EducationWorld February 17

Teacher education in the 21st century: Are you ready for the new National Education Policy’ According to James Heckman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2000, the rate of return on investing in preschool education is higher than investing in education or training at any other time in a person’s life. In 2007, he calculated the rate of return on investment in preschool education at 7-10 percent per child. In 2017, he revised it to 10-13 percent.  Heckman’s conclusion is endorsed by other studies including the HighScope Perry Preschool Study (2005), perhaps the most famous longitudinal study on the impact of early childhood education. One hundred and twenty-three children, born into poverty in the United States, were randomly divided into two groups. One group received high quality preschool education while the other did not. Ninety-seven percent of these students were interviewed years later when they were over 40 years of age. Students who had attended preschool had substantially higher incomes, were more likely to hold down jobs and had committed fewer crimes than those who hadn’t received preschool education.  The positive social and economic impact of early childhood education is measured by the extent to which it enables children to thrive emotionally, socially and cognitively in primary and secondary education. Research studies from around the world are unanimous that children who receive pre-primary education demonstrate superior socio-emotional and cognitive development compared to children deprived of it. The Perry Preschool Project mentioned earlier, the Effective Provision of Preschool Education Project conducted by Oxford University (2003) and the Comprehensive Preschool Education Project study conducted in Turkey (1998), all endorse this conclusion.  Several studies in India have also assessed the impact of preschool education. In 1993, NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training) surveyed 38,000 children and found those who received early childhood education were 15-20 percent more likely to complete primary school. Five years later, Prof. Venita Kaul of the Centre for Early Childhood Education and Development at the Ambedkar University, Delhi, also conducted a study which concluded that children who attended preschool recorded higher mathematics scores in primary school. But despite growing evidence of the benefit of ECCE from India and abroad, preschool education has received insufficient attention in India. Although the Central government’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme was launched in 1975, its impact on ECCE is unsatisfactory.  The ICDS centres or anganwadis are staffed by workers who receive very little ECCE-specific training, and whose attention is divided across six key areas, including early childhood education. The number of youngest children who attend anganwadis varies from state to state and ranges from 10-90 percent. However, the exact number of children who benefit from each of the six initiatives is hard to estimate. Anganwadi workers are overworked, undertrained and undercompensated. While the majority of children enrolled in ECCE go to anganwadi centres, others attend low-cost private preschools and even fewer are in high-end private preschools. But even in the latter, there’s incredible variation in the quality…

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PANEL DISCUSSION Designing low-cost/affordable models for ECCE The first panel discussion of the EducationWorld Early Childhood National Conference 2017 chaired by EW managing editor Summiya Yasmeen, featured a galaxy of experts in pre-primary education invited from across the country. The high-powered panel, which debated ‘Designing low-cost/affordable models for ECCE,’ comprised Nilesh Nimkar (NN), founder of the Quality Education Support Trust, a Palghar-based NGO which provides ECCE to 20,000 underprivileged children in rural Maharashtra; Priya Krishnan (PK), CEO of Founding Years Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd which has promoted the KLAY and Little Company day care centres and preschools in seven cities countrywide; Fatema Agarkar (FA), co-founder and CEO of KA EduAssociates, a Mumbai-based education management company and Vishesh Parnerkar (VP) of FSG, a US-based non-profit social impact consulting firm. Excerpts from the 60-minute parleys:  SY: Contrary to Left propaganda, India has perhaps the world’s cheapest private education system. Currently, there are an estimated 300,000 private preschools offering early childhood care and education (ECCE) at all price points to 10 million children countrywide. The Central government also provides rudimentary ECCE to 80 million children in the 0-5 age group in its 1.34 million anganwadis established under the ICDS programme. According to a 2015 report of NITI Aayog, 51.8 percent of anganwadis suffer poor hygiene and sanitation conditions, teachers are ill-trained and the majority have no education programme. What’s the alternative? In K-12 education as a response to poor quality government schools, an estimated 300,000 private budget schools with an enrolment of 60 million students have sprung up over the past two decades across the country. Can the private sector similarly provide bottom-of-the-pyramid parents an alternative to dysfunctional anganwadis at affordable cost?  VP: Before I answer the question, I want to share some numbers. Recently, FSG conducted a survey in which we interviewed 4,300 households in the income bracket of Rs.10,000-25,000 per month in urban areas. Ninety percent of them said they are sending their children to private preschools. So from the perspective of parents, there is a perception that government anganwadis are not providing quality ECCE. From class I onwards, they prefer to enroll their children in private budget schools, most of which had also started kindergarten sections to cater to demand for preschool education. We tested some 200 children in budget primary schools who had received preschool education and found that 30 percent of them couldn’t read three-letter words or identify 1-20 numerals — competencies expected of children in class I. At FSG, we are actively exploring if high-quality service providers can help budget preschools improve children’s learning outcomes. SY: Priya, as an investor in Hippocampus Learning Centres, a chain of 263 affordable private preschools sited in tier III towns and villages of Karnataka, what’s your comment?  PK: In India, all households are willing to sacrifice a large proportion of income for their children’s education provided they know they are getting some value. So to answer your question whether quality ECCE can be provided at low cost, I believe yes. Hippocampus is a good example.…

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PANEL DISCUSSION Should the RTE Act include preschool education? This panel comprised five knowledgeable and pre-eminent ECCE (early childhood care and education) professionals from across India — Swati Popat Vats (SPV), founder-president of the Early Childhood Association of India; Lina Ashar (LA), founder-director of the Kangaroo Kids chain of 116 owned and franchised preschools and K-12 schools; Niranjanaradhya V.P. (NVP), programme head for Universalisation of School Education Programme at the Centre for Child and the Law of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore; Ambarish Rai (AR), national convenor of the RTE Forum, and Prriety Gosalia (PG), CEO of Leapbridge Education which runs a group of preschools in Pune and Mumbai — and was chaired by Dilip Thakore (DT), editor, EducationWorld.  DT: The TSR Subramanian Committee Report on the new National Education Policy 2016, submitted to the Union HRD ministry last May, has recommended that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009, which makes it mandatory for the State to provide free and compulsory elementary education to every child between 6-14 years of age, should be extended to preschool education to cover children aged three-six years. What’s your reaction Swati? SPV: My reaction is mixed. The Early Childhood Association believes that all children below six years have the right to quality early childhood care and education and the RTE Act must cover them as well. The latest ASER (Annual Status of Education Report 2016) published by the highly respected NGO, Pratham, highlights that the majority of class V children in rural India can’t read class II texts. Moreover, the last time a batch of selected students from India wrote PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) — an international objective test to assess the real learning outcomes of 15-year-olds of 74 countries — our students were ranked #73 or second last. This is because we have neglected ECCE. Education in India begins from age six onwards. If we don’t bring in early childhood education under the purview of the RTE Act and the National Education Policy, we will never improve our primary learning outcomes or PISA ranking. However, I am not happy with the implementation of the RTE Act in school education. There is a big danger that the State will pass on its obligation of providing ECCE to private preschools just as it has done for primary education. And after it has done this, government interference in private preschools will increase. My advice to the government is to first fix the country’s 1.34 dysfunctional anganwadis before starting to regulate private preschools.  DT: What do you think Prreity? Are you in favour of including preschool education in the RTE Act? PG: Yes. I strongly believe the RTE Act should cover early childhood education. Preschool education is as much the fundamental right of children as primary education. Early years education is critical to preparing children for primary school and indeed all future learning. Unfortunately in our country, we have segregated young children based on their economic status with households…

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OPEN DEBATE Exposing youngest children to new technologies: Boon or bane? In a departure from usual conference/symposia practice of select experts and speakers on the dais dispensing wisdom to delegates, the seventh EducationWorld Early Childhood Education National Conference 2017 allocated considerable time for delegates from the floor to express themselves and share their knowledge and classroom experiences with the general assembly. Moreover for the first time, the conference introduced an Open Debate on a very topical subject ‘Exposing youngest children to new technologies: Boon or bane?’ After brief summary presentations of the pros and cons of introducing children to new age digital technologies and gadgets in their early years by EW editors Dilip Thakore and Summiya Yasmeen, delegates were invited to opine on the issue over a period of 50 minutes. The summaries which set the tone for the Open Debate are presented below. Boon • Early exposure to technology prepares youngest children for integration into primary school • Audio-visual content makes learning fun and enjoyable • New technologies enable self-learning • Computers are intrinsically compelling for young children. Sounds and graphics attract children’s attention and enhance their cognitive and social skills • Several studies indicate it enhances hand-eye coordination, improves language skills and school readiness • Exposure to technology helps children develop problem-solving and other skills, e.g, music • Increases motivation to complete tasks   Bane  • It discourages outdoor play, connect with nature and person-to-person interaction crucial for development of socialisation skills • It can adversely impact attention spans and creativity and affect the brain chemistry of youngest children given that by age two a child’s brain grows to 80 percent of adult size • Steve Jobs famously didn’t allow his children to use ipads and limited his children’s access to technology • The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that children below two years of age should not be allowed any tech time, and for children from two-four years, screen time (including television) should be limited to two hours per day  • In Taiwan, the government levies a fine of Rs.1 lakh on parents who don’t restrict the screen time of children aged below 18 years • Can prompt obesity and vision-related ailments • Restricts creativity  • There’s a backlash in the US and Europe, with some preschools banning all contact with new age technology devices Over 20 delegates shared their thinking on this burning issue which is perplexing middle class parents in particular, countrywide. The majority of delegates recommended careful adult — teachers and parents — supervision of youngest children with access to new technology gadgets and gizmos, and restriction of screen time for all children. 

