Although Indian education is at a liberalisation and deregulation inflection point three decades after Indian industry was liberalised in the landmark Union Budget of 1991 — when licence permit-quota raj which had cabined, cribbed and confined the Indian economy for over four decades was substantially dismantled — better late than never. Indians have a bad history of writing and recalling history. But it’s important to remember that for several millennia until the mid-18th century, the Indian subcontinent and neighbouring ancient China, were the wealthiest and most prosperous countries worldwide contributing 50 percent of global GDP. India was in a sweet spot when the nation attained its political freedom in 1947. Several visionary industry pioneers including G.D. Birla, J.N. Tata, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, and the Chettiar industrialists of peninsular India who had prospered between the two World Wars despite numerous hurdles placed in their path by the British Raj, were well-positioned to transform independent India into Asia’s fastest developing and most prosperous economy. But that tryst with destiny was sabotaged by imposition of Soviet-inspired Nehruvian socialist ideology upon high-potential independent India. Thousands of laws, rules and regulations were enacted to shackle private enterprise. Tax revenue and national savings were canalised into giant Soviet-style public sector enterprises (PSEs) managed by government clerks and bureaucrats. Unsurprisingly, despite being conferred monopoly status, India’s 256 Central PSEs and an equal number promoted by state governments, never generated promised surpluses which would have financed public infrastructure, educa[1]tion and health. Forty years later, a non-Nehru leader of the Congress party — prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao — substantially dismantled neta-babu licence[1]permit-quota raj. As a result the annual rate of GDP growth doubled and 400 million citizens were lifted out of poverty, until the Covid pandemic pushed an estimated 100 million back under the poverty line. Unfortunately, while Indian industry was substantially unshackled in 1991, the logic of liberalisation was not extended to the education sector. The tight grip of the neta-babu brotherhood and left academics over Indian education had the same effect. None of India’s 42,000 colleges or 1,072 universities — despite some of them being of 150 years vintage — is ranked among the Top 200 WUR (World University Rankings) published annually by the globally respected QS or Times Higher Education. Thirty years later, after promulgation of the National Education Policy, 2020, there are signs that the logic of liberalisation is being applied to India’s floundering education sector. But as our detailed cover feature warns, don’t rule out a spanner in the works. Our second lead story beams an overdue spotlight on a neglected dimension of India’s moribund education sector: developing children’s SEL (social and emotional learning) skills, badly damaged by the over-long lockdown of schools during the Covid pandemic
Winds of change reminiscent of the 1991 Union budget that catalysed liberalisation and deregulation of industry, are gathering momentum in India’s moribund education sector mired in dead habit, rote learning and rock-bottom learning outcomes writes Dilip Thakore Three decades after the watershed Union Budget of 1991 catalysed liberalisation and deregulation of Indian industry, doubled post-independence India’s annual rate of economic growth which averaged 3.5 percent (“the Hindu rate of growth” in the famous disparagement of late economist Dr. Raj Krishna), and lifted 400 million citizens out of poverty, similar winds of change are gathering momentum in India’s moribund education sector mired in dead habit, rote learning and rock-bottom learning outcomes. A strong, accelerating reforms current is coursing through the shady bowers and musty corridors of the country’s 200,000 pre-primaries, 1.4 million primary-secondary schools, 42,000 colleges and 1,072 universities with an aggregate enrolment of 300 million children and youth. Suddenly after decades of masterly inactivity, dozens of new genre private schools, colleges and universities providing world-class infrastructure, highly qualified faculty drawn from around the world, are dispensing contemporary syllabuses and curriculums to children of the country’s fast T expanding middle class, if not yet to unfortunate children of bottom-of-pyramid households. Since the dawn of the new millennium, 44 continuum (K-12) schools affiliated with the Geneva/The Hague-based International Baccalaureate and 400 schools affiliated with the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) boards which prescribe globally respected syllabuses, curricula and certification, have become operational in India. And some of Britain’s most famous public (i.e, private, exclusive) schools including Millfield, Wellington and Harrow (alma mater of Jawaharlal Nehru and Winston Churchill) are readying to plant their flags in Indian terra firma this year. These venerated schools which pride themselves on delivering excellent mix of academic, co-curricular, sports and life skills education, and especially for nurturing students’ leadership skills, hold out promise of churning out industry, business and professional leaders who could lead India’s charge towards transforming into a $30 trillion (from the current $2.9 trillion) economy by 2047, when the nation celebrates the centenary of its independence from debilitating foreign (British) rule. “With the National Education Policy 2020 directing education in India towards key principles and strategies associated with internationally accepted teaching-learning norms, international schools are becoming increasingly popular within the country. We have witnessed strong demand for overseas curricula in recent years which for instance, has made International Baccalaureate certification highly desired and respected. A recent UGC guidelines draft has brought greater clarity about rules and regulations governing foreign higher education institutions aspiring to become operational in India. We hope this will lead to more reforms and transparency in K-12 education, especially on the issue of international organisations and schools becoming active in India,” says Samuel Fraser, a social sciences graduate of Kingston University (UK), a former banker with education management and research experience in Bahrain, Singapore, Kazakhstan, and currently the Mumbai-based Director (India) of ISC Research Ltd. ISCR which has its head office in Oxford (UK), provides data and information related to…
Last year’s sale of the non-profit online course platform edX has left both parties short on value, with buyer 2U still hunting for paying customers, and vendors Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) still mulling how the proceeds will boost remote teaching. Scientists at the two universities created edX in 2012 as a means of making courses freely available on the internet, and for giving other institutions the software to create similar platforms. 2U, founded in 2008, is a private company that creates online courses for universities. It bought most of edX in July 2021 for $800 million (Rs.6,400 crore) in the hope that a fraction of its fee-free learners might find enough value to start paying for it. But 2U’s stock price has dropped nearly 70 percent this year, provoking extensive lay-offs and glum assessments by industry analysts who argue that the company was mistaken in betting so heavily on the prospect of profitably converting edX students. “The primary focus of the non-profit has been CEO search,” acknowledges Catie Smith, interim chief operating officer of the year-old organisation, which Harvard and MIT have named the Centre for Reimagining Learning, or tCRIL. As for how it will use the online course sharing software it has retained, tCRIL is still “laying the ground work towards a strategy” for accomplishing that. The transaction has drawn criticism from many in higher education who argue that edX had a founding mission to serve disadvantaged students around the world, and that the two elite universities have abandoned that commitment by selling edX to a private company charging high fees. But 2U is not alone in its struggles. Coursera — the online education platform created in 2012 by two Stanford Uni[1]versity computer science professors as a rival to edX — an[1]nounced its own sweeping payoffs in November. Coursera’s market value has fallen by nearly three-quarters from highs in early 2021.
