The sweeping victory of the BJP in three out of four legislative assembly elections — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — whose results were declared on December 3, has some important lessons for INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) and the Congress party which is likely to lead this 28-party alliance in General Election 2024 scheduled for next summer. BJP ousted incumbent Congress governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and bucked anti-incumbency tradition to retain Madhya Pradesh. The consolation prize for Congress was Telangana in which this grand old party secured an unlikely victory ousting the incumbent Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi which had successfully led a prolonged struggle for separate statehood for Telangana granted in 2014. This scorecard suggests that Congress — the sole pan-India party in the country apart from BJP — is down but not quite out. If it can ensure that the prime strategy of the INDIA alliance — ensuring a common opposition (INDIA) candidate in all 543 Lok Sabha constituencies to prevent splitting of anti-BJP votes — is implemented. However, this is contingent upon understanding how and why the BJP swept these latest assembly elections, a highlight of which was that all parties promised a range of revadis or freebies. The difference between the BJP and other parties was the credibility of freebies promised and careful targeting. It’s no surprise that in all states, BJP overwhelmingly won the women’s vote because it has a record of providing subsidies which lighten the daily burden of women — subsidised cooking gas, reaching tap water to village homes and deposit of cash subsidies directly into targeted beneficiaries bank accounts through latest digital technology usage. The advantage of the BJP is that its leaders have experienced food, housing and shelter deprivation. The Congress leadership — especially the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty — has not. It’s the BJP leadership’s — and in particular prime minister Modi’s — awareness of the importance of these quotidian necessities and the daily living experience of the subaltern classes that swung their vote in BJP’s favour. A second factor is that unlike the Congress and other opposition parties, the BJP has its students wing and RSS karyakartas as a strong and dedicated grassroots cadre. They ensure that the freebies and subsidies reach the government’s target groups. In the decades under Congress rule, much of the welfare allocations for the poor and marginalized were siphoned away by India’s notorious bureaucracy. BJP’s dedicated constituency and booth level cadres ensure that welfare allocations and subsidies proclaimed by the Central and state governments reach targeted beneficiaries. In the new digital age of the internet and ubiquitous social media, the rules of electoral democracy have changed. The pathetic living conditions of bottom-of-pyramid households can no longer be fudged and ameliorative freebies have to be seen to be delivered.
In the latest mercer index 2023 of the world’s most livable cities, Hyderabad is top-ranked in India. But in the global index, it is ranked a lowly #153. Urban blight defined by air pollution, road traffic jams, frequent electricity and water supply cuts, poor law and order maintenance, is spreading across big and small cities, making the lives of citizens nasty, brutal and short. In Bangalore, commuting by road to any suburb takes as much time as flying to Mumbai. In EducationWorld’s 24th Anniversary issue, we examined why unprecedented numbers of HNWI (high net worth individuals), highly educated professionals and skilled labour are migrating to developed OECD countries (see https://www.educationworld.in/why-are-indians-succeeding-everywhere-except-in-india/). In that cover story, poor quality of civic life was insufficiently identified as a major cause. On second thought, it is a major driver of emigration. An inevitable consequence of foolish adoption of inorganic Soviet inspired socialism as the official ideology of the State after independence, was that the annual rate of economic growth was stuck in the 3.5 percent per year groove for almost half a century. As a result, population growth, low productivity and fragmentation of landholdings prompted steady migration of ill-educated and illiterate rural citizens into India’s relatively prosperous cities and towns. For kith and kin considerations, a large number of rural migrants were absorbed into the lowermost tier of government, i.e, municipal corporations and local government. Equipped at best with pro forma qualifications and accustomed to the routine retail corruption of village India, they permitted the reckless, unplanned growth of urban India bringing it to the edge of disaster. It’s not as though no attention has been paid to this problem. In 1992, two important amendments to the Constitution resulted in the Rural Panchayats and Mahanagarpalika Acts being passed by Parliament to enable local government in village and urban India. All rural districts and cities were delimited into village panchayats and municipal wards. This model of local self-governance inspired by the highly successful cantons and borough local governments of Western Europe, necessitates devolution of considerable tax and spend powers on local governments. Unsurprisingly, selfish state governments have not devolved any significant tax collection and expenditure powers on local government institutions. Industry, academia and the intelligentsia need to press for enabling the 74th and 93rd Amendment Acts to save India’s collapsing cities. Powers to collect property taxes in particular need to be devolved upon ward committees comprising elected property owners in every ward. Restricted franchise is important because only property owners will have a vested interest in ensuring orderly ward-level governance because it will enhance property values. The solution to saving India’s collapsing cities is buried in the Constitution. It is for the intelligentsia to build the pressure of public opinion for its implementation.
HPS centenary celebrations Hyderabad, December 6. Hyderabad Public School (HPS), Begumpet officially unveiled plans of its highly successful year-long centenary celebrations at a Grand Finale event in Hyderabad. At the four-day Grand Finale held between December 24-27 a monumental fundraising drive was staged to raise Rs.17.5 crore for a state-of-the-art greenfield Multi-Utility Sports Center designed by renowned architect Hafeez Contractor. The school is also in the process of constructing an Innovation Centre at a projected cost of Rs.10 crore to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation culture in HPS. Spanning 15,000 sq ft. this pioneer project makes HPS the sole school in the country to boast such an achievement, says an HPS press release, which adds that the school management has set a fundraising target of Rs.150 crore for institutional development. “The Grand Finale of the HPS centenary year is testament to our 100 years of legacy, leadership, and excellence,” said Gusti J. Noria, president of the HPS Society, speaking on the occasion. Amazon’s AFE programme Bengaluru, December 4. Amazon.in announced the expansion of its Amazon Future Engineers (AFE) programme to introduce advanced coding and artificial intelligence (AI) modules in 100 schools of the Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society (KREIS), and also provide digital infrastructure enhancements for 30 schools. This expansion will impact over 13,000 classes VI-VIII students in 30 districts of Karnataka. Building on the success of a previous intervention which inspired students to explore the possibilities of computer science, the expanded module will enable students to learn complex computer applications incorporating advanced programming concepts such as control conditions, variables, and functions. Additionally, through project-based learning, students will also be introduced to the basics of AI. “The Amazon Future Engineer programme’s integration of advanced coding and AI modules aligns seamlessly with our vision to empower students with the proficiency required to navigate the increasingly tech-centric world,” said Manivannan P, principal-secretary of the Social Welfare Department, Government of Karnataka. Added David Zapolsky, senior vice president, Global Public Policy and General Counsel, Amazon: “We are excited to nurture the talents of students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, and prepare them for the future. This project-based learning module will empower students with the skills and knowledge required to excel in a tech-driven world. Amazon is committed to democratising access to high-quality computer science education.” GradRight ShiftED conclave Hyderabad, December 2. GradRight (estb.2019), “the world’s first Ed-FinTech SaaS company,” pledged support to enable 300,000 Indian students affordable access to the world’s Top 500 universities over the next three years. The announcement was made at GradRight’s ShiftED 2023 Conclave on ‘Innovation for Sustainable Global Higher Education’ held in Hyderabad. The conclave focused on issues such as ‘Challenges and Innovative Solutions in Global Higher Education’ and ‘Way of the Future: Can AI Transform Global Mobility in Higher Ed’. “At GradRight, we are building a global education highway to democratise access to higher education for countless Indian students who would not otherwise be able to pursue their ambitions of studying at leading institutions abroad. ShiftED is a showcase…
In the ever-evolving landscape of education, the symbiotic relationship between educators and adaptive learning technologies is shaping the future of learning experiences. Adaptive learning, a pedagogical approach that tailors instruction to individual learners, is revolutionising traditional teaching methods. This blog will delve into the intricate partnership between educators and adaptive learning technologies, exploring how this synergy enhances student outcomes, empowers teachers, and redefines the educational journey. Understanding Adaptive Learning: Adaptive learning is an educational method that leverages technology to tailor learning experiences to individual students’ needs. This approach represents a paradigm shift from traditional one-size-fits-all teaching models to a more personalized learning environment. Data-Driven Instruction: Adaptive learning systems collect and analyse data on student performance, allowing educators to understand each student’s unique learning path. This data guides teachers in customizing instruction, addressing specific strengths and weaknesses. Continuous Feedback Loop: In adaptive learning, feedback is immediate and ongoing. Educators receive real-time insights into student progress, helping them adjust their teaching strategies more effectively and promptly. Identifying Learning Gaps: Adaptive technology helps educators identify areas where students struggle, often before these challenges become significant obstacles. This early detection facilitates timely intervention. Facilitating Differentiated Instruction: Educators can use adaptive learning tools to provide differentiated instruction, ensuring that all students, regardless of their learning pace or style, receive the attention and resources they need to succeed. Enhancing Engagement: Personalized learning experiences are more engaging for students. Educators can leverage adaptive learning to maintain students’ interest and motivation, leading to better learning outcomes. Overcoming Educational Challenges: In the evolving landscape of education, the symbiosis between educators and adaptive learning technologies stand as a pivotal solution to overcoming prevalent educational challenges. This relationship is rooted in the harmonious integration of human expertise and technological innovation. Firstly, educators play a crucial role in interpreting and utilizing data generated by adaptive learning systems. These insights enable teachers to tailor their instructional strategies, addressing the unique learning styles and needs of each student. As a result, education becomes more inclusive and effective, bridging gaps that traditional teaching methods often leave unaddressed. Moreover, adaptive learning technologies serve as dynamic tools in the hands of educators, constantly evolving based on student performance and feedback. This ensures that the curriculum remains relevant and engaging, fostering a more interactive and personalized learning environment. Educators, in turn, become facilitators of a more targeted and impactful education process, guiding students through a curriculum that dynamically adjusts to their learning pace and preferences. Additionally, this synergy alleviates the burden of administrative tasks and standard assessments, allowing educators to focus more on creative and critical thinking aspects. It shifts the educational paradigm from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more nuanced and student-centric model. Conclusion: In summary, the synergy between educators’ expertise and the evolving capabilities of adaptive learning technologies forms a cornerstone in addressing modern educational challenges. This collaborative approach, exemplified by “LPS Global School, one of the best schools in Noida,” is revolutionizing the educational experience. It not only enhances learning effectiveness but also equips students…
