Sonipat, May 16. The 2019 graduating class of Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) has broken a new record with employment offers from over 57 corporate law and 24 litigation firms and 30 world-class universities for higher study. The top recruiter of JGLS’ graduating class of 2019 is corporate law firm Trilegal (10 offers) followed by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (9) and AZB & Partners, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co, Anand & Anand, Argus Partners, P&A Law Offices, Tempus Law, Bharucha Singh Mundkur and Economic Laws Practice. Among the corporate recruiters of the graduating class were RBL Bank, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co, Kotak Life Insurance & Morae Global. Moreover, JGLS graduates have secured positions in top think-tanks around the country, judicial clerkship, and in-house legal departments of top-ranked companies. Higher ed institutions which have welcomed JGLS graduates include Oxford and Cambridge universities (UK) and Cornell and U-Cal, Berkeley (USA). “JGLS has crossed a historic milestone in its tenth year with so many of our graduates receiving outstanding opportunities to pursue meaningful careers in India and abroad. This has been made possible by the dedicated mentorship of our committed faculty members and the hard work and determination of our students,” says Prof. C. Raj Kumar, founding vice chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University and dean of Jindal Global School. upGrad-DCE online program Mumbai, May 20. upGrad Pvt. Ltd — a Mumbai-based online higher education services provider (estb.2015) — and the Duke Corporate Education (DCE), the executive education subsidiary of Duke University, USA, launched a five-month product management certification program (PMCP). The program blends rigorous hands-on learning with case studies and offers students exposure to product management experts from leading brands including Zomato, PayTM, BookMyShow and Myntra. “Product management is an area of great potential for India’s booming technology and start-up sectors. Our PMCP co-certified by upGrad will give working professionals the opportunity to build the right skills required to excel in this domain. With upGrad’s highly effective online learning pedagogy, local industry knowledge and DCE’s world-renowned academic capabilities and expertise in executive education, we are confident of delivering a powerful program experience for all students,” said Michael Chavez, CEO of DCE, speaking on the occasion. “upGrad’s PMCP in partnership with Duke can help to bridge the gap between what product managers need to do and what they are taught, by providing not only structured coursework but also a mentorship framework,” added Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder of upGrad. Nominations invited Mumbai, May 16. The Big Little Book Award, an unprecedented award instituted by the Parag Initiative of Tata Trusts and Literature Live! invite nominations for its fourth edition. The award acknowledges and honours Indian authors and illustrators of children’s literature. Every year, one Indian language is chosen for the awards with Hindi selected as the language for 2019. Authors with a proven record in children’s Hindi literature are eligible for nomination. However, the award for illustrators is not language-specific. Nominations (self-nomination is not permitted) are open until June 30. “Market dynamics and costs…
Against the depressing backdrop of indifference to education and human resource development of all political parties across the ideological spectrum, the Aam Aadmi Party, which currently rules Delhi state with a massive majority in the legislative assembly, is an exception – Autar Nehru This feature is being written in mid-May. Within a week hereof, the Election Commission of India will declare the results of General Election 2019. According to a majority of political pundits and soothsayers, the outcome of this general election could prove the most decisive in the history of post-independence India. The face-off in General Election 2019 in which 900 million eligible voters of the world’s most populous democracy will elect 542 members of the Lok Sabha — the all-important lower Parliament — is between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress party which under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) led India to independence from almost two centuries of British rule and has ruled at the Centre for 54 years (although not continuously) since India’s independence. The Congress is a constituent of the mahagathbandhan (grand coalition) of political parties subscribing to ideologies across the spectrum from fascism to communism and Maoism. The opposition is united in the belief that if the BJP/NDA is re-elected, and particularly if BJP wins a majority in the Lok Sabha in its own right, the new government will tamper with the “basic structure of the Constitution” (prohibited by the Supreme Court in 1973) and sabotage the “idea of India” conceptualised as a secular, democratic nation in which all citizens regardless of caste, creed or community are equal before the law, and all citizens, especially religious and linguistic minorities, are protected and enabled by the “seven freedoms” enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution. Unfortunately, despite its critical importance for national development, public education isn’t anywhere near a major issue in General Election 2019. Although the manifestos of all political parties have something to say on the subject, there is a tired deja vu ring to the promises they make — and don’t intend to keep — about education. The BJP’s sankalp patra (‘solemn vow’) manifesto is silent on the issues of 6 percent of GDP allocation for public education promised in its General Election 2014 manifesto, and on extending the ambit of the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 (which makes it mandatory for the State to provide free and compulsory elementary (class I-VIII) education to all children in the 6-14 age group), to cover children in secondary (class VIII-X) school as well. Moreover, it’s well-known that the RSS/BJP top brass believe the road to India’s future development lies through the past. Therefore, the focus of the party’s lightweight intellectuals is re-discovery of the proud glories of ancient Hindu India before the Muslim invasions which began in the 13th century. Nor during the past five years that it has been in office at the Centre and in several states, has the BJP done anything…
Belatedly, the destructive fallout of haphazard, irresponsible evaluation of the academic capabilities of high school-leavers has prompted soul-searching within the small but growing minority of bona fide educationists about India’s outdated examination system which rewards rote learning – Summiya Yasmeen writes about grades inflation destroying k-12 education The last time handpicked Indian secondary students wrote PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), a transnational exam designed to test the science and maths capabilities of 15-year-olds worldwide, the Indian cohort was ranked #73 among 74 countries. Moreover, the Annual Status of Education Report of the globally reputed Delhi/Mumbai-based Pratham Education Foundation routinely reports that the reading (vernacular languages) and maths capabilities of primary school students in the country’s 1.2 million rural schools are going from bad to worse. However, judging by recent newspaper headlines and televised euphoria of school-leaving students celebrating their exam results, contemporary India hosts the world’s largest number of teenage academic prodigies. In early May, the pan-India Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) announced best-ever results of their class X and XII school-leaving exams, provoking nationwide celebrations. The national pass percentage in CBSE’s class XII exam — written by 1.3 million students of 20,299 affiliated schools countrywide in March — rose to 83.4 percent and a staggering 94,299 class XII school-leavers averaged 90 percent-plus (cf. 63,387 in 2016) — an all-time high for the Central government-run CBSE. The super exclusive club of 95-plus percentagers nearly doubled with 17,690 students averaging 95 percent-plus (cf. 9,351 in 2016). Similarly, the class X and XII results of 2,200 CISCE affiliated schools nationwide were exceptional. The national pass percentage in this privately managed school board’s class X ICSE exam was 98.54 percent and 96.52 percent in class XII. And for the first time in the history of this vintage (estb.1958) exam board — with which some of India’s top-ranked schools including Doon (Dehradun), Rishi Valley (Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh) and Cathedral & John Connon (Mumbai) are affiliated — two students averaged a perfect 100 percent (400/400) in the class XII ISC exam. Moreover, 16 students recorded a near perfect aggregate of 399 and 36 aggregated 398. However, the extraordinarily large number of students achieving near perfect scores has raised the bogey of grades inflation because of liberal evaluation of exam answer papers and in particular exposed the ubiquitous practice of ‘marks moderation’ and award of ‘grace marks’. The celebration of exceptional board results has ended quickly with the country’s top-ranked undergrad education colleges — the natural destination of school-leavers — having stipulated corresponding high “cut offs”, i.e, the minimum average percentage for admission, of 95 percent-plus. Suddenly, a distinction average score of 75 percent in the school-leaving class XII exam has become value-less and even students who averaged 90 percent are scrambling to be admitted into undergrad colleges and study programmes of choice. The root cause why admission into higher education institutions, particularly undergrad colleges, has become harder even for board exam toppers is…
In recent months as the start of the new academic year approaches, several privately-promoted primary-secondary schools ranked respectably in the authoritative annual EducationWorld India School Rankings league tables, have complained that the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and its long-serving secretary-general Gerry Arathoon in particular, are rejecting affiliation applications of high-potential, capital-intensive schools for nit-picking bureaucratic reasons. The intransigence of Arathoon who has reportedly repeatedly refused to forward the affiliation application of a well-ranked, staffed and furbished school (which has provided full particulars to EducationWorld) to the council’s board is baffling, as in the race for affiliations between the country’s two pan-India national school exam boards — the Central government promoted CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and CISCE — the latter is a distant also-ran. Whereas CBSE has 20,000 private schools affiliated with it, CISCE has a mere 2,247. And since schools pay annual affiliation and per student examination fees to these boards, CISCE is sacrificing revenue. Unsurprisingly, school managements are becoming disenchanted with CISCE. Last year, the top-ranked Doon School, Dehradun disaffiliated itself from CISCE and has become an IB school of the International Baccalaureate, Geneva examinations board. Reportedly experiencing heavy in-fighting and factionalism, India’s hitherto most respected school examinations board is rapidly rolling downhill. Also read: Looking for an Early Years programme? Why you should choose Cambridge Early Years
The death of Yogi Deveshwar in Gurgaon on May 11 after serving as chairman of the Kolkata-based cigarettes, hotels, agri-products multinational ITC Ltd (annual revenue: Rs.51,500 crore) for several decades, attracted considerable media comment and well-deserved encomiums for him. Yet the plain truth which everybody seems to have forgotten is that the foundations of ITC’s prosperity and the initial decision to diversify this tobacco behemoth’s business mix was taken by its first Indian chairman-CEO Ajit Haksar (1925-2005). In his prime, Haksar was a legend. To the extent that in Calcutta of 1960-83 when one referred to “the chairman”, no further and better particulars were necessary. Yet despite ITC earning annual profits of hundreds of crores during his long innings as chairman, Haksar lived and died in modest circumstances. Right through the 1970s, all corporate salaries were subject to a ceiling fixed at a maximum of Rs.7,500 per month, legislation crafted by the envious neta-babu brotherhood to ensure remuneration parity with themselves. Since he wanted to purchase a residential home before he retired, on sound legal advice Haksar retired for a day, cashed in his gratuity and signed a new employment contract the next day. This stratagem aroused the ire of jholawalas in the media who rained abuse on this perhaps most accomplished business professional in Indian history. At that time, your correspondent as editor of Businessworld was the sole hack to defend Haksar and remind the public of the huge contribution made by him to the exchequer through ITC’s excise and income taxes. Moreover just before he retired, Haksar attracted further criticism when he appointed his brother-in-law Jagdish Sapru as chairman of ITC on the understanding that he (Haksar) would continue to work — out of the company’s newly constructed ITC Maurya Sheraton Hotel in Delhi — as a consultant and advise the board on diversification strategy. But no sooner he assumed office as ITC chairman, Sapru barred Haksar from entering the Maurya Sheraton and reneged on the agreement. Undaunted, Haksar masterminded several greenfield projects in real estate and brand-building. Although successful, they didn’t amount to much and the chairman died bitter and disillusioned, another victim of India’s back-stabbing culture.