When an enormous explosion rocked central Beirut in August 2020, it wasn’t just the estate of Lebanon’s oldest university that was badly damaged. The blast — which was caused by vast amounts of ammonium nitrate dangerously stored in Beirut’s port and killed 215 people — was also a huge blow to staff morale and the already precarious finances of the American University of Beirut (AUB). Hundreds of international students cut their studies short or decided not to come altogether, says president Fadlo Khuri. “We lost about 375 students and another 600 potential students who might have accepted places,” says Prof. Khuri on the disaster that literally shook Lebanon (tremors were felt as far away as Europe). “We suffered about $7.5 million (Rs.61 crore) in damage — with the windows of the new glass-fronted teaching hospital blown in,” recalls the Boston-born, Beirut-raised cancer doctor. With three of Beirut’s hospitals knocked out by the blast, the university’s medical centre proved crucial in treating some of the 6,000 people injured by flying glass and masonry. “More than 750 people visited our emergency room in the first few hours, including many of our university community,” recalls the Yale- and Columbia-educated scientist. For many staff, however, the blast proved the final straw. In the face of Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019, AUB had already been forced to slash staff wages “to save the university”. It was then forced to cut 850 jobs in July 2020 after its revenues crashed by 60 percent in 2020-21, as students struggled to afford tuition fees. A triple whammy was completed when it lost donations and scholarships it was expecting when the pandemic hit. Established in 1866 by Protestant missionaries, the private university became a key study destination in the Arab region, with 60 percent of its students from outside Lebanon by the mid-1970s, attracted by its US-style liberal arts teaching model. Things were tough during the civil war between 1975 and 1990 when professors and presidents were kidnapped: one president, Malcolm Kerr, an American Middle East scholar, was assassinated on campus by jihadists in 1984. But international students returned in the 1990s, and now account for 22 percent of the institution’s 8,000 students. However, with its faculty under financial strain, ambitious universities from nearby oil-rich states have poached staff. “We’ve raided them — particularly their administrators who are very good and understand the Arab context,” a senior leader from a Gulf state institution told THE. Lebanon needs a top-tier research university more than ever, insists Khuri. “The university has created a sense of sanity amid Lebanon’s meltdown — we need to be that anchor institution so that the country can continue to innovate, lead and thrive,” he says. There are positive signs that the university can bounce back. “We have recruited 77 new faculty over two years and seen a significant increase in student recruitment.” Prof. Khuri is upbeat about his institution’s future. “Rankings don’t keep me awake at night — graduate employability does, but thankfully our students measure…
London-based universities and post-92 institutions would be hit hardest if a crackdown on UK international student visas goes ahead. UK is more reliant on international student revenue now than it was the last time there were serious threats to overseas recruitment, during the prime ministership of Theresa May (2016-19). In 2020-21, tuition fees from non-European Union students aggregated about £7 billion (Rs.70,000 crore) to universities, roughly 17 percent of their total income — up from 16 percent the year before, and 13 percent in 2016-17. Following the openness of Boris Johnson’s government towards international students, his successor Rishi Sunak — and in particular the home secretary, Suella Braverman — have expressed concern about the impact of education visas on overall migration figures. But reports suggest that any clampdown on recruitment could be targeted, restricting international enrolment to ‘elite’ universities only. Analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency figures indicates that institutions in the Top 200 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings draw about a fifth of their income from international students. Should ministers decide to reduce international student numbers, they could follow a pattern they set last year when they introduced a visa scheme for graduates of universities in the Top 50 of major global rankings, and restrict enrolment to only that elite group. But non-EU students fees are also important for institutions outside the elite. Among post-92 universities, non-EU fees account for about 14 percent of income in 2020-21, up slightly from the year before. And there is significant variation in the proportion of total revenue that UK universities outside the top 200 draw from overseas recruitment. Two private institutions obtain a major share of their income from this source — Regent’s University London and Richmond, the American International University in London. Beyond these, the University of the Arts London received 43.5 percent of its earnings from international students in 2020-21. “Given that there is little evidence that these students overstay their visas in large numbers, and that international students are not high on the public’s list of concerns as far as immigration matters are concerned, the most straight forward solution would be to remove international students from net migration figures or at least to measure them in a more nuanced way,” says MillionPlus chief executive Rachel Hewitt. Across all UK institutions, London universities are most reliant on the international market, drawing a quarter of their income from non-EU students. In contrast, such students account for just 9 percent of revenue in Northern Ireland.
When the president of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) began posting photos of his daily life to social media in November, it was a gut reaction. A day earlier, Russian air strikes had hit Ukraine’s power grid, plunging the city into darkness. “I didn’t have a plan — I realised we had no heating and no water for a while, and somehow I felt it would be interesting for the world to know how people are trying to get through the war,” recalls Tymofiy Mylovanov. The professor’s tweets have resonated with readers around the world. Mylovanov has accumulated more than 39,000 followers and has become an in-demand commentator for Western news outlets, explaining the war’s toll in hard numbers and — even more importantly, he believes — providing a firsthand account of everyday life on the ground. Previously Ukraine’s minister of economic development under the Honcharuk government and an adviser to its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prof. Mylovanov knows the value of good press. But he insists that his decision to share his experiences is not an orchestrated PR mission. “I’m fighting my own battle, for the world to stay connected to Ukraine. I want people to feel that we’re human. It’s easier for people to connect with us when they see us in our daily lives,” he says. Observations on the everyday minutiae and life at a university, his tweets are simple and profound. On the second day of the Kyiv blackout, he posted a video of students doing their work from a shelter and queueing up at the university cafe. “But students are here, and classes are at full speed (8.30 a.m). Therefore we must have our fancy coffee at our cafe, which indeed is working,” he wrote. In another tweet, he poked fun at Russia’s foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov, simultaneously exposing the Kremlin’s barbarity. “Lavrov is shocked by unisex bathrooms and calls them inhumane. I am proud to report that all bathrooms at the Kyiv School of Economics are unisex… What’s that blue water tank in our bathroom? That’s water to flush toilets (when) Lavrov’s ‘humane’ country bombs us and our water pump system stops working.” An economist, Prof. Mylovanov is keenly aware of the link between people connecting emotionally with the conflict and supporting Ukraine financially. His posts often come with an appeal for donations. Already, they’ve had a sizeable impact. Recently, his followers donated £37,000 (Rs.37 lakh) to buy gifts for orphaned and refugee children in Ukraine after he posted videos of a KSE student-led fundraiser, noting that the only thing standing in the way of upscaling it was a lack of funding. These days, he has more serious concerns — chiefly, how Ukrainians will make it through a bitter winter. With Russian bombings leaving millions without heat or running water, daily life has become unpredictable and exhausting. Because of the war, KSE colleagues have had to put in many more hours, and Prof. Mylovanov worries about staff retention amid burnout. “It takes a…
Boosting housing stocks could be Australian governments’ “biggest” contribution to alleviating ‘student poverty,’ a widely reported phenomenon Down Under. Eileen Baldry, deputy vice chancellor of UNSW Sydney, says that if government quarantines social housing for students, it would help them weather an accommodation squeeze and cost-of-living crisis. Students could face weekly rents of A$200 (Rs.11,400) instead of the A$500 typical of many Australian suburbs, or rents could be capped at 25 percent of income — as happens with other social housing schemes — leaving money to cover food, transport and education costs. While students are not specifically excluded from social housing, waiting periods often vastly exceed the time required to complete degrees. And while the federal government has committed to bankroll 40,000 new affordable dwellings through its Housing Accord and Housing Australia Future Fund, Baldry says this will merely scratch the surface. “It needs hundreds of thousands of new dwellings to come on to the market.” Students are facing an accommodation crunch point, with rental housing in short supply and priced beyond reach. Many purpose-built student accommodation blocks are nearing capacity as international students return to Australia in greater numbers and compete for rooms with their domestic peers. Current residents, who tend to move into less structured living arrangements after a year or so, are staying put because of the lack of rental accommodation. Universities are examining the feasibility of re-building their own accommodation, a year or so after many boosted their Covid-depleted finances by selling off-campus residential blocks that were short of tenants amid lockdowns and border closures. Also Read: Australia: Over 1 lakh Indian students to benefit from post-study work visa Australia: Nepalese inflow boom
The Chinese government has ordered universities in the east of the country not to use talent funding to poach academics from the nation’s mid-west and north east, which is causing an internal brain drain. The ministries of education and finance sought to offer some encouragement to university autonomy in funding management in a notice, but said talent funding “must not be used by institutions in the east,” where cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are located, “to bring in talent from the mid-west and north east regions”. Previously, in the 2017 version of the notice, institutions were “not encouraged” to do so. The tone became stricter in a 2019 central government missive on promoting science, which aimed to “support the central and western regions to stabilise their talent building”. “It is difficult to really stop the mobility of talent, because most people want to work or live in ‘better’ cities or colleges and universities,” says Zhang Youliang, associate professor at the Institute of Higher Education at Beijing University of Technology. A 2018 study examined career mobility among 3,234 junior academics, based on data from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (DYS) between 1994 and 2014. It found that 405 academics proactively changed their workplaces. The provinces of Shanxi, Jilin, Gansu, Liaoning, Fujian and Anhui (mostly in the mid-west and north east) lost more DYS scholars than they brought in. The authors wrote that the “talent crisis” in the north-west and the north east is caused by a “serious talent deficit and insufficient attraction for high-level talent, rather than the scale of outflow”. They concluded that boosting resources for regions suffering outflow would be the best measure in response, and that “hindering” mobility “is not in accordance with the market logic and innovation”