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In a league table of education systems drawn up in 2015 by the OECD club of mainly rich countries, South Africa ranks #75 out of 76. Last November, the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a quadrennial test written by 580,000 pupils in 57 countries, had South Africa at or near the bottom of its various rankings, though its scores improved since 2011. Its children are behind those in poorer parts of the continent. A shocking 27 percent of pupils who have attended school for six years cannot read, compared with 4 percent in Tanzania and 19 percent in Zimbabwe. After five years of school about half cannot work out that 24 divided by three is eight. Only 37 percent of children starting school go on to pass the matriculation exam; just 4 percent earn a degree — India-like learning outcomes. Many of the problems have their roots in the apartheid era. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 set out to ensure that whites received better education than blacks, who were, according to Hendrik Verwoerd, the future prime minister then in charge of education, to be educated only enough to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. Black pupils received about a fifth of the funding of white peers. They were taught almost no maths or science. Most independent church-run schools that provided a good education in black areas were forcibly shut down. After Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, his government expanded access to schooling. It also replaced a school system segregated by race with one divided by wealth. Schools in poorer areas receive more state funding. But schools in richer areas can charge fees on top. And yet money is not the reason for the malaise. Few countries spend as much to so little effect. In South Africa, public spending on education is 6.4 percent of GDP; the average of EU countries is 4.8 percent. More important than money are a lack of accountability and the abysmal quality of teachers. Central to both failures is the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), which is allied to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The role of SADTU was laid bare in a report published in May 2016 by a team led by John Volmink, an academic. It found “widespread” corruption and abuse. This included teachers paying union officials for plum jobs, and female teachers being told they would be given jobs only in exchange for sex. The government has done little in response. Perhaps this is unsurprising; all six of the senior civil servants running education are SADTU members. The union’s influence within government belies its claim that officials are to blame for woeful schools. In 2016, it successfully lobbied for the cancellation of standardised tests. It has ensured that inspectors must give schools a year’s notice before showing up (less than 24 hours is the norm in England). And although parent-led school governing bodies are meant to hold teachers to account, they are more…

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Besides greater engagement, retention and collaboration in classrooms, VR & AR enhance learning by simulating images and enabling 360 degree immersive journeys making comprehension much easier In the new millennium, school and college students are becoming comfortable with new technologies such as the Internet, instructional videos, distance learning powered by video technology, multi-player video games, MMOG (multi-player online games), VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and 3D simulations. Simultaneously affordable hardware and software have made new technologies commercially feasible, leading to increased investment and laying the path for market expansion in coming years. VR technology enables the creation of engaged learning environments making comprehension easier. For instance, it can make museums or marine life instantly accessible to students, eliminating the need to visit them. AR technology allows learners to communicate with computer-generated images within their own environments. In other words, while VR transports learners to computer generated environments, AR brings images from a computer generated environment to students. Besides greater engagement, retention and collaboration in classrooms, VR and AR enhance learning by simulating images, enabling 360-degree immersive journeys making comprehension much easier than in classrooms equipped with whiteboards and computer screens, providing students a truly enthralling experience. VR and AR offer the bonus of teletransporting teachers and instructors into one’s living room! Social integration of learners. Several studies have proved that virtual reality technology helps tackle students’ social issues as they strive for acceptance by their peers. Students tends to come out of their shell and those lacking confidence in subjects such as mathematics and science, transform into self-assured technology experts. Other studies suggest that VR has positive outcomes for children from ethnic minorities, students with learning difficulties, different learning styles and those experiencing problems at home. Additionally, it provides opportunities for group work and peer teaching. Learning by doing. It is widely accepted that children learn best experientially. In other words, they shouldn’t just read about history or archaeology, they should become historians and archaeologists to learn better. The well-known Danish virtual education expert Inge Knudsen has created a virtual building site highlighting mandatory safety precautions. Students can walk around and take pictures of unsafe places. Virtual immersive environments enable students to acquire on-site experiences and absorb better.  In VR, the learner is immersed in a level playing field in which a player’s gender, weight or race is irrelevant. The virtual environment enables better understanding, retention and application of concepts as visual experiences enhance the ability to learn.  New approach to rewards. As opposed to the traditional concept of rewards in education where success is neutral and failure is punished, in VR environments there are rewards for achievement, but failure is generally ignored. This engages the brain and learners try harder. The emotional reward of winning or succeeding is hugely stimulating. Moreover, in VR games the focus tends to be on cooperation, with team members with different skills and specialisations combining to produce winning outcomes. On the other hand in AR environments learners are immersed in a simulated image or model. The…

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Homa Hoodfar completed her Ph D almost 30 years ago. But it was only earlier last year, when she was locked in a cell in Iran’s Evin Prison — nicknamed Evin University owing to the number of intellectuals imprisoned there — that she first fully understood the value and history of academic freedom. “I don’t remember a single discussion I ever had within academia that explained what academic freedom is and the struggle the academic community had to go through in order to gain that right,” she says. But during her 112 days in the notorious Tehran jail, reportedly for “dabbling in feminism and security matters”, Prof. Hoodfar would contemplate the concept, “remembering how many people were burned at the stake for translating the Bible” or were “excommunicated for writing about ideas that other people didn’t accept”.“I took academic freedom for granted,” she says. The Canadian-Iranian professor of anthropology, based at Concordia University in Montreal, was arrested and imprisoned in Iran on June 6, after almost three months of interrogation by the Iranian intelligence service. Prof. Hoodfar was released on “humanitarian grounds” in September after Canada, which cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012, worked closely with officials from Oman, Italy and Switzerland to secure her release. Over 5,000 academics and authors from Latin America to South Korea signed a petition urging the Iranian government to free her unconditionally. She arrived in Iran in February 2016 to visit family and undertake research in parliamentary archives. But after Iranian conservatives were defeated in the parliamentary elections on February 26 they were looking for people to blame, she says. “Rather than examining why they had lost the support of the public, they started to blame (the result) on the influence of foreigners. They had this theory that foreign states use their dual nationals to influence the election and to bring about a revolution,” she says adding that Iran’s government also sees dual nationals as “pawns” for negotiating with other countries. At the time of her arrest, Prof. Hoodfar was one of three dual nationals to have been imprisoned in the country during the past year. It didn’t help that five years ago, she co-edited a book Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (even though the text did not include a single reference to Iran); and neither did her position on the board of the network Women Living Under Muslim Laws. “Generally, social science research is considered criminal activity in Iran,” she says. “If the result of your research is not what the state (especially non-elected state leaders) like, then you are in trouble.” Prof. Hoodfar was locked in a cell the size of a double bed. Although there was a window, it was barred with metal, meaning there was no natural light. Bedding consisted of two military blankets, one to roll under her head as a pillow and one to cover the floor. The only other item she was given was a toothbrush. Now that she is free, Hoodfar plans to…

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Sweden (pop.10 million) is often cited as one of the world’s leading higher education nations. It invested 3.2 percent of its GDP in research and development (R&D) in 2014, one of the highest proportions in the world. Unsurprisingly, it’s among the countries with the largest cohort of researchers (1 percent) relative to its total population. And while other countries reduced public funding for universities following the 2008 global recession, public higher education funding in Sweden increased by 23 percent between 2008 and 2014. But the government’s research Bill, published last November, warns that Sweden is “losing innovative capacity while many other countries are increasing theirs”. Although Swedish research “maintains a good standard… we are losing ground to the strong research countries, and research countries that have been relatively weak up to now are catching us up,” it said. The Swedish Research Barometer 2016, published by the Swedish Research Council in October, found that Sweden has reduced its spending on R&D in relation to GDP during the past decade, owing to a decline in the business sector’s contribution to research. Between 2002-2004, Sweden and Switzerland shared top spot in the ranking of countries based on the number of publications relative to their population. Since then, Sweden has dropped to fourth place, behind Switzerland, Denmark and Australia. Switzerland, Singapore, the US, Netherlands and the UK have also increased their share of highly cited publications more rapidly than Sweden. Sven Stafstrom, director-general of the Swedish Research Council, says while the country’s research system has expanded over the past 10 years, the result has been an increase in the quantity of research rather than improvement in quality. The government’s Bill aims to address this by incentivising collaboration between universities and industry, encouraging greater private investment in research and creating a more attractive environment for young researchers. It includes an SEK 1.3 billion (Rs.995 crore) increase in annual university funding until 2020, which it states is intended to boost quality rather than increase the number of researchers; an additional SEK 3 billion rise in research and innovation funding until 2020; and a commitment for half of newly recruited professors to be women by 2030 (up from the current 25 percent). Hellmark Knutsson, minister for higher education and research, says the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKA) will now evaluate research quality assurance, as well as education, and one-third of the new competitive research funding allocated to universities will be based on their success in collaborating with industry. This funding is currently based only on bibliometrics and external funding. In 2017, the government will also appoint a commission to propose a new system of governance and resource allocation for universities.

