Dr Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, USA – [email protected] In America as in India, the academic year has ended for most colleges/universities, and students have dispersed for the summer. Those who just graduated will be coming back to visit, but never again to live and study on campus. For them, this is a time of joy and melancholy. They have completed their first great adventure away from home. What will the next one be? In India, I understand the final ceremony that concludes the college year is known as the Convocation. We use this term for any formal gathering of the entire college. For the last convocation, we have a special name: Commencement. Why Commencement, when the ceremony marks not a beginning but end of higher education for students? College is the final and highest preparation in people’s lives. The central elements of that preparation don’t depend on the specific work they will do. They will have many jobs, but their happiness will depend upon issues beyond work. Work itself will contribute to that happiness only if they do it “well,” i.e, not only efficiently and to their economic gain, but also honestly and as service to those who pay them and work with them. As they have been sons and daughters, now they are likely to become husbands and wives, and parents. They will be citizens of a country, and they will owe it loyalty if it is just, and effort to improve it if not. For graduates, this is a delightful and intense time promising growth in strength, intellect, and character. But it is also a sad occasion because in college, students form profound friendships as they live and learn together. The very word ‘college’ means partnership, and humans learn best together. We study and think together and surmount challenges together. Through this, we form bonds with fellow students that last a lifetime. In class, you are among people who will come to your wedding (perhaps to marry you!) and finally your funeral. There is nothing else quite like this experience. Nor are students at Commencement alone in their joy and melancholy. The faculty is present, as are parents and friends. All come to pay respect to graduates, who with faculty are dressed in robes, academic uniforms, varying by rank. These are the badges of honour. I have presided over 25 Commencements at Hillsdale College. When I look upon the scene, thousands gathered, I see the bonds that have brought them together. The graduates represent an achievement of all and of generations before because colleges are not built in a day. If you are nearing the time to enter college, think of the end of it, of Commencement. Prepare yourself to be happy on that day and the days that follow. If you know a student who has just commenced or is about to, honour and wish her well.
Against the backdrop of dismal conditions in Indian education, a mint new report authored by LoEstro Advisors, a Hyderabad-based education focused investment banking and consulting firm, says that a positive sea change is manifesting in private K-12 education countrywide writes Dilip Thakore Seven decades after under the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi the country won its freedom from oppressive foreign rule, strong winds of change are blowing over post-independence India’s moribund education sector. Especially after the belated liberalisation and deregulation of industry in 1991 and after EducationWorld was launched in 1999 with the avowed mission to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. New awareness has dawned that resuscitating and upgrading the country’s 1.7 million pre-primaries, 1.50 million primary-secondary schools, 45,473 colleges and 1,168 universities is the essential precondition of 21st century India harvesting its demographic dividend — 700 million citizens are aged below 30 — and attaining the status of a middle class nation. First, the back story of open, continuous and uninterrupted neglect of Indian education is necessary. In the first flush of freedom against the advice of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, under the guidance of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was enamoured with the communist Soviet Union, independent India adopted inorganic socialism as its official ideology. But although communist/socialist Soviet Union (now Russia) and the communist People’s Republic of China accorded high priority to the State providing universal high quality primary education, for various reasons (canalisation of national savings into capital-intensive white elephant public sector enterprises; neglect of agriculture, binding tax revenue-generating private sector enterprises in red tape) public education was under-funded ab initio. In 1967, a high-powered Kothari Commission strongly recommended investment of 6 percent of annual GDP (Centre plus states) in public education. That recommendation has remained on the back burner with national expenditure averaging 3.5 percent of GDP for over seven decades. Moreover with 40 percent of meagre budget outlays of the Central and state governments allocated for over-subsidised higher education, the government school system has all but collapsed, especially in rural India which even seven decades after independence still grudgingly hosts 60 percent of the country’s 1.40 billion population. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) of the Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1994), over 50 percent of (neglected and recklessly promoted) class VII children in rural India can’t read class II textbooks and solve simple three by one digit division sums. Pratham has been highlighting the growing illiteracy of rural India for over 25 years, to no avail. In the Union Budget 2024-25 presented to Parliament on February 1, the Central government’s allocation for public education was Rs.1.2 lakh crore, equivalent to 0.4 percent of GDP. The national outlay (after the allocations of 29 state governments and seven Union territories are added) has reportedly crept up to 4 percent of GDP. The damage of continuous under-funding of public education has been augmented by low quality teaching-learning in India’s 1.20 million mainly state…
The perceived fairness of punishments handed to student protest leaders will be crucial for whether US universities can heal after police were invited to break up pro-Palestine sit-ins, according to a former college president. Many staff and students have condemned leaders’ decisions to invite police to campus, notably at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles. In a Substack post, Columbia history professor Adam Tooze warned that many would “struggle to unsee and unfeel” the “violence (that) came from the police side…at the invitation and request of the university administration”. Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was previously a dean at Columbia, says management had been in a no-win situation because “they are either too lenient, for those who complain about, say, anti-semitism, or they are far too draconian, in not defending both academic freedom and freedom of speech”. However, calling the police “raises the volume” of such complaints, he says. “Such calls invariably lead to arrests that go beyond university codes of conduct and modes of adjudicating violations of them and frequently involve violent altercations,” says Prof. Dirks. “These interactions are now all recorded and circulated on video clips, so they become discursive tools to disseminate arguments about police violence, and, by implication, further evidence of the ill intent of administrators.” “The healing process will include whether students regard the punishments as fair and, ultimately, whether decisions about students are made with that fact top of mind — namely that these young people are our students and we have a larger responsibility for their welfare, which includes protection around protest,” adds Dirks. David Smith, associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, says some universities have shown how protests could be dispersed peacefully. For instance, the governing body of Brown University showed a way through the conflict by committing to a vote on divestment from Israel if students disbanded their camp. “There’s a long historical experience with protest that when you violently suppress it, you don’t make it go away — if anything, you encourage it,” he says. Also read: US students protest Biden’s stance on Gaza conflict
“You can point to brawling in the streets of Paris in the 13th century over rivalling theology professors, you can point to town-and-gown brawls in England in the 16th century, never mind the 1968 generation’s anti-war protests…” To Randy Boyagoda, the University of Toronto’s new adviser on civil discourse, campuses have always contained the right ingredients for “controversy and convulsions” throughout the history of higher education — namely lots of young people being brought together at a transformative point of their lives and being asked to “think out loud about difficult things”. So why has it taken until now for positions such as his —the first in Canada and one of a handful globally — to arise? The short answer is Gaza. The author and English professor — whose new role will see him develop a plan for events, resources and initiatives designed to promote respectful dialogue — told Times Higher Education that it would be absurd to pretend his appointment is not related to the war and the “deep and corrosive” divisions it has stirred up. What makes this situation different from the “convulsions” of the past for Prof. Boyagoda, is the “intensification of our connectivity” — young people on campuses receiving real-time information from Israel and Palestine, often about their own families. “That sense of connectivity has intensified the always present possibility of protest and controversy that I think to some degree is inherent in university life,” says Boyagoda. Toronto, like many campuses, has had its share of free speech controversies. A campus imam, Omar Patel, was dismissed by the institution in January over a social media post linked to the Gaza conflict, which he claims was falsely attributed to him. Meanwhile, students have called for action to be taken against a psychology professor, Stuart Kamenetsky, over historic social media posts that some regard as Islamophobic. Over all this looms Toronto’s long-standing employment of clinical psychologist, author and now right-wing “provocateur extraordinaire” Jordan Peterson, who resigned from the institution in 2022 but retains emeritus status. Prof. Boyagoda, vice-dean for undergraduates in Toronto’s Faculty of Arts and Science, acknowledges that the furore around Prof. Peterson was a “contributing factor” to the university’s spiky campus climate. “I see myself not as an authority figure doing this but as someone contributing, making conversations possible that otherwise might not have been possible had I not been in the room,” he says. According to Boyagoda, faculty and student bodies are increasingly looking to their institutions and leaders to issue position statements on global crises — as they largely did over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but then are hesitant to do so over the Israel-Hamas war. Prof. Boyagoda says that “statement culture” is a significant reason why the Palestine crisis has been so “incendiary” on campuses and argues that institutions should instead remain neutral on such matters. “I was struck by the immediacy and by the uniformity of the response in the support for Ukraine…it created an institutional precedent for universities demonstrating their public…
UK universities are staging a last-ditch battle to resist further changes in the rules governing international students, and stave off more financial damage to the sector, ahead of the release of a keenly anticipated report into the graduate visa route. With the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) set to conclude its investigation into “abuses” in post-study rights of overseas students by May 14, critics have been pushing the government to take ever more drastic measures to bring down the number of international students, arguing for an overall cap, and for some institutions to be prevented from sponsoring visas at all. The sector has been warned to “brace for the worst” as a fraught political climate on immigration — exacerbated by poor local election results for the Conservative Party — has put pressure on Downing Street to take further action on the two-year graduate route, after removing the right for Masters students to bring dependants, which was blamed for a 44 percent drop in January enrolments. Options understood to be on the table include scrapping the visa entirely, reducing its duration to six months or a year, or placing extra conditions on its use, such as a salary threshold. In an 11th-hour attempt to protect the visa, sector leaders have attempted to highlight the potential economic damage cuts would do to the whole economy, not just universities. Michael Spence, the president of UCL, says the government’s own analysis has shown the visa is “set to bring in £12.9 billion of additional tax revenue compared to £6.8 billion of extra fiscal costs between 2021-22 and 2030-31”. “If we want to grow the economy and encourage global leadership and innovation, we need to continue to attract the brightest and best,” Dr. Spence told Times Higher Education, adding that it would be an “act of extraordinary national self-harm to curb the graduate route”. Also read: United Kingdom: Age retirement suit
