in the wake of the sexual abuse of a seven-year-old girl inside a school toilet in Vasco on January 14. The thrust of the guidelines will be that schools will be held responsible for the safety of students, an education ministry official said while addressing media personnel in Panaji…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Education Briefs

Decks cleared for ISLI launch

Three well-known education not-for-profits — Central Square Foundation, Akanksha Foundation and Teach For India — launched the India School Leadership Institute (ISLI) with support from the US-based KIPP Foundation, on January 16. The prime objective of the Delhi-based ISLI is to train school leaders to deliver high quality education to children of disadvantaged communities. “Leaders are trained and developed for every sector except education,” said Ashish Dhawan, the promoter-CEO of Central Square Foundation, speaking on the occasion. “ISLI will train and nurture school level leaders to reform education in India. We cannot afford to continue delivering poor quality education to 27 million children starting school each year.” According to Dhawan, ISLI will adapt international best practices in school leadership to the Indian context. The first batch of 30 school leaders will be inducted into the institute in May this year. The institute’s leadership development programme offers a combination of academic and experiential learning, and provides a forum for learning from experienced trainers and educators. iNurture-VELS concordat The Bangalore-based iNurture Education Solutions Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2005), one of India’s leading developers of career-oriented degree and postgraduate professional study programmes, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chennai’s VELS University in Bangalore on January 28. Under the terms of the MoU, iNurture will offer its MBA (advertising & creative management), M.Tech (IT infrastructure management services) and M.Tech (mobile applications development) degree programmes to VELS University students from the academic year beginning 2013-14. Speaking on the occasion, Ashwin Ajila, promoter-managing director of iNurture Education said: “This is our first knowledge partnership in Chennai and we are looking forward to working very closely with VELS University to establish a Centre of Excellence on its campus.’’ NILA gets going In collaboration with UK’s New College, Nottingham, the Delhi-based Batra Group launched a centre for career-oriented professional courses christened New College Nottingham International Lifestyles Academy (NILA), in Gurgaon on January 21. New College, Nottingham, is the largest higher education college in the UK offering a wide range of vocational courses. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, New College will provide curriculums with quality assurance to NILA. “The launch of NILA is significant in light of the poor condition of the Indian vocational education system and its lack of correlation with employability. The government has set a target of preparing a whopping 500 million skilled workers over the next decade, which the current education system is ill-equipped to do. Against this backdrop, this initiative of the Batra Group assumes great importance,” said Ashok Naidu, chief mentor of NILA, addressing a media conference in Delhi. “We are happy to partner with the Batra Group which has a credible presence in the Indian business landscape, and has promoted the right institution to impart the high-end training that we offer,” said Amarjit Basi, principal, New College Nottingham (UK), speaking on the occasion. VFI programme launch In collaboration with the Columbia Business School, USA, Venture for India (VFI), a not-for-profit organisation, has launched a programme to enhance the Indian entrepreneurial…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Institution Profile

Lovely Professional University, Punjab

The first private university in the state of Punjab and the largest single-campus university in India, Lovely Professional University, Punjab offers 200 study programmes to 30,000 students from across India and abroad Sited on a sprawling 600-acre lush green campus on National Highway No. 1 linking Delhi with Jalandhar (Punjab), Lovely Professional University (LPU, estb. 2001 as Lovely Institute of Management and conferred varsity status in 2006) is the first private university of the state of Punjab (pop. 27 million). Advertised as the largest single-campus university in India, LPU offers 200 programmes across the faculties of technology and science, business and applied arts, applied medical sciences, education and humanities, distance education and international programmes at the intermediate, graduate, postgraduate and doctorate levels to 30,000 students from across India and 26 countries worldwide. Despite its somewhat unimaginative nomenclature, over the past decade since it was promoted, Lovely Professional University, Punjab has won plaudits as a top-ranked provider of professional education. For instance the Financial Express ranked LPU among India’s Top 5 private universities (2009); a NASSCOM-Booz Allen Hamilton survey ranked it among top 20 MCA institutes in India (2011); Competition Success Review among top 25 B-schools of excellence (2010), and Digital Learning as the best ICT-enabled university (2012). Moreover on October 3, LPU inaugurated its mint-new nine-storey wi-fi enabled Central Library sprawled over 1.5 lakh sq. ft, boasting 102,846 text and reference books, journals, magazines, audio, videos, CD-ROMs, research reports, online data-bases and data analysis software. Open 24/7 the state-of-the-art library also offers a cafeteria, separate group discussion rooms for students and staff members and an online resource centre with 400 computer terminals. The growth and development of LPU into one of India’s top-ranked professional universities within the short span of a decade is testament to the extraordinary entrepreneurial drive of the late Baldev Raj Mittal (1931-2004), who began his career in Sujatnagar (Rajasthan), assisting his father in a sweetmeats shop, and later (1961) establishing the Lovely Sweets shop in Jalandhar cantonment to supply several Army units. The business of the Lovely Group flourished over the years under his elder sons Ramesh and Naresh (group chairman and vice chairman). After liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy in 1991, the youngest son Ashok promoted several retail showrooms for Bajaj Auto and Maruti-Suzuki under the name and style Lovely Autos (estb.1991). Subsequently, exhibiting rare commitment to education, the late Baldev Mittal promoted the Lovely Institute of Management, Jalandhar in 2001 towards fulfilling his vision of “transforming education, transforming India”, with an investment of Rs.1 crore. “My late father persuaded the family that we need to provide the gift of education to society. Therefore in 2001 we promoted a B-school to deliver world-class education in sync with industry needs,’’ recalls the incumbent chancellor of LPU, Dr. Ashok Mittal, an alumnus of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, with 25 years of experience of the automobile industry. Following establishment of the Lovely Institute of Management under the aegis of the Lovely International Trust, several other…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Institution Profile