With over 65 percent of the country’s population engaged in farming and related occupations, India should have been the world’s largest agriculture and processed foods economy. Seven decades later, 40 percent of the horticulture produce of rural India rots before it can get to urban markets, inflicting an annual loss of Rs.60,000 crore on India’s farmers. In the mid-1980s, the US-based multinational Pepsico Inc applied for a licence to invest and do business in India. Inevitably, this aroused fierce opposition within the media dominated by trendy leftists and jholawalas. As editor of Businessworld at that time, your correspondent travelled to Purchase, New York to investigate Pepsico. A cover story for Businessworld, revealed that although better known as a cola company, Pepsi was in fact a billion dollar food processing corporation which had developed advanced technologies to grow and process high quality tomatoes and potatoes. Soon Pepsico was given permission to do business in India and in a quiet and unsung manner, it has benefitted tens of thousands of tomato and potato farmers in Punjab and Gujarat, by providing them high-quality patented seeds which produce globally accepted tomato ketchup, puree and potato chips marketed under the brand name Lays. Recently, Pepsico India filed a case in court against several of its client farmers in Gujarat for selling potatoes grown from Pepsico’s patented seeds to rival packaged potato chips manufacturers, in violation of their contracts with the company. This prompted Pepsico to sue nine Gujarat-based farmers for patent infringement. Predictably, the left-dominated media to whom multinationals are evil per se, has projected this confrontation as a David vs. Goliath story and the BJP government of Gujarat has persuaded the company to withdraw its cases. This is typical of the neta-babu establishment. They invite foreign investment into the country with honeyed smiles and the red carpet. But after they set up shop in India, the brotherhood dumps socialism on them. Little wonder that foreign investment inflows are drying up. Word gets around.
Reconciliation: Karwan e Mohabbat’s journey of solidarity through a wounded India, Edited by Harsh Mander, Natasha Badhwar & John Dayal; Westland, Rs.339; 192 pp This volume is a rushed attempt at investigating the lynchings, hate crimes and rise of cow vigilantes that have stormed the media in India over the past few years. It details the violence that has surged against Muslims, Dalits and other lower castes. This book is the outcome of the Karwan E Mohabbat (‘Caravan of Love’) journeys that human rights activist and social worker Harsh Mander and others initiated in 2018, to lend a compassionate ear to the victims of hate crimes. Many elements combine to make this volume a searing indictment of the Indian state, and perhaps the idea of India itself. As an organised response to State apathy and indifference, Mander and others gathered to cover the regions, cases and families worst affected by lynchings and riots. These journeys were crowd funded. In many of them, Mander and others face hostility from the Hindu majority. At one location, Mewat in Haryana, their bus is stoned. At the burial site of Pehlu Khan, Mander attempts to place marigolds but is barred by the local police initially, and finally allowed to do so after much struggle. The first part of the book records the plight of the populace in areas worst hit by hate violence and hate crimes — Nellie in Assam, rural Odisha, Tilak Vihar in Delhi — signposts of sectarian and caste conflict of contemporary Indian history. It is the expressed intention of the editors of the book to place the context of the recent violence in a broader framework of anarchy and bloodletting in a so-called secular democracy. Viewed from the perspective of the weakest and poorest citizens, Indian democracy seems a travesty. The third part of the book collates the experience of individual travellers. Journalist-activist John Dayal writes about his experiences while covering anti-Christian Adivasi violence in Odisha and Telangana. His chapter sheds light on the police-vigilantes nexus that is at the heart of the majoritarian closing of ranks in India. Here, the Indian State comes across as anti-people and the embodiment of Public Enemy #1. But by the time one gets to Dayal’s essay the reader is already horrified by terrible details of violence. Journalist Priya Ramani and academic Sanjukta Basu, describe the pain of the families of victims they encounter. There is much exploration of suffering, healing and attendant helplessness. Some participants highlight the gendered experiences of victims. In many cases, men are at the forefront of the aman sabhas (peace meetings), while women remain in the background. The most powerful essay in the book, all of four pages, is by Nidhi Suresh, a 22-year-old journalist who is unable to fully grasp the complex context of the caravan’s journey and chooses to be the ‘wallflower’ of the karwan. There is a moment she describes about identifying a woman, a victim’s kin, who sees her and knows her life will change for she…
The Queen’s Last Ssalute: The Story of the Rani of Jhansee & the 1857 Mutiny, Moupia Basu, Juggernaut Books; Rs.399, Pages 359 History lends itself to exciting ways in which it can be shaped, sensationalised and manipulated to create fiction. Certain iconic figures, the Rani of Jhansee for example, are generally identified as good material. In Indian Writing in English, historical fiction aka ‘faction’, is a popular genre as it can cleverly fuse folklore, myth and facts to construct dramatic action and exotic romance — the stuff of pacy thrillers. This novel begins with history — Lakshmibai’s marriage in 1842 to Gangadhar Rao Newalkar, Maratha ruler of the princely state of Jhansee, sited in the Bundelkhand region. It highlights the shenanigans of the East India Company, which starting as a mere trading enterprise, has transformed into a dominant political power in the subcontinent. Evoking the convenient ‘doctrine of lapse’, the company had annexed several princely states. The ruler of Jhansee, trying to avoid annexation, produced a male heir who died, and adopted a son a day before his demise. The events that followed are facts, but Basu loses the chance to authenticate the narrative of the Queen’s heroic resistance to the covert annexation of Jhansee under this convenient legalism. In a concerted manner the novel moves out of the field of historical fiction into fictional history, a racy series of conspiracies rooted in petty jealousy, emotional eruptions, intrigue, zenana politics and tenuous friendships that dramatise the narrative. Basu builds an elaborate paraphernalia of exciting romance — rugged geographical terrain, festive scenes, the grandeur of mahals and maharajas, creating and capturing the cultural ethos of the princely courts of mid-19th century colonial India. The plot of this historical thriller unfolds in three parts. The story begins in Jhansee but quite early it relegates Lakshmibai to the margins as a fictionalised story of Meera renamed Chandraki, the daughter of a courtesan who becomes the protégé and companion of the queen, takes centrestage. The real protagonists of this romance are Chandraki and her bete noire Riyaz Khan, her husband Jaywant alias Keshav, a courtier, and the shahi daakiya in the royal establishment of the neighbouring princely state of Orchha, with Chandraki’s journey in search of her husband occupying centrestage. Drawing on local lore, the author sets up Rani Larai of Orchha as a foil to Rani Lakshmibai and projects the personalities of these two competing queens through the perspective of Chandraki who is treated with extreme suspicion in enemy territory. Is she a spy and informant? A spectrum of subsidiary characters including the villainous Nathay Khan, Dewan of Orchha and a bevy of zenana women play supportive roles in this saga of revenge and betrayal, seduction, treachery and dare-devilry. The pace of events accelerates in the third section of the book when news of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, an uprising triggered by the revolt of sepoy Mangal Pande hanged in Barrackpore, overtakes the narrative. The bloodshed and violence unleashed in the British cantonment towns of…
A student rebel, Emmanuel Macron has turned into a presidential revolutionary. On April 25, in response to the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) protesters and their rage against an out-of-touch elite, Macron announced dissolution of France’s famous Ecole National d’Administration (ENA). “Makeshift repairs”, the president declared, won’t do: “If you keep the same structures, habits are just too strong,” he said. It was the most controversial and spectacular of all announcements made to mark the end of his months-long “great national debate”. At a stroke, Macron gave in to populist demand, and sent both his own alma mater and a symbol of modern France to the guillotine. When Charles de Gaulle founded ENA in 1945 from the ashes of Nazi occupation and the second world war, the Resistance leader explicitly sought a meritocratic antidote to the chronic cronyism of the pre-war era. In his memoirs, le general wrote that his ambition then was “to make recruitment and training of the main servants of the state more rational and homogeneous”. ENA was to turn out an impartial, unified army of administrators, motivated by the “noble” calling of public service, to rebuild a powerful, stable France. But amid today’s angry, ruthless populism, the very concept of an elite is denounced on the streets and roundabouts of France. Far from admired as a dedicated public servant, the enarque embodies the perceived arrogance and disconnect of the governing class, skilled at devising technocratic policies and blind to their effect on ordinary people. It was in car-dependent France profonde, after all, far from the bike-sharing quarters of Paris, that the government’s planned raising of the carbon tax first provoked the gilets jaunes. The solution, one of them said, was to “get rid of the enarques” and put some “real people” in government instead. With their calculators and spreadsheets, ENA graduates have replaced the silk-stockinged nobility of pre-revolutionary France as the public enemy of choice. The reality of course is more complex, and more nuanced, than Macron is letting on. The president knows full well that France will still want a top administration college, even if he closes the one with the now-damaged acronym. He also knows that the problem is not the concept of a high-flying school itself, but recruitment to and from it. Over the years, partly because applicants from bookish families better survive the marathon years of preparation required to get in, ENA has admitted fewer, not more, pupils from poor backgrounds. In the quarter-century after 1985, the share of pupils at the school whose fathers were blue-collar workers fell from 10 percent to 6 percent. Broadening access cannot be ENA’s problem alone. It also means ensuring that more school pupils from modest backgrounds apply to the classes preparatoires, which train applicants to France’s grandes ecoles. This is the baffling parallel world of elite higher education that leads (among other things) to ENA, confuses the uninitiated, and crowns the university system. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