The commissioner of lost causes Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Shobita Punja, Toby Sinclair Aleph Book Company Rs.999 Pages 480 The story of the development of Indian civilisation and its march to modern nationhood told with elegance, precision and sensitivity This is a textbook with a difference. It covers a well-known story of the development of India as a civilization, of its march to modern nationhood and does it with elegance, precision and sensitivity. It is this quality of tying together discrete elements of updated research, well-known debates and understanding with a brilliant array of visual material that makes this textbook genuinely a novel exercise in synthesis and analysis. Let me focus on some of the unusual themes that the textbook takes up as it plots the history of India from its first urbanization in the form of the Harappan culture to a series of migrations and settlements that gave the subcontinent states, empires, social formations and cultural symbols. Among these are the development of an art and architectural idiom, of the enrichment of the architectural landscape under successive political dispensations. What is impressive is the lucid explanation of architectural elements that came together in a very particular way to embody the complexity of India’s historical experience. The visual material is splendidly arranged and there is a clear exposition of how tombs and masjids altered the landscape. Another key process the book captures is India’s orientation to the larger outside world — something that textbooks do not often capture. The inbuilt tendency to look at Indian historical development as an insular process of classical grandeur, followed by Islamic rule and then by British control whose modernizing tendencies were often too unpalatable for the majority of their subjects, meant that very little attention was paid to India’s links with the larger worlds of Asia and the Indian Ocean. This book decidedly reverses the trend as it refers to the commercial vitality of the pre-modern Indian economy and its linkages with early modern state building practices. A third point of entry in the text which is definitively new is the analysis of India’s Northeastern societies that underwent radical transformation in the wake of British control, Christianity and plantation agriculture. One may of course, point out that this is not adequately done and seems an act of posturing, but it definitely marks an important beginning. The last section of the book which looks at consolidation of British rule, India’s response and the slow delineation of nationalist consciousness does an adequate job of condensing an extremely complex set of historical processes and debates that surround them. What stands out is the ease with which details from famines to political churnings and events are integrated in an easy and smooth narrative that examines extraordinary changes Indian society, economy and polity underwent, albeit with fault lines and gaps. Readers will be left with evocative impressions and a clear understanding of complex experiences which is the hallmark of any country’s historical profile. Whether it was the effects of long-term migrations…
The commissioner of lost causes Arun Shourie penguin random house Rs.619 Pages 582 An account of the author’s tumultuous years as Editor of the Indian Express under its legendary publisher Ramnath Goenka To citizens of a certain vintage who have outlived their prescribed lifespan of threescore and ten, and who remember the era before television and social media when the press was the sole purveyor of news and learned opinion, Arun Shourie, a former World Bank executive who was parachuted to the top as editor of the Indian Express in the post-Emergency era, is a legend. In short time he transformed newspaper journalism from a genteel profession in which grave, pipe-smoking editors with Oxbridge credentials dictated learned, balanced editorials which were accorded high respect, into an iconoclastic medium which went after government and politicians with ferocity and tenacity. This memoire is an autobiographical account of Shourie’s tumultuous years as Executive Editor of the Indian Express under its equally legendary publisher/proprietor Ramnath Goenka (1904-1999) who earned himself a place of honour in the Hall of Fame of Indian Journalism as the only newspaper proprietor who stood up to prime minister Indira Gandhi when she declared post-independence India’s sole and infamous internal Emergency (1975-1977). The volume starts with Shourie’s dissatisfaction with his prized job at the World Bank in Washington D.C. How he landed this coveted job, is not recounted. The author had just got married and Washington was a very “fine green place”. The job involved travelling to many countries. “But all our relatives were in India and all my interests were in and about India.” After intensive searching for opportunities, he landed a Homi Bhabha scholarship plus a consultancy at the Planning Commission, at Rs.500 per month. In the early 1970s, the Soviet-style Planning Commission was dominated by “Mrs. Gandhi’s circle of Kashmiris” in which “everyone of significance liked to think of himself as being to the Left of everyone else”. Soon enough Shourie was obliged to resign from the commission, and luckily got his job back at the World Bank thanks to his friendship with Pakistani economist Mahbub-ul-Haq. Back in Washington, it’s a measure of the man that instead of thanking his stars that he was safely abroad when Mrs. Gandhi declared the Emergency in 1975, Shourie was “even more determined to return to India,” and he gave notice to the Bank despite his son Adit being born with a brain injury. During his notice period, after much effort he landed a job as a senior fellow at the Indian Council for Social Research, and the Shouries moved into his father’s home in Delhi. After returning to Delhi in the midst of the Emergency, Shourie began writing opinion essays for Seminar, one of the few publications “continuing to write independent stuff”. An essay titled ‘Symptoms of Fascism’ prompted the voluntary closure of Seminar rather than the publishers — well-known intellectuals Romesh and Raj Thapar — submitting to pre-censorship as required by Emergency regulations. The essay was nevertheless cyclostyled and…
Some people never learn. Despite the Congress party — and certainly the economy, if not country — having been destroyed by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which on and off ruled over post-independence India for half a century before being sentenced to the doghouse of Indian politics, there is no shortage of politicians intent upon thrusting greatness upon their progeny and kith and kin to build political dynasties. Although slow to learn, people across the country are making it clear they are fed up with an Amurath succeeding Amurath. The latest politician who didn’t learn the lesson of practicing in-your-face nepotism is K. Chandrashekar Rao, hitherto chief minister of Telangana, India’s youngest state over which he strode like a colossus after having led it out of united Andhra Pradesh into autonomous statehood in 2014. After sweeping Telangana state’s first and second assembly elections in 2014 and 2018 and wresting the prized city of Hyderabad, KCR began entertaining delusions of grandeur. First, he built himself a pleasure dome of Xanadu proportions from public money. Next, he appointed his son K.T. Rama Rao de facto CM and his daughter Kavitha and two nephews to high offices in the state government. In addition, with his dominance over Telangana (pop.39 million) established, he changed the name of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti to Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti (BRS) with great expectation of emerging as kingmaker within the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) coalition of opposition parties readying to take on the BJP juggernaut in General Election 2024 scheduled for next summer. Now all these grand plans of KCR have come to naught following the resounding defeat of BRS in the recently concluded state assembly election. The number of seats that BRS won plunged from 88 in 2018 to 39 in 2023. There is a writing on the wall in this story for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati — and a host of regional satraps — grooming kith and kin for party leadership. Doubtful if they will read it. Also read: Student groups, some tied to Indian parties, unite against NEP
There’s something rotten about Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who under one stratagem or another has ruled India’s poorest and most illiterate state for 17 years. Even as the coalition of opposition parties grouped under the INDIA alliance are engineering an electoral strategy to field a common candidate in every constituency to ensure that the BJP doesn’t win General Election 2024 because of split opposition votes — a plausibly winning strategy — this worthy is throwing all sorts of spanners in the works. On December 19, at an inaugural meeting of the 28-party INDIA alliance, he “lost his cool” when an MP from Tamil Nadu requested an English translation of his rambling speech in Hindi. According to him, translation was unnecessary as Hindi is the national language. Quite obviously, this aspiring prime minister is history agnostic. If acquainted with the basics of the Constitution, he would have known that English is the associate national language, link language of the country and also the language of the courts, business and industry. If he had the most elementary knowledge of post-independence history, he would have known that in the 1960s when Hindi was declared the sole official language of India, there was real possibility of Tamil Nadu seceding from the Indian Union. Moreover this duffer also imposed liquor prohibition in Bihar despite its disastrous history worldover which has unleashed a new crime and corruption wave in the state. Also, at this very INDIA meeting when Mallikarjun Kharge, the unassuming Congress president, was proposed as the face of the INDIA alliance for General Election 2024, he walked out of the assembly. With leaders like these who have led the deliberately under-educated people of Bihar into prolonged and ruinous caste conflicts inside the INDIA alliance, its chances of uniting to halt the BJP juggernaut in General Election 2024 are dim.