California Institute of Technology, USA

In the THE World University Rankings 2020 California Institute of Technology, USA is ranked No.2. Moreover 31 Caltech alumni/faculty have won the Nobel prize and 66 the US National Medal of Science/technology A private research university, California Institute of Technology, USA offers its small contingent of students — 978 undergraduates and 1,253 graduate students mentored by 322 faculty — arguably the world’s most well-equipped laboratories and research centres including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which it maintains for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the Jorgensen Laboratory and Beckman Institute. Its compact size enables an enviable teacher-student ratio and opportunities for high-quality interaction with faculty and research. Caltech’s six academic divisions — biology; chemistry and chemical engineering; engineering and applied science; geological and planetary sciences; humanities and social sciences; and physics, mathematics and astronomy — offer rigorous and research-intensive undergraduate (26 majors), graduate and doctoral programmes. “What makes Caltech unique is our focus on education, science and engineering. But most of all, on giving everyone at the institute the means and flexibility to pursue his or her best ideas,” says Jean-Lou Chameau, president. California Institute of Technology, USA is particularly reputed for its demanding and rigorous undergrad core curriculum with students required not just to study a major, but also acquire knowledge of the basic sciences, humanities, and social sciences. All undergrad students must take the core curriculum which comprises three terms each of mathematics and physics, two terms of chemistry, one of biology, a freshman elective ‘menu’ course, two terms of introductory lab courses, one term of science writing, 12 terms of humanities, and three terms of physical education. Sited on a 124-acre campus, California Institute of Technology traces its origin to a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop. The school was successively known as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute and Throop College of Technology, before acquiring its current nomenclature in 1920. Pasadena. Located in Los Angeles county at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, Pasadena (pop. 141,000) hosts a plethora of science and cultural institutions. They include the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Norton Simon Museum of Art (one of the world’s finest collections of European, American, and Asian art); Pacific Asia Museum (rare artworks and artefacts from Asia); Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (150 acres of breathtaking gardens, world-class rare-book libraries, art galleries, etc), and the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Gardens (127 acres of gardens replete with fauna including peacocks, ducks, etc). Pasadena has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate and year-round sunshine. Campus facilities. Caltech’s 124-acre campus offers state-of-the-art academic, research and sports facilities. The campus hosts a plethora of labs and research facilities which offer unmatched technological tools and resources for students and faculty. Comments the university’s website: “It’s a bit difficult to describe the facilities and other ‘physical resources’ Caltech has to offer students… that information would likely be outdated by the time you read it.” Significant among the research centres are its seismological laboratory, one of the world’s foremost centres…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Young Achievers

