Coding education evangelist Karan Bajaj is the Mumbai-based founder-CEO of WhiteHat Jr Pvt. Ltd (estb.2018, headcount: 200), an edtech start-up offering individual subscribers aged 6-14 years age-appropriate computer coding programmes designed to enhance their reasoning, problem-solving, logical and analytical thinking skills. The company’s online live one-on-one study programme is accessible on a laptop using a simple Internet connection. Currently, the company has signed up 500,000 children facilitated by 600 highly-qualified teachers. The start-up is named after the WhiteHat ethical computer hackers who help companies identify weak links in their computer systems and assist law enforcement agencies to detect malicious cyber attacks. Newspeg. To mark its first anniversary last November, the company rolled out its first coding learning programme for K-12 schools countrywide. Moreover, in a major boost to its corpus, White Hat Jr recently raised $10 million (Rs.70.9 crore) from shareholders Nexus Ventures Partners and Omidyar Network India, joined by the Silicon Valley-based Owl Ventures. History. An engineering and business management alumnus of BITS, Pilani and IIM-Bangalore, Bajaj acquired valuable work experience in several blue-chip multinationals including Kraft Foods, Boston Consulting Group and Discovery Networks before deciding to go solo and promoting WhiteHat Jr. in 2018. Since then the company has developed the world’s first structured artificial intelligence and space technology coding curriculum for children. Moreover, its teachers are specially trained to engage with children to teach the science of coding in an interesting manner. Average annual subscription fee: Rs.35,000. Direct talk. “As a father of two young children, I am a committed believer in the power of early childhood education and it was always my aspiration to harness the natural creativity of 5-6-year-olds. After deeply researching this subject, I discovered that children are mentally equipped with the fundamentals of logic, sequence, structure and algorithmic thinking. Teaching children to code develops their rational, logical, analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, providing them an excellent foundation for future learning,” says Karan Bajaj, also an accomplished author. Future plans. Confident that WhiteHat Jr’s child-friendly computer coding programmes will attract children, Bajaj has drawn up ambitious plans for the future. “Next year, we plan to expand to markets in South-east Asia and North America. We have introduced a programme for top performers on our platform to give them an opportunity to win an all-expense paid trip to Silicon Valley with one parent. Two children from the first batch have already been shortlisted. Additionally, we will offer $15,000 fellowships to help the Top 15 performers to incubate their own start-ups. In WhiteHat Jr, our goal is to provide children a solid foundation for success in the new digital era,” says Karan Bajaj. The Force be with you! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Abhishek Kumar is the Delhi-based regional director (South Asia) of ONVU Technologies, a Switzerland-based IT solutions provider with three business verticals — ONCAM (surveillance solutions), ONVU Learning (video/AI-enabled teaching-learning solutions), and ONVU Retail (consumer behaviour analytics). In 2019, the company’s ONVU Learning made a big bang entry into Indian K-12 education with its video analytics and artificial intelligence technology to enhance classroom teaching-learning experiences. Currently, ONVU Learning solutions are being used by 50 schools around the world including The Doon School, Dehradun. Newspeg. ONVU Learning recently unveiled its Lessonvu solution in India. A classroom lesson observation system controlled by teachers, Lessonvu allows for 360 degree audio-video recording of lessons/sessions, enabling teachers to replay, reflect, analyse pedagogy, student engagement, upgrade professional skills and enhance the overall classroom experience. History. An engineering graduate of IIIT-Kolkata with an MBA from IMT Ghaziabad, Abhishek Kumar acquired over 15 years experience in blue-chip companies Godrej & Boyce and Axis Communications before he was appointed regional director at ONVU Technologies last year. “Most digital solutions in K-12 education are focused on students, providing them content and tutoring services. The purpose of Lessonvu is to enable teachers to improve their teaching style and lesson presentations to create joyful classrooms which fully engage students and improve learning outcomes. Through our Align process, Lessonvu generates feedback which enables teachers to assess their classroom impact to improve pedagogy and upgrade professional skills. Moreover, it also ensures that recorded real-time lessons are readily available for students to review and learn,” says Abhishek Kumar. Future plans. Kumar is bullish about the company’s prospects in India. “India hosts 1.5 million schools and over 900 universities, and a vibrant private education sector. It is one of biggest education growth markets of the world. Over the next two years we plan to extend our reach to universities and colleges,” he says. Manoj Joshi (Delhi)
Engineer turned film director Hitesh Kumar is founder of Splat Media Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based new media and design company with a headcount of 50 employees including graphic designers and VFX editors. Last September, Kumar launched the company’s Art Illume project to bring media students, artists and designers on one platform to create illumination art, interactive installations, virtual art galleries, and immersive public art. “Art Illume enables artists and students to collaborate through conferences, workshops and seminars and create new media art. We have initiated a series of seminars in colleges and universities to introduce media students to projection mapping, light design, physical computing, creative coding, kinetic sculpting, and 3D technologies,” says Hitesh Kumar. Newspeg. Splat Media is preparing to present its first Art Illume public exhibition using light, projection mapping and creative coding techniques, to be held in collaboration with the state government of Delhi in March. History. A graduate of Jabalpur Engineering College, Kumar chose to follow his passion for visual art and design by exploring new media digital technologies and executing freelance projects. In 2011, he promoted Splat Media to provide visual effects, virtual reality (VR), 3D projection mapping and animation services. “New media technologies have the power to provide immersive real-time experiences. Our objective is to marry art and design with latest digital technology innovations. For instance, projection mapping is one of the most fascinating modes of storytelling, enabling usage of building and monument surfaces as backdrops to present narratives. Similarly, VR technology can be used by students to virtually visit historical sites, monuments and museums. Immersive learning enables them to improve understanding and learning outcomes,” he says. Direct talk. “Most learning in colleges is theoretical and aspiring designers don’t get mentorship and opportunities to showcase their talent. Art Illume will bring students and artists together to use new technologies such as VR and 3D projection mapping to create immersive public art,” says Hitesh Kumar. Future plans. Kumar is confident the Art Illume project will gather momentum over the next year. “We plan to intensify the number of seminars and workshops, and also increase public art displays and exhibitions which will enhance the art and cultural education of the public,” he predicts. An overdue initiative. Autar Nehru (Delhi)
Espoo-based Pia Jormalainen is the CEO and co-founder of New Nordic School (NNS, estb.2018), a Finland-registered education solutions company offering turnkey pre-primary to secondary education solutions to clients worldwide. The company’s objective is to introduce the Nordic Baccalaureate programme that has the famed Finnish school curriculum at its core. Newspeg. NNS has drawn up a plan to introduce its early years programme in 18 preschools in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bangalore, Mohali and Gurgaon this year. The Podar Education Network (PEN), which runs 500 pre-primaries under the name and style of Jumbo Kids countrywide, will introduce the NNS curriculum in ten PEN preschools to be launched under the title Podar Jumbo Kids Platinum, for infants in the 2.5-5 years age group. For clients aspiring to set up new preschools or switch to the Nordic Baccalaureate system, NNS offers gap analyses of teacher proficiency, quality assurance maintenance, access to an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology platform as part of the company’s full 360 degree consultancy services. “I am very confident the Finnish curriculum can be adapted and implemented in Indian schools to positively transform teaching-learning outcomes,” says Pia Jormalainen. History. A 1995 graduate of the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Jormalainen acquired an executive MBA degree from the Hanken School of Economics, in 2014. In the same year, she opted for a career in ECCE by launching two pre-primary schools named Small-folks Day-Care, and co-founded NNS in January 2018 together with sister Janne Jormalainen and India-born Suzanne Perkowsky, a graduate of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (1989), with 30 years of experience in running pre-primaries in the US, UK, China and Saudi Arabia. NNS began its India operations in July 2018. Direct talk. “Education in most countries is very grades and tests-driven. However, the Finnish system promotes classroom innovations within broad curriculum guidelines. Children learn joyfully through play and discovery rather than textbooks. Teaching-learning is not age-based but tailored to each child’s learning needs and style. Our full pre-primary-class XII curriculum is designed to develop children’s critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaborative skills,” says Pia Jormalainen. Future plans. Given the huge excitement NNS has generated within the Indian K-12 education community, Pia Jormalainen is hopeful of reaching 20,000 students in 160 schools over the next three years. “We also plan to up-skill 3,000 teachers through our professional teaching competencies development modules,” she says. Swagatam! Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Also read: India’s unsung ECCE pioneers
