EducationWorld July 17

Delhi-based Rohit Kumar (Harvard) and Aparajita Bharti (Oxford) are the highly qualified co-founders of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) India, a social enterprise offering youth short-term programmes in public policy research and implementation. YLAC’s High School Achievers Programme is designed for secondary school students (classes IX-XII) while the Policy in Action Programme is for undergrad students and professionals in the 18-28 age group.  Newspeg. Last month, YLAC conducted active citizenship summer programmes for 85 high school students in Delhi and Mumbai. History. An alumnus of IIT-Bombay and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Kumar was head of policy in the office of Jay Panda, M.P (member of Parliament) and former researcher at Delhi-based think tank PRS Legislative Research where Bharti was a LAMP (legislative assistant to member of Parliament) fellow. Former colleagues, Kumar and Bharti — the latter also served a one-year stint with JD(U) M.P, N.K. Singh — conceptualised and designed YLAC in 2015 and rolled out its inaugural programme last June.  “During our stints in PRS and with the MPs, we became aware that the majority of youth in urban India have scant knowledge and experience of the socio-economic challenges confronting the country. We discerned the need for an experiential programme which would enable youth to develop a better understanding of their society, broaden their perspective, develop their leadership skills and equip them to translate learning into action by undertaking live projects. The objective is to motivate young people to become active agents of change in their communities,” says Kumar.  The three-four week High School Achievers programme involves classroom sessions and internships with live projects of NGOs in Delhi and Mumbai. The programme fee is Rs.28,000 per participant.  USP. “The unique feature of our programmes is that they are experiential. For instance, in our Policy in Action Programme, we train undergrads in policy analysis, public leadership and advocacy campaign design, and provide them the experience of working on a live project for a member of Parliament. We believe our programmes enable young people to develop critical thinking and analytical skills, teach them to mobilise people by communicating effectively to drive social change,” says Bharti, former manager, corporate affairs and communications at Snapdeal and currently a consultant with Catalyst, a joint initiative of USAID and the Central government. Future plans. With the demand for YLAC’s programme growing, the duo has drawn up plans to introduce new customised programmes such as ‘Science and Society’ for high schoolers to help them discover how science is shaping society. “We also intend to take our programmes to more cities and are in talks with schools and higher ed institutions. The country needs talented young people with the capability and passion to design and implement public policies,” says Kumar. Right on! Autar Nehru (Delhi)

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Ajay Singh and Yuri Punj of the Harvard Business School, and Sena Palanisami, an alum of Minnesota University, are co-founders of Stoodnt Inc (estb.2016), a Palo Alto, California-based education technology company which dispenses career and college admission guidance. The prime objective of Stoodnt is to provide an online platform that leverages data, technology and professional expertise to help students worldwide with admission processes for entry into universities in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia among other countries. In its very first year of operations, the company has facilitated admission of 40 Indian students into top-ranked American universities including Chicago, Purdue, Rutgers and Illinois. Newspeg. Singh was in Kolkata last month (May) to announce the company’s plans for appointing counsellors/partners in India. Stoodnt Inc plans to train well-educated local counsellors to provide study abroad aid and advice.  History. Singh began his career as a design engineer in Austin, Texas in 1993 after graduating from the University of Texas, worked as an engineer for three years before enrolling with the Harvard Business School (HBS) where he met Punj. Drawing on their work experience before HBS, the duo agreed that the admission pain points of parents and students necessitated the promotion of Stoodnt Inc. Currently, the great majority of Stoodnt Inc customers are class VIII-XI students, although the company also offers counselling services to graduates seeking admission into B-schools. Most of the company’s study abroad counsellors are based in the US, complemented by ten local counsellors and nine resource persons. The company currently has offices in Gurgaon and Coimbatore with counselling fees ranging from $10 (Rs.650) to $3,500 (Rs.2.26 lakh). Shareholders of the company are top executives of Fortune 500 companies including Rajan Anandan, CEO of Google India. Direct talk. “Though the majority of students from India are graduates intent on acquiring postgrad qualifications in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, there’s a rising trend of school-leavers signing up for undergrad degrees abroad in the liberal arts, business, media etc. We believe the number of students opting for non-STEM studies abroad will continue to rise with the expansion of an open-minded upper middle class which values quality, globally acceptable higher education qualifications,” says Singh.  Future plans. The promoter-directors of Stoodnt Inc believe the future of the company is bright because universities and higher ed institutions worldwide have become aware of the importance of ethnic and cultural diversity on their campuses and are rolling out the red carpet for foreign students. “Our platform enables students to build their e-profiles, upload their work and share it with admission officers in universities of their choice. Thereafter, universities can review their personal and work profiles and contact applicant students directly. However, if applicants need help and advice, we provide it and if required link them up with financial aid and loan providers. And right now, we are drawing plans to service students in the Middle East and South-east Asia,” says Punj. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)  

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He lives in a house of cardboard and tin in Puente Piedra, a sprawling poor district on Lima’s northern fringe. His mother sells cooked food in the street; his father is a mechanic. Yet Cesar Huaman is studying architecture at a new private university. To pay the fees of $137 (Rs.8,830) a month, he works on building sites during the holidays. His parents and six siblings chip in. “We all want to have a professional in the family, even if it’s only one,” says Ines, his mother. Huaman is part of a revolution in higher education in Latin America. The region has some 20 million students in higher education, more than double the number at the turn of the century. The gross enrolment rate, meaning the proportion of 18-24-year-olds in higher education, surged from 21 percent in 2000 to 43 percent in 2013, a faster expansion than in any other continent in this period, according to a new report from the World Bank. Many of the new students are, like Huaman, from hard-up families. While students from the poorer half of the population accounted for 16 percent of the total in 2000, in 2012 they made up 24 percent of the (bigger) total — an increase of 3 million students from such backgrounds. To meet this demand, 2,300 new universities or institutes opened in the region in the early 2000s, offering diploma courses. Many of them are private, and do not set an entrance exam. (Less than half of students are now in public institutions). This huge expansion is a sign of rapid socio-economic progress in Latin America. It is the result of faster economic growth, the spread of secondary education and the aspirations of an emerging lower-middle class. It is a welcome change in a region with a big shortage of skilled labour. In Latin America, only 14 percent of the workforce has a higher-education diploma, according to Maria Marta Ferreyra, the lead author of the bank’s report. In the United States, the figure is 42 percent. But there’s a catch. Almost half of those who enroll in universities drop out without getting a degree, Ferreyra warns. And some of those who graduate will find that their course was a waste of money, in that the extra salary they might command will not compensate for the cost of the degree and the income forgone while studying. Students from poorer backgrounds are more likely than others to drop out. Neither the public secondary schools that they attend nor their parents, who often have little more than primary schooling, prepare them for the academic challenge of university. After the headlong expansion, Latin America needs to rethink policies on higher education, especially because the region’s economic slowdown is forcing some governments to curb spending. The first problem is a lack of information about which courses at which universities are worthwhile. The region has too many students of law and social science, and not enough engineers and scientists. Many of the newer institutions…