Universities should change their approach to disseminating research and operate more like think tanks if they want to get into the minds of government leaders and influence policy, according to a former UK senior civil servant. Addressing academic leaders at an event organised by the Higher Education Policy Institute, a panel of experts called on educators to bridge the divide between the “two separate cultures” dividing academia and UK policy. Iain Mansfield, a governor of Bath Spa University and a former senior civil servant in the ministry of education, says that looking up academic articles was “not a natural part of the job” of civil servants, meaning relevant research that could be vital for decision-making is largely ignored. “We do look at evidence, but we look to think tanks,” he admitted. “Why do we like think tanks so much when UK universities contain far more expertise? Because the best think tanks do good research and synthesise it into nicely packaged reports — they speak our language, and we can read it and use it.” Universities should therefore set up research centres that speak politicians’ language, he advised. “Essentially, to get your research into policy you need to operate like a think tank. Setting up centres can have a hugely disproportionate impact on policy… it will lead to better policymaking and help you in the (research excellence framework) as well,” he concluded. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
Debates over the legacy of colonialism on South African campuses have been reignited by recent publication of a report examining the impact of anti-fees and anti-racism protests that rocked the University of Cape Town (UCT). The Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission, which produced the report, was created in the wake of the Rhodes Must Fall protests — which resulted in the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Cape Town’s campus in 2015 — and the Fees Must Fall protests of 2016, which sparked protests across South Africa and ultimately resulted in the abolition of fees for poorest students. The initial protests triggered a worldwide debate about the status of university monuments that are perceived to be tainted by racism or colonialism. Closer to home the protests had “a devastating impact on individuals, their families and communities, as well as the academic community as a whole”, according to the report. The report says many students who were involved in the protests have been suspended or expelled, with criminal charges brought against some, actions that had particular impact on students who were first generation learners. It adds that the impact on the academic community was “most shocking”, with the protests causing divisions and cleavages along racial lines, and an overall “atmosphere of mistrust” among staff and between staff and students. The commission concludes that racism “does exist at UCT”, going beyond attitudes and into institutional practice. “Submissions are rife with stories of better-qualified black academics being passed over for employment and promotion in favour of white academics,” says the report. Tiri Chinyoka, acting chair of Cape Town’s Black Academic Caucus, told Times Higher Education that the assessment is “100 percent correct”. “Institutional and structural racism, as well as unjust discrimination, victimisation, and other forms of structural violence have been and continue to be our lived experience at UCT,” says Dr. Chinyoka, a member of Cape Town’s department of mathematics and applied mathematics. “Unfortunately, the university does not seem to be doing anything tangible to tackle the issues raised in the report,” he adds. However, Belinda Bozzoli, South Africa’s shadow higher education minister, criticises the report for being “conceptually weak and politically correct to a fault”. “It seeks to apply the notion of ‘restorative justice’ in a setting where serious and often violent infringements were committed by students on academic freedom, artistic freedom, personal freedom and the stability of one of the most revered academic institutions in Africa,” says Prof. Bozzoli, a former deputy vice chancellor (research) at the University of the Witwatersrand. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
While China’s higher education strategy is often characterised by its focus on competition, with a range of excellence initiatives pouring additional funding into a select number of institutions over the past two decades, one of the most interesting recent developments in the nation is an initiative that is ostensibly about collaboration. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013, is a £750 billion (Rs.67.3 lakh crore) scheme to extend Chinese influence across Asia, Africa and Europe through overland and maritime trade routes, infrastructure development and Chinese investment. The Chinese government describes the initiative as “a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future”. The BRI route takes in about 70 countries, which account for half the world’s population and a quarter of global gross domestic product. More than a quarter of these nations feature in the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2019. China leads this ranking for the first time this year, with Tsinghua University supplanting the National University of Singapore in first place. While its Beijing neighbour Peking University drops two places to fifth, a consequence of declines in its research and industry incomes, 16 of the 26 Chinese institutions in the Top 100 have held steady, risen or entered the list for the first time. But to what extent will the country’s higher education success, coupled with the BRI, drive education forward across the whole of Asia? Gerry Postiglione, professor in the faculty of education at the University of Hong Kong and an expert in the comparative sociology of Asian higher education, says China’s rising number of “world-class universities” represents “a potential long-term asset for engaging with the significant diversity of other leading research universities located in countries encompassed by the BRI”. The Chinese government is supporting 42 universities to achieve “world-class” status, while 64 universities across the BRI route benefit from being included in their own countries’ excellence initiatives, notes Postiglione. “To position itself as a global economic hub by mid-century, the Asian region will need to cement its reputation for excellence,” he says. “For Asia to constitute more than half of global GDP by 2050 (it accounted for 41 percent of global GDP in 2016), it must raise the quality, diversity, cost recovery and governance autonomy of its institutions of higher education, especially its universities. China has a role here because its investment — as a developing country — in creating world-class universities has paid off in spades.” Most Asian countries are approaching middle-income status, and building high-quality research universities will be crucial if they are to avoid the “middle-income trap” — a situation in which a country rises to a certain level of income and development but then stagnates, says Postiglione. “This requires resources and experience, both of which China has and wants to offer as part of its BRI,” he adds. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)
My uncle Jack was a ‘great teacher’, and when he died, that was what I had inscribed on his gravestone. He was born in a Lancashire cotton town to a mill worker’s family, and spent all six years of World War II in the army — bravely too, though it was something he would never talk about. When he was demobbed, he went to a teachers’ training college and rose to the office of deputy head of a primary school in Rochdale, an English county of Lancashire near Manchester. Later, he was appointed head of English at a large middle school that took in pupils aged 12-16, after which the brighter ones went to a sixth form college (higher secondary). Jack was an utterly dedicated teacher. Going on strike (and thus jeopardising his pupils’ chances) was unthinkable — as unthinkable as it should be for any caring profession, whether medicine, nursing or teaching. No priest was ever more wedded to the church than Jack was to education and his school. He never married, though he had been very near it during the War. Being a bachelor course made it easier for him to devote himself wholeheartedly to the school. But even among his married colleagues (at least of his generation), there was none of the present trade union mentality of clock-watching and demanding extra pay and perks for extra-curricular activities and so on. Jack spent his holidays in a guest house in Oxford among the dreaming spires — reading in the libraries, listening to glorious Anglican choral evensong services in college chapels, sitting in the sun in college gardens preparing lessons for himself and material to help younger colleagues in the coming year. Jack lived for, and largely at, the school. He took evening classes, stayed late to help gifted or struggling pupils without thought of extra remuneration, conducted extra-curricular classes in the evenings, taught several generations of youngsters to swim, and even refereed Saturday morning football matches. But Jack was not solely or even primarily interested in rare and delicate plants. “My job is also to cultivate deserts,” he used to say, “and I do my best; but when I do find a rare plant, I try to nurture it and protect it. So much talent falls on stony ground or is stifled by tares.” This raises the question — What is authority within the teachers’ vocation? Is there such a thing as natural authority? To an extent, yes, but it needs to be worked at, and I offer my uncle as an example of how it is done. His, I suggest, was the acceptable face of authority and his was real quality teaching. Yet — and this is the crux — how do we reverse the appalling decline in the standards of education I have seen in my lifetime? How do we create, encourage, nourish and inspire a new generation of Jack Wrights? (Dr. Peter Greenhalgh is a Cambridge classical scholar and former professor at Cape Town University)