Kavita Sahay Kerawalla is the Mumbai-based vice chairperson of the VIBGYOR Group of Schools (estb.2004), which currently runs a chain of 39 K-12 schools (27 Vibgyor Kids & High and 11 Vibgyor Roots & Rise) in seven states countrywide with an aggregate enrolment of 55,000 children. Newspeg. Kavita Kerawalla was in Bangalore in December (2019) to inaugurate the grand finale of Vibgyor’s two-day festival christened Viva, which attracted participation of over 150,000 students from 1,700 schools, underprivileged households and orphanages in Karnataka. History. An economics, education and management alumna of Patna University and Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Kavita Kerawalla began her career in a high-ranked Mumbai school where she acquired a decade’s valuable teaching and admin experience followed by a stint as director (schools, academics and human resources) of the VIBGYOR Group of Schools from 2006-14. In 2015, she was appointed as the group’s vice chairperson. Direct talk. “Born out of a dream to provide school students from across the country a platform to showcase and celebrate talent, the annual Viva festival — modelled on the IIT festivals for college students — reflects Vibgyor’s commitment to provide students joyful and holistic education. Over two days, children compete at the national level to win trophies and prizes in Western and Indian music, solo and group dance and Viva Nova (male and female) personality competitions. We believe that schooling should be a fulfilling and enjoyable experience. Our teachers work hard to spark students’ innate curiosity through experiential learning-by-doing and activities-based pedagogies. The two-day Viva festival is part of this experience,” she explains. Future plans. KSK’s action plan is to spread the Vibgyor model of joyful learning countrywide by increasing the number of Vibgyor institutions to 500 over the next ten years. “Also on the agenda is to partner with government schools, anganwadis, balwadis and tribal schools in Maharashtra under the public-private partnership model given our experience of adopting the AdarshVidyalaya, Mohali schools of the Punjab state government. Vocational education and online teacher training certification is another area we are exploring,” says Kavita Kerawalla. Wind beneath your wings! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Ajit Chauhan is chairman of the Noida-based Amity University Online (AUO, estb.2005), the online education division of the top-ranked private Amity University (AU, estb.2003) which has nine campuses in India and 13 abroad. AUO is a global online university offering UGC-approved undergrad, postgrad degree and diploma study programmes in management, media and journalism, arts, information technology, commerce, travel and tourism, and finance. Newspeg. Last September, AUO was granted the University Grants Commission’s approval for 24 of its graduate (three-year) and Masters degree and diploma programmes. Only 60 of India’s 993 universities qualified for UGC approval to offer online degree programmes with AUO being the first to be greenlighted. History. An entrepreneurship and marketing postgrad of Babson College, Boston, ESADE Business School, Barcelona (Spain) and SDA Bocconi School of Management, Milan (Italy), Chauhan started working full-time with the family-promoted Ritnand Balved Education Foundation (regst.1986), which runs the Amity Group of education institutions, in 2004. In 2012, he was appointed chairman of AUO and Amity Future Academy, an online skills development portal for working professionals. A self-confessed IT geek and afficianado, Chauhan has spearheaded the group’s ambitious digital learning initiatives including Moocs (massive open online courses) for over seven years and partnered with the Union HRD ministry for delivering certificate, diploma and degree courses to over 40,000 students in 53 African countries including Botswana, Rwanda and Ghana under the ministry’s Pan Africa e-network project. “The successful delivery of high-level educational content to several African countries through satellite communication and fibre optics has provided a huge boost to our confidence. Since then we have equipped AUO to transform into a full-fledged online university that offers 22 study programmes to over 50,000 students in India and abroad,” says Ajit Chauhan. Direct talk. “AUO was founded as the distance learning arm of Amity University 14 years ago to provide world-class online degree and diploma programmes to students beyond reach of brick and mortar higher education institutions. Designed to suit full-time students and working professionals, AUO offers day-night live lectures, continuous assessment of students’ progress through tests and assignments, personality development modules and placement support. Our high-quality online study programmes which adhere to UGC’s stringent criteria, are on a par with campus classes at Amity University, if not better,” enthuses Ajit Chauhan. AUO’s tuition fees for diploma, undergrad and Masters programmes range between Rs.1.5-2.5 lakh per year. Future plans. Encouraged by public recognition and response to AUO’s menu of online UGC approved study programmes, Chauhan’s goal is to reach 3 million learners worldwide over the next three years. “Our plan is to add more study programmes to our menu of courses to reach students around the world. Simultaneously, we will partner with industry to update course content and enhance the employability skills of our students,” vows Ajit Chauhan. Wind in your sails! Shraddha Goled (Bangalore)
To compile the league tables of India’s Top 300 budget private schools, C fore field researchers interviewed 2,458 BPS teachers and SEC (socio-economic category) C, D and E parents with children enrolled in budget schools countrywide. They perceptually rated BPS in their states and cities on 11 parameters of school education excellence. Shocking, but true. Although India’s unique budget private, aka affordable, schools which number an estimated 400,000 are schooling a staggering 60 million children, they are neither respected nor tolerated by academia and the establishment. Within the upper middle class — which has hogged almost all the gains of post-independence India’s feeble national development effort — the pavlovian reaction to budget private schools (BPS) is loathing and contempt. In the Nehruvian socialism lexicon, all private entrepreneurs — especially in education — are exploiters hellbent on deriving maximum profit from schooling children of the gullible poor. This dominant middle class sentiment has been sanctified by the country’s judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly deplored “commercialisation of education” while turning a judicial blind eye to the rampant commercialisation of the country’s crumbling legal system whose lethargy and chronic delays cost the Indian economy an estimated 2 percent of GDP growth annually. The aversion of academia and establishment towards BPS is evidenced by s.19 of the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Under this section, all private schools are obliged to adhere to stringent infrastructure norms — bathrooms, kitchen, store-room, playground and teacher-pupil ratio — on pain of punitive fines and forceful closure. However, schools promoted and/or managed by the Central, state and local governments are exempt from the provisions of s.19 and the infrastructure norms detailed in a Schedule of the RTE Act. Quite clearly, the objective of s.19 is to stifle and/or eliminate BPS which provide children of the lower middle and working classes an alternative to dysfunctional government schools characterised by English language aversion and pathetic learning outcomes. According to the Delhi-based National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), a representative body of BPS which claims a membership of 55,000, an estimated 23,000 low-priced schools across the country have already shut down because of constant harassment by inspectors of education ministries in several states, and another 20,000 are under threat of forcible closure for non-adherence to s.19 norms. The hostility of government officials at the Centre, and especially in the states towards BPS, is not born out of their child centrism, but because of increasing disgust among parents and children with dilapidated infrastructure, chronic teacher truancy, English learning aversion and rock-bottom learning outcomes for which government primaries/elementaries have become notorious. They are voting with their feet and wallets and fleeing to BPS countrywide. Therefore, the prime purpose of inserting s.19 in the RTE Act was to get rid of the competition to government schools. In EducationWorld, your editors believe in free markets and the fundamental right of parents to choose schools they believe are best for their children, and have always taken a…
Despite the country’s 400,000 BPS schooling a staggering number of 60 million children, they are anathema to the establishment including the academy. However, your editors believe BPS provide poor households a preferable alternative to dysfunctional government schools and should be celebrated. Here are the EW India Budget Private School Rankings 2020 – Dilip Thakore The phenomenal success of the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR), published uninterruptedly every September since 2007 — and which over the past 12 years has evolved into the world’s largest primary-secondary schools rating and rankings exercise — hasn’t satisfied everyone. Although parents, teachers and educationists in SEC (socio-economic category) ‘A’, which, broadly speaking comprises high income households — elite and upper middle class family units — countrywide have warmly welcomed the annual EWISR inasmuch as it enables them to choose day, day-cum-boarding, legacy boarding and international schools for their children, they are disappointing for the majority of aspirational parents and children in the country’s estimated 60 million middle and lower middle class households. The tuition fees of the country’s Top 1,000 schools, although modest by international standards, tend to be beyond their payment capability. Therefore, for some time your editors have been under pressure to also rate and rank ‘affordable’ primary-secondary schools beyond the Top 1,000, especially the country’s sui generis budget private schools (BPS) whose number, according to the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), a highly reputed Delhi-based think tank, is over 400,000 with a staggering enrolment of 60 million children. BPS are anathema to the establishment dominated by the neta-babu (politician-bureaucrat) brotherhood, the prime beneficiaries of Soviet-inspired Nehruvian socialism which over the past 70 years since independence, has transformed India into one of the world’s most ill-educated and backward countries on Planet Earth. But that’s another story. However, the brotherhood hates BPS promoted by private education entrepreneurs (edupreneurs) because they offer poor households an alternative to dysfunctional government schools whose prime purpose seems to be provision of well-paid teaching jobs to under-educated neta-babu kith and kin rather than schooling to children of bottom-of-pyramid households. This is evidenced by the insertion of s.19 in the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Under this section, all private schools are obliged to adhere to several stringent infrastructure norms — bathrooms, kitchens, store-room, playground and teacher-pupil ratio — on pain of punitive fines and forceful closure. However, government schools promoted and/or managed by the Central, state and local governments are exempt from provisions of s.19 and infrastructure norms detailed in the Schedule of the RTE Act. Quite clearly the objective of s.19 is to stifle and/or eliminate BPS which provide children of the lower middle and working class an alternative to failing government schools time-warped by English language aversion and pathetic learning outcomes. It’s an encouraging discovery that the native spirit of private enterprise is alive and well in Indian education that BPS have united under the banner of the Delhi-based National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) to obtain stay orders from…