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The Egyptian president’s senior education adviser believes Egypt is in a good position for a world in which nations compete through “innovation and ideas” rather than commodities. Tarek Shawki, chairman of the presidential advisory council for education and scientific research, says Egypt is in the process of asking questions about what’s the most appropriate education model to aid young Egyptians. “Countries now and in the future will compete by innovation and ideas, not by minerals and natural resources,” he told Times Higher Education in an interview during a visit to the UK hosted by the British Council.  “Countries competed on agricultural might, industrial (might) and then information technology, and now it’s all about knowledge, innovation and creativity… Now we jump into an era where knowledge is everywhere, accessible to young people with or without schooling. What do we want our kids to become, 15-16 years down the road? For what world are they competing?”  Prof. Shawki, also dean of the School of Sciences and Engineering at the American University in Cairo, says that he is an advocate of lifelong learning, adding that, as “learning creatures”, it makes no sense that people go to university for three or four years. “Universities seem to give you the stamp and you live with that, you hang it on the wall and keep saying: ‘Ah, I graduated from (the University of) Cambridge’,” he says. “Good, but that was 50 years ago, you’re a different person now. Who stamps that? Should universities be a model for going there for three to four years to earn a degree or should it be a lifetime affiliation? Could I be accepted to Cambridge for life and be assessed on different things — update my degree? Why not?” he asks. Besides calling on Egyptian universities to consider this model, he believes the country has the “ingredients” for helping people to access a “lifetime degree”. He cites the Egyptian Knowledge Bank — a nationwide project aimed at providing all Egyptian citizens with access to quality research and education materials — which was launched at the beginning of 2016. “It is an unprecedented attempt to spread the culture of knowledge and learning, and put a spotlight on the value of research,” he says. “It puts together content from top publishers around the world. We convinced the president to subscribe to this content and make it accessible to any Egyptian in Egypt for free. Open access to all, which means it’s open, theoretically, for 90 million people. In the first 10 months there were over 69 million searches conducted, (the) number of downloads was 32 million. This is really encouraging.” Ashraf Hatem, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities, had earlier informed THE that the Green Paper the Egyptian government had been working on in collaboration with UK higher education partners — part of the memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in 2015 — is ready for consultation. It focuses on three key areas: university autonomy, finances and students. 

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Children need to develop relationships-building skills future workers need such as being able to motivate, collaborate, persevere and navigate through a buffet of freelance opportunities In all the discussions, debates and deliberations on the need to enhance learning outcomes in America’s classrooms and improve performance on playing fields, I am yet to hear anyone talk about the most fundamental and timeless ingredient required for effectively educating our youth: relationships building. A century ago, education in America was dispensed in one-room schoolhouses, where teachers and children of all ages knew each other well and learning happened not merely as the teacher lectured, but as life happened. Children were also schooled in church basements where a vicar or minister passed on his knowledge to young people and invested time, money and effort in them. While these children and youth didn’t have video, PowerPoint slides or internet connections, they had something precious which today’s children don’t have: relationships in the midst of communities.  In his film, Most Likely to Succeed (2015), Greg Whiteley highlights how static, traditional pedagogies have remained pervasive for far too long, negatively impacting the economy. The school system, he says, was fashioned after a Prussian model designed over 100 years ago. Its main purpose was to download content into students’ minds, with success or failure determined by standardised tests. This lecture and textbooks pedagogy bores and disengages children in America’s classrooms to this day. Quite obviously these pedagogies are unable to prepare children for modern workplaces. Today information is ubiquitous. Children can look up any fact on their cell phones, a computer can defeat Ken Jennings, the world’s best ‘Jeopardy!’ contestant at a game of information retrieval. Computers can write routine news stories and handle backroom legal work. And yet, our tests-driven schools are training children for the type of rote tasks that can be done much more effectively by computers. Whiteley’s documentary is about relationships, not subject matter. The film argues that educators need to take content off centrestage and focus on teaching children to develop the relationship building skills future workers need — such as being able to motivate, collaborate, persevere and navigate through a complex buffet of freelance opportunities. I believe that relationships-building is at the heart of instruction (teaching, coaching, mentoring, etc). How do we build relationships between teachers (including parents) and youth to more effectively prepare young people for the future? Here are my reflections on the issue: Caring. We need to respect young people as unique individuals who have their own values, perceptions, fears and aspirations and who deserve to be acknowledged, heard, and negotiated with. In short, youth need to be treated with dignity. Welcome them, treat them as worthy of personal attention, and show that you care about them as individuals.  Authenticity. True caring about kids requires more than talking and listening. It also means being real with them. Being real doesn’t involve trying to copy their dress and gestures and talk their language, unless of course, you are part of their subculture.…

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EducationWorld felicitated and celebrated Indias top preschools in 16 cities — as per the outcome of the EW India Preschool Rankings 2016 conducted by C fore — at an awards ceremony at the ITC Gardenia, Bangalore. Staged coterminously with EW Early Childhood Education National Conference 2017, the awards ceremony attracted promoters, principals and teachers of Indias top preschools. A pictorial essay. To view pictorial essay, please visit: goo.gl/RVxfdI

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An Era of Darkness by Shashi Tharoor; Aleph Book Company; Rs.699; Pages 294 In Britain and in India as evidenced by the success of television series such as Downton Abbey and latterly The Crown, there’s a rose-tinted nostalgia about the glory days of the British empire which ruled a quarter of the world, and particularly about the British Raj in India which spanned almost 200 years. The contra narrative of the much proclaimed benevolent British Raj in India is brilliantly presented by former UN diplomat and contemporary Indian politician Shashi Tharoor in the book under review.  It’s an overdue reminder to people of both countries that ‘post-colonial melancholia’ is unwarranted, and the evil that the men from that rain-swept little island did in the hills and vast plains of the Indian subcontinent, far outweighed the good.  Indeed, historical literature on benign imperial rule in pre-independence India has been routinely force-fed to several generations of children in the UK and India. More than the public of India, An Era of Darkness is recommended reading for the British public for the scales to fall from their eyes. “The need to temper British imperial nostalgia with postcolonial responsibility has never been greater,” writes Tharoor explaining the justification for penning this forensic indictment of British rule, born out of a May 2015 debate at Oxford University where he successfully argued in favour of the motion ‘Britain Owes Reparations to her Former Colonies’.  The structure of this valuable revision of the whitewashed history of the British Raj, which children such as this reviewer learned even in post-independence India, lends itself to easy and highly-recommended reading. It addresses all the usual arguments advanced by Raj historians and their gullible Indian apologists, and proceeds to demolish them with convincing evidence sourced from objective English and American historians and intellectuals of conscience appalled by the brazen plunder, oppression, cruelty and incorrigible racism of the subaltern classes of Blighty, who transmogrified into the ‘nabobs’ of the British Raj in India.  This contrarian chronicle of colonial India begins with an unqualified indictment from American historian Will Durante (1885-1981). In his book The Case for India (1930), Durante expressed “astonishment and indignation” about the “conscious and deliberate bleeding of India” by the British East India Company, and after 1857, by imperial Britain which instead of making amends for the unrestrained rapacity of the merchants-turned-warriors of the company, brought the power of the imperium to continue the plunder. Exploiting a temporary advantage in artillery warfare and liberally bribing and suborning gullible native nobility in the Indian princedoms against their rulers, the employees of the company quickly conquered vast swathes of territory, imposed punitive taxes, and destroyed Indian agriculture and industry – the thriving textiles, gems and jewellery and ship-building industries in particular. Citing the British economic historian Angus Maddison, Tharoor recounts that in 1700, India’s share of the world economy was 23 percent. When the British departed almost two centuries later, it had reduced to 3 percent. Moreover it’s pertinent to note the Industrial Revolution which…