In making one of the biggest professional and symbolic breakthroughs in all of US higher education — becoming the first black female president of Harvard University — Claudine Gay is getting some predictable help on identifying what comes next. Dr. (Prof.) Gay, to be clear, brings top academic credentials to the job. She earned an undergraduate degree in economics from Stanford University, winning the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best undergraduate thesis. She earned a doctorate in government from Harvard, winning the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science. She became a tenured faculty member at both institutions, before her promotions by Harvard to become dean of social science and then dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. And yet within moments of the announcement that she will head the nation’s oldest university, one of the predictable responses for a nation still steeped in racism — harsh political pushback — arrived. Fiercely conservative outlets began publishing critiques citing anonymous sources questioning Gay’s qualifications and suggesting that her career success, instead of marking achievement by black women, was built on unfair favouritism towards them. Amid a lifetime of navigating such experiences, Gay embraced the milestone with an introductory speech that celebrated her Haitian-born parents and their faith in the power of education and then gently reminded her fellow academics of the toxic political atmosphere surrounding them. Today’s high-tech world offers “endless access to information”, she told her colleagues in a jammed foyer of Harvard’s Smith Campus Center. “But it’s getting harder to know what to believe.” Some of the many advocates of equity who long stood behind Gay made it clear that they are overjoyed by Harvard’s decision and by its potentially transformative power over all of US higher education, and yet are fully aware of the long united states International News pathway to equity that still lies ahead. They include Gloria Blackwell, chief executive of the American Association of University Women, which awarded Prof. Gay a postdoctoral fellowship nearly 20 years ago at Stanford. Gay’s fellowship was one of 13,000 that the association has funded since its founding in 1881, and her career success “is quite gratifyng”, says Blackwell. “Harvard is the gold standard, obviously, for so many people, not just in their own country, but around the world.” Harvard seems to have taken a systematic and sustained approach in its pathway to placing Prof. Gay in its top post, says Andrea Silbert, president of the Eos Foundation, which funds work in areas of gender and racial diversity. The university says that it has chosen its new president after a five-month search process that assembled and considered 600 nominees. Yet, Silbert says the university also appears to have guided Gay into positions that would improve her readiness for the presidency. The dean of arts and sciences heads the university’s largest and most academically diverse collection of faculty, and Gay’s experiences in that job included handling several high-profile sexual harassment complaints against prominent Harvard professors, and overseeing revisions to…
Caste discrimination and exclusion in Indian universities: A Critical Reflection N. Sukumar Routledge Rs.12,600 Pages 215 With comprehensive ethnographic research, Sukumar details how caste continues to shape the functioning of India’s universities Knowledge, at least in its a priori form, promises to be liberating. The thought of being able to learn, question, unlearn and then relearn is deeply empowering. However, knowledge production and knowledge dissemination seldom remain under the control of one individual. Knowledge can become liberating and empowering only if its systemic functioning is informed by sentiments of equity, empathy and respect. The space of a university, more so a public university, is theoretically meant to be a place where the individual navigates social and cultural fissures encountered in the outside world. But what happens when this space, which promises socio-cultural emancipation, is itself riddled with hierarchical notions of merit and privilege? What if the rosy-eyed emancipatory potentialities of the university space end up being a dystopian universe? What if the university becomes a crude extension of the outside world? N. Sukumar’s insightful new book is a damning indictment of the profoundly inegalitarian nature of Indian universities. With focus on the everyday plight of SC (scheduled caste) students in Indian university campuses, Sukumar builds a harrowing narrative to argue how caste continues to shape the functioning of universities. With a comprehensive ethnographic research work featuring interviews with 600 students from five Central and five State universities across India, the author’s work delineates multiple forms of caste discrimination and exclusionary practices that are strategically produced and reproduced on university campuses. Along with a meticulously detailed quantitative account, the author underlines the need to explore the often-neglected psychosocial dimensions and consequences of these practices. As a first-generation student whose caste consciousness crystallised as a SC student in the post-Mandal phase in Hyderabad, Sukumar identifies subtle forms of caste performativity. To do that, he makes use of an exhaustive questionnaire which seeks to expose the nuances of caste signifiers in academic spaces. These include issues about but not limited to, student enrolment ratios, scholarships, social bonding in classroom and hostels, research experience and supervision, administrative support, and legal and institutional support, among others. Interviews were conducted in Hindi, English, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. The interviewees included 412 men and 188 women. Sukumar provides umpteen disturbing examples from his own fieldwork and supplements them by ingeniously infusing the narrative with already published accounts of exclusion and discrimination. His account begins with a theoretical framework to unravel pedagogy’s intimate connection with discrimination and exclusion. By using Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, Sukumar attempts to draw a direct linkage between the conceptualisation of merit and socio-cultural values of the privileged castes. The narrative provides data featuring responses of students concerning casteist aspersions during M. Phil/Ph D interviews, deliberately less marks being given to reserved category students, unfair grade markings and less time with teachers and examiners for further clarifications, among others. SC scholars are pigeonholed as ‘Dalit’ scholars. Body language and ‘deviant’ behavioural signals…
Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal Kishan S. Rana ROUTLEDGE Rs.995 Pages 192 The author discerns four distinct phases in Churchill’s association with India between 1896 and 1965, when he was given a state funeral in London While the title of his book Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal? is puzzling (in that the alternatives seem to be in contradiction to each other) and preemptively conclusive, its narrative is not, unfolding point by seamless point towards a final set of hypotheses. That the book emerged, as the author says, from ‘quasi isolation’ during the pandemic may explain its self-interrogatory nature, questions asked, alternative answers offered (although in the end it is ‘reader, you decide’) much in the manner, one imagines, of the discussions and debates in the Yan Jin club of young diplomats of which the author was a member when posted in China in the early sixties. That solitude may well have contributed also to the leisured lyricism in much of the writing, compelling disagreement with the author’s assertion that “presented here in a paraphrased mode, Churchill’s strong, direct words lose their force; such narratives must be read in the original”. Kishan Rana’s versions soar. The author allows characters (including Churchill’s parents, friends, loves, political allies and adversaries and the vast landscape of people in India so critical to the story) to animate its pages, with extensive annotations almost anatomical, each finger of fact pointing in the direction of a defined determination while remaining organically linked to the body of the work in its whole. He discerns four distinct phases in Churchill’s association with India: beginning as ‘romantic adventurer’ on his first landing on the subcontinent in 1896, continuing with ‘benign but superficial empathy’ until 1920, then two decades of “tempest, of extravagant, unreasoning hostility to India”, followed by his 1940-45 prime ministership, “the years of manipulation, plus attempted subversion of Indian independence”, and finally, his last twenty years, “mellower, but not a whit apologetic”. Through that life, he sought reassurance in the loneliness of his oratory and writing, including in the “imaginary dialogue between his father and himself, centered on (his) life achievements”, a tribute to a remote but affectionate parent whom he lost on 24 January 1895, 70 years before the day of his own death. Randolph Churchill’s vision for India was everything his son’s was not, personified in his call “to weld (Indians) by the influence of our knowledge, our law, and our higher civilization, in process of time, into one great, united people; and to offer to all the nations of the West the advantages of tranquility and progress in the East”. But for Winston Churchill, as this work makes clear, all that mattered was the gallery. The supposed convictions that prompted him, in 1904, to cross the floor in Parliament, opposing a bill he said reflected racial prejudice against Jews, saw no reflection in the views he was to express on Kenya that “there was no question of granting electoral rights to the…
Released last December, CASS 2022 indicts the country’s 1.48 million government and private schools for failure to sufficiently develop children’s social and emotional learning skills, positive attitudes, beliefs and values writes Summiya Yasmeen Although mainstream media reports at the fag end of the academic year 2022-23 and on the eve of the new school year gloss over the learning, psychological, social and emotional disequilibrium suffered by India’s 260 million school-going children during the 82-week Covid pandemic lockdown, two authoritative recently released reports paint a dismal picture of K-12 education in post-pandemic India. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 of the reputed Pratham Education Foundation released in Delhi on January 19, reveals a precipitous decline in children’s reading capability to 2012 level (79.5 percent class III children cannot read class II texts) and drop in basic arithmetic learning (74.1 percent class III children can’t do simple subtraction sums). This poor academic score card of school children in rural India has prompted anguished newspaper and television reports and analyses from education pundits lamenting steadily falling learning outcomes in India’s 1.48 million primary-secondary, especially government, schools. While ASER 2022 is focused on children’s learning outcomes evaluated on the basis of out-of-school field testing, another report released in December indicates that India’s 260 million school-going children are not acquiring social and emotional skills and positive attitudes. A research survey titled Cognitive & Affective Skills Study in Schools Across India (CASS 2022), released in the national capital on December 5 by the Delhi-based Centre for Science of Student Learning (CSSL, estb.2015), an educational research organisation that “builds capacity for diagnostic student learning assessments and researches how children learn,” indicts the country’s 1.48 million government and private schools for failure to sufficiently develop children’s social and emotional skills, positive attitudes and provide them a “nurturing school climate”. Yet while ASER 2022 drew media headlines, CSSL’s important study of the psychological and emotional well-being of children — a precondition of high academic learning outcomes — has attracted little media or academic attention. An unprecedented innovative study which assesses children’s social and emotional learning (SEL) capabilities, CASS 2022 exposes the minimal attention accorded to SEL in government and even in high-ranked private schools. SEL is defined as the “process of developing social and emotional skills such as self-awareness (understanding emotions and thoughts), self-management, responsible decision making, social awareness and relationship building skills” (OECD). The detailed six-volume report which measures holistic well-being of students under four parameters — social and emotional skills, attitudes, academic achievement and school climate — reveals that a majority of students in government and to a lesser extent in private schools, exhibit poor SEL development. The voluminous (631 pages) report confirms the widely held perception of low learning levels in government schools, while even top-ranked private school students are addicted to rote learning. It also confirms that a large number of students retain traditional gender, caste and communal prejudices and they don’t accept schools as secure and conducive learning environments. More importantly, perhaps…
Some television news anchors and bristling retired army brass seem to be itching for a border skirmish, if not war, with troops of China’s People’s Liberation Army massed along India’s 3,488 km unsettled border with China stretching across almost uninhabited terrain from Kashmir in the north-west, to Arunachal Pradesh in the north-east. But the national interest demands that the Union ministry of external affairs and our allegedly excellent diplomatic corps pull out all stops to ensure that peace breaks out between the world’s two most populous countries. The under-reported paradox of Sino-India relations is that economic engagement and trade between our two countries is growing continuously and is at an all-time high of $135.98 billion. In 2022, the value of goods imported by India from China aggregated a prodigious $118.5 billion (Rs.9.6 lakh crore), 8.4 percent higher than in the previous year. On the other hand, our exports to China were valued at a mere $17.48 billion. Amazingly, despite hostile relations between our two countries, India Inc’s trade gap with China has widened to an unprecedented $101 billion, 45 percent higher than in 2021. Major imports from China are APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients), chemicals, electrical and mechanical machinery, auto components, and medical supplies. The stark truth is that with 68 percent of APIs and 60 percent of smartphone components emanating from China, in the event of a new Sino-India war, our pharma industry could collapse and electrical and telecom industries would be severely damaged. In the circumstances, the best course of action for the BJP government at the Centre is to drop its aggressive muscular stance and initiate meaningful border settlement negotiations with our giant Asian neighbour with whom we maintained harmonious relations for over two millennia until the border war of 1962. It’s surprising that the BJP leadership which has often expressed contempt for the Congress party’s Nehruvian political and economic legacy, is perpetuating Nehru’s obstinate vacillation and is reluctant to negotiate a border settlement with the Xi Jinping administration, and settle this issue once and for all.