At the 10th consecutive EW ECE National Conference, over 400 ECCE professionals, academics, principals and teachers from 70 cities across the country congregrated in Mumbai last month. They discussed best practices in ECCE and ways and means to universalise early childhood care and education in India – Summiya Yasmeen A decade ago in 2010, EducationWorld hosted the country’s first-ever Early Childhood Education National Conference in Mumbai to highlight the vital importance of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in the education continuum, and felicitate the country’s top-ranked preschools following India’s first ratings and ranking survey of preschools commissioned by this publication. Since then, the EW Early Childhood Education National Conference, alternatively staged in Mumbai and Bangalore, has evolved into a much-anticipated annual event that attracts ECCE professionals from across the country. To turn the wheel full circle, the landmark 10th EW ECE National Conference 2020 was deliberately convened in Mumbai on January 23. At the day-long conference, over 400 ECCE professionals, academics, principals and teachers from 70 cities across the country congregated in the packed ballroom of the upscale Sahara Star Hotel to discuss and debate best practices, new trends in early childhood care and deliberate upon ways and means to enable provision of professionally administered ECCE to all of India’s 164 million children in the 0-5 age group. Welcoming the delegates, Dilip Thakore, publisher-editor of EducationWorld, expressed satisfaction that the true value of ECCE has dawned upon government and academia. “Since 2010, when EducationWorld staged its first ECE National Conference, we have been in the vanguard of a growing national movement to pressure government to accord high priority to ECCE. It’s a matter of satisfaction that there is some traction on this important issue with the draft National Education Policy 2019 of the K. Kasturirangan Committee according high importance to early childhood education and proposing “seamless” extension of ECCE to class III with the recommendation this “pedagogical unit” be described as “foundational stage” education. The draft NEP has also endorsed the long-pending demand of EW and the Early Childhood Association to bring ECCE, currently under the jurisdiction of the Union ministry of women and child development, under the purview of the HRD ministry,” said Thakore, speaking on the occasion. The welcome address was followed by four keynote addresses delivered by nationally reputed ECCE experts. Dr. Venita Kaul, professor emerita and former founder-director of the Centre for Early Childhood Education and Development, Ambedkar University, Delhi commented on ‘The Draft National Education Policy’s belated discovery of early childhood care & education’. Dr. Swati Popat Vats, president of the Podar Jumbo Kids preschools chain and founder-president of the Early Childhood Association of India, which has a membership of 10,678 preschools across the country, delivered an engrossing lecture on ‘Incorporating the work of India’s pioneer early childhood educators into contemporary preschools’. Ruchita Dhar Shah, founder of the Facebook group First Moms Club which has a membership of 200,000 in 100 countries, explained ‘Why preschools should resist parental pressure for academic learning in pre-primary education’ and…
– Siddharth Chaturvedi is executive vice-president of the AISECT group India has vast potential for economic growth and development, considering it is the youngest country in the world with a median age of 29. While a young population is potentially a productive workforce, the fact that less than 5 percent of the country’s 420 million workforce is formally skilled, considerably dampens the prospect of Indian industry (and agriculture) becoming globally competitive in the foreseeable future. To achieve the ambitious targets set by the Central government under its Skill India Mission, there is urgent need for bridging the skilling-education gap by preparing students for industry at every stage of the education continuum. With two-third of the population still working in rural India, the national skilling effort especially needs to focus on agriculture and rural development. It is only by creating a holistic learning environment that incorporates skilling at different levels of education right from school to college and university (as recommended by the K. Kasturirangan Committee in the draft National Education Policy 2019 pending finalisation by the Union HRD ministry), that we can bridge the education-skilling gap. Because of the critical importance of introducing and intensifying vocational education and training (VET) in schools, AISECT institutions are working closely with the Union government to execute the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) programme to complement regular academic studies with quality skills training. After completing their schooling, students usually pursue higher education in search of better employment opportunities. But one of the cruel injustices of our education system is that according to the India Skill Report, 2019 of CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) barely 47 percent of graduates are employable, indicating a deep disconnect between academic knowledge and practical skills needed in industry. According to a report of the Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an estimated 11 million Indians lost their jobs last year, with rural India hit hardest. Little wonder that an estimated 12,000 rural citizens end their lives by suicide every year. With rising demand for workers familiar with emerging technologies and hands-on experience, it’s high time our universities started offering new-age study programmes such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, blockchain and neural networks to prepare students for moving up the value chain in the newly emergent, competitive jobs market. Simultaneously, as recommended by the K. Kasturirangan Committee, all undergrad colleges and universities should also incorporate skill development programmes into their regular degree courses. Short-term training integrated with much needed hands-on experience offered by universities in partnership with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and various sector skills councils has shown positive results in raising the employability of graduates in all sectors of industry. In this connection it is pertinent to note that over 80 percent of India’s workforce is employed in the unorganised sector of the economy where the formal skilling deficit is even greater than in India Inc, where skill development programmes are conducted by employer companies. It’s imperative therefore to establish separate institutions that impart…
Burhaan Rasheed Zargar and Raghav Khajuria — class X students of the CBSE-affiliated Jodhamal Public School, Jammu — were recently crowned champions of News Wiz Quiz 2019. In the national finals staged last December in Delhi, the winning duo exhibiting calm demeanour and high level of preparedness, outsmarted teams from Bishop School, Pune and The Aryan International School, Varanasi to bag the title. Started in 2016 as an annual quiz contest which tests the general and current affairs knowledge of senior secondary (class IX-XII) students countrywide, New Wiz Quiz is an initiative of the TV Today network and Tree of Knowledge Digital Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based edutainment company, promoted by popular quizzing pioneer Siddharth Basu. Following three testing rounds of online and live Skype elimination quizzing which began last August, the Jodhamal team bested 500,000 students from 750 schools countrywide in the 4th edition of the only news quiz show broadcast on national television by the TV Today network (India Today, Aaj Tak) to bag a humongous trophy and national recognition. “We attribute our success to school and parental support. In particular we owe immense gratitude to our physics teacher Sanjay Pandey for investing considerable time and patience in mentoring us and believing in our capabilities,” says Rasheed. Raghav, Rasheed’s quizzing partner since middle school, adds that winning News Wiz Quiz 2019 was a huge challenge because Jammu & Kashmir has been deprived of basic mobile Internet services following abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which transformed J&K into a Union territory with effect from October 31, 2019. Fearing widespread civil strife and unrest the Central government has blocked Internet for over five months. “This development was a big blow to us given the mine of information on the Internet. Instead we increased our dependence on the print media and national television. Fortunately because of broadband Internet service provided by our school, we came well-prepared for the national finals in Delhi,” says Raghav. True grit. Avtar Nehru (Delhi) Also read: Harsimran Kaur