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Summiya Yasmeen interviewed Christopher Jolly, the London-based founder of Jolly Learning Pvt. Ltd (estb.1987) which has pioneered Jolly Phonics, a child-centred approach to teaching English through synthetic phonics, and Jolly Grammar. The company sells over 2 million publications each year in over 100 countries. Excerpts: What were the reasons which prompted you to promote Jolly Learning? Stagnation and low standards in the teaching of reading prompted me to start Jolly Learning, way back in 1987. While progress was being made in so many other walks of life, reading standards had not risen and indeed, had fallen. Meanwhile, some 20 percent of children and adults were failing to learn to read. I saw this as an opportunity for change and innovation.  What are the major products and services offered by the company? Our major products and services are the Jolly Phonics (JP) and Jolly Grammar publications for teaching English to primary age children. We also have a smaller programme called Jolly Music which enables early understanding of music. How is the JP pedagogy different from others? Existing pedagogies are based on children merely memorising words. They are not given a skill which they can apply in each new situation. In practical terms, they aren’t able to read a word they haven’t seen before. By contrast with Jolly Phonics, they are taught the ‘code’ of reading. They start by learning the sounds of the language and how they are represented. They are taught to identify the sounds made by letters on the page, and then to blend those sounds to read the spoken word. This means they have the world of words and reading open to them, enabling them to readily read new stories. How satisfied are you with the growth, development and progress of Jolly Learning over the past three decades? By some yardsticks, the progress over the past 30 years has been stunning. Jolly Phonics doubles the speed at which children learn to read, and it is thoroughly enjoyed. This has given us a powerful base for developing usage. The Jolly Phonics way of learning English has been adopted by governments around the world — Trinidad, Nigeria, Oman and Fiji. Moreover, in cities worldwide from Accra and Cairo to Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, children in private schools are learning to read the Jolly Phonics way. In the UK a decade ago, 68 percent of primary schools were using Jolly Phonics before the government finally relented and abandoned its previous policy of whole word learning, and embraced the phonics pedagogy. Now governments around the world include phonics and grammar in their primary school curriculums. Schools which teach reading and grammar the JP way, achieve excellent results. However, the results still have a modest impact on a national scale. On a global scale, far too many children still fail to learn to read. I believe the irregularity of English spelling is the elephant in the room which is being ignored, and is an impediment to higher literacy worldwide. The evidence that irrational…

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The appointment from February 21 of N. Chandrasekaran (NC), hitherto chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), as chairman of Tata Sons Ltd, the apex-level holding company of the salt to software Tata Group (aggregate annual revenue: Rs.705,848 crore) — India’s largest business conglomerate — has been widely welcomed by ill-informed print and audio-visual media. The group’s former chairman Cyrus Mistry was ousted from office last October-December after a mere four years in office, in a boardroom coup engineered by his predecessor Ratan Tata. However, Ratan Tata’s second choice is likely to prove worse than his selection of Mistry four years ago.  For one, after proclaiming a global search, for the second time Ratan has chosen a Tata Sons chairman from his own backyard in Mumbai. Secondly, NC has working experience of only one industry (software services), and only one of the 100 companies of the widely diversified Tata Group. As a “tunnel-vision techie” he lacks the broad liberal and management education required. Moreover, there’s evidence that as a me-first careerist, he is not equipped with the generosity and public relations skills necessary for his new office. For instance, in none of his media interviews has he acknowledged the huge contribution of Fakir Chand Kohli (92) — TCS’ longest-serving CEO (1968-1996). For over two decades into the new millennium under Kohli’s leadership, TCS contributed over 80 percent of the Tata Group’s annual profit, which funded its global expansion and acquisitions. Nor without Kohli’s benediction would NC have been appointed CEO of TCS in 2009.  Admittedly, there is a personal animus of your editor towards the over-hyped new chairman of Tata Sons. In 2009 when he was appointed CEO of TCS, Chandrasekaran whimsically abrogated the annual TCS-EducationWorld Teachers Awards which acknowledged, celebrated and modestly rewarded school teachers from across the country on the excuse of unaffordability of Rs.7 lakh per year, even as his annual remuneration increased from Rs.8 crore to Rs.21 crore. Ecce homo.  Illusory property rights  Once upon a time the right to own, use and dispose property was a fundamental right included in Part III of the Constitution of India. But in the 1970s fired with socialist fervour, then prime minister Indira Gandhi amended Article 31 and abolished the fundamental right to own and dispose property by decreeing an “amount” at the discretion of the State to be paid for sequestered property. Since then, the country’s notoriously venal neta-babu brotherhood has interpreted property rights to its own advantage.  The brazenness with which government babus trample upon the property rights of citizens has been brought into sharp relief in the trials and tribulations of members of the Bombay Gymkhana (estb.1875), the well-known private club in urbs prima in Indis. Because of its prime location in downtown Bombay (aka Mumbai), excellent infrastructure and management, the club has a decades-long waiting list of aspiring members. As such, it has attracted the beady eyes of neta-babus who despite their boorish manners and lack of social graces — the prerequisite of membership…

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“We live in a country where 76 percent of our children will drop out before class X… Building India is only possible if we fix our education system. And fixing education is only possible if we ensure that India’s top graduates choose to teach, perhaps before joining the corporate world. ” Anu Aga, chairperson of Teach for India (Times of India, January 24) “I will tell you, I really liked him. I think he liked me. I think he was surprised also. There was good chemistry.” US President Donald Trump after meeting former President Barack Obama (Time, January 23) “The BJP finds it embarassing that the RSS — to which the top leadership and cadre of the BJP belong — was not part of the freedom movement… The RSS is trying to attach themselves to the legacy of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, to get a leg into the nationalist movement.” Mohan Guruswamy, policy analyst, in an essay ‘RSS: In search of a genealogy’ (Deccan Chronicle, January 24) “India’s great achievement has been, for the most part, claiming and reclaiming political equality every election. The sheer scale, exuberance and dignity of Indian elections can still make the most cynical observers giddy.”  Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president Centre for Policy Research, in an essay on the occasion of India’s 68th Republic Day (Indian Express, January 26)   “It is not a policy we support. Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do.” Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, on US President Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry to citizens from seven Muslim countries (January 30)   “Bold, stubborn women, who are achievers, are desirable only to those who are strong and assured. (For some men) it’s frightening to handle a woman who can speak her mind.” Kangana Raut, Bollywood actress, in an interview with Mid-Day (January 31)

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A constant stream of news reports from across the country highlighting rape, abduction, kidnapping and other forms of sexual assault on women citizens is indicative of a dangerous contagion spreading through Indian society. If unchecked by a series of intelligent initiatives within the education, law, order and justice systems, it has the potential to force women out of the workforce, adversely affect foreign investment and tourism flows into the economy and in the long run, let loose the anarchy of vigilantism within the body politic.  India’s emerging middle class is increasingly being targeted by unrestrained lumpen elements running wild in under-policed urban streets, and increasingly in rural habitations. According to latest (2014) data of the National Crime Records Bureau, 36,735 women citizens were rape victims countrywide (ten per day), 57,311 were kidnapped and abducted, and 82,235 suffered sexual assault. These figures can be safely multiplied by a factor of ten because notoriously corrupt police personnel nationwide are inclined to dismiss crimes against women as harmless playfulness. In April 2014, Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (215 million) and lawless state — dismissed mass molestation of women in the state as natural, stating “boys will be boys”.  In a more recent case of molestation of women on New Year’s eve in the hi-tech city of Bangalore, the home minister of the Congress state government attributed it to the Western dress styles of victims and said “these things happen”.  Although women’s organisations including the National Commission for Women and state human rights commissions have dutifully condemned these incidents and the rising crime wave against the fair sex, most fail to make the connection between education reform and the fundamental right of gender equality guaranteed by Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Unless textbooks from primary classes upwards are thoroughly vetted for gender bias and stereotyping women, and teachers are trained to practice gender equality in the classrooms of the country’s 1.40 million primary-secondary schools and 1.20 million government schools in particular, ugly crimes against women citizens won’t abate.  Simultaneously unless police and judicial reforms prescribed by several high-powered commissions to improve rock-bottom police recruitment and forensics standards and to speed up the agonisingly slow wheels of the justice system are implemented, lumpen youth will continue to rule the public spaces of Indian society.  Righteous indignation and ritual lamentation when atrocities are committed against women citizens are futile without intelligent solutions and resolute action. Nor is the disinclination of the country’s educated middle class to look for political alternatives instead of fatalistically voting for patriarchal political parties cut from the same coarse cloth, any help.    Jallikattu stir poor schooling outcome The massive and sustained Jallikattu agitation in the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop.78 million) is being projected as an assertion of Dravidian identity and Tamil pride. But beneath the surface, it is symptomatic of the steady erosion of the country’s education system across the spectrum from KG to Ph…