Runa Mukherjee Parikh (Ahmedabad) When not reading Harry Potter stories, Ahmedabad-based Hanya Shah (11) prefers to practise chess moves. Both pastimes have proved useful. Recently (November), this class VI pupil of the city’s CBSE-affiliated Apple Global School, hit national headlines when she won bronze at the Commonwealth Chess Championships staged in Kalutara (Sri Lanka). To her great delight, she received her medal from prime minister Dinesh Gunavardena of our neighbour island republic. Even at this young age Hanya is routinely winning medals and encomiums. Last October, she bagged silver and bronze in the blitz and classic categories of the Asian Youth Chess Champion[1]ships held in Bali; in September, she was adjudged eighth at the World Cadets Chess Championship in Batumi, Georgia; in May she won gold, silver and bronze at the Western Asian Chess Tournament in the Maldives where she was also conferred the Women Candidate Master (WCM) title by FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs) — the governing body of international chess tournaments. The second eldest daughter of Rajesh Shah, a businessman, and homemaker Jaini Shah, Hanya took to this mind game at age seven, watching her father play. Soon he began to play with her on Sunday afternoons. Quick on the uptake in 2018, she won a bronze medal at the District U-7 Girls championship followed by a silver in the Gujarat State U-7 Girls championship. Inspired by the style and technique of Vidit Gujrathi — India’s second ranked player after Viswanathan Anand — Hanya took to chess in earnest when locked at home during the two pandemic years. In 2021, she won a gold medal at the online Western Asian Youth Chess Championship. That very year, she represented Team India A at the online Asian Schools Chess Championship and won a bronze in the National Chess Championship in the U-9 category. Though totally committed to attaining GM (grand master) status, Hanya adeptly balances academic study and chess practice. “I am currently preparing for the upcoming Inter-School National Chess Championship in Hosur, Tamil Nadu. However, my sights are also set on the national, Asian and World championships in my age category, and acquiring a GM title. Finding a sponsor for my foreign trips is also top priority,” she says. Wind beneath your wings! Also Read:Young Achiever: Tanishi Gupta
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Bengaluru-based pre-teen Tanishi Gupta is a promising competitive swimmer who already has 50 medals of state and national aquatic championships adorning her mantelpiece at home. Late last year at the National Games of India staged in Gujarat, this sprint mermaid who specialises in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle and butterfly stroke events, was the youngest competitor to represent Karnataka in four open category events. And she returned with gold, silver and bronze medals. Earlier at the 48th Junior Nationals Aquatic Championship in Bhubaneswar, held last July, in the 50m butterfly, Tanishi clocked 29.37 seconds breaking the national record (women’s world record: 24.1 seconds). The elder of two daughters of IT professionals Ritesh and Anjali Gupta, and a class VII student of Bengaluru’s top-ranked Inventure Academy, Tanishi first took to water in her apartment complex pool. Inspired by top swimmers Sajan Prakash, Srihari Natraj, and Shivani Kataria who donned India colours, Tanishi plunged into competitive swimming in 2018 at age eight, signing up for training at Bengaluru’s Nisha Millet Swimming Academy under the tutelage of coach Abhinav Prakash. In 2021 she signed up with the Dolphin Aquatics School of the Padukone-Dravid Center for Sports Excellence. Under coach Madhu Kumar BM, Tanishi’s training has intensified to a rigorous five- hour daily regime, a carbs and protein rich diet, and two days of strength and muscle conditioning routines per week. “I attribute my latest success in the National Games to my coaches — Madhu Sir, Yaqoob Sir and Bhaskar Sir — at Dolphin Aquatics, fitness trainer (Jyoti ma’am), parents, and teachers at Inventure who have given me great flexibility to train for championships,” acknowledges Tanishi. Though pleased with her progress, this young flying mermaid is far from satisfied. “I am a long way behind international timings. Therefore, I’m determined to continuously improve my training and timings. In 2022, I have set myself the goal of 10 percent timing improvement in 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly. This means cutting 3-4 seconds in each event,” she says. Power to your strokes! Also Read: Young Achiever: Sayani Das
One of the two flagship academies of the State University of New York, UB has been ranked among America’s Top 40 public universities for five years consecutively by the US News & World Report, writes Reshma Ravishanker The state University of New York at Buffalo (UB aka SUNY, Buffalo, estb.1846) is one of two flagship varsities of the State University of New York (the other is Stony Brook). A member academy of the Association of American Universities, an elite group of higher education research institutions, UB has been ranked among the country’s Top 40 public universities for five years consecutively by US News & World Report. Likewise, the Institute of International Education (IIE) ranks UB among America’s Top 30 higher-ed institutions for student diversity — 13 percent of its 21,467 undergraduate students are from foreign shores. Spread across three campuses in Buffalo city, 35 km from the globally-famous Niagara Falls, UB offers it 33,000 students mentored by 2,500 faculty over 450 study programmes across the faculties of architecture and planning, arts and sciences, dental medicine, education, engineering and applied sciences, law, management, nursing, pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, public health and health professions, social work, and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. The university also hosts over 150 research centres with an annual research budget of $422 million (Rs.3,460 crore). The incumbent president of UB is India-born Dr. Satish K. Tripathi. UB traces its origins to 1846 when it was promoted as a private medical college to train and certify medical practitioners of the villages of Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Over the next century, it transformed into the private University of Buffalo. In 1962, it was merged into the State University of New York public education system. Illustrious alumni include award-winning journalist Wolf Blitzer; Li Yanhong (Robin Li), co-founder of baidu.com, the largest Chinese language search engine; Khalil Mack, NFL football superstar and American television star John Walsh. Buffalo. The second largest city of New York state, Buffalo (pop.278,349) is sited on the eastern shore of Lake Erie, at the head of the River Niagara, on the US-Canada border. The world-famous Niagara Falls is a mere 30 minutes by road and the Buffalo-Niagara counties host a population of over 1 million. Cafeterias and parks along the river are a hub for cyclists to explore the scenic region. Buffalo is also among three US cities with a radial street pattern with the Niagara Square at its epicentre. The city’s cultural landmarks include the oldest urban parks system in the US, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Shea’s Performing Arts Cen[1]ter, and Buffalo Museum of Science. It also hosts several other higher education institutions with an enrolment of over 54,000 students. Outdoor recreation activities include hiking, ice biking, sailing, and fishing. Buffalo has warm summers and cold, snowy winters, and receives above average rainfall. Temperatures are the lowest in January (-4°C) and highest in July (25°C). Campus facilities. UB sprawls across three campuses in the city — North, South and Downtown.…
Any citizen of India with a conscience cannot help but weep for the unfortunate condition of the industrious, uncomplaining and continuously short-changed people of the eastern state of Bihar (pop.104 million). Despite a mountain of evidence that liquor prohibition has failed in every country and society since it was promulgated in the US in the 1930s and gave birth to the mafia and prolonged wars between hooch gangs, Nitish Kumar, who was re-elected chief minister in 2016, enacted legislation imposing liquor prohibition in Bihar. Predictably since then, illegal vends distilling cheap country liquor have mushroomed across this chronically mis-governed state with notoriously corrupt police personnel hand-in glove with liquor mafiosi. On December 18, 70 manual labourers were done in by spurious liquor in Chhapra district. On January 3, three residents of the Siwan district died from the same cause. For the past half century since sham socialists Laloo Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar clambered upon the late Jaiprakash Narayan’s Navnirman anti-Congress movement and established themselves in Bihar politics, these greedy opportunists have heaped misery on the state’s public. Like the old man who climbed aboard Sinbad’s shoulders and refused to get down. While Laloo has been convicted and imprisoned for being caught with his hand in the public till in the infamous fodder purchase scandal, Nitish Kumar, a classic political turncoat, has self-served three terms as chief minister by adeptly switching allies on the eve and after assembly elections. During the past 50 years — in 300 BCE, the state was the epicentre of the mighty Maurya and Gupta empires and seat of Buddhist and Jain philosophy — under the rule of these latter-day Neros, Bihar has entered a new dark age. The pathetic plight of Bihar’s people highlights the error that the founding fathers of the Constitution made in rejecting completion of primary education as the pre-condition of right to exercise adult franchise. Also Read: Bihar grappling with low attendance in rural schools, colleges
