EducationWorld February 16

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: NAN CIVEL Dr. Maria Montessori’s legacy Awareness of the vital importance of early childhood care and education (ECCE) dawned upon me rather late in life. My working life started with Unilever Malaysia in the human resources department. During a ten-year journey from internship to management, I met many disagreeable adults and happiness became elusive. Therefore I decided to start over and work with children instead. That’s when I began to learn about this remarkable woman — a doctor, anthropologist, psychologist and educationist — who in the late 19th century, researched and developed her unique pedagogy to educate youngest children to build them strong foundations for further study and personal growth and development. Forty years of Dr. Maria Montessori’s life were devoted to pre-primary education. Her books and lectures highlighted that there is a remarkable force in every human being, and this force, which she termed as energy from the psychic embryo, is at its most powerful during the first phase of human development — from 0-6 years of age. In the second phase of childhood, this force stabilises and in the adolescent third phase, it weakens and often runs awry with several research studies linking anti-social behaviour of adolescents to deficient ECCE during the infant phase. All children from birth have an inherent quality which she described as the “absorbent mind”. A child’s mind can rapidly assimilate languages, religion, customs and the peculiarities of the environment she grows in. This magical mind can absorb all elements, good or damaging. Some contemporary neuroscientists have described the brain of a child as a social organ. It weighs a mere 1.4 kg but thrives on communication and experiences which ignite the connections of the neurons or synapses. Research has also revealed that a child from an educated family can learn more than 1,500 words by the time she is three years of age, provided she hears double the number of words. Moreover, children can learn a second language with ease. On the other hand, children from educationally deprived families learn and grasp only 50-100 words because they are likely to hear only 100-200 words of adults. “Childhood constructs with what it finds. If the material is poor, the construction is poor,” observed Dr. Montessori. In 1908, Dr. Montessori started her first classroom for 60 underprivileged children aged 2.5-6 in San Lorenzo, a poor neighbourhood of Rome and christened it the Casa De Bambini (Children’s House). This model classroom, known today as The Prepared Environment, was equipped with furniture, fittings and learning materials scaled down to child size, and teaching material was divided into five curriculum areas. It was in this setting that she discerned the true nature of children. Dr. Montessori conducted her first experiments in the Casa and closely observed how children responded to her prepared environment. She noted that they thrived in free but orderly environments which set limits and systems. In a short time, children began to work with concentration and experienced a radical transformation with the shy…

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

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: ADARSH SHARMA Towards quality in ECCE: Processes & challenges The first six years of life are widely acknowledged as a “window of opportunity” for optimising the development of children and realising their inherent potential. This is the period in a child’s life when she records the fastest pace of growth. Research in the neurosciences has identified these years as a critical period for development of the brain and its structures. With rising awareness of the critical importance of early years, more and more governments around the world are making provision for early childhood care and education (ECCE) of youngest children. According to Lawrence Schweinhart, president of the Ypsilanti, Michigan-based High Scope Educational Research Foundation, the economic returns from public investment in high- quality ECCE can be as high as 16 times of outlays. The population of children under the age of six in India is 160 million with the number of 3-6 year olds who need pre-primary education aggregating 73 million. This is a huge number and as per rough estimates, only 40-42 percent of children are provided some type of early childhood education by public, private and NGO preschools. Quite rightly, public/government programmes are targeted at disadvantaged and marginalised communities, with the Union ministry of women and child development overseeing childcare services for the age group 0-6 years at the national level. Its flagship programme — Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) — has a wide network of 1.6 million anganwadis countrywide which are focal points for delivering services at the community level. Anganwadis provide a package of services that include health and nutrition for children and pregnant and lactating mothers, together with preschool education for 3-6 year olds. Although under the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, children under the age of six are outside the scope of the “basic right to education,” s.11 of the RTE Act acknowledges the importance of ECCE. “With a view to prepare children above the age of three years for elementary education and to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years, the government may make necessary arrangements for providing free preschool education for such children,” it says. As a follow-up, the government has been working to set up a one-year ECCE exposure intervention programme in government-run schools to discharge its obligation towards children aged 3-6 years. However, this programme is being run only in a few states on an experimental basis. Undoubtedly, making ECCE provision for over 160 million children under the age of six by the state is a daunting task. Consequently, private edupreneurs have become active players in this segment for elite and middle class households. Foreign ECCE providers have also set up chains of franchised preschools in big towns and metropolitan cities to meet the burgeoning demands of aspirational middle class parents. Although exact numbers are not available, rough estimates indicate that 22-30 percent preschoolers are in private preschools. Nevertheless there’s no…

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

PANEL DISCUSSION Government should not regulate private preschools With several state governments enacting registration and operational regulations for private preschools, the first panel discussion of the EW ECE Global Conference 2016 featuring Swati Popat Vats (SPV), founder-president of the Early Childhood Association of India; Jaya Sastri (JS), founder-director of SEED group of preschools, Chennai; Dr. Padmini, trustee of the Child Rights Trust, Bangalore; and Kavita Anand (KA), founder-director of Adhyayan Quality Education Services Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai and chaired by Dilip Thakore (DT), editor, EducationWorld, deliberated the subject ‘Government should not regulate private preschools’. DT: For over six decades since independence, private preschools have been outside the purview of government control. But recently several state governments have proposed to regulate them. For instance, in Tamil Nadu the state government has promulgated a code of regulations for private preschools while in Delhi the AAP government has imposed tuition fee ceilings and other regulations. This despite the fact that the record of government regulation of primary-secondary education has been disastrous. Corrupt education inspectors have failed to raise standards, and routinely turn a blind eye to all types of violations. In particular, government schools which should be regulated by government are in a shambles. In higher education, none of our universities, which are government regulated, are ranked in the Top 200 World University Rankings league tables. Against this backdrop, should the heavy hand of government be imposed on the country’s flourishing private preschools or should they self-regulate? SPV: For all these years, early childhood education was relegated to the back burner. Now suddenly the government wants to regulate it. I am curious about this sudden change of heart and suspect that it’s been discovered as a revenue source. The world is not changed by intention, it’s changed by example. So what example has the government set with the administration of 1.6 million government anganwadis run under the ICDS programme? All governments worldwide which have prescribed regulations for private ECCE centres, have first set an example with their own government-run preschools. Moreover these countries don’t regulate, they set guidelines and non-negotiables in ECCE, followed with a transparent process of supervision and licensing. On the other hand, government regulation of private preschools in Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka, begins with levying registration fees. This is followed with regulation of tuition fees chargeable. Moreover, state governments are framing control and command regulations while completely ignoring the Central government’s National ECCE Policy of 2013 which has set ten non-negotiable quality benchmarks for ECCE in India. DT: Jaya, what is the situation in Tamil Nadu? JS: It’s a bit different. Private preschool managements were invited by the government to give their suggestions for framing regulations, and tuition fees are not controlled. I believe some type of government regulation in ECCE is necessary to enforce quality standards. For the past few years under the ECA (Early Childhood Association) banner, we have unsuccessfully attempted to get preschools in the state to adhere to ECA prescribed standards. But ECA had only five members in 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

