Somewhat surprisingly across India, the lead in promoting vocational education and training (VET) in a big way has been taken by the eastern seaboard state of Odisha and its BJD government led by the Doon School & St. Stephen’s College educated Naveen Patnaik, serving an unprecedented third term in office as chief minister – Autar Nehru One of the major blindspots of post-independence India’s dysfunctional education system is vocational education and training (VET). Curiously, the omniscient czars of the Soviet-inspired Planning Commission, established soon after independence from almost 200 years of rapacious British rule over the Indian subcontinent, accorded low priority to education and human capital development, and even lower priority to VET. Despite central planners in the Soviet Union according to high importance to education — especially primary education — their Indian disciples were unconvinced. Annual investment (Centre plus states) in human capital development in post-independence India has averaged 3.5 percent of GDP and never exceeded 4 percent despite the high-powered Kothari Commission (1966) strongly recommending 6 percent of GDP. The socio-economic impact of continuous under-investment in human capital development for seven decades is that the country’s population has tripled because central planners were unaware that “education is the best contraceptive”. Moreover, with the majority rural population at best functionally literate, agriculture yields are pathetically low despite over-use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides which has resulted in despoliation of soil across vast stretches of land. In Punjab — the breadbasket state of India — per-hectare wheat and rice yields are one-fifth of China’s and one-tenth of France and the US. In Indian industry, the outcome of poor quality education in general and VET, in particular, is low productivity of shop floor and technical workers — a mere tenth of industrial workers in OECD countries. The foolishly neglected issue of VET entered the radar of government and policy makers after the dirigiste red-tape bound Indian economy was partially liberalised and deregulated in 1991. This was mainly due to the efforts of iWatch (estb.1992), an NGO registered by IIT-Bombay alumnus Krishan Khanna who quit a promising career in India Inc (Crompton Greaves) to promote the cause of VET. Subsequently, in the new millennium a small band of prescient educationists (and EducationWorld) began highlighting this gaping lacuna in the country’s education system and connected it with rock-bottom productivity of Indian agriculture, industry and labour. In 2009, the Congress-led UPA-II government belatedly established the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) with the mandate to rapidly skill the country’s population. NSDC’s mission was to build a sustainable ecosystem and promote skills development through provision of long-term loans to private sector VET firms, set up sector skill councils with employer engagement to prescribe standards and benchmarks, accredit training institutions to certify trainees, and encourage industry to employ trained personnel. However, a decade later, NSDC has had limited success with allegations that it recklessly awarded loans and contracts to private VET partners providing sub-standard training and courses. Moreover, the BJP/NDA government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), launched…
Four months after it admitted its first batch of undergrad students, the wholly residential private Krea University in Sri City (Andhra Pradesh), with its unique School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences and IFMR-Graduate School of Business, is poised to reshape the contours of the country’s higher education landscape – Dilip Thakore 70 km from the port city of Chennai (formerly Madras), administrative capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million), down the crowded National Highway 16 — currently experiencing extensive expansion repairs and traffic jams — across the TN-Andhra Pradesh border, an academic enterprise of great pith and moment is assuming shape and form in Sri City, a special economic zone established in the Chittoor district. The first batch of 113 students of the sui generis, mint new School of Interwoven Arts & Sciences (SIAS) of Krea University (KU, estb. 2018) — peninsular India’s first globally benchmarked liberal arts university — is finding its bearings and has settled down on the varsity’s clean and green campus. Four months after it admitted its first batch of undergrad students into SIAS, this wholly residential private university is poised to reshape the contours of the higher education landscape of southern India which hosts one-third of India’s 1.30 billion population. Its students (60 percent women) from 22 states across the country are well- settled into the leafy green, well-designed 40-acre campus with a built-up area of 344,000 sq.ft comprising a main academic block and three residential buildings to house male and women students and faculty residences — designed by Chennai’s reputed C.N. Rao Architects. Classes are running smoothly according to prescribed time tables. The blossoming of Krea (derived from the Sanskrit kriya, meaning intelligent action) University is a development of great significance in Indian higher education because it is the first Amercian Ivy League-style, liberal arts-focused university in peninsular India. Although it is well established that the southern states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana — are better educated and more advanced on most parameters of socio-economic development than the more populous Hindi heartland states of north India, governments and edupreneurs in these states have a history of promoting excellent institutions of professional education — engineering, medical, hospitality, pharmacy — which attract students from across the country and even from abroad. For instance 25 percent of all medical practitioners in Malaysia are graduates of the privately-promoted and managed Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE, estb. 1953). But curiously, until 2018, no southern education entrepreneur had stepped forward to promote a liberal arts institution of higher learning in the tradition of American Ivy League colleges and universities, down south. In this respect, the northern states, notably Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have stolen a march over peninsular India. During the past decade, the globally benchmarked Flame University, Pune (estb. 2007), Ashoka University (estb. 2014) and O.P. Jindal Global University (2009) have quickly established reputations as excellent liberal arts varsities arguably superior to the best (St. Stephen’s, JNU etc) countrywide. In the…
Rooh-e-Rumi: Seeking god is seeking love; Mamta Sehgal, Notion press; Rs.240, Pages 173 Much has been written about the famed 13th century Sufi and Persian poet Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi, underlining the continuing relevance of his message centuries after he left the world for a better place. In this absorbing book, Mamta Sehgal highlights key themes of Rumi’s poetry and elaborates on valuable lessons that we can draw from them for individual betterment as also for effective change in society. In the preface, Sehgal provides a brief introduction to Rumi’s life and poetry. From her, we learn that Rumi wasn’t just a Sufi mystic and poet: he was also an Islamic scholar, theologian and jurist. Although she admits that Rumi was a devout Muslim who took Islam seriously, “the depth of his spiritual vision extended beyond narrow sectarian concerns,” she says. Sehgal sincerely believes that Rumi’s wondrous work inspires one to attain the love of God and the beloved, and all of creation, and this, she believes, inspired her to write Rooh-e-Rumi. Rooh-e-Rumi weaves together more than 40 translated quotes from Rumi’s poetry that deal with a diverse range of issues relating to the spiritual path, faith in God, self-realisation, listening to the inner voice, following one’s heart, the wisdom to protect oneself from one’s own inclinations, and love. Sehgal translates, explains and elaborates these quotes in simple language, directly connecting them to the quest for inner transformation based on surrender to, and love of God. This way, she highlights the continuous import and relevance of Rumi’s message. Here is a sample to illustrate the teaching method Sehgal adopts: “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears,” wrote Rumi. Reflecting on this quote, Sehgal explains: “The most important thing in life is realisation that there is only one Supreme Power which is responsible for the well-being of every living being, that He is the reason for us to receive a human life and be on this earth. Only He knows the path of our life and what we are destined to face in our journey. When we surrender completely and pray to Him to keep us in His guidance, then He not only shows us the right way but also makes sure that we are able to walk on it with ease. He makes the journey so easy that we do not see the need for assistance from our fellow beings. His grace brings us out of difficult and confusing situations and shows us the right way.” Based on a universal understanding of spirituality, this book, which illustrates the wisdom of Maulana Rumi, one of the world’s best-known sufi masters, is an inspiring and evocative spiritual guide. At a time when dualities and conflicts in the cause of religion abound, this book highlights the salience of taking the true spiritual path which transcends narrow man-made boundaries and is based on love and surrender to the One Creator of all. “Spirituality is a true love for God. It is a…
A gallery of rascals: My favourite tales of Rogues, Rapscallions & N’er do-wells, Ruskin Bond Aleph Book Company, Rs.385; Pages 208 To read Ruskin Bond’s fiction is to feel the transformation of Indian society after independence, combined with the inimitable knack of storytelling with which Bond characterises daily life in small town India. An astute observer, Bond paints a vivid picture of overlooked sections of society, while maintaining a leisurely pace with attention to minute detail, which reminds the reader of R.K. Narayan. This short volume contains 30 stories about disreputable and morally suspect characters, as the title suggests. Obviously, villainous characters are always more interesting than the ones who take the straight and narrow path and the villainy portrayed in the tales is mostly light-hearted. Some of the stories deal with serious themes, while others are amusing crime tales. In A Man Called Brain, the author portrays a self-obsessed sybarite doomed to a lonely existence with fast approaching old age — painting an evocative picture of pre-independence India of round cigarette tins and bullock carts. In Sher Singh and the Hot-water Bottle, a distiller is able to confound orderly society around him by concocting large quantities of forbidden liquor which is enthusiastically consumed by the bored residents of a hill town. There is a common vein of aging and decay in some of the more serious stories like Strychnine in the Cognac and A Case for Inspector Lal. Although, he professes to be unlike Dostoyevsky in his bid to define the motivations behind a crime, the subject of criminal responsibility is dealt with, albeit always tinged with Bond’s characteristic humour. Can criminality be justified in certain circumstances? This moral conundrum confronts the conscientious Inspector Lal, whose emotions get in the way of his duty when a known child trafficker is found murdered in her home. On the other hand, nuanced tales like Susanna’s Seven Husbands and A Job Well Done, deal with the duality of conventional morality and the very tough choices an individual often has to make to survive. In A gallery of rascals that lumps braggarts and murderers together, the author is at his best recounting simple-hearted stories about the exploits of children. Bond knits childhood memories and local legends into evocative stories like The Four Feathers, in which some school children steal a baby mistaking it for an orphan; and When the Guavas are Ripe, in which some children strike up an unusual friendship with a watchman while stealing guavas from his orchard. Bond also writes about people living on the margins of society — incorrigible drifters — who remain defiantly unreasonable even if they receive the ire of society. One of Bond’s all-time favourites The Thief’s Story is also included in this collection. It narrates the necessity of a life of crime which is the result of penury and maltreatment. In other amusing stories, even supernatural mischief-makers like prets and jinns come together to camp in the homes of unsuspecting people. Weaving interesting historical facts with…
The cuts in corporate income taxes from 30 to 22 percent and 15 percent for new manufacturing companies announced on September 20, which were enthusiastically welcomed by Niti Aayog and establishment pundits, have proved a damp squib. The expectation was that reduced tax payouts to the IT department would prompt corporate leaders, who now have more money in their treasuries, to invest in expanding capacity and would also attract foreign investors. But thus far, this expectation has been belied. Neither domestic nor foreign investors are breaking into a stampede to invest in India. That’s because despite the tax cuts, which establishment economists aver makes India tax competitive with BRICS (Brazil, India, China, South Africa) and other foreign investment magnet nations, the soft state Nehruvian ideology which the country ill-advisedly embraced after independence, has always tolerated a parallel system of informal taxation, i.e pervasive corruption in government, which drives up manufacturing and business costs and makes Indian industry internationally uncompetitive. In addition, businessmen/investors have to factor in India’s inadequate and time-agnostic judicial system that makes it impossible to recover business debts within reasonable time. Moreover domestic and foreign investors have to provide for India’s weak and corrupt law and order system in their investment decisions. Niti Aayog and establishment economists need to understand that tax and interest rate cuts will be effective only after the several rogue elephants rampaging within the economy are tamed. Strong economies need firm foundations. Unfortunately in realpolitik, there are no silver bullet solutions.