Less than a decade ago, one read and heard proclamations of India’s tourism potential with a big dose of scepticism, if not derision. The plain truth was that beyond the front gates of 5-star hostelries, India was too chaotic and filthy, and if tourists ventured further into the hinterland, bad roads, unhygienic restaurants and dirty toilets not to speak of beggars and chisellers, were inevitable experiences of foreign and domestic tourists. Yet a brief sojourn to Hampi, the ancient capital of the forgotten Vijayanagar kingdom (1336-1565) in Karnataka, has changed your sceptical correspondent’s perspective. In the backyard of Hampi, George Ramapuram, a low-profile Kerala-based ‘earthitect’-entrepreneur has constructed a Xanadu style pleasure dome built entirely out of local materials and designed to blend seamlessly with the topography of the powerful, prosperous and well-governed Hindu Vijayanagar kingdom which stood steadfast against repeated invasions and expeditions of the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal dynasty for 229 years. Moreover, the ruins of the ancient Vitthala and Virupaksha temples have been marvellously preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India and the state government has developed excellent roads complemented by smoothly functional taxi and public transport. Yet perhaps the most surprising feature of the meticulously preserved Hampi ruins is the clean restaurants with well-maintained toilets, and the excellent service provided by educated and knowledgeable tourist guides who narrate fascinating histories in several languages, including English, for modest remuneration. And it’s worthy of note that Hampi is a live pilgrimage site for the devout, and that the majoirty of 6 lakh tourists who visit are Indians. A sharp contrast to the surly service and condescension visitors receive in over-hyped Europe. There is indeed a bright future for Indian tourism.
While some learning loss is inevitable because of switch to online teaching-learning, many assumptions about learning loss suffered by students during the pandemic lockdown are exaggerated writes Rajesh Khanna India’s education sector experienced a tectonic shift during the pandemic that forced schools and higher education institutions (HEIs) to re-think and re-invent the way mainstream education is delivered. During the prolonged lockdown and emergence of new issues such as social distancing, education institutions across the country were compelled to switch to the online mode of teaching-learning. While this new pedagogy did serve the all-important purpose of faculty-student engagement, it has limitations. According to a recent survey conducted by the staffing and recruitment company TeamLease, students countrywide experienced considerable learning loss. While students believe that their loss varied between 40-60 percent of what they would have learnt if institutional lockdown had not happened, HEI leaders estimate it to be at 30-40 percent. Moreover, the sudden shift to online education has raised concerns about the quality of online education itself. While some learning loss is inevitable, many assumptions about the extent of learning loss suffered by students during the pandemic lockdown are exaggerated because of several misconceptions. Among them: Learning loss is same for all students. The pandemic has undoubtedly affected students at all levels, but not to the same extent. Indeed, it’s quite likely that some students improved their learning outcomes because of the forced switch to avant garde digital technologies and close supervision of family elders. However, the majority experienced learning loss due to logistical, social and emotional adversity because of lack of resources, excessive interference from family and above all anxiety generated by the pandemic. In my opinion, the prime cause of learning loss is lack of preparation rather than subject knowledge delivery — deficit of maturity and self-sufficiency, rather than changed circumstances forced by the pandemic. Online learning is ineffective. This is the most common misconception based on widespread belief that if nobody monitors students, learning loss is inevitable. However, it’s important to note that these days best universities and HEIs encourage academic integrity while lightly monitoring students’ progress online. The upside of online learning is that it offers flexibility to students, allowing them to learn at their own pace and develop deep understanding of their subjects. The online learning revolution has taken away the constraints of time and space and improved access to learning material. Moreover, online learning material is enriched by easy integration of multimedia content. Online learning is not cohesive. Progressive, contemporary universities offer technology platforms allowing students to network and engage in peer-to-peer learning which is becoming increasingly important in the new digital age. Students can interact with teachers and peers via discussion boards, online chats, and videoconferencing. Admittedly this is easier in conventional classrooms and more difficult in online learning environments. However lately, HEIs use various stratagems to encourage students to work collectively on group projects and assignments. Instructors are mindful of using holistic approaches to teaching, assigning projects that focus on the aptitude of…
Within the short span of a decade since it admitted its first batch of 23 children mentored by five teachers in 2014, TGS has quickly won golden opinions. In EWISR 2022-23, TGS is ranked among Telangana’s Top 30 co-ed day schools, writes M. Somasekhar Sited on a ten-acre ecofriendly campus in Gajularamaram in Hyderabad’s upscale suburb of Kukatpally, the Tatva Global School (TGS, estb.2014) has acquired a big reputation within the short span of a decade. In the latest EW India School Rankings 2022-23, TGS — which has 987 boys and 853 girl students mentored by 140 teachers on its muster rolls — is ranked among the Top 30 co-ed day schools in Telangana and Hyderabad. Promoted by the Shree Datta Educational Society (regstd.2012) — co-founded by Viswanath Sivaswamy, T. Usha, Katamreddy Rangadham, Shahid Ali Khan and Raghunadh Reddy — this K-12 CBSE (Delhi)-affiliated school, which admitted its first batch of 23 children and five teachers in 2014, has quickly won golden opinions. “At Tatva, we firmly believe that inculcating good values, appreciating nature and ecology and developing a curious mind are essential for child development. We are wholly committed to nurturing global citizens equipped to manage the complexities of the future through our 3Cs — character, confidence and communication — curriculum. Therefore, the school’s curriculum is an optimal mix of rigorous academics, sports and co-curricular education. With a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:13, we pride ourselves on bestowing individual attention upon all students,” says Viswanath Sivaswamy, an engineering and business management alum of Acharya Nagarjuna, Guntur and Illinois (USA) universities, and director and CEO of TGS which is fast developing into a model school of the future. According to Sivaswamy, the nationwide lockdown of schools for 82 weeks following outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic was a blessing in disguise in as much as it accelerated the adoption of latest ICT technologies to enable curriculum delivery. “Now with students back in their classrooms, teachers are thoroughly equipped to provide an excellent mix of ICT-enabled contemporary pedagogy,” adds Sivaswamy. “The school’s USP is its 360 degree curriculum which optimally integrates academics, sports, co-curricular activities and life skills development. It includes 75 minutes of physical activity (sports, games, dance etc) every day, specially designed to keep children engaged productively. Students are encouraged to share knowledge through project-based activities and public speaking. Forty percent of students’ time in school is devoted to life skills development, towards all-round education,” says T. Usha, a history postgrad of Delhi University, and the school’s academic coordinator. TGS’ eco-friendly campus spread over ten acres which includes a 350-trees mango orchard, houses four state-of-the-art academic buildings with 104 well-equipped ICT-enabled classrooms, five modern laboratories including a science, three computer, and a maths lab, four multipurpose halls, three music rooms, and two performing arts halls. Moreover, the well-stocked in-class and central libraries house 7,000 volumes, digital resources and 12 subscribed magazines and journals. A 2,500-seat dining hall serves children hot (vegetarian) meals in which a sharing and caring culture is encouraged.…
Bayer Fellowship Programme Mumbai, January 23. In collaboration with Bhubaneswar City Knowledge Innovation Cluster Foundation (BCKIC), the Thane-based Bayer Cropscience Ltd, a subsidiary of Bayer AG, Germany has launched the Medha Fellowship Programme, exclusively for students from economically weaker sections. Under this programme, Bayer will fund the education of 125 scholars engaged in agriculture and life sciences research. The company will provide financial assistance of Rs.20,000-40,000 per month to Masters and Ph D students for a period of two and three years. The company has pledged Rs.10 crore for this programme. “At Bayer, we are committed to supporting education, research, innovation, and providing inclusive opportunities for all sections of society. Through the Medha Fellowship Programme, we are extending our support to students from economically weaker sections and women scholars, encouraging and supporting them to play an active role in nation-building,” says D. Narain, president of Bayer Cropscience. DPS-Jaipur Tennis Academy Jaipur, January 10. Delhi Public School, Jaipur (DPS-Jaipur) announced the launch of the Devyani Jaipuria Tennis Academy (DJTA). Spread over 15 acres, DJTA was launched with the commencement of the Devyani Jaipuria Under-14 and Under-16 Tennis Championships staged between January 9-16. “This world-class training facility will equip young boys and girls from across the country with the skills required to compete in state, national and international tennis tournaments,” said Devyani Jaipuria, pro vice chairperson of DPS-Jaipur. The academy will be spearheaded by India’s Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali, former national tennis champion and Davis Cup player. “I am thrilled to associate with DJTA to usher in a new era of tennis excellence in India. Our vision is to equip students not only with skill training but also to guide them to attain peak mental and physical fitness through planned nutrition,” he added. IIM-U-Communeeti agreement Udaipur, January 3. The Centre for Development Policy and Management (CDPM) of the Indian Institute of Management-Udaipur (IIM-U) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Communeeti, a Delhi-based public policy think-tank and research organisation. Prof. Ashok Banerjee, director, IIM-Udaipur and Pratyush Prabhakar, founder-director of Communeeti, signed the MoU under which the two parties will engage in collaborative research and consultancy projects. “This MoU will enable us to build a foundation and drive focused research and policy-making related to the public policy and development sector. We will disrupt industries, the nation, and society towards a better future, and we will continue to collaborate in other areas of mutual interests in future,” said Banerjee, speaking on the occasion. Infinity 2023 Math Championship Mumbai, January 17. In association with the top-ranked Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS Pilani, estb.1964) and University of Waterloo (Canada), the Mumbai-based Aditya Birla World Academy (ABWA, estb.2009) successfully conducted Infinity 2023 — The Ultimate Math Championship. This annual transnational championship which attracts students from UAE, Oman, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, encourages students to demonstrate their math capabilities and creativity. The final round of the 2023 competition was staged on January 14-15 at Mumbai University. School teams declared Infinity Champions of the Year…