PANEL DISCUSSION Do we need to set minimum learning outcomes in ECCE? The second panel discussion chaired by Summiya Yasmeen (SY), managing editor of EducationWorld, featured Dr. Shailaja Menon (SM), professor at the School of Education, Azim Premji University, Bangalore; Deepa Bhushan (DB), head of Billabong High International schools; Hazel Siromoni (HS), director of Maple Bear India; and keynote presenters Nan Civel (NC) and Dr. Adarsh Sharma (AS). In a high-voltage debate, the panel debated ‘Do we need to set minimum learning outcomes in ECCE?’. Excerpts from the lively 90-minute discussion. SY: The context of this debate is that India doesn’t have a national ECCE curriculum setting minimum learning levels, though a National ECCE Policy was approved in 2013 by the UPA II government. Consequently, preschools in the private sector devise their own curriculums and pedagogies. Most countries including the US, UK and Singapore have prescribed minimum child development outcomes — cognitive, emotional, social, language and literacy, etc — in ECCE. Do we need to prescribe them in India as well? AS: In academic circles, we have developed several curriculum frameworks and policies for ECCE. But all this research is confined to books and documents. There is no link between research and policy in India. That’s the big problem. The babu or bureaucrat goes by his whims and decides what’s good for children. Therefore, I am not surprised that we haven’t been able to set any clear child outcomes in ECCE. All exist on paper, nobody has been able to standardise and implement them. HS: Unfortunately, few educators in India have a clear understanding of what is ECCE. We still loosely use ‘playschool’ to describe an ECCE centre, and parents and primary schools have different expectations of pre-primary education. First we need to evolve a consensus as to what’s the objective of ECCE and then draw up age-appropriate learning outcomes. There is no dispute that the early years are critical to helping children develop the skills needed to become independent learners. Poor ECCE results in poor primary-secondary learning outcomes. In Pisa 2011 (Programme for International Student Assessment) which measures the learning outcomes of 15-year-olds worldwide, Indian students were ranked second last among 74 countries. Instead of addressing this problem, India has withdrawn from the test. SM: Learning outcomes is a controversial issue, and across the country there’s a live academic debate about whether we need to set them. The audience needs to understand the nuances of this debate. The National Policy on Education 1986 defined minimum levels of learning for primary-secondary children, as did the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2000. But NCF 2005 declined to set minimum learning outcomes for school children. Now we are talking about introducing minimum learning outcomes for children in early years education. Delegates here need to know why standardised learning outcomes were eliminated for older children. The reason is that humans are bio-social cultural beings. They are different because of differences in language, culture, child rearing practices, and societal expectations. In a highly heterogeneous society, setting standardised learning outcomes…

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

The Khan Academy’s well-designed and user-friendly website (khanacademy.org) offers a wide range of tutorials adjusted to serve the needs of teachers, parents and self-learners. For learners in any of these categories, registration is easy. The academy’s first display screen which cheerfully assures visitors that “You can learn anything”, invites learners, teachers and parents to register under separate categories. After providing your e-mail address and selecting a website dedicated password — and perhaps most important, exempted from having to provide credit card details because all KA content is provided free of charge — learners can select any of the subjects listed on the academy’s website. Among them: Mathematics: Primary, high schools and beyond Science: Biology, physics, chemistry, organic chemistry, cosmology and astronomy, health and medicine, electrical engineering, discoveries and projects Economics & Finance: Microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance and capital markets and entrepreneurship Arts & Humanities: History of music, art history basics, Renaissance and Reformation in Europe, prehistoric art in Europe and West Asia, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical art in Europe, art of Asia, art of the ancient Mediterranean, art of the Americas to World War I, art of Africa, art of Medieval Europe, art in 19th century Europe, art of Oceania, art of the Islamic world, Expressionism to pop art Computing: Computer programming, computer science Test Prep: Full SAT and New SAT, MCAT, GMAT, IIT-JEE practice tests worked through by Sal Khan and other KA faculty Partner content from museums (Tate, J. Paul Getty, American Museum of Natural History, The British Museum, California Academy of Sciences, Asian Art Museum etc). Other partners: The Brookings Institution, Big History Project, Crash Course, Pixar in a Box, LeBron Asks, Stanford School of Medicine, The Aspen Institute, Dartmouth College, Wi-Phi (Wireless Philosophy), NASA and Code.org, Silicon Schools Fund and Clayton Christensen Institute, MIT+K12, NOVA Labs, Breakthrough Junior Challenge. All the above content in video format with English language commentary and explanations is easily accessible free-of-charge on the academy’s website and/or on You-Tube by Indian institutions and individuals with reliable broadband connectivity and is being utilised by 350,000 KA registered users in urban India. To enable Indians unfamiliar with English, KA (India) has signed joint venture collaboration agreements with the Mumbai-based Tata Trusts and the Delhi-based Central Square Foundation (CSF) to translate and/or adapt KA content into vernacular languages. CSF has already begun work on translating KA’s maths and science content mapped to NCERT’s class I-XII curriculum into Hindi, the dominant language of north India. Although rather belatedly, favourable winds of a perfect storm which will shower a plethora of benefits on the country’s floundering and dispirited education institutions and short-changed self-learners, are blowing over India.

Already a subscriber

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

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

Dilip Thakore interviewed Salman Khan, the US-based founder-CEO of the Khan Academy (KA, estb.2006) over the telephone. Excerpts from the 40-minute late night interview. Since it was launched in 2006, the online Khan Academy (KA) has captured the imagination of the world. How satisfied are you with the growth of KA thus far? The academy started as a tutorial class for my cousin Nadia and later for family members. After that for almost three years, the possibility of providing free online math and science classes which would be academically enriching and enjoyable for learners anywhere, was something I dreamt about until 2009-10 when my videos uploaded on You-Tube, started getting attention. Since then, the Khan Academy’s website (www.khanacademy.org) has attracted over 31 million learners around the world, a number beyond my wildest dreams. Perhaps more importantly, it has excited people in the US and worldwide and enabled them to dream about accessing high-quality, free-of-charge education at the click of a mouse. I am fairly satisfied with the growth and development of KA thus far. But we have much greater aspirations. What would you say are the major defining characteristics of the KA way of education delivery that explain its global popularity and success? I think it’s the disruptive new ideas introduced by KA into the teaching-learning process. Our focus is on de-stressing education and enabling learners to acquire deep understanding of subjects and concepts. This makes learning enjoyable and intellectually satisfying at the basic and advanced levels. Our boldly stated ambitious aspiration to deliver free, good quality education anywhere, anytime has excited people denied of opportunity for whatever reason, to aspire to improve or re-connect with learning. India with its heterogeneous population and poor internet connectivity is likely to pose an entirely different set of challenges to KA. What are the penetration strategies you have drawn up for KA (India)? Admittedly, India with its uniquely heterogeneous population, more than 20 major languages and under-developed internet connectivity will pose major problems for the Khan Academy (India). Therefore we are ready and willing to partner with the Central and state governments and NGOs to make content available in Indian languages with the Central Square Foundation having agreed to translate our math and science videos for primary and high schools in India. Re digital connectivity, it must be noted that even in the US, 30 percent of the population, and larger percentages in Brazil and Mexico where our videos and digital reach is deep, don’t have access to broadband connectivity. India is moving rapidly towards developing its digital connectivity and the entire country is likely to be covered in three-five years. We are also open to developing an online-offline model to suit ground conditions in India. Teachers in the US and elsewhere are not as impressed as is the media with the KA education delivery model. What’s your response? The perception that KA is a substitute for teachers is a huge misunderstanding. Over 1 million teachers are registered on our website and use our…

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

Power corrupts people in all walks of life. Even the media which has established itself as the powerful and influential fourth estate of this spluttering democracy. A case in point is the prolonged fratricidal war for editorial authority and dominance being waged in the venerable Chennai-based English daily The Hindu (estb. 1878). On January 5, Malini Parthasarathy, the JNU, Delhi and Columbia University-educated niece of G. Kasturi (former editor (1965-1991) of the daily), who was appointed editor less than a year ago, resigned abruptly on grounds that her sterling contribution to the development of the newspaper which included masterminding the launch of its Mumbai edition, was insufficiently appreciated by the board of directors of the closely-held G. Kasturi & Sons Ltd, which owns this highly-respected newspaper. According to B.S. Raghavan, a former journalist and columnist of The Hindu, Parthasarathy, although an excellent journalist and interviewer of the high and mighty, is ill-tempered and authoritarian, and is primarily responsible for highly regarded professionals such as Siddharth Vardarajan and P. Sainath exiting the daily. “The manner in which one faction of Kasturi & Co fraternity ganged up against another, and unceremoniously and uncouthly bundled out close kith and kin with no reasons adduced to readers is reminiscent of what used to be happening in Byzantium… With relatives swarming all over the place demanding to be accommodated in niches carved out for them, professionalism suffers,” writes Raghavan in his memoirs Fading Footprints (2013). More than a decade ago your then struggling correspondent proposed an agreement under which The Hindu would use its mighty muscle to distribute EducationWorld. Although we offered to pay for services rendered, the suggestion was contemptuously dismissed by N. Ram, then the editor of the daily and managing director of Kasturi & Sons. Ergo, even though one regrets the imminent decline of a great — even if somewhat unfortunately titled — newspaper, it’s difficult not to feel a small measure of schadenfreude about the sea of troubles in which the self-obsessed ruling family of The Hindu is floundering. Ad gurus’ pride deficit There’s a serious ethnic pride deficit within all sections of Indian society. Sixty-eight years after the very brown Mahatma wrested the country’s independence from the white man, dozens of skin lightening cream manufacturers led by compradors of Hindustan Unilever, whose racist propaganda is incorporated into its top-selling Fair & Lovely, are doing roaring business. For individuals with ethnic pride and sensitivity such as your editor, watching the news on television has become an ordeal as over made-up Bollywood mercenaries plug an assortment of skin-lightening creams and lotions which are touted as the ultimate expression of professional and personal success. Increasingly, Caucasian or quasi-caucasian actors and models are being employed to plug everything from real estate to snacks. In a frequently aired news television ad of India Bulls — a housing finance company — a male trogdolyte of seemingly Middle East ethnicity is shown appreciating the 21st century business properties funded by the company. In a Parle biscuits ad…