On the face of it, the plan by South Korea’s president Yoon Suk-yeol to increase the number of doctors being trained at the country’s medical schools sounded like a winning way to get the public onside ahead of a parliamentary election. In reality, by joining the long line of politicians who have tried to change the status quo surrounding medical admissions, Yoon further turned the public against him, contributing to the resounding defeat his party, the People Power Party, suffered in the recent election (April) to retain control of parliament. In South Korea, it seems, attempts to reform medical education are doomed to fail. The government’s plan to increase capacity by 2,000, announced in February, resulted in 12,000 junior doctors walking out for over six weeks, senior doctors threatening to resign en masse and a burgeoning medical crisis as the public suddenly found themselves unable to access healthcare. The president’s plan backfired. “Ordinary people, who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in policy matters, simply experienced first-hand consequences of the strike,” says Byunghwan Son, director of Asia-Pacific and north-east Asian studies at George Mason University. “Surgeries got cancelled. Treatments were delayed.” With one of the lowest doctor-patient ratios among developed countries, a rapidly ageing population requiring greater medical attention and only 3,058 students admitted into the country’s medical schools each year, reforms are sorely needed in South Korea and are generally supported by the public. The medical profession is also popular, with admission applications far outnumbering available seats. But attempts to reform medical school quotas have caused headaches for a succession of Korean leaders, with doctors vehemently opposed to any increase. They argue that the government needs to improve their working conditions and pay before increasing numbers. Critics say doctors are trying to avoid competition within the profession. Either way, the Korean Medical Association — the organisation behind the strikes — is a powerful force. “The size of medical schools has been kept small mainly because politically influential doctors have been staunch opponents of any capacity increase,” says Dr. Son. “They wouldn’t hesitate to make a political scene, such as staging protests and strikes, to make their voices heard. And that’s been proven effective.” Now, in the wake of a resounding defeat for his party, Yoon looks set to become a lame duck president, unable to advance significant reforms in the final three years of his five-year term. That is likely to include the medical school reforms, leaving the sector untouchable. “A likely path going forward would be for the embattled government to give in and the situation returning to the status quo,” says Dr. Son. Also read: South Korea: Doctors rally against government’s medical school recruitment plan
Legislation enabling private universities to operate in Greece will deliver “significantly positive results” and limit the flow of Greek students to overseas institutions, says the country’s education minister. Kyriakos Pierrakakis told Times Higher Education that the education law, which was passed in March amid mass student protests, would facilitate the “opening up of the Greek university system”. The legislation allows private institutions that meet certain criteria to issue degrees equivalent to those of public universities. International institutions, meanwhile, will be able to open branches in Greece, charging tuition fees while maintaining non-profit status. Private universities have long been a contentious subject in Greece. Article 16 of the country’s Constitution holds that “art and science, research and teaching shall be free”, while “the establishment of university-level institutions by private persons is prohibited”. When the recent law was first tabled in parliament, opposition MPs across five parties submitted objections regarding its constitutionality. Opposition party Syriza further argues that the bill could create a two-tier system favouring the wealthy, with lawmaker Harris Mamoulakis commenting: “Whoever has money will study: the power of privilege.” An estimated 18,000 students protested outside parliament against the bill. Yet Pierrakakis, who served as minister of digital governance before taking up his current role last year, says the new law is “fully commensurate with the Constitution” because it “does not touch upon the foundation of new entities but actually allows for the location of chapters of existing universities within Greece”. The prohibition of private universities “had a symbolic nature” in Greece, says Pierrakakis. “I think it’s important for governments and politicians to show that certain totemic policies which have remained in our country for decades, if they’re considered to be non-productive, we should have the courage to break them or change them,” he says. Greece has a vast academic diaspora, with more than 40,000 students currently enrolled overseas. The new law, says Pierrakakis, would help to “render the country an educational centre” and “address the number of Greeks who are leaving the country to study abroad because they cannot have their educational destinies fulfilled domestically”. While the facilitation of private universities has attracted most headlines, the minister says, “85 percent of the content of the law touches upon institutional changes in public universities”. Alongside “breaking the state monopoly on higher education”, he says, the law has two other central goals: to allow for the establishment of joint Masters programmes between Greek public universities and “internationally renowned” overseas universities, and to grant international students “easier access to the Greek higher education system for brief periods of study”. Also read: Greece: Students block streets in protest of potential private universities
The unemployment rate for youth aged 16-24 in cities reached a record high of 21.3 percent last June (2023). That was perhaps too embarrassing for the government, so it stopped publishing the data series while it rejigged its calculation to exclude young people seeking jobs while studying. The new numbers are lower, but still depressing: in March 15.3 percent of young people in cities were unemployed. That’s nearly three times the overall jobless rate. For young graduates, the situation is probably even more dire. China does not release unemployment data for this cohort. By our calculations (including students who are seeking jobs), the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds with university education was 25.2 percent in 2020, the last year for which census data are available. That was 1.8 times the unemployment rate of all young people at the time. China’s sluggish economy is at least partly to blame. Demand for graduates has stagnated. Meanwhile, the supply of them is growing. This year, nearly 12 million students are expected to graduate from higher-education institutions, an increase of 2 percent compared with last year. Between 2000 and 2024, the number of Chinese graduates per year grew more than tenfold. This phenomenon can be traced back to Min Tang, a Chinese economist who proposed expanding enrolment in higher education as a way of dealing with the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Such a policy would postpone young people’s entry into the job market and stimulate the economy by way of education spending, he said. The government adopted his plan, which coincided with societal changes that pushed in the same direction. Children born under China’s one-child policy began to come of age in 1999. With family size limited, parents had more to invest in each child-and more incentive to encourage their studies, since these children are expected to provide for their parents in old age. The rising number of graduates might not be such a problem if they were learning skills valued by employers. But Chinese companies complain that they cannot find qualified candidates for open positions. Part of the problem are low-quality minban daxue (private universities). Yet the skills mismatch extends across higher education. For example, the number of students studying the humanities is growing even though demand for such graduates is much lower than that for specialists in other fields. In his state-of-the-nation speech in March, Li Qiang, the prime minister, at least paid lip service to the idea of making sure more graduates learn skills needed in sectors such as advanced manufacturing and elderly care. But many will continue to find that their degree is not a ticket to a good job. Told for years that higher education is a ladder to a better life, their frustrations are growing. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education and The Economist)
Party of One: The rise of Xi Jinping and China’s superpower future Chun Han Wong Simon & Schuster Rs.2,490 Pages 416 If Chairman Mao taught China how to stand up and Secretary Deng Xiaoping how to walk, Xi’s ambition is to make it run and transform China into a superpower Despite being at the helm of affairs in China for more than 12 years, Xi Jinping is still somewhat of an enigma for the world and perhaps even for a large number of people within China. Xi became General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in late 2012 and then China’s President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission in March 2013. At that time, he was regarded as a pragmatic leader who would continue to honour the Party’s evolving and still young tradition of collective leadership. However after assuming power, Xi assumed a different character altogether and has become a type of leader that no one saw coming. One of the popular monikers for Xi Jinping is ‘Chairman of Everything’ since he has inserted himself at the helm of all important offices, created new oversight bureaus that report directly to him, and has reduced the powers of the prime minister and other members of the State Council. Chun Han Wong, the author of this book and a Singapore national, was a reporter of The Wall Street Journal in Beijing from 2014 until 2019. He was denied renewal of his press credentials for writing a story about an investigation by Australian agencies into a gambling and criminal nexus involving an individual named Ming Chai, who turned out to be one of Xi Jinping’s cousins. China lacks written rules on leadership tenures in absolute sense of the term. What it has are vague norms about peaceful and predictable transfer of power developed over the last 30 years and most of these were set in place under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping, who was China’s last paramount leader. All that has been disrupted by developments over the past few years under Xi Jinping. In 2016, Xi assumed the title of Core Leader and didn’t appoint a successor as required. On the contrary, the Party proceeded to remove the presidential term limit which meant that far from retiring after two terms, Xi could remain in power ad infinitum. The book begins by discussing Xi’s carefully chosen career path wherein he served tenures in the countryside, with the PLA, and then in important provinces. While this coverage is good, it is relatively short. One expected to read more about the career trajectory of Xi before he rose to centerstage, simply because there is not much authoritative work on Xi’s early career and life. Interestingly, the author argues that Xi’s stints in the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang were relatively unremarkable and several of his ‘successful’ policy interventions were actually failures presented as successes as part of propaganda after Xi was confirmed as the designated successor to Hu Jintao in 2008. However, what…