The resounding slap in the face administered to Ratan Tata (RT), chairman emeritus of the Mumbai-based Tata Sons, the holding company of the multi-business salt-software Tata Group of companies (annual revenue: Rs.7.9 lakh crore) and his hand-picked Tata Sons CEO N. Chandrasekhar by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on December 19 could well be a final ignominious requiem for RT, now in the winter of his life. In 2013, after his mandatory retirement from the chairmanship of Tata Sons on attaining age 75 — a limit gratuitously mandated by RT for all Tata Group directors — he engineered the appointment of Cyrus Mistry, son of construction tycoon Shapoorji Pallonji as his successor in Tata Sons. At the time this seemed an ideal arrangement as Shapoorji Pallonji Ltd is a substantial equity shareholder (18 percent) of Tata Sons. However soon after, RT became disillusioned with his protégé. Particularly after Mistry set about correcting his (Ratan’s) bloomers such as the disastrous over-priced acquisition of the UK-based Corus Steel, unravelling the Tata Docomo tangle and rescinding contracts awarded to Ratan’s pal Melhi Mistry (no relation) by Tata companies. In October 2016 alleging unsubstantiated “mismanagement” RT ousted Mistry and appointed Chandrasekhar as Mistry’s successor in Bombay House, the command centre of the Tata business empire. Against all advice, Mistry bravely appealed his ouster at NCLAT, where he has won a famous victory. As former editor of Business India and Businessworld, your correspondent is well acquainted with the dramatis personae of Bombay House and slippery Ratan Tata in particular. When the health of J.R.D. Tata who headed the Tata Group for over half a century was failing in the early 1990s, the chairmanship of Tata Sons was up for grabs. In the race Ratan was a distant also-ran and was repeatedly being rubbished by front-runner Russi Mody, chairman of Tata Steel. At that time (at RT’s request) I argued his case in the media as being a better bet than Mody. Just before he passed on in 1993, RT was designated JRD’s heir. However soon after when your editor requested modest support from the Tata Group by way of advertising for this then floundering publication, RT point-blank refused to discharge his IOU, pleading abject poverty. Ditto his lapdog Chandrasekhar (annual remuneration Rs.53 crore) who withdrew support for the TCS-EW annual teachers awards, instituted by Fakir Chand Kohli, the genius who built TCS into India’s #1 IT software and consultancy company, as soon as he succeeded Kohli in 2003. Now following the NCLAT judgment this scheming duo has been thoroughly exposed and discredited. God pays his debts!
The election to the 650-strong House of Commons in Westminster, London — the mother of all parliaments — of 15 Indian-origin MPs has been widely welcomed in the domestic media as a signal triumph for India. While it is undoubtedly a great achievement for Indian emigrants whose parents were ruled and kicked about by our erstwhile British masters, aka Red Devils, in this country less than 75 years ago and to this day are often subjected to racial abuse and discrimination in the UK, to have overcome the odds to be elected to Britain’s venerated House of Commons, the obverse side of the coin is that it’s also reflective of a continuous brain drain — flight of the brightest and most enterprising Indian minds to Western countries, especially to the UK and US. Curiously there is no public anger or social opprobrium of emigrants, educated at public expense and fleeing abroad instead of giving back to the nation and society. On the contrary, every other member of India’s elite clubs unashamedly boasts of sons and nephews serving abroad. Why, even the progeny of several presidents and prime ministers — who one presumes would have every door open for them — prefer serving abroad than at home. During the past six years, 23,000 dollar-millionaires from India have emigrated to Western countries. The deadly combination of a neta-babu brotherhood which makes life unbearable for educated self-respecting citizens and a fickle, materialistic middle class is forcing a brain drain from India. The entry of a record number of Indians into Britain’s parliament is not an occasion for celebration, but lamentation.
Boris Johnson’s proposal to reintroduce post-study work visas in the UK could have the unintended consequence of forcing Australian universities to shorten their Masters degree programmes. A key selling point of UK universities is the opportunity to complete a Masters degree in a year, rather than two years, as is standard in most other parts of the world. In recent years, Britain’s success in recruiting international students has been held back by the absence of an attractive post-study work offer. But the prime minister’s plan to offer foreign students two years of post-study work rights will change this and international education advocate Phil Honeywood says this might force Australia to look hard at whether it can continue to run two-year Masters degrees. “Changes of duration may be required,” Honeywood told the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA)conference in Melbourne. “I’m just putting it out there. I’m talking from a global competitive perspective.” The observation reflects the sometimes seesawing nature of higher education policy. Shorter Masters courses had been commonplace in Australia until a 2011 review recommended that post-study work visas should only be made available to graduates of two-year Masters. “Immediately, all of our public universities switched to two years,” Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, told Times Higher Education. “The argument now would be (that) if we’re to be competitive, we need to go back to potentially having a one-year Masters. How that works out in terms of squeezing enough units of study to make it academically appropriate is going to be a battle we have to face. But if the UK can have one-year Masters then I don’t see why Australia cannot. Pedagogically, if we used to have one-year Masters, I don’t see why we can’t go back to it,” he says. Some fast-track Masters still exist in Australia, and the regulator TEQSA scrutinises outcomes rather than study duration. However, time-consuming regulatory approval would be required for major changes to existing Masters programmes, such as reduced duration. However under current Australian legislation, post-study work visas are only available to people who have been in the country for at least 16 months and studied for at least two academic years. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
US universities’ ties with Middle Eastern countries are coming under increasing scrutiny, threatening to accelerate the decline of such links and leaving campuses facing a mounting administrative burden. From the US government end, the renewed focus is a side effect of the White House’s strategy for blocking China from accessing cutting-edge US research, which has seen universities receiving demands to produce records of all foreign transactions. Beyond China, two of the countries most likely to figure in these documents are Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These are already the targets of politically conservative organisations, which have expressed concerns about the monarchies’ reported links to religious extremism. Separate analyses by the Daily Caller news site and the Clarion Project advocacy group have estimated Qatar as the leader, investing more than $1 billion (Rs.7,100 crore) over five years in US universities. Both analyses put the five-year Saudi investment in US universities at about $600 million. As for China, the Clarion Project estimates $600 million, while the Daily Caller count is closer to $400 million. Such critics have described the payments as part of secretive influence campaigns needing greater public exposure. US universities, however, describe the money as consisting largely of payments by enrolled foreign students, payments related to the operations of branch campuses in the Gulf and donations. Steven Bloom, director of government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, the chief US higher education lobby group, says the US government is potentially burying campuses in paperwork. In federal letters to US campuses, Bloom says the administration seems to be overlooking the $250,000 threshold set by a 1980s law requiring US universities to declare foreign revenue to the government, and has instead demanded complete accounting for all foreign payments.“It’s enormously burdensome and costly,” says Bloom. Middle Eastern nations currently host at least a dozen branch campuses of US universities, mostly in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Much of Saudi Arabia’s expenditure, by contrast, involves the 40,000 students that it sends to college in the US. Saudi financial support to US universities also includes investments in research and in cultural projects such as the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. But Nathan Brown, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, says efforts to publicise ties between US universities and their partners in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are more likely to aggravate anxieties at the other end. That’s because both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are growing tired of their massive investments in US higher education, finding them unable to produce the political influence and reputational gains they seek. “At least on the Saudi side, they’re frustrated that they’ve given a lot of money to create chairs at universities and it doesn’t seem to translate into much influence,” says Brown. Qatar has turned to the Rand Corporation to improve its school systems, he says, leaving its US university partnerships to shrink in number.