Enterprising trio: Vivek Gupta, Mirik Gogri and Nitesh Salvi

Although the test prep business sector is crowded with an estimated 30,000 coaching schools and firms, it reflects well on the native spirit of enterprise that there’s no shortage of edupreneurs entering this highly competitive business. The latest entrants in this sector are Vivek Gupta (24), Mirik Gogri (23) and Nitesh Salvi (23) — final year metallurgy engineering students of IIT-Bombay (IIT-B). In 2011, the trio developed and registered Plancess Edu-Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a Mumbai-based e-learning company, which they believe offers students a more “affordable, convenient and effective’’ test prep methodology to top the IIT-JEE, AIEEE and other engineering entrance exams. The story of Plancess started in 2009, when the trio brainstormed about ways and means to ride the new ICT (information communication technology) wave and take test prep way beyond coaching classes. In 2011, with the help of the entrepreneurial cell (E-Cell) of IIT-B — established in 1998 for young entrepreneurs to incubate high potential business ideas — the team raised venture capital of Rs.5 lakh from the Mumbai-based Aarti Group of Companies (estb. 1975), a big name in Mumbai’s chemicals trading circles. “We believe that by leveraging ICT, devising new reasonably priced study materials and providing distance education, we can help students learn better and more conveniently. The company website (www.plancess.com) offers 330 hours of video lectures delivered by top 100 IIT-JEE 2009 rankers who also secured over 90 percent in their Plus Two exam. These lecturers are students who have gone through the process and know exactly what it takes to excel in competitive entrance exams,” says Gupta. The Plancess study programme is priced at a modest Rs.15,000 for two years with supplementary video lectures priced between Rs.200-300 each. The study package includes a personal IIT graduate mentor who will interact with each student weekly on the internet or by telephone. “We believe we have devised a student-friendly study programme at an affordable price,’’ says Gogri. Another high point of Plancess is the introduction of Shiksha Planner — a series of free counselling seminars throughout March this year. Shiksha has been a great success ever since it was conducted in nine colleges in Mumbai in 2009. The trio has since staged seminars in several cities including Udaipur and Bhubaneswar. “A major problem for IIT candidates is the lack of counseling, so these seminars help to familiarise them with the structure and process of IIT-JEE, and also offer advice on how to write other engineering entrance exams successfully,” explains Salvi. Good news for IIT aspirants! Praveer Sinha (Mumbai) Also read: IIT Bombay tops at QS India rankings 2020

Already a subscriber

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

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

Career Focus

Career options for microbiologists

The high-potential biotech industry has a lot to offer youth interested in biology, environment and ecology studies. Career opportunities in industry and corporates are numerous. Microbiology is fast emerging as a popular career choice for 21st century youth. Hardly surprising given that microbes affect every aspect of life — negatively and positively. The world around us is replete with micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa, too small to be seen with the naked eye. A microbiologist’s job is to study these microbes living in diverse habitats, ranging from hot springs to the human body, and even in the depths of oceans, and devise ways and means by which their beneficial qualities can be harnessed for human good, and their adverse effects on human health and well-being combated. But while microbial organisms often cause disease, they can also be used to develop antibiotics which build immunities to them. Moreover, while some micro-organisms cause food spoilage, others are essential for its production. Without yeast, there would be neither bread nor beer and without lactic acid bacteria, no yogurt. Microbes can also be harnessed to combat or reduce environmental pollution. Microbiology is quintessentially an interdisciplinary science which stimulates the learning of sciences of all types across the education spectrum. After completing Plus Two with physics, chemistry and biology, students are qualified for admission into the B.Sc microbiology programme offered by most colleges countrywide. However for successful careers in the multiplying number of biotech corporates and in research institutions, it is advisable to acquire a Masters degree with further specialisation in medical, food, industrial microbiology and microbial technology. Masters programmes in this subject are offered by several varsities in India, the reputed ones being Mumbai, Pune, and Calcutta universities, Banaras Hindu University, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Haryana Agriculture University, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, University of Madras and Osmania University. Career opportunities in biotech related industries and corporates are numerous and growing. Today, microbiologists are sought after by R&D labs of government and private hospitals, dedicated research institutes, and pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and chemicals industries. Moreover, there are big opportunities in formulations research, analytical development, clinical research and new drugs discovery. Microbiologists also have the option to teach in universities, colleges and schools. For teaching in colleges, a Masters degree is adequate, especially when supplemented with CSIR/UGC-NET qualifications, but a doctorate opens more avenues at the university level, as teaching and research jobs are multiplying. In non-academic research institutes, private industry and government agencies as well, there is sustained demand for microbiologists with PhD and SET-NET qualifications. Simultaneously, a growing number of qualified microbiologists are going solo and setting up their own diagnostic labs. Although the biotech industry is not yet a high wage island, salary packages are set to expand substantially in the near future. Currently, a fresh B.Sc graduate is likely to start with a monthly remuneration of around Rs.10,000, an M.Sc with Rs.15,000 and a Ph D between Rs.20,000-25,000. However, prospects of pay packages tripling in…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Career Focus