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Los Angeles-based businessman- philanthropist Lowell Milken is promoter-chairman of the Milken Educator Awards, TAP: System for Teacher & Student Advancement and National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. In April he was conferred the James Bryant Conant Award for exceptional individual contribution to American education. Excerpts from an e-mail interview.  For over three decades you have focused your attention on promoting teacher development institutions — Milken Educator Awards (estb. 1987), TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (1999), and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (2005). What was the motivation behind these initiatives? My first teachers were my parents, who nurtured my childhood curiosity and planted the seeds of a lifelong love of learning. During my K-12 years in California public schools, I was fortunate to have a number of exceptional teachers, whose vision of excellence and means for achieving it had a lasting effect on me. Yet beyond my personal experiences, research has proven that the single most important in-school factor driving student learning is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Educators play the essential role in ensuring that every young person is afforded the opportunity to acquire the skills, knowledge and experiences to take advantage of life’s opportunities.  This understanding shaped my mission as a philanthropist and inspired me to create the Milken Educator Awards three decades ago. These Awards recognise exceptional early to mid-career educators with a surprise $25,000 (Rs.16 lakh) financial prize presented with great fanfare before entire schools, dignitaries and media. The awards celebrate, elevate and activate recipients to achieve at ever higher levels, and inspire students to consider teaching as a profession. While the Milken Awards recognise excellence, I soon came to realise that what was also needed was a system to generate high-quality teachers. And so began an intensive multi-year effort to research and develop TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement, which I introduced in 1999. At the time, TAP’s whole school reform model — incorporating multiple career paths; continuous job-embedded professional growth; performance-based compensation; accountability with trained evaluators and detailed feedback for improvement, was revolutionary. But by 2005, it was clear that demand for the TAP System and its proven results necessitated an independent organisation to manage not just TAP, but new best practices being developed to promote educator growth at every level. And so I established the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), which today impacts more than 250,000 educators and 2.5 million students across America. Our goal: A talented teacher for every student in every classroom in the country. Subsequently in 2007, you established the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Kansas, which also includes a museum and research center (and also invested timely seed capital in EducationWorld, India). Would it be correct to infer that you believe history is shaped by individuals rather than events? The question of whether history is shaped by individuals or events is a challenging one. I believe it’s shaped by both. There are the rare leaders like…

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Age of Anger — a history of the present, Pankaj Mishra, Juggernaut books; Rs.699, Pages 373 In his third book in five years after the path-breaking From the Ruins of Empire (2012) and A Great Clamour (2014) — both reviewed on these pages — under-appreciated London-based Indian émigré writer Pankaj Mishra takes on the task of explaining why a tsunami of irrational rage is sweeping the contemporary world.  The landslide victory of the BJP and Narendra Modi in General Election 2014, election of Donald Trump as president of the US, the Brexit vote in the UK, emergence of xenophobic political parties in Europe, the rise of ISIS and global jihad, anarchy and turmoil in the Middle East, unending conflict in Africa, the reckless nuclear belligerence of North Korea, and election of the thuggish Rodrigo Dueterte as president of the Philippines. All signal an unleashing of mutiny and rage, a universal sentiment of suicidal desperation that has entered the hearts and minds of large swathes of people around the world. At a time of unprecedented global prosperity when more people than ever before have food, shelter and clothing, cell phones and access to knowledge, information and instant connectivity through the Internet, what’s the explanation behind the tidal wave of anger and fury which could well precipitate a nuclear Armageddon and extinction of the human race?  Through extensive investigation of philosophical and socio-economic currents driving the waves of anger and tumult across the world, Mishra attempts to answer this question in this outstanding work of scholarship with grand global sweep. The author draws deep from the histories of several nations to demonstrate that anarchic anger and insurrections against the established order are not an exceptional 21st-century phenomenon. Improbable adventurers with no great ideology or agendas have seized the imagination of gullible masses since time immemorial. The book begins by recounting the theatrical posturing of an Italian poet-anarchist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who with a force of 2,000 mutineers captured the city of Fiume on the Adriatic Sea in 1919 with the dream of “rejuvenating Italian manhood through violence”.  According to Mishra this anarchist driven by “sexual appetite and megalomania” became the inspiration of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, egomaniacs who allied to unleash the most destructive global war in world history.  Mishra traces the origins of the forces of rebellion and rage in the 20th century to the 18th century European age of Enlightenment. Philosophers and economists such as Voltaire, Montesquieu and Adam Smith, among others, proclaimed the philosophy of enlightened self-interest. In a historic departure from the puritan ethic of Christianity, they boldly affirmed that pursuit of the good life is a worthy and socially beneficial goal.  Consequently, the grandees and elites who graced the fashionable salons of Paris emerged as the world’s first proponents of global trade who believed it was incumbent upon them to export French culture and their ideology of enlightened self-interest across Europe. But as the author brilliantly explains, this philosophy was self-serving inasmuch as its benefits were restricted…

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Where would you place education on your national list of priorities? First. Education is the foundation block of national development.  How best to upgrade government schools? Create healthy and hygienic environments, provide regular faculty development programmes, establish schools in every locality, improve lab facilities to international standards, promote sports/NCC activities among students.  Thinker/philosopher you admire most. Swami Vivekananda — one of the greatest thinkers of the Indian renaissance.  Your favourite Nobel laureate. St. Mother Theresa.  Your leadership style. I believe in a combination of democratic, visionary and cross-cultural leadership. Your favourite book on education.  Learning Beyond the Classroom: Education for the Changing World by Tom Bentley. For or against the RTE Act’s 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools? The 25 percent reservation in private schools provision should be retained. But governments should reimburse schools the standard fee per pupil. Should the education outlay be doubled by cutting defence expenditure? Yes. Education is the backbone of the economy.  How satisfied are you with the growth and development of the SCAD Group of Institutions? The mission of SCAD is “to reach the unreached”. Today SCAD contributes to national development by educating more than 5 lakh underprivileged and rural students.  Pessimistic or optimistic about the future of education in India?  I am hopeful and optimistic that all sections of society will realise the value of education and cooperate to improve India’s education system.