Teacher training initiative Chandigarh, january 20. The Punjab government has finalised a plan to send a first batch of 36 principals of government schools to the Principals’ Academy, Singapore for a specially designed training programme this month (February). Addressing a press conference, education minister Harjot Singh Bains said: “Since teachers are nation builders who can lift the level of education, their teaching skills need to be upgraded by ensuring quality training. The principals will take part in a professional teachers’ training workshop in Singapore from February 6-10.” Last year, chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann convened a meeting with government school principals seeking inputs on ways and means to raise school education standards. Uttarakhand Sampark FLN TV Dehradun, january 2. Under a Sampark smartshala initiative to transform government school classrooms into smart classrooms, chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami introduced Sampark FLN (foundational literacy and numeracy) TV and Sampark Science TV — free-of-charge plug and play devices designed by the Noida-based Sampark Foundation — at a function organised at the Girls Inter College, Kaulagarh. In the initial phase, Sampark FLN TV — a device that converts any television set into an interactive learning platform with preloaded lessons featuring quizzes, worksheets and animated content — will be installed in 100 schools statewide, impacting 17,000 students. A total of 200 teachers will be trained to use the smart platform. “Sampark smartshala is an initiative to promote education through modern technology. It will reach out to nearly 11,000 schools statewide. In particular, the initiative will prove very useful to children living in remote areas of the state,” said the chief minister. . Jharkhand Overnight protest trek Chaibasa (jharkhand), january 18. A hostel warden, four teachers and security guard of the fully residential government-run Kasturba Gandhi Girls School, Khuntpani were served show-cause notices after 61 girl students trekked 17 km overnight to register a complaint at the deputy commissioner’s office highlighting abuse and “atrocities” inflicted upon them by school authorities. The students informed the DSE (district superintendent education) that they were served stale food, denied clean toilets and backward class children were forced to sleep on the floor in cold wave conditions. They also alleged that the warden compelled them to lie to senior officials when they visited the school for inspection. Neither the guard nor teachers were aware that 61 girls were missing from the hostel until the district authorities contacted them. Gujarat Bribery charge arrest Ahmedabad, january 9. The Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested a DEO (district education officer) for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs.20,000 from a government school principal near Lunawada town. The Mahisagar district DEO was trapped accepting the bribe, which he had allegedly demanded from a school principal when she had approached his office for the second time to complain about delay in allotment of an ‘employee number’ to a newly appointed teacher in her school. Haryana Sports University of Haryana Sonipat, january 2. Former IPS officer S.S. Deswal has been appointed vice chancellor of the Sports University of…
“Like in cricket, a batter focuses on the ball thrown to him ignoring shouts for fours and sixes from the crowd, students should also concentrate on their work. Do not be suppressed by pressures. Stay focused.” Prime minister Narendra Modi’s advice to students at his annual ‘thoughts on examination’ interactive session (January 27) “The President doesn’t contest elections, but it looks like the BJP government is conducting its next election campaign through her. The entire speech was an election speech trying to praise the government for everything it has done and skipping all those bits it has not done so well.” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on President Draupadi Murmu’s speech to Parliament on the inauguration of the Budget session (The Tribune, January 31) “The issue is not just about protecting some ‘doles’ for the poor but on what our vision for Amrit Kaal is — it surely can’t be one where half the population has to struggle with access to education, health, nutrition and social security.” Dipa Sinha, professor of economics, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi on the Union Budget 2023-24 short-changing the social sector again (The Hindu, February 2) “Only a slavish, colonial mentality can suggest that we turn our Indian institutions into second class ‘citizens’ by promising all kinds of autonomy — operational and academic — only to foreign universities. This is not the way to establish ‘Make in India’ institutions.” Anurag Mehra, professor of chemical engineering, IIT-Bombay on new UGC norms allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India (NDTV, February 3) “Asked to assess his performance as prime minister, as many as 72 percent of the respondents rated it as outstanding to good…” Raj Chengappa, group editorial director, on the results of a recent poll assessing PM Narendra Modi’s popularity (India Today, February 6)
The war between Tamil Nadu’s DMK government and the BJP government at the Centre on education issues is intensifying. On several issues including NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), a central exam for admission into medical colleges; CUET (Common University Entrance Test) for admission into all Central government universities; three-languages learning in K-12 education and several provisions of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 tabled in Parliament on July 29, 2020, the Central and state governments are at loggerheads. However, addressing the 34th convocation of the Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women in Coimbatore on January 21, Dharmendra Pradhan, Union education minister, expressed hope that the DMK government will cooperate with the Centre in implementing NEP 2020. “Though education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and the state has the right to enact legislation, the Centre expects Tamil Nadu to accept NEP 2020,” he said. But this expectation is unlikely to be met. Last year on April 5, 2022, almost two years after NEP 2020 was approved by Parliament, the DMK government constituted a 13-member committee chaired by D. Murugesan, a former chief justice of the Delhi high court, to formulate a State Education Policy (SEP) exclusively for Tamil Nadu. The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India lists 52 subjects on which both the Central and state governments can enact legislation. Education is one of them. Therefore, the DMK government, now in the third year in office, believes it is entitled to enact its own SEP. According to academics and political pundits in Chennai, although DMK supremo and chief minister M.K. Stalin has cited several differences with the Centre which prompted the state government to constitute the Murugesan Committee, the roots of the latest Centre-state stand-off can be traced to the old issue of adamant opposition to Hindi being declared the national language of India. Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the three-language policy which obliges all school children to learn Hindi, English and the state language, goes all the way back to the pre-independence era. In 1937, the first regional Congress government elected under the government of India Act, 1935 and headed by stalwart C.R. Rajagopalachari, (aka Rajaji), issued a government order making Hindi language learning compulsory in state government schools. This prompted the rise of the Self Respect Movement founded by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker and the Justice Party which apprehended “Hindi imperialism”. In 1965, when Hindi was approved by Parliament as the national language, violent riots broke out in Tamil Nadu. Shortly thereafter, the Congress government in Delhi declared English as the associate national language and language of the upper judiciary and Centre-state and inter-state communication. But with NEP 2020 reiterating the three language formula — which makes Hindi learning compulsory for all school children — old antagonism has been revived. “After having several rounds of meetings with stakeholders including teachers and experts in the field of education, and holding public hearings we are almost ready with the SEP draft. It will…
For Karnataka’s beleaguered ruling BJP government fighting a spate of corruption scandals ahead of looming legislative assembly elections to be held in May, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, released in the national capital on January 18 and authored by the highly-respected Pratham Education Foundation, contains bad news. The first household child-testing report since the Covid-19 pandemic shut down schools countrywide for 82 weeks in 2020-21, ASER 2022 confirms that the ill-advised prolonged lockdown of schools has inflicted massive learning loss among children statewide. Worse, the learning loss of Karnataka’s 10.8 million children is greater than the national average. According to ASER 2022 (which assesses elementary reading and numeracy skills of rural children), class V children who can read class II textbooks in government and private schools in Karnataka has dropped to a rock-bottom 30.2 percent from 46 percent in 2018, against the national average of 42.8 percent. Likewise in numeracy skills, Karnataka children are way behind the national average. Only 13.3 percent of class V children can do simple division sums against the national average of 25.6 percent. Shockingly, only 16.8 percent of class III children statewide can recognise numbers up to 99. “Clearly, the pandemic has resulted in learning loss. However, what the ASER 2022 figures seem to suggest is that the loss is much greater in some states,” says Dr. Wilima Wadhwa, director of ASER Centre. Karnataka is one of five states nationwide where children have suffered over 10 percentage drop in the reading capability of class V children. “Drops of more than 10 percentage points are visible in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, and Maharashtra,” says the report which attributes the decline in learning levels of children to the 82-week lockdown of schools during the pandemic, and unavailability of digital devices and internet connectivity for online learning. ASER 2022, which surveyed 19,060 villages in 616 districts of rural India, tested the reading and arithmetic capabilities of 7 lakh children of 374,544 households nationwide. In Karnataka, 31,854 children in the age group three to 16 years were tested. The survey makes other disturbing revelations about the condition of rural schools in Karnataka. It says that 14.1 percent of them don’t have useable girls’ toilets and 22.9 percent don’t provide drinking water facility. Shocking data for a state which is a hub of the 21st century ICT (information communication technologies) industry and enjoys a per capita income of Rs.165,371, 10 percent higher than the national per capita income of Rs.150,326 per year. According to media reports, education ministry officials derive a measure of pride from ASER 2022 data which indicates that enrolment in government schools has increased from 69.9 percent in 2018 to 72.6 percent in 2022, reversing the trend of children migrating from government to private budget schools. However, the authors of ASER 2022 attribute this phenomenon to a substantial number of parents who suffered job loss and financial distress during the Covid pandemic, being obliged to send their children to free-of-charge government primaries where children…