Hong Kong universities have been urged to assert their status as bastions of academic freedom in the wake of violent police crackdowns on campus protests. The “most immediate test” would be how higher education institutions respond to the potential prosecution of some of the more than 1,000 students who have been arrested during recent demonstrations, says Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University, London. “Will universities give them support and help them to find ways to complete their degree programmes or terminate them? No one would have a problem with universities cooperating with police for normal criminal charges, but for protesting — seen as political crime at best — it is a different matter,” says Prof. Tsang. Universities will have to contend with this issue while, in some cases, repairing the damage caused by running battles fought between barricaded protesters and the police. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the scene of the worst violence, describes its campus as being in “complete disarray”. Michael O’Sullivan, associate professor in the department of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong — also the scene of serious violence — says that any impact on universities’ reputations “depends very much on the response of academics, journalists and public figures to what are ongoing attacks on university life. Student protests in Berkeley in 1967 and in the Sorbonne in Paris in 1968 only added to the reputation of these university hubs as important centres for liberal education that privilege and protect freedom of speech.” “I would like to think that, following the appropriate academic response to the recent crisis, something similar might be possible for Hong Kong, since its status as a central education hub in Asia where students valiantly stand up for freedom of speech and against totalitarian agendas is now surely clearer than ever before,” he adds. All campus-based classes and exams in the city have been cancelled for the rest of the term following the protests, which are tied to larger actions against perceived police violence and threats to Hong Kong’s judicial independence by the Chinese authorities. Comments Gerard Postiglione, coordinator of the Consortium for Higher Education Research in Asia at the University of Hong Kong: “The universities and education system recovered from the 1967 riots, from the Asian economic crisis of 1998 and from the SARS crisis of 2003. The 1992 Los Angeles riots did not hurt UCLA, USC or Caltech, so why should Hong Kong be any different?” he queries.
When Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it took the chance to reshape the country’s school education system. Mailis Reps, the incumbent education minister, recalls the concluding argument in any debate often ran: “Let’s try something that works in Sweden or Finland.” Many others have done similarly. Every three years, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development) publishes results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with the latest out on December 3. PISA tests the reading, maths and science skills of 15-16-year-olds in the OECD’s member countries, as well as volunteers not in this club of mostly rich countries. The results provide a means to directly compare different education systems. It is now nearly two decades since the first batch results were released. Back then, there was a surprise. Finland, not previously renowned for its education, topped the table when it came to reading, and excelled in other categories, as well. This Nordic country seemed to have discovered a way to get brilliant results without the discipline and intense workload of East Asian champions like Japan and South Korea, which were the other top scorers at the time. Educationists descended on Helsinki. They reported back that not only was education free and comprehensive, but teachers were highly respected, well-trained and left to get on with their jobs, which frequently involved enabling children to discover things for themselves. Schools in countries from Scotland to South Korea sought to mirror Finnish education. Yet Finland’s image as an educational Utopia now seems somewhat out of date. The latest PISA results show a fall in its average score, as they have every round since 2006. Gaps between rich and poor pupils are widening, distressing for a country that prides itself on equality. Estonia, once a mere imitator, is now the highest achiever among OECD countries. The parable of Finland helps to explain why there has been little overall progress since PISA began. The hope at the turn of the millennium was that the wealth of new information provided by the tests would help identify why some school systems do so well. Others would follow their lead, causing results to rise across the board. But although spending per pupil in the OECD has risen by 15 percent in the past decade, performance in reading, maths and science remains essentially the same as when the tests started. Part of the reason for the lack of overall progress is that schools have less influence over results than is commonly assumed. Culture and other social factors, such as adult literacy, matter more, meaning that even well-informed policymakers can only make so much difference. Other factors are also beyond the control of education ministers. Immigration plays an important role, with recent arrivals scoring below locals in most countries. Finland has seen a small uptick in the number of migrant pupils taking PISA over the past decade. More than four-fifths do not speak Finnish at home, helping to explain the big gap in performance between…
Almost a third of international students in the US have faced discrimination because of their nationality with Chinese students being particularly affected, according to a study. A survey of 1,921 overseas students and recent graduates reported that 38 percent found living away from home and family more challenging than they had expected, and 41 percent said they found it hard to form relationships with domestic students. While the overwhelming majority of participants (91 percent) said they were satisfied with their study experience in the US and felt welcome in the country (79 percent), 31 percent said they had faced discrimination because of their nationality, rising to 40 percent among participants from China and 39 percent among those from other parts of east Asia and the Middle East and North Africa region. The study, Are US Higher Education Institutions Meeting International Student Needs?, from World Education Services, an organisation that provides credential evaluations for international students planning to study or work in North America, suggests these higher figures could reflect that relations between the US and China and countries in the Middle East are “currently strained and have a history of conflict”. The survey, published on November 20, was conducted in February and March 2019. The findings follow the release last month of preliminary figures from the US-based Institute of International Education that show that international enrolments in US colleges and universities have fallen by 0.9 percent this year, based on a survey of more than 500 institutions.
French universities have been accused of being bloated at the top, with one institution boasting no fewer than 26 vice presidents. Some university managements have swelled to include vice presidents for simplification, “success,” “heritage” and, even, “the sea”. The findings follow up on a book published recently by a prominent French sociologist of universities, which accuses institutions of having too many senior managers and suggests that a pruning to no more than three or four vice presidents is in order. Collecting data from 70 institutions, the higher education news agency AEF Info found that the average university has 12 vice presidents, although there are wide variations. Four had more than 20, while five had four or fewer. At the top of the list was the University of Lille, with 26. The university did not respond to a request for comment before Times Higher Education’s deadline. Across French universities, there are 54 vice presidents with a “digital” role, with another 25 responsible for “partnerships” of some kind. The survey of universities’ senior management comes in the wake of work by Christine Musselin, a sociologist of universities and former dean of research at Sciences Po, Paris, who argues in her recent book Proposals from a Researcher for the University that French institutions must radically reshape their management structures and shrink the number of vice presidents. Academics want one of their own in senior management positions, Prof. Musselin explains, while administrators sometimes did not trust scholars to carry out administrative and managerial duties effectively, leading to parallel, and sometimes rival, management structures.
The drill-sergeant barking orders is a former commando who lost bits of two fingers while deployed in South Sudan. His 100-odd young charges are dressed in camouflage uniforms and army boots. After a bit of marching in time they are shown how to abseil out of a besieged building. The group under instruction are not conscripts, however, but students hoping to study abroad. “There is nothing very frightening about education in the West,” said China’s then-leader, Deng Xiaoping, to his American guest, Henry Kissinger, in 1979. His words signalled a dramatic opening: Chinese students would at last be allowed to study in countries that were enemies of communism. Today hundreds of thousands of them head abroad every year, mostly to Western countries. Many, however, are more apprehensive than Deng suggested they should be. Their fear is not of ideological contamination, but of petty crimes and shootings that China’s state media highlight as a scourge of Western societies. For Wang Xuejun, this is an opportunity. A veteran of Chinese peacekeeping and international relief work, he is the founder of Safety Anytime, a company that runs security-training programmes for anxious Chinese preparing to sojourn abroad. His customers are taught how to respond to gun-toting assailants, kidnapping attempts and terrorist attacks, among other perils. But the bulk of the training focuses on safety consciousness: how to be aware of more mundane dangers such as muggings or pickpocketing and how to avoid or cope with them. There are also lessons in first aid, information security and drug laws, plus advice on how to handle fraud and sexual harassment. The clients include not just Chinese students, more than 660,000 of whom went abroad in 2018, but also workers of the many Chinese energy, telecom, finance and engineering companies that send employees abroad as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Many of the students are heading towards leafy college campuses in America rather than strife-torn African countries, but they are still anxious. With relentless regularity, they see reports of senseless and deadly mass shootings in American cities. Wang stresses that his training is about much more than avoiding crazed gunmen, but that is the main draw for many of his trainees. “I hope to go to university in America, but we always hear so much about gun violence there that I really have to take it into consideration,” says 15-year-old Cao Zhen, as his mother stands alongside nodding in agreement. Wang, who took part in relief operations in Haiti in the aftermath of a massive earthquake there in 2010, acknowledges that most of his customers will never face the dramatic situations he trains them for. The point, he says, is to develop the preparedness and presence of mind that will serve his trainees well in any dangerous situation, even after they get back home. After all, he says, although China is safer than many of the places his students venture to, anything can happen.