11 rules for life: Secrets to level up Chetan Bhagat HarperCollins Rs.250 Pages 226 By way of advice to an over-educated under-employed youth, the author provides a useful upward mobility prescription to ‘level up’ and succeed Chetan Bhagat has all the qualifications of a heavyweight public intellectual. An alum of IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad, a former banker with Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank, he is also the author of five best-selling novels some of which have been adapted into hit Bollywood movies. Besides, he writes intelligent op-ed page essays in the Times of India. Yet to an above-average intelligence reader, Bhagat’s novels are embarrassingly naïve and gauche. This is not a criticism of Bhagat from a failed novelist (Succession Derby, 1991). Bhagat is a widely read public intellectual with — as his essays on current events and social mores testify — socio-economic reform on his mind. On the contrary, it is criticism of India’s obsolete, and failing education system that churns out millions of under-educated youth and adults who need simpleton novels and matching Bollywood cinema. Bhagat can’t be blamed for the multiplication of the unthinking classes who love talk-down novels. In 11 Rules for Life, Bhagat ventures into a new genre, combining his elementary story-telling skill with a life skills prescription for a Zomato delivery boy — an educated youth with a Masters in history who has been abandoned by his girl-friend for failing to get a better job. The prescription is delivered by way of advice to follow the 11 Rules prescribed by the author for the vast majority of educated under-employed youth like Viraj (a prototype of Bhagat’s core readers) to learn to “level up” and succeed. Quite pragmatically, Bhagat advises readers to disregard fanciful propaganda about our wonderful world suffused with democratic and egalitarian ideals in which governments and people are ever ready to lend youth such as Viraj, a leg up. According to the author, society, as shaped by post-independence India’s faux socialist-secularists, is pyramid shaped. At the apex of the pyramid, there’s Class I, the elite 1 percent who own 90 percent of the country’s wealth. No matter what they say, they are content with the status quo and want to retain it. The next segment comprises 9 percent “elite protectors, and slave minders” typically doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, the bourgeoisie struggling to make it into Class I. The wide base of the pyramid is inhabited by “drones, workers and slaves” comprising the lower middle and working classes. In the author’s perceptive analysis, each class has erected “iron gates” — rules, regulations and social norms and cultural mores — to make upward mobility from one class to the next near-impossible. “You are expected to remain in the area of your class mountain. Try to climb up and you will stumble against the iron gates,” says Bhagat, who as he often reminds us has successfully stormed the iron gate and made it into Class I with the New York Times proclaiming him as the “the biggest…
Yogi Kochhar is the Dharamshala-based former Director of Microsoft India and currently founder of YOL Happiness Foundation and a happiness savant and evangelist. Excerpts from an interview. Congratulations for your appointment as a director on the board of the World Happiness Foundation (WHF, estb.2022). What are the aims and objectives of the foundation? We work in partnership with the United Nations, institutions, organisations, community leaders and individuals to attain the target of 10 billion free, conscious and happy people worldwide by 2050. It’s an honour to be on the WHF board of globally respected eminences such as marketing guru Prof. Philip Kotler, Dr. Satinder Rekhi, Dr. Saamdu Chetri and social entrepreneur Luis Gallardo to name a few. We are aligned with all 17 SDGs of the United Nations. An economics and marketing alum of Punjab University and the American Global University, Florida, you began your career as a tea planter and later rose to the position of Director of Microsoft India. What were the major factors that prompted you to exit industry and promote the YOL Happiness Foundation (www.yol.one) in India? My epiphany moment came when I was in Maui, Hawaii, on vacation where I met and was inspired by Harold Bloomfield, the celebrated author of books on happiness that have sold over 12 million copies worldwide. After meeting Harold, I became aware that excessive industrialisation, economic growth and wealth accumulation have destroyed the Earth’s forests and precipitated climate change. Ironically last year, 1,210 private jets streaming carbon dioxide landed for the annual World Economic Forum fiesta in Davos, to discuss the co-relation between climate change and global poverty. To arrest climate change, we need to decarbonize the minds of people. Primitive capital and goods accumulation happens because our minds seek to placate the dope or dopamine rush that nudges us to buy more. The YOL Happiness Foundation has been promoted to educate people to limit wants and optimise their lives by pursuing happiness instead of wealth accumulation. How satisfied are you with the progress of the YOL Happiness Foundation in India? We have designed a blueprint for establishing Happiness Cities in the US and Europe. We have also designed a Happiness blueprint that can be adopted by states in India. Currently, India is building hundreds of Smart cities lacking soul and heart. An interesting proposition advanced by YOL Foundation is that third world countries, India included, are experiencing a “second colonization” by Western countries. Except that this time, it’s western social media mega corporations who are invading and stealing the minds of our children and youth by stuffing them with trivia. Please elaborate. Indian youth expend an average six hours per day on social media watching video reels featuring trivia that is ambiguous, random and meaningless, devoid of any context or contiguity irrespective of whether they bring their phone with them to school or not. Neither parents, teachers or youth are aware of this danger, therefore it is our responsibility to make them aware. Today, education is a mere…
-Dilip Thakore (Bengaluru) Shriyans Bhandari, director of the CBSE and Cambridge (UK)-affiliated K-12 Heritage Girls School, Udaipur (HGS, estb.2014), has invested his several extra-curricular passions and noteworthy achievements in ornithology, photography (A Photographic Guide to Some Common Birds of Aravallis (2013)) and athletics into the curriculum of his relatively new boutique boarding school, with excellent outcomes. In the EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) 2023-24, HGS is ranked India #6 and #3 in Rajasthan in the girls boarding schools category with high scores under the parameters of leadership, infrastructure and community service. Newspeg. On the tenth anniversary of HGS, Bhandari signed student and faculty exchange programmes with the inter-cultural programme of the American Field Service (AFS) and Groton School, Massachusetts (USA) to add an international dimension to the holistic education of this exclusive boarding school which has capped admissions at 200 girls mentored by 40 well-qualified teachers. History. An alum of the vintage, blue-chip Mayo College, Ajmer, and a business management graduate of Jai Hind College, Mumbai and the top-ranked Babson College, Massachusetts, ab initio, Bhandari entertained a deep desire to take HGS — promoted by his entrepreneurial grand parents the late Jaswant Singh and Sudha Bhandari — to the next level. Currently, HGS provides its 200 girl boarders over 15 co-curricular education options and opportunity to play a wide range of games and sports including rifle shooting, karate, yoga and basketball on its scenic 12.5-acre green campus offering spectacular vistas of Lake Bagela. Direct talk. “At Mayo College and thanks to my indulgent parents, I was given sufficient time and opportunity to follow and develop co-curricular and sports interests which enriched my education experience. Therefore, I have encouraged the management and teachers in HGS to not only provide excellent academic learning but also every opportunity to our children to develop their co and extra-curricular talents. Moreover, one of the striking features which impresses all visitors to HGS is our visibly happy and fulfilled girl children learning in a uniquely environment-friendly environment,” says Bhandari. As HGS’ high scores in EWISR 2023-24 indicate, community service is an important co-curricular for this progressive school. GreenSole, an initiative conceptualised by Bhandari and former marathon athlete Ramesh Dhami in 2015 and adopted by HGS, has won wide acclaim. Under this project, discarded shoes and sneakers are collected by students for repair, recycling and conversion into new useable footwear which is distributed to disadvantaged children in rural areas. Since the project was initiated, through the use of sophisticated technologies for curing leather and canvas, 700,000 pairs of torn and discarded shoes have been converted into good quality, reusable footwear for children in Rajasthan and beyond. Future plans. Encouraged by enthusiastic public response to HGS, Bhandari has drawn up a careful expansion plan. “Over the next few years because of intense pressure for admissions, we intend to double our capacity. Simultaneously, we have finalised a blueprint to establish an all-boys boarding school in Udaipur modeled on HGS. We believe Udaipur has the potential to emerge as an…
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Balu Ramachandran is founder-promoter of the Bengaluru-based Omnicuris Academy Pvt. Ltd (OCA, estb. 2023), an online edtech platform providing a wide range of programmes to medical practitioners to contemporise their knowledge and upskill their practice of healing sciences. Within one year since OCA’s promotion, 2,200 medical practitioners countrywide have signed up for one or more of OCA’s 100-plus upskilling programmes of 1-12 months duration. The academic content is delivered online with practical clinical training provided in association with top hospitals. Price range: Rs.5,000-30 lakh. Newspeg. Last December, OCA launched postgraduate diploma and degree programs of the UK-based Queen Mary, Buckingham and South Wales universities. Under this initiative, academic content will be provided online by the British universities with internship and practical training in Indian hospitals supervised and certified by OCA. Moreover last month, the academy introduced a hybrid course that enables MBBS doctors to acquire fellowships in a range of specialities offered by Royal College (UK) examinations. Under the programme, OCA has partnered with the Kerala-based StudyMedic Academy to prepare MBBS graduates for these additional qualifications. History. An engineering and business management alum of CUSAT (Cochin University of Science & Technology) and the top-ranked ISB (Indian School of Business), Hyderabad, Ramachandran acquired over two decades of business management experience in several blue-chip companies including Tech Mahindra, Nokia Siemens, Cleartrip, and Simpl, a fintech company, before he decided to go solo and promote OCA last year. Within 12 months, the company has clocked topline sales of Rs.13 crore and employs over 100 people including 60 consulting faculty. Direct talk. “In the new age of the Internet and ICT (information communication technology), engineering, business management, law and arts professionals have access to a wide range of online learning and upskilling programmes. I discerned a lack of similar opportunities for the crucially important medical profession. Modern medicine and practice is a fast-evolving profession which requires doctors to keep abreast of latest developments in this critically important life-and-death vocation,” says Ramachandran. Future plans. Encouraged by enthusiastic response of the medical practitioners’ fraternity to OCA’s upskilling courses, Ramachandran is drawing up ambitious plans to augment and diversify the courses offered by the company. “With online teaching-learning becoming increasingly accessible and reliable, we intend to introduce a number of long-term (12-24 month) courses to enable doctors easy access to the best medical education and practices worldwide. India’s 1.4 billion citizens are served by a mere 2.2 million qualified doctors obliged to work long hours. OCA’s upskilling programmes delivered in collaboration with the world’s best medical universities and medical institutions will enable doctors to learn at their own pace and convenience and enhance their skills for the benefit of their patients. I envisage a huge opportunity for OCA to work not only in India, but also enable doctors globally,” says Ramachandran. When physicians upskill, none will complain.