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

Money and Politics by Ben Antao; cinnamon teal; Price: Rs.325; Pages: 226 Ben Antao has tackled the birth of Goan independence with humour and an unrepentant pen. That politics is money is unquestioned in this novel. That politics is business is also boldly stated. And with the events in this tale unfolding in the early 1960s when, for those of us who were raised in a more idealistic time and were led to believe in statesmanship and leadership (Kennedy, Gandhi, Churchill et al) as also altruistic nation-building in a post-WWII era, this book comes as a bit of a wake-up call. The novel is based on true events. The real-life protagonists, Dayanand Bandodkar, a miner, and Jack de Sequeira, a merchant, formed two political parties, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak (MG) and United Goans (UG) respectively, in the aftermath of the liberation of Goa in December 1961 from Portuguese dictator Salazar by the Indian Army. At the time prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised that Goa was free to shape its destiny within India. The MG party contested the election for ruling the new territory on two pledges: to merge Goa with neighbouring Maharashtra, as most Goans spoke the Marathi language of the larger state, and to return Goan lands back to tillers. The UG, on the other hand, stood for a separate state for Goa within India, with Konkani as the official language, and with land remaining in the hands of existing landholders, many of whom were UG and MG candidates vying to be elected. The MG ultimately won the election, but was unsuccessful in merging Goa with Maharashtra as an opinion poll (more a referendum) held within the tiny territory overwhelmingly called for a separate status. Within this frame of history, Antao spins his tale. Bandodkar is the fictitious Fondekar and de Sequeira is Gaspar. Both men launch their political parties and campaigns with the complete understanding that only money will buy success. They are blatant in their offerings of ‘help’ to likely supporters, and are equally bullish in obtaining ‘deposits’ from businessmen eyeing lucrative development contracts in Goa when the right political parties come to power. Their two assistants, Euseb (Gaspar’s) and Vishnu (Fondekar’s), are wily characters. The shady Euseb is always in dark glasses and Vishnu is particularly adept at sussing out potential supporters for his boss’ cause. The third element in this battle is India’s ruling party, the Congress, led by a rather ineffectual local leader, Shankar, who cannot make a decision unless it’s sanctioned by Delhi. Instead of votes, all Shankar is able to collect is money from those same scouting business people who are hedging their bets with every political party in the race. When the result is declared, with the MG obtaining 14 seats to the UG’s 12, and the other two seats going to independent candidates, the bribery game notches up into high gear to secure a majority, or prevent one. The MG prevails, and Fondekar is proclaimed chief minister with Gaspar as 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

I have learned to pay attention to T-shirts. Why? Because, I believe the philosophies of our age are often found on T-shirts. Whether I’m at a mall, a sports stadium, or an amusement park (with the grandkids), just about anywhere, T-shirts inform me about many truths of our time. Perhaps the most interesting T-shirt I’ve seen is one with a picture of a bunch of guys clinging to a rope for dear life and the words, ‘24 Guys Hanging on the Same Rope’. It perfectly expresses what team attitude is all about. As Ben Franklin said some centuries ago, teams have gotta hang together or else they’ll hang separately. The need for positive team attitude is apparent today in every human endeavour or arena, at every level in society and the world, from playing fields to chambers of business and government, from the basketball court to the halls of the United Nations, from our families to all families of the world. We need to become teammates. But what is team attitude? How, in practical terms, do we reach a point where we truly ‘think team’? Actually, I believe team attitude or team spirit is not so much about attitude but a mix of many attitudes and components. Among them: Being unselfish. Japanese baseball offers us the term wa, an expression describing a player who sublimates his personality and personal goals for the success of the team. This philosophy has been detailed in Robert Whiting’s book, You Gotta Have Wa (2009). As a basketball player, I have always been conscious about not being selfish with the ball. I have believed in passing the ball and not hanging on it to dribble or take a shot. This requires giving up the ball and not hogging the glory. In short, getting totally out of yourself and becoming part and parcel of the team. Finding a role and filling it. After winning the NBA (National Basketball Association) championship in the 1990s with a record-setting season, head coach Phil Jackson described his winning formula. “Building a successful team, whether it’s an NBA champion or a record-setting sales force, is essentially a spiritual act. It requires individuals to surrender self-interest for the greater good so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts… More than anything, I wanted to build a team that would blend individual talent with heightened group consciousness — a team that could win big without becoming small in the process.” A senior in college, C. Everett Koop (who later became the surgeon general of the US), was asked in an interview when seeking admission to medical school: “Do you expect to make any major discoveries in medicine?” “I believe,” he responded, “that those who make discoveries in the field of medicine are building upon the efforts of many who preceded them, but did not do that final thing which achieved success and fame. I would like to be the one who makes a major discovery, but I…

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

Universities worldwide will one day be compared on what their graduates learn and will “compete for superior approaches to teaching”, just as schools do thanks to the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests. That is the firm view of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s director of education and skills, Andreas Schleicher, who says its Pisa ranking of school systems is now seen as hugely important around the globe, despite initial fierce opposition from governments. Schleicher, whom former UK education secretary Michael Gove once called “the most important man in the British education system” owing to Pisa’s clout, spoke to Times Higher Education on a visit to London to deliver the Higher Education Policy Institute’s annual lecture last December. The lecture attempted to revive interest in the principles behind the OECD’s Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (Ahelo) plan for international graduate tests. Ahelo went through a lengthy feasibility study, but failed to win backing from OECD member nations to proceed to the next stage. “There’s been a lot of attention to measuring the success of universities by research output,” Schleicher told THE. “But at the end of the day, students pay high fees. I think we owe them a fair assessment of what they get in return for that.” Describing teaching quality “proxies” as a poor alternative to “what is it that students actually learn”, Schleicher suggests that “if it’s not the OECD doing it, someone else will”. On the subject of Pisa, he asks: “Can you imagine a time when we didn’t have any comparative evidence on the skills of young people in school? We take it for granted. I think we will live through that time when we see the same thing in higher education.” On Ahelo, Schleicher says the “opposition is clearly coming from those institutions that have most to lose, in part from the countries that have most to lose. But anti-competitive behaviour has never been a recipe for long-term success.” A system of measuring learning outcomes has the potential to disrupt established hierarchies in higher education, argues Schleicher. While at the moment, newer universities “like in East Asia” find it harder to show their worth, he adds, “they will probably win from any comparisons. And they are very keen proponents of this. They are desperately looking for a level playing field.” Schleicher recalls he had been at meetings of education ministers prior to Pisa where all had maintained they had “the best” school systems in the world. “There was no dialogue across countries,” he reminisces. However, after Pisa there is a “global dialogue and discourse”, Schleicher says, highlighting the way schools in England are hosting teachers from Shanghai in an attempt to emulate the city’s success in maths education. “My hope is these kinds of metrics could create something similar in the field of higher education. That we do not just compete for graduates, but we compete for superior approaches to teaching and learning.” (Excerpted and adapted from )