The quick suspension of 143 opposition Members of Parliament for the last four days of the Winter session of Parliament — including 45 from the Rajya Sabha, the upper House of Elders — doesn’t bode well for Indian democracy. During the four days when the opposition benches were depleted to a mere 38 MPs, the government legislated several important Bills including a revised Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Evidence Act, 1872, given jaw-breaking titles in Hindi. When opposition benches are depleted, poorly drafted Bills are enacted into ill-framed laws which in turn adds to the humongous mountain of pending litigation. Although opposition MPs have been suspended for unruly conduct — storming the well of the House and the Speaker’s podium — such contentious behaviour is alas, quite common and was often practiced when the ruling BJP was in opposition. Therefore, the action of the Speakers of both houses to suspend almost 20 percent of MPs when their concerted demand was that Union home minister Amit Shah make a statement in either house on the security breach on December 13 when four youth smuggled themselves into the Lok Sabha, created a ruckus and hurled smoke canisters while the house was in session, is harsh by any standards. The smoke canisters hurled about the house could have contained lethal gas or have been grenades. In the circumstances, asking the home — or prime — minister to explain how this security breach had occurred and what steps are being taken by government to plug the loopholes was not an unreasonable request. The adamantine refusal of the highest ministers of the government to be answerable to Parliament is an indicator of the minimal regard that the BJP government has for the country’s highest laws-making body. All MPs have worked hard to win the mandate of the people of large constituencies across the country. Whether in government or in opposition, their viewpoint has to be given due consideration by government. Care needs to be taken that pride and prejudice does not transform into contempt of Parliament.
Bristling with a gamut of discretionary rules, regulations and conditions, the UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, is unlikely to enthuse top-ranked foreign universities to establish owned campuses in India – writes Summiya Yasmeen Seventeen years after the National Knowledge Commission headed by US-based billionaire technocrat Sam Pitroda first recommended the entry of foreign higher education institutions (FHEIs) into India, the BJP government at the Centre has given the formal greenlight for them to establish campuses on Indian terra firma. On November 7, the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC) notified the UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, providing a legal and regulatory framework for foreign universities to establish owned campuses in India. According to Prof. Jagadesh Kumar, UGC chairman, the regulations will “facilitate the entry of FHEIs into India in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommendations and provide an international dimension to higher education in India”. However, not many in Indian academia — or in the head offices of universities abroad — are enthused by the regulations. After initial euphoria of foreign universities having been permitted to establish sprawling new campuses with their trademark superior infrastructure in India, there’s growing awareness that the conditions and regulations fine print is less than inviting. UGC’s five-page notification setting out the terms and conditions for entry of FHEIs which enjoy real autonomy back home, bristles with a gamut of discretionary rules and regulations that are likely to put off their management boards. For a start, every applicant foreign university should be ranked among the global Top 500 by agencies approved by UGC “from time to time”. Next, the applicant foreign university must give an undertaking that the degrees/qualifications it awards are “at par with that of the main campus in the country of origin” and that “the qualifications awarded to the students in the Indian campus shall be recognised and treated as equivalent to the corresponding qualifications awarded by the FHEI in the main campus located in the country of origin for all purposes, including higher education and employment”. There are other stringent conditions imposed upon FHEIs thinking of tapping into the world’s largest higher education market. The fees structure should be “transparent and reasonable”; “the qualifications of the faculty appointed shall be at par with the main campus of the country of origin” and the FHEI “shall ensure that the foreign faculty appointed to teach at the Indian campus shall stay at the campus in India for a reasonable period” and that licensed FHEIs “shall not offer any such programme of study which jeopardises the national interest of India or standards of higher education in India” or are “contrary to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency, or morality”. Another provision states the FHEIs need prior approval of UGC before starting any new programme. Moreover, the commission…
Insufficient German language skills are the primary hurdle for international academics targeting long-term careers in Germany, a new study has found. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) interviewed international postdocs, new professors and members of university management for the study, concluding that while research funding opportunities and early career promotions attract academics to Germany, international researchers have less confidence in their long-term career prospects. Study respondents also cited the complexity of career paths in Germany, experiences of xenophobia and exclusion and issues with the visa system as obstacles dissuading them from pursuing professorships in the country. Jan Kercher, a senior researcher at DAAD, noted that while international researchers comprise almost 14 percent of academic staff in Germany, they make up about 7 percent of professors. “There is a kind of ‘leaky pipeline’ on the path of international researchers from doctorate to professorship in Germany,” he told Times Higher Education. Of the academics surveyed, almost 70 percent said German language skills were relevant or highly relevant for their careers. Lack of fluency inhibited their daily collaboration with colleagues, their inclusion in faculty meetings and their teaching capacity, they said. Several respondents shared experiences of xenophobia and racism in Germany, with one describing a sense of “hostility” from the general public and another citing a “closed” German culture. Others discussed expensive, competitive housing markets. German visa laws, which link residence permits to employment, concerned study participants from outside the European Union. “In addition, the international academics and researchers surveyed reported a lack of multilingualism and service orientation in the immigration authorities,” says Dr. Kercher. DAAD president Joybrato Mukherjee stresses the importance of plugging the “leaky pipeline”. “Germany is a highly attractive host country for international academics and researchers,” says Prof. Mukherjee, president of the University of Giessen. “On this basis, we should be even more successful in the future in supporting international talent on their path to a professorship.” (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
Facing their toughest-ever nationwide tests of academic freedom, some US institutions are slowly trying to move past questions of intrusive donors and violent protests by teaching more directly about tolerance. While many of the nation’s campuses remain convulsed by demonstrations, threats, and arrests relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict, several of them — including Harvard University, Dartmouth College, New York University and the University of Virginia — have stepped forward with educational programmes aimed at students, faculty and staff. Virginia plans a series of public presentations by experts on Middle East politics and global conflicts. Its aim is to “encourage the free sharing of beliefs and ideas, regardless of political leaning”, says provost Ian Baucom. Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, promises education and training programmes aimed at “protecting all members of our community”, although she puts particular emphasis on confronting “antisemitism in daily life”. NYU is creating a Center for the Study of Antisemitism, while Dartmouth started educational forums on the conflict almost immediately after the initial Hamas attack. Signs of US higher education remembering and prioritising its teaching role in the face of flaring Israeli-Palestinian violence remain too rare, says Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, a writers’ group that has become a leading voice for campus free speech protections. “That has to be a much more deliberate, intentional part of the university experience, because we’re seeing that it’s really not working as is,” says Nossel. The Biden administration also tried to calm the situation by formally warning college and university leaders nationwide that they have a legal obligation to provide all students with an educational environment free from discrimination.