-Summiya Yasmeen (Bengaluru) Claudio Maffioletti is the Mumbai-based CEO and Secretary General of the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IICCI, estb.1966), an association of 750 companies and professionals promoting trade and economic collaboration between India and Italy. Newspeg. Maffioletti was in Bengaluru on March 28 to inaugurate IICCI’s southern region office in the garden city. IICCI has a network of five offices across India with 30 employees. Among IICCI’s flagship projects is Minerva — The Italian Education Hub — an initiative to enable cooperation and collaboration between Italy’s top-ranked universities, vocational training institutes and education institutions in India. And also to facilitate the admission of Indian students into Italian higher education institutions (HEIs). Currently, Minerva represents seven Italian HEIs including Humanitas University (medicine, Milan); Milano Fashion Institute (Milan); Accademia Costume e Moda (Rome and Milan), and ALMA — The International School of Italian Cuisine (Parma). Currently, 1,000 Indian students are enrolled in Italian HEIs. “In 2018, then Italian prime minister H.E. Giuseppe Conte signed several agreements with prime minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Among them was the establishment of Minerva by IICCI under patronage of the Italian Embassy in Delhi. Minerva’s prime objective is to promote Italian HEIs in India and support them to provide higher education and vocational training to Indian students. I am pleased to report that since then, we have facilitated the admission of over 100 Indian students into Italian universities and enabled several Italian HEIs to sign partnership agreements with Indian universities,” says Maffioletti. History. A philosophy and business management graduate of Parma University (Italy) and City University, London, Maffioletti began his career in 2003 at Institut de France, Loire Valley as project manager followed by a three-year (2004-07) stint in Italy’s highly regarded think tank, Institute for International Political Studies, Milan. In 2007, Maffioletti was appointed general manager of IICCI, Mumbai and promoted to CEO and Secretary-General in 2015. Since then, the membership of IICCI has grown to 750, and Indo-Italian trade to €15 billion (Rs.1.3 lakh crore). Direct talk. “India and Italy are both ancient civilizations with numerous commonalities. Through the Minerva project, we want to promote education ties between our two countries. Italy hosts several ancient universities with excellent global reputation for fashion design, hospitality and tourism, architecture and medical education with a growing number offering English language study programmes. Italian HEIs also offer excellent vocational training and skill development programmes in manufacturing and agriculture. Moreover in Italy, we have a long tradition of artisanal apprenticeships which would greatly benefit Indian students in vocational education,” says Maffioletti. Future plans. Maffioletti is excited about bourgeoning trade and education ties with India with vocational education and skilling being a special focus area. “With skills training for the manufacturing sector being accorded high importance in India currently, we believe there’s great opportunity for Indian students to avail excellent training and hands-on industry experience in Italy. We are also looking into the possibility of starting dual degree programmes with Indian HEIs, and under NEP 2020, an…
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Gurugram-based entrepreneur Nirmal Singh is co-founder-CEO of Wheebox (estb.2011), a subsidiary of the US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) — a global provider of AI-integrated proctored online assessment services to measure the competencies and skills of shortlisted job applicants for industry and business enterprises. Over the past 13 years, Wheebox with its unique subscriptions-based business model, has signed up 500-plus private and public corporations in India and the Middle East as clients. Wheebox also offers remote proctoring services to K-12 schools and higher education institutions to conduct fair examinations. The firm’s Global Employability Test (GET) is designed to assess college graduates’ readiness for employment while a clutch of standardised recruitment tests including the Baro Career Interest Test, Leadership Competency Index, SALT 4 and MAP 9PF among others assess and certify job applicants for large and mid-size companies. Newspeg. Last September, Wheebox was acquired by ETS based in Princeton, New Jersey (USA). ETS bills itself as the world’s largest not-for-profit assessments company operational in 180 countries. Among its proprietorial tests: TOEFL, GRE, TOEIC and Praxis. History. A science alum of Mumbai University, Singh started his career in sales and marketing at NIIT Ltd in 1998. After 13 years of work experience in several companies, he quit corporate life in 2011 and together with his UK-based school mate Pawan Kumar, raised several rounds of funding from Lumis Partners, PeopleStrong and Multiples Alternate Asset Management Fund to promote Wheebox (Web and Hybrid Electronic Examinations Box). Direct talk. “Over the past two decades, skills evaluation has undergone a sea change from assessing only hard to soft skills as well. Globally, employers have awoken to the huge importance of life skills such as communication, social adaptability and learning agility. We have been in the vanguard of this shift towards evaluating soft as well as hard skills in India. Our popular National Employability Test, recently renamed the Global Employability Test, conducted for 1.2 million Indian graduates prior to entering the jobs market, assesses communication, problem solving, logical thinking, and a host of other soft and hard skills,” says Singh. “To raise awareness among job seekers, education institutions, industry associations, employers and policy makers about the specific skill requirements across industry sectors and provide a data-driven analysis of India’s workforce, we also publish an annual India Skills Report in collaboration with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Association of Indian Universities (AIU), PeopleStrong HR, Taggd, Google, State Skill Development missions, and Sector Skill Councils,” he adds. Future plans. Following its recent acquisition by ETS, Wheebox plans to enter the US recruitment market to enable large and medium-scale enterprise customers to acquire high quality talent. “We also plan to partner with higher education institutions and edtech companies to deliver remote proctoring services and introduce our standardised tests — Compass 8PF, Insight 360 (aptitude test) — in the US market,” says Singh. Testing times ahead! Also read: Boost exam scores with practice testing
Indifference to the dawn of the AI age is a disservice to children. It is incumbent upon school managements to ensure learners are equipped with skill sets to navitage the new AI-powered world As rapid growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to reshape industries worldwide, it’s also transforming education. The dramatic emergence of three distinct categories of AI — Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) — is set to make a significant impact on the future of school curricula and the way students prepare for careers. A noteworthy example of this transformation is underway in Kerala, where 80,000 school teachers are set to receive training to utilise AI in their classrooms. This initiative is expected to revolutionise the education scenario in the state, and emerge as a model for states countrywide. Goal-oriented Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) powers much of the technology we interact with daily — Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, and Google Translate. However while highly proficient in specific tasks, ANI has limited scope. It requires school managements to train students to manage such software. In several countries, schools are already integrating ANI-powered teaching assistants and personalised learning platforms to enhance the educational experience of students. Tools such as Alexa for Education and Google’s AI-powered grading systems are discharging routine tasks such as providing information and personalised learning paths in classrooms, allowing teachers to provide individual attention to every learner. A government school in Kerala has recently introduced Alexa in the classroom for minor instructional purposes. Iris, India’s first AI-generated saree-clad school teacher robot, has also been unveiled in a school in the state. Some private sector schools in other states also have robot assistants for teachers. The next level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is where the true revolution in education is imminent. AGI utilises the power of computers to plan, reason, assimilate abstract ideas and provide alternative solutions. AGI integrates human cognitive capabilities in software, enabling AGI powered programs to find solutions to unfamiliar tasks such as data analysis. Once we reach the AGI stage, education will need to shift towards cultivating the critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability of students, as these skills will become essential for them to utilise AGI-powered programs. A prominent example of AGI is Sophia, an advanced human-like robot which can recognize faces, maintain eye contact, engage in conversation, use facial expressions, gestures and speech to communicate. Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) is at the pinnacle of AI development, when computers are invested with intellectual capacity greater than of average human beings. Integrating ASI in healthcare, finance, and communication industries will drastically alter the jobs market. Schools must prepare students with learning that complements and harnesses the capabilities of ASI — data analysis, AI programming, and ethical AI development are good examples. Many contemporary tech visionaries including Elon Musk, Frank Wilczek, and the late Stephen Hawking, have expressed misgivings about ASI. Hawking and Wilczek have argued that the short-term impact of ASI depends on who controls it, while the…
-Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) Tanmay Mondal is trustee of Kolotan (‘song of birds’), a North 24 Parganas-based trust which runs an English/Bengali-medium nursery-class V low-fees private school for 81 first generation learners, including 25 girl children from poor households. Promoted in 2018 by a group of young education enthusiasts — Tapas Mondal (president), Sujoy Sarkar (secretary), Tanmay Mondal (trustee), Sairul Molla (trustee), Pratick Das (trustee) and Bivas Mondal (trustee) — Kolotan also conducts environment awareness and skill development programmes for youth in the under-developed Santhospur-Mirhati village, 31.5 km from Kolkata. Newspeg. Kolotan is all set to add an upper primary school from the new academic year beginning June and affiliate the school with the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. History. Dismayed with the rote-centric, poor quality school education provided in rural government schools in 2018, this group of six university graduates promoted a primary school with 32 students and 11 teachers in two rented apartments in Santhospur-Mirhati with an initial donation of Rs.5 lakh from Tapas Mondal. “The primary objective of Kolotan is to provide interactive, experiential school education based on the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore and Maria Montessori in rural Bengal. Simultaneously, we intend to spread environmental awareness, preserve indigenous culture, and conduct employment-oriented skill development programmes,” says Tanmay, a political science and education graduate of West Bengal State University and West Bengal University of Teachers’ Training, Education Planning and Administration. Direct talk. According to Tanmay, the distinguishing feature of Kolotan is that all teaching-learning is experiential and activity-based. “The curriculum, based on the National Curriculum Framework for School Education and adapted to include local history, art and traditions, is delivered by teachers through music, painting, sculpture, dance, and theatre media. Children are encouraged to learn by doing, ask questions and are assessed informally. Our objective is to nurture self-learners with independent thinking and problem solving skills,” says Tanmay. The trust (annual budget: Rs.23 lakh) incurs an expense of Rs.2,200 per student per month with parents paying Rs.500 as tuition fees in addition to an admission fee of Rs.7,000. “We are aware that even a Rs.500 tuition fee is difficult for parents in this desperately backward and poor area. But we believe every parent should pay towards their children’s education, according to their capability. Parents incapable of paying fees, contribute artisanal skills to Sumangali, the handicrafts and artisans emancipation project of Kolotan,” says Tanmay. Future plans. With parental demand for admission rising, Kolotan is looking to adding labs facilities and additional classes. “A local farmer has donated 3,600 sq. ft of land to the trust. Soon we will launch a donation drive to raise funds to construct a building using locally-sourced natural material. We are fortunate to have a team of deeply committed founders, patrons and teachers who share a commitment to provide rural children high-quality education and equip them with the skills and capabilities to establish small-scale food processing units to improve farm productivity. That’s the formula for increasing the prosperity of rural India,” says Tanmay.