At 6 ft. 5 inches, Kapurthala (Punjab)-based Harsimran Kaur (16) towers over most of her peers, not only in terms of height but also in achievement. Last November, this lanky teen achieved the distinction of becoming the first Asian woman selected for training at the prestigious National Basketball Association Global Academy, Canberra (Australia), an affiliate of the US-based National Basketball Association, (NBA) and one of its seven global centres. Among 42 athletes handpicked to attend the NBA Academies Women’s Programme camp in Mumbai, Harsimran Kaur impressed the high-profile jury comprising Jeniffer Azzi (former Olympic gold medallist (1996)), Ebony Hoffman (former NBA player) and Blair Hardiek (coach of Washington DC based-American University’s women team), with her stamina, excellent ball control and leadership skills to bag the most valuable player (MVP) award. Earlier, as a member of India’s national team (seniors), in 2019, Harsimran Kaur represented India in the recent South Asian Games in Kathmandu (Nepal); the Under-18 FIBA 3×3 Asian Championships in Malaysia (2019) and the Basketball Without Borders Asia Tournament, Tokyo (2019). Born into a sports-loving family — her father Sukhdev Singh is a former Indian Railways basketball player (1998-2013), and mother Sumanpreet Kaur, a former member of India’s national women’s volleyball team (1994-2001) — Harsimran Kaur, a class XI student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Kapurthala, took time to choose her preferred sport. “By the time I turned 12, I started competing and winning inter and intra-school tournaments. This persuaded me that basketball rather than football and cricket which I also played, was my most preferred sport,” says the spunky teenager whose daily regimen comprises six hours of rigorous training, except on days she is attending camps. Moreover, taking nothing for granted, this promising Indian hoopster has struck a fine balance between academics and basketball. In the CBSE class X board exam in 2019 she averaged 85 percent despite back-to-back tournaments and a demanding training regimen. “Currently I am preparing for SAT scheduled in May 2020. I am hoping to get admission into one of the National Collegiate Athletic Association division I colleges in the US with a full scholarship. My ultimate dream is to play in the Women’s NBA,” said Harsimran Kaur. Power to your elbow! Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Also read: Rasheed Zargar & Raghav Khajuria
How to win an Indian election: What political parties don’t want you to know – Shivam Shankar Singh Penguin/Ebury press Rs.240, Pages 201 Shivam Shankar Singh’s How to Win an Indian Election is an insider’s candid account of how political parties leverage voters’ data and digital technologies for political campaigning. Singh headed data analytics and campaigns for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Manipur and Tripura legislative assembly elections under the guidance of the party’s national general secretary, Ram Madhav. By sharing insights as a former BJP data and campaign analyst, Singh spotlights the scale, impact and consequences of digital campaigning for micro-targeting voters. It helps one understand, to some extent, the role of data and new-age technology in the recently concluded General Election 2019 which the BJP won with a landslide majority. How to win an Indian election starts with the aspiration of the author to do good for his country. He sees much value in returning to India from the US — under a LAMP fellowship — to serve the country by engaging with members of Parliament on policy matters. This phase in his life and career is marked by an “obsessive desire to learn about the Indian political landscape and the people who populate it”. After the fellowship ended, Singh joined the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), a company run by political strategist Prashant Kishor who had masterminded Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial campaign in 2014. Kishor backs campaigns that have a leading face. He believes this approach connects with the public and is more marketable, especially in a country where citizens yearn to follow a supreme leader. In 2014 India had grown tired of Congress nepotism and corruption. This made it easier for Modi and his team to present the persona of a strong leader for the country. Singh learned much under Kishor’s leadership before moving to work directly for the BJP under Madhav’s guidance. Comparing politics to entrepreneurship, Singh says that in the absence of data and privacy regulations in India, political parties easily access and play around with personal data of social media users — all without users’ knowledge, let alone permission. Through personal anecdotes, Singh discloses how data analysts, supported by sophisticated technology, assist political parties to reach their audiences, map their identities, monetise their emotions, and capture their votes. According to the author, in many large Indian states, the caste and religion of over 70 percent of the people can be determined by analysing their names, which are publicly available on electoral rolls. Based on this and other information gathered by them, political parties use fake news and propaganda on social media to shape — or rather manipulate — voters’ minds through targeted profiling. For those who’ve read Swati Chaturvedi’s I Am a Troll, the revelations in How to Win an Indian Election won’t come as a surprise, especially since Singh doesn’t write much about organised disinformation or misinformation or the source of it. The book does, however, reveal the functioning of BJP’s…
Gun Island – Amitav Ghosh; Penguin Random House, Rs.699, Pages 287 Amitav Ghosh is back with a fictional work after he declared in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) that “the age of global warming defies both literary fiction and contemporary common sense” and therefore, such improbabilities are rarely “accommodated in the deliberately prosaic world of serious prose fiction”. Ghosh’s new novel – Gun Island spins a yarn that attempts to defy his own prognosis, while it is tenuously tied to his 2004 book The Hungry Tide, set in the Sunderbans marsh forests of West Bengal. Several characters — Nilima Bose, founder of the Badabon Trust of Lusibari; cetologist Piya, Moyna and Tipu, widow and son of Fokir; seasoned fisherman Horen Naskar — reappear in Gun Island. This novel weaves contemporary environmental concerns, border crossings and migration and human trafficking together against the backdrop of folk myths and resurgence of belief in extra-sensory perception. The story-line features the narrator Dinanath Dutta, aka Deen, a folklorist and rare-books dealer based in Brooklyn, who visits Kolkata every winter and is drawn into investigating the lore of Bonduki Sadagar (gun merchant) and rediscovering his forgotten shrine in the Sundarbans, “the frontier where commerce and the wilderness look each other directly in the eye” and the “war between profit and nature is fought”. However, although Ghosh’s latest oeuvre is a novel with a narrative storyline, it’s also a polemical tract on how urbanisation and climate change have wreaked havoc on this tiger and snake-infested marshland, prompting large-scale human migration in search of sustainable livelihoods. It recounts Tipu acting as an enabler who helps illegal emigrants to find new lives in Europe/Italy/Venice. Far-fetched though it may seem, a Venetian lagoon becomes a haven for Bangladeshis, a mirror image of the Sunderbans where Rafi, the grandson of a Capt. Ilyas who maintained the shrine that Deen visits, is a construction worker. While recounting the legend of the Bonduki Sadagar, Ghosh takes readers back to folk stories featuring Manasa, the snake goddess of the Sunderbans who protects her followers and harms sceptical unbelievers like the gun merchant. The journey of the 17th century merchant is fraught with risks and adventures but recreates the cosmopolitan trade links that existed between Asia and Europe. Deen’s Venetian friend Cinta, professor Emerita at the University of Padova, unravels the puzzles that had intrigued him when he saw symbols and pictorial representations on the friezes in the shrine of Bonduki Sadagar. Although the answers to the riddles appear somewhat contrived, it traces the etymology of the word bundook (gun) to banadiq, the Byzantine name for Venice and is also associated with guns, hazelnuts and bullets in Arabic. The old ghetto frequented by Jews like Ilyas, formerly a foundry for armaments, turns into a refuge of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in more contemporary times. The journey of Captain Ilyas and Bonduki Sadagar is routed through Egypt and Turkey to Venice as almost like a magician, Cinta is able to establish…
Ten years of uninterrupted British Raj in the blue-chip The Doon School, Dehradun (TDS), routinely voted India’s premier all-boys legacy boarding school in the annual EW India School Rankings, has ended. Citing “personal reasons”, Matthew Raggett, the British headmaster of TDS for the past five years, has resigned and exited India. Prior to Raggett’s appointment, Doon School’s well-furbished Headmasters Lodge was occupied by the school’s Irish-British incumbent Peter McLaughlin for ten years. The return of the Raj to TDS when McLaughlin was appointed headmaster after the departure of the native born Canada and US-educated Kanti Bajpai in 2009, took observers by surprise because TDS was promoted by S.R. Das, a staunchly nationalist Kolkata barrister as a reaction to several Raj era boarding schools in India reluctant to admit native students. In 1935 Das crowdfunded and established TDS on a 70-acre campus in salubrious Dehradun and recruited Arthur Foot, a physics teacher at Britain’s famous Eton College, to replicate the best practices of Eton in the wholly residential, all-boys TDS. The school received a huge reputation boost when Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi, grandsons of prime minster Jawaharlal Nehru, who famously described himself as the last Englishman in India, were admitted into TDS in the 1960s. After Bajpai was appointed headmaster, the general expectation was that the school’s tradition of British headmasters had ended. But surprisingly the board of governors chose to appoint Mclaughlin and Raggett, who had headed several second string private boarding schools in the UK and Europe. However the steady internationalisation of TDS born out of nationalist impulses, discomfited the school’s board of governors and when Raggett disaffiliated TDS — which had already introduced the IB (Geneva) diploma for higher secondary students during Mclaughlin’s tenure — from the Delhi-based CISCE and introduced the Cambridge International (UK) curriculum for classes VI-X, it proved to be the last straw. Raggett was asked to resign. Just as well because there was a trace of disdain in the insouciance with which these expat headmasters disregarded native initiatives in education, including the sui generis EducationWorld.