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How the mighty are fallen! Aveek Sarkar, hitherto chairman and editor-in-chief of the Kolkata-based Ananda Bazar Patrika Ltd (ABP), a closely held family-run company which dominates the media business in West Bengal, has been ousted from office in a swift and silent boardroom coup engineered by younger brother Arup obliged to pay second fiddle for over three decades. Currently, the ABP website lists Aveek as vice chairman and editor emeritus, and Arup as the director and his UK-educated son Atideb as executive director. Aveek’s large ballroom size office in the new high-security Doric-style ABP headquarters on Prafulla Sarkar Street is reportedly vacant with this media tycoon relegated to a tiny annexe, which he visits occasionally with none so poor to do him reverence.  If there is a trace of schadenfreude in this narrative, it’s because your editor conceptualised and launched BusinessWorld for ABP in 1981, and with extraordinary diligence established it as the country’s #1 business magazine, raking in vast profits. However, when I put in my papers in 1987, no golden handshake or severance package was offered. Moreover when this evangelist sui generis education magazine was launched in the new millennium, repeated invitations to Aveek to invest a tiny proportion of the crores your editor earned for ABP by way of an equity stake, went unheeded.  In the end, hubris proved the undoing of this self-absorbed media tycoon. In the run-up to West Bengal assembly elections of May 2016, Aveek foolishly took sides and antagonised Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee who was re-elected chief minister with a landslide majority. And with the ABP Group — to which the TMC government had cut off all advertising — obliged to downsize its 1,800-strong workforce by 700 last December, because of the vast expenditure incurred by Aveek on the imposing new ABP headquarters and the imminent possibility of the state government siding with the laid off workers, Aveek became the sacrificial goat who had to go. Now reportedly in charge of ABP’s unglamorous vernacular television news channels, Aveek who prides himself as an authority on the world’s finest hotels and private clubs, whiles away his days in effete epicureanism with “books, food, wine and art , his four principal loves”. Sic transit gloria mundi.    Over-monetised society The big gamble of Theresa May, prime minister and leader of the Conservative party, to call a mid-term general election to strengthen her five-seat majority in the House of Commons (UK’s lower house of Parliament) has blown up in her face and reduced the Tory Party to a minority government obliged to cobble up a working majority with a small far right Northern Ireland party. Meanwhile, the opposition Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn, written off just a month ago, recorded handsome gains in the recently concluded British general election.  The question which everybody in the UK and elsewhere is asking is how did the massive majority that every opinion poll in the UK had predicted for May’s Conservative party, vanish before election day…

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Although it’s not politically correct to say so, India’s private K-12 (and pre-primary) schools are the only shining institutions of our fast obsolescing — if not already obsolete — education system. The proof is that although there are only an estimated 90,000 of them (320,000 according to the Union human resource development ministry which enumerates the primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary sections of a school as four schools), over 40 percent of the country’s 260 million school-going children are in fees-levying private (including 400,000 ‘unrecognised’ private budget schools which have mushroomed countrywide). The point to note is that all children attending private schools where their parents often have to pay stiff tuition fees, have the option to enroll in the neighbouring free-of-charge state or local government school.  Unfortunately, most people including politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and even justices of the Supreme Court seem to believe that Smart classrooms, highly-qualified teachers, science and computer labs, playing fields and swimming pools which many private schools provide, fall from the sky like manna from heaven, and that private school promoters who invest huge resources and run the gauntlet of the education bureaucracy, must necessarily be philanthropists. Moreover, private school managements shouldn’t be permitted to run their schools according to their lights but according to directions of the neta-babu brotherhood, which has patently failed to uplift government schools.  Curiously, a rising number of middle class parents who would shudder at the thought of signing up their precious progeny in the neighbouring government school, and who usually take great pains to send their children to private schools, are foolishly inviting greater government interference in private education. Across the country, parents protesting tuition fee hikes in private schools, are inviting state governments to ‘regulate’ their fees. I believe that letting in the Trojan horse of government into private schools is highly inadvisable. Instead, parents’ associations negotiating inevitable fee increases directly with the managements of their children’s schools, is a more intelligent option. The rationale of this opinion is discussed in this month’s cover story.  As you may have discerned, I believe private edupreneurs, philanthropists and trusts manage education institutions far better than bloated impersonal government bureaucracies. That’s why last year, we instituted the EducationWorld Private Higher Education Rankings 2016-17 to encourage India’s private universities, engineering institutes and B-schools to strive for excellence. To this end, following the EW India Private Higher Education Rankings 2017-18 we have introduced an awards night to celebrate and felicitate the country’s best private institutions in these three categories. A report of the full-card awards nite which includes a keynote address and panel discussion is followed by a pictorial essay.

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Sridhar Rajaram is chief operating officer of the Bangalore-based JustBooks Solutions Pvt. Ltd (JBSPL, estb. 2016) — formerly JustBooks — which runs a chain of 70 owned and franchised lending libraries countrywide offering its 200,000 subscriber-members over a million books through its innovative online books rental platform. Newspeg. Now a limited liability company, JBSPL recently signed collaboration agreements with Inlingua, Urban Raga and Science Adda, to launch culture.place, an online portal which is a knowledge platform for conducting workshops and short-term courses on a variety of subjects including music, organic gardening, aeromodelling and foreign languages among others. History. A commerce and business management alumnus of Bangalore University, Rajaram brought over 15 years of brand building and marketing experience in United Spirits and the Aditya Birla group to the floundering online books rental company known as Strata Retail and Technology Services Pvt. Ltd, promoted by tech entrepreneur Ramachandran Sundarrajan in 2009. Together with Sundarrajan and other directors of the company, Rajaram drew a new marketing plan to revive its books lending business which prompted the Bangalore-based CoCreate Venture Technology LLP, to invest Rs.1 crore as equity in the relaunched JBSPL.  USP. Innovating upon the concept of traditional lending libraries, the JBSPL online platform offers book lovers the advantages of individual accounts, selecting membership plans and renting books of their choice with timely home delivery. Membership fees range between Rs.1,500-3,000 per annum. Direct talk. “In the new era of the Internet and digital technology, it’s not necessary to establish large and expensive bricks-n-mortar libraries. From a central warehouse, we distribute popular books to our 20 company-owned and 50 franchised libraries countrywide. Members are entitled to rent books of their choice at a nominal fee. In addition we provide opportunities for co-curricular education — dance, music, languages learning etc by way of classes held in our owned and franchised lending libraries,” says Rajaram. Future plans. The concept has resonated with the public and Rajaram has worked out ambitious plans for the company’s growth over the next five years. “We are looking at a countrywide expansion of the company’s footprint to tier II and III cities where there is a huge unfulfilled thirst for books and knowledge. I am confident we can establish 30 new lending libraries under the franchise model every year,” says Rajaram. God speed! Odeal D’Souza (Bangalore)