The first international student from China, enrolled at the University of Sydney a century ago. Now its sandstone buildings hum with foreign languages: almost half the university’s students are from overseas. “For Asian kids, we value the rankings a lot,” says one of its Chinese students, who asks not to be named. Australian universities perform well in them; the University of Sydney is one of nine ranked among the world’s Top 100 institutions. Australia also has better weather than Britain or Canada, and less gun crime than America. When the student enrolled in 2015, it “seemed like one of the friendliest countries in the Western world”. Over the past two decades, the number of international students in Australia has risen nearly fourfold, to 440,000 in 2019. Its universities now attract more foreign talent than those of any country except America and Britain. Education is Australia’s fourth-biggest export, worth around 3 percent of GDP. This has made its universities dependent on the higher fees foreigners pay — a worry when Australia closed its borders in 2020 and again later that year when a trade war erupted with China, which supplies about a third of incomers. Yet most of the universities have managed these shocks fairly easily. And in 2023, foreign students have returned in droves, with 425,000 now in Australia. Universities were largely unaffected by the trade spat. While slapping curbs on Australia’s exports from wine to coal, China didn’t deter its citizens from attending the country’s universities. When the pandemic struck, Chinese students were also more willing than others to stick with online learning, notes Peter Varghese, chancellor of the University of Queensland. Public investment in Australian tertiary education is among the lowest in the OECD. This makes the universities especially reliant on the revenue foreign students provide, including A$41 billion (Rs.2.28 lakh crore) in fees and other spending in the year to September. There is also value in “the enduring diplomatic benefit of building constructive relationships” with some of the world’s brightest citizens, notes Mark Scott, vice chancellor, University of Sydney, But there is a downside. Some universities have been accused of suppressing criticism of China. Chinese student spies are alleged to be snooping on campuses and intimidating classmates. In 2019, scuffles broke out in several universities between Chinese nationalists and pro-democracy campaigners. Universities have been subject to a “sustained campaign of intimidation, harassment, censorship and intelligence gathering”, thundered a conservative senator, James Paterson, last year. Partly as a result, universities are becoming just a bit less dependent on China. Scandals over foreign interference were a big wake-up call, says Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University. Vice chancellors are now wooing new markets. Sydney University is taking record numbers from Malaysia and Vietnam. Since 2018, the number of Indians studying down under has risen by a third. Chinese students now represent 33 percent of the foreign cohort, down from a peak of 38 percent. Continued geopolitical tensions are meanwhile leading to more scrutiny of university research and partnerships.…
Cambridge University is facing new legal and internal challenges to its policy of forcing academics to retire at the age of 67. Around 120 current and former professors at the institution have signed a letter to the recently installed vice chancellor, Deborah Prentice, urging her to call a vote on abolishing the Employer Justified Retirement Age (EJRA) because of the risk of “brain drain”. The university has already instigated a wide-ranging review of the policy — which has been used since 2012 to ensure older professors are moved off the payroll and to open up opportunities for younger academics — after Oxford University, the only other English institution to enforce retirement, lost a legal case against four of its former staff members. Cambridge now also faces being sued over the EJRA itself for the first time after Ross Anderson, a computer science professor who was forced to retire in September, signalled his intention to launch a claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination. Although he continues to work for the university once a week, Prof Anderson, who will be represented by the law firm Doyle Clayton, says he feels he has been “cut off in his prime”. “I’m still fit, still on top of it, still producing research at the rate of a dozen good papers a year. There are many other academics who continue to contribute into their seventies and eighties,” he told Times Higher Education. Oxford lost its case last March after a judge ruled it had not shown the policy was a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”, partly because it lacked data on how many vacancies had been created due to the EJRA in the ten years it has operated. Describing EJRA “immoral, illegal, unfair, uneconomic and bad employment practice”, the letter claims it harms the institution’s ability to attract world-class scholars, forces senior academics to move elsewhere to continue their research and causes stress and poor mental health for those approaching the mandatory retirement age. Also read: Wasteful ageism
In the wake of his shock election victory in December, a video of new Argentinian president Javier Milei tearing the names of government departments off a whiteboard went viral on TikTok. It shows the right-winger — sporting a distinctive pair of huge sideburns — shouting “afuera” (get out) to ten of the country’s 18 ministries. The tally included the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation — which, he tells the camera, belongs in the private sector — plus the Ministry of Education “and indoctrination”, quips Milei. The rapid rise of the chaotic, chainsaw-wielding libertarian politician in a country racked by economic uncertainty has stunned Argentina’s research community, with many fearing President Milei’s plans to dramatically slash public spending will decimate its universities and scientific infrastructure. On the campaign trail, Milei promised not only to close the science ministry, but also to shut or privatise the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet), one of Latin America’s most important science funders, and cut state funding for research and education to bare bones. “What he is proposing is very close to a dismantlement of the whole system, and it will be very hard to recover if that happens,” says Diego Golombek, a biology professor at the National University of Quilmes and a researcher at Conicet, who is “extremely worried” about the new regime. “We have a good science system: it needs more budget, it needs to go more federal and help regional economies, but it is there and it has worked well for many decades, so any kind of strong measures against it will be suicidal and it will be very difficult to build it again,” adds Golombek. Alberto Kornblihtt, a molecular biologist at the University of Buenos Aires, likens Milei’s agenda to the right-wing economic and political programme of the military dictatorships that ruled the country between 1976-1983, but this time with “massive popular support” and a democratic mandate, something that is “not good news” for science, universities, public health and education. “If he keeps his promises, not only will the budget cuts for research be huge, but also institutions like Conicet risk being dismantled, with the obvious consequence of brain drain,” he warns. The directors of Conicet’s 16 science and technology research centres — which fund about 12,000 researchers — spoke out against plans to close the organisation before the election, warning in a joint statement: “We still have many challenges, many issues to improve, but it is not by cancelling the state that a better country will be achieved.” President Milei has been less clear about his plans for the wider higher education system, but the national government’s control of universities’ finances makes them vulnerable. He has proposed a plan for schools that involves taking public money and giving it to families as “educational vouchers” that they can decide how to spend, and a similar system might be considered for the country’s currently free public universities. Gerardo Burton, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires,…
Budget woes and internal divisions could prove fatal for a pan-Asian university backed by regional governments, scholars say. Based in New Delhi, the South Asian University (SAU) is supported by an intergovernmental partnership, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), with eight member nations — including India, Pakistan and Nepal — contributing funding. SAU has become a staging ground for annual clashes in recent years. Last November (2022), student protests over “significant” scholarship reductions escalated dramatically into hunger strikes, with a few students hospitalised and the police called to intervene. In July, hundreds of international faculty petitioned in support of SAU scholars who were suspended over accusations that they incited the protests. Now the university — which has grown to more than 700 scholars and seven departments after being established in 2010 — is facing “severely depleted” finances, lacking £9.5 million (Rs.100 crore) according to media reports. Geopolitical tensions haven’t helped. Pakistan reportedly hasn’t contributed money toward SAU’s operational costs since 2019. Other countries are said to be behind on their payments. Shahid Jameel, professor at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and former chief executive of the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance, says that underlying issues have plagued the university for years. “Student protests, faculty suspensions and so on are not the reason but the outcome of deeper malaise,” he says. “The situation is clearly not conducive to the initial lofty ideals of a world-class university supported by SAARC nations. There is a clear possibility of SAU closing down or reinventing itself.” Prof. Jameel says news of the institution’s financial woes don’t come as a surprise, given that the institution’s multilateral funding model — “hard to implement even in the best of times”, with the university at the “mercy of sovereign nations” — has left SAU’s future looking “bleak”. “There is no mechanism to enforce it and goodwill is out of fashion in the world, including south Asia. Look at the reality: two SAARC countries — Pakistan and Sri Lanka — which were supposed to contribute 20 percent of the SAU budget, are practically bankrupt,” says Jameel. Rafiq Dossani, director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy and a senior economist at the US-based think tank the Rand Corporation, agrees that the “biggest problem” currently facing SAU is lack of finances. “With the exception of India and Bangladesh, the other participating countries are in extremely poor financial shape, particularly Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This leaves India carrying the burden,” he says. Also read: Delhi: South Asian University accused of ‘arbitrarily’ expelling two students