By any yardstick, the Republic Day (January 26) parade down Delhi’s Rajpath presided by President Ram Nath Kovind and his special guest Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, at which representative contingents of India’s 1.3 million army, navy and air force staged a march past, was a grand spectacle. The hour-long parade featuring generals, admirals and air marshals and their immaculately attired forces marching in perfect formation showcasing impressive military hardware as jets and helicopters criss-crossed Delhi skies, is a spectacle designed to make citizens swell with pride. Yet post-parade reflection by your choked-up editor raised disturbing questions about the propriety of a nation in which 47 percent of children under age five suffer severe malnutrition and stunting, and which grudgingly hosts 300 million citizens ekeing out miserable lives on $2 (Rs.142) per day to cover food, clothing, shelter, transport, education and healthcare, holding grand parades exhibiting its military prowess. India’s declared annual defence expenditure is Rs.2.09 lakh crore (2019-20), double the Central government’s expenditure on public education and health added together. At a deeper level India’s huge defence expenditure is reflective of foreign policy and diplomatic failure. Seventy years after independence, successive governments and the over-hyped Indian Foreign Service haven’t been able to bilaterally negotiate the India-China border dispute or the Kashmir issue. The hearts of India’s pampered middle class might swell with pride as military regiments in full regalia march down Rajpath displaying imported hardware which generates employment in manufacturing countries. But the ultimate price of military pomp and show is paid by the Republic’s 300 million poor living on the subsistence line.
Distance lends perspective. That’s perhaps why in a cover story titled ‘Intolerant India — How Modi is Endangering the World’s Biggest Democracy’, the London-based weekly The Economist (January 23) has produced an incisive analysis detailing how the BJP, now in its second term in office at the Centre, is committing slow harakiri through a painful process of self-disembowelment. The three-page cover story reminds readers that in 2014 and again in 2019, the Narendra Modi-led BJP was given massive electoral endorsements because of its convincing new narrative of firing the engines of the Indian economy paralysed by the indecisiveness and corruption of the two-term Congress-led UPA-II government. And the BJP’s second electoral plank, recalls The Economist, was to end the corruption with which the UPA-II government had become synonymous. Six years later, it’s clear that through its reckless currency demonetisation decision of 2016, and reluctance to legislate structural reforms to end Congress’ licence-permit raj and privatise the public sector, the Modi government has plunged annual GDP growth to a new millennium low of 4.8 percent, with unemployment at its highest in 43 years. Moreover, instead of knuckling down and reforming the economy, in a clumsily transparent attempt to divert public attention, the BJP leadership has ratcheted up anti-Pakistan war rhetoric and targeted India’s 215 million-strong Muslim minority, which has caused public outrage and provoked minorities, liberals and millennials anti-BJP countrywide coalition. On the issue of ending corruption as well, the BJP has failed. The latest Global Corruption Perception Index 2019 of the Berlin-based Transparency International indicates that India has slipped two ranks to #80 out of 140 countries assessed, mainly because of the in-built corruption of the electoral bonds purchase scheme legislated by the Modi government. The moving finger is writing on walls across the country, with the BJP leadership too myopic to decipher it.
New Delhi, January 10. Honda Cars India has partnered with Juana Technologies to launch India Innovate — Wheels to Fly, the India chapter of an international STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) and a ‘Race to the line’ competition. This fun-win-learn initiative is the country’s first STEM-based Model Rocket Car Making and Racing competition which proposes to attract 5,000 students from over 100 schools in 25 cities. The competition consists of two programmes — Fly to the Line (air glider design) for children in classes IV-V and Race to the Line (car design) competition for children in classes VI-X. Introduced in the UK in 2015, the broad objective of the competition is to promote innovative thinking and inspire students to pursue careers in STEM-related vocations. Comments Swati Ganguly, CEO & co-founder of the Delhi-based Juana Technologies: “We are thrilled to partner with Honda Cars in bringing this global competition to India. We hope with this integration of industry and academia, students will be inspired to pursue careers in STEM and learn to devise innovative solutions to manage complex life challenges.” Adani-KISS School Baripada (Odisha), January 8. Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the Adani-KISS Residential School for tribal children at Bankishole, Baripada, Mayurbhanj, Odisha. The Adani-KISS Residential School is established on 50 acres of land with financial support of the Adani Foundation. In the first phase, 1,500 students from Mayurbhanj district will be enrolled in classes I-XII. Speaking on the occasion, Patnaik thanked the Adani Foundation and the KISS management for promoting this modern school for socially disadvantaged children. “Empowerment and change is only possible through education,” he said. Addressing the gathering, Dr. Priti Adani, chairperson, Adani Foundation added: “Education is the most powerful tool for social transformation. The Adani Foundation is happy to strengthen the educational scenario in the remote tribal areas of Odisha by partnering with the prestigious Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.” GISB’s UMass Week lectures Mumbai, January 20. Under a partnership announced last August between the Mumbai-based Global Institute of Sports Business (GISB) and the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the first UMass Week lectures on sports marketing, market research, consumer behaviour and sponsorship were delivered in Mumbai by Dr. Elizabeth Delia. Commenting on the experience, GISB program director, Neel Shah, said: “Dr. Delia’s sessions educated our students by applying the right mix of theory and practical learning for a number of core sports management subjects. In addition, this project enables our faculty to apply this global best practices curriculum in the Indian context.” GISB claims to offer India’s “first and only industry designed and internationally certified sports full-time study programme” of 15 months duration. Infinity 2020 winners Mumbai, January 11. Over 100 students from more than 30 Indian and overseas schools participated in ‘Infinity 2020 — The Ultimate Math Championship’ hosted by the Aditya Birla World Academy in association with BITS, Pilani in Mumbai. Infinity is a prestigious annual two-day inter-school mathematics competition held since 2014.…
Muzaffarpur, January 5. Speaking at a college seminar on ‘Quality education and teachers condition in Bihar’, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Union minister of state for health and family welfare, said acquiring knowledge of English language is more important than clearing an exam on the subject. “The current education system is focused on passing examinations and getting a degree without stressing the importance of acquiring knowledge,” the minister said. Endorsing the optional provision of passing in English of former chief minister Karpoori Thakur, the minister said: “That was the right decision… One should have knowledge of the English language, but making it mandatory to pass in English is incorrect.” Gujarat: Ayurveda education initiative New Delhi, January 8. The Delhi-based University Grants Commission has conferred Institution of National Importance status on the Jamnagar-based Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda (ITRA), a cluster of Ayurveda medicine institutes affiliated with the Gujarat Ayurveda University. ITRA comprises the Institute for Post Graduate Teaching and Research in Ayurveda; Shri Gulabkunwerba Ayurveda Mahavidyalaya and the Institute of Ayurveda Pharmaceutical Sciences. The consolidation of Ayurveda teaching institutes will reduce government expenditure on public health. “There is rising interest and demand for Ayurveda knowledge and services all over the world. India is the country of origin of Ayurveda and the world is looking up to India to showcase state-of-art institutions providing international-level education and training in Ayurveda,” says a UGC statement. Maharashtra: Education think-tank proposal Mumbai, January 12. The state government is set to constitute a think-tank to devise strategies to improve quality of K-12 education in Maharashtra, announced school education minister Varsha Gaikwad. Addressing the media, the minister said the think-tank will include elected representatives, education experts, teachers, parents, retired bureaucrats with experience of formulating education policy, NGOs and media covering the education beat. “I plan to start interacting with them. This will help us in coming up with something constructive to upgrade the quality of education in schools across the state,” she said. A leader of the Congress party which allied with the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party to form the tripartite alliance government of Maharashtra in November 2019, Gaikwad was given charge of the ministry in January. Uttarakhand: Mobile phones referendum Dehradun, January 14. The state government is contemplating a referendum in institutions of higher education to ban mobile phones in classrooms. “A poll will soon be conducted in colleges of the states to ascertain majority opinion on the government’s proposed ban on use of mobile phones in classrooms. If 51 percent of students vote in favour, we will go ahead with it,” said the state’s higher education minister Dhan Singh Rawat in a public statement. The proposed ban is a response to growing concern expressed by teachers and parents over excessive use of mobile phones in classrooms, the minister added. Jammu & Kashmir: Swachh Bharat initiative Jammu, January 24. Low-cost sanitary napkin vending machines will soon be installed in government schools in Kashmir’s Bandipora district to promote menstrual hygiene among girl children, announced Imtiyaz Ahmad, joint director (planning),…