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Thanks for your cover story ‘Edtech game changers leapfrogging Indian education’ (EW January). There’s no doubt that new 21st-century technologies offer unique opportunities to expand access and upgrade Indian education. Moreover, problems of shortage of well-trained teachers and poor student learning outcomes can be overcome with innovative use of technology. I was disappointed at the exclusion of innovations impacting rural India and the government school system. The country’s crumbling 1.2 million government schools desperately need tech innovations to improve and upgrade teaching-learning standards. However, the greater responsibility is of the Central and state governments to invest in equipping government schools with electricity, computers and Internet connectivity so children can learn despite the indifference of their notoriously negligent teachers. Samina Khan Bangalore   Easy target Congratulations on the launch of the first library of the EducationWorld Foundation Mission Million Memorial Libraries project (EW January). The Thakore family’s generous contribution in endowing this library needs to be appreciated and replicated. If only 1 million of the 60 million middle class households in India decide to endow a library in an underprivileged school in memory of their loved ones, the target of 1 million libraries will be easily reached. In a country where the vast majority of school teachers are ill-trained and irresponsible, access to a good library can dramatically improve student learning outcomes and inculcate a reading culture in children. Unfortunately, most government schools lack library facilities, and in the few which have them, books are locked away with students allowed limited access at best.  Dinesh Shetty Mumbai   Rural focus plea I am a regular reader of EducationWorld and would like to express my thanks for highlighting the many challenges confronting Indian education. A major challenge is the huge disparity between private and government schools. The condition of the latter in the country is pathetic. With the Centre slashing its education expenditure from the budgeted Rs.82,771 crore in 2015-16 to Rs.72,394 crore in 2016-17, the development of infrastructure facilities in government schools has come to a standstill.  Under the Digital India project announced by prime minister Narendra Modi, there is no provision for installing computers in government schools. Only a handful of them in the national capital have computers. The situation of remote village schools is much worse. Digital India needs to address these disparities. To realise its superpower ambitions, India needs to also educate rural children and youth. The HRD ministry must make dedicated efforts to allocate necessary funds to modernise the infrastructure and improve learning standards of government schools to bring them on a par with private schools.  Rahul Kumar Joint Editor, St. Cecilia’s Public School, New Delhi   Let’s collaborate  I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your excellent coverage of the City Montessori School and its ethos, in your famous education monthly magazine (EW January, ‘Interview’). You have lucidly highlighted our passion for educating young children, their families and communities. The media, represented by responsible champions of learning like yourself, and the education fraternity must…

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The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 of the Mumbai-based Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1994) — published after skipping a year — indicates that the continuous slide in primary education in rural India seems to have been halted with children’s reading and arithmetic capability improving marginally. It also reports improved infrastructure, particularly in toilets and drinking water availability. Interestingly, the report released on January 18, says there was no significant increase in private school enrolments between 2014 and 2016. The under-appreciated (not by EducationWorld) annual ASER report involves resource mobilisation on a massive scale. The 2016 survey commenced last September and involved networking with 500 local organisations and mobilisation of 25,000 volunteers (mainly college students) who fanned out across 589 rural districts to test the unprepared literacy and numeracy capability of 562,305 children (in the age group 3-16) of 350,232 households in 17,473 rural habitations, making it the largest learning assessment survey countrywide.  Among the positives according to ASER 2016, is a marginal improvement in reading and comprehension (vernacular languages) in rural (mainly government) schools. “Nationally, the proportion of children in standard II who are able to read std I level texts has risen slightly from 40.2 percent in 2014 to 42.55 percent in 2016,” says the report, adding that reading capability of class VIII children hasn’t improved at all except marginally in the states of Manipur, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.  Numeracy learning outcomes show an upward trend for the first time since 2010. The percentage of class III children who can do two-digit subtraction sums has increased to 27.7 percent from 25.4 percent in 2014. However, the capability of class VIII students to do division sums has continued to drop, a trend observed since 2010.  Similarly, the ability of lower primary children to read English has remained unchanged, and has changed for worse in upper primary grades. “In 2016, the percentage of those who can read words has declined with roughly 60 percent able to explain the meanings of the words they read,” write the authors of the report. Although ASER 2016 reports marginally better learning outcomes as improvements, it’s pertinent to note that with barely a third of pupils are able to attain acceptable reading and numeracy capability and overall learning outcomes in rural primaries continue to be pathetic.  Despite this, the proportion of children enrolled in private schools has remained unchanged at 30.5 percent in 2016, as compared to 30.8 percent in 2014. In general, although the authors of ASER 2016 try hard to find a silver lining to the huge cloud hanging over Indian education, the bigger picture is depressing. According to Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, it’s “something important for all of us to be worried about.”  Delhi state’s deputy chief and education minister, Manish Sisodia, ascribes continuously poor learning outcomes in primary schools countrywide to official apathy and inertia. “Over 90 percent of government officials don’t have a dream for education in the country. Governments at the Centre and in the states need…

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When the BJP-Shiv Sena was swept to power in Maharashtra (pop. 114 million) — India’s most industrialised state — in October 2014, one of the alliance’s major promises was larger budgets for education and education reform. But 27 months after the BJP-led state government was sworn in, the promise remains unfulfilled.  A recent study released in Mumbai (January 10) of the Delhi-based Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, estb.2005), an independent, non-profit policy research organisation, and the well-known NGO Child Relief and You (CRY, estb.1979), states that Maharashtra’s budget provision for primary and higher secondary (classes I-XII) education has been stagnant for three years (2012-13 to 2015-16).  The CRY-CBGA report titled Public Financing of School Education in India: A Fact Sheet details the budgetary provision for school education of ten economically progressive and backward states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. It indicates that despite generating the highest GSDP (gross state domestic product) equivalent to 15 percent of national GDP, Maharashtra’s annual provision for school education averaged a mere 2.28 percent during the past three years. Most of the other states surveyed including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha spent 4-5 percent of GSDP on school education.  Last February in the Union Budget 2016-17, finance minister Arun Jaitley slashed the Centre’s education budget to Rs.72,394 crore from the Rs.82,771 crore budgeted for the previous year, although the Centre’s allocation was marginally more than the revised estimate. The rationale was that with the 14th Finance Commission having increased the states’ share of the Central government’s tax revenue by 10 percent, state governments would increase their education outlays. Going by past trends, this is highly unlikely in Maharashtra.  Worse, a mere 0.4 percent of the state’s education budget was allocated for teacher training in the state’s low-performance 67,294 government schools with most states outspending Maharashtra on this parameter. “Teacher training and development and monitoring of schools are two important components to guarantee better learning outcomes and teacher accountability. But as our study shows, government investment in both these components has been below 0.5 percent of the education budget despite several non-government organisations bringing it to the notice of the administration,” laments Kumar Nilendu, development support head, western region, CRY. Moreover, while the BJP-Shiv Sena government has been proclaiming full compliance with the infrastructure norms prescribed by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, CRY-CBGA volunteers who visited 153 elementary schools in seven districts of the state found that 10 percent had common toilets for boys and girls, 93 had dysfunctional toilets, 50 schools had no boundary wall and 37 are without playgrounds.  The study concludes that Maharashtra’s government primary-secondary schools are plagued by inadequate funding, shortage of trained teachers and abysmal infrastructure, resulting in poor learning outcomes. According to the authors of the study, all these infirmities of the government school system are rooted in woefully inadequate investment in the public education system which grudgingly hosts over…