Sasha Ramani, head of corporate strategy at the Washington D.C-based Mpowerfinancing.com Despite universities abroad levying differential (higher) tuition fees on foreign students, the annual flow of scholars from India heading abroad for higher education shows no sign of abating. In 2018-19, a record 368,000 Indian school and college-leavers from India enrolled in higher education institutions in Canada and the US. But studying abroad is often difficult — if not impossible — without availing education loans. Fortunately, capital abroad is cheap and the free markets system ensures there’s no shortage of student loan providers. But with a wide array of loan options available to students enrolled in higher education institutions in Canada and the US, choosing the most suitable option is difficult. Here’s a guideline. Interest rate or APR? Some lenders charge fees that are incorporated into interest rates. This is why many countries mandate the disclosure of APR (annual percentage rate), which is a broad measure of the cost of finance. APR includes the interest rate plus loan processing costs. That’s why APR is generally recommended for student loan applicants. However, it’s important to note that some lenders insert charges that escape the conventional APR calculation, such as prepayment fees and compulsory purchase of life insurance. Therefore, reading the fine script of APR agreements is advisable. Guarantees. Many lenders insist on collateral, cosigners/guarantors, co-applicants, co-borrowers and similar security. While such guarantees may reduce the interest rate payable, you may be imposing a financial burden on nears and dears. Therefore, weigh how comfortable you are with this. It may be worthwhile to pay a slightly higher interest rate for financial independence. Fixed or floating? It is also important to consider whether the interest rate offered is fixed or floating. Lenders often offer floating/variable interest rate loans, which means the interest rate will rise or fall based on LIBOR (London Inter Bank Offered Rate). This means borrowers bear the risk of interest rates payments rising (or falling) over the life of the loan. Budget conscious students therefore prefer fixed-rate loans which means the interest rate on the loan is constant until the principal is repaid. Currency. Interest rates apart, students should also choose the currency in which the loan is to be repaid. Some students prefer rupee-denominated loans because they believe the rupee will appreciate in the long-term which means they will need fewer dollars to repay the loan. However, rupee appreciation is not assured — and even if assured — it may hurt the student. For example, a student who takes a rupee-denominated loan may find that due to rupee depreciation, the loan amount may become insufficient to cover tuition and other fees in dollars. Students who intend to work abroad after graduation usually prefer the stability and predictability of payments towards a loan. Therefore, they prefer to transact in a stable currency. Lender’s home-base. For the same reason, it matters where your lender is based. Foreign immigration authorities generally require students to prove they have sufficient funds to complete their…
K. Mythili is headmistress of the Coimbatore Corporation Middle School, Masakalipalayam (CCMSM), established in 1956 as a primary and upgraded into an upper primary (class I-VIII) school in 1966. Since she took charge as headmistress in November 2017, she has pulled out all the stops to transform CCMSM, which currently has 140 students instructed by seven teachers, into the most sought-after municipal corporation primary in Coimbatore (pop. 1.9 million). Unusually for a local government school, the painted one-storey school building sited on a half-acre campus boasts a spacious courtyard, clean corridors and well-ventilated classrooms furbished with colourful chairs and tables for youngest children and clean desks for older. Even more unusually, the school hosts fully wired classrooms, a projector and smartboard to access multimedia content, and a library of 3,000 books. Newspeg. To attract admission applications for the new academic year beginning June 2019, the school’s teachers have designed and distributed colour brochures, listing the facilities and co-curricular activities of the school to households in the locality — an initiative so unknown among government schools that it made headlines in the daily press. Simultaneously, a flyer shared on social media platforms evoked a huge response with over 95 students, including a few from private schools, applying for admission. On May 12, Mythili was conferred the best school leader award of the Kalvialargal Sangamam, an association of school teachers from seven districts and towns of Tamil Nadu. History. Credit for CCMSM making headline news is unanimously given to Mythili who has energised all the teachers to revolutionise this upper primary. A Tamil literature alumna of Annamalai, Alagappa and Madurai Kamaraj universities, Mythili acquired 24 years of teaching experience in elementary, upper primary and secondary corporation schools in Coimbatore before she was appointed headmistress of CCMSM two years ago. Since then, the once nondescript CCMSM has morphed into a model primary school of highly motivated teachers and students. Even as most of the 83 schools of the Coimbatore Corporation are witnessing a steady decline in student numbers, CCMSM’s enrolment has risen from 95 in 2017-18 to 145 in 2018-19. Direct talk. “Our main objective is to transform the negative image of corporation schools and show people what teachers can do to provide holistic education to socially disadvantaged children. Among our motivational initiatives: We post the names of students who excel in academics on the notice board and simultaneously provide remedial classes for slow learners. This has paid rich dividends in terms of better academic performance and our children have also excelled in co-curricular activities winning laurels in yoga, chess and drawing competitions. We have been able to provide infrastructure facilities, accident insurance and extra-curricular activities to students through voluntary contributions of friends and well-wishers and companies looking to discharge their corporate social responsibility,” says Mythili. Future plans. Encouraged by positive feedback from the public and the Coimbatore Corporation commissioner, the school’s management has drawn up ambitious plans to attract more students by providing learning facilities on a par with private schools. “We…
Sikar (Rajasthan)-based serial entrepreneur Shiv Ram Choudhary is the founder of Codevidhya India Pvt. Ltd (estb.2016), his latest venture that offers K-X schools a comprehensive and well-designed computer science coding learning programme comprising specially written textbooks, teacher training, assessments, project mentorship, skill certification and compatible online resources developed by the company. Committed to the cause of universal primary-secondary education, Choudhary also promoted the K-X Euro International School, Sikar in 2007. Newspeg. Codevidhya marked its third-anniversary celebrations in January (2019) with a commercial launch after completing two successful pilot projects. Currently, 24 schools affiliated with CBSE and the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education have signed up with Codevidhya. Among them: The Grandeur International School, Bangalore, ten Isha Vidhya schools in Tamil Nadu and Floreto Junior World School, Rajasthan with an aggregate enrolment of 10,000 students. History. An English postgraduate of Rajasthan University, Choudhary resigned from the Rajasthan public service commission in 2002 to follow “his true calling”, i.e, education. Starting his new vocation as a franchisee of the EuroKids group — India’s largest chain of pre-primaries (1,000 plus) — in 2004 he promoted Euro International School, Sikar, investing a modest sum of Rs.25 lakh from his personal savings. Enthused by the success of the school which currently has 1,500 children and 130 teachers on its muster rolls, three years ago Choudhary co-promoted Codevidhya with an investment of Rs.2 crore. Direct talk. “In the new digital world, coding is as foundational a subject as math and science. However, the subject is usually taught as an optional. In my opinion, every student from class I onward needs to learn about algorithms, the Internet and how to design apps. Our Codevidhya textbooks and online resources teach primary children these skills. Through coding education which includes computational thinking, design, logical reasoning, problem-solving and programming, our objective is to equip students with 21st century skills to make them job-ready and employable,” says Choudhary, who has carefully studied the much-acclaimed Finland K-X education model and adapted it to Euro International. Business model. The 12-month Codevidhya supplementary coding education programme is for institutions. School managements are obliged to sign up all enrolled students and pay Rs.800-1,200 per year per student to the company. Future plans. With Codevidhya having signed up 24 schools and 10,000 school children within a mere five months, Choudhary is bullish about the future of his latest venture. “We are expanding our reach to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi NCR, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra where the initial response to our unique coding education programme is enthusiastic. We have also developed online and fast-track code learning programmes for individual subscribers, and summer/winter camps for young coders. I believe coding will soon become mandatory in K-12 education,” says Choudhary. Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Mumbai-based Rakhee Chhabria is the founder of Teachers Help Teachers (THT, estb.2017), a social enterprise to empower educators. THT is an online Facebook support group and website where teachers can interact, avail guidance on pedagogies, share information, upload and download resources, become aware of employment opportunities and upgrade their knowledge. Membership of this FB group and website is free, although THT conducts paid professional development, offline workshops for teachers. This two-year-old initiative has struck a resonant chord within the teachers’ community worldwide. The THT FB group has 10,000 members while its website has registered 1,500 educators countrywide. Two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg, COO (chief operating officer) of Facebook, the US-based social media giant (annual revenue: $55 billion or Rs.385,000 crore), lauded Chhabria for “…creating THT where teachers share ideas and resources to do their jobs better”, and invited her to speak at the FB Asia Pacific Summit 2017. Newspeg. THT is gearing up for the second edition of its Edustar awards which acknowledges and rewards innovative school teachers. The awards nite is scheduled for September 2019 with the nominations window open from June 13-July 30. History. A commerce graduate of Mumbai University and certified ECCE (early childhood care and education) teacher, Chhabria began her career as a pre-primary teacher at the Arya Vidya Mandir School, Mumbai in 2001. This was followed by a stint with Samarpan, an NGO working for autistic children. Subsequently in 2009, Chhabria promoted an educational services company under the name and style of Saieducaserve. A strong believer in continuous professional development, she simultaneously completed her B.Ed and M.Ed in special education from Mumbai’s SNDT University. In 2015, driven by a desire to empower, enable and connect teachers to facilitate continuous knowledge upgrades to bring about positive changes in Indian school education, Chhabria created the Teachers Help Teachers group on Facebook. Two years later, THT launched its website which presents curated teaching-learning content such as lesson plans, presentations, research papers etc. The same year, THT also began conducting offline paid teachers’ workshops. Thus far, 2,000 teachers have participated in THT workshops. Direct talk. “Our objective is to provide a national platform for teachers to share best practices and learn from each other, create a curated bank of teaching resources and bring about positive changes in Indian education. By empowering teachers to assist each other in upgrading their skills and knowledge, we hope to drive progress in K-12 education and sharply improve students’ learning outcomes countrywide,” says Chhabria. Future plans. To meet rising operational and overheads expenses, THT intends to multiply its paid services and revenue streams. “We intend to increase the number of continuous professional development workshops across India. Upgrading its offerings, THT’s website will also deliver paid premium services, and e-shops where teaching resources can be purchased at discounted prices,” says Chhabria, evidently a firm believer in the virtues of peer-to-peer learning. Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