Your Counselor Replies

I’m in class X and keen on pursuing a career in biotechnology. Please advise. Rahul Salve, Pune In Plus Two you should opt for the science stream with physics, chemistry, biology and maths (see p. 68). After that you should sign up for a four-year B.Tech (biotechnology) or three-year B.Sc (biotechnology, chemistry, botany, zoology etc) or B.Pharm, B.Sc (agriculture), and MBBS, veterinary science/allied fields programme. This could be followed by an M.Sc (biotechnology) or a five-year M.Sc (biotechnology) offered by Pune University. Biotechnology offers excellent prospects especially in research and development or in higher education teaching, so a Ph D degree is recommended for long-term career growth. However, it would be advisable to increase your awareness of the various career options available after Plus Two, and understand which of them is in sync with your strengths and personality, and eventually make an informed decision. What’s the difference between MBA and MMS (Master of management science)? Please also provide information about the Common Admission Test (CAT). Rina Samuel, Bangalore The difference between MBA and MMS is in the nomenclature of the certification awarded. The minimum qualification for admission into MBA/MMS or equivalent courses, is completion of a bachelor’s degree (at least 10+2+3). Admission into these study programmes is based on performance in written tests (such as CAT, XAT, etc), group discussion and personal interview with weightage given to academic record, participation in extracurricular activities/achievements, and work experience after graduation. While choosing your B-school, enroll in institutions recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Moreover, most importantly, check out the campus placement track records of your shortlisted B-schools. CAT is conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and its notification is published in the month of July in all prominent dailies countrywide, with the written exam usually held in November. I will complete my M.Sc (genetics) degree in 2014. To improve my career prospects, should I opt for an MBA in biotech? Siddharth Rao, Chennai If you get admission into an MBA programme of a reputed B-school, you are likely to be campus-recruited by a reputable corporate. However, an M.Sc (genetics) degree per se also opens up numerous opportunities. It will provide you the basis for understanding genetic diseases to enable counseling to families at risk of producing children with genetic disorders and for investigating the molecular basis of genetic diseases to find cures. In agriculture, genetics is the basis of breeding new crop plants and livestock. A rapidly growing biotechnology industry is already using genetics to produce a range of products from pharmaceuticals to microchips. But currently, the private sector isn’t a major employer of scientists. Hence, an MBA or MBA (biotech) is a better idea as it provides greater career development options. I will complete my BE programme in 2014. Please suggest universities in the US offering the Masters in telecom management degree programme. Do I need to write the GMAT or GRE? Sachin Bose, Kolkata Yes, you need to write GRE or GMAT for admission into a Masters in…

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

United States: Sandy Hook lessons

Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison. In an especially emotional moment during a prayer vigil, Barack Obama read out the first names of the 20 children killed in the December 14 school shoot-out in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The children were all six or seven years old. Six adults at the school were also killed, including the principal, who died trying to save her charges. The shooting has shocked a country long accustomed to gun violence. There were a dozen mass shootings in 2012. Last summer, murderous gun rampages occurred at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and at a cinema in Colorado. President Obama’s visit to Sandy Hook was the fourth time he has been to a community devastated in this way. Fighting tears, an unusually emotional Obama said in an address to the nation that action is needed, “regardless of the politics”. Since the shooting, more than 180,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to introduce gun-control legislation. Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Warner of Virginia — both given A ratings by the National Rifle Association (NRA) — are now calling for gun control. But reformers have a huge task ahead of them. According to one survey, roughly a third of all American households own firearms. Three-quarters of them own more than one. Around 300 million guns are in circulation, about one for every person in the country. Any serious new gun-control law is likely to face opposition from the NRA. The lobby group has bragged that it defeated 19 of the 24 congressmen it targeted in 1994. The NRA kept a low profile the week following the attack, though it promised a statement which would make “meaningful contributions” towards gun safety. Others have acted already: California’s legislature moved to require a licence for anyone buying ammunition, and Cerberus Capital, a private equity group, said it will sell its stake in the firm which made the semi-automatic rifle used in Sandy Hook. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s anti-gun mayor, recently urged President Obama to introduce legislation. If the president fails to act, Bloomberg forecasts that 48,000 Americans will be murdered by guns during his second term — several times more Americans than died on September 11, 2001, in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Tightening existing laws would be a start. The 1994 Brady Bill, named after Ronald Reagan’s press spokesman who was critically injured in an assassination attempt, prompted federal background checks for gun purchases. The refusal rate is very low, just 0.6 percent of the 157 million checks processed. Besides, 40 percent of firearms purchases are not from licenced gun-dealers but from gun shows, and do not require even this background check. That is one change that may well now be made. Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, has called for a study on how to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. This distracts from the main issue of…