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

The university campus, with its myriad opportunities for engagement, is an important place for students to develop as people, not just as scholars. And in light of recent terrorist attacks and the grim history of violence on campus, it is all the more vital that it remain so. This is the view of Eloic Peyrache, associate dean for Masters programmes at the business school HEC Paris, who gave an interview to Times Higher Education at the annual conference of the Global Alliance in Management Education (CEMS) in December. CEMS is an organisation of leading international business schools that intends to educate future global business leaders through its Masters in international management. It now has 30 members following the recent addition of the Korea University Business School. In response to the Paris terrorist attacks in November that claimed 130 lives, HEC took actions that any large institution would, Prof. Peyrache says: ensuring the safety of staff and students, and offering support on campus to those traumatised by the events. Such tragic events, while difficult to handle emotionally, could nevertheless be useful in starting a dialogue between people on campus about topical matters, and could also inform teaching and learning. At an international institution such as HEC, this has even more resonance. “We want (campus) to be widely open to the profiles of students,” says Prof. Peyrache. “We’ll invite them to talk about terrorism, security, geopolitics but also about mindfulness, meditation and how to react to those things,” he adds. Prof. Peyrache is keen to stress the role of higher education in breaking down national barriers and helping to develop “global citizens”, but he notes that opinion is “polarised” on whether French universities in general are achieving this. “The big concern today is about the structure, not what’s taught in universities,” he says. “We have great engineering schools, business schools, but they’re… not part of a university. (People in higher education) want to set up a university that has more international visibility because they’ll be physically bigger.” This is what has happened at HEC, which is a constituent of the newly formed Universite Paris-Saclay, which comprises two universities, 11 university-level colleges and seven research organisations. Although Paris-Saclay is one of the “most promising” developments, it was no easy ride, says Peyrache. “We wanted to have an MIT a la Francaise,” he says. “But MIT is very much integrated, so then people asked what’s the model? (We have) people pushing in other directions. But at some other places in the world you see one institution being part of a university, or one department being willing to get independence; we’re going in the other direction. We are taking powerful brands with egos and saying: ‘Forget about your name, get together and we’ll set up a new university.’” “We do look at what’s happening outside, but not enough,” he says. “The business schools in France are very good because we’ve been very much exposed to competition. It’s less the case for engineering schools, and absolutely…

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

The new campus of Saint Petersburg State University’s Graduate School of Management (GSOM) provides quite an effective exemplar of Russian higher education today. Mikhailovskaya Dacha, the site of the summer residence of Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov, was given to the school as part of the Russian government’s 2005 National Priority Project in Education, aimed at creating two leading business schools in Russia. The journey to the finished campus, which opened in September, has involved renovation, reconstruction and the construction of new buildings. There have also been visits from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. The main academic building — formerly Mikhailovskaya Dacha’s stables — is an imposing, expansive teaching space that can house over 2,100 students. “We want to be internationally recognised, not just in the academic community but in the broadest sense. That’s our goal, and I think pretty much the same goal (for) the university and many other universities. That’s the Russian direction,” said Konstantin Krotov, managing director of GSOM, speaking to Times Higher Education. Russia’s higher education sector as a whole is very much in the process of renovation. It has been only a couple of years since the introduction of Project 5-100, intended to propel at least five Russian universities into the Top 100 of leading global university rankings by 2020. Prof. Krotov says the initiative has helped a sector that “had not been developed for the past 15-20 years”. “I’ve been in a couple of universities as a guest speaker (talking about) our experience,” he says. “They’re doing an amazing job right now. They develop so fast, they’re now much higher in the rankings.” His effusive praise is not without validity. When THE published its BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2016 on December 2, Russia was shown to be a star performer, with 15 institutions in the Top 200 and seven in the Top 50. Prof. Krotov emphasises that Russian universities’ mission isn’t just about their global position; institutions are well-integrated with their own communities. Since some believe President Putin introduced support programmes for Russia’s universities because of the threat of a politicised student body, does he ever worry about government interference? “No, no. We have academic freedom over here. We have these people on our academic staff not because they’re ministers but because they’re professionals in their fields. For example, the minister for transport became head of department first and then minister for transport. It’s because he’s a professional in his area. We were lucky to have him.” And yet recent government actions have made Russia’s position in the global academy problematic. At the BRICS rankings launch, Anatoly Oleksiyenko, associate professor in the division of policy, administration and social sciences education at the University of Hong Kong, said Russia’s internationalisation efforts have been “compromised” by its “confrontational policies on the global political arena”. “It’s hard for me to talk about (Russia’s position) in global higher education, but a lot of (attitudes) will be connected to our geopolitical situation,” Prof. Krotov says. “To be a leader…

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

Six months ago, one of Canada’s leading neuroscientists, Robert Brownstone, announced his resignation as director of research in neurosurgery at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, citing the Canadian government’s “worrisome” cuts to science funding and its shift towards applied research. Three months into his new post as chair of neurosurgery at University College London (UCL), Brownstone is keen to point out that he also was “pulled” out of Canada by UCL’s “huge strength in neuroscience”. But he reiterates his relief at being able to leave behind “some of the depressing things that were happening” under Canada’s recently departed Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper. “The previous government was not particularly interested in knowledge,” Brownstone says. “They would use policy to make knowledge rather than use knowledge to make policy. That was their attitude. What worried me was not so much (how it might impact on) anyone at my stage in their career, but how it would affect the young generation, who would be discouraged from pursuing a life in research.” Brownstone’s views were widely shared by Canadian scientists. Indeed, such was the scale of their discontent that science policy even became an issue in the campaign leading up to last October’s federal election. And the Liberal Party of Canada’s pledges to redress the situation are considered to be one factor in its landslide victory, in which it won 184 seats, against the Conservatives’ 99. Many scientists in Canada are immensely relieved that the Harper era is over. A common bone of contention was the Harper government’s emphasis on commercialisation of research. According to Jim Woodgett, director of research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital (which is affiliated to the University of Toronto), that aspiration was “clearly being enacted in terms of the types of funding programmes they wanted, the creation of a number of commercialisation centres and (the placing of) a lot more emphasis on research that would lead to product development. It was all really at the expense of a lot of basic science.” Another gripe was the funding cuts of nearly 8 percent imposed on Canada’s three research councils, known collectively as the Tri-Council Agencies, between 2007 (the year after the Conservatives came to power) and 2016. And, perhaps most prominently, critics railed against what Woodgett calls the Conservatives’ “command and control” mentality, which required government scientists to apply for permission before speaking to the press. “Even the (science) ministers’ opinions were not particularly well respected by the prime minister’s office,” Woodgett claims. In July 2012, this “toxic broth” led to a protest on the streets of Ottawa against the government’s alleged anti-science agenda. Dressed in white lab coats and holding placards reading “no science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy”, the protesters held a mock funeral on Parliament Hill to mourn the “death of evidence” in government. On November 4, his first day as prime minister, Justin Trudeau restored the minister of science to a cabinet-level position and gave the job to Kirsty Duncan,…

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

Serhiy Kvit is perhaps Ukraine’s most successful minister, but he became a politician only by chance. Almost two years ago, Kvit was rector of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He agreed to visit student protesters barricaded inside Ukraine’s education ministry during the country’s ‘Maidan revolution’, which led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. “Students asked us to present our vision of higher education and research, and they approved of our concept,” Kvit told Times Higher Education on a visit to London in December. Within a few days, the 48-year-old had been appointed education and science minister and was then asked to stay on after elections in October 2014. Last year, Kvit was named Ukraine’s most successful minister by the magazine Vlast Deneg in recognition of his achievement in pushing through more than half his reform programme in under two years. One highlight was the passing of Ukraine’s first higher education law since 2002 to sweep away the top-down Soviet model of university management by giving students and staff more say in campus affairs. Other initiatives underway include efforts to improve university quality assurance, a crackdown on plagiarism and academic fraud and reform of the country’s vocational education system. A new law on research funding, which was approved in December, will give universities more independence and financial autonomy, Kvit says. The research law also requires Ukraine’s national research centres, which receive more than 90 percent of the country’s research funds, to work more closely with universities. This restructuring aims to raise the standard of research in a sector dominated by Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, which, Kvit believes, has become something of a law unto itself. That the academy is run by a 97-year-old scientist, Borys Paton, who has been president since 1962 clearly bothers Kvit, who is keen for the organisation to “produce more science that Ukraine needs”. For higher education to prosper, the dominance of individuals within Ukraine’s academy, and indeed its wider political landscape, must be reduced, argues Kvit. “The old Soviet model was about a charismatic leader from whom all ideas and laws will flow and everyone will follow him. Now we need a new post-Soviet model of leadership, in which teams in universities play a larger part and different levels of management involve many more people in decisions.” (Excerpted and adapted from )