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Dr. Sandip N. Jha is founder trustee of the Mumbai-based Sandip Foundation Educational Trust (aka Sandip Foundation, estb. 2005) which has promoted 15 higher education institutions in Nashik (Maharashtra) and Sijoul (Madhubani, Bihar) with an aggregate enrolment of 8,500 students and 1,000 teaching and non-teaching staff. The foundation’s 200-acre Nashik campus hosts six contemporary institutes including two engineering colleges, two polytechnics, and a pharmacy college while the campus at Madhubani houses a polytechnic and B.Ed teacher training college. The Nashik campus was awarded private university status — Sandip University — by the Maharashtra state government in June 2016. Newspeg. The Mumbai-based Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks recently ranked Sandip Foundation #8 countrywide for the number of patents filed in 2016-17. The foundation’s engineering and polytechnic institutes were granted 140-plus patents and 57 copyright licenses.  History. After graduating from the Government Engineering College, Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) in 1991, Jha rejected a well-paying job in a public sector company to follow his dream of a career in academia and launched the Sandip Academy — an engineering exams coaching school — in Mumbai with two students. Subsequently, the academy expanded its portfolio to include coaching for several public entrance exams including JEE, GATE and UPSC. By 2002, the academy had established 30 centres across India, when operations were deliberately scaled down to promote full-fledged higher education institutions.  In 2005, the Sandip Foundation was registered, and in 2008 inaugurated its expansive 200-acre campus in Nashik. More recently in 2013, Jha established the second campus of Sandip University in his hometown, Madbhubani, Bihar.  Direct talk. “India has hundreds of institutions which churn out a large number of unemployable students. Therefore from the beginning, our objective was to infuse our curriculums with industry-connected experiential learning and soft skills training to ensure the employability of our graduates. For instance, students at our Nashik campus learn practically at a state-of-the-art automotives lab set up by Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt. Ltd. It’s this focus on hands-on learning, industry interface and research which has helped us shape graduates who are readily recruited by top companies including TCS, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Bosch,” says Jha.  Future plans. With the Nashik campus conferred private university status last year, Jha plans to focus his energies on building international linkages and collaborations for the varsity. In particular, he is committed to expanding the group’s international technical training programmes launched in 2014 in association with Centre for Tele Infrastructure and Vishwaniketan, Navi Mumbai. Under this programme, Sandip University’s engineering students train at selected foreign universities.  “This international programme gives our students exposure to latest technologies and improves their global employability skills. We are in talks with several foreign institutions and expect to sign up 50 universities by end 2017,” he says.  Wind beneath your wings! Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)

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Last year 18 farmers deprived of meaningful elementary education in rural India’s collapsed school system and driven to despair by drought, falling produce prices, and inaccessible credit and insurance, killed themselves every day, leaving behind vulnerable families who in the lawless badlands of village India are soon reduced to slavery. According to a deeply researched special report in the Economic & Political Weekly (May 27) since 2002, 270,000 farmers (including 12,360 in 2014) enduring tough conditions and economic distress, took the extreme exit.  Although post-independence India’s blinkered intelligentsia and self-serving academics comfortably tenured in the country’s 800 unproductive universities, seem to suffer selective amnesia, the seeds of the excessive economic distress currently sweeping rural India were planted in the early years after independence when free India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru road-rollered the inorganic Soviet-style public sector-led economic model. Consequently, rural and urban savings were vacuumed to finance heavily capital-intensive public sector enterprises (PSEs).  Inevitably, the country’s monopoly PSEs managed by business-illiterate clerks and bureaucrats proved to be huge failures, and instead of investible surpluses, gifted the nation the curse of unrelenting inflation. Seven decades later, only 45 percent of agrarian India is serviced by irrigation and rural connectivity is in a shambles. Moreover, despite India being the world’s largest producer of perishable fruits and vegetables, the licence-permit-quota raj imposed by Nehruvian socialism prevented the establishment of a post-harvest food storage and processing industry. As a result, an estimated 40 percent of horticulture produce valued at Rs.50,000 crore, is spoiled and wasted annually.  Given this horrific reality of decades of under-investment in agriculture development, periodic waivers of bank loans of the nation’s hard-pressed farmers is likely to achieve little except ruin the banking system. Quite obviously, rural India is paying the price of sustained neglect of agriculture which needs to be remedied. The priorities for rural development and resurgence have long been self-evident. Topmost are massive investment in rural primary-secondary education, extension of irrigation coverage, improved rural-urban connectivity and urgent expansion of the minuscule downstream food processing industry thwarted for decades by powerful horticulture wholesalers in the states. However, these seemingly simple solutions require major structural changes in the budgetary resource allocation process and improving the ease of doing business in rural India, still dominated by entrenched caste elites and money-lenders hand-in-glove with corrupt public bank officials. This challenge combined with the indifference of the urban middle class to the prolonged suffering of rural India, has dissuaded successive governments at the Centre and in the states from offering little more than lip service to the country’s neglected rural majority.