Spread over three days, this unprecedented retreat convened in the Himalayan foothills attracted 70 promoters, trustees, and principals of K-12 schools from 16 states across the country – writes Summiya Yasmeen he inaugural Education Leadership Retreat (ELR) 2024, organised by EducationWorld and the Boarding Schools’ Association of India (BSAI) convened at the top-ranked Pinegrove School, Dharampur (Himachal Pradesh), concluded on May 11. Spread over three days (May 9-11), the fully-residential retreat attracted 70 promoters, trustees and principals of K-12 schools from 16 states across the country. This unprecedented initiative was an outstanding success with all delegates demanding follow-up leadership workshops. Because of pressing demand, two more retreats/workshops are scheduled for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025 — in Varanasi (December) and Udaipur (March). The objective of the retreat driven by the theme ‘Empowering Changemakers & Transformative Leaders’ featuring Masterclasses and panel discussions conducted by proven primary-secondary education leaders supported by yoga and mindfulness sessions in the scenic Himalayan foothills, was to provide a learning forum for delegates to upgrade their leadership skills. “For the country to attain the ambitious goals of Viksit Bharat and $30 trillion GDP economy by 2047 set by Prime Minister Modi, our children and youth have to be well-educated and trained to become competent and capable leaders within the next 23 years. And the responsibility of nurturing and developing tomorrow’s leaders in all walks of life has devolved upon today’s education leaders. Therefore, it’s very important for education leaders themselves to learn continuously and upgrade leadership and mentoring skills to develop their students into knowledgeable school-leavers ready to assume leadership roles in business, industry, politics and society. The EW-BSAI Education Leadership Retreat 2024 has been conceptualised to provide such a forum for school leaders to share and exchange best practices and level up their leadership skills,” said Dilip Thakore, Publisher/Editor of EducationWorld, in a message to delegates. Ideated and designed by Bhavin Shah, CEO, EducationWorld, and BSAI President Dr. Sumer Singh, the three-day ELR 2024 was carefully curated for school leaders to deliberate the most pressing issues confronting primary-secondary education and develop leadership skills to confront and manage them. “From teacher development to crisis management and cultivating global citizenship in schools, the Masterclasses have been designed to ensure that delegates learn, upskill and return to their institutions with valuable, practical strategies to develop their schools into globally benchmarked K-12 institutions,” said Shah, welcoming delegates to the inaugural ELR 2024, convened on the scenic twin campuses of Pinegrove School in Himachal Pradesh. “The Masterclasses were led by three principals with outstanding leadership capabilities and the other two by former government policy formulators with wide experience in India and abroad. This three-day retreat provides an ideal forum for school leaders to learn from knowledgeable practitioners and to network with peers to share experiences and best practices,” said BSAI president Dr. Sumer Singh, also former headmaster of the top-ranked The Daly College, Indore and Lawrence School, Sanawar, in his welcome address. Edunext Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Noida and BenQ…
Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) An AM Naik School, Powai, Mumbai (estb.2022) team — comprising class IX students Vedanshi Mehta, Aarav Mohanraj and Arushi Ganguly — was declared National Winner of the Vivo Ignite Science & Innovation Ver. 2.0 competition for innovating prototypes of green, energy-efficient, economical and safe Smart Street devices. The finale was staged in New Delhi on February 10. An eminent jury awarded a purse of Rs.7 lakh and a glittering trophy to the team. The Vivo Ignite Awards, a CSR initiative of Vivo India, is open to classes VIII-XII students countrywide. NCERT and iHub DivyaSampark — IIT- Roorkee are its knowledge partners. This year, Vivo Ignite attracted 19,000 entries and 4,000 project proposals. Conducted over three rounds, the competition required participants to ideate and design innovative green energy projects for positive social impact. Challenged by atmospheric pollution and rising road accidents in Mumbai, this team of 14-year-olds presented three devices — an eco-friendly streetlight shade made with stubble and dried leaves; a hydraulic portal to transport pedestrians safely across traffic-choked urban roads, and an air purifier based on Direct Air Capture technology. “We also presented waterproof touch sensors to be placed on the edge of pavements to alarm distracted pedestrians on their mobile phones that they are at risk of being injured by passing motor cars. In addition, we proposed piezoelectric material for use in pavements in the form of tiles, to convert mechanical energy generated by people walking on them into electrical energy for powering streetlights,” says Vedanshi, a medical science enthusiast. These young wizzes are beholden to their teachers — Manju Narin, Deepali Kulkarni and robotics teacher Yatin Kulkarni. “We intend to upgrade and perhaps commercialise these products with the aid and advice of A.M. Naik Sir, our school’s founder and former chairman of Larsen & Toubro,” says Aarav, a sentiment echoed by team members Vedanshi and Aarushi. “We are already in touch with him,” says team leader Vedanshi. Wind in your sails!
Autar Nehru (Delhi) Revolted by stinking storm water drains choked with garbage in Jammu’s Nanak Nagar neighbourhood, Karman Singh, a class X student of the city’s top-ranked Jodhamal Public School (JPS), has designed a Smart Dustbin solution. Last November, Karman was awarded a British patent for his revolutionary invention. The Smart Dustbin combines radio technology with an IoT-integrated waste management system to track the status of dustbins citywide, checking their capacity utilization levels. An alert alarm ensures timely waste collection by municipal workers which prevents spillover and refuse choking drains. The elder child of veterinary surgeon mother Dr. Pawandeep Kour, and father Dr. Parveen Singh, a computer science professor at the Government Degree College, Udhampur, a national awardee and patent holder himself, Karman is hugely inspired by his father. “I attribute my achievement to parental and school support. In particular, my father taught me all about smart technologies and helped me research and flesh out the Smart Dustbin idea,” acknowledges this young new age inventor. Karman is also thankful to encouraging and facilitative JPS teachers and the management which has established an innovation hub in the school. “My school made me feel very special by enabling me and publicizing my invention. Several JPS students have successfully innovated app-based solutions to social problems, some of which are recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), among other universities,” he adds. “Civic safety and cleanliness is the core purpose of my Smart Dustbin. I hope it will be commercialised soon and also adopted by the PM’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan,” says Karman, who has plans to enroll in a computer engineering degree program after completing his Plus Two and make a career as a full-time inventor. Way to go! Also read: Jodhamal Public School student donates to PM Cares Fund from pocket money
Infosys-Ashoka MOU New Delhi, May 10. Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic and CSR arm of Infosys Technologies Ltd, announced an MoU with Ashoka University, Sonipat (Haryana) to augment scientific research at the university’s chemical biology lab. The foundation has committed a grant of Rs.27 crore for the upgradation of the laboratory into a world-class Advanced Chemical Biology Lab to enhance education and research opportunities for undergraduate students. “We are delighted to have Infosys Foundation join us in our mission to enhance science education at Ashoka University. This collaboration will equip our students and faculty with cutting-edge resources, empowering them to excel in research and sciences,” said Dr. Somak Raychaudhury, vice chancellor, Ashoka University, speaking on the occasion. Added Sumit Virmani, trustee of the Infosys Foundation: “Through this initiative, we envision a future in which chemistry and life sciences education will enable youngsters to realise their full potential in STEM-related fields.” Internshala–AICTE partnership New Delhi, May 27. Internshala (estb.2010), a Gurugram-based career-tech platform, and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Delhi, have renewed their strategic partnership to provide internship opportunities and enhancing skill development of graduate students. Under an MoU exchanged between Internshala and AICTE, the two organisations will cooperate to place students in internships that align with their academic interests and career aspirations. “Our goal is to enhance employability of millions of students nationwide, nurturing a workforce equipped to tackle the evolving demands of industry,” said Prof. T.G. Sitharam, chairman of AICTE, speaking on the occasion. Sarvesh Agrawal, founder-CEO of Internshala, expressed satisfaction with the Internshala-AICTE partnership. “This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to bridge the industry-academia gap and get 45 million college students countrywide career-ready by providing practical learning experiences to them,” he added. Studely scholarships Bengaluru, May 8. Studely, a French FinTech company specialising in supporting foreign students in France, announced the fourth edition of its Studely Scholarship Program for the academic year 2024-2025. This year the company will provide 30 scholarships, each valued at €1000 (Rs.91,000) under its Studely Scholarship program initiated in 2021 to support Indian students enrolled in higher education institutions in France to meet tuition and residential expenses. Thus far, the program has successfully assisted 90 international students with an aggregate of €90,000. Application forms for the scholarship can be accessed at https://www.studely.com/en/bourse/ and be submitted by midnight June 30, 2024. The scholarship will be disbursed in one installment directly into the student’s payment account opened in the student’s name after her arrival in French territory at the start of the academic year. The application and selection process for the scholarship is entirely digital. Successful applicants will be notified via email by September 30, 2024. “The scholarship program has been a great success for the past three editions. In Studely our aim has always been to provide students with support in their higher education journey abroad. With our expansion in India, we have identified an immense pool of talented students and we are eager to help them attain their academic and professional…
Haryana Ashoka students protest Sonipat, May 6. Students of Ashoka University (AU, estb.2014) — ranked among India’s Top 3 private multidisciplinary universities in the EW India Higher Education Rankings 2024-25 — have joined the global outcry against Israel’s war in Gaza. In a letter, they have urged Vice Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury to end all academic and research collaboration ties with Tel Aviv University. AU has research partnerships with Tel Aviv University, ongoing faculty and student exchanges, research collaboration, short-term and joint study programmes. “As the Israeli military’s brutality persists… students across universities are now actively calling on their institutions to boycott Israeli universities and exchange programmes, to have open dialogue about the war on Gaza. The spirit and the results of ongoing protests in universities in the form of encampments — embarked on by students of Columbia University — are live examples,” said the letter. Tamil Nadu IIT-M’s record fund raise Chennai, May 8. For the second year consecutively, the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras raised record funding aggregating Rs.513 crore from alumni, industry and individual donors in the financial year 2023-24. Sixteen alumni and 32 corporate partners donated Rs.1 crore and above. “The funds received will be used for technology research and development as well as for deploying technology already built by IIT-Madras, in various parts of the country based on societal needs. In addition, it will also support deserving students with scholarships as well as the Sports Excellence Admission programme. Steep academic growth needs steep rise in funding,” said V. Kamakoti, director, addressing a press conference. Tripura Vidyajyoti investigation Agartala, May 16. Chief Minister Manik Saha said he will convene a meeting with education ministry officials to investigate the poor performance of state-run Vidyajyoti Schools in CBSE’s class X and XII school-leaving board exams. In 2019, 125 state board-affiliated schools were renamed Vidyajyoti Schools and affiliated with the Delhi-based CBSE board to provide “better education” to students. This year, 61 percent of students cleared the CBSE class X examination while 59 percent cleared the class XII exam. “I will soon convene a meeting to check the reason behind the poor results. Everything will be sorted out,” said the chief minister, who also holds the education portfolio, addressing a media conference. Delhi Emmanuel’s new broom New Delhi, May 15. The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has mandated compulsory 50 hours’ training per year for all teachers of CISCE-affiliated schools. “Of the 50 hours, individual schools can arrange training for 25 hours with the remaining 25 hours conducted by the council,” said Joseph Emmanuel, recently appointed chief executive and secretary of the council, addressing a press conference. “CISCE will conduct the training in online and offline modes with teachers given the option to choose either. Teachers will be obliged to pay a nominal charge for attending the training on completion of which certificates will be awarded,” he added. Manipur De-recognised university Imphal, May 30. UGC has removed the private free-of-charge Sangai International University (SIU, estb.2015) from…