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Judging by the space given to education in election manifestos of the major political parties contending for the favour of the electorate in the legislative assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (215 million) state (which if it were a country would be the fifth most populous worldwide) — scheduled to begin on February 11 and conclude on March 11, all’s well with UP’s education system.  The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) for instance, which had restricted itself to doling out free laptops to selected students in its five-year tenure, has devoted just half a page to education in its 20-page manifesto, with its reform proposals limited to making all colleges wifi-enabled and improving rock-bottom learning outcomes through use of information technology. To reform school education, the SP manifesto promises improvements in the midday meal scheme and filling up teacher vacancies. Likewise the BJP, which is favoured to win, airily promises wifi campuses, free education upto graduation to all students, and laptops with 1 GB free data for students passing the class XII school-leaving exam with an average of 50 percent plus.  However, the authors of the authoritative Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016, published by the highly respected Mumbai-based NGO Pratham, seem to believe that elementary (class I-VIII) education in India’s most populous Hindi heartland state should be the new government’s top priority. UP tops the list of states with highest out-of-school girls (9.9 percent) and out-of-school children in the 6-14 age group (5.3 percent). ASER 2016 also highlights that in Lucknow district, 8.2 percent of children are out of school — a higher proportion than the 7 percent out of school in Shravsati, a district ranked 69 (out of 72) on the state’s composite development index. Moreover, only 54.4 percent of 6-14 age children can properly read and understand a class II text compared to 70 percent in the district of Gorakhpur. “It is inexplicable that Lucknow district has fared so badly,” says Sarvendra Vikram Singh, chairperson of the State Council for Educational Research & Training, while declining to question the authenticity of the survey. The numeracy skills of children in Uttar Pradesh’s rural elementary schools (classes I-VIII) are worse with 11.7 percent of class III children unable to recognise numbers from 1-9, 36.5 percent able to recognise numbers only until 9, and just 28.5 percent able to recognise numbers upto 99. Significantly, in UP’s private schools while 36 percent of class III children can read and understand class II texts, in government schools only 7.2 percent are able to. Even in terms of infrastructure, UP’s rural schools are way behind. For instance, only 54.8 percent of  school toilets are usable against the national average of 68 percent, and only 0.6 percent of rural elementaries are equipped with computers for children’s use against the 20 percent national average. The only good news in the state is that more than 94.7 percent of children in the 6-14 years age group are enrolled in elementary schools. However, of…

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Kolkata’s showpiece presidency University — established in 1817 as the Hindoo College by a group of 20 eminent scholars led by the legendary social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) — initiated its big bang bicentenary celebrations on January 5 with seminars in India, Britain and the US. Banners displaying quotations of distinguished Presidency alumni — Aparna Sen, Amartya Sen, Satyajit Ray, J.C. Bose, Nabaneeta Deb Sen, P.C. Mahalanobis, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Subhash Chandra Bose, Satyendranatha Bose, Pramathesh Barua, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Meghnad Saha and Rajendra Prasad during their undergrad years — were plastered across the campus.  The organisers of Presidency University’s mega bicentenary bash — a seven-member committee comprising the vice chancellor Anuradha Lohia, registrar Dr. Prithul Chakraborty, and Professor Dr. Swapan Chakravorty among others — pulled out all stops to highlight the past glories of PU which has produced three presidents, one prime minister, a Nobel laureate and scores of explorers, inventors and globally respected intellectuals in India and abroad. According to sources within the committee, the subtext of highlighting the university’s past glory was to also advertise how far this once great liberal arts and humanities institution of higher learning has fallen under the rule of the interventionist CPM (Communist Party of India)-led Left Front government which ruled West Bengal uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011), and latterly by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government now in its second term in office. In the run-up to the historic assembly election of 2011 in which the CPM was comprehensively routed, a major election plank of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee was to rejuvenate Presidency University and restore its status as a globally-respected centre of academic excellence. True to her promise, one of her first initiatives as chief minister was to appoint a ten-member mentor group, headed by renowned Harvard academic Dr. Sugata Bose and guided by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen, to suggest ways and means to rejuvenate and revive PU. But that promise was easier made than fulfilled. Six years since the TMC government took charge of Writers Building, Kolkata, little has changed. Under TMC rule, Presidency University has witnessed as much interference and campus violence as it did under Left Front rule. From its A+ rating of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India as a college in 2006, it has suffered a downgrade to plain A status as a university in 2016. The TMC government’s first full budget of 2012-13 made no provision to fund the proposed make-over. It allocated a measly Rs.240 crore for the state’s 18 universities and 374 colleges, provoking widespread cynicism about its proclaimed intent to restore PU to its former glory.  Subsequently, on April 10, 2013 PU’s Laboratory — established in 1913 by Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose — was vandalised by a posse of TMC cadres. Moreover the West Bengal Council of Higher Education constituted a four-member facts-finding committee to investigate allegations of irregular faculty recruitment by the Presidency Mentor Group (PMG), chaired by Dr. Sugata Bose, and the college campus…

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Four years after the supreme Court passed orders directing India’s 29 state governments and seven Union Territories to ensure that all 1.20 million government schools countrywide are equipped with toilets, and two years after prime minister Narendra Modi launched the BJP/NDA government’s Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya (national clean school) campaign on October 2, 2014 with the mission to construct separate toilets for girls and boys, a huge number of Tamil Nadu’s 37,002 government and aided schools are without adequate toilets and sanitation.  The state government’s failure to comply with Supreme Court and the Centre’s directives has been brought to light by Madurai-based health and education activist C. Anand Raj who filed a public interest writ praying for a court directive to the state government to address this issue. The PIL (public interest litigation) writ was heard by Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidharan of the Madras high court’s Madurai bench on November 2, 18 and 25 last year. The bench admonished Tamil Nadu’s director of school education Dr. V.C. Rameswaramurugan for making false claims in a letter to the court dated February 21, 2016, that adequate toilet facilities had been provided in government schools and new toilets were under construction. The letter prompted the high court to appoint three advocate commissions to inspect toilet facilities in randomly selected government and aided schools in Madurai, Dindigul and Thanjavur districts of Tamil Nadu.  Based on the report of the advocate commissions, the court then directed D. Sabitha, school education secretary of the state government, to submit a status report. According to the report, 141,288 toilets are required for 2.85 million children in government schools statewide. Against this, only 66,610 have been built so far, a deficit of 74,678, which requires two years to bridge, according to Sabitha’s report. When the case came up for final hearing on November 25, the judges warned the state education ministry that it will initiate contempt proceedings against its officials for misleading the court, and directed the government to provide adequate toilet facilities in all government girls’ schools in the next academic year (2017-18), and all boys’ schools before commencement of the academic year 2018-19. It also directed the state government to appoint conservancy staff and night watchmen in all schools.  The open, continuous and unchecked neglect of basic infrastructure in Tamil Nadu’s 37,002 government schools — and of the nitty-gritties of administration — is confirmed by a report of the state’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which highlights the maladministration of a menstrual hygiene project initiated in 2011. According to the CAG report (which prompted the Women Advocates Association to file a public interest petition in the high court) in August 2016, the state government had sanctioned Rs.8.45 crore (out of a total Rs.44.21 crore allocated for the menstrual hygiene project) for installation of sanitary napkin vending machines, and construction of masonry incinerators for safe disposal of napkins in 3,200 schools of Tamil Nadu. Against this, the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women, which received…

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A January 17 order of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) — aka the Greater Bangalore Municipal Corporation — has generated shockwaves within communities of this hi-tech city’s estimated 4,000 preschools and young parents. The order written only in Kannada — the state’s official language — directs all preschools in Bangalore to relocate to designated commercial areas. “Close down in a week or reply to notices for operating in residential areas without trade licences,” says the notice issued to private preschools. This out-of-the- blue diktat of BBMP has outraged Bangalore’s young parents, whose protests on social media have gone viral.  Moreover pre-primary school managements under the banners of the Indian Montessori Centre (IMC), Federation of Montessori Schools and Karnataka Council of Preschools (KCP) have lodged strong protests with the BBMP, the education ministry and have also reportedly briefed counsel to file a writ petition against the BBMP order. Comments Anantha Padmanabha, executive director, Indian Montessori Centre (estb.1989) which has 1,200 institutional members: “Preschool education by definition is a neighbourhood activity. It is ridiculous to expect tiny tots aged between 18 months to five years to commute to preschools in commercial areas. Citizens have a fundamental right to provide preschool education which by definition can’t be in commercial areas.” On January 24, all the three associations of preschool education providers submitted a memorandum to BBMP mayor G. Padmavathi, seeking a revocation of the January 17 order. “The mayor has assured us that she will take the necessary action. In case we don’t hear from her, we will challenge the BBMP’s directive in the Karnataka high court,” says Pruthwi Banwasi, secretary of the Karnataka Council of Preschools.  However, BBMP commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad (IAS) is sticking to his guns. “Preschools are essentially commercial establishments and if operating in residential areas, are flouting zonal regulations. They are in violation of the city’s Revised Master Plan, 2015 by operating commercial enterprises in designated residential zones and buildings. We have also received complaints from resident welfare associations that preschools cause lot of noise and traffic chaos in residential areas,” says Prasad.  However Swati Popat Vats, the Mumbai-based founder president of the Early Childhood Association of India (estb. 2010) which has a membership of 3,000 preschools countrywide, dismisses Prasad’s rationale as “ridiculous”. “No other city in India has restricted preschools to commercial areas. It’s commonsense that youngest children can’t be made to commute to pre-primaries. There are health and safety issues involved. The commissioner should immediately withdraw the notices issued to Bangalore’s preschools. If the matter goes to the high court as it surely will if it’s not withdrawn, the judges will pass strictures against him,” says Popat Vats. That’s gratuitous, well-meant advice that the commissioner would do well to heed. Odeal D’Souza (Bangalore) 