Whenever you struggle with a problematic question, whether in school or at home, you reflexively turn to your friends for help, before initiating a conversation with your teachers, tutors, or parents about it. Have you ever wondered why? While comfort level is one of the prime reasons, it’s also because you feel that your friend may have undergone or is experiencing a similar struggle, and may know the whats, whys, and hows of the question/problem better. The relatively tedious and disinteresting process of learning at school could turn into an insightful and enjoyable process if you learn from and with your peers. This is not just one’s personal experience, but a widely acknowledged and appreciated learning process normative in the gurukul tradition of ancient India. It’s self-evident that learning becomes a more active and engaging process when students are involved in empowering themselves as well as each other. Moreover, with online learning platforms multiplying, the ease of community learning is greater than ever before. It not only helps students to grow academically, it also facilitates friendship and development of life skills. There’s no shortage of research studies which prove that community learning significantly improves the efficiency of learning processes. This is because exploring differing solutions in a supportive environment results in rational reasoning and prompts students to observe, analyse, question, and dig deeper. Peer learning also enables multi-dimensional understanding as it is driven by deliberation and clarification of ideas and concepts. Moreover, since this approach exposes students to disparate viewpoints, it also stimulates critical thinking. Therefore, community or peer learning enhances one’s analytical and problem-solving skills, while simultaneously spurring creativity. This is especially true of the digital space, which provides access and enables interaction with the smartest students countrywide and even worldwide, leading to enhanced learning experiences. An unfortunate reality of the contemporary global academic scenario is that there are many countries and societies in which students and learners in general don’t have access to good quality school and higher education. Given this inequitable scenario, online community learning platforms can play a highly effective role in democratising access to acceptable quality education. For instance, learners residing in remote rural areas, where the education infrastructure is shambolic and well-qualified teachers are rare, can access vast treasure troves of knowledge readily available on digital platforms. This way, students/learners also get the opportunity to interact with their peers world over and acquire greater awareness and understanding of concepts and subjects. Community and peer-to-peer learning also offers an excellent opportunity for students to develop well-rounded personalities. Learning at one’s own pace and in each individual’s unique style while keeping up with peers, is highly motivational, enhances one’s accountability and encourages self-reliance and time management. Moreover, as students/learners become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses through self as well as interpersonal assessment, they are likely to develop new interests through exchange of ideas and information. Peer-to-peer interaction with globally diverse learners and scholars also develops social skills, indispensable in the rapidly crystallising global economy.…
The India centre of the US-based Brookings Institution (estb.1916), routinely ranked the world’s #1 think tank, BIIC (estb. 2013) has quickly established an excellent reputation in India. The Washington DC-based Brookings Institution (BI, estb.1916) is the world’s oldest, richest (annual revenue: $102 million or Rs.726 crore) and top-ranked think tank. This highly influential public policy moulding institute renowned for its deeply researched foreign policy, economics, development, governance and metropolitan policy studies, has 18 centres including three overseas (India, China and Qatar). In the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tank and Civil Societies Programme (TTCSP) — an annual international survey covering 6,600 think tanks worldwide — BI is routinely top ranked. “For over 100 years, the Brookings Institution has helped develop critical public policy solutions in response to some of society’s most intractable problems. We continue to be one of the top-rated and most respected think tanks globally, advancing the public good in a dynamic geopolitical environment shaped by disruptions to the liberal world order, bifurcation of the international system and political fragmentation at all levels of governance,” writes John R. Allen, president of Brookings, in its annual report 2019. BI was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings (1850-1932) to analyse and debate national public policies. In 1927, it was merged with the Institute of Economics (estb.1922) and the Robert Brookings Graduate School (1924) to emerge in its current avatar. Sited on Washington’s Think Tank Row, which houses a cluster of research institutes on or around Massachusetts Avenue, BI has over 300 scholars producing high-quality research on a wide range of public policy, economic and governance issues on its payroll. It’s well-known that several deeply researched studies conducted by this century-old think tank have formed the bedrock of major globally impactful American policies including the Marshall Plan and US’ Tax Reform Act, 1986 and have heavily influenced homeland security and intelligence policy initiatives since the terrorist attacks on New York’s twin towers in 2001. Notable Brookings scholars include former US secretary of education Arne Duncan, former US Council of Economic Advisers’ chairmen Jason Furman and Martin Neil Baily, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and William Galston of the Wall Street Journal. In 2013, Brookings established its Brookings Institution India Centre (BIIC) chaired by Vikram Singh Mehta, an alum of Oxford and Tufts universities with a distinguished service record in several European petroleum companies before he retired as chairman of the Shell Group of companies in India in 2012. Housed in a spacious 7,000 sq. ft office in Delhi’s upscale diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri, BIIC currently has 30 research staff. UPenn’s TTCSP 2018 ranks BIIC #24 in its league table of think tanks in India, China, Japan and South Korea. “When the idea for Brookings India was mooted, not a few Indian policymakers and industrialists questioned the role of think tanks, querying why they are useful or necessary. Today, there is widespread awareness of the valuable role think tanks play in initiating policy research and as…
Within a short span of four years, this young institution of higher education – JIS University, Kolkata, has earned a good reputation for providing industry-connected curriculums that combine academic theory, hands-on learning, research and internships – Baishali Mukherjee Sited on a green environment-friendly 10-acre campus in the leafy Agarpara suburb of Kolkata (pop.15 million), the private JIS University (JISU, estb.2015) has quickly blossomed into a full-fledged professional education varsity with seven faculties offering 49 study programmes to 3,200 students, including 60 from abroad mentored by 150 full-time and 30 visiting faculty. Established by a special JIS University Act 2014 of the West Bengal legislative assembly and inaugurated with pomp and fanfare by chief minister Mamata Banerjee in 2015, JISU is the latest and most ambitious venture of the JIS Group of Educational Initiatives (JISGEI, estb.1998), the education division of the JIS Group (1979), named after its late founder-chairman Jodh Ishwar Singh (1920-2018). Currently, JISGEI comprises 27 education institutions in West Bengal, one in Bihar and three in Jharkhand, offering 126 study programmes to 36,000 students. “JISU’s prime objective is to provide West Bengal’s students community high-quality professional education in disciplines such as engineering and technology, pharmacy, management, law, social sciences and education. It’s a matter of satisfaction that within a short span of four years, this young institution of higher education has earned a good reputation for delivering industry-connected curriculums that combine academic theory, project-based and hands-on learning, research and internships. Our first batch of industry-ready graduates has been enthusiastically welcomed by higher education institutions and corporates in India and abroad,” says Sardar Taranjit Singh, a commerce alumnus of Calcutta University, chancellor of JISU and incumbent managing director of JISGEI. Currently, JISU’s seven faculties — sciences, engineering, biotechnology, juridical sciences, pharmaceutical technology, commerce and management studies, education and hotel and hospitality administration — offer 19 undergraduate, 20 postgrad and ten Ph D study programmes including two dual/integrated degrees (BBA-MBA and BBA-LLB). Study programmes in yoga and naturopathy, languages (French and English) are also available to students. Despite its young age, JISU has already won impressive laurels. They include: the India-Africa ICT Award of Excellence 2017 at India-Africa Summit held in New Delhi, Best University in East India 2018 title of the Centre for Education Growth and Research, Delhi and the Best Upcoming University of Eastern India for ‘recruiting international students’ at the Global India Education Forum 2018, held in Switzerland. Committed to constructing a globally benchmarked university, the JISGEI management has invested heavily in JISU’s infrastructure development. Its 10-acre wi-fi enabled campus boasts a futuristic lake-facing air-conditioned eight-storeyed academic building (built-up area of 170,000 sq. ft) housing 74 ICT-enabled classrooms, 11 seminar halls with 1,800-seats capacity, well-equipped computer science, pharmacy, physics, chemistry, geology, microbiology, biotechnology, remote sensing, data science and bioformatics labs, three state-of-the-art libraries and two reading rooms furbished with 12,000 volumes, 40 print and 40 e-journals, a 200-seat auditorium, spacious cafeteria and separate hostels for 300 men and 200 women students. Moreover, unlike the majority of the country’s…