“At the very least, the result pricks the bubble of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authority. He made this election about himself: His performance, his omnipotence and omniscience, and his ideological obsessions. Modi is, for the moment, not the indomitable vehicle for History, or the deified personification of the people. Today, he is just another politician, cut to size by the people.” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former vice-chancellor of Ashoka University, on General Election 2024 results in which the BJP did not win a majority in its own right (Indian Express, June 4) “Voters have sent an unmistakable message that India is not going to become a saffronised fiefdom of the BJP. Communal hate speech has not won votes. Dissent and media criticism, muzzled n the last five years, will no longer be easily tamed. It is a victory for all fundamental values of a democracy.” Swaminathan Aiyar, reputed economist and columnist, on General Election 2024 results (The Economic Times, June 4) “India’s swelling GDP and its new status as the world’s fifth largest economy have been closely tracked by soaring unemployment, which has risen from 3.2 percent to 7.6 percent since 2013. This contrast reflects the gulf between the benefits of Modi’s economics for the rich and poor.” Anastasia Piliavsky, senior lecturer, India Institute at King’s College London in an essay titled ‘Back to practical Hinduism’ (Times of India, June 4) “Indian democracy can now breathe easy. The core values of the Constitution, which came under severe stress in the past 10 years, now stand well-protected. The BJP’s politics of communal polarisation which looked invincible has been held in check… the verdict is for change. But the way to read the outcome of the 2024 elections is to see that change has come wearing the deceptive mask of continuity.” Sudheendra Kulkarni, aide to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (The Hindu, June 4)
Vidya Pandit (Lucknow) Medical education in Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous state (215 million) — is a mess. For one, the entire state covering an area of 243,286 sq. km is served by 72,757 registered medical (allopathic) practitioners, a ratio of 1:3800 doctor per 100,000 population cf. the proportion of 1:1,000 recommended by WHO (World Health Organisation). Moreover, these qualified medical practitioners are clustered in UP’s major cities — Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Gorakhpur. Citizens in the sprawling state’s hinterland are obliged to make do with the services of ayurvedic, unani and self-styled medical practitioners. On May 20, presumably to raise standards of the profession, the newly constituted National Medical Commission (NMC, estb.2020), which replaced the scandals-ridden Medical Council of India three years ago, imposed fines ranging from Rs.2-20 lakh for “irregularities” on several of UP’s 65 medical colleges. The irregularities included acts of commission and omission such as less than required faculty, inadequate equipment and poor infrastructure maintenance. According to academics in Lucknow, the fines have been imposed to prompt medical colleges to clean up their act even as the state’s BJP government is expanding the capacity of medical colleges statewide. This year total capacity in medical colleges which is currently 3,828 seats is scheduled to be increased by 1,300 seats in 35 government medical colleges (cf. 30 in private sector). The minimum number of seats a licensed medical college is obliged to provide is 100 (the most common number). Some large colleges offer more seats with the largest number of 250 provided by Rajshree Medical Research Institute, Bareilly; Mayo Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow; Rama Medical College and Research Centre, Hapur among others. The number of seats available in the show-piece All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Gorakhpur — chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s constituency — is 225. Although the popular belief is that private medical colleges cut corners and disregard rules, the highest penalty of Rs.20 lakh has been levied on the government-owned King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, widely regarded as one of the best countrywide. The medical college of Banaras Hindu University has been slapped with a Rs.12 lakh penalty. NMC has provided all errant colleges a time window of two months to set things right. According to monitors of higher education in Lucknow, rules-breaking and scams are rife in medical education in UP. “While inspecting medical colleges, I have come across the very same patients in attached hospitals of two medical colleges. Teaching faculty is also shuffled between colleges to show minimum numbers when inspectors arrive. Even when a college is granted full recognition, half of the faculty is made up of visiting lecturers — all violations of minimum numbers prescribed by NMC,” says Shugar Lal, retired superintendent of a Lucknow hospital, and member of the former MCI task forces despatched to evaluate colleges prior to their being granted permission to introduce new courses. According to Mridula Singh, director at the KNS Memorial Institute of Medical Sciences, Barabanki, a major problem of medical colleges in…
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) West Bengal’s multi-crore teacher recruitment scam which has marred the entire third term in office (which began in 2021) of chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ballooned into a major General Election 2024 issue. In General Election 2019, the resurgent BJP won an unprecedented 18 of West Bengal’s 42 seats in the Lok Sabha, Delhi. This time around, the BJP is confident of increasing its tally because of the prolonged stink created by the stymied teacher recruitment process in the state where teachers’ jobs — especially in government schools — are highly prized. The sheer scale of the teacher recruitment scam under Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has angered the electorate and judiciary as well. On April 21, the Calcutta high court nullified the appointment of 25,753 teachers recruited following a TET (teacher eligibility test) conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in 2016. TET 2016 was written by 2.3 million aspiring school teachers, of whom 25,753 were selected and appointed in 15,302 government and aided secondary and higher secondary schools. However, writ petitions were filed in Calcutta high court in which petitioners claimed that many candidates who received low grades were surreptitiously placed high on the merit list and some who submitted blank papers, were appointed. Although the Supreme Court granted an interim stay of the Calcutta high court’s sweeping judgement, it has provided temporary respite to the teachers appointed under TET 2016. The sword hanging over their heads has not been removed. While granting the interim stay on May 7, the SC bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, directed WBSSC to re-examine the TET 2016 answer-sheets and differentiate between teachers appointed on merit and non-meritorious candidates. This task has to be completed by end-July. Meanwhile the Calcutta high court’s cancellation of appointment of all teachers recruited under TET 2016 has triggered apprehension that teachers appointed after writing TET 2014 may suffer a similar fate following hearing of petitions alleging malpractices in TET 2014. A writ petition against TET 2014 is listed for hearing on June 12. If the petition is upheld, it could lead to cancellation of the recruitment of 42,000 candidates appointed primary school teachers. Cases alleging favouritism in compiling the final list of candidates who wrote this exam are pending in the Calcutta high court. In this connection, it’s pertinent to note that the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) was introduced by West Bengal’s CPM government in 1998 and conducted smoothly until 2010 when the CPM which ruled Bengal uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011) was routed by TMC in the legislative assembly election of 2011. However, after TMC was swept to power in West Bengal in 2011, hundreds of writ petitions alleging irregularities and corruption in the annual TET have flooded the Calcutta high court. Although 98,648 teachers and non-teaching staff have been recruited and appointed through TETs in the past 13 years — 28,322 in 2012, 18,793 in 2013, 42,000 in 2015 and 9,533 in…
Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) By several metrics, the southern state of Karnataka (pop.70 million) is India’s most educationally advanced. Bengaluru, the state’s admin capital, is widely regarded as the Silicon Valley of India for hosting a large number of new genre ICT (information communication technology) companies and huge back offices of IT multinationals including Google, Microsoft, Intel and Accenture. The garden city also hosts several top-ranked science and technology higher ed institutions including the Indian Institute of Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, IIM-Bangalore, National Law School of India University with Karnataka hosting 290 engineering colleges. Unsurprisingly, the state contributes 20 percent of India’s annual exports of ICT services valued at $58 billion. However, the quality of school-leavers entering the state’s vaunted higher education institutions (HEIs) is set to diminish because of continuous chaos and confusion in public K-12 education. In particular, under supervision of the one-year-old Congress government and education minister Madhu Bangarappa, K-12 education in the state is experiencing unprecedented chaos and confusion. In March, the Karnataka high court issued an order barring the state government from conducting ‘board exams’ for class V, VIII and IX students of 56,157 government and private schools affiliated with the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB). Subsequently on appeal, a two-judge bench of the high court directed KSEAB to conduct the exams without delay “in the interest of students”. On April 8, the Supreme Court restrained the state government from publishing results of the board exams on the ground that conduct of exams for children in elementary classes (I-VIII) violates the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which prohibits formal exams for primary/elementary school children. Simultaneously, another row erupted over conduct of the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) 2024, which determines undergrad admissions into 290 engineering colleges statewide. The KCET test papers, written by 3.34 lakh class XII students on April 18-19, included 50 questions which were beyond the syllabus prescribed for state board pre-university college (PUC) students. Following strident protests from faculty, students and parents’ associations, the state government issued a statement (April 28) saying that the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) has been directed not to evaluate students’ answers to the 50 out-of-syllabus questions. Even as the dust was settling down on this mess, on May 8, the Congress government issued a notification scrapping implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 formulated by the Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee after a hiatus of 34 years, and proposed formulation of its own State Education Policy under the chairmanship of Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). As a result, all undergrad colleges statewide which had introduced the four-year bachelor’s degree mandated by NEP 2020, reverted to the previous three-year degree programme. The outcome of swirling confusion in the state’s education sector manifested in the state’s class X SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) exam. Of the 8.59 lakh students who wrote the exam, a mere 54 percent (cf. 84 percent in 2023) passed.…