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Visitors stand out at Marlboro College’s bucolic campus in the woods of Vermont, but not because they are special or even unexpected. With 190 matriculated students and just a few dozen faculty and staff, everyone knows everyone. The student-faculty ratio is 5:1, perhaps the lowest in the country. The college administration has worked hard to stay small: the student population has rarely topped 350. But in the years since its founding after the second world war, Marlboro has often skirted financial ruin. In 1993, it had only a few payrolls left in the bank. It was rescued by a foundation. Today it is looking for ways to save itself and already experiencing some success. Marlboro is not alone in facing revenue and enrolment pressures. Burlington College (70 students), also in Vermont, shut its doors last summer. Sweet Briar, a well-regarded women’s college in Virginia, nearly closed to its 245 students in 2015. A last-minute bout of fundraising by alumni saved it, for now. Moody’s, a credit-ratings agency, said in 2015 that the pace of closures and mergers will accelerate and could triple from an average of five per year over the next few years.  Part of the problem, at least for small liberal arts institutions, is that parents and would-be students are questioning the value of the liberal arts. They want real returns, in the form of well-paying jobs, for their four-year investment. There are still an awful lot of small colleges: about 40 percent of degree-granting colleges have fewer than 1,000 students. But enrolment at these institutions has fallen by more than 5 percent since 2010, while the student population has increased overall. To attract students, some colleges are reducing their sticker price, but this is not sustainable for colleges without healthy endowments. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), 49 percent of independent colleges and universities offer discounts, up from 38 percent a decade ago. Alice Brown, a former head of the Appalachian College Association, a network of tiny colleges in the Appalachian Mountains, thinks more must merge or close. The Berklee College of Music (4,371 students) and the Boston Conservatory (730 students) merged in June. Small colleges often share accountants and laboratories. Some tiny colleges rely on donations to save the day. Alumni are concerned about the value of their own degree if the college closes, but donors can grow weary. Marlboro, meanwhile, is using its endowment to offer scholarships to one student from each state in an effort to expand its usual pool from New England, and to open up new student pipelines. It saw success straight away. It increased its student population by 6 percent in the academic year 2016-17, after years of falling enrolment. 

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The state government has awarded 178 computer laptops to meritorious students who excelled in their class X and XII board examinations of 2016 conducted by the Meghalaya state, Delhi-based CISCE (Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations) and CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education).  Addressing media personnel in Shillong on January 20, Ampareen Lyngdoh, the state’s information and technology minister, said: “Education is capital investment and a permanent asset for all. We honour your dedication and hard work and through these awards, we wish to send out a strong message to the state’s youth.”  Explaining how her department is helping to build IT skills in Meghalaya, she added that the state government has launched “several innovative programmes to provide IT training to students in line with industrial requirements”.    Haryana Fake universities outed In an initiative to prevent fraudulent technical colleges from duping students by offering diplomas and degrees for unaccredited courses, the state government has published the names of several impugned institutions in the state on its website.  Addressing a media conference in Chandigarh on January 20, a spokesperson of the education ministry said a list of technical education institutions “not approved” by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has been uploaded on the council’s website (www.aicte-india.org). Similarly, a list of fake universities is also available on the University Grants Commission (UGC) website at www.ugc.ac.in, he added. Conversely, a list of approved technical education institutions in Haryana is available on the website of the technical education department, Haryana  (www.techeduhry.gov.in).   Jharkhand Full literacy plan Chief minister Raghubar Das says the state government will distribute tablets uploaded with the ‘e-vidya vahini’ software — developed by the state’s school education and literacy, information technology and e-governance ministries — for real-time monitoring of all government schools starting from the new academic year in June. According to the chief minister, the state government has drawn up a plan to make Jharkhand a fully literate state in the next two-three years. To this end, the government has signed MoUs with several teacher training and development institutions to upskill teachers and students. Addressing a meeting in Ranchi on January 16, Das said technical education plays a critical role in the future of children and any “carelessness” won’t be tolerated. “I have directed government officials to make surprise visits, and work with honesty and commitment to help Jharkhand become a prosperous state in the near future,” he said.   Gujarat IIM-A’s e-PGP The top-ranked Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A, estb. 1961) is set to launch a two-year postgraduate programme in management (e-PGP) via distance learning using satellite-based education technology. The ticket price of the programme — the first by an IIM and essentially for working executives and entrepreneurs — is Rs.17 lakh.  The first e-PGP programme will commence in June 2017 on an interactive onsite learning (IOL) platform. “We invite junior, middle and senior working professionals and entrepreneurs to enroll in the programme,” said IIM-A director Ashish Nanda in Ahmedabad on January 16. According…

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Promoted in 1996 by the globe-girdling Chinmaya Mission, CIRS has acquired a nationwide reputation for excellent academics blended with co-curricular education steeped in Indian culture and traditions – Hemalatha Raghupathi Nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats and encompassing a 78-acre sylvan campus on the outskirts of the textiles city of Coimbatore (pop. 3.46 million), the Chinmaya International Residential School (CIRS, estb.1996) has acquired a nationwide reputation for excellent academics blended with co-curricular education steeped in Indian culture and traditions. In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2016, CIRS is ranked #2 countrywide and #1 in Tamil Nadu in the co-ed boarding schools category. Moreover, with 24 out of 49 students averaging 90 percent-plus in the CBSE class XII examination last year, CIRS is the #1 school academically in this category and among the Top 10 countrywide.  Envisioned in the 1970s by visionary Vedanta master Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, who promoted the Chinmaya Mission (CM, a globe-girdling spiritual and cultural renaissance movement started in 1953), CIRS was formally inaugurated on June 6, 1996 by Swami Tejomayananda, who succeeded as head of CM after Swami Chinmayananda’s mahasamadhi in 1993. However, during his lifetime Chinmayananda established 300 CM centres worldwide to organise and coordinate the spiritual, cultural, education and social service projects of the mission. Since then, the Mumbai-based Central Chinmaya Mission Trust (CCMT) has promoted 103 Chinmaya Vidyalaya day schools across the country, eight colleges, two free-of-charge Harihar schools and one Chinmaya Vidyalaya day school in Trinidad (West Indies).  Promoted 20 years ago with the prime objective of providing (secular) Indian culture and values-based education to children of the 17 million Indian diaspora, this class V-XII school currently has 580 students (of whom 20 percent are from abroad) mentored by 90 well-qualified teachers. Affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), CIRS also offers the diploma programme of the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation for classes XI-XII.  “The prime objective of CIRS is integrated development of every student. Programmes for physical fitness, emotional development, independent thinking, values-based education, meditation and yoga are all woven into the curriculum and daily calendar of the school. Our students are given wide exposure to Indian culture through lectures on customs and traditions, celebration of festivals of India and by way of project work. Moreover, we have a structured programme for our students to develop a universal outlook through partnerships with schools in the UK, USA and Africa. One such initiative is the Generation Global video conferences programme organised by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, UK, which enables CIRS students to interact with their counterparts in schools worldwide,” says Shanti Krishnamurthy, principal of CIRS. A mathematics and education postgrad of Madras and Annamalai universities Krishnamurthy has over 35 years of teaching and administration experience in the Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Jamshedpur (1981-2002), M.Ct.M Chidambaram Chettiyar Group of Schools, Chennai (2002-2006), and as founder-principal of the Mahindra World School, Chennai (2006-2009). A striking feature of CIRS is that CCMT has spared no expense in equipping it with state-of-the-art infrastructure…