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

United kingdom: Foreign students exclusion pressure

United kingdom: Foreign students exclusion pressure Theresa May, Britain’s home secretary, has been accused by a vice chancellor of acting “like a Dalek”, and of “casting a dark cloud over British higher education” in her refusal to change course on student visas. Meanwhile in end December, the House of Lords European Union Committee became the fifth parliamentary group to urge the government to remove international students from its target to cut net migration. The MPs and peers who chair the five committees are now thought to be considering a joint letter to the government calling for action. May’s speech on immigration during the Xmas week provoked criticism from Edward Acton, University of East Anglia’s vice chancellor, who has led Universities UK’s lobbying for university-sponsored students to be removed from the coalition’s net migration target. During her speech, the home secretary had announced a further 100,000 interviews for non-EU students planning to come to the UK and warned that the government “will continue to monitor strictly the adherence of universities as well as colleges to our rules”. Prof. Acton says “the essential tone and message means she is continuing to cast this dark cloud over British higher education, and continuing to counteract and undermine government policy in this area — which is to nurture and increase the flow of (legitimate) non-EU students to British universities”. According to Acton, ministers in the department for business, innovation and skills, who back the sector’s case for exempting overseas students, “are performing extremely well. It must be absolutely maddening that Ms. May is sabotaging what they are trying to do’’. “I think the prime minister, from what I can gather, is sympathetic (to UUK’s argument on net migration). But… the dynamic of the cabinet means he is refusing to overrule (May). Rather like a Dalek, she will forge ahead until something gets in her way.” Prof. Acton warns that it makes no sense for the government to “pour resources into promoting British higher education” overseas, only for “your own Home Office to stab you in the back”. London Metropolitan University’s licence to sponsor international students was revoked by the UK Border Agency last year. Meanwhile the UK higher education sector has concluded that an insurance scheme to guarantee international students a fees refund or alternative places should their course or university close down is “essential’’. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

Australia: Quality research upsurge

Ten Australian universities are performing “above the world standard” for research, including four performing “well above” world standard, according to an evaluation of Australian research. The Excellence in Research for Australia 2012 National Report, published on December 6, shows there has been a 24 percent increase in the research undertaken since the previous exercise in 2010. There is also a 16 percent increase in the number of patents and a 9 percent rise in the number of researchers employed. “Language, communication and culture” and “biological sciences” were the subjects in which the largest numbers of universities were rated as world standard or better — 28 out of 41 institutions. An analysis of the results done by The Australian found that the University of Melbourne had the highest proportion of top-rated research, with 85.5 percent of its research fields given four or five stars — where four means “above world standard” and five is “well above world standard”. The University of Sydney was a close second at 84.5 percent, rising from fifth in 2010. The Australian National University and the University of Queensland came joint third at 80 percent. The ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) exercise, carried out by the Australian Research Council (ARC) applies to research published between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2010. Evaluation is based on indicators including citation analysis, research income and patents, alongside expert review. Chris Evans, Australia’s science and research minister, says the government will undertake the next round of evaluations in 2015, with ARC consulting the sector on the inclusion of measures of the impact of research, to help better track university performance. Results from ERA will inform the allocation of a small but growing proportion of universities’ block grants for research. The data is also intended to help universities and the government in strategic planning. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

China: Hard going for foreign varsities

Even as India’s Foreign Education Providers (Regulation of Entry and Operations Bill 2010) has been stalled in the country’s unparliamentary Parliament for several years, whether for the narrow purpose of generating revenue or the broader goal of engaging more deeply with a rapidly emerging and ever more important nation, foreign universities are scrambling to recruit in China, as well as to establish or expand their presence there. Britain’s Lancaster University, New York’s Juilliard School, which specialises in music, and Duke University in North Carolina, are the latest foreign institutions to pile into an already crowded marketplace. Other co-operative and exchange programmes in higher education are being announced almost every month. Some recruit Chinese students to foreign universities, or foreign students to Chinese ones. Others take the form of research facilities or academic-exchange centres. Some offer dual degrees. The most ambitious involve building, staffing and operating satellite campuses in China. None of them finds it easy to work within an academic system whose standards and values are so different from the West. Not least of the hurdles is maintaining scholarly independence in China’s restrictive political environment. The Communist Party sees universities partly as training grounds for loyalists who will one day be leaders in government and business. The study of Marxism is compulsory for all except foreigners. The collapse of a Beijing-based undergraduate programme jointly run by two elite institutions — Yale University in America and Peking University — has highlighted some of the difficulties foreigners face. Yale’s administrators pulled the plug last July, citing high expenses, low enrolment and weaknesses in its Chinese-language programme. In 2007, less than a year after the programme was launched, a visiting Yale faculty member, Stephen Stearns, wrote an open letter complaining about the rampant plagiarism he claimed was being committed by many of his Chinese students. “When a student I am teaching steals words and ideas from an author without acknowledgement, I feel cheated,” said Stearns. He added that such practices appeared to be widely tolerated by Chinese academics, and suggested that the nation has lost its way. However, Yale’s experience has not deterred others from coming in, with strong encouragement from the Chinese government. Officials hope such ventures will prevent academic talent from moving abroad, and push Chinese universities to improve. But plagiarism, false credentials and research, and cheating in tests, remain obstacles for foreign universities in China. “Academic culture in China is such that the kind of value system we have in place is not part of the woodwork here,” says Denis Simon, who oversees Arizona State University’s engagement with China. In November Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University in New York, said his institution’s academic centre in Beijing, which opened in 2009, would uphold academic “freedom and openness”. He added that if anything threatened to compromise its “fundamental values”, Columbia would have to leave China. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