Singapore-based chartered accountant and investment analyst Thomas (Tom) Robinson is president and CEO of the US-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International (estb.1916). This is a globally respected association that accredits and certifies member business management education institutes (aka B-schools) round the world. Currently, AACSB has a membership of 1,700 B-schools worldwide of which 845 have been accredited after complying with its stringent accreditation and certification norms. Of India’s 3,030 B-schools, AACSB has accredited and certified the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; TAPMI, Manipal; IIM-Calcutta; IIM-Indore; IIM-Ghaziabad; NMIMS University School of Management; XLRI, Jamshedpur; IFIM, Bangalore, IIM-Udaipur and S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai. Newspeg. Robinson was in Bangalore in January to address a conference titled ‘Learning 4.0: Connecting the dots and reaching the unreached’ hosted by IIM-Bangalore. He also unveiled ‘Curricula 4.0 — Creating Future Managers’, an AACSB-supported study, for developing a model graduate business management curriculum, at IFIM, Bangalore. History. An alum of the University of Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve University, Ohio (USA), Robinson practised as a public accountant, financial planner and chartered alternative investment analyst for ten years in the US, before he switched tracks and signed up with Miami University as faculty and later as director of the varsity’s professional accounting and personal financial planning programmes. In 2008, he was appointed managing director of global education of the CFA Institute, Virginia which he served for seven years prior to his appointment after a global search, as CEO of AACSB. Direct talk. “India’s best B-schools have rarely sought international accreditation as they are routinely celebrated, top-ranked and attract the cream of graduates who write the annual CAT (Common Admission Test of the IIMs), perhaps the world’s toughest B-school entrance exam. However, more enlightened leaders of Indian B-schools were quick to discern the value of AACSB accreditation which is important for attracting international students and faculty and research collaborations with top-ranked foreign B-schools. But as a globally-reputed 103-year-old accreditation institution, our accreditation process is a multi-year consultative programme and requires applicant B-schools to conduct well-documented, self-evaluation which is peer-reviewed and mapped against our 15 accreditation standards,” says Robinson. Future plans. Four years into his term as president of AACSB, Robinson believes Asia is a region with highest growth potential. “The economies of China and India, as also several other Asian countries, are the fastest growing in the world. Therefore, the demand for professionally qualified managers is likely to explode in the next few years. In turn, B-schools will need to upgrade and modernise their curriculums. AACSB accredited schools are ready, willing and able to benchmark themselves with the best worldwide,” says Robinson. Sruthy Susan Ullas (Bangalore)
Wendy Kopp is the iconic co-founder and CEO of Teach For All (TFA, estb.2007), a New York-based global network of 50 independent voluntary organisations soldiering to end education inequality by recruiting talented college graduates/professionals to teach for two years in underperforming government and private budget schools worldwide. Over the past 12 years, TFA and its network partners have placed over 65,000 teachers in over 6,000 low-income schools impacting 600,000 under-privileged children in 50 countries across six continents. Included in Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people (2008), Kopp is also on the board of Teach For America, which she founded in 1989. Newspeg. Kopp was in Mumbai in early February to speak at version 3.0 Kids Education Revolution (KER), a student-led national summit organised by Teach For India (estb. in 2009 by Shaheen Mistri, founder-director of reputed education NGO Akanksha). The third KER summit attracted 600 educators and 1,500 children from across the country. History. An arts graduate of the blue-chip Princeton University, Kopp proposed promotion of Teach For America in her undergraduate thesis paper and launched it immediately after graduating in 1989. Teach For America recruits outstanding college graduates/professionals on two-year contracts to teach in under-performing government and private schools for low-income households. Subsequently in 2007, Kopp promoted Teach For All, enlisting social entrepreneurs around the world to adapt and implement the Teach For America model in their native countries. In 2013, after serving as CEO of Teach For America for 24 years, Kopp stepped down and assumed full-time charge as chief executive of Teach For All. Direct talk. “Teach For America was promoted to marshal the talent and energy of the best of my generation to end education inequality in the United States. Teach For All is a replica of Teach For America with global reach. Our hope is that after they have served for two years, TFA fellows will continue to serve the cause of education and work with education institutions and teachers. In particular, I am delighted with the work of Teach For India. This exemplary NGO has inspired and recruited 4,000 of India’s best college graduates to teach in under-performing low-income schools in seven cities,” says Kopp. Future plans. Kopp believes that by harnessing the talents of the best and brightest college graduates on short-term contracts in over 50 countries, TFA has awakened them to the huge potential of children in socio-economically underprivileged households. “More than 70 percent of TFA fellows choose to work full-time in education with the others sensitised to the importance of good quality school education to reduce social inequality in their countries. Over the next few years, we hope to expand the TFA network to more countries and build a global force of locally rooted and globally informed leaders for change in education,” says Kopp. God speed! Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
A distinguishing feature of CityU is its international outlook and outreach. 41 percent of its 20,000 enrolled students are from 30 countries and 60 percent of faculty is from abroad City University of Hong Kong (aka CityU, estb. 1994) is a publicly-funded teaching and research varsity steadily rising in the annual World University Rankings (WUR) of the authoritative London-based higher education institution rating and ranking agencies Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education (THE). In the QS WUR 2019, CityU is ranked #55 worldwide and #8 in Asia. Times Higher Education ranks the 25-year-old CityU #110 in its latest WUR 2019. Moreover in its Best Global Universities 2019 league table, US News and World Report ranks CityU’s study programmes in engineering #15, computer science #11, and maths #59 worldwide. Established in 1982 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong on the lines of the island’s first poly — Hong Kong Polytechnic — to provide professional education, CityU was conferred university status in 1994. Currently, CityU’s 10 schools and colleges offer 130 English-medium programmes in its 27 academic faculties. A distinguishing feature of CityU is its international outlook and outreach. 41 percent of its 20,000 enrolled students are from 30 countries worldwide. Its 1,488-strong faculty is also very international — 60 percent of professors are from abroad. Moreover, the university has signed agreements with 370 corporates in 43 countries enabling 65 percent of its students to avail overseas internship opportunities. Hong Kong. Sited on China’s southern coast, Hong Kong (pop. 7.4 million) is one of two special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the other being neighbouring Macau. A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to PRC in 1997 after 156 years of British rule. Empowered by a low-crime and low-corruption environment, Hong Kong has developed into a premier global business and financial entrepot, serving as the bridge between multinational corporations and mainland China. It is the world’s freest economy and fourth largest financial hub with 3,800 registered multinational companies doing business in the region. With four top-ranked universities, an international culture (620,000 expat managers), high employer activity and affordable living cost, HK is ranked #12 in the QS Best Student Cities 2018 guide. A melting pot of several cultures, where Chinese temples are juxtaposed with towering steel-and-glass skyscrapers, this island city is famous for its street as well as high-end shopping. From the lively nightlife of Lan Kwai Fong to long distance walking trails in the New Territories, Hong Kong offers students an exciting mix of leisure and entertainment options. The climate is humid, sub-tropical with temperatures ranging from 10°C in winter to 33°C in summer. Campus facilities. Sprawled across a 38-acre green campus in the heart of the Kowloon peninsula, the modernist CityU campus provides state-of-the art academic, laboratory, residential and sports facilities. Campus highlights and landmarks include the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, State Key Laboratory of Millimetre Waves, State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution and Biofuel Research Centre. Moreover the striking Run…