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During the course of my career as an inventor of maths learning solutions, I have often been asked whether maths learning is important in the 21st century when most maths calculuses and formulae are readily available in digital form. My standard answer to such questions is that far from becoming obsolete, numeracy and maths learning has become even more important for survival and success in the 21st century than it was in yesteryear. When students are numerate, they can reason, and apply various facets of mathematical knowledge, including computation, numbers sense, probability, statistics, geometry, algebra and measurement. As the world becomes incrementally more technological, our children must develop strong numeracy skills. In its report (2015) titled New Vision for Education: Unlocking the Potential of Technology, the World Economic Forum identifies 16 skills that are the prerequisites of success in the 21st century. “To thrive in today’s innovation-driven economy, workers need a different mix of skills than in the past. In addition to foundational skills like literacy and numeracy, they need competencies like collaboration, creativity and problem-solving, and character qualities like persistence, curiosity and initiative.” When children become numerate they acquire the capability to recognise patterns and understand how things are connected. The discipline that is mathematics trains the mind to think logically, persistently, with accuracy and rigour. Developing and strengthening these skills prepares children to successfully learn other vital competencies.  The world is changing faster than our ability to keep pace. Today, traditional subjects of mathematics, such as algebra, geometry and calculus, are under pressure to be streamlined by groups like the National Science Foundation, OECD and the Royal Society, so that content can be rebalanced to make room for statistics, probability, computer science and mathematical modeling. That’s because in the unfolding future, nearly every career and vocation will require a strong grounding in numeracy. Therefore children’s math skills need to be continuously updated as the very definition of numeracy is expanding, even as the pedagogies and systems available for teaching this fast expanding discipline are almost static.  Most math teachers are engaged in high-tech drilling for rote learning, providing digital textbook-style content, or using one-way instructional videos that fail to engage the overwhelming majority of children. Little wonder that math phobia is a rising phenomenon worldwide.  It’s against this backdrop of rising antipathy to maths learning that several innovative educators worldwide, especially in the US, have developed new pedagogies centred around digital games. It’s now established that well-designed games can engage children in continuous hours of mathematical thinking. But the secret of inducing children to invest time and effort in maths learning games is to ensure that the games are presented to them in a gradient with increasing complexity as they move up from one level to the next. Games that prescribe short durations of play often offer dynamic assessment of skills already mastered. Rigour is introduced incrementally to ensure that groups of students are continuously stretched just beyond their comfort level to develop logical thinking and mathematical discipline…

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I’m keen on a career in psychology. What is the scope of this profession in India? — Harshita Bhalla, Delhi After completing an undergrad degree in the arts stream with psychology as a subject, you could opt for postgrad study in one of several psychology specialisations — clinical, counseling and guidance, developmental, cognitive, community and industrial. Psychologists are valued in research establishments, educational and professional institutions, prisons, hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centres, child/youth guidance centres, advertising agencies, market research, among other businesses and professions. In most branches of social work which require counseling services or study of human behavior, psychologists are in high demand.   I am interested in studying geography. What are my career prospects after graduation? – Shruti Karmakar, Hyderabad Geography is an earth science involving study of the surface of the earth, the location and distribution of its physical and cultural endowments and their interrelation with human beings. It offers several career options and numerous specialisations. For instance, you could specialise in cartography (mapmaking) involving the study and design of maps, charts and globes. I am a class XII student interested in qualifying as a food technologist. What are my study and employment options? — Harman Preet, Mumbai Several reputed institutions including CFTRI, Mysore, MS University, Baroda, and SNDT University, Mumbai offer B.Sc degree programmes in food sciences. You could follow up with a Masters programme. Employment opportunities for food technologists are excellent with the food and beverages industry said to be the fifth largest in the country. Food technologists with professional qualifications are readily absorbed by agri-produce processing companies, food research laboratories, wholesalers, retailers and by hotels, restaurants, hospitals and other catering establishments.    I’ve just completed class XII and my career goal is to become an IAS officer. Which subject/stream should I choose in my undergrad degree and what should my back-up plan be in case I don’t qualify? — Manas Malhotra, Ludhiana A graduate in any discipline is eligible to write the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) exam. However, you could consider enroling in an undergrad law programme as the course content will prepare you better for the UPSC exam. But please note that an estimated 800,000 aspirants write the UPSC exam annually for 1,000 vacancies in the Indian Administrative Service. The competition is intense with only the best passing muster, so it’s wise to have a back-up plan.    I’m interested in a career as a professional vocalist. How do I go about it? — Maria Jennifer, Kolkata The most common route to careers in music is through formal training in a professional institute or training under a guru of a particular style/school of music (vocal or instrumental). Most music schools offer basic instruction but formal training in the subject is usually in the form of bachelor’s degree courses after completing class XII. Among the institutions offering Indian classical music study programmes are the Indira Kala Sangit Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh; Viswa Bharati, Shantiniketan; Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra College of Music and Dance, New Delhi and…

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With growing awareness of successful therapies administered with new age technologies to treat speech delivery and comprehension defects, SLPs are in high demand – Odeal D’souza Speech language pathology is an allied branch of health sciences which addresses speech and communication disorders. Speech language pathologists (SLPs) aka speech therapists, are highly trained professionals who diagnose and treat children and adults suffering speech utterance and language comprehension difficulties caused by psychological trauma, congenital defects, injury, post-surgical complications etc.  According to a 2016 report of the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation, an estimated 1.87 million citizens countrywide suffer speech and communication disabilities. However, with growing awareness of successful therapies employing new-age technologies to treat speech delivery defects, there is rising demand for SLPs in mainstream and special needs schools, government and private hospitals, and home healthcare service providers.  Study Programmes To qualify as a professional speech therapist, completion of a four-year (including a compulsory 12-month internship) bachelor of audiology speech language pathology (BASLP) degree programme is mandatory. A BASLP can be followed up with postgraduate specialisations in speech-language pathology or audiology.  Among the top-ranked education institutions offering the BASLP programme are Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped, Mumbai; Amity University, Gurgaon; Christian Medical College, Vellore and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The minimum admission eligibility into a BASLP programme is a class XII (science) school-leaving certificate. Higher education institutions offering postgraduate study programmes in audiology, language pathology and speech and rehabilitation include the Institute for Communicative and Cognitive Neurosciences, Palakkad; J.S.S. Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore; Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh and the universities of Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Mysore.  Shorter duration 12-month diploma courses are offered by The Care College of Physiotherapy and Paramedics, Hyderabad; CMJ University, Shillong; Integrated Institute for the Disabled, Varanasi among others. For a list of certified courses visit www.rehabcouncil.nic.in. Pay and progression In India, a speech therapist in a government hospital can expect a starting salary of Rs.25,000 per month which rises to Rs.40,000 after two-three years of experience. Private hospitals offer better remuneration (Rs.30,000-60,000) and perks. Moreover, postgraduates in speech pathology or audiology are readily welcomed in dysphagia and stroke rehabilitation centres and dementia clinics in the US, UK, Canada and the Gulf countries. Some SLP graduates also practice independently, and teachers with diplomas in hearing, language and speech have the option of counselling jobs in pre-primary and primary schools for special needs children.  Professional profile “Speech and language pathology is a broad and ever changing vocation given the huge advances made in research, medicine and technology around the world. With growing awareness of innovative therapies to treat speech disorders — which were incurable a decade ago — the number of patients is continuously rising. In fact, the proportion of patients to therapists is becoming very adverse,” says Dr. Preeja Balan, co-founder and director of the Bangalore-based Octave Hearing and Speech Centre Pvt. Ltd. An audiology and speech rehabilitation postgrad of Mumbai…