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

George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. On December 9, 2015, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to replace that law. The House has already passed something similar, and President Obama is likely to sign a modified version. This new Bill, too, has support from both parties. But this time it stems from a shared hatred of President Bush’s law. No Child Left Behind obliged states to set standards for proficiency in reading and maths, and held states and school districts accountable for meeting them. Pupils were tested annually, with the goal of raising standards and closing gaps in achievement between those from rich and poor families. For a while pupils, especially those from ethnic minorities, performed significantly better. The gap between black and white children narrowed. The law required all to be proficient for their age in reading and maths by 2014. The deadline was not met, and it was clear several years ago that pupils would not make the annual gains needed to achieve that goal. Because the regime relied on regular testing of pupils to monitor the schools’ progress, it came to be loathed by teachers, who complained that too much classroom time was taken up preparing pupils for tests. At the other end of the political spectrum, conservatives who wanted more local control of education bristled at what they saw as federal overreach. “It was an interesting coalescing,” says Michael McShane of the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri think-tank. “The left and the right did not like the centralised dictates coming out of the department of education.” They especially did not like the power wielded by Arne Duncan, the outgoing secretary of education. Duncan began releasing states from the need to comply with parts of No Child Left Behind. His waivers came with conditions. In exchange, states had to evaluate teachers and implement standards, such as the Common Core, a controversial set of standards that many states are opting out of or are rebranding. More than 40 states agreed. All this expanded the footprint of both the federal department and the secretary. The new Bills from the Senate and House aim to reduce the role of the education secretary and roll back federal involvement. States will determine how schools should be held accountable, and for what. States will still have to test pupils in reading and maths. They also will have to be more transparent about the results. States will have to submit plans to the department of education. If America’s technocrats had their way, schools across the country would teach a common curriculum and pupils would take the same tests. States would be left to figure out how best to set up their schools. Comparisons between states would be easy and innovation would flourish. The past decade suggests for now at least, that is an unattainable aim. (Excerpted and adapted from )

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

“Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music” — Albert Einstein In multiple studies conducted and reports published around the world, it’s been clearly established that music education greatly aids the cognitive development of children. Children who learn music have higher IQs and this is because music engages the left and right brain simultaneously. A study conducted jointly by the University of Wisconsin and University of California at Irvine in 1997 indicates that three-four-year-olds with eight months of music instruction, including singing and keyboard lessons, averaged 43 percent more in IQ tests than children who didn’t sign up for music lessons. Similarly, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study reveals that the cerebral cortex of concert pianists is 30 percent larger than of acknowledged intellectuals without music education. Likewise, a research study conducted by Susan Hallam in 2010 at the Institute of Education, University of London, concluded that students with formal music education tend to have higher academic scores in primary, middle and high school years. Yet despite the obvious creative and disciplinary benefits of music education, this discipline is not mandatory in the majority of India’s 1.40 million schools. At best, singing is encouraged in pre-primary and primary years with a dedicated period set aside for this activity. By the time children reach secondary school, music as a subject and even singing classes, are dropped with a small minority left to acquire music education on their own. Even though CBSE and the CISCE boards offer music as an elective at the secondary level, very few schools actively encourage music traditions. On the other hand, in schools affiliated with the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation, music is an important element in children’s education and is taught as an integral subject of the curriculum from primary years onwards. It’s not coincidence that since it was founded in 1968, IBO — which offers four education programmes (primary, middle years, careers-related and diploma (class XII)) is emerging as the world’s most preferred school board with 4,375 affiliated schools in 147 countries. Although in India, government policy tends to ignore formal music education, progressive governments around the world have introduced compulsory music education with defined goals and objectives into their school systems. Following the lead of the UK and US, a growing number of countries are providing access to music instruction in public and private schools through the formal curriculum. Countries such as Hungary, The Netherlands, Japan and China, whose students consistently fare well in international learning measurement and assessment tests, have made music a mandatory curriculum subject in primary-secondary school, and an optional subject with academic credits in higher education. Although Hungary until the 1990s was a member-nation of the Soviet controlled Warsaw Pact, one of the few benefits of communist dictatorship was a robust education system in which music learning was compulsory. This tradition continues, and today music education is compulsory…

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

Dr. Yaj Medury is the first vice chancellor of the newly established Bennett University (BU) in Greater Noida, an hour’s drive from central Delhi. The campus is designed by RSP Architects, a renowned Singapore-based firm. BU has a dedicated corpus of Rs.800 crore for investment in infrastructure and human resources of which Rs.240 crore has been expended for partial construction of the new varsity’s engineering and business management schools. Newspeg. This state-of-the-art private institution launched by Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL) — the holding company of India’s top-ranked dailies including the Times of India, Economic Times, television channels Times Now, ET Now and over a dozen periodicals — is sited on a 68-acre campus, and will commence its first academic session in July 2016, with an intake of 60 students into an MBA programme and 240 into undergraduate engineering programmes. Tuition fees range between Rs.3.5-6 lakh per annum. Direct talk. “BU is promoted by BCCL whose Times of India and Economic Times are trusted brands across India. Moreover, the company has already earned a good reputation for promoting high quality education initiatives such as Teach for India, Newspaper in Education, TimesPro for professional training, and the Times School of Journalism. The launch of Bennett therefore, is a natural progression for BCCL. We are confident of providing our students a premium learning experience comparable internationally, thanks to highly-qualified research-oriented faculty recruited from globally renowned institutions, including IITs and IIMs. We have also signed an academic collaboration with Babson College, ranked #1 for entrepreneurship education by US News & World Report,” says Medury. Selected by Vineet Jain, managing director and CEO of BCCL, after a global search to head the Times Group’s ambitious foray into formal higher education, Medury seems more than equal to the job of establishing BU as one of the country’s top-ranked private universities ab initio. Medury’s career graph of 31 years includes administrative roles at the British Council, New Delhi (education division); the Delhi-based Educational Consultants India Ltd; a brief stint as the first vice chancellor of the consistently top-ranked Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu; chief operating officer of the education initiatives of the Jaypee Group, for whom he operationalised the Jaypee University of Information Technology at Waknaghat (Himachal Pradesh), Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, and Jaypee Institute of Engineering Technology, Guna (Madhya Pradesh). Future plans. According to Medury, this new 21st century multi-disciplinary varsity when fully operational will host 13,000 undergrad and postgrad students across its schools of engineering, management, design, law, media, public policy and liberal arts with most of the faculty resident on campus. “It is a tradition within the Times of India Group for all our publications and ventures — Times of India, Economic Times, Times Now, Radio Mirchi etc — to be ranked #1 in their respective market segments. I have no doubt that given the generous investment BCCL has made in BU, within a decade, we will be ranked #1 in the league tables of EducationWorld, India Today 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

Confluence 2016: Global Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Summit, a two-day event held at the Amity University campus in Noida on January 14-15, attracted participation of academics and corporate leaders from India and around the world. Among the delegates were representatives of some of the world’s top-ranked higher ed institutions including Cambridge and Nottingham universities in the UK; Massachusetts, Purdue, Stanford and Cornell universities in the US; University of Cape Town, South Africa; University of Technology, Sydney (Australia); Istanbul University, Turkey and Intel Corporation, USA among others. During the two-day summit focused on the theme ‘Cloud system and big data engineering’, Amity University, Noida — ranked among India’s Top 5 private universities in the EducationWorld India University Rankings 2015 — signed six MoUs (memoranda of understanding) with participating institutions including the University of Massachusetts, USA; Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada; and Intel Corporation, to co-operate in inter-disciplinary research. “We are delighted with the MoUs and international alliances forged at Confluence 2016. Under the MoU signed with Intel, Amity will co-develop a state-of-the-art Hi Computing Laboratory at Amity which will benefit students immensely,” said Dr. Ashok K. Chauhan, founder-president of the Amity group of institutions, speaking on the occasion. Wharton’s young leaders programme Knowledge@Wharton High School (KWHS), a unit of the global Knowledge@Wharton network of online business journals at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has invited applications from high school students for its forthcoming 2016 summer programme, KWHS Global Young Leaders Academy. Launched last year, the objective of the academy is to promote entrepreneurship, leadership, business and finance skills among secondary school students around the world through classroom content, exchange programmes and competitions. The intensive three-week academic programmes will be held at Wharton in Philadelphia between May-July 2016. High school students aged 15-18 years are eligible to apply through BrainGain magazine, a study-abroad online magazine collaborating with KWHS on this programme. The last date for applications is March 31, 2016. Applications can be submitted online on http://wharton.braingainmag.com. The fee for the two-week programme is US $5,000 (Rs.3.4 lakh) per student including tuition, on-campus lodging and board. “Governments in emerging economies are stressing the need for radical policy transformations to accelerate education and skills-building among young people to make each country more globally competitive. We believe the KWHS Global Young Leaders Academy will give high school students an opportunity to learn so they can become successful, compassionate and ethical business leaders of the future,” says Mukul Pandya, executive director and editor-in-chief, Knowledge@Wharton Network. British Council launches myEnglish British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, launched myEnglish, a unique “blended learning course” in Bengaluru on January 13. myEnglish combines the latest education technology and student-centred classroom instruction to improve students’ English language skills. This comprehensive course will be available at six levels, in customised nine-week training modules. Under the blended learning format, students access learning materials online under teacher guidance, and participate in practice tests through weekly online ‘virtual classrooms’. Additionally, students attend face-to-face sessions 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