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Founded in 1872 as the University of Wales, over the past 144 years AU has established a global reputation for teaching and research. In the THE World University Rankings, it is ranked among the Top 40 in the UK  Sited in the coastal town of Aberystwyth in Wales, the eponymous Aberystwyth University (AU, estb.1872) has developed a global reputation for high-quality teaching and research. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17, AU is ranked among the Top 40 universities in the UK and among the Top 200 worldwide. According to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2014, 95 percent of AU’s research is of “internationally recognised standard or higher”. Moreover, an HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) 2015 study indicates that 92 percent of AU graduates are in employment or in further education six months after graduation.  Currently, AU’s nine academic departments and institutes — biological, environmental and rural sciences; computer science; mathematics; physics; modern languages; information studies; international politics; law and criminology, and psychology — offer over 300 undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes to 9,000 students. “All students have a personal tutor who supports them on their academic journey and can signpost them to other student support structures, should more be needed,” says Prof. John Grattan, pro tem vice chancellor of the university.  Founded in 1872 as University College Wales, after several name changes it was christened Aberystwyth University in 2007. Aberystwyth. Located on the west coast of Wales, Aberystwyth (pop.14,000) is positioned between mountains and the picturesque Cardigan Bay. The bay is overlooked by the town’s medieval castle ruins, a Victorian pier and promenade and working harbour, offering spectacular vistas of beaches and flora and fauna. The coastal town also hosts the impressive National Library of Wales which houses over 7 million volumes, and offers a wide range of shops, cafes, restaurants, cinemas and lively nightlife. Moreover, students also have the option to participate in a range of water sports including surfing and kayaking. Aberystwyth experiences an oceanic climate similar to other regions of the UK. Winters are cold with temperatures ranging between 2.2°C-6.4°C and summers are mild with temperatures ranging between 15.2°C-19.2°C. The nearest international airport is Birmingham, 3.5 hours by train. Rail and road connections are also available to Heathrow and Gatwick international airports.  Campus facilities. The university is spread across three campuses — Penglais, Llanbadarn and Gogerddan. The main Penglais Hill campus overlooks Aberystwyth town and Cardigan Bay, and hosts most academic buildings, Arts Centre, Students’ Union and several student residences. Sited contiguous to the Penglais campus is the National Library of Wales, one of Britain’s five legal deposit libraries.  The Llanbadarn campus is located approximately a mile to the east of Penglais Hill and hosts the faculties of law and criminology, information studies, management and business. The Gogerddan campus, on the outskirts of town, hosts the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Science and the under-development £40.5-million (Rs.338 crore) Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise campus. AU students are permitted access to three excellent libraries, two on…

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With high premium placed on styling and placement of branded and general merchandise in retail stores and spaces, retail design is a fast-track career – Odeal D’Souza Arguably for the first time since independence following which a licence-permit-quota regime was imposed upon the public of free India, the country is experiencing a bricks-n-mortar (as also online) retailing revolution. Lifestyle and fashion stores, supermarket chains, giant shopping malls, and highly competitive online promotions are testimony of post-liberalisation India’s retail boom. Little wonder that some of the hottest jobs are in the sunrise retail online and offline industry.  Within the offline retail industry, a lucrative career option is design. With high premium placed on styling and placement of branded and generic merchandise in retail stores designed to give maximum customer satisfaction, retail design is a fast-track career. A retail designer plans and draws up blueprints for new stores — she designs, builds and improves retail establishments. From interiors, window displays, furnishing, lighting and flooring to furniture and accessories, a retail designer’s job is to conceptualise and create inviting spaces which attract customers and enhance the brand image and appeal of retail stores and supermarkets. Effective visual merchandising attracts, engages, and motivates customers to make purchase decisions.  Study programmes Although a higher secondary school certificate is sufficient qualification to enter this vocation, diploma and degree programmes provide a better foundation for success. Several higher education institutions in India offer specialised study programmes in offline retail design.  The top-ranked National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad offers a design for retail experience postgrad programme. The Maharashtra Academy of Engineering Education and Research’s MIT Institute of Design, Pune has a four-year undergraduate programme and a two-year postgrad course while the National Institute of Design, R&D Campus, Bangalore offers a postgraduate ‘design for retail experience’ study programme to graduates in design or other streams with a year’s full-time connected work experience. Other options include the Masters of fashion technology in design space of NIFT, Delhi and the postgraduate programme in visual communication offered by the National Institute of Creative Communication, Bangalore. Pay and progression The retail industry is booming in India and abroad, and the demand for store designers far exceeds supply. Potential employers include interior design firms, retail establishments and architecture firms. After a few years of experience, most retail designers go solo and set up their own practice. Freshers apprenticing with design firms start off on Rs.15,000-25,000 per month, which rises to Rs.45,000 after two-three years of experience. Remuneration increases with experience while the sky is the limit for independent retail space designers. Professional profile “Retail design is a highly rewarding profession as the requirements of the job go beyond merely designing retail spaces and units. We have the added responsibilities of visually communicating the story of brands to consumers to enhance brand value and to make shopping a pleasurable experience,” says Jenny Andrews, a much sought-after Bangalore-based retail designer and promoter-managing director of Studio J (estb.2010), which has designed retail spaces for globally-respected brands such…

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I’m a B.Sc (computer science) graduate currently working for a well-known company. I would like to write the IIT Joint Admission Test (IIT-JAM). However, I don’t have the required score in my graduation exam to secure admission into the IITs. What if I clear the eligibility test but am not eligible for the programme? I would also like to pick a specific IIT. Please advise. — Rakesh Iyer, Chennai  There’s a minimum score stipulation in your first degree exam to qualify for admission into postgrad courses such as M.Sc (biotech), M.Sc (physics), M.Sc (applied statistics and informatics), MCA etc. Therefore, even if you clear IIT-JAM you have to fulfil the admission criteria of your targeted institutions. For example, IIT Bombay/Madras/Kharagpur require pass percentages in 10+2+3. However, IIT Delhi and Roorkee mandate a first class degree while IIT Kanpur and Guwahati need a minimum 55 percent in the undergrad final exam. When the next JAM exam is notified, check whether you fulfill the minimum educational qualifications for admission into the programme of your choice. I’ll be completing my BA (sociology) this year and would like to pursue a Masters in sociology. Which are the best universities offering this specialisation? How do I prepare for the entrance examination of JNU, Delhi? — Neetu Singh, New Delhi Several universities offer high-quality MA programmes in sociology. You need to study the curriculums they offer to make your own assessment. JNU (www.du.ac.in) is highly reputed. The entrance test for JNU’s MA (sociology) programme tends to focus on classical heritage (Weber, Marx, Durkheim, Pareto) concepts and theories of sociology. You should have passed BA (Hons) in sociology from a recognised university (with at least six papers in sociology) with more than 50 percent average. The admission test is conducted by JNU’s department of sociology.  I’m pursuing a BA in politics and plan to write the UPSC and MPSC exams. But I’m confused whether I should write these exams or CAT for admission into the IIMs. If I pursue MBA, which field should I choose? — Neeraj Patil, Pune Clearing the MPSC and UPSC exams will offer you a bright career in government. Since it is a tough exam, it calls for a lot of preparation and hard work. Logically, the nearest similar option for you would be to do an MBA in human resource management. But evaluate all your options thoroughly. I have passed my class XII exams with PCMB. I’m very keen to make a career in dietetics and nutrition. Please advise me on reputed institutes offering this degree and further study programmes, growth prospects, areas of work and pay packages. Will it help if I sign up for a business management programme after acquiring a degree in nutrition? — Neela D’Souza, Mumbai You could sign up for a B.Sc in home science and specialise in food, nutrition and dietetics or allied subjects followed by an M.Sc programme in the same field to pursue a career in dietetics and nutrition. Alternatively you could enroll in…

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The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is an organisation established to conduct standardised secondary and higher secondary school-leaving (classes X and XII) examinations. The rationale behind promotion of the Delhi-based CBSE was — and is — to test students of affiliated schools and certify them if they are sufficiently proficient in English (or Hindi), maths, science and the humanities, and ready for undergraduate education. As such CBSE (estb.1962), which over the past half century has evolved into India’s largest national school examinations board with 18,006 (on September 30, 2016) Central government, private aided and unaided (financially independent)  schools affiliated with it, has a limited mandate viz, to conduct the board’s class X and XII examinations and certify students of affiliated schools. For the privilege of being affiliated with CBSE, school managements pay prescribed initial and annual fees. In consideration thereof, the board also prescribes several minimum standards — mandatory classroom sizes, teacher-pupil ratios, teacher qualifications and infrastructure norms — for affiliated schools to better prepare students for its school-leaving exams. But this is an advisory and enabling role of the board.   However over the years, CBSE — described as an autonomous organisation of the Central government under the administrative purview of the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry — has steadily expanded the length, scope and ambit of its affiliation bye-laws which member schools are obliged to follow on pain of disaffiliation. While government CBSE schools are presumably content to follow the expanding set of rules and regulations prescribed by the board, promoters and managements of the 13,657 affiliated private schools — particularly the top-ranked and nationally reputed among them — are becoming increasingly worried  about the steady erosion of their administrative autonomy. In December, CBSE issued two imperious circulars arrogating  powers to determine the appointment of principals and teachers, and mandated a Principal Eligibility Test for incumbents of affiliated private unaided schools — clear instances of micromanagement, if not backdoor nationalisation of private schools. Our cover story this month examines the ambit of the administrative power of India’s largest national school board even as a verdict of the Delhi high court on the issue is imminent.   Regular readers of EducationWorld are no doubt aware this publication has established a nationwide reputation as the foremost champion of universal ECCE (early childhood care and education). Last month, we staged our seventh Early Childhood Education National Conference 2017, which attracted ECCE educators from across the country. Our special report feature details the proceedings of this unprecedented ECCE conference. Please read it and join our campaign to make ECCE accessible to all children in the 0-5 age group. 

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