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Newcastle University’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering invites students from overseas (including India) to apply for its £3,000 (Rs.2.5 lakh) scholarships. To qualify for the scholarships, applicants need to have been admitted into Newcastle U through Britain’s common UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) system.  The extension of the scholarship in subsequent years will be conditional on achieving satisfactory performance in the previous year. The scholarship amount will be used each year to reduce university tuition fees payable on registration.  “This scholarship has been benefitting Indian students for many years. Students aspiring for admission into Newcastle U for the academic year beginning September need to apply now through UCAS,” says a university spokesperson.    iNurture new-age programmes In partnership with Galileo Education Network — Europe’s largest education network — and Kolar (Karnataka)-based Golden Valley Education Trust, the Bangalore-based iNurture is all set to launch new-age global programmes for undergraduates and postgrads in India. This initiative provides opportunities for students to acquire real-world business experience combined with rigorous academics to prepare them for global careers in luxury, sports, tourism and hospitality management and design and digital technologies. “Our goal is to help students apply the knowledge and skills they learn to solve real-world problems and ultimately demonstrate how their higher education directly relates to their career interests and aspirations. This is possible because of the global industry partnerships that Galileo brings to India,” said Ashwin Ajila, founder-managing director of iNurture, addressing the media in Bangalore on June 19. He added that these programmes are based on increasingly popular higher education models transforming schools in Europe and other parts of the world.    ISLI gets going The Mumbai-based Indian School Leadership Institute (ISLI, estb.2013) which conducts leadership training programmes for school principals and headmasters, will train 40 government school principals over the next two academic years (2017-19) in Bangalore. This announcement follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between ISLI and the Karnataka government’s department of public instruction in March 2016.  “Our objective is to create a culture of excellence for teachers and students by empowering and skilling school leaders to foster institutional growth and development,” says Sreeja Nedungadi, chief operating officer of ISLI.  Currently, ISLI — founded by the highly-reputed Mumbai-based Akanksha Foundation — is conducting teacher training and development programmes in 54 government schools in Pune and Hyderabad and has signed up 400 principals country- wide for its leadership programme.    Schneider skills-building initiative Schneider Electric India has signed an MoU with the Kalinga Institute of Technology (KIIT) and C.V. Raman College of Engineering, both in Bhubaneswar (Odisha), to develop skilled manpower for the electricity, automation and energy management industries.  KIIT and C.V. Raman College have already established industry incubation centres under guidance from Schneider. Comments Rachna Mukherjee, chief human resources officer of Schneider Electric: “This MoU is in line with our vision to develop a globally competitive talent pool in India, armed with futuristic skill-sets aligned to the requirements of the electricity energy management and automation industries.…

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“An important reason why Chinese higher education has galloped ahead of India is that it strengthened its primary and secondary education systems first, which India is only now attempting to achieve.” Devesh Kapur, professor at the University of Pennsylvania (Mint, June 1) “At present, six Dalit women are raped every day and mostly with inhumane brutality. But neither do these cases evoke any response from the society at large nor do they outrage the consciousness of judges to merit their treatment as rarest of rare. Perhaps Dalit rapes are a normalcy for them!” Anand Teltumbde, civil rights activist with the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai (Economic & Political Weekly, June 3) “Let’s be clear: no state institution and no political personality is above criticism in a democracy not even the Constitution and President of the republic. Once we put the Indian military on a pedestal we become Pakistan — and look at where that unhappy country is.” Kanti Bajpai, foreign policy commentator, on right-wing breastbeating over criticism of the Indian Army (Times of India, June 17) “The gist of the study is that the absenteeism numbers for teachers from schools is about 2.5 percent. This is sharply different from the popular imagination of absenteeism, with numbers between 25 and 50 percent routinely brandished with no basis… Rarely does any non-teacher attempt to understand their reality and even rarer is any public counter to the false narrative.” Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, criticising The Economist for its editorial on India’s failing school education system (Mint, June 22) “Lynching reflects a collapse of the rule of law. Mob violence in one part of the country, left unchecked, fuels mob violence elsewhere… it is time to say enough.” Patralekha Chatterjee, development journalist, on the spiralling number of mob lynching incidents in India (Deccan Chronicle, June 29)

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“Name the first five chapters in the textbook that you teach.” “What are learning indicators?” “In light of your salary, what is the expenditure per student that is incurred in your class?”  These questions drew blank stares and wrong answers from 100-plus primary school teachers in Uttar Pradesh who were interviewed in the preliminary round before being shortlisted for the National Teachers’ Awards conferred annually by the President of India on Teacher’s Day (September 5). Despite failing to answer most of these questions, UP’s primary, upper primary and secondary school teachers bagged 30 of the 374 Teachers’ Day Awards last year.  The initial recommendations for these awards are made by the state government’s DIET (District Institute of Education and Training) in each district, followed by interviews conducted by the Basic Education Department of the education ministry which finalises the list of teachers for the presidential awards. Unsurprisingly, the entire process of shortlisting the teacher awardees is conducted in a slapdash manner and favouritism and nepotism are rife.  Despite large numbers of UP’s teachers mysteriously winning presidential and other awards, the plain truth is that the quality of teachers in the state’s 169,000 government and aided schools in particular, is often ridiculed — to no effect — by the media. In one video which has gone viral in UP, a school principal was recorded as identifying a municipal corporator as the author of the national anthem. Another government school principal opined that Lucknow is the administrative capital of the country and a third spelt ‘eight’ as ‘eigteet’. In this connection it’s noteworthy that in the financial year 2016-17, of the Rs.41,000 crore budgeted for basic education, more than half (Rs.24,000 crore) was expended by way of salaries to the state’s ill-qualified government school teachers. The outcome of unworthy teachers being recruited for primary education is that only 79 percent of children in the state transition from primary to upper primary education against the national average of 90 percent. Comments Madhusudan Dixit, a well-known Lucknow-based teacher training activist: “A government teaching job is widely accepted as one of the easiest and most lucrative in the state. Even good quality teachers who enter government schools are rendered incapable by a system that thrives on mediocrity.” The newly elected BJP government headed by its saffron-clad monk Yogi Adityanath who was appointed chief minister in March, is seized of the problem and has announced several measures to ensure that government school teachers — notorious for truancy — take classes. Among them: biometric attendance of teachers; pasting class teachers photographs on classroom walls to discourage proxy teaching; a directive to district officials to conduct random checks to ascertain teacher attendance, and unprecedented reviews of teachers by their students.  However, these directives don’t focus on improving the quality of teachers ensconced in UP’s beleaguered government schools which are experiencing a continuous flight of students to budget private primaries. A 2016 report of the Delhi-based National University of Educational Planning & Administration (NUEPA) titled Working Conditions of Teachers…