“The shocking violence at JNU should convince you of one simple proposition: India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point and crush it by brute force.” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former vice chancellor of Ashoka University, on the recent attack on JNU students by masked goons (Indian Express, January 7) “Although almost half of four-year-olds (44.2 percent) and more than a quarter of all five-year-olds (26.3 percent) are enrolled in anganwadis, these children have far lower levels of cognitive skills and foundational ability than their counterparts in private LKG and UKG classes.” Annual Status of Education Report 2019 released by Pratham Education Foundation (January 14) “CAA is blatantly unconstitutional and combined with NRC fundamentally discriminatory.” Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala chief minister on the Citizenship Amendment Act and proposed National Register of Citizens (Outlook, January 20) “Online abuse on Twitter demeans women, it invalidates their voice, it belittles them, it intimidates them, and it can silence them.” Nazia Erum, head of media and advocacy, Amnesty International India (‘How Twitter became so toxic for India’s women politicians’, CNN, January 23) “By undermining the secular principles of the Constitution, Mr. Modi’s latest initiatives threaten to do damage to India’s democracy that could last for decades. They are also likely to lead to bloodshed.” The Economist on how the BJP government’s Citizenship Amendment Act is creating divisions that imperil the world’s biggest democracy (‘Intolerant India, January 25-31) “Nothing integrates a nation better than economic prosperity. Divisions in society begin to dissolve when there is a feeling of all-round well-being.” Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief, India Today on why the BJP government needs to make the economy its most urgent priority (India Today, January 27)
Nationwide protests on college and university campuses against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), exacerbated by the brutal attack on Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University students by masked intruders who assaulted and grievously wounded office-bearers of the JNU Students’ Union on January 5, and police excesses on the campuses of Aligarh Muslim University (December 15) and Jamia Millia Islamia University (December 15), have had an echo in Karnataka. Hitherto, students in this southern seaboard state (pop.64 million), reputed for its STEM (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) and professional education institutions (Manipal University, IIM-Bangalore), have been relatively apolitical, and not inclined to become involved with national political issues and controversies. However, on January 14, anti-BJP and prime minister Modi graffiti appeared on the campus walls of Bangalore’s highly respected Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology (SIADT) ridiculing prime minister Modi and home minister Amit Shah, the authors of CAA/NRC. A week earlier, BJP volunteers — Karnataka is ruled by a BJP government led by B.S. Yediyurappa, who formed a government in July 2019 after engineering defections from the Congress and JD (S) parties — attempted to force women students of Jyoti Nivas College (JNC) to sign a pro-CAA petition. This prompted Congress party leader and former Karnataka chief minister K. Siddaramaiah to accuse the ruling BJP of attempting to “subvert knowledge and education institutions for selfish motives”. The protests that broke out in JNC and other varsities nationwide prompted several colleges and universities in the state including IISc, St. Joseph’s College, IIM-Bangalore and University of Mysore to follow suit. Although by Delhi standards student protests were mild and peaceful, students (and faculty) of Karnataka’s nationally reputed institutions of higher education made plain their disapproval and opposition to CAA/NRC, and the BJP leadership’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. In addition to student protests, the state’s 7.9 million-strong Muslim community — Bangalore hosts a large and prosperous Muslim traders and professionals community — staged several massive and peaceful protests against the CAA-NRC legislation. These citizens’ protests were respected and commended by the police reporting to the BJP government of the state. In this context it’s pertinent to note that college and university campuses in Karnataka have been apolitical since 1989 when the then Congress government banned students unions following caste violence after the publication of the Mandal Report and creation of a special 27 percent quota in higher education for OBC (other backward class) students. Thereafter in 2006 following the recommendation of the James Lyngdoh Committee, a ‘syndicate system’ was introduced under which purportedly apolitical students were appointed by college and university administrations to represent students for interactions with institutional managements. “Although syndicate members are supposed to be apolitical, they are usually members of the ruling party. This is anti-democratic. In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with students unions affiliated with political parties representing students. This is how future leaders of the country are groomed. Student activism is thriving in the neighbouring states — Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and…
It doesn’t augur well for the future growth and prosperity of the western seaboard state of Maharashtra — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 20 percent of national industrial output — that less than 6 percent of candidates who have written the state’s teacher eligibility test (TET) — a prerequisite of being allowed to teach in government primary schools — have cleared the exam since its introduction in 2013. Of the 1.8 million graduates, including in-service teachers, who have written the five annual TETs held thus far, only 69,705 — a mere 3.8 percent have passed. It is pertinent to note a diploma in education (D.Ed), the basic government approved qualification for teachers, is a prerequisite of writing TET. Under s.23 (1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, any duly authorised “academic authority” can prescribe the minimum qualifications for (school) teachers. Accordingly, the Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training (MSCERT) introduced TET in 2013 and made it mandatory for aspirational and in-service teachers in the state’s 84,050 rural (zilla parishad), urban (including municipal) and private aided schools in which teachers’ salaries are paid by the state government. TET question papers are set by MSCERT and the examination is conducted by the Pune-based Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE). TET comprises two question papers: paper I for lower primary classes I-V and paper II for upper primary (VI-VIII) teachers with candidates required to answer 150 multiple-choice questions covering child development and pedagogy, languages, mathematics, environmental studies, science and social sciences. The pass percentage for open category candidates is 60 percent (90 marks) while for various reserved category candidates it’s 55 percent (83 marks). Ironically, despite all in-service and aspiring teachers having cleared D.Ed, they have consistently fared poorly in both TET papers over the years. A mere 1 percent of the 260,629 and 191,370 candidates who wrote TET 2014 and 2015 exams passed paper I. In 2017, only 2.29 percent of the 127,727 candidates cleared paper II. This data has evidently unnerved the state’s 542,000 government school teachers, all of whom are obliged to clear their TET exams in three attempts or face dismissal as per two warnings issued by the state’s education ministry in June and November last year. While aspiring teachers who complete their D.Ed course typically have a seven-year time window (under s.23 (2)) to clear TET, the state government which spends almost 80 percent of its education budget of Rs.56,854 crore (2018-19) on teacher salaries, has finally decided to bite the bullet and has directed schools to terminate the services of non-TET teachers or bear the burden of their remuneration. Confronted with abysmal TET pass percentages and the prospect of mass dismissal of their members, teacher associations have been quick to ascribe poor TET results to faulty evaluation, lack of reference books, papers being set beyond the scope of the state board syllabus and error-riddled question papers. These charges are not unwarranted. In the TET exam of January…
Inevitably, the gathering storm of countrywide protests against the BJP/NDA government legislated Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) has struck a resonant chord in college and university campuses in West Bengal — especially in Kolkata — which has a long tradition of students politics and activism. Students of the state’s premier universities including Jadavpur, Presidency, Calcutta and IIT-Kharagpur have strongly condemned brutal attacks by the police on students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim universities on December 15, and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5 while they were protesting CAA. On January 7, four rallies were staged in Jadavpur University, three by students and one by faculty to protest police brutality against members of the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU). “We are in complete solidarity with JNUSU. Every attempt by the fascist BJP/NDA government to destroy mass students’ movements will result in equal resistance by us,” warns Debraj Debnath, general secretary of the CPM-affiliated Students Federation of India. In Presidency University a massive students’ protest was called on Founders’ Day (January 20), with chief guest Bibhas Chakraborty, a veteran theatre personality and alum, demanding a referendum on CAA. The same day, students of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS, estb.1999) revoked their invitation to West Bengal’s governor Jagdeep Dhankhar who had been invited as chief guest at the closing ceremony of the International Model United Nations (IMUN) programme scheduled for January 10, as the students felt that the governor’s stand on the CAA is “inconsistent with the views and ideals of the NUJS IMUN Society and the NUJS general body at large”. However, statewide protests against CAA which fast-tracks citizenship of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Christian persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but specifically excludes religiously persecuted Muslim minority sects (Shia, Ahmediya, Bahai etc), reached a crescendo on January 11 when prime minister Narendra Modi flew into Kolkata to visit the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur on the outskirts of Kolkata. All efforts of the Kolkata police to barricade Modi’s route from the airport to the city failed and the PM had to take a helicopter and a boat ride down the Hooghly to reach his destination. Although students protests against the CAA/NRC in Kolkata have been strident and successful, most monitors of West Bengal’s academic scene concede that chief minister Mamata Banerjee who is vehemently opposed to the CAA/NRC and the BJP — not necessarily in that order — has provided overt and covert support to the protests. With Bengal’s legislative assembly election scheduled for the summer of 2021, Banerjee whose Trinamool Congress party famously routed the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front government which misruled West Bengal uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011) in 2011, and again in 2016, is fighting a do-or-die electoral battle against a resurgent BJP. In General Election 2019, the BJP which won a mere two of Bengal’s 42 seats in the Lok Sabha, Delhi in 2014, upped its ante to 18 seats…