Swaziland: Rising preschool education awareness

The proliferation of neighbourhood care points (NCP) has had the effect of popularising preschool education throughout Swaziland (pop. 1.38 million) in just over a decade. NCPs were originally a response to the wave of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) created by the country’s staggering HIV rates. With 26 percent of people aged 15-49 living with the virus, Swaziland’s HIV prevalence is the highest in the world. According to the ministry of health and social welfare, just over a quarter of Swazi children live with both parents; one out of every six children under age 15 is an OVC. NCPs, which provide preschool education and nutritional assistance for OVC, began as an urban initiative in 2000 and quickly spread to rural areas, where families have begun to regard their educational services as essential. Prior to the HIV/AIDS crisis and the steep rise in OVC, multi-generational family homesteads provided child care. But under the epidemic, coupled with “rural push and urban pull” migration, this system has collapsed. Today, an estimated 1,100 facilities countrywide cater to between 50-300 children each, with sponsorship from both private and public donors. Each community identifies OVC to be placed in the care points, and the children are placed in one of three age groupings: toddlers up to three years, three to six year-olds, and older children. This initiative has proved transformative in rural areas, where virtually all people live in poverty. Although priority at NCPs is given to orphans, impoverished children are also considered vulnerable, and are thus also eligible for the programme. “One of the surprising outcomes of the new network of NCPs is that rural people have been introduced to preschooling for the first time, and they have completely embraced the concept, so they cannot imagine not having these centres,” says Alicia Mthetfwa, an educationist in the capital Mbabane. Once the domain of the middle class, preschools provide “a head start”, says Mthetfwa. “If a child is to have an early advantage or even keep up with the others, then preschool is seen by parents as a necessity.” Rural families are now lobbying for the establishment of more NCPs so all can have access to preschool. (Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)

Already a subscriber

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

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

International News

OECD: Brewing MOOCs revolution

Top-quality teaching, stringent admissions criteria and impressive qualifications allow the world’s best universities to charge mega fees: over $50,000 for a year of undergraduate study at Harvard. Less exalted providers have boomed too, with a similar model which sells seminars, lectures, exams and a “salad days” social life in a single bundle. Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best universities a chance to widen their catch, opening new opportunities for the agile, and threatening doom to the laggard and mediocre. The roots are decades old. Britain’s Open University started teaching via radio and television in 1971; the for-profit University of Phoenix has been teaching online since 1989; MIT and others have been posting lectures on the internet for a decade. But the change in 2012 has been electrifying. Two start-ups, both spawned by Stanford University, are recruiting students at an astonishing rate for “massive open online courses” or MOOCs. In January last year, Sebastian Thrun, a computer science professor there, announced the launch of Udacity. It started to offer courses the next month — a nanosecond by the standards of old-style university decision-making. He also gave up his Stanford tenure, saying Udacity had “completely changed my perspective”. In October Udacity raised $15 million (Rs.82 crore) from investors. It has 475,000 users. In April two of Thrun’s ex-colleagues, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, launched a rival, Coursera, with $16 million (Rs.87.5 crore) in venture capital. At first it offered online courses from four universities. By August it had signed up 1 million students, rising to over 2 million now. Its most successful class, “How to reason and argue”, attracted over 180,000 students. Harvard and MIT announced they would each put up $30 million to launch edX, a non-profit venture offering courses from Ivy League universities. Other schools have joined too. The trend stretches far beyond America. Eight among Coursera’s 33 partners are foreign, including the universities of Edinburgh, Toronto and Melbourne. On December 14, a consortium of British providers, led by the Open University and including Bristol, St. Andrews and Warwick, said Futurelearn, a new platform for free courses, will soon compete with the American newcomers. MOOCs are more than good university lectures available online. The real innovation comes from integrating academics talking with interactive coursework, such as automated tests, quizzes and even games. Real-life lectures have no pause, rewind (or fast-forward) buttons; MOOCs let students learn at their own pace, typically with short, engaging videos, modelled on the hugely successful online lecturettes pioneered by TED, a non-profit organiser of upmarket mindfests. The cost of the courses can be spread over huge numbers of students. An Udacity course on machine learning, taught by Peter Norvig, Google’s director of research, attracted 160,000 students. Koller of Coursera muses that a single virtual classroom may one day seat 1.5 million. Thousands of minds mingle in moderated discussion forums, where learners in Peru, Finland or Japan can speedily reply to a struggling student’s question, highlight points which are unclear, and even grade…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Sports Education