Chhattisgarh Angandwadi initiatives Chief minister Raman Singh launched the ‘Anganwadi Gunvatta Unnayan Abhiyan’ (Anganwadi upgrade programme) of the state’s women and child development (WCD) ministry in Raipur on January 4. Speaking on the occasion, he lauded the efforts of anganwadi workers in fighting malnutrition and said that with the active support of the WCD ministry, NGOs and social workers, child malnutrition has reduced by 17 percent in the state over the past decade. The number of anganwadis in the state has also risen from 21,123 in 2003 to 50,000 currently with the number of child beneficiaries crossing 2.5 million. The chief minister felicitated women’s self-help groups and village sarpanchs for their contribution to the success of ‘Nava Jatan Yojana’, a scheme for eradicating child malnutrition. On the occasion, he also released computer software developed for monitoring WCD ministry schemes, a mobile app ‘Vajan Mitra’ for anganwadi workers, and a primary education kit ‘First Step’. Jammu & Kashmir Special coaching classes The Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (JKBOSE) has launched a 45-day coaching programme to help class XII school-leavers prepare for competitive entrance examinations of medical and engineering colleges, a board official informed media personnel in Srinagar on January 4. “The programme will adopt a teaching methodology different from (other) private coaching institutes with experienced faculty engaged to take classes,” said Prof. Zahoor Ahmad Chatt, chairman of JKBOSE. Seventy-five students from the Kashmir division have been selected through an online process on a first-come-first-serve basis. A nominal fee of Rs.3,000 will be payable per student. Jharkhand New primary textbooks Jharkhand’s school education and literacy ministry has revamped the design and content of classes I-V textbooks to be made available to government primary school children statewide from the academic year 2016-17, a ministry official announced in Ranchi on January 5. “The objective is to familiarise students with famous personalities of Jharkhand who have succeeded in national and international arenas. Studying about their icons will encourage and stimulate students to set ambitious goals and emulate their success,” said the state’s minister for human resource development Neera Yadav. According to Manish Ranjan, director of secondary education, the textbooks rewriting and redesigning exercise is almost complete. “It is not necessary to seek approval from any specific institution as education is a state subject. But to avoid any controversy, we have sent the content to NCERT, New Delhi and the Regional School of Education. We have not ignored the NCERT syllabus but added to it,” he said. Bihar Ambitious bank accounts scheme In a bid to cut down corruption and programme implementation delays, the state government is all set to transfer monetary benefits of education sch-emes — scholarships and school uniforms — as well as social welfare schemes such as old age and widow pensions, directly to the bank accounts of beneficiaries. Until now, the beneficiaries of such schemes were given cash routed through a long process. Over 70,000 state government schools have been directed to open bank accounts for students by January…

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

“The glass, half-empty or half-full — depending on one’s perception — is the best metaphor to describe the skilling scenario in India, Much has been done, but much remains to be done. Less than 2 percent of our workforce has formal skills.” Sanjeev Duggal, CEO of Centum Learning, on India’s skilling challenge (Business Today, January 17) “To make this kind of investment when the government is pulling out investment from health and education when millions are undernourished and uneducated is not called for. It is a differnt matter altogether that bullet trains will serve only the affluent.” Harsh Mander, social activist, criticising the decision of the Union railways ministry to fast-track the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project (Outlook, January 18) “If Ekalavya’s dismembered digit has haunted the Hindu schoolyard from time immemorial, Rohith Vemula’s tragic suicide lays bare the deep inequality undergirding the modern state and its institutions of higher learning.” Ananya Vajpeyi, author, on the tragic death of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student of the University of Hyderabad, who committed suicide because of sustained discrimination on campus (The Hindu, January 20) “It is the “licence raj” existing today that leads to proliferation of ‘fly by night’ operators that give private sector education a bad name in India.” Gopa Saxena, educationist, on why the government should loosen its grip on the education system (Deccan Herald, January 20) “Bad schools are like poisoned wells from which very few recover. Those who survive live sub-optimally, and in humiliation, well into their college years; some are even driven to suicide. While all poor people face this handicap, it is scheduled caste children who suffer the most.” Dipankar Gupta, well-known social scientist, on the need to address the root evil of abysmal quality school education for the underprivileged in particular scheduled caste and tribe children (Times of India, January 30)

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

Political interference in the internal affairs of education institutions is de rigueur in Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) where continuous interventions by the state’s two major political parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) — has wrecked school education. Reckless interference in K-12 education began during the Karunanidhi-led DMK regime (2006-2011) when, under the populist pretext of providing “equity in education”, the DMK legislated the Uniform System of School Education (USSE) Act 2010, abolishing Tamil Nadu’s four school examination boards — the state, Matriculation, Anglo-Indian and Oriental — and decreeing a common curriculum and textbooks for all 53,000 government schools and 10,934 private unaided primary-secondaries affiliated with the Tamil Nadu State Board of School Education (TNSBSE). Mercifully, schools affiliated with the pan-India CBSE (580) and CISCE (52) examination boards were exempted from following the TNSBSE syllabus/curriculum. As a result, the samacheer kalvi or common school curriculum became mandatory for government and private schools despite TNSBSE being highly criticised by private school administrators for its poor quality textbooks and dilution of academic standards. Although the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government, which swept the state’s legislative assembly elections a year later, was opposed to samacheer kalvi, it had to implement the USSE Act following a Supreme Court order of August 2011 upholding the Act. To compound the misery of Tamil Nadu’s private schools, the DMK government also legislated the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009, under which it decreed a new fees structure applicable to 5,934 private unaided Matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu) and 5,000 private nursery and primary schools, appointing three successive Private School Fee Determination Committees (PSFDC) to determine the tuition fees chargeable by private schools. The net result of the DMK government’s populist interventions with the state’s once highly respected private schools is that standards and learning outcomes have plunged, and the low tuition fees prescribed by the PSFDC have proved inadequate to provide children contemporary, tech-enabled education. “State government intervention has completely eroded our autonomy in planning curricula and selecting textbooks best suited for our students. Since TNSBSE-appointed exam assessors reward rote memorisation skills, students who pass TNSBSE’s class X and XII board exams with flying colours fare dismally in the public entrance exams for entry into the best engineering, medical and commerce colleges of the country. Moreover, low tuition fees fixed for private schools by the PSFDC has left us without any margin to recruit well-qualified teachers, introduce innovations in teaching pedagogy or provide extra-curricular education,” says R. Visalakshi, president of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools’ Association. The heavy regulatory hand of the state government has not spared even pre-primary schools in Tamil Nadu which have been completely autonomous for over six decades. On June 12, 2015, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government promulgated post-independence India’s first draft code of regulations for the state’s 11,300 registered pre-primary schools, followed by a revised draft on July 20. Educationists in Chennai fear that some provisions included in the draft…