In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2018-19, 12,214 sample respondents ranked Learning Paths School (estb. 2008) #1 in Mohali and #7 in Punjab in the co-ed day schools category – Paromita Sengupta Sited on a compact 2.75-acre modern campus in Mohali’s Sector 67, next door to the Mohali campus of the top-ranked Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Learning Paths School (formerly The Millennium School, estb.2008) has quickly earned a good reputation in this fast-developing IT city for providing contemporary ICT-enabled K-12 education. In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2018-19, 12,214 sample respondents ranked Learning Paths School (LPS) #1 in Mohali and #7 in Punjab in the co-ed day schools category. Moreover, a specially constituted Grand Jury certified LPS for innovative teaching practices. Promoted by the Haryana-based Western Education Society (regd.2005), this CBSE-affiliated co-ed day school admitted its first batch of 150 students in 2008. Since then, enrolment has risen to 1,760 students mentored by 110 teachers. “LPS was established to transform children into responsible, independent thinkers and life-long learners with the knowledge, attitude and courage to succeed in an ever changing world. Therefore right from inception, we have innovated teaching-learning practices that go well beyond the prescribed CBSE curriculum. For instance, we are the first school countrywide to provide industry-aligned commerce and humanities education in classes XI-XII through our Agile Personalization Framework initiative,” says Robin Aggarwal, founder-director of LPS. A law and business management alum of Panjab and Boston universities, Aggarwal acquired a decade’s useful business management experience with blue-chip multinationals (Boston Scientific) in India and abroad (State Street Bank) before he co-promoted LPS 11 years ago. The LPS management’s emphasis on innovative pedagogies has had a beneficial impact on students’ learning outcomes. In 2019, of the 45 class XII students who wrote the CBSE board exam, six averaged more than 90 percent. Its first batch of class XII students who graduated in 2018 have been readily accepted into reputed institutions in India and abroad including Ashoka and Panjab universities (India), Purdue University (USA), Calgary and University of British Columbia (Canada). “It’s deeply satisfying that LPS has evolved into a progressive institution providing excellent academic and co-curricular education with strong emphasis on values and life skills development. Our curriculum and pedagogies are designed to accommodate children’s differing learning styles and test their multiple intelligences. However LPS’ greatest strength is our team of 110 teachers who are continuously upgrading their skills and expertise in regular training workshops,” says Nutan Budhiraja, an alumna of Delhi University who brought over two decades of teaching and administrative experience in Delhi’s Miranda and Indraprastha colleges, the Middle East International School, Doha and Yadavindra Public School, Mohali into LPS, when she was appointed principal in 2018. Students’ learning capabilities are enabled by the school’s excellent infrastructure designed for academics, co-curricular and sports education. Its wi-fi enabled campus hosts a futuristic three-storeyed building with 58 well-ventilated classrooms furbished with smart boards and projectors, two well-stocked libraries housing 10,000 volumes with 40 journal subscriptions, two state-of-the-art…
For swiftly twisting and turning 26 Rubik’s Cubes while blindfolded to consecutively display all alphabets of the English language in 6 minutes and 14 seconds, Mumbai-based Afaan Kutty (13) has entered the Limca Book of Records, India Book of Records and the Asia Book of Records. Named after Erno Rubik, a professor who invented it in 1974 as a brain teaser, 350 million Rubik’s Cubes have been sold worldwide since then. With six different colour facets each containing three squares by three (3×3), aligning the colours on each facet can be done in 43 quintillion possible configurations. The younger son of Biju Kutty, an education consultant, and homemaker Sheeba, Afaan Kutty took to the cube just ten months ago when he was advised bed rest after suffering a severe bout of viral fever. Until then, this class VIII student of St. Mary’s Convent School, Mumbra was a mobile phone addict playing online combat games for five hours every day. What began as an exercise to kill boredom is currently a daily three-hour compulsion which has transformed Afaan Kutty’s life. Most weekends, this 13-year-old is invited to schools and colleges to deliver lectures and share his online gaming experiences. “Since I took to cubing last year, I have noticed a marked improvement in my concentration and math scores. I highly recommend cubing to the entire students community,” says Afaan who delivered a TED talk on ‘overcoming addiction’ at Panaji in April and is a keen participant at cubing events organised by the Los Angeles (US)-based World Cube Association. Afaan Kutty is looking to take on new challenges in future. “In the open eyes category with a time of 18 seconds, I am far far behind the national record holder Ujjwal Pabreja (5.57 seconds) in speed cubing with a 3×3 cube. My plan is to intensify my daily practice to equal his timing if not overtake it,” he enthuses. Way to go, bro! Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
Crowned U-13, U-15 and U-17 badminton (singles and doubles) champion of Karnataka state within ten years, Bangalore-based Trisha Hegde (17) has emerged Indian badminton’s hottest new prospect, set to follow in the footsteps of world women champions P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. In January (2019), this promising shuttler teamed up with Aditi Bhatt (Delhi) to bag the national U-19 women’s doubles junior champions title in Bangalore. Trisha is currently under the annual Air India sports champions contract scheme and Khelo India Games scholarship (Rs.25,000, Rs.10,000 per month respectively). Despite a recent (April) loss to Pitchamon Opatniput, Thai junior champion, at a U-19 international tournament in Bangkok — the second time the teenager donned India colours — young Trisha is upbeat. “Playing against acclimatised Thai players in severely humid weather conditions has taught me some valuable lessons,” says Trisha, who returned last month from a three-week training camp at the Banthongyord Badminton School, Bangkok. Born into a sports loving family — her mother Shan Hegde is a former district-level throwball and active badminton player while elder brother Tanush (21) is a former national-level shuttler and black belt in karate — Trisha, a class XII arts student of the city’s Jain College, attributes her success to quality coaching and family support. “My parents are my pillars of support. I specially owe a lot to my mother who travels with me for most tournaments and is my greatest critic. Moreover, my coaches — Murali, Prakash and Vimal Sir — motivated me to persist with the sport,” she says. Introduced to the game at age six (2007) when she was enrolled in a beginners camp at the city’s Indiranagar Club conducted by veteran coach M. Murali, Trisha soon began winning club tournaments and quickly graduated to district and state-level tournaments. In 2013, she was spotted in a talent hunt and was invited to join the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) promoted by the eponymous former India and All England champion. Since then, she has been training at the PPBA which recently moved from the heart of the city to the mint-new Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence, a first-of-its-kind multisport facility sprawled across 15 acres in Yelahanka in suburban Bangalore. This young shuttler’s aspiration is to play for India. “I am training to play intensively in national and international tournaments to raise my game to global standards. My dream is to participate and win gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics,” she says with quiet determination. Power to your racquet! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
New Delhi, May 25. CBI sleuths arrested six people in connection with alleged involvement in the manipulation of the online entrance examination of the top-ranked Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Search operations conducted at several addresses in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Mumbai resulted in the arrest of the managing director of Delhi-based Pathway Education Service, a senior manager of the Ahmedabad-based Disha Education and two cyber experts. According to a CBI spokesperson, the accused offered to enable school-leavers writing BITSAT to clear the exam through unfair means in consideration of cash payment of Rs.10 lakh. The exam was held on May 17-22. “The accused had developed the technical expertise to hack into BITSAT while it was in progress and rewrite the answer papers of candidates by using remote desktop technology,” said the spokesperson. Gujarat Coaching centre fire tragedy Surat, May 24. Following a massive fire which engulfed a four-storey commercial building killing at least 22 teenage students of a coaching centre housed in the building, chief minister Vijay Rupani ordered a fire safety audit of all education institutions including test prep coaching centres statewide. According to media reports, the fire brigade of the Surat municipal corporation was unable to save anybody because it lacked basic fire fighting equipment including ladders, power hoses, safety nets and tarpaulins. Several students jumped from the building and fell to their deaths while some died of suffocation. The fire audit will also cover hospitals, malls and other commercial buildings of major cities and towns in the state, said Rupani. Forensic experts have been brought in to examine the exact cause of the fire, he added. Goa Indo-French education entente Panaji, May 4. Indian student enrolments in higher education institutions in France are set to rise substantially. Addressing media personnel, Sonia Barbry, Mumbai-based consul general of France, attributed this phenomenon to the Mutual Recognition of Academic Qualifications agreement signed between the French and Indian governments during president Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India last year. Under the agreement which came into force last month, the French government will recognise four Indian academic qualifications — senior school certificate of specified exam boards, bachelor’s, Masters degrees and Ph Ds from government-approved institutions. “Currently, we have 9,000 students from India studying business management, engineering, social sciences, among other programmes in France. President Macron gave us a target of 10,000 Indian students by 2020. Now we are almost there. We expect to host 15,000 Indian students in 2025 and 20,000 in 2030,” said Barbry. Odisha KIIT in THE 350 Bhubaneswar, May 8. The Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar (KIIT, estb.1992) is the sole private university in eastern India to be ranked in the Asia Top 350 league table of Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2019, according to a KIIT spokesperson. According to the spokesperson, KIIT — a deemed university — is highly rated on the parameters of full-time enrolments (19,633), faculty-student ratio (1:14), percentage of international students (2 percent) and female-male students ratio (37:63). Jammu & Kashmir…
“In the failure to generate a comprehensive policy for a common schooling system or to support processes that would enable a diversity of schools but with similar standards, schools in India have become the key institutions by which inequities are being reproduced.” A R Vasavi, social anthropologist, writing in The India Forum (May 9) “They (liberals) are increasingly confined to their echo chambers and all they have left is frustration, cant and self-righteous rage. They love the unwashed masses when they vote as they — the ‘liberals’ — would like them to; otherwise, they are idiots. Their stated belief in democracy is a mask for their elitism, intellectual hubris and intolerance.” Sandipan Deb, well-known journalist, on why ‘liberals’ deserved to lose General Election 2019 (Mint, May 24) “But what is more astounding is that the liberal voice seems to upset you even more than the cow vigilantes who are garlanded; even more than threats of rape, genital mutilation and gory violence against women who speak out; even more than lovers being killed in the name of religion; even more than tribals being evicted; even more than activists being targeted. Are these lesser crimes than what liberals are accused of?” Rajshree Chandra of Centre for Policy Research, Delhi in a riposte to Sanidpan Deb (Mint, May 31)