Last November, Ludhiana (Punjab)-based early teens education evangelist Namya Joshi (13) met her “Skype students” — directors and principals of Finnish schools — for the first time at the Poke Vocational College, Aanekoski (Finland), where she was invited to deliver a lecture on gamification of elementary and high school education. However, Namya took this invitation to meet with accomplished education practitioners in the Mecca of school education in her stride. A class VII student of Ludhiana’s Sat Paul Mittal School — ranked Punjab’s #1 co-ed day school in the latest EW India School Rankings 2019-20 — young Namya Joshi has mastered Minecraft, a video game, to create ‘worlds’ or lessons and explain STEM and cyber-security concepts through storytelling. The only child of IT entrepreneur Kunal and Monica Joshi, head of the IT cell of Sat Paul Mittal School, Namya was introduced to Minecraft by her mother at age ten (2016). Since then, this hyper-active teen has designed over 50 Minecraft lessons in science, maths and art. Every weekend, she conducts hour-long Skype classes for teachers in Russia, Finland, Hungary, Vietnam and across India to demonstrate Minecraft usage for creating lesson plans. Namya’s first tutorial video went viral on the popular Microsoft-supported ‘Skype in the Classroom’ community’s Facebook page which attracted this network of educators. “I follow a strict timetable and devote 30 minutes a day to prepare lessons on Minecraft. As a committed supporter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals initiative, I believe gamification can greatly contribute to achieving the SDGs, and in particular SDG4 which is quality education for all,” says the young crusader, Namya Joshi, whose Minecraft lesson on the Ramayana, has won her plaudits from around the country. Looking ahead, young Namya is clear about how she will take her mission forward. “Over the next few years, I plan to sharpen my technical skills and create lessons on a wide variety of subjects. My ultimate dream is to work with tech giants Microsoft and Google and revolutionise K-12 education through technological innovations,” she says. Way to go, Sis! Shraddha Goled (Bangalore)
Bangalore-based teenage STEM enthusiast Pranjal Srivastava (15) was a member of the six-strong national team representing India at the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) 2019 staged in the University of Bath, UK, in July. The team brought home a gold medal after a gap of six years and Pranjal became the youngest Indian to win gold since India began participating in the competition in 1989. IMO is a self-governing autonomous organisation which has been organising annual competitions since 1959. In this year’s two-day competition, the national teams of 112 countries were required to solve three mathematical problems — with a weightage of seven marks each — within four-and-a-half hours each day. Pranjal solved five of six questions with a total score of 35. The younger child of software professionals Ashish and Surbhi Srivastava, Pranjal, a class X student of the CBSE-affiliated National Public School, Koramangala, says that solving math problems is relaxation and recreation. “I have grown up solving math teasers and puzzles set by renowned British mathematician Ian Stewart in his books on recreational mathematics,” he says. A regular contestant in national science and math olympiads for the past three years, this is the second time this teenage maths whiz competed internationally. In IMO 2018, he bagged a silver medal and he is well-known in competitions such as the Asia Pacific Mathematics Olympiad and Tournament of Towns. According to Pranjal, qualifying for the IMO finals involves a rigorous three-tier elimination process comprising a preliminary examination (held in November) followed by the Indian National Mathematics Olympiad (January) exam and a four-week orientation and selection camp at Mumbai’s Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education in April. Six national olympiad winners were finally selected to represent India at IMO 2019 from among 30 finalists. Right now, Pranjal is focused on his class X board exams scheduled for February 2020. However, he aspires to make a career in mathematics. “After I complete Plus Two, I intend to qualify for admission into one of India’s premier IITs or IISc to read theoretical maths,” says Pranjal, who is also a trained drummer and self-taught pianist. Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
New Delhi/Sydney, December 6. O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), one of India’s Institutions of Eminence, signed MoUs (memoranda of understanding) with seven highly-ranked universities in Australia, viz, Macquarie University, University of New South Wales, University of New England, University of Newcastle, University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University. “These partnerships will benefit Indian and New South Wales students and faculty members, who will gain opportunities to deepen their educational and cultural connections, while also promoting important links that will foster academic excellence in our two nations,” said Margaret Beazley, governor of New South Wales, speaking on the occasion. Added JGU’s founding vice chancellor Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar: “These collaborations will create stronger people-to-people linkages and research cooperation between students and faculty in India and Australia. India’s demographic dividend has created new opportunities for higher education to become the strongest pillar of the partnership between both our countries.” Tekla festival workshop Mumbai, December 4. On the occasion of the five-day state visit (December 2-7) to India by their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, a two-day STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-based workshop for 45 girls from Mumbai’s municipal schools was held on December 4-5. The annual Tekla festival was founded by Swedish pop music recording artist Robyn in 2015, and since then has had 1,200 girl participants in Sweden. In response to the festival’s growing popularity, this year the initiative went transnational with workshops held in Washington, USA and Brazil besides Mumbai. Over the next two years, Tekla will convene workshops in Egypt, Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria. “The objective is to inspire a larger number of women to study STEM subjects at university level and work in and rise to high positions in industry. The enthusiasm and interest exhibited by Mumbai’s girl children was very encouraging and we are hoping that by participating in our workshop, we have piqued their interest in STEM,” says Caroline Dahl, a technology innovator at RISE, a Swedish public sector organisation mobilising research and development resources to stimulate inventions and innovations in Sweden. RPG Blizzard 2019 Mumbai, December 12. RPG Blizzard 2019, one of India’s most popular inter B-school quiz competitions backed by the RPG Group, attracted 2,790 participants from 11 B-schools across India this year. RPG Blizzard 2019 also included a digital contest for the first time, generating unprecedented interest and excitement among premier B-school campuses across India. To qualify for the final round, all participants had to complete several intellectually stimulating activities on a digital platform. The finalists — 18 individuals in nine teams — were flown to Mumbai to attend a Grand Quiz in early December. All finalists spent a full day at RPG headquarters interacting with the group’s management board members. The three winners of the Grand Quiz were hosted to lunch with RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka. Presenting IISM Edge New Delhi, December 26. To provide working professionals opportunities to improve their life skills, the Mumbai-based International Institute of Sports…
Chandigarh, December 10. Government school teachers across Punjab threatened to burn the effigy of state education minister Vijay Inder Singla if he refused to apologise for allegedly using objectionable language against unemployed youth protesting government inaction. Singla reportedly used abusive language against unemployed B.Ed and TET-qualified teachers, who were protesting the failure of the state government to induct them into the public school system. “We want the education minister’s apology for insulting these duly qualified teachers,” says Bikramjit Singh Kaddon, secretary of Sanjha Adhyapak Manch teachers union. A video clip showing the minister uttering objectionable words against protesting teachers is viral on social media, claims Kaddon. The minister, however, denies the charge against him. Meanwhile, the opposition Aam Aadmi Party has demanded the dismissal of Singla from the cabinet. Haryana Humiliating punishment protest Hisar (Haryana), December 10. The faces of six class IV children including two girls of a private school were reportedly blackened with boot polish and all of them were paraded within school premises for faring poorly in a class test, according to a police statement. One of the girls, a nine-year-old child of the Dalit community informed her parents about this humiliating punishment. According to parents of the children, the school’s management refused to take any action against the teachers prompting them to file a police complaint. A case under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been registered against four individuals, including the school principal, said Ashok Kumar, deputy police superintendent. A government official who visited the school after the incident was reported, found it locked. The school principal and his family are absconding, say the police. Madhya Pradesh Digital theses reform Indore, December 15. In a first-of-its-kind innovation introduced by the Jabalpur-based Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University, research scholars and postgraduate students can now submit their thesis in the digital format instead of traditional written dissertations. “We are implementing the digital theses innovation to protect the environment. This will also save the money of Ph D researchers and postgraduate students. Students can now submit their thesis in pdf format instead of on paper,” said vice chancellor Dr. R.S. Sharma, acknowledging the nationwide campaign of Dr. Manohar Bhandari, associate professor, department of physiology in Indore’s Government Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College to introduce digital theses in higher education institutions. According to a university official, this reform will benefit over 1,200 students including postgraduate students of allopathy, surgery, dentistry, ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy, nursing and Ph D scholars Puducherry Women graduates acclaimed Puducherry, December 23. President Ram Nath Kovind lauded the academic achievements of women students while addressing the 27th convocation of Pondicherry University. The president, Visitor of the university, awarded gold medals to a token number of graduates. “I had the privilege of awarding gold medals to only ten students, but I noticed that nine of them were women,” he said. Of the total 189 students who bagged gold medals in several disciplines, 137…