The country’s show-piece Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, estb.1969) sited on a 1,000 acre campus in the heart of New Delhi which has 7,369 postgraduate students mentored by 614 faculty and offers 148 study programmes, is limping back to normalcy. For the past three months since a steep hike in hostel fees — albeit on a rock-bottom base unchanged for decades — was decreed on October 28, this top-ranked public university heavily subsidised by Central government (annual budget: Rs.200 crore), has become the theatre of violent clashes between the leftist JNU Students Union (JNUSU) and ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), a pan-India students organisation affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and especially with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu majoritarian cultural mentor organisation of BJP. Weeks of protests and counter-protests on JNU’s scenic campus culminated on January 5 when a posse of 30-40 masked men mysteriously entered the campus at night and ran amok targeting JNU Students Union (JNUSU) leaders and office-bearers. JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh suffered head injuries and several union members were beaten up. JNUSU alleges that the perpetrators of the violence and destruction of property were ABVP members and/or co-conspirators who were let into the campus by the anti-JNUSU management and ABVP members while the Delhi police controlled by the (BJP) Central government, turned a blind eye to the campus mayhem responding to emergency calls after three hours. With many students fleeing the campus and JNUSU demanding the resignation of vice chancellor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar (a controversial BJP appointee) the campus was in effective lockdown in January. Passing an order on a petition filed by JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and other office-bearers, challenging a fee hike in the new hostel prices manual of JNU on January 24, Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the Delhi high court opined that government is obliged to fund education. “Government has to fund public education. The burden of paying the salaries of workers is not on students. Someone has to find the funds.” The single judge decreed that provisions contained in the old manual will prevail with students required to pay pre-revision tuition and hostel fees pending final judgment of the petition by a larger bench of the court. The JNU administration didn’t challenge the interim order. The trigger of student protests which has resulted in unprecedented violence, turmoil and disruption of JNU’s academic calendar was a decision taken on October 28 by the Inter-Hall Administration (IHA) to steeply increase hostel fees. Even though it is the duly elected students’ representative body, JNUSU was not invited or party to the decision. For the breakdown of student-management communication at JNU, students’ union spokespersons squarely blame vice chancellor Jagadesh Kumar, a former professor of electrical engineering at IIT Delhi, who was appointed vice chancellor in January 2016 by the BJP/NDA government. Immediately after his appointment as VC, he constituted a committee to examine room rents and utility service charges in JNU’s 18 hostels to bridge a recurring annual deficit of…
Your cover story ‘Smooth launch of India’s pioneer interwoven arts and sciences university’ (EW January) gave an impressive account of south India’s first liberal arts Krea University. It’s a venture of great potential. In particular its unique interwoven curriculum which combines arts and sciences education is an exciting innovation in Indian higher education. Let’s see how it is received by India Inc. However, the tuition fees of Rs.8 lakh per year are steep by Indian middle-class standards. Krea needs to offer scholarships to attract the best and brightest students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. Shruti Kale Bangalore Overdue initiative Your special report ‘Odisha leads India’s belated VET drive’ (EW January) was well-researched and informative. It rightly highlights the vital connection between poor quality vocational education and training (VET) and the abysmally low productivity of Indian agriculture, industry and labour. Successive governments at the Centre and in the states have failed to address the issue of providing acceptable quality primary and skills education to India’s high-potential children and youth. Odisha’s VET push is very encouraging and a model for other states. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and OSDA chairman Subroto Bagchi must be commended for driving this overdue initiative. Binita Bir Bangalore Right collaboration I am a regular reader of Education-World. I read with interest your Special Report on Odisha’s VET success story (EW January). Once India’s’ most economically under-developed state, Odisha is making steady progress on all fronts, especially in education. Your interview with Subroto Bagchi, chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority, was revealing. A successful IT entrepreneur and experienced corporate professional, he has done the right thing by collaborating with ITES, Singapore to upgrade Odisha’s ITIs. Singapore’s VET system is the envy of the world and there’s much we can learn from them. Piyali Bose Kolkata Enduring moral force Thank you for the cover story ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s prescription can revive Indian education’ (EW October) which I read only recently. If you ask ten persons about Mahatma Gandhi, eight would tell you that he freed us from the shackles of British rule. That would be a Himalayan understatement. Bapu strived and struggled all his life to uplift the character and awaken the chetana of the people of India, to make them true human beings. Winning freedom was just a means to this end. There is not one aspect of human life — from diet to moksha — that Bapu did not meditate upon and present us with the results of his remarkably original thinking and hard practice which he called his Experiments with Truth. To him, truth was God. He never taught us anything without first practicing it. That is why millions follow him even 71 years after his departure. He remains a powerful moral force for the entire human race. H.N. Dastur Mumbai Commendable initiative Warmest congratulations for the smooth orchestration of the inaugural EducationWorld India Eduresources Star Ratings Awards 2020 in Mumbai on January 9. For the first time logistics (if I may use this word) providers for establishing greenfield…
A nationwide confrontation is brewing between the country’s 30 million strong community of students in institutions of higher education and the BJP/NDA 2.0 government at the Centre which was re-elected to power with an improved majority in the Lok Sabha less than a year ago. On January 5, with the tacit approval of the Delhi police which is controlled by the Central government, a mob of masked men and some women surreptitiously entered the 1,000-acre campus of the country’s top-ranked Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (JNU) and ran riot attacking previously identified office bearers of the Left-aligned JNU Students Union and destroying university property. Earlier on December 15, police personnel in Uttar Pradesh — a BJP ruled state — forcibly entered the campus of Aligarh Muslim University and brutally beat up students who were peacefully protesting enactment of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). On the very same day in Delhi following anti-CAA/NRC protests outside the university during which several buses were set on fire by BJP/ABVP co-conspirators, a police contingent forcibly entered the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia University allegedly in pursuit of rioters and brutally beat up over 30 students while heaping religious invectives. The pace at which the BJP leadership is losing the confidence of the students’ community and the millennial generation who less than eight months ago were solidly behind it, is astonishing. The party’s leadership seems unaware that university students are relatively well-educated adults unlikely to be susceptible to simpleton anti-Muslim and minorities rhetoric which has earned the BJP electoral dividends in the recent past. Indeed the BJP leadership has misinterpreted the massive votes of confidence it was given in the general elections of 2014 and 2019. Although the promise to construct a Ram mandir in Ayodhya won it some votes, the massive endorsement of the BJP was prompted by its pledge to work for sab ka saath sab ka vikas (economic progress for all) and in particular to generate mass employment. Six years in office at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous (215 million) state, BJP/NDA governments have conspicuously failed to deliver these promises. Annual GDP growth rate has plunged to a mere 4.8 percent, lowest in the new millennium and unemployment is at its highest in three decades. The intelligentsia and students community have correctly interpreted the CAA and proposed NRC as anti-Muslim legislation designed to divert public attention from several reckless initiatives which have ruined the high-potential Indian economy. Yet this diversionary strategy isn’t working. Even if the older generation hasn’t, youth in higher education have experienced the country’s unique syncretism and are quite comfortable with it.