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

Composite private schools in Karnataka with pre-primary classes are obliged to admit children from poor households in their neighbourhood into kindergarten under s. 12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in the next academic year beginning June. On January 18 the Karnataka high court passed an order vacating an earlier judgement passed on December 22, 2015, restraining the Karnataka government from forcing private unaided schools to admit underprivileged children into the pre-primary or nursery sections of composite schools. While directing composite private unaided schools to admit underprivileged children into their pre-primary classes as mandated by s. 12 (1) (c) of the RTE Act “for now”, Justice A.S. Bopanna noted in his order that the issue requires a detailed hearing. Meanwhile, with poor neighbourhood children being admitted into pre-primaries of composite schools for the past three years, it would be in the public interest not to disturb the status quo, he observed. The case of the Associated Managements of Government Recognised English Medium Schools of Karnataka (KAMS) is that the object of the RTE Act is to provide free and compulsory education to children “of the ages of 6-14 years”. Moreover, section 2 (f) defines “elementary education” as class I-VIII education. Ergo since pre-primary children are invariably of less than six years of age, the proviso of s. 12 (1) (c) extending the section to pre-primaries of composite schools is violative of s. 21A of the Constitution, which equates the right to education of children aged 6-14 with the right to life and liberty, and prompted enactment of the RTE Act, 2009. D. Sashi Kumar, general secretary of KAMS, says it’s important for the government and the judiciary to define the ambit of s. 12 (1) (c). “We moved the court last December to sensitise the court, officialdom and school managements of the need for clarity on the ambit of s. 12 (1) (c). Currently, education ministry officials arbitrarily interpret the Act themselves. Indeed, far from challenging the order, we have asked the court to issue a directive to amend the RTE Act, to make it applicable from ages 3-14 instead of 6-14 as it would clarify admission rules and procedures under s. 12 (1)(c),” he says. According to Sashi Kumar, the prime intent behind KAMS’ writ petition was to challenge the Rs.5,924 per child per year reimbursement fee calculated by the state government for children admitted into pre-primaries under s. 12 (1) (c). “This reimbursement payable under s. 12 (1) (c) (2) was determined four years ago. Allowing for inflation and higher salaries paid to teachers, the amount to be reimbursed by the government for poor children admitted into pre-primaries should be Rs.13,000 per year,” he says. Meanwhile the KAMS writ petition and court’s judgement have highlighted the inconsistencies of the hastily drafted RTE Act. Jeswant J.M. (Bangalore)

Already a subscriber

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

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

The small and shrinking minority of bona fide academics in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal, which prides itself for having nurtured some of India’s most renowned scientists and scholars such as Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyen Bose, P.C. Roy, Meghnad Saha, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis among others, are expressing alarm about the continuously declining number of students opting for science streams in higher secondary (Plus Two) schooling. The aggregate number of high school (class X)-leavers signing up for science and maths has declined by 33 percent in the past three years. In 2011, there were over 300,000 students in science streams. This number has declined to 115,000 in 2014 and a mere 95,000 last year. This steady decline in the number of high school-leavers enrolling in PCM (physics, chemistry and maths) or biology study programmes has prompted calls for a fundamental change in science syllabi and pedagogies. According to educationists in West Bengal, the education sector in general is suffering low budgetary provision (3 percent of state GDP) with the Trinamool Congress government hell-bent on taking control of education institutions and interfering in their day-to-day operations. According to the latest (2006-07) Educational Development Index of India of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, West Bengal is ranked sixth last among all Indian states and Union territories for primary education provision. Likewise, the Socio Economic and Caste Census, 2011, conducted by the Union rural development ministry and released in New Delhi in July last year, ranks West Bengal among the worst states for secondary and higher secondary education. However some academics believe the decline in the number of students opting for science subjects is a national, even global phenomenon, with only 15 percent of the country’s estimated 30 million high school-leavers choosing mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Comments Samir K. Brahmachari, chairman of the West Bengal Education Commission, established by the TMC government in 2013: “Even in Delhi University’s top colleges, PCM is no longer the first preference of students who seem to prefer the commerce and social sciences streams. To make PCM, biology etc more attractive to school-leavers, a major recasting of syllabuses, investment in labs and lab materials and teacher training programmes are necessary.” To promote science education, last June the TMC government announced a grant of Rs.5 crore to the Jagadish Bose National Science Talent Search Society (estb.1960), in Kolkata, for establishing a science innovation centre. In addition, chief minister Mamata Banerjee also decreed Rs.38 lakh per year to the institute to pay monthly stipends of Rs.500 to talented class XI-XII students. But for West Bengal (pop. 91 million) which shabbily hosts an educationally short-changed population greater than most European countries, these allocations are mere drops in a bucket. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

Already a subscriber

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

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

Speculation is rife within academics in Mumbai on why enactment of the Maharashtra Public Universities Bill, 2015, which replaces the two-decade-old Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, has been postponed to the state legislative assembly’s budget session which begins in March. Particularly since in anticipation of the enactment of the Bill, the state’s 11 government-funded universities have dissolved their administrative councils, senates, academic councils, board of studies etc. Consequently, the administration and management of the 11 non-agriculture universities of the country’s most industrialised state (pop. 112 million) — Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Jalgaon, SNDT, Nanded, Kolhapur, Sholapur, Amravati and Gondvana at Gadchiroli — and their 3,700 affiliated colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 3.5 million students, has been severely disrupted. Opposition party spokespersons say the haste displayed in suspending the administrative councils of the state’s 11 universities is politically motivated. According to Rajesh Tope, former minister for higher and technical education in the Congress-NCP government which was routed in the state’s assembly election of 2014, the members of the suspended councils were academics of merit. “Normally when new legislation is delayed, the term of such academic and administrative councils is simply extended until new members are elected under the new Act. But the BJP/Shiv Sena government has hastily dissolved senates and councils even before passage of the Bill. This has been done to bring the universities under direct control of the state government, so that hand-picked and selected saffron party sympathisers are placed in key positions to implement the spirit of the Bill which will tighten government control of Maharashtra’s universities,” says Tope. The proposed Bill also invests sweeping powers in (government-appointed) vice chancellors who will chair the academic and administrative councils and will be the final authority to grant affiliation to colleges. Another recommendation is to replace elected university senates with a Society Partnership Council, whose members will be recommended by vice chancellors. “Maharashtra’s universities have become hotbeds of ideological politics, with political parties intent on infiltrating their parochial agendas into them. The wide powers invested by the Bill in politically appointed vice chancellors will plunge academic standards to new depths,” warns Dr. G. Ramachandram, professor of political science and former principal of KES Shroff College, Mumbai. According to critics of the state government, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor, has already made inroads into Maharashtra’s premier Mumbai University with the appointment of RSS sympathiser Sanjay Deshmukh as its vice chancellor last July. According to them, Deshmukh was director of research at the RSS-backed Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) in Mumbai. “Even as academics are discussing ways and means to upgrade our varsities to compete with international varsities, politicians and bureaucrats are hell-bent on controlling and commanding them. Unless academics speak up for autonomy, discussions and debates about competing with the world’s best universities are futile,” says Dr. Murlidhar Kurhade, principal of DTSS College, Mumbai and president of the Association of Principals of Non-Government Colleges. It’s not as if high quality blueprints for upgrading Maharashtra’s universities whose certificates…

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

“I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body… The value of man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind… I am writing this kind of a letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter… I am just empty… That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this,” wrote Rohith Vemula (26), a Ph D scholar at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), just before he hanged himself to death in the university’s hostel room on January 17. Following a national outcry, on January 28, Union HRD minister and former Indian soap star Smriti Irani ordered a single-judge commission headed by former Allahabad high court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal to “investigate the sequence of events and the circumstances leading to the suicide” and “enquire if the university followed University Grants Commission 2012 resolution on discrimination”. The commission is expected to submit its report by April. This young scholar’s grievance was that he had suffered humiliating discrimination on the campus of this Central government-funded and administered university on account of his lowly Dalit caste credentials. In December, together with four other Dalit students, he was partially suspended from UoH — allowed to attend classes but expelled from the hostel and deprived of his Rs.25,000 monthly scholarship — for becoming involved in a brawl with several office-bearers of ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), the student wing of the ruling BJP at the Centre. Although a university committee had exonerated the Dalit students of ABVP’s charge of assault, Hyderabad-based BJP Union minister of state for labour Bandaru Dattatreya put pressure on the Union HRD ministry to write five letters to UoH vice chancellor Appa Rao Podile (a BJP appointee) to suspend the five Dalit students for “casteist and anti-national” activities. In protest, the Dalit students pitched tent on the grounds of the university for almost a month, to no avail, finally forcing Vemula’s suicide. Significantly, Vemula is the eleventh Dalit (scheduled caste/scheduled tribe) student (for whom 22 percent quota is reserved in all Central government universities because of injustices this community has suffered for several millennia) of UoH to take his own life since 2008. “These committees are time-buying and face-saving reactions of the BJP government at the Centre. With the crucial Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly election due next year, these are damage control reactions. If at all they are concerned, the ministry and UoH should apologise to the Dalit as well as non-Dalit students of the university for permitting escalation of the issue to this level which has ruined its academic environment. I don’t understand how a brawl between two students’ organisations on campus could have invited the attention of two Union ministers, who should have left the university authorities to do their work. The entire issue has been mishandled,” says Dr. Chandrabhan Prasad, an eminent Dalit thinker known for his weekly column Dalit Diary in the national…