“Instead of building gigantic statues to national or religious heroes, India should build more modern schools and universities that will open its children’s minds, making them more tolerant and respectful of one another, and helping them hold their own in the competitive globalised world of tomorrow.” Raghuram Rajan, former Reserve Bank India governor (India Today, December 6) “India is in the midst of, arguably, the largest student protest since the Emergency. The ground of protest is clear: India cannot be a Republic founded on discrimination and a pervasive sense of fear. It cannot exclude or target anyone simply on the basis of their identity.” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former vice chancellor of Ashoka University, on the nationwide student protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (Indian Express, December 19) “The increasing use of (Internet) shutdowns is concerning everywhere, but matters most in India. As a country that touts itself as a future democratic superpower, how India treats the Internet will serve as an example to countries less committed to civil liberties.” Michael Safi, international correspondent, on the continuing Internet shutdown in Kashmir (The Guardian, December 19) “Colleges and universities must train not only engineers, scientists, humanists and business leaders but also citizens. And we must do so in the hope that our students will help us to build a democracy where the constitutional glass can remain unbroken.” Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University (The Washington Post, December 29) “The one thing that Indian universities need to overcome is their chronic inability to break through the glass ceiling of a respectable global ranking above the barrier of 200. A policy and a sustained professional approach on the part of our universities to overcome this is clearly the need of the hour.” Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University (The Print, December 31)
Although university students in Delhi have been the focus of media attention for mass protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), West Bengal and Kolkata in particular have also witnessed huge public protests with thousands of students and members of the major political parties — the Trinamool Congress, Congress and Left and communist parties — taking to the streets through December to voice their disapproval of “black laws”. The anger of Kolkata’s students is real and palpable. On December 24, Debsmita Chowdhury, a gold medallist student of Presidency University’s international relations school, tore up a copy of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act while receiving her degree at the annual convocation ceremony held on the campus. Earlier in the day, Jagdeep Dhankar, governor of West Bengal and ex officio chancellor of Presidency University (PU), who arrived on the university’s campus to preside over the annual convocation ceremony, was forced to leave after students en bloc refused to accept degrees from him and PU’s staff/employees’ association blocked his entourage. Dhankar’s public statements in support of CAA have prompted students of several other universities to threaten boycott of their convocations if Dhankar — ex officio chancellor of all public universities in West Bengal (pop. 91 million) — graced the ceremony. Five universities including Burdwan, Calcutta, Presidency, Jadavpur and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University (Makaut) have postponed their convocations because of the massive agitations in West Bengal. Unsurprisingly, a war of words has broken out between Dhankar — representative of the BJP/NDA government at the Centre — and spokespersons of the state’s TMC government. Reacting to Dhankar’s statement that the public and students protests in West Bengal are orchestrated by opposition parties and TMC to create “policy paralysis” in the state and that the “strategy to compromise the position of chancellor is unfortunate and counter-productive,” education minister Partha Chatterjee said: “The chancellor is expected to be a neutral constitutional head of the government of West Bengal. But he is more interested in executive decision-making than discharging his duties as a constitutional head.” Ever since assuming charge on July 30, 2019, the governor has been at loggerheads with the Mamata Banerjee government over several issues — from seating arrangements at the Durga Puja carnival to arrangements for his security. On September 19, he rushed to Jadavpur University to ‘rescue’ Union minister Babul Supriyo, who had been gheraoed by some students. On his way back to Raj Bhavan with the minister, the agitating students blocked his car at the varsity gate for several hours. Most academics in Kolkata are of the opinion that Dhankar– a veteran BJP leader and Supreme Court lawyer who represented the party in the Rajasthan legislative assembly (1993-98) and Lok Sabha (1989-91) — has been transcending the boundaries of propriety as chancellor of West Bengal’s public universities by encroaching on their autonomy. Not few believe his brief is to create chaos and unrest in West Bengal in the run-up to the state assembly elections scheduled…
Somewhat belatedly, the draft National Education Policy 2019 of the nine-member Kasturirangan committee, which is still receiving “final touches” on the last day of 2019, devoted five pages to early childhood care and education (ECCE) and recommended extension of professionally administered ECCE to “foundational stage” education to all children up to age eight (class II). However, while the awareness of the critical importance of professionally administered ECCE (championed by EducationWorld since 2010) has dawned upon the KR committee and the academic community, there’s evidently no such awareness within the education ministry of the Karnataka government. According to data tabled in the Lok Sabha by Union women and child development (WCD) minister Smriti Irani, 40 percent of Karnataka’s anganwadi centres (AWCs) — nutrition centres for lactating mothers and children in the 0-6 age group from the poorest households which are also mandated to provide early childhood education — don’t have drinking water facilities. Irani said that out of Karnataka’s 65,911 AWCs, 26,701 don’t provide drinking water and 12,051 are without toilets. Moreover, despite being regarded as a socio-economically developed state of India (annual per capita income Rs.1.78 lakh cf. national average Rs.1.26 lakh), Karnataka’s 125,000 anganwadi workers, are paid a monthly ‘honorarium’ (AWC workers are officially designated as social volunteers) of a mere Rs.8,000 per month with supportive ‘helpers’ receiving only Rs.4,000. For this meagre remuneration, they are obliged to provide nutrition to lactating mothers and newborns and ECCE to children in the 3-6 age group. It’s pertinent to note that the government-mandated official minimum wage for workers is Rs.18,000 per month. It’s also noteworthy that a fresh B.Ed graduate teacher in a state government primary in a less demanding job receives a starting monthly salary of Rs.27,000. Despite AWC workers having repeatedly staged massive public protests during the past three years demanding pay equivalence, they haven’t been given wage parity with AWC counterparts in the neighbouring states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh whose honorariums are Rs.10,000 (and Rs.5,000 for helpers). Two years ago in March 2017, over 10,000 AWC workers — all women — held a sit-in protest before the home of Congress party chief minister K. Siddaramaiah demanding wage parity with their counterparts in neighbouring states. At that time, the Congress government promised to raise their remuneration from Rs.8,000 to Rs.10,000 per month. But this promised wage increase (14 percent less than the Rs.11,400 paid to AWC workers in Haryana) has not been fulfilled. In May 2018, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government was defeated in the legislative assembly election and now the chances of that particular promise being honoured within the foreseeable future are not bright. Following a massive protest in Delhi led by farmers in which AWC workers and ASHA (accredited social health activists) participated, prime minister Narendra Modi raised the Centre’s share of the minimum honorarium for AWC workers nationally from Rs.4,000 per month to Rs.4,500. The Centre is obliged to pay 60 percent of an anganwadi worker’s salary with the remainder paid by state governments…
There is a palpable sentiment of euphoria within the corridors of Anna University, Chennai (AU, estb.1978) — Tamil Nadu’s premier engineering and technology university — which has 571 affiliated engineering colleges. In August, an expert committee of the University Grants Commission recommended AU for conferment of Institute of Eminence (IoE) status. The IoE scheme was introduced in 2017 with the purpose of empowering 10 public and 10 private higher education institutions in India to become world-class teaching and research universities and improve their standing in global rankings. The criterion for IoE selection is that they should have been placed in the Top 500 of World University Rankings (WUR) of the London-based academic rating agencies QS and Times Higher Education and/or the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings, and also within the Top 50 of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Central government. IoE institutions enjoy complete academic and administrative autonomy. However, since Anna University is currently an affiliating varsity and will not enjoy affiliation powers after it is granted IoE status, the E.K. Palaniswami-led AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu has resolved to bifurcate the university into Anna Institute of Eminence (AIoE) and Anna University (AU) by amending the Anna University Act, 1978, and drafting new legislation. Under this schema, AIoE will become a research-driven autonomous varsity while AU will remain an umbrella affiliating university for 571 engineering colleges statewide. But even as the state government has appointed a five-member ministerial committee assisted by three principal secretaries to incept AIoE, some major misgivings expressed by academics have stayed the state government’s hand from forwarding this proposal to the HRD ministry. One of them pertains to the continuation of the state’s existing 69 percent reservation in public higher education institutions for Scheduled Caste, Tribes and OBCs in the proposed AIoE. The HRD ministry has reportedly assured the state government that the exceptional 69 percent reservation which is in breach of the Supreme Court’s upper limit of 50 percent applicable to all public higher institutions, but insulated against judicial challenge by being inserted in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, will continue to be applicable to both units even after grant of IoE status. Moreover, under the IoE scheme the Centre will provide a grant of Rs.1,000 crore over a five-year period on condition that the state government contributes 50 percent of the total requirement over five years. In effect, Anna University will require Rs.2,750 crore to attain IoE status of which the state government has to contribute Rs.1,750 crore. Although for the funds-strapped TN government this amount is a tall order, educationists, experts and industry leaders are unanimous that the state shouldn’t miss the opportunity to establish AIoE. “The hived off IoE will be empowered to focus on research and consultancy and compete with the best global universities. Apart from complete academic, administrative and financial autonomy, it will be qualified to enter into academic collaborations with foreign higher education institutions, recruit foreign faculty, frame its own syllabus, determine its tuition fees…