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) According to the recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 of the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation, which assessed the learning outcomes of 11,994 children in rural primaries in 18 districts of West Bengal, although classroom attendance has risen to 92.2 percent from a low of 72.9 percent in 2021, learning outcomes plunged precipitously during the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic lockdown of schools statewide. Alarmingly, younger children have been worst hit with only 33 percent of class III children — down from 40 percent pre-pandemic — able to read class II-level texts. Among class V students who can read class II-level texts, the percentage is down to 47.1 from 50.5 percent in 2018. ASER 2022 paints a dismal picture of the pitiable condition of youngest children in West Bengal, a state that prides itself on its intellectual prowess. Only 7.8 percent of rural primaries in the state have a separate teacher for pre-primary classes; a mere 13.6 percent of schools have received notification to implement Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) activities for classes I-III, and only 9 percent have trained FLN teachers, the lowest percentage countrywide. Unsurprisingly, the report ranks West Bengal high for primary children availing private tuition — 74.2 percent cf. the national average of 30.5 percent. Moreover, ASER 2022 says that only 15 percent of children received learning materials during the pandemic and a mere 33 percent had access to smartphones to learn online. It’s pertinent to note that India’s pandemic lockdown of the education sector averaging 82 weeks, was the most prolonged worldwide. But the lockdown of education institutions in the state was above the national average at 99 weeks. According to a local study — Learning Together, conducted in September 2021 and written after testing a representative sample of 7,204 primary school (classes I-V) students statewide — 28 percent of pupils in government-run primary schools in West Bengal have become “totally disconnected from academic activities” and balanced nutrition has become “a distant dream” for a significant proportion of children because of diminished household incomes. The lackadaisical attitude, bordering on indifference, of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government — now in its third consecutive five-year term in office — has provoked a groundswell of indignation within West Bengal’s bhadralok (refined middle class) which is the standard bearer of the state’s once highly respected culture and academic tradition. “Children now in primary school have learnt nothing in the past two years and have forgotten what they had learnt. This is why learning deficit is more acute in relatively younger children who have not had the chance to strengthen the foundations of their learning. Children enrolled in class I in 2020 have learnt nothing during the past two years. In effect, they started school in 2022 but have been promoted to class III while still illiterate. This will trouble them throughout their lives,” warned Dr. Sukanta Chaudhuri, emeritus professor at Jadavpur University, at a January 19 panel discussion on ASER 2022 convened by the…
Words of encouragement As always, the latest issue of EducationWorld makes absorbing reading. I hope in this year, we will meet the extraordinary expectations and aspirations of all for a transformative change in our knowledge society enriched by erudite individuals like you. I appreciate your visionary oversight of this widely read magazine which is a fund of information for varied stakeholders representing different strata of India’s education community. Let me wish you the best of success in all aspects of your multidimensional endeavour in promoting quality education, and thus creating an enlightened society shaping India’s 21st century destiny. Sincere best wishes for 2023. Dr. K. Kasturirangan on email Wake up call I am a regular reader of EW and agree with your cover story (EW, January) that private universities are “catalysing sea change in higher education”. India’s slew of new genre, globally benchmarked privately promoted universities have indeed infused new life in higher education, and spirit of competition within the country’s apathetic public universities. I hope your detailed cover story will wake up government higher education institutions which are indifferent to academic and research excellence. It’s high time our myopic politicians acknowledge the role and contribution of private education in the national development effort. Senthil Kumar Bengaluru Wrong focus Your cover story (EW January) has left me with a deep sense of disappointment. Instead of acknowledging that India’s highest ranked institutions in the QS and THE World University Rankings are public universities, you have celebrated private universities, which are highly ranked in your own league table. Public technology and research institutes such as the IITs need to be appreciated for the commendable work they are doing. How can you dismiss their role in catalysing sea change? Suhaas P. on email Confusing methodology Re part II of your comprehensive EW India School Rankings 2022-23 (EW October). The management of Hopetown Girls School, Dehradun is deeply disappointed that we have been awarded a low score under the parameter of safety & hygiene. As a fully residential school we pride ourselves on high standards of safety and hygiene to ensure well-being of our students. I assure you we have very strong protocols and systems. Our Block Education Officer at Sahaspur who inspected our school recently, especially complimented us for our safety and hygiene standards. We are very confused with your evaluation methodology. Kindly clarify. Srinjoy Ghosh Administrative Coordinator Hopetown Girls School, Dehradun Scores under every parameter are awarded by 14,221 sample respondents comprising school principals, parents, teachers and senior students according to their perception. See p.36 of our cover story – Editor Agile classrooms I am highly impressed with Jessica Cavallaro’s column on student-driven agile classrooms (Teacher-2-Teacher, EW January). As an education professional myself I am in full agreement with the author’s views that to prepare students for the looming uncertain future, we need to focus on equipping them with transferable, flexible and adaptive learning skills. Inviting students to collaborate to engage with content is the need of the hour. Anandi Singh Jaipur…
Contrary to alarmist headlines in mainstream media proclaiming steep learning loss experienced by children in elementary (class I-VIII) education in rural India, careful reading of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 suggests the opposite. Although because schools in India were ill-advisedly shuttered for 82 weeks to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic — the longest education lockdown of any major country worldwide — children did experience some learning loss, the damage they have suffered is not as severe as forecast. According to ASER 2022, in 2018 prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, 50.5 percent of class V children across government and private rural primaries were able to successfully read and comprehend class II textbooks — a pathetic indictment of the quality of education being dispensed in the country’s elementary education system, but that’s another story. Subsequent to schools reopening after the lockdown was lifted in late 2021, the percentage of class V children who can read and understand class II texts is 42.8 percent, indicating slippage but not disaster. Likewise, the percentage of class III children who can manage two-digit subtraction sums fell from 28.2 percent in 2018 to 25.9 in 2022, and who could manage three-digit division sums from 27.9 percent to 25.6, from bad to worse, but not by much. A clear lesson of the over-long pandemic lockdown is the resilience and enthusiasm for learning that India’s school children have demonstrated. By utilising household smart phones and television — 93.3 percent of households nationwide own a smart phone, and 67.8 percent own a television set — enlisting the help of family elders and through peer learning, relatively underprivileged rural children have averted disastrous learning loss. Relatively privileged urban children are likely to have suffered even less learning decline. Moreover, all children have become better acquainted with new digital learning technologies. Demonstrated capability of school children countrywide to continue to learn despite schools being under tight lockdown, is a clear signal that traditional classroom pedagogies need to change. Clearly in-school children must be given greater opportunity to self-learn through exploration, discovery and experience with teachers transforming from sage-on-stage to guides-by-the-side of children. In the early years of the new millennium, Prof. Sugata Mitra’s computer-in-the-wall experiment demonstrated that given access to new digital technologies, even poorest children learn quickly through experimentation and experience. Minimal damage suffered by way of learning loss despite the extended pandemic-induced lockdown of schools as testified by ASER 2022, is further proof that children must be given opportunities to learn differently, viz, through challenge-and-response, peer-to-peer and digital pedagogies. This important lesson derived from the longest lockdown of education institutions worldwide, must not be lost.