Building children’s self-esteem

On a flight from Washington D.C. to California some years ago, a passenger sitting beside me inquired what I was working on that seemed to have all my attention. I mentioned I was working on my next book, which was about the impact of sports and physical activity on a young person’s success in life. My fellow passenger thought for a long minute, and said: “You know, I’ve often thought that if I could be God for just a few seconds, the one thing I would grant people would be the ability to feel better about themselves.” In over half a century that I have been working with children and adults as a counselor, corporate and sports consultant, development of self-esteem has been the most frequently requested topic in workshops. And in counseling and one-on-one coaching sessions, self-esteem, and how adults and youth should assess themselves quickly becomes a major theme of conversation. The dictionary describes self-esteem as “belief in oneself, self-respect”. In short, when people talk about someone having self-esteem, they mean that the person has self- acceptance and believes she is worthy of respect and love. People who have high self-esteem and self-confidence tend to be more successful with friendships, and in business, love and sports. Good things seem to happen for them; their relationships are more solid and enduring; they get things done, and they derive greater enjoyment from work and play. Self-esteem is an enduring virtue which lasts a lifetime. Children with healthy self-esteem have no inhibitions while interacting with others, are comfortable in diverse social settings and enjoy group activities as well as independent pursuits. When confronted with problems they work towards finding solutions. It can’t be grown in an incubator; it is the outcome of a childhood development process that streams into adulthood. In sports arenas and playing fields worldwide, there are many ways in which parents, teachers and coaches can develop the self-esteem of their children. Given below are eight guidelines for building your child’s confidence and self-esteem. Sports should be fun for children. If you listen to kids or read reports about why they play sports, it should become obvious that the number one reason is to have fun. Fun, play and games make up the special world of children. It’s our job as parents, teachers and coaches to let children enjoy sports and physical activity. Become a positive role model. If you are excessively harsh or demanding of yourself, pessimistic, or unrealistic about your abilities and limitations, your child will mirror you. You are a role model in how you react to a close contest or a poor call by an umpire or referee. Remain calm and in control. In short, nurture your own self-esteem, and your child will have an ideal role model. Watch your words. Children are very sensitive to what parents say. Therefore, give positive and constructive feedback. A child’s self-esteem is based on what they hear about themselves from others, especially parents. The more a child hears positives about herself,…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Books

Extraordinary opus

Music of the Spinning Wheel by Sudheendra Kulkarni; Amaryllis Publishers; Price: Rs.795; 725 pp A journalist-columnist and occasional spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and currently chairman of the Ambani-funded Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai, Sudheendra Kulkarni was a prominent figure in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, which ruled in Delhi between 1998-2004. As special aide to Atal Behari Vajpayee, he played an active role in conceptualising and driving the prime minister’s Task Force on Information Technology, New Telecom Policy and the National Highway Development Project, among other enterprises of great pith and moment. Your editor is acquainted with Kulkarni but the relationship remained casual, because the chasm which separated BJP’s divisive hindutva ideology and this liberal and secular reviewer seemed too wide to be bridged. However after reading this book which deeply investigates the Mahatma and concludes that had he still been alive, Gandhiji would have been an ardent champion of the internet, your editor/reviewer quite obviously under-estimated the scholarship, research capability and argumentative capacity of the author of this extraordinary magnum opus. Mahatma Gandhi’s numerous warnings against adoption of the Western model of industrialisation, and his advocacy of the humble spinning wheel and village industries which was “at the very core of his economic, political and social agenda” aroused widespread skepticism, even scorn within post-independence India’s intelligentsia, intent upon modernising the country. It’s plainly evident that for Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, the assassination of Gandhiji in early 1948 (and death of the pro private enterprise Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1950) while personally distressing, came as a relief because he could freely implement his national development agenda, inspired by Soviet-style public sector-led industrialisation. Sixty-five years on, it’s equally evident that the Nehruvian economic development model has failed. While the population has tripled since independence — itself a failure of the world’s first family planning programme — the nation’s debt-laden, low productivity public sector enterprises are monumental failures which have transformed high-potential India into a nation of chronic shortages, persistent inflation, unemployment (120 million) and vast inequalities in income, education, health and social justice. On almost every development measurement index of UNDP, Unesco, the World Bank etc, contemporary India is among the world’s bottom ranked nations. Although Kulkarni doesn’t explicitly say so, the pathetic condition of the nation is probably the causative factor which prompted him to re-examine Gandhi’s life and message, especially the popular belief that he “was opposed to science, technology, machinery and modernity”. The outcome of the author’s rediscovery of the Mahatma is this brilliant work of scholarship, and advocacy of the intensified usage of the internet, which Kulkarni — an IIT-Bombay alum who understands technology — regards as a god-sent tech breakthrough with the potential to prompt a new science, technology and knowledge revolution to solve the most pressing problems of humankind in general, and India in particular. This opus which together with its narrative, notes and bibliography spans 725 pages is divided into five parts. In the first part (47 pages), starting…