Autar Nehru (Delhi) The Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC) has greenlighted direct entry of graduates with four-year Bachelor (Hons) degrees into PhD programmes. On March 13, UGC gave formal approval to the UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of PhD Degree) Regulations, 2022, enabling graduates of four-year undergrad programmes (FYUP) introduced by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, to sign up for doctorate programmes. In effect, the commission has eliminated the necessity of FYUP undergrads completing the Masters programme prior to signing up for research-intensive PhD programmes. The objective of this relaxation is to “open up” opportunities for students to begin engaging with research and innovation at “very young age,” UGC chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar told news agency ANI (April 22) to attain a major mandate of NEP 2020 which is to strengthen the research ecosystem in Indian academia. “When we permit undergraduate students into PhD programs, you will have a lot of young people getting into research at a very young age, and they are really creative,” says Kumar. However, admission of FYUP grads into PhD programmes comes with several riders. First, direct admission into PhD programmes of universities is open only to students who complete the four-year honours undergrad bachelors degree programmes of undergrad colleges (NEP 2020 permits earlier exits with certification). Moreover, aspirants should average a minimum 75 percent or equivalent grading in the four-year honours programme. Subsequently, candidates are obliged to clear the UGC-NET exam conducted by NTA (National Testing Agency) biannually (June and December) to be awarded Junior Research Fellowships and/or become eligible for the position of assistant professor in licensed universities. Evidently, this initiative to prompt young graduates into research is driven by the common complaint that research and innovation is accorded inadequate importance by academia, government and industry. Countrywide, the allocation for research and development (R&D)aggregates a mere 1 percent of GDP cf.3.5 percent in the US, 4.8 percent in South Korea and 4-5 percent in OECD countries. Moreover, 66 percent of the annual national research outlay is expended by government in bureaucratic establishments such as the Soviet-inspired Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) which 82 years after it was established, has precious little to show for its efforts. India Inc’s R&D record is worse. It barely expends 0.50 percent of GDP on research and innovation and has earned an imitative, me-too reputation for reverse engineering and disrespect for patents and intellectual property worldwide (see edit p.16). In the circumstances, the relaxation of norms for young graduates to qualify for research grants and junior professorships is welcomed by some academics who believe that the abolition last year of the M.Phil program — a bridge course between the Masters degree and PhD — and now the Masters degree, are steps in the right direction. “Direct entry into PhD programmes is good for students with academic interests. But colleges need to prepare students for research and teaching by making the four-year undergrad programme more robust so that they develop the aptitude for research.…
One of the many reasons why self-proclaimed Viswaguru India is ranked #134 on the UNDP’s Human Development Index and #126 on the World Happiness Report, 2024 of Oxford University, and way down in the bottom rung of every other index, is that it is a nation without heroes. There is no shortage of domestic critics of even Mahatma Gandhi who wrested India’s freedom from almost two centuries of humiliating foreign rule. Today the Mahatma is remembered twice a year — October 2 (birth date) and January 31 (date of assassination). In 1984, Satyen (‘Sam’) Pitroda kickstarted the process of revolutionising India’s dilapidated and obsolete telecom system by establishing C-DoT (Centre for Development of Telematics). C-DoT devised a nationwide automatic switching system which spared citizens the time, money and frustration of having to book inter-city trunk calls through hassled operators. That invention sparked the start of India’s telecom revolution which has culminated in the multiplication of telephones in India from 5 million in 2001 to 1 billion currently. After that, Pitroda chaired the country’s first National Knowledge Commission. However, after the rout of the Congress party in the general elections of 2014 and 2019, this octogenarian returned to the US and was appointed chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress. In early May, Pitroda was sacked from this position. His transgression? In a media interview to elaborate India’s unity-in-diversity boast, he observed that the country comprises citizens of several ethnicities. “People in the East look Chinese, people in the West look like Arabs, people in the North like, maybe, white and people in the South look like Africans.” This innocuous observation sparked outrage back home in India. Especially the African simile. After several centuries of Central Asian and later British rule, and thanks to Bollywood cinema and foreign multinationals hawking skin-lightening creams, the population has swallowed the ‘white is beautiful’ myth hook, line and sinker. As a result, no Indian is comfortable in her own skin, a national inferiority complex. Although forced to ride off into the sunset, there’s no gainsaying that Pitroda — a rags-to-riches millionaire who has made outsize contribution to the Indian economy — is a national hero. Don’t hesitate to tell it like it is again, Sam. Also read: Can Sam Pitroda spark India’s overdue knowledge revolution
Despite political party leaders expressing loud intent from every rooftop to eliminate it, government corruption in the southern state of Karnataka is acquiring the momentum of a runaway train with the state set to emerge as the most venal countrywide. This gloomy prediction is prompted by the experience of a dedicated housekeeper with over three decades of faithful service in your correspondent’s family home. Her good fortune of having inherited a small land parcel in a village on the outskirts of Bengaluru — the country’s premier hub of new ICT (information communications technology) industry — has been substantially vitiated by the necessity of having to pay Rs.20,000 as bribes to several government officials to transfer the title to her name. Leftists and socialists who architectured post-independence India’s Kafkaesque bureaucracy and administrative system invariably dismiss such reports of fence consuming crop as anecdotal. Yet despite the previous BJP state government having suffered severe electoral damage after it was branded a ‘40 percent commission’ administration following an open revolt of the Karnataka Contractors’ Association (KCA), it’s business as usual under the new year-old Congress government. In a recent media release, KCA claimed that every payment clearance file has to “travel” across 40 government “tables”. Forced to pay large and small bribes, civic contractors are obliged to cut corners in project execution. Over half a century ago in his monumental three-volume Asian Drama, economics Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal warned government and society against ignoring the “folklore of corruption”. Left-liberals paid little heed while like the old man who refused to get off Sindbad the Sailor’s back after the latter helped him cross a swollen stream, India’s 20 million-strong neta-babu brotherhood is also unlikely to get off the country’s back, even as governments come and go. Also read: Karnataka: Mess & messier
Here’s an amazing story of socialist central planning with which the Congress party’s de facto chief Rahul Gandhi continues to be enamoured. West Bengal’s Ghatal constituency sited 120 km from Kolkata in the rain-fed catchment area between the Shilabati and Jhumi rivers has been suffering severe annual flooding for centuries. In 1959, a Ghatal Master Plan was presented to the Central government in Delhi to address this problem. In Delhi, the then all-powerful Soviet-style Planning Commission took 20 years to approve the plan. In 1982, the foundation stone of the project was laid with Rs.50 crore sanctioned for it by the commission on condition that 60 percent of the cost would be borne by the Centre and remainder by the state government. This project, whose cost has since risen to Rs.1,250 crore, is yet to get off the ground and remains the prime election issue in Ghatal. According to a report in Times of India (May 23), 64 years on since this project was first mooted, 1.7 million citizens in 12 blocks of the West and East Midnapore districts of the state are bracing for another round of flooding and home collapses as the south-west monsoon advances towards West Bengal. Coincidentally, the very same edition of ToI features a disturbing op-ed essay on the impact of half a century of central planning on rural India where 65 percent of the population suffers severe neglect. All right thinking citizens should ensure that socialism and its handmaiden central planning don’t make a backdoor re-entry into governance and administration. Also read: Rahul Gandhi accuses Modi government of crushing students’ dreams through recent paper leaks
Last month, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, an Indian-origin professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), was awarded the prestigious 2024 Shaw Prize in astronomy. Kulkarni is the latest from a long list of emigrant scientists, economists, authors and academics who have made notable and significant contribution to the creation, advancement and dissemination of new knowledge and perspectives for improvement of the condition of humankind. The contribution of our own scientists, economists and intellectuals has clearly been inadequate because 75 years after the country attained independence, India continues to be ranked among the poorest countries worldwide in per capita income, UNDP’s Human Development Index, Oxford University’s World Happiness Report and Ease of Doing Business Index. The only indices in which it is high ranked are corruption and the law’s delay. In particular, a striking non-achievement is that none of India’s 45,473 colleges and 1,167 universities — some of them of over 150 years vintage — have produced a unique sock-it-to-em invention in over seven decades since independence. All the world’s wonder products and inventions which have transformed human lives, livelihoods, cultures and mores — motor car, telephone, jet plane, the internet, cell phones, farm tractors, and chemical fertilisers etc — have been invented and commercialised abroad. The country’s estimated 1.5 million engineering graduates per year have not been able to invent a light-weight metal plough which would leapfrog farm productivity. Curiously, India’s millions of scientists and engineers have failed and/or neglected to invent even noteworthy kitchen appliances to lessen the back-breaking work of hundreds of millions of housewives and women. On the other hand in America, an automatic dishwasher was patented in 1850, Stephen Poplawski invented the mixer-blender in 1922 and William Cullen, the refrigerator in 1748. The prime cause of intellectual inertia and lack of originality in Indian society is rooted in rote learning which persists across the spectrum from pre-primary to higher education. A copy-paste and plagiaristic education system can never innovate products and services that will compel the world to beat a path to our doors. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 exhorts educators to develop dormant critical thinking, innovation and problem-solving skills of our children from early years. This necessitates a concerted, national drive to promote the learning of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects not merely to excel in examinations, but to apply learning to resolve common challenges and problems confronting society. This requires a societal mindset revolution that’s not visible as yet. Also read: Famous Indian scientists and their inventions