Dr Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, USA One of the best adventures I have had in many years is my first trip to India. I have long followed the affairs of India and regarded it as important to the world. I saw wonders there. I will describe some of them in my despatches in future. Begin with education. By attending the EducationWorld India School Rankings Awards event in October, and receiving an undeserved but much appreciated award there, I discerned a healthy spirit of love for learning and for children. I witnessed a vibrant private sector full of devoted people and eager students. I saw it helps students to grow. This was exciting and inspiring. Here in the United States, Hillsdale College has helped to found and manage over 100 schools, and the network is still growing. We have developed a detailed and carefully coordinated scope and sequence for education of the young from first grade (kindergarten) to graduation in grade XII or senior year. Our college operates at the highest academic level, and its faculty has deep knowledge of all things that are taught in America’s schools. It contributes continuously to our efforts in elementary and secondary education. We are invited by many to become involved in Indian education, and we are keen to do so. However we have to learn more about the history, literature, philosophy, and religions of India. We have set about that work and find it promising. I begin with the fact that in India and in the United States (and most of Europe), we speak languages of the ‘Indo-European’ group. This means our languages have descended over millennia from a common source. Different on surface, Hindi and English are related. But words flow from ideas. That means that from as far back as can be known, we have inherited not only words but ideas in common. It stands to reason, then, that philosophy, literature, and religion in our countries would have commonalities of ancient origin. We are exploring this and will be able, we hope, to teach these commonalities to American and Indian students. A vital commonality is that we both elect our governments. That is of first importance in civic life. If government works for the people, it will be of one kind. If it works for the few in power, it will be an entirely different and worse experience. Modern India is a young country built upon an ancient foundation. The glory of its modern history is this building and maintenance of a system of representative government. Students in America and India need to know that. The world of education in India, which is united to a considerable degree by this publication, is exciting and promising. India is a guardian of freedom and civilization for the world. It can maintain this position best, even only, through education. It is inspiring to watch education flourish in India. We hope to be of service. Also read: Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2023-24: Dr.…
With the spectre of PISA 2009 when Indian 15-year-olds were ranked second last from among 74 participating countries looming in the background, at the last minute the BJP government at the Centre withdrew India’s participation in PISA 2022, which was written by 690,000 students from 81 countries writes Dilip Thakore There was a growing sense of inevitability about it. At the last minute India withdrew from the transnational PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2022, results of which were declared on December 5, 2023. Organised by the Directorate of Education and Skills of OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development), a group of developed industrial countries, PISA 2022 tested the capabilities of 15-year-olds representing over 80 countries around the world in reading, science and maths through a common exam. Around 690,000 students from 81 participating countries wrote PISA 2022. The Indian contingent of students was MIA (missing in action). For several years until the millennium year, the Directorate of Education within OECD used to measure the education progress of countries using the metric of average years of schooling of 15-year-olds. But this was found to be unsatisfactory because education standards differed in countries. Therefore in the new millennium, the Directorate devised a common test to measure the reading, maths and science attainments of high school children and rank countries according to outcomes. Since then, PISA, held every three years, has acquired incremental international popularity. In 2009 shortly after the Congress-led UPA government was re-elected to power at the Centre, Union HRD (education) minister Kapil Sibal, perhaps enthused by the large number of students being awarded 95 percent-plus average scores in class X and XII school-leaving exams conducted by India’s 33 examination boards (including the national CBSE and CISCE), ordered India’s participation in PISA 2009. India’s representative batch of 5,000 15-year-olds selected from Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh — reputedly India’s most educationally advanced states — was ranked #73, higher than only one country, Kyrgyzstan (pop. 6 million). When the results of PISA 2009 were released, the plain truth that our K-12 education system is hopelessly obsolete and addicted to rote learning and memorization pedagogies became manifest. PISA tests the comprehension, critical thinking and knowledge application skills of high schoolers. With egg on its face as media across the country headlined the pathetic performance of the India cohort of 5,000 students in PISA 2009, India skipped PISA 2012 and 2015. The then UPA government blamed ‘out of context’ questions for boycotting PISA. However in 2015, the Union government introduced its own National Achievement Survey (NAS) conducted by NCERT (National Council for Educational Research & Training), an autonomous subsidiary of the Union education ministry. In NAS 2015 over a period of five months, 277,416 class X students of 7,216 schools affiliated with two pan-India and 31 state examination boards were administered “standardised and context-free objective tests using uniform tools” in five subjects (English, maths, science, social science and the dominant state language) by the Delhi-based NCERT. The outcome of NAS 2015 inspired…
Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) A grade X student of Delhi’s upscale The British School, Anahat Singh is set to make an impact in the international squash racquets circuit. In November, this 15-year-old was crowned women’s national squash champion at the HCL 79th National Squash Championship staged in Chennai. Earlier in October, Anahat bagged two bronze medals in the women’s and mixed doubles events at the 19th Asian Games staged in Hangzhou (China); in August, she won the Girls Under-17 title at the Asian Junior Squash Individual Championships 2023 in Dalian (China) six months after winning the Girls Under-15 title at the British Junior Open Squash tournament in Birmingham (UK) in January. Born into a family of sports aficionados — father Gursharan Singh, a practicing lawyer, and entrepreneur mother Tani Vadehra, are former hockey players and elder sister Amira is a member of Harvard University’s women’s squash squad — Anahat has set herself ambitious targets. “I love this game which combines intellect with extreme physical fitness and I’m grateful to my mentor-father, coaches, senior players who sharpened my training in Delhi,” says this articulate teenager. Anahat’s interest in squash was kindled at age eight while witnessing her sister Amira play at New Delhi’s Siri Fort Sports Complex. Later, training under former national squash champion Amjad Khan, Anahat started competing and winning tournaments. In 2019, she won the Girls Under-11 title at the British Junior Open Squash championship in Birmingham followed by Girls Under-13 titles at the Dutch and European Junior Open Squash championships staged in Amsterdam and Cologne the same year. Although her training routine was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Anahat returned to the court with a vengeance and bagged the US Open 2021 junior (under-15) squash title in Philadelphia (USA). The following year, she went on to win the Girls Under-15 title at the Asian Junior Squash Individual Championship in Pattaya (Thailand). Unsurprisingly, this teenage champion has ambitious plans for the future. “My goal is nothing less than to become world champion. And now that squash has been included as an official sport in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, I will intensify my training over the next four years to win India’s first ever squash racquets gold medal,” says this gritty teen with a winning habit. Wind in your sails!
Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) In early October, Chennai-based engineering student Anandkumar (20) returned with a bronze medal from the Asian Games 2023 staged in Hangzhou (China). He was among the three-member-strong 3,000 m speed roller skating relay team which finished behind South Korea and gold medalists Chinese Taipei. Winning an Asian Games medal for India was a dream come true for this third-year student of the College of Engineering, Guindy, whose participation was in doubt after he suffered a slew of injuries prior to the Asian Games. “Frequent crashes during my practice sessions leading to serious injuries made it tough for me to give my 100 percent in the selection trials. Nevertheless I persevered and made it into the team. I owe this to my parents and coaches and their continuous encouragement and mental support,” he acknowledges. Inspired by his sister Subi, a national and international level roller skater, Anandkumar took to roller skating at age six, training at a nearby badminton court under the tutelage of Anna Raja. Soon he started competing in district, state and national speed skating competitions with “satisfactory results” which helped him make up his mind to focus on roller skating, a sport practised by a small community of athletes. Anandkumar’s perseverance paid off. In 2021, he won a silver medal at the World Championship staged in Ibague, Columbia. Notwithstanding long hours of training, studying for his engineering degree and finding sponsors for this minority sport which requires expensive imported equipment, has been challenging for this wannabe engineer. Typically his day begins at 4:30 in the morning with road skating or cycling for a minimum three hours. From 8:30 a.m to 4 p.m, he attends college and resumes training at the city’s Indoor Nehru Stadium from 6-8 p.m under coach and former national skating champion Sathya Moorthy. “Encouraged by my performance in Hangzhou, I am determined to get onto the podium at the upcoming World Speed Skating Championship in Italy in March, and the 2025 World Speed Skating Games in China. I am convinced that my intensive training will pay off,” says this determined speedster on skates. Power to your wheels!