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Free-of-charge primary-secondary schools owned and managed by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) — the richest local self-government institution in the country (2019-20 budget: Rs.30,692 crore) — continue to report steep decline in enrolments. The number of children enrolled in the corporation’s 1,186 schools dropped from 3.11 lakh in 2017-18 to 3 lakh in 2018-19. Despite generous per capita outlays, free mid-day meals and providing two pairs of free-of-charge uniforms and textbooks, 35 percent (418) of MCGM’s 1,186 schools host less than 100 students, a self-evidently unviable number. This data is contained in The State of Municipal Schools in Mumbai, an annual white paper published by the Praja Foundation, a Mumbai-based NGO that studies data obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Tracking MCGM’s record of providing quality education to children from bottom-of-pyramid households over the past decade, Praja’s latest data analysis highlights a 59 percent drop in class I enrolments from 67,477 in 2009-10 to 27,918 in 2018-19. Not only is enrolment dropping, but MCGM schools are also struggling to retain the few who are enrolled. Only 22 percent children in class I in 2009-10 reached class X in 2018-19. The total number of students opting out of MCGM schools increased to 29,508 in 2018-19 from 15,978 in 2017-18. Although MCGM has been dominated by the Marathi language chauvinist Shiv Sena for the past 23 years, in deference to the uniquely polyglot culture of India’s commercial capital (pop.23 million) the MCGM provides entirely free-of-charge education to primary children in seven vernacular languages — Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu — in 980 primary (class I-VIII) and 206 secondary schools. And despite Shiv Sena leaders routinely beating the Marathi language drum, over the past few years MCGM’s vernacular-medium schools have been emptying with enrolments declining year by year. Of the 41 vernacular MCGM schools shut down in 2018-19 due to teachers outnumbering children, 23 had adopted Marathi, the state’s official language as the medium of instruction. According to the Praja Foundation, in the past decade 132 Marathi-medium schools have downed shutters. This is because even within bottom-of-pyramid households — though politicians feign ignorance — there is strong preference for English-medium primary-secondary education. The MCGM’s own ‘semi-English’ schools where natural sciences and maths subjects are taught in English, have witnessed a 25 percent increase in the number of enrolments from 77,487 in 2017-18 to 97,115 in 2018-19. Another indication of parents’ growing aversion to education in the vernacular medium and high preference for English language education is evident in growing student enrolments in MCGM’s 69 fully English-medium schools christened Mumbai Public Schools (MPS). Enrolments in MPS registered a rise of 5.22 percent from 75,918 in 2017-18 to 79,884 in 2018-19. A household survey commissioned by Praja Foundation and conducted by the Mumbai-based Hansa Research Pvt. Ltd indicates that 87 percent of low-income households want to shift their children from free-of-charge municipal schools to fees-levying private budget schools (PBS). Even though many of the latter are…
The estimated 1.7 million class x students who are expected to write the school-leaving exam of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE, estb.1962) — the country’s largest pan-India exam board — can look forward to less math phobia in February-March this year. They will have the option to write either the basic or standard math question paper. Last January (2019), CBSE had notified this option to all 21,271 affiliated schools. As a result 600,000 class X students have opted to write the basic, and 1.1 million the standard mathematics exam. According to Arati Bhatia, senior school maths teacher at Ahlcon International, Delhi, the difference between the two question papers is only in the difficulty level with the syllabus and assessment pattern being identical. “As the textbooks are common, the only difference between the basic and standard exam papers will be the difficulty level of the questions,” explains Bhatia. Quite clearly the intent is to separate students who intend to enter the liberal arts and humanities and science and engineering (STEM) streams. Therefore, students who opt for Maths Basic are disqualified from writing maths exams in Plus Two (classes XI-XII). However, math academics and experts wonder why a common syllabus, classrooms, textbooks and teachers have been recommended by the board. “While this is welcome international practice, implementation of the two exams scheme is confusing. Under the new scheme, the basic student has to study the entire syllabus. In my view, the change should happen in class IX and those opting to take Maths Basic need to be prescribed separate textbooks. The mathematics a child learns until class VIII is enough for her use in later life and if applied mathematics is introduced in class IX as a reinforcement of earlier learning, I am sure more students will be attracted to the subject and choose to write Maths Standard,” says A.T.B. Bose, secretary of Ramanujan Museum and Maths Education Center, Chennai, and author of several math textbooks. This change in examination pattern is the outcome of a change in the model rules of the RTE Act, 2009. The model rules were amended in February 2017 to assess subject learning outcomes in every class. The auguries are that the CBSE management is planning for more radical changes in coming years to the extent that in 2024, the class X and XII exams will become radically different. Speaking at the FICCI ARISE Conference 2019 in Delhi on December 10, Anita Karwal, chairman of CBSE, said that the examination system determines the quality of school education. “By 2024, textbooks will become completely irrelevant for exams. We are starting to change the system from 2020 and in future the focus will be on assessing conceptual learning, critical thinking and analytical skills with the current stress-inducing knowledge accumulation and memorisation system being replaced by assessment of learning. We have started on measuring real learning outcomes for the first time and teachers have started understanding it,” said Karwal. With memorisation and rote learning encouraged by the…
Thank you for the latest issue of EducationWorld, a periodical which positively, critically and candidly discusses the multiple dimensions of the education sector in our country. After reading through some of your recent publications I must confess I’m getting addicted to it. Dr. K. Kasturirangan on e-mail Dispiriting rank query EuroKids, Friendship Nagar (EK-FN) is ranked among the Top 3 preschools of Kochi in your latest EW India Preschool Rankings 2019-20 (EW December). However, our #3 rank for the third consecutive year has failed to lift our spirits. For your information, EK-FN provides its 100 pupils instructed by 13 teachers and staff, a spacious learning environment equipped with child-friendly and safe furniture and play facilities. Moreover, our Facebook page showcases all our activities daily. I wish to know who conducted the survey and under what parameters preschools have been ranked and rated. Meera Krishnakumar EuroKids, Friendship Nagar Palarivattam, Kochi The EW India Preschool Rankings survey has been conducted by the Delhi-based market research agency Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd which interviewed 8,497 parents with preschool-going children and teachers/principals in 16 cities (including Kochi) who ranked preschools on 10 parameters of early childhood education excellence. Please read page 38 of the cover story (December) which details the rankings methodology — Editor Don’t villify private schools As a teacher employed in a private school, I agree with the views expressed by Prashant Narang in his Expert Comment essay ‘Deconstructing disdain for for-profit education’ (EW December). In the country’s bureaucratic circles and among Left intellectuals, private schools are vilified as money-making enterprises fleecing parents. This is far from the truth. If it wasn’t for private schools, India would be in a far worse economic condition. Therefore, instead of criminalising profits made by private education institutions and interfering with their autonomy, government should direct their own schools to emulate them. It’s an open secret that the country’s private schools offer far superior education than government-run institutions to over 40 percent of the country’s children in primary-secondary education. Vidhya Ram Trivandrum Invest in anganwadis call Thanks for the well-researched preschools rankings field survey (EW December). In most metros including Kolkata where many preschools have mushroomed, your survey is a godsend for parents who want to make informed admission choices. I particularly liked your initiative to rank anganwadis. It’s high time the government begins to invest in improving their infrastructure and teacher quality. If anganwadis are given their due by government, you might even consider ranking private preschools and anganwadis inter se. Mitali Sarkar Kolkata Education champion Kudos to EducationWorld for highlighting the challenges crippling India’s obsolete education system in your 20th anniversary cover story ‘Will India regain its lost education momentum’ (EW November). Over the past 20 years, EW has emerged as a champion of quality education for all, and reform of the moribund education system. The cover story reflects the high standard of education journalism that EW has undeniably pioneered. By dissecting the National Education Policy Draft 2019 and criticising the regulatory…
Although the BJP/NDA 2.0 government at the Centre is surprised by the scale and intensity of public outrage — particularly among university students and youth across the country — to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) 2019, public apprehension and sustained criticism of the Act is justified. Though the government claims the new legislation, which amends the Citizenship Act 1955, is driven by humanitarian considerations and empathy for persecuted religious minorities in our neighbour countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, officially declared Islamic states, BJP spokespersons readily admit that the prime object of the Bill is to provide refuge to Hindus who have suffered open, uninterrupted and continuous persecution for their religious beliefs in these countries for the past several decades. Although the enabling provisions of CAA cover other non-Muslim religious minorities — Christians, Parsis, Buddhists etc — the essence of the Act which received presidential assent on December 12, is to fast-track grant of Indian citizenship to Hindu minorities forced to flee these countries because of public and official harassment. However the notable feature of CAA 2019 is that it specifically excludes all Muslims, including cruelly persecuted Shia, Ahmediyya and Ismaili Muslim sects of these specified countries, from the ambit of the Act. BJP leaders and spokespersons proclaim that CAA does not impact the citizenship status of any members of India’s Muslim community who entered this country legally or illegally before December 31, 2014. Therefore it reflects to the credit of the country’s academically short-changed and much maligned students in higher education, that they have discerned the danger that the seemingly humanitarian CAA poses to the secular character, and indeed idea, of post-independence India. Despite the sophistry of BJP leaders who argue this legislation is of limited applicability to undocumented immigrants illegally settled in India during the past five years and future arrivals, the students community — particularly in metropolitan India — which has practised secular social interaction with citizens of all religious persuasions since independence, has been quick to grasp that this is the first officially sponsored legislation to differentiate aspiring citizens on the basis of religion. It specifically excludes Muslims and all sects under Islam even if they suffer religious persecution in these countries. As such, CAA sends out a clear signal that Muslims are not welcome in this country, despite India hosting the world’s second largest Muslim population. If gazetted into law, CAA will provide this and future governments a precedent to divide Indian society into preferred and less preferred citizens. In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the Act has aroused widespread indignation and resentment within the Muslim community and among liberal citizens. In this connection, it’s pertinent to note that members of the Muslim community including all sects who chose to remain in India after partition in 1947, were assured full equality before the law by every national leader of consequence of the freedom movement, including Mahatma Gandhi. Moreover those opposing this pernicious legislation have rightly made the connection between CAA and the proposed National…