Since we convened the first National Conference on Early Childhood Education in 2010, EducationWorld (estb.1999) has been in the vanguard of a lethargic national movement to accord high importance to early childhood care and education (ECCE) for children in the age group 0-5. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, in a society in which the establishment has accorded low priority to public education and human capital development, the vital importance of professionally administered ECCE hardly registered on the radar of academia or the establishment. It’s a small mercy that in 1975 the Central government decreed the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme which mandated the establishment of anganwadis to provide nutritional care to lactating mothers and new-borns and also provide early childhood education to the 0-5 age group. The latest ASER 2019 beams a searching spotlight on ECCE by testing the early learning of 36,930 children in pre-primary education in 26 districts of 24 states of the Indian Union. According to ASER 2019, only 54 percent of children aged five who receive at least one year of preparedness before entering class I, are enrolled in government schools including anganwadis with a sizeable 37 percent enrolled in privately promoted preschools and 8 percent deprived of any professionally administered ECCE. Under the ASER methodology, children were tested for cognitive development; early language; early numeracy and for social and emotional development. In all tests the learning outcomes are poor with only 51 percent in the 4-5 age group able to pass the cognitive development test. Inevitably, private preschoolers performed better (56 cf. 45 percent). Similarly only 43.6 percent of government preschool and 58.3 percent of 4-5 year-olds in private school passed Pratham’s early language capability test. In early numeracy, a mere 30.2 percent of government school children passed the ASER test cf. 45.7 percent of private preschools. ASER 2019 indicates that while children in private preschools are better prepared for formal education, the overall picture of ECCE learning is dismal. Belatedly, the draft National Education Policy 2019 of the Kasturirangan Committee, awaiting finalisation by the Central government, stresses that brain development of children is 85 percent complete by age six and recommends that ECCE should be transformed into foundational education for all children until age eight (class III) to provide them a strong foundation for future learning. “It is now important to stress that early childhood education is not only good for the child but it is good for the mother, the family, society, and the economy of the country. It is for these multiple reasons that we need to strengthen and expand early childhood care and education based on what we know about the growth of the child,” writes Madhav Chavan, president of the Pratham Education Foundation in the preface of ASER 2019. That’s sound advice on which is dependent the future of generation next.
An initio since the very first issue of EducationWorld was somewhat hesitantly launched in 1999 — we celebrated our 20th anniversary last November — your editors have always supported private initiatives in education. Although following the ill-advised grafting of Soviet-inspired Nehruvian socialism on the Indian economy soon after independence it became fashionable to rubbish private schools, colleges and the few private universities that battled ubiquitous red tape and struck roots, we have always encouraged private education in the national interest. That’s why in 2007, we introduced the country’s very first league tables ranking the country’s best private schools in categories of day, boarding, international and several sub-categories under them (to avoid apples and oranges-type comparisons). In recent years, we have also begun including a league table ranking India’s unique budget private schools (BPS) after the Centre for Civil Society, Delhi — a highly respected think-tank — estimated the number of BPS which provide rock-bottom priced primary-secondary education to children of low-income households, at 400,000 with a staggering aggregate enrolment of 60 million children. Although demonised by the neta-babu brotherhood and Left intellectuals who dominate the academy, BPS promoters driven by enlightened self-interest and philanthropy, are rendering valuable public service by providing aspirational lower, middle and organised working class households affordable alternative (to public schools) education at all price points. Unsurprisingly, the establishment’s response to the BPS — eulogised by Prof. James Tooley in his under-appreciated The Beautiful Tree (2009) — is to outlaw them. Section 19 of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, prescribes strict infrastructure norms for BPS and punitive fines and forcible closure for non-compliance. Government schools are exempted from compliance. Be that as it may, responding to pressure from BPS promoters/managements and parents in SEC (socio-economic category) C, D and E, we commissioned our trusted partner Centre for Forecasting and Research Pvt. Ltd, Delhi (C fore) to conduct field surveys in major cities nationwide to unearth the country’s most-respected BPS. Over a period of three months, 50 C fore field personnel constituted a sample database of 2,458 respondents comprising parents with children in BPS, principals and teachers to rate affordable schools (shortlisted by NISA) in 143 cities/towns on 11 parameters of school excellence (teacher competence, academic reputation, co-curricular education, sports education, value for money etc). The scores awarded by respondents under the 11 parameters were totalled to rank 300 of the country’s sufficiently well-reputed BPS (schools rated by less than 25 respondents are not ranked) in 18 states. And in our second lead feature, we report on our landmark 10th National Early Childhood Education Conference 2020 convened in Mumbai on January 23, and felicitations for the country’s most admired pre-primary schools.
Alarming state violence against universities
There is something troubling, even scary, about the manner in which the Narendra Modi government is handling the critical education sector, specifically higher education. The dreams of Young India cannot be realised unless the government pays focused and sustained attention to introducing much-needed improvements in all facets of education — quality, affordability, universal access, relevance, technological innovation, among others. But what has it achieved so far in five-and-a-half years? Three HRD (human resource development) ministers. Two high-level committees tasked with preparing the promised new National Education Policy 2019. The year 2019 is over, but the new NEP is nowhere in sight. However, let’s leave that aside for the time being. We now have a Union HRD minister who is on record as having proclaimed that ancient India was so well advanced in science and technology that it conducted nuclear tests several centuries ago. This fanciful claim has recently been endorsed by another worthy — the governor of West Bengal (also the chancellor of all public universities in the state) who avers that Arjuna’s arrows in the Mahabharata were nuclear tipped. Should purveyors of such pseudo-science, be occupying critical positions in education? Let’s leave that also aside for the time being. Why leave aside this combination of incompetence and fake gyan? Because something scarier is happening. Violent attacks on universities countrywide. Video clips of masked goons, armed with iron rods and lathis, who stormed Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the national capital on January 5 and beat up students and teachers as police turned a blind eye, have outraged the nation and severely damaged India’s reputation globally. How could this have happened in India’s premier university? Is India still a democracy governed by rule of law? These questions assail the minds of all right-thinking Indians and India’s friends abroad. As facts tumble out, it has become clear this was a well-planned attack — with the police and university authorities standing by as mute spectators — organised by activists of a students’ organisation aligned with the ruling BJP, and the larger sangh parivar. The attack was directed at student members of rival leftist unions. The image of the blood-splattered face of Aishe Ghosh, president of the JNU Students Union will surely endure as a reminder of one of the dubious ‘achievements’ of the Modi government in education. Till the time of writing this essay — i.e, 11 days after the incident — the police has yet to make a single arrest. The attack on JNU needs to be seen in the larger context of the hindutva establishment’s agenda of thought control in India’s institutions of higher education. Maligning Nehru and Nehruvian secularism, a cornerstone of the Indian Constitution, is an integral component of this agenda. No less a worthy than Union home minister Amit Shah without offering any proof, has charged JNU as being the hub of the “tukde tukde gang” hell-bent on dismembering India. Intolerance towards ideological and political opponents has reached frightening levels, to the extent that they are routinely…