Nasrin Modak Siddiqi (Mumbai) With the national education Policy (NEP) 2020 having restructured the 10+2 school system of over half a century to the 5+3+3+4 system by tagging on three years of formal early childhood education, the BJP/Shiv Sena government has issued a circular to all schools statewide not to admit children below the age of three into nursery class. Henceforth, children enrolling into the nursery class will have to be three years of age, junior kindergarten (age four) and senior KG (age five) so that when children enter class I they will be six years of age as mandated by the Right to Education Act, 2009 and NEP 2020. Indeed, acknowledging the critical importance of early childhood care and education (ECCE) — a cause propagated by EducationWorld since 2010 — the Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee on which NEP 2020 is based, proposed that three years of professionally provided ECCE should be extended to class II with the first five years described as “foundational education”. Suraj Mandhare, education commissioner, believes that three to six years are critical for child development. Thus far, in most pre-primary schools there wasn’t any distinction between playschool/crèches and nursery. “Therefore, children who were enrolled in playschool were often promoted to nursery — formal ECCE — at very young age which is not advisable for their orderly growth and development. As per NEP 2020, foundational primary education is from nursery to class II to give children a firm foundation to derive the benefit of further education. The state government’s circular is to ensure that from the next academic year children don’t start nursery education before age three. A draft Bill has been prepared to regulate and standardise ECCE,” says Mandhare. Dr. Swati Popat Vats, President of the Early Childhood Association (estb.2010) which has a membership of over 40,000 preschools/members nationwide, welcomes this circular and proposed legislation. “This means all preschools — government, non-government, private, NGOs — will have to admit children into nursery classes after they attain the age of three. All preschools will have to register on a government portal and provide details of teachers, their qualifications, the number of children enrolled with their age details and align their curriculums with the National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) 2022. This will formalize ECCE and nursery education,” says Dr. Vats. This rule will become applicable from the academic year 2024-25. Therefore, the question arises what will be the status of children who were signed up in playschool at young age and have already been admitted in nursery class at ages below three? “Children below three years in nurseries will have to mark time in nursery class before being promoted to Junior KG. This is not a bad thing as it will make them better prepared for the next higher class. That’s why this age mandate is operational from the next academic year. But from April/June — as academic year starts in these months — 2024, no child below age three should be admitted into nursery…
Education has already undergone a remarkable transformation with the advent of the internet, but the integration of AI-powered chatbots such as ChatGPT has revolutionised teaching-learning (Shivam Dutta is promoter-CEO of Alma Better, a Bengaluru-based AI and data science company) Devyani Mungali It’s no longer a secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over every aspect of human existence. It is making huge strides in finance, healthcare, transportation and education. Once limited to fiction movies, this new-age technology is being used to develop intelligent systems that can function with little or no human intervention. Education has already undergone a remarkable transformation with the advent of the internet, but the integration of AI-powered chatbots such as ChatGPT has revolutionised teaching-learning. Moreover, the integration of AI-powered, ChatGPT-infused content into curriculums has numerous benefits, ushering in a new era of personalised, engaging, and accessible learning experiences. Let’s discuss some benefits of using ChatGPT in school curriculums. Personalised learning. Tailoring education to individual needs. One of the prime advantages of incorporating AI-powered ChatGPT into education is personalised learning experiences. By analysing every student’s progress and learning style, this technology can deliver content and feedback tailored to every student’s unique needs and learning capabilities. This personalisation empowers students to learn at their own pace, and teachers intervene to address specific weaknesses. Enhanced engagement. Fostering motivation through interactivity. ChatGPT’s capability to create interactive and engaging educational content contributes significantly to increased student motivation and interest. From quizzes and interactive lessons to simulations, the dynamic and immersive nature of this tool captivates students, leading to better retention and understanding of subject matter. 24/7 accessibility. Learning anytime, anywhere. AI-powered educational content breaks down the barriers of traditional learning environments. With 24/7 accessibility, students can engage with the study material at their convenience, whether in the classroom, at home, or on the go. This flexibility promotes lifelong learning and widens accessibility for diverse student populations, promoting the culture of continuous education. Data-driven insights. Informed decision-making for educators. The integration of AI enables the collection and analysis of data on students’ learning styles and outcomes. Educators can leverage these insights to identify areas for improvement, adjust pedagogy, and make data-informed decisions to enhance and refine the curriculum. Virtual tutors. Round-the-clock support. While virtual classrooms have become mainstream in the education sector, assimilation of AI is making the concept of virtual tutors a reality. AI-powered chatbots are changing how learners engage with online courses, promoting self-directed learning, personalised experiences, instant feedback, and round-the-clock support. Technology fluency. Navigating the digital age. In the contemporary jobs market, technical fluency is of prime importance. AI-powered educational content exposes students to cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence applications, making them tech-savvy and comfortable with digital tools. This fluency enhances their competitiveness and adaptability in various career paths. Problem-solving and critical thinking. Building essential skills. AI-infused content stimulates critical thinking and problem-solving skills, essential attributes in modern-day careers. Students are encouraged to analyse information, make data-informed decisions, and find innovative solutions — skillsets highly transferable to diverse professional…
A business management graduate of Cornell University, USA, Nitish Jain is Founder-President, SP Jain School of Global Management, which has an aggregate enrolment of 2,668 students mentored by 202 faculty spread across five countries. SP Jain School of Global Management (SPJSGM) is unique among all Indian B-schools by virtue of having established campuses in five countries — UAE, Australia, Singapore, Mumbai and recently in London. What are the aims and objectives of this multinational B-school? SPJSGM was founded in 2004 on the simple philosophy that since business had gone global, B-schools should also provide global education. In our multi-city model, students are exposed to multiple regions and they learn about eastern, middle eastern and western business practices and cultures. Modern companies need talent that is culturally agile and can work in global teams. Twenty years later, how satisfied are you with the progress of SPJSGM? We judge our success by the success of our alumni. They work for the best companies worldwide including Apple, McKinsey, BCG, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Uber among others. Our high ranking in Bloomberg, Businessweek, Times Higher Education, Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Financial Times B-school league tables are based on the career progression and salary growth of our alumni. Notably, SP Jain London School of Management is the first Indian-origin business school authorised to grant UK degrees. Our recently launched London campus at Canary Wharf offers undergraduate and postgrad MBA programs, testimony to our commitment to providing globally relevant contemporary business management education. In Mumbai, there is another well-respected B-school with a similar sounding name, S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research. Evidently, there is a history behind the establishment of two B-schools bearing the S.P. Jain title… The name SP Jain is of my late grandfather, who was the patron of SPJIMR through donation of an endowment upon the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which promoted SPJIMR. They named it after him, to honour him. Moreover, there are other education institutes named after him including an arts and commerce college in Gujarat, and a school for children with special needs in Mumbai. The SP Jain School of Global Management is a trademark that we own with its own unique logo and identity. It’s analogous to the distinctions between IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Bangalore or IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur. Those who require clarity on this distinction are already aware of this. Presumably the majority of SPJSGM students are from India or of Indian origin. What is the advantage they derive from SPJSGM education/certification? Yes, a significant proportion of our students are from India. This is a testament to the appeal of our multi-city model. SP Jain Global offers students a world-class business management education experience that not only leverages our global model but students also derive the benefit of international faculty from 20 countries, and our razor-sharp focus on enabling their recruitment into the world’s best companies. With real-time connected campuses in Sydney, Dubai, Singapore, London and Mumbai, SPJSGM is presumably heavily dependent on latest ICT (information communication technologies). Do you…
Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) Two back-to-back incidents of children in government schools being forced to clean toilets of their schools have provoked public outrage in the state. The first incident was reported on December 18 when photographs and video clips of some students of the Morarji Desai Residential School in Malur, Kolar district, cleansing toilets under a teacher’s supervision went viral. Four days later on December 22, another incident of students cleaning toilets of a government higher primary school in Bengaluru was reported. After a flash protest by parents, the state government suspended the headmistress of the latter school. Madhu Bangarappa, minister for school education and literacy of the state’s recently elected Congress government, strongly condemned both incidents. “The government will not mince words in criticising this. We will ensure that such incidents do not repeat again. I will act in the days to come. This is shameful,” he told media personnel. However these incidents have raised the larger question of why children shouldn’t learn hygiene and sanitation in their early years by cleaning toilets of their own schools. Particularly, since unlike private institutions, government schools don’t employ housekeeping staff. In the state’s 49,679 government schools the management is obliged to maintain the school campus including toilets. The state’s education ministry allocates every government school an annual maintenance sum dependent on student enrolment — Rs.20,000 per annum for schools with 50 students, Rs.28,000 for upto 100 students, Rs.33,000 for 500 students and Rs.45,000 for over 501 students. Principals/teachers are obliged to spread this modest annual provision to cover supply of drinking water, maintenance of libraries, playgrounds, laboratories and lavatories. Self-evidently this allocation is wholly inadequate for school campus and infrastructure maintenance. Chandrashekar Nuggali, general secretary of the Karnataka State Primary School Teachers Association, met with chief minister Siddaramaiah on December 26 and submitted a memorandum demanding that the state government transfer the onus of maintenance of government schools including cleaning of toilets and classrooms, to local governments. “It’s not the job of teachers to maintain school infrastructure. We have demanded that in rural areas, the government entrust the responsibility of cleaning toilets either to the gram panchayat or direct private CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds to be used to maintain toilets in government schools. In urban areas such as Bengaluru, the city municipal corporation which has a large number of civic workers, should be given the additional responsibility of keeping government schools clean. Most government schools get a meagre Rs.8,000 per month for cleaning/maintenance and providing potable water. This is wholly insufficient,” says Nuggali. Unsurprisingly, one of the most off-putting characteristics of government schools and a major cause of children — especially girl children — dropping out of senior school is lack of clean, usable and separate toilets for them. According to the Annual Status of Education Report 2022, 24.2 percent of the state’s government schools had “unusable” toilets and 8.5 percent didn’t have separate girls’ toilets as mandated by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act,…
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) The long-standing face-off between the state government and the state governor over the issue of appointment of vice chancellors (VCs) in 31 state government universities has transformed into a full-blown war between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) which rules West Bengal and the governor — an appointee of the ruling BJP government at the Centre. This stand-off has also exposed the perilous state of Bengal’s higher education system. As they try to undermine each other, the future of state government universities remains in a limbo, with no permanent VCs in them for more than seven months. Now the stand-off between TMC and the BJP has gone into a tailspin with the governor terminating the appointment of Jadavpur University (JU, estb.1955) interim vice chancellor Buddhadeb Sau on December 23, a day before the JU convocation ceremony, and the state government directing him to “continue to exercise and perform his duties and hold the convocation,” which he did. But the twist in the tale is that Sau, professor of mathematics at JU was appointed interim VC by Governor C.V. Ananda Bose on August 17 despite his lack of ten years teaching experience which is mandatory for the post. At the time, the appointment had received heavy flak from TMC top guns. On December 19, Ananda Bose sent a letter directing JU not to hold the function because of ongoing legal battle over the appointment of interim VCs. Curiously, Governor Bose did not oppose convocations held at Kalyani University and Vidyasagar University, also managed by interim VCs. In response, a group of senior academics under the banner of the Educationist Forum released a press statement on December 23, targeting the Governor for his doublespeak and attempts to politicise the administration of universities in West Bengal. According to the senior academics, Ananda Bose’s JU convocation cancellation order revealed intention to carry forward the Sangh Parivar’s agenda of taking control of top-ranked higher ed institutions such as JU, JNU and Delhi University. University convocations at which degrees are conferred upon graduating students are held in high esteem by teachers and students alike the worldover. Jadavpur’s convocation traditionally staged on December 24 is a grand affair to which students and faculty look forward. Fortunately, JU’s convocation for 2022-23 graduating students was duly held on December 24 with full pomp and ceremony, Chancellor Bose’s stop order notwithstanding. Within academia, this confrontation between Governor Ananda Bose — the Centre’s appointee and the state’s TMC government — which has been playing out for the past seven months is being interpreted as a battle for the control of JU, West Bengal’s most prestigious university. Ranked #4 in the EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings 2023-24 and #4 by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union education ministry, JU has steadfastly carved out its own identity as a liberal and secular higher ed institution in which both TMC and BJP are striving to establish a firm foothold. With the political slugfest in JU attracting banner headlines in the…
Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) Poor student enrolment in the constituent colleges of Chennai’s prestigious Anna University (AU) is causing anxiety within the management of Tamil Nadu’s show-piece state government university, one of India’s top engineering universities ranked in the 501-600 band worldwide by Times Higher Education and among the world’s Top 2,000 by US News & World Report. In India as well AU has a big reputation and is regarded as only one step below the country’s IITs for engineering education. In the EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings 2023-24 — which don’t rate and rank IITs & NITs — AU is ranked #2 countrywide after the venerable Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (estb.1908). Therefore there’s growing concern that poor enrolment in some of its 571 affiliated undergrad engineering colleges is dragging down the reputation of the parent varsity. To deal with the problem, the varsity is reportedly contemplating revoking affiliation to 44 engineering colleges that have reported enrolment less than 10 percent of sanctioned student intake in the past two years. Of them, 13 are in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur. The AU management has issued notices to 44 colleges asking them what steps they had taken to improved enrolment in 2023-24. “A team of experts will conduct inspections in these colleges to verify their data. If these colleges haven’t improved their enrolment in 2023-24, the university will withdraw affiliation for 2024-25,” says vice chancellor R. Velraj. However according to B.V. Mudgal, former professor at the Centre for Water Resources at AU, the 10 percent enrolment bar is too low. If total enrolment is less than 50 percent of capacity, the college should be disaffiliated and should not be allowed to continue classes. “The decision to revoke affiliation is welcome because it will benefit students. Those who are already enrolled should be allowed to complete the course from the same institute or accommodated in nearby affiliated colleges. However, these colleges should not be permitted to take new admissions from the next academic year. There are many reasons for low enrolment. But the major reason is that enrolments in conventional branches of engineering such as civil and mechanical have become stagnant. Students who graduate in these specialisation are experiencing hard time securing employment. Computer science, data science, blockchain and AI programmes are the flavour of the season. Discontinuing the affiliation of such colleges may seem harsh but such pruning is required from time to time,” says Mudgal. During two rounds of counseling held in July-August last year, 37 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu failed to attract any new students. Out of the 440 colleges that participated, 208 were able to fill only 10 percent of their available capacity. These colleges survive by renting their premises for wedding receptions and film shoots which tend to disturb the studies of the few students on campus. In the circumstances there’s growing consensus that these colleges should be shut down. Academics opine that low enrolments limit networking opportunities, reduce diversity of perspectives in classrooms, and adversely affect…
“We have to bring some changes in the education system of our management institutions for more effective and inclusive development of the country.” President Droupadi Murmu urging Indian business management institutes to connect their study programmes with Indian corporates, consumers and society (Indian Express, December 7) “You must be joking about India becoming a developed, rich country by 2047 with 35 percent malnutrition today. Your malnourished children today will be workers in 2047… Our children’s high malnutrition levels should be the country’s shame that we want to eradicate.” Raghuram Rajan, former RBI governor, interacting with media at the launch of his book Reimagining India’s Economic Future (December 17) “I don’t think (ChatGPT) has anything to do with education. I think it’s undermining it. ChatGPT is basically high-tech plagiarism… and a way to avoid learning.” Noam Chomsky, American philosopher and linguist, on artificial intelligence and ChatGPT (Bangalore Times, December 24) “The obstacle tripping India’s growth is the mismatch between skills, jobs and incomes.” Arun Maira, former member, Planning Commission, on a new economics for inclusive growth (The Hindu, December 27) “A record 40 countries including the US and India will be having general elections in 2024. This adds a political element to prevailing uncertainties, especially since many of these countries are populous and economically influential.” Dharmakirti Joshi, economist, in an essay titled ‘Back to Economy Class’ (Times of India, December 28) “I am not a person who believes in a wish-list for the coming new year. Rather I am someone who believes in a work-list for myself.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an interview with India Today (January 8)