Welcome guard change Congratulations for publishing the comprehensive EW India Higher Education Rankings 2024-25 (EW May) ranking universities across a wide range of parameters of higher education excellence. I am also delighted to learn that your esteemed magazine has partnered with a new Bengaluru-based field research company led by a highly qualified woman professional to conduct the market research. I hope this change of guard will result in less predictability in the top-ranked schools league tables of the mammoth EW India School Rankings due later this year. Daya Singh Jaipur Ranking confirmation In your recently published EW India Higher Education Rankings 2024-25 (EW May), I was pleased to see that Amity University, Noida is ranked India’s #1 private multi-disciplinary university. My daughter, a graduate of Amity, confirms that she is more than satisfied with the curriculum, pedagogy, research focus, industry connect and placements of the university. Payal Jain New Delhi Silent minister The Karnataka education news story ‘Mess and messier’ (EW May) is disturbing to say the least. It is a shame that young students and parents were put through so much agony because some incompetent college lecturer decided to include out-of-syllabus questions in the all-important CET exam. It is the duty of Karnataka’s education minister, who mysteriously became incommunicado during the controversy, to urgently review the process of setting question papers for important competitive exams. Dhruva Gowda Mysuru Practise sustainable living In the Teacher-2-Teacher essay ‘Urgent! Integrate alt energy in K-12 education’ (EW May), Tanya Singhal has rightly highlighted the urgent need to introduce alternative energy generation as a core subject in school curricula. It’s important for all children to learn about — and promote and practise — sustainable living. In this era of escalating carbon footprint and devastating impact of climate change, integrating sustainability concepts into school curriculums is critical to catching ’em young. I totally agree with Singhal that hands-on projects and experiments can bring sustainable living concepts to life. Students should be encouraged to experience tangible benefits of sustainable living, inspiring them to adopt green solutions for the betterment of their communities and society. Chaitra V. Hyderabad Mandatory voting call Your editorial ‘Elections must reflect the will of all people’ (EW May) has drawn attention to the disturbing phenomenon that one-third of eligible voters don’t cast their vote. It is appalling that citizens are routinely ahead in queues for government freebies or discounted consumer products, but drag their feet when it’s time to exercise their franchise. It is also shameful that most of them are first time or working-class voters most likely to be impacted by government policies. We urgently need a law making voting mandatory for all adults without exception. Tanya Sharma via e-mail Friendly advice I am a regular reader of your magazine. Of all the sections on offer, the People and Young Achievers columns draw my interest most. However, the format in which they are presented is disappointing. I request you to consider reworking the format of these sections which sometimes end abruptly…
The prime cause of post-colonial India’s disappointing national development effort is continuous neglect of K-12 education. Seven decades after independence and a quarter century after this publication was launched with the mission to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”, I still can’t understand why post-independence India’s omniscient central planners and panoply of acclaimed economists and intellectuals didn’t/don’t exert heavy pressure on Central and state governments to accord top priority to public primary, if not secondary, education. It’s not rocket science that a nation hosting 300 million-plus adult illiterates whose number is augmented by millions of under-schooled, unemployable youth streaming into the workforce every year, cannot possibly prosper. Yet 75 years after independence when other formerly under-developed countries such as China, Indonesia, and South Korea have attained full literacy and developed nation status, 20 percent of India’s population is illiterate. Meanwhile, numerous solutions — including a calculus repeatedly presented by EducationWorld to mobilise Rs.8 lakh crore per year for investment in education (see https://www.educationworld.in/union-budget-2023-24-260-million-children-shortchanged-again/) — are greeted with deafening silence or indulgent condescension. Against this backdrop of continuous ignorance about the critical importance of human resource development, we present a summary of a well-researched new report published by LoEstro Advisors, a reputable Hyderabad-based education-focused investment banking and consultancy firm. The report titled State of K-12: Resilience Amidst Uncertainties paints an optimistic picture of the future of private school education, which the authors believe is leading the modernisation and internationalisation of K-12 education in India. The knee-jerk reaction of socialists and left-liberals who dominate the academy and media to reform initiatives flowing from private education is sceptical, if not hostile. According to them, private schools are ‘elitist’ and irrelevant for the overwhelming majority of India’s 260 million school-going children. For one, this common assumption is untrue. Almost half (48 percent) of the country’s in-school children are enrolled in private schools, and the other half would fly to private schools, if only they could afford the tuition fees. Therefore, the obligation of government and lefties alarmed by the bright future for private schools projected by the LoEstro report, is not to devise laws, rules and regulations to drag private K-12 institutions down to government school levels, but to make sincere, dedicated effort to raise teaching-learning standards and learning outcomes in public to private school levels. In this issue, we also present a report on the inaugural EducationWorld-BSAI Education Leadership Retreat 2024. This three-day workshop attended by 70 school leaders from across the country, is a creative response towards improving the leadership skills of school promoters, directors and principals.
With all campaigning for General Election 2024 by order of the Election Commission obliged to end today (May 30) and a new government set to be sworn in at the Centre by the time this issue of EducationWorld is accessible to readers, this is a good time to draw up an agenda for the new government after prolonged and acrimonious electioneering. The first priority of the new government should be to reach out to the opposition to let bygones be bygones and set about observing the written and unwritten rules of democratic governance. This requires government and opposition parties to agree to respect the rules of parliamentary decorum and permit orderly debate and engagement in both houses of Parliament. In recent years because of frequent ‘disruptions’ of Parliament, a large number of hastily drafted and inadequately debated laws, rules and regulations have been hurriedly enacted resulting in confusing and often contradictory legislation which slows down national business and has resulted in unnecessary litigation which has choked the legal system. Rising inflation and unemployment have emerged as the most hot-button issues of the recently concluded General Election 2024 campaign. Alarming data has emerged that the heaviest burden of pervasive and spreading unemployment is being borne by the country’s youth who, according to ILO data, constitute 80 percent of unemployed adults. The urgent solution to this phenomenon that is assuming dangerous proportions, is to sharply reduce barriers and impediments to the growth of the country’s estimated 63 million MSMEs (micro, small and medium sector enterprises) which employ 80 percent of the country’s industrial workforce. According to Teamlease, a Bengaluru-based employees assessment and placements firm, MSMEs are required to negotiate 1,536 Central and state government Acts and rules, 69,233 compliances and make 6,618 annual filings which drive up cost of doing business, impeding growth, expansion and recruitment. Preventive control and regulation of industry needs to be replaced with a system in which the onus is on businessmen to comply in which rules and regulations on pain of punitive action. The third urgent priority of the new government at the Centre should be to mend the country’s education system across the spectrum to ignite the minds of 1.4 billion citizens. This requires development of thinking and innovation skills to resolve long-standing socio-economic development issues that have slowed the nation development effort. The plain truth is contemporary India doesn’t have an unemployment as much as an unemployables problem with the education system annually churning out over 10 million nominally educated youth who add to the widening pool of unemployed. The root cause of this phenomenon is deep misalignment between the academy and industry operating in iron-walled silos. There’s an urgent need for industry leaders to serve on the curriculum-setting boards of schools, colleges and universities to ensure that school-leavers and graduates are equipped with sufficient academic learning and skill-sets required by India Inc. This is a necessary pre-condition of reducing unemployment and providing Indian industry the productivity leap it urgently needs. Also read: Modi Government…
A resounding lesson from marginalised poor
– Rajiv Desai, president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist As results pour in from General Election 2024, it’s clear that semi-literate, rabble rousing bigots cannot endlessly deceive a huge nation of diverse cultures and traditions. They should not be allowed to set the agenda based on dubious understanding of Hindu religion Amid the explosion of choice made possible by technology and business, a welcome development is the alignment of television, laptop, cell phone and entertainment. But such choice means little without content. Fortunately, content is blossoming with nostalgic programming on television in recent times. The fare available is comforting reinforcement of continuity: the idea that the past and present is a continuum. A click of the remote and one is transported back to the 1970s America of tight, patterned shirts, brick-coloured bell bottoms, platform shoes, long hair melded into droopy moustaches and mutton-chop sideburns. Though popular tastes of those polyester days were a bit trying for the eyes, there were some distinct oases in the desert that had overtaken popular taste. For example: savouring the elegance of Lindsay Wagner as The Bionic Woman; the familiar comfort of watching Jack Lord of Dr. No fame in Hawaii Five-O; the laugh riot Mash starring Alan Alda; and one of my all-time Peter Falk favourites, Columbo. It’s not just American television of the 1970s. On tap as well are channels that show black- and-white Hindi films of yore: Raj Kapoor cavorting with Nutan and dealing with Mrs. D’Sa, his landlady played by the formidable Lalita Pawar in Anari; Dilip Kumar in Naya Daur standing up to the soul deadening forces of modernity, and, evergreen hero Dev Anand romancing a lovely young Sadhana in Hum Dono. And also the wonder Hollywood films of yesteryear starring Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and a bunch of male heroes. What a treat! Realisation of this joy nevertheless requires fancy moves with the remote control device. Though I’m not a technophobe, struggling with various remotes while reading a book is a tough call. Luckily I don’t have to struggle much, thanks to an attentive granddaughter ready to leap to the rescue the minute she witnesses confusion. Amazing how pre-teens make it look so easy. As I look at her with gratitude, she anticipates my thank-you bleat with a smiley “You’re welcome, Grandpa.” Not to digress, the relationship between technology, choice and taste is a fascinating study. Also it’s especially heartwarming for those of us, who back in the day had warned about the focus on technology and lack of attention to content. I recall at a technology conclave in Pittsburgh, some of us warned that the sterile fascination with technology is akin to marvelling at the elegance of the physics concept of interchangeability of parts without considering the implications of gun culture with its wars and murders. It is not dissimilar to the warning against Prime Minister Modi and his saffron party’s preoccupation with “development.” The objection is not to expressways and factories but to the…