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

Your impassioned cover story ‘State of the Republic Report 2016: Heavy price of education neglect’ (EW January) is a depressing account of independent India’s failures — correctly identified as rooted in neglect of public education. Unfortunately, while all developing countries including China focused on universalising quality primary education, India foolishly under-invested in elementary public education. It’s shocking that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 was legislated 59 years after the Constitution was adopted. Although it’s true that neglect of elementary education is the “mother cause” of all major problems plaguing 21st-century India, I feel your story is overly pessimistic. Slowly but surely, India is progressing on all fronts including education. The challenge is to achieve both scale and quality in education. Manoj Kumar Delhi Excellent example Thank you for the enlightening Eyewitness Report on Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meals miracle (EW January). ISKCON must be congratulated and thanked for engineering this unique public-private partnership with 10 state governments to provide free mid-day meals to children in government schools. It’s indeed an extraordinary achievement that the foundation has never received a single food poisoning complaint despite having served over a billion meals since 2000. Such a contrast to the government-run mid-day meals programme. Quite clearly, inexperienced and uneducated cooks working in makeshift unhygienic kitchens in dilapidated government schools cannot deliver nutritious meals to children. The way to go for all state governments is to enter into partnerships with private NGOs and organisations such as ISKCON to deliver healthy mid-day meals to children. Malini Deshpande Mumbai Wrong nomenclature Many thanks for publishing the EW India Preschool Rankings 2015 (EW December). However, please note that the name of our school has been incorrectly published in the Gurgaon city league tables as iDiscoveri XSEED Preschool. The correct name is iDiscoveri Preschool, Sector 46. Please incorporate this change in future surveys. Shalini Gauba Founder, IDI Preschool Gurgaon Unwarranted interference I am writing on behalf of the National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) to protest the scrapping of management quotas and admission criteria in private unaided schools in Delhi by the AAP government. This violates the autonomy of private schools, a fundamental right conferred under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution. This right was reaffirmed by the Delhi high court in 2014. Instead of improving the quality of education dispensed in government schools, the state government is constantly targeting private schools. The abolition of management quotas and minimum admission criteria is not acceptable to private schools and will also create confusion among parents about admission procedures. Amit Chandra National Secretariat, NISA, Delhi Incorrect classification I wish the EducationWorld team a happy and prosperous 2016. I am a regular reader of the magazine and want to thank your team for taking pains to provide valuable information and content every month. However, I want to bring to your notice several discrepancies in the EW India School Rankings 2015 published last September. For the past two years, you have incorrectly placed DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur,…

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

In several pre-budget interviews featured in the media, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has stated that the Union Budget 2016-17 scheduled to be presented to a fractious Parliament and the nation on February 28, will focus on ramping up investment in the agriculture and social sectors — education and health — of the economy. This realignment of national development priorities is overdue because decades of rural neglect under the Soviet-inspired centrally-planned economic development model has precipitated a full-blown crisis in Indian agriculture, which precariously sustains two-thirds of the country’s population, and is inexorably destabilising the Indian economy. Unfortunately, there is insufficient awareness within the establishment — academia and the intelligentsia included — about the scale of distress in the rural hinterlands of the country. According to recently released official data of state governments, 3,228 and 1,002 farmers ended their lives by suicide in Maharashtra and Karnataka in the period April-December 2015, which translates into 16 suicides per day in these two states of the Indian Union of 29 states and seven Union territories. Although these two states are in the forefront of the grim harvest of farm suicides, evidence suggests that after three successive years of erratic rainfall during which the average annual agriculture growth has halved to 1.1 percent, other states of the Union are not far behind. It’s highly probable that over 100 impoverished farmers unable to bear the burden of indebtedness, are killing themselves everyday countrywide, leaving behind hapless widows and hundreds of orphaned children. Falling demand for manufactures and consumer goods in rural India is a major factor behind crashing stock markets, creeping stagflation and rising unemployment. Regrettably, the Central and state governments have only exacerbated the situation by raising the compensation paid out to families of farmers ending their lives from Rs.2 lakh to Rs.5 lakh. This ill-conceived solution has perhaps incentivised debt-related suicides and prompted prolonged enquiries into the cause of death, making a bad situation worse for dependents. The deep-rooted causes of rural distress that need urgent attention of government policymakers and civil society organisations are poor schooling in rural government primaries; inadequate access to healthcare; almost total absence of law and justice machinery; unchecked official corruption, especially in irrigation projects; lack of insurance and bank credit and policy roadblocks preventing the establishment of a viable downstream food processing industry which has long depressed farm produce prices. Boosting investment in social services and infrastructure — rather than sops, subsidies and loan waivers — is the prescript for transforming rural India and securing the future of the long suffering rural majority. Unless these issues are addressed and reforms in rural governance and development undertaken in right earnest, the Indian economy will never attain long-term growth and stability.  Preventing destruction of Indian science The mixing of vedic mythology with science at the annual Indian Science Congress (ISC) held in Mysore from January 3-7 once again eclipsed debate and discussion about the pathetic condition of contemporary Indian science and technology. Presentations glorifying Lord Shiva as the “greatest…

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

Although there’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that quality universal education — especially early childhood, primary and skills education — is the foundation of national development, it’s a telling indication of the low priority given to teaching-learning that news of the US-based Khan Academy establishing an India office in Delhi, has been buried in obscure corners of mainstream media. The point is that KA is not just another digital content provider. Since it was promoted in 2006 by Silicon Valley boy wonder Salman Khan, who has three engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plus an MBA from Harvard B-school, to tutor his niece over the internet to understand and grasp science and maths concepts, KA has captured the imagination of the US and the world. Currently, the online KA has 31 million registered users worldwide, who are patiently tutored free-of-charge in several subjects by online tutors of the academy.  According to the Annual Status of Education Reports, which measure primary school learning outcomes in rural India year after year, a growing number of desperate parents and children are fleeing to private schools including 300,000 unrecognised private budget schools which provide marginally better education, including rudimentary English learning. According to the latest ASER 2014, over 30-40 percent of rural children are enrolled in fee-levying private primaries. Clearly, raising teaching-learning standards in education across the board is beyond the capability of the academic establishment and the country’s 7.5 million poorly selected and ill-trained government school teachers. Against this backdrop, the establishment of a Delhi office by the globally acclaimed superstar teacher Sal Khan offers new hope. The Khan Academy offers online one-on-one tutorials by way of videos posted on its easy-to-use website (khanacademy.org). Fortunately, KA’s India arrival has attracted the attention of industry behemoth, the Tata Group with the Tata Trusts offering unqualified support as “lead strategic partner”. The academy’s India debut has also drawn the attention of the Delhi-based Central Square Foundation — arguably India’s premier education NGO — which has started translating KA’s platform mapped to the NCERT curriculum in science and math into Hindi for class V-VIII students. In our special report, we provide coverage of our 6th consecutive Early Childhood Education Global Conference addressed by internationally and nationally reputed ECCE (early childhood care and education) experts. The objective is to invite the attention of our lackadaisical policy formulators to the critical importance of professionally administered ECCE to India’s 158 million neglected children in the 0-5 years age group. At the EW ECE Global Conference, the country’s best pre-primaries adjudged in a national poll — EW India Preschool Rankings 2015 — were celebrated and felicitated. This letter is being written from a hospital bed. With 650 million Indians unschooled in basic hygiene and sanitation — an indictment of pathetic syllabus formulation — there was a certain inevitability about it.

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