Autar Nehru (Delhi) With the two national school examination boards — the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE, 28,926 affiliated schools) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE, 2,700 schools) — and 69 state boards scheduled to stage their school-leaving examinations within the next four months, exam fever has broken out across the country. The peaceful co-existence of such a large number of school-leaving exam boards prescribing differing syllabuses and curriculums and practising liberal and rigorous marking of exam papers has always posed a problem for the admission departments of the country’s 42,000 junior (classes XI-XII) and undergrad colleges countrywide. For several decades under a Central government directive Central government and aided colleges are obliged to give equivalence to marks/grades attained by students in class XII exams countrywide. Yet it’s an open secret that some state boards mark answer papers very liberally. This has prompted even national boards — CBSE and CISCE — to do likewise. Hence grades inflation has become a national practice with schools (and test-prep firms) trumpeting the 95 percent-plus average scores of their students. In turn, this has prompted the country’s top-ranked colleges to notify impossibly high — sometimes 100 percent — admission cut-offs. To get around the problem of school board exams equivalence, in 2022, the University Grants Commission introduced CUET (Common University Entrance Test) to determine admission into colleges affiliated with 56 Central government universities. Since then, several state government and private universities have also started admitting school-leavers on the basis of CUET scores. However, the hurried introduction of CUET in 2022 has endangered the country’s secondary education system and the class XII examinations of national and state boards, in particular. Sudha Acharya, former chairperson of the Delhi-based National Progressive Schools’ Conference (NPSC) which has a membership of 400 private CBSE schools, is opposed to CUET for not according any weightage to the class XII board exam scores. “CUET has severely devalued the high school education system. With CUET scores being the be all and end all for college admissions, higher secondary students may well abandon schools and flock to coaching centres to prep for CUET,” says Acharya, also principal of the CBSE-affiliated ITL Public School, Dwarka, Delhi. Therefore, on the recommendation of the Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee’s report, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has mandated the PARAKH (Performance, Assessment, Review & Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) programme to set and regulate common syllabuses and curriculums for all 69 examination boards to ensure equivalence of children’s learning outcomes countrywide. According to NCERT sources, finalisation of the PARAKH template is nearing completion and parity or near-equivalence between all exam boards will become a reality by 2026. Simultaneously, the two national boards — CBSE and CISCE whose affiliated higher secondary schools could be reduced to irrelevance by India’s Rs.20,000 crore test-prep aka coaching industry — are in the process of ringing in syllabus/curriculum and assessment reforms to take on the test-prep industry by switching from rewarding rote learning and memorisation skills to…
Commendable service I am a regular reader of EducationWorld and want to thank Team EW for publishing the well-researched preschools rankings survey in 17 cities (EW December). In most metros and tier II cities, I noticed the inclusion of a large number of new preschools in the league tables which shows that there is huge demand for early years education. You are doing a commendable job of keeping the parents’ community well-informed about preschools. Keep up the good work! Eesha Narayan Bengaluru Surprising rank I used to run and manage EuroKids Preschool, Lokhandwala, Mumbai for the past two decades until 2022. This year I rebranded my school under the name and style of Green Bean Montessori Academy, a proprietary preschool. But I was shocked to learn that our preschool is ranked #19 in the latest EW India Preschool Rankings 2023-24, unlike its Top 5 ranking over the past several years. Given my vast experience, our preschool doesn’t deserve this rank. Please delete our preschool from this year’s rankings. Dr. Priya Lalit Mittal on email The EW India Preschool Rankings are based on the perceptions of 8,173 informed parents, educators, and teachers polled by the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore) in 17 cities including Mumbai. It’s likely that respondents are not sufficiently aware of your new preschool. Secondly since your preschool is open to the public, deletion is not an option — Editor Methodology ignorance Ekam Early Learning Centre, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad is ranked #21 in the EW India Preschool Rankings 2023-24, even though we had not been contacted by your organisation, nor have we participated in any survey or evaluation related to this ranking. In light of this situation, we request you to eliminate our schools’ name from the rankings. Team Ekam on email See response above — Editor Great disappointment In the latest EW India School Rankings 2023-24 (EW September), Lotus Valley International School, Noida is ranked #24 nationally, #14 in Delhi NCR and #3 in Noida city. Upon scrutinizing our scores under each parameter, we discovered that we are poorly rated under the parameters of mental & emotional well-being services and special needs education. This has come as a surprise to us considering that we have a strong Special Education Department comprising a team of competent special educators and occupational therapists. We also have a dedicated counselling team which ensures the mental and emotional well-being of students and teachers. I have a doctorate in psychology from IIT-Delhi and take personal interest in working closely with my counselling team. I am also a member of the CBSE Committee for preparation of a Mental Health Manual. Given EducationWorld’s excellent reputation, we expected transparency and accuracy in the scores awarded under various parameters while ranking schools. We are honestly disappointed. Dr. Ruchi Seth Director-Principal, Lotus Valley International School, Noida The EW India School Rankings are based on the perceptions of 18,928 informed parents, educators, teachers and senior school students polled by the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research…
HIMACHAL PRADESH Learning gaps directive Shimla, december 1. Learning gaps of class IX-XII students of government schools will be identified in the first 15 days of the new academic year based on the previous year’s final exam results. Thereafter teachers will focus on improving the mathematics, science, Hindi and English learning outcomes of students, said Amarjeet Sharma, higher education director, in a directive issued to schools statewide. “Learning gaps will be assessed and remedial measures taken accordingly. The compliance and action taken report will be submitted to the secretary (education) within seven days,” said the directive. MAHARASHTRA ITI for challenged persons Latur, december 2. Skills development minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha inaugurated Maharashtra’s first Industrial Training Institute (ITI) for challenged persons. The ITI christened Samvedna will admit students from the academic year beginning June 2024. Speaking on the occasion, Lodha said: “Prime minister Narendra Modi gave a new identity to persons with disability by coining the term ‘Divyang’ which changed people’s outlook towards them. This ITI will help persons with disability to become part of mainstream society.” Digambar Dalvi, director of the State Directorate of Vocational Education and Training, presented a cheque of Rs.1 crore to the institute’s management. MANIPUR Relocation plea New Delhi, december 4. The Supreme Court came to the rescue of 284 students hit by ethnic violence in Manipur — in which over 170 people have been killed and several hundred injured — by granting them the option of attending online classes at Manipur University or relocating to Silchar to enroll in Assam University or relocating to Shillong to enroll in North East Hill University. The apex court was hearing a plea filed by the Manipur University EIMI Welfare Society on behalf of the students. The bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra directed that the name of a nodal officer, appointed by the Manipur University, be posted on its website. The officer will be entrusted with the duty to ensure relocation of students within two weeks of applying. ASSAM IIT-G teacher training programme Guwahati, december 5. One thousand government school teachers attended a six-day residential training programme at IIT-Guwahati to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teaching-learning statewide. Speaking at the valedictory ceremony of IIT-G, education minister Ranoj Pegu said: “The purpose of this training programme is to encourage and motivate our schoolchildren to pursue science and mathematics in higher education through better pedagogies.” The teachers were trained in physics, electronics, coding, robotics, artificial intelligence, biology and biotechnology, chemistry and materials science, among other STEM subjects, and to guide students to derive maximum advantage from the Atal Tinkering Labs programme. UTTARAKHAND Schools building initiative Dehradun, december 5. The state government has partnered with prominent private school managements to establish schools for students from low-income households. “A memorandum of understanding was signed with some private school managements which have established institutions in the state. Within two years, these private school managements will build day and residential schools in…
Why China’s universities are world-class
– Sudheendra Kulkarni, former aide of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) and currently founder, Forum for South Asia The most decisive factor driving the quality of higher education, basic research, and its application in industry, agriculture and services is the unstinted support universities receive from the highest level of Chinese leadership In June last year I was invited by Tsinghua University, Beijing to give a talk on India-China civilisational relations. Together with Peking University, it is one of two top Chinese varsities ranked #16 in the Times Higher Education’s Top 200 World University Rankings 2023. During this sojourn Schwarzman College set in Tsinghua’s scenic campus caught my attention. I learned that it was established by Stephen Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone, one of the world’s largest private equity firms that manages assets valued at $1 trillion. The renowned American businessman made a personal gift of $100 million to endow the Schwarzman Scholars programme, inspired by the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships funded by British colonialist Cecil Rhodes. It supports 200 students from around the world annually for a one-year Master’s programme. Known as ‘China’s Harvard’, Tsinghua also boasts other American connections. Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella and Elon Musk have been members of the advisory board of its business school, one of the best worldwide. The incumbent chairman of its board is Apple CEO Tim Cook. Like other world-class universities in China, Tsinghua is founded, funded and managed by the central government. Therefore, two questions arose in my mind. First, why hasn’t a single public university in India received such global recognition? Second, why are captains of American business so generously giving their time and money to Chinese universities, despite the US engaged in a fierce trade war with China, having restricted all hi-tech exports to Chinese companies? The answer to the first question is simple. Most public universities in India, especially those run by states, are engaged in a race to mediocrity. IITs, IIMs and a few Central universities are exceptions. However, the Indian government has shown no interest in internationalising them by attracting foreign students and faculty in large numbers, or by inviting eminent foreigners to join their advisory boards. The second question is best answered by Schwarzman himself. Explaining why he chose a Chinese university for his philanthropic munificence, he said, “Those who will lead the world must understand China today.” Leading American companies know that China is not only a large market for their products, but also a manufacturer of hi-tech products with growing share of world markets. Take, for example, DJI, Huawei and BYD, whose headquarters in Shenzhen I visited. DJI is the world’s largest drones manufacturer with more than 50 percent of global market share. Huawei is the world’s largest provider of telecommunications equipment, and a tough competitor to Apple and Samsung in smartphones. In 2011, Elon Musk had scoffed at the idea of BYD (which stands for ‘Build Your Dreams’) ever competing with Tesla. Today, the Chinese carmaker is driving towards becoming the world’s #1 electronic…