The clarion call of vice President Jagdeep Dhankar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, for review of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati Case (1973) in which (accepting the argument of eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala (1920-2002)), the Supreme Court held that legislation enacted by Parliament which violates the “basic structure” of the Constitution is invalid, is fraught with danger. It should be opposed by all right-thinking members of society. The argument of proponents of judicial review of this historic judgement is driven by belief that Article 368, which permits a two-thirds majority of Parliament to alter and amend any provision of the Constitution, ipso facto acknowledges the supremacy of a duly elected Parliament in the national governance schema. To grasp the fallacy of this argument based on the example of unlimited power exercised by the British parliament (“the mother of all parliaments”), it’s important to recall the evolutionary history of the Constitution of India. The first point to bear in mind is that unlike the UK, which doesn’t have a written constitution, the Constitution of India is a written document whose every provision was extensively debated by a distinguished Constituent Assembly for almost four years. As such, it’s binding upon all estates of the realm — parliament, executive, the judiciary, media and citizenry. However as it became manifest later, the Constitution contained some anomalies, if not contradictions. Therefore in 1967 in Golak Nath’s Case, the apex court ruled that Article 368 notwithstanding, Parliament does not have power to alter or abridge citizens’ fundamental rights enshrined in Part III of the Constitution, and the seven freedoms contained in Article 19. The court ruled that Parliament/government may impose reasonable restrictions on fundamental rights subject to endorsement by the Supreme Court. But with Parliament dominated by the socialist Congress party continuing to enact legislation imposing restrictions on the right to free speech and property ownership, in the Kesavananda Bharati Case (1973), the apex court ruled that legislation enacted by Parliament which violates the basic structure of the Constitution — designed to safeguard the fundamental rights of minority citizens — is invalid even if passed unanimously. In light of this history and evolution of checks and balances and separation of powers, it’s plain that the Dhankar-Birla proposal which posits that Parliament has the final word in national governance, is misconceived. Rather than Parliament/executive, it’s the Constitution as interpreted by the judiciary, that’s supreme. If absolute authority to amend the Constitution is conceded to a transient Parliament with a five-year term, the BJP government with its two-thirds majority could enact legislation declaring India a Hindu state, an initiative that would be totally contrary to the intent of the founding fathers of the Constitution. Therefore, the proposal to reconsider the verdict of the apex court in the Kesavananda Case should be firmly rejected by all right-thinking members of society.
Autar Nehru (Delhi) With the university grants Commission (UGC) — the apex-level body that regulates higher education countrywide — releasing its draft UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023 on January 5, India moved closer to permitting foreign higher education institutions (FHEIs) to establish campuses on Indian soil. Although finalisation of the regulations is pending, to all intent and purposes this historic liberalisation of Indian academia — a tightly closed shop until dawn of the new millennium — is done and dusted. Ironically, the ruling BJP government at the Centre, and particularly its ideological mentor organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had all along vociferously opposed the entry of FHEIs into India since the proposal was initiated in the 1990s. First mooted shortly after the historic Union Budget of 1991 which dismantled Soviet-inspired licence-permit-quota raj in Indian industry, this initiative has had a chequered history. The first Bill to this effect was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 1995 by the Narasimha Rao-led Congress government in its last year in office, and it lapsed when the government’s term ended. In 2007, a Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry, Operation, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill, 2007 was approved by the Union cabinet of the Congress-led UPA government which swept to power at the Centre in General Election 2004. However, the Bill was strongly opposed by the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) whose 66 MPs were supporting the UPA coalition of that time and it wasn’t tabled in Parliament. Another Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010 was presented to Parliament in 2010, but was vehemently opposed by the BJP which made common cause with left-wing communists, and was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee. Finally the Bill was introduced on January 13, 2013 by then Union HRD (education) minister Kapil Sibal, but prolonged disruption of Parliament by the opposition (especially BJP) killed it until the term of the Lok Sabha ended. Therefore this time round, instead of enacting legislation which could be torpedoed in Parliament, the BJP government has invoked s.12 and s.26 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, which confers wide powers on the commission to “advance the cause of higher education in India”, and maintain “minimum standards of instruction for the grant of any degree by any university”. According to BJP insiders in Delhi, the major factor which has prompted the BJP about-turn is that with reputed Western universities having established campuses in China, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, and Qatar, these countries have emerged as international education hubs attracting students from several countries, including India. On the other hand, the inflow of foreign students into India has remained unimpressive at under 75,000 for the past two decades. Moreover, with the latest AISHE (All India Survey on Higher Education) Report indicating that against the target of 50 percent youth in the 18-24 age group in higher education by 2035, the current GER (gross enrolment ratio)…
Foreign branded schools cost-benefits
Foreign trusts and corporates rarely plan to operate licensed schools themselves. Whether a local partner renting the Harrow name can truly recreate the ethos of the original institution is doubtful, writes Roshan Gandhi Indian school pupils will soon be able to follow in Jawaharalal Nehru’s footsteps by attending Harrow School, or spend their formative years ambling the corridors of Wellington College, without leaving Indian terra firma. These schools have announced they are setting up shop in Bangalore and Pune respectively, this year. Other famous school brands from abroad are set to follow shortly. While entry of branded foreign education institutions is a welcome development that can import new pedagogies and best education practices into India, we must also weigh the implications of their entry into India’s education marketplace from a critical angle. The prime motive behind foreign education institutions establishing Indian affiliates is profit generation. This might sound like a statement of the obvious, but on closer inspection it’s not so straightforward. Indian readers are accustomed to nominally ‘not-for-profit’ private schools which in reality are promoter-operated, channeling surpluses into personal accounts of promoters through legal creativity. This is not true of British private schools, which are genuinely not-for-profit entities managed by governing boards whose members don’t have financial stakes in the institution. Delivering premium quality education is expensive, so despite high fees these schools often have to rely on additional sources of income to fund noble ambitions such as scholarships and new infrastructure. Additional income normally comes in the form of donations from grateful parents and alumni. But now that British private schools are confronted with the prospect of losing their tax-exempt status, and economic challenges across Europe inhibiting the generosity of benefactors, they are obliged to find alternative income sources. Taking their brands overseas is the latest strategy devised to this end. Foreign trusts and corporates establishing their school brands in India, rarely plan to operate the licensed schools themselves. The preferred model is to partner with local investor-entrepreneurs who provide land, buildings, and operations personnel (in Harrow’s case, Amity Group; in Wellington’s, Unison Group). The local investor pays the foreign brand a fee under the head of ‘educational services’, which includes use of the brand name and quality assurance to uphold the standards of the brand. The model is not dissimilar to the franchise model that many Indian education institutions already employ. We can expect Indian affiliates of foreign schools to charge very high fees — upwards of Rs.16 lakh per annum, far out of reach for the vast majority of Indians. High fees per se is not a reason to be critical — there is nothing wrong with consumers making a free choice to purchase expensive services. But they raise the question of what patrons of these schools are looking for. Elite schools are not new to India. High-fees boarding schools educating scions of the super-rich have existed since the 19th century, and it is well understood that elite families opt for such schools not only for…