Already a subscriber

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

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

Eduleader Bytes

Ashish Dhawan, Promoter-CEO, Central Square Foundation

Ashish Dhawan, Promoter-CEO, Central Square Foundation, Delhi What are the aims and objectives of the Central Square Foundation? The long-term objective is to transform the quality of school education in India. Our immediate focus is on improving learning outcomes of children from low-income communities. How best to upgrade government schools? We have to hold them accountable for learning outcomes, and invest in training and developing school leaders and teachers. Thinker/philosopher you admire the most. Mahatma Gandhi. Your favourite Nobel laureate. Martin Luther King, Jr. Your leadership style. Non-hierarchical, participative. Your favourite book on education. Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith. For or against a 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools? In favour. Integrating children from different socio-economic backgrounds in early age is beneficial for their development. But reservation is not enough; additional support has to be provided to private schools by government and NGOs to enable this integration. Should education outlay be doubled by cutting defence expenditure? That’s unreleastic. We need to increase education expenditure as a percentage of GDP. But more important, we must obtain better outcomes from the money being spent currently. How satisfied are you with the progress of Central Square? I am happy with the progress made in our first year. We have met over 200 organisations in the school education space and made four investments — all not-for-profit — so far. We have also hosted public forums for international education reformers in India, created platforms to sensitise journalists to education-reform issues, and for school leaders to share best practices. Pessimistic or optimistic about the future of education in India? Hugely optimistic. As a country we are at an inflexion point. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme has improved enrolment in primaries to 97 percent. We now have to go after quality of learning with the same drive. Recommended: 50 Leaders who can revive Indian education – Ashish Dhawan

Already a subscriber

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

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

Postscript

Bollywood hypocrisy

The reportedly rising number of readers of this page are surely well aware that your editor is no Bollywood buff, and certainly not a fan of its over-hyped ham actors, whose movies are an assault on the senses and an insult to people with even minimal intelligence and logic. However a surprise endorsement of my sustained constructive criticism of the braindead badshahs of Bollywood and their overpaid and over-the-top actors, came from an unexpected quarter as a new year gift. Writing in the mainstream Sunday Times of India (December 30) about rising crimes against women in the context of the brutal rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi, egg-head economist Swaminathan Aiyar indicted Bollywood cinema and its matinee idols for popularising sexual harassment of women. “What’s truly terrible is the manner in which film heroes have for decades pestered, stalked and forced their unwanted attentions on heroines in a thousand films, yet ended up getting the girl,” writes Aiyar, accusing matinee idols Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra and even the mighty Amitabh Bachchan and contemporary Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor of being sexual harassment experts. In November writing on this page, your editor expressed depressing lack of enthusiasm for the 70th birthday celebrations of Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, a nationwide event choreographed by fawning television anchors. A contributory cause was the airing of a song-n-dance number from his mega-hit film Hum (1991) in which several dozen leering men led by the superstar, surround the heroine and douse her with water while demanding a kiss. My interpretation of the message in the song was that if she didn’t choose AB as her mate, the whole lot would pile on to her. And Bachchan read a televised elegy to the paramedic who was violently gangraped to death in Delhi. The deadly sin of hypocrisy is not the monopoly of the country’s sleazy politicians. Hyde side The relinquishing of office as chairman of Tata Sons Ltd, India’s largest private sector business conglomerate (annual sales revenue: Rs.475,721 crore) by Ratan Tata on December 28, marked the end of a golden era in Indian industry and prompted much lamentation in the boardrooms of India Inc and the media. By any yardstick, RT had an astonishingly successful 21-year run after being anointed his successor by the legendary JRD Tata in 1991. As the first editor of the country’s pioneer business magazines (Business India and Businessworld) which stridently advocated the end of the licence-permit-quota raj, your editor had a good rapport with Bombay House, and particularly with the late JRD Tata (1904-1993).In the 1980s when BI and BW were both well established, Ratan Tata was dismissed by the media and captains of India Inc as a rank outsider in the race to succeed JRD in Bombay House. At the time, Ratan was chairman of the limping National Electronics Co which had unsuccessfully ventured into manufacturing colour television sets. However, simultaneously he had authored a plan for the consolidation of the Tata Group into a handful of core businesses and…

Already a subscriber

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

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