The recent wave of rape-murders of women citizens across the country from Unnao and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh to Hyderabad and Ranchi, the thousand unnatural shocks that women are heir to on a daily basis and the helpless outrage of decent society, has like never before exposed the utter intellectual aridity and lack of problem-solving skills of the establishment, academy included – India’s rape crimes culture. Regrettably the country’s leader writers and fire-breathing television news anchors are merely trimming the branches instead of addressing the root causes of gender crimes sweeping the nation. The first of several root causes is rock-bottom official priority accorded to investment in law and order, the primary obligation of government at the Centre and in the states, since independence. The plain truth is that with only 2.25 million ill-trained and ill-equipped police personnel spread across the 3.28 million sq. km subcontinent, India is a seriously under-policed nation. Against the UN recommended norm of 300 police personnel per 100,000 population, data last published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2013 indicates that the Indian norm is 150:100,000 — the fifth lowest among 71 countries for which the office collated data. Moreover of the sanctioned strength of 2.25 million, 47,000 posts are vacant and over 50,000 personnel of the country’s grossly inadequate police force are deployed to guard politicians and VIPs. Against India’s 150 police per 100,000 people, the UK employs 204, Sri Lanka 424, Turkey 524 and USA 969. Little wonder sexual predations by crazed lumpens with easy access to pornography streamed over the Internet (repeated appeals by this publication to block all pornography sites have received no support) against vulnerable women and children are assuming tidal wave proportions. The pernicious problem of severely depleted policing of a subcontinental nation is compounded by the pathetic condition of the judicial system burdened with a world record backlog of 33 million cases. Here again, the primary cause of law’s delay in India’s rape crimes culture is the severe shortage of judges and courtrooms. Although India’s judges-population ratio has risen from a pathetic 17 per million people in 2014 to 20 per million in 2018, this ratio is also way below global norms. China has 144 judges and magistrates per million people, USA 980, Mexico 430 and Egypt 100. These statistics are eloquent testimony that India’s middle class, not excluding the academy, seems totally unaware that substantial investment in the law, order and justice system is the precondition of economic development. The annual investment in the law, order and justice machinery (Centre plus states) is estimated at a mere 3.08 percent of GDP. Yet blame for neglect of law and order cannot be entirely laid at the door of government. Behind the apathy of the Central and state governments is the indifference of India’s greedy, subsidies-addicted middle class which is neither willing to pay market prices for essential goods and services, nor inclined to protest wasteful government expenditure. It is almost certain that anguished…
According to latest data published in the Open Doors report of the US-based Institute of International Education for year 2017-18, the number of students from India signing up with American universities declined by 8.8 percent in that year. Although the Indian cohort in American universities is still very large at 211,000, this could be the start of a declining trend influenced by several excellent privately promoted colleges and universities flowering across India. This is particularly a good time for school-leavers intent upon studying the liberal arts and humanities at the undergrad level. Although students keen on studying engineering and medicine have had access to a substantial number of excellent government and private colleges and universities in India, acceptable quality liberal arts and humanities education has always been hard to find. No indigenous university can credibly claim to provide liberal arts education remotely comparable with the well-rounded, holistic syllabuses and curriculums of the renowned Ivy league institutions of America and colleges of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. Truth to tell, the liberal arts and science education offered by India’s vintage public universities suffers in comparison with the fare provided even by second rung universities in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. In EducationWorld, your editors are always excited by news of aspirationally world-class institutions of education — especially in higher learning — assuming shape and form anywhere in the country, not least because they provide valuable lessons in institution building. In 2015, we featured a detailed cover story on the greenfield, crowd funded, privately-promoted, liberal arts Ashoka University, Sonipat. Last January we featured the successful law and liberal arts O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU). And our first cover story of 2020 is a narrative detailing the smooth launch of Krea University, peninsular India’s first globally benchmarked, interwoven liberal arts and sciences varsity promoted under its “collective philanthropy model”. In this first issue of the second decade of the 21st century, we present a comprehensive story on the evolution and successful take-off of Krea University. I believe it could serve as a primer for public spirited citizens aspiring to establish new universities built to last over 500 years, the stated objective of Krea’s visionary founder vice chancellor Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy. Our second lead feature on the unlikely, but welcome emergence of the eastern seaboard state of Odisha (pop. 45 million) as an epicentre of skills, aka vocational, education and training (VET) is arguably as important an evolution as the smooth launch of Krea University in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. It provides a classic case study of how an enabling political leader (three-term chief minister Naveen Patnaik), and a visionary entrepreneur (Subroto Bagchi) co-operated to leapfrog the hitherto off-the-map, industrially backward Odisha into a leader VET state. Happy New Year!
Preparing for Education 4.0
Dr. R. Natarajan is former director of IIT-Madras and former chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) The buzzword among educationists today is Education 4.0. To understand Education 4.0, it is important to understand Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0, which gained traction when a German government memo released in 2013 used the term “Industrie 4.0”. That memo outlined a plan to almost fully computerise manufacturing without need for human intervention. Industry 4.0 describes the combination of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices with the new all-pervasive digital revolution. The initial goals of Industry 4.0 were automation, improvement of manufacturing processes and production optimisation. However, it’s pertinent to note that the definition of Industry 4.0 is nebulous. Suffice it to say that it goes beyond the factory and beyond automation and data exchange. To fully appreciate the importance and implication of IR 4.0, a historical perspective is useful. During IR 1.0, water and steam energised production. In the era of IR 2.0, electric power was used to drive mass production. In IR 3.0, electronics and information technology began the process of automating production. Now in the IR 4.0 age, enhancement of IR 3.0 with new digital technologies blurs the lines between the physical, digital and biological worlds. The new technologies evolve at an exponential pace and are hence described as disruptive technologies and include artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of things, autonomous vehicles, bio and nanotechnology, 3-D printing, material science, quantum computing and energy storage. IR 4.0 is not only disrupting and revolutionising processes in business, governance and people management, it is impacting education as well. Hence, Education 4.0 is a response to the needs of IR 4.0, where humans and technologies combine to enable new possibilities. It’s also important to note that in Education 4.0, peer-to-peer learning — students learning together and from each other, with teachers discharging the role of facilitators — is of prime importance. The defining characteristics of Education 4.0 are: • Learning can take place anytime anywhere with e-learning apps and pedagogies offering unprecedented opportunities for remote, self-paced learning. Flipped classroom pedagogy will become increasingly popular with interactive learning in classrooms, while theory is learned at home • Learning is customised for students • Students determine how they want to learn, choosing from learning tools and pedagogies such as blended learning, flipped classrooms and BYOD (bring your own device) • Project-based learning will become increasingly popular with students required to apply their knowledge and skills in completing short-term projects • Students will routinely experience internships, mentorship and collaborative projects • Students will be exposed to data interpretation, required to apply theoretical knowledge to numbers and use reasoning skills to make inferences based on logic and trends from given sets of data • Students will be assessed differently, with conventional platforms to assess learning outcomes becoming obsolete or irrelevant. Factual knowledge will be assessed in classrooms, while knowledge application will be tested by way of performance in field projects and assignments • Students will play a…