Over 1,500 school teachers of 8,403 government-aided schools in Tamil Nadu, who were on the verge of being sacked by the state government, have been given a last minute reprieve. Their transgression was that they had not passed the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) mandated by s.23 (1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, before March 31, the cut-off stipulated by the state government. On May 16, a vacation bench of the Madras high court issued an interim injunction restraining the state government from terminating their service. The vacation bench accepted the petitioners’ argument that the state government didn’t conduct a TET exam in 2018. The high court bench directed teachers who have not cleared this exam to write it on scheduled days June 8-9 and stayed the termination order until results of TET 2019 are declared. Right from the start, after the RTE Act, 2009 became law on April 1, 2010, Tamil Nadu’s elementary (class I-VIII) teachers have been hostile to TET which all teachers were obliged to pass within five years, i.e, 2015. On August 23, 2010 the Delhi-based National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) decreed that passing TET with a minimum score of 60 percent is the basic qualification to teach in elementary schools countrywide. Previously pre-service diploma programmes D.El.Ed or D.T.Ed were sufficient qualification to teach classes I-V and a B.Ed was adequate for teaching classes VI-XII. Acknowledging that these qualifications were dispensed by haphazardly licensed teacher training institutions across the country, the RTE Act made clearing TET designed by NCERT mandatory for all government school teachers giving them a generous five-year window to prepare for it. On November 15, 2011 when the Tamil Nadu government notified its Rules of the RTE Act, it stipulated that the state’s Teacher Recruitment Board would conduct TET annually for school teachers employed after August 23, 2010. However, the deadline for passing the test was extended from five to eight years, i.e, March 31, 2019. Immediately after the TET examinations were conducted in 2012 and 2013 and only a minuscule percentage of teachers passed it, a volley of writ petitions were filed in the high court. The last TET was conducted in 2017 and a whopping 95 percent of 753,000 teachers who wrote it statewide, failed. “Most government-aided school teachers who are yet to clear TET are well qualified for their jobs. Their capability should not be judged by marks scored in the TET but by how well they teach children,” argues N. Rangarajan, secretary, Tamil Nadu Elementary School Teachers’ Federation. Unsurprisingly, objective monitors of Tamil Nadu’s crumbling education system, bedevilled by nepotism, corruption and ill-considered interventions by the state’s populist politicians, blame the pathetic condition of Tamil Nadu’s 732 B.Ed degree colleges and 110 diploma colleges which casually award diplomas in teacher education. “The B.Ed and D.Ed syllabuses are completely obsolete and don’t equip students with any subject knowledge. Before completion of their two-year degree and diploma programmes teachers are deputed to teach…
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had bagged a mere two of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in General Election 2014, increasing its haul to 18 in the recently concluded general election and the ruling Trinamool Congress Party’s dropping from 34 to 23, the star of the state’s feisty chief minister Mamata Banerjee is in the descendant. In the state legislative elections scheduled for 2021, BJP, which increased its vote share in the Lok Sabha election to 40.1 percent from a mere 17.02 percent five years ago, may well displace TMC. Meanwhile, the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front which ruled West Bengal (pop. 91 million) uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011) and ruined the state’s industry and education system, has been reduced to a mere cipher. In General Election 2019 it bagged a mere two seats. Education reform was a major plank of TMC’s election campaign for the state legislative election of 2011 and again in 2016. In both the assembly campaigns, TMC promised to rejuvenate West Bengal’s once highly respected education system — especially the state’s once-great universities which were respected nationwide. During the long rule of the Left Front governments, they were heavily infiltrated by under-qualified CPM members and cadres and hollowed out from within. After experiencing strong resistance from well-entrenched CPM-led students and faculty unions in her first term, after the TMC was re-elected in 2016, Banerjee initiated several overdue reforms in the education sector. During the past 12 months in particular, the TMC government has taken several initiatives to improve attendance of teachers and faculty in the state’s 92,000 government schools, 372 colleges and 32 universities. Moreover, she inaugurated 65 English-medium government primaries in the districts of Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Jalpaiguri, and more controversially repealed s.16 of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which prohibits schools from detaining non-performing class-I-VIII students. During the past seven years the state government has also sanctioned ten greenfield private and 12 public universities, raising the number of varsities in the state from a mere 12 to 34, and started 50 new colleges while another ten private universities are in the pipeline. However, the malpractices which infested in the academy during the prolonged rule of the CPM-led Left Front government over the state, have struck deep roots difficult to eradicate. Worse in a populous state where youth unemployment is rife following continuous flight of capital and de-industrialisation during 34 years of Communist rule, the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad — the youth wing of TMC — cadres have adopted CPM tactics to run amok on the campuses of the state’s higher education institutions. Last year, an extortion racket for facilitating admissions into colleges across West Bengal, allegedly run by students’ union members of the ruling TMC, made media headlines in the state. Moreover, the teacher recruitment process for government schools has been stymied since 2012 because of a series of scams in recruitment tests and pending court…
A second student suicide within two years at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU, estb.1987) — routinely ranked the country’s #1 law school by all media publications — has provoked much anguish and a day-long protest vigil on this premier law school’s green 23-acre campus in suburban Bangalore. On March 16, Kanish K. Bharati (22), a student at NLSIU, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his hostel room. This second year student was reportedly afflicted with mental health problems which has adversely affected his academic performance and was repeating his second year. Next month, on April 27 the NLSIU Students Bar Association (SBA) presented a six-page petition to the then vice chancellor Prof. R. Venkat Rao accusing the administration of having devised an unwarrantedly punitive curriculum and being indifferent to students’ mental and physical well-being. The report details harsh compulsory attendance and detention norms in NLSIU. According to this premier law school’s rules, a student is detained, i.e, loses a year, if she fails three or more of 12 subjects or papers annually. At no point in the five-year course can a student ‘carry over’ more than three failed subjects to the next year. Additionally, students are required to maintain a minimal 75 percent class/lecture attendance record in all study programmes with additional marks for higher attendance, leaving no time for self-study or leisure. The toll that NLSIU’s punitive curriculum, detention and archaic class attendance rules takes of students is evidenced by the high percentage of students who don’t complete its flagship five year B.A. LLB programme. This year’s graduating batch of students, who topped the rigorous Common Law Entrance Test (CLAT) conducted by a consortium of 21 law schools nationwide, has been reduced from 80 five years ago to 58 after it lost two students to suicide, five dropped out of the course within two years, and another 14 were denied promotion to next year’s class. The SBA report attributes this high rate of attrition to the wide span of the curriculum — 12 subjects per year — the unsparing detention system, a packed lectures schedule and compulsory attendance regime even as food, hygiene and mental health receive scant attention. “The mental health of students is the most neglected crisis on the campus,” says the SBA report. “…The system of promotions at law school is like quicksand. It drags its victims into a never-ending abyss of repeated year-losses.” In its detailed introspective report the SBA cites two unnamed college counsellors, who testify to the punitive curriculum imposed on NLSIU students. “The hectic pace of the course schedule, the need to participate in extra-curricular activities to ensure that they have a good CV, competitive nature of the institute, along with immense expectation from parents and friends and their own fear of failure in the residential campus, creates conflicting emotions and self-doubts… Students who come to NLSIU are from various cities, big and small, but one thing that is common to most of them is that…