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Education reform — one of the major campaign planks of Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee in the historic West Bengal legislative assembly election of 2011 in which she swept aside the CPM (Communist Party of India)-led Left Front government that had ruled the state for three decades (1977-2011) — is at the heart of a political crisis confronting her in her second term in office. Six years after the rout of the communists, little has changed except that now the youth wing of TMC is running amok on college and university campuses making desperate attempts to oust well-entrenched leftist faculty and student unions. And as if this wasn’t enough, on May 16, the TMC government’s education minister Partha Chatterjee announced in the legislative assembly that Bengali will become a compulsory subject in classes I-X of all 92,000 government and over 8,000 private schools — regardless of exam board affiliation — statewide in the new academic year 2017-18.  This out-of-the-blue announcement of the TMC government has estranged businessmen and the substantial number of students from across the country who are enrolled in the state’s few nationally reputed boarding schools. Worse, it has enraged the Nepali speaking Gorkha majority in the hill areas of the state where the writ of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a political party which dominates the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA, estb.2011) and has been demanding a separate state (Gorkhaland) for the Nepali majority since 2007. With the famously intemperate Banerjee refusing to withdraw the government resolution and insisting on holding a full cabinet meeting — the first in 45 years — in Darjeeling on June 8, GJM leader Bimal Gurung staged a massive anti-government demonstration on the day. When a group of GJM leaders attempted to march to the venue of the cabinet meeting, they were lathi charged and tear gassed, prompting the party’s supporters to set several police jeeps on fire, injuring several security personnel. Following the outbreak of violence and arson, the TMC government requisitioned two Indian Army columns to maintain peace and security of the 45,000 tourists in Darjeeling. This sequence of events has prompted the GJM to renew its suspended call for a separate hill state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal.  Even as the TMC and GJM have locked horns on the issue of a separate state for the hill regions including Darjeeling, repeated agitations on this issue have taken a heavy toll on high-end vintage boarding schools sited in this region. Among them, St. Paul’s (estb.1825), St. Joseph’s North Point (1888), Darjeeling, Himali Boarding School (1978) and Goethal Memorial, Kurseong (1907). In 2013, when the GJM launched a similar agitation, they forced a shutdown of all schools for 42 days. This time as well the GJM, which is supported by all parties in the GTA region, has forced the shutdown of all 48 schools in the hills indefinitely, and on June 23 they allowed a 12-hour window for children to evacuate their dormitories and return home. …

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Amidst a plethora of legal writs and controversies, the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 (decreed as the sole entrance exam for admission into all medical and dental colleges in the country by the Supreme Court on April 11, 2016) was conducted countrywide on May 7. On June 23, the results of NEET 2017 were finally declared after the Supreme Court directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducts the test, to publish them. The declaration of results has come as a great relief to the 1.13 million students who wrote NEET 2017 for admission into 470 medical colleges countrywide offering 65,170 seats, and 308 dental colleges offering 25,730 seats.  However, two days after NEET 2017 results were declared, the incumbent AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu issued an order stating that after surrendering the mandatory 15 percent of government medical seats in the state to the all-India pool, 85 percent of the remaining seats in the state’s 22 government and 10 private medical colleges, and four government and 21 private dental colleges will be reserved for class XII students of schools affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education (TNBSE) who have qualified in NEET 2017, and 15 percent seats for CBSE students.  The objective of the AIADMK’s order to reserve 85 percent of government quota seats for TNBSE school students is to ensure that state board students aren’t shut out of medical and dental colleges in Tamil Nadu. There’s pervasive fear that because of a relatively weak curriculum and poor academic standards in the state’s 53,000 government and 10,934 private schools affiliated with the TNBSE, the majority of students in Tamil Nadu’s medical colleges will be out-of-state or students from the pan-India CISCE and CBSE schools. This is the rationale of the two Bills passed by the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on February 1 which exempt Tamil Nadu from the Supreme Court-mandated NEET for admission into undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental colleges countrywide. If approved by the president, the current system of admitting students into the state’s 22 government, 10 private and deemed medical colleges/universities on the basis of their Plus Two scores will remain intact.  But while TNBSE students who qualified in NEET 2017 are relieved that they stand a good chance of gaining admission into highly ranked medical and dental colleges in the state, CBSE schools in the state feel the government order is discriminatory and compromises merit in admissions.  However, there’s the danger that the AIADMK government’s policy decision to reserve 85 percent of seats may not withstand legal scrutiny. “The AIADMK government has reserved 85 percent of government seats for TNBSE students without making a fair analysis of the exact number of students from TNBSE and CBSE schools who qualified in NEET 2017. There’s no reason to assume that CBSE students would have scored higher than the state board students. Moreover, the state government order is violative of students’ right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution and may not…

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The tata institute of social Sciences, Mumbai (TISS, estb.1936), widely acknowledged as the country’s best social sciences higher education institution, is floundering in a sea of troubles — particularly by way of student protests. Students are up in arms because the institute’s management has written to students that it proposes to withdraw the credit hitherto given by TISS to scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and other backward class (OBC) students, from the current academic year. The management of this liberal institute has been forced to make this drastic proposal because the Union ministry of social justice and several state governments have been interminably delaying reimbursement of post-matric scholarship (PMS) expenses borne by the institute for 1,060 SC/ST and OBC students between 2009-14. The arrears of PMS dues have risen to Rs.20 crore throwing the institute’s finances into disarray. Hence, the proposal to stop credit to affirmative action quota students.  As a Central government-funded university which has 5,000 students on its muster rolls across its campuses in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Tuljapur, TISS receives an annual non-plan grant (Rs.42 crore in 2015-16) from the Union government which is routed through the University Grants Commission (UGC). Until 2014, the institute was also being given annual grants by the ministry of social justice and empowerment, the ministry of tribal affairs and state governments to cover the tuition, board and lodging expenses of students admitted under affirmative action.  However, after 2014, following the introduction of the Central government’s direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme, scholarship amounts are directly credited into the bank accounts of students admitted under affirmative action quotas. “When students fail to transfer the scholarship amounts to the institute, as expected, the institute loses the entire cost it has borne towards supporting the education of students eligible for the GoI (Government of India) PMS fund. Last year, less than 25 percent students returned the scholarship amount they might have received in their accounts,” says a written statement dated May 30 of registrar C.P. Mohan Kumar.  Exasperated by prolonged board and lodging payment delays, on May 25 the institute which levies below-cost tuition fees (Rs.1 lakh per year) in the public interest, sent out a notice signed by its registrar Mohan Kumar, expressing its inability to continue the arrangement of subsidising delayed payments of SC/ST/OBC students’ dining hall and hostel charges. The institute has asked the students to pay all but tuition fees at the beginning of each semester from the start of the academic year 2017-18. Under this proposal, affirmative action students will be obliged to pay Rs.31,000 per semester compared to the mere Rs.4,500 they paid at the start of previous academic years.  Even as they are silent on the issue of non-payment of their board and lodging fees, student representative organisations have criticised the TISS management’s demand for payment of these expenses upfront. The TISS-based Ambedkarite Students Association (ASA) has posted a statement on an online forum (roundtableindia.co.in) accusing the TISS management of being anti-Dalit. The association has asked for…