A 2018 decision of the Maharashtra State Board of Higher Secondary Education (MSBHSE) to scrap internal school-based exams for language and social science subjects will impact 1.7 million students who wrote its secondary school certificate (SSC) class X board exams in March. Until last year, oral communication capability and project assignments with weightage of 20 percent were assessed by their teachers. This year following abolition of internal exams, SSC students were made to write a 100 marks subjective social science subject paper plus three language papers (in the medium of instruction of their school, English and a language of choice). With SSC class X board exam results slated for public release on June 10, students apprehend they will end up with lower averages compared to students of schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) who continue to enjoy the benefit of internal exams (20 marks). Internal exams are a benefit because teachers tend to be liberal in awarding students they know personally. This apprehension is not unwarranted. In mid-May, the CBSE and CISCE boards announced their class X and XII exams results signalling runaway grades inflation. In the CBSE class X board exam, 20 students in the state scored 495-497/500 with three students averaging 99.4 percent. In CISCE’s class X exam as well, 13 Maharashtra students were ranked among India’s top three. Although the number of students averaging above 90 percent in the SSC class X exam has also been rising in recent years — 63,331 students averaged above 90 percent and 125 students maxed the exam at 100 percent in 2018 — the liberal marking of CBSE and CISCE examiners has aroused fears that children writing the SSC exam will be at a disadvantage for admission into junior colleges. Under a vintage UGC directive, all junior and undergraduate colleges are obliged to give parity to school boards and admit students on the basis of their class X and XII scores. With the number of high scorers rising each year, top-ranked colleges in the state particularly in Mumbai and Pune, have been raising their admission cut-offs by three to five percent per year. Last year, the cut-off for the arts faculty in St. Xavier’s rose to 94.2 percent and the commerce stream to 93.2 percent in Narsee Monjee College. Moreover, with the state government having introduced new reserved quotas such as 16 percent for Maratha students under the Socially and Economically Backward Classes Act, 2018 and another 10 percent for ‘economically weaker section’ students in addition to 22.5 percent for scheduled castes and tribes for non-minority promoted colleges, the quota for meritorious high-scoring students is shrinking. Hence the constantly rising cut-offs. In the circumstances, principals of MSBHSE-affiliated schools as also parents and students are agitated that even high-scoring SSC students will be shut out of the state’s top-ranked colleges, come July. Consequently, several parent and school associations have written to the education ministry to re-introduce internal assessments to…
Autar Nehru (Delhi) The top priorities of the new Union minister of human resource development (aka education) — the betting is that incumbent HRD minister Prakash Javadekar will retain this portfolio — are likely to be release of the New Education Policy (NEP) promised in the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP (which has been returned to power at the Centre with an even larger majority than in 2014) and formulation of a National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2020. Last month (April) Dr. Hrushikesh Senapaty, chairman of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT, estb.1961), also the country’s largest publisher of school textbooks which will lead this mammoth exercise, confirmed that the preliminary work on reviewing NCF 2005 has begun. This is indeed a mammoth exercise. Formulation of NCF 2005 required a mountain of labour spread over ten months of 21 national focus groups supervised by a National Steering Committee chaired by well-known scientist and former chairman of the University Grants Commission Prof. Yash Pal and comprising 35 highly-respected professors, NGO leaders, school teachers and intellectuals from across the country. It edited, abridged and incorporated the recommendations of the 21 focus groups into the NCF 2005 report which was duly approved by CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) and the HRD ministry. The four “guiding principles” of NCF 2005 were “connecting knowledge to life outside the school, ensuring that learning is shifted away from rote methods, enriching the curriculum to provide for overall development of children rather than remain textbook centric, and making examinations more flexible and integrated with classroom life”. Therefore the expectation is that formulating NCF 2020 is likely take more than a year. The National Curriculum Framework document published every decade is important because it provides guidelines or a roadmap to all 33 of India’s school examination boards on ways and means to achieve desirable learning outcomes in K-12 education. The processes of syllabus formulation, curriculum design, textbooks writing, pedagogies and teaching practices are shaped by NCF. According to Senapaty, this time round NCF 2020 will highlight the importance of new IT-driven pedagogies and experiential learning. “Memory driven rote learning is obsolete, therefore, the objective of the new NCF will be a focus on developing the critical thinking and problem-solving experiential learning skills of children in our schools,” said Senapaty, addressing the media on May 15. Already NCERT has received over 100,000 suggestions from 72,000 students, parents, teachers and others on ways and means to improve school textbooks. With the long-delayed NEP based on the recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee reportedly ready after the report of the high-powered T.S.R. Subramanian Committee (2016) was rejected by the BJP/NDA government and transformed into an ‘input’ for a new committee chaired by space scientist K. Kasturirangan and the NCF slated for next year, fears of a renewed attempt to “saffronise” school education have been aroused again in the academy. It is pertinent to recall that when the BJP first came to power in 1999, it had made no secret…
Thanks for publishing the comprehensive EW India Private Higher Education Rankings 2019-20 league tables (EW May). It’s an excellent guide for students planning their university admission. However, it’s unfair to compare NIRF and EW rankings in your cover story as you’re making an apples and oranges kind of comparison. For example, you question the Union HRD ministry for ranking Manipal Academy of Higher Education a modest #9 in NIRF. This is because the top eight institutions in NIRF are public universities which aren’t included in your rankings. Sindhu Kutty Kochi Questionable conclusion Re the cover story (EW May) ‘India’s Top 100 private universities’, Dr. Rupamanjari Ghosh, vice chancellor of Shiv Nadar University (SNU), has been misquoted as saying “she is dissatisfied with the #7 rank awarded by the 4,321 sample respondents to SNU”. On scrutiny of her responses to EducationWorld, there is nothing to indicate Dr. Ghosh was “dissatisfied” with the ranking awarded to SNU. Kindly explain how your esteemed publication came to this conclusion. Nanddini Sharma Mumbai That’s not her quote, it is my comment. Dr. Ghosh expressed her dissatisfaction in a phone interview. Moreover, she said SNU’s “unique features… deserve higher ratings”. — Editor Good suggestion It’s surprising that the EW Private Higher Education Rankings don’t have a separate league table for teacher training colleges. As a regular reader, I have seen several of your articles on teacher training and its paramount importance in the country’s education system. Inclusion of a separate league table ranking B.Ed colleges will inspire them to improve teaching-learning standards. Smitha Rao Mangalore Adopt new pedagogies! Habiba Insaf’s insights on the benefits of ‘museum learning’ (Teacher-to-Teacher, EW May) should open the eyes of teachers to the immense possibilities of innovative pedagogies to facilitate enjoyable experiential learning. She is right that educationists in India have not realised the potential of museum learning. It was interesting to read about the advances made in the Federal Republic of Germany in museum learning. It is high time educators in India get out of the rut of rote learning and adopt new pedagogies. C.M.C. Narasimhan New Delhi Amusing exam scores This year’s school-leaving board exam results, irrespective of the board, amuse me. Scores have literally touched the sky. As an advocacy magazine, it’s your responsibility to convey the message that sky-high exam scores are not the goal of education. We should celebrate learning and not scores. Since you also publish ParentsWorld, you might consider writing articles enlightening parents on this issue. Sangeeta Mittal Bangalore Childhood robbery Thank you for publishing an excellent, unprecedented education magazine. The Indian education system is robbing our children of their childhood by leaving them with very little time for play. Add to that parental expectations and pressure. For children, play is serious business and encompasses much of life’s learning. Einstein was right on the button when he said: “Play is the highest form of research”. To raise independent, creative and critical thinkers, teachers need to change their approach to learning. It’s time to concentrate…
Bleak future of Indian education
Shiv Visvanathan is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Systems at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat General Election 2019 has been over-analysed to explain the future of Indian politics. But a clear-cut analysis of what the massive majority awarded to the BJP by the electorate means for Indian education hasn’t been made. Simply put, one has to bluntly ask what is the future of knowledge and learning in Indian society ruled by the Hindu majoritarian BJP? Bleak, I am afraid. The BJP’s education outlook confuses part for whole and creates false dualisms and questionable priorities revealing limited understanding of a knowledge society. Politically it confuses information with knowledge and as a result, there’s little philosophical or epistemic understanding of knowledge systems. By also confusing science with technology, it transforms research into a form of plumbing rather than intellectual adventure. As a result of these two confusions, what we have is an India which is becoming imitative rather than original in knowledge creation. We are becoming a mimic society and even our imitation of the West focuses on the second rate. Part of the reason for this epidemic is glorification of mediocrity. Five years of BJP rule at the Centre indicates that the party views education through the instrumental lenses of a small town mentality and is shaping an education system that makes minimal distinction between a tutorial college and a research institute of eminence. Its populist education philosophy focuses on access rather than excellence, certification rather than content. As a result, the gap between academics and events management is narrowing. Basic research in the sciences has been replaced by a cottage industry of minor research initiatives and big science has become an act of conspicuous consumption. The BJP leadership has little sense of policy but loves populist science initiatives such as sending an Indian to the moon. It regards science as an extension of a populist electoral world rather than creative venture into new forms of enquiry. In the coming years Indian science is unlikely to produce much that is creative, original or inventive. An obsession with rankings rather than search for originality will be the driving force of the new BJP/NDA establishment. The regime’s contempt for the university evidenced by its hostility to JNU, Delhi and Hyderabad University, is already a part of folklore. It seems to believe education is a process that has to be tempered by the ideology of the RSS shakha. A cadre-determined education system will become a nightmare even George Orwell did not imagine. For the academy, the outcome of General Election 2019 may prove to be a bigger nightmare than it was in Orwell’s 1984. The BJP leadership’s sense of instrumentalism is also short-term. It has little sense of the composite research system rural India needs. It emphasises upstream access but has no idea of downstream employment. It has to realise that certification is no guarantee for employment and that its ideas of skilling are not anchored in technological innovation. Its…