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These are bad days for the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education — the country’s largest national school-leaving examinations board which has 18,688 affiliated schools in India and abroad — particularly for its ambitious, authoritarian former bureaucrat R.K. Chaturvedi who was hand-picked and appointed chairman of CBSE for a five-year term on July 14 last year.  Last December shortly after he was appointed chairman, CBSE issued two circulars amending its bye-laws to appoint a CBSE nominee (with veto powers) to the selection committees of affiliated schools which recruit headmasters and principals. Following a spate of writ petitions filed protesting dilution of the autonomy of affiliated schools and a cover story in EducationWorld (‘Brewing revolt against control-and-command CBSE’, February 2017), the circulars were put in cold storage.  More recently in Rakesh Kumar & Anr. Vs. Union of India & Ors. (CM No.19732/2017), the Delhi high court in an order dated May 23 pulled up the board for peremptorially scrapping its long-standing moderation policy under which students have traditionally been awarded ‘grace’ marks when question papers are unusually difficult.  And on June 21 while hearing an admission plea in Gaurav Kathuria vs. Central Board of Secondary Education and Anr. (W.P. (C) 5355/2017), the Delhi high court again censured the exam board for peremptorily abolishing its three-year-old re-evaluation policy under which class XII students were entitled to have their papers re-evaluated. Last October, the CBSE management scrapped its re-evaluation policy without notice to affiliated schools, forcing class XII students suspicious of their marks this year to obtain court orders for re-evaluation. “When there are so many errors in totalling, why should you do away with re-evaluation? You should not have done that. Careers of 2,100 students are at stake. We all know what happens on a fraction of a mark or percentage,” said a two-judge bench (Justices Sanjeev Sachdeva and A.K. Chawla) of the court alluding to the high percentages demanded by undergraduate colleges for admission of class XII school-leavers.  The court’s ire against the CBSE management was undoubtedly prompted by widespread reports of slapdash evaluation of answer papers in the all-important class XII school-leaving examinations and egregious marks totalling errors. According to media reports from across the country, students whose papers were re-evaluated under court orders revealed outrageous discrepancies and errors. The Indian Express, Delhi (June 19) unusually citing a Times of India report, recounts that Delhi-based student Sonali who had averaged 90 percent-plus in all subjects except mathematics (68 percent) was awarded 95 percent after re-evaluation. Likewise, Delhi-based student Samiksha Sharma’s maths marks were revised to 90 from 42. Ditto, the 50 percent awarded to Mumbai-based Mohammed Affan in mathematics revised to 90 percent after verification.  “CBSE is a school-leaving examinations board and its entire focus should be on conducting the class X and XII examinations, and addressing the grievances of students after results are released. However, currently CBSE is overburdened with responsibilities outside its remit and is conducting pre-medical entrance exams, entrance tests for architecture colleges etc — which should…

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Thanks for the cover story on the International Baccalaureate, Geneva (EW June). I agree with your conclusion that the IB is perhaps the world’s most progressive and enlightened examinations board. While its mission of creating responsible global citizens is commendable, I wonder if the IB curriculum focuses on teaching children about their own national histories and culture. The danger with international curriculums is that children will be deprived of learning about their own unique heritage. However, there are many good practices which Indian boards such as CBSE and CISCE can learn from the IB. I was particularly impressed by the effort they put in developing and constantly revising the curriculum. In India, curriculums are poorly designed and seldom updated.  Murali Krishna Coimbatore    JNU’s dim future Your special report on Jawaharlal Nehru University was hard-hitting (EW June). There’s little doubt that this once prestigious institution has been ruined by its faculty/students’ persistent allegiance to bygone Left and socialist ideologies. Skewed admission reservation policies which over-favour caste over merit have further dumbed down standards.  But while the new vice chancellor’s efforts “to clean the Augean stables” are welcome, I am not entirely convinced about the motivations of the BJP/NDA government. BJP and RSS spokespersons are unfairly targeting JNU faculty/students as anti-national. They may be caught in an ideological time warp but that isn’t anti-national. The real agenda of BJP/RSS is to help its militant student wing ABVP wrest control of the JNU students union. Unfortunately, either way the future of JNU isn’t bright. Harish Chandra Delhi   Exclusion plea Re the EW India Private Higher Education Rankings 2017-18 (EW May) in which you have ranked the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Bangalore.  Please note that we are not a private institution. Moreover we would like to make it explicitly clear that we don’t want to participate in this ranking. Neither do we participate in the HRD ministry’s NIRF rankings on account of our student strength being less than 1,000.  S.R. Sridhar Registrar, IIIT-Bangalore    Hazardous burden The new academic year has just begun. Through your popular publication, I appeal to all school managements to reduce the load of children’s school bags. Heavy school bags are hazardous to the health of children and many of them suffer back pain. According to health experts, if children lug bags weighing more than 12 kg, there are high chances they will develop back pain, stress and spine-related ailments. The physical and emotional cost of heavy school bags is enormous.  Jubel D’Cruz Mumbai   Defamatory ranking In the EW India Preschool Rankings 2016 published in your December (2016) issue, you have deliberately published defamatory material concerning us with the intention to harm our reputation which has directly lowered our credit in the estimation of others. On page 62 of the magazine, you have ranked the Kookaburra preschool #9 under the headline ‘Mumbai’s top-ranked proprietary preschools’ knowing full well there was no survey or any questionnaire filled by us and/or sent to you for our participation in…

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