EducationWorld March 18

An alumna of Mumbai University and Xavier University, Cincinnati (USA), with professional certification from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, IIM-Ahmedabad and Project Management Institute, Pennsylvania (USA), Seema Saini is CEO and principal of the CISCE-affiliated N.L. Dalmia High School, Thane, Mumbai. Are you satisfied with the Union Budget 2018-19 allocation of Rs.85,010 crore for education? I’m far from satisfied. The percentage share of this year’s budget allocation for education has dropped compared to last year. This shows how little importance our government gives to investing in the country’s future. While there’s intent to improve public education in rural as well as urban areas in qualitative and quantitative terms, an action plan is missing. It would do the country a great deal of good if the government takes some intelligent measures to overhaul the public education system and contribute to building a stronger and skilled young India. What are your Top 5 suggestions for reforming K-12 education? Integrate technology with education. Technology has changed every aspect of people’s lives. Therefore, it’s imperative to adopt and adapt to new technologies to improve student learning outcomes. Develop children’s social and emotional skills. Social and emotional skills will help our children deal with the demands of a new globalised world — resolve conflicts, become collaborative, sensitive etc. Use pedagogies to raise curiosity quotient. Teaching-learning processes should adopt inter-disciplinary approaches to make learning relevant and immersive for children. Develop responsibility towards society. We need to equip our children with virtues to lead the change for a new equitable, progressive and sustainable society. Design discovery-based learning curriculums. Innovations emerge from exploratory and application-based learning.

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That Indian education is broken and in serious need of mending is incontrovertible. Since 2005, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), published by the inestimable Mumbai/Delhi-based Pratham Education Foundation, has been warning that although access to primary education in rural India, which grudgingly hosts over 60 percent of India’s population, is improving, learning outcomes are falling. ASER 2017 released in Delhi in January, reports the sad plight of a representative sample of 14-18-year-old youth. Twenty-five percent cannot read basic texts fluently in their vernacular languages, a mere 5.3 percent have signed up for vocational education programmes, 31 percent are working on small family farms and the rest have migrated to the country’s over-crowded, crumbling cities in pursuit of casual and/or low-end jobs.  The secondary education scenario is similarly bleak. In 2010, a representative sample of 15-year-olds from Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, reportedly the country’s better educated states, were selected to write PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The Indian batch was ranked #173 of students from 174 countries who wrote the exam that year. Since then, India has withdrawn from PISA, written every three years. If foundational pre-primary, primary and secondary education is weak, obviously higher education standards can’t be good either. And sure enough, none of India’s 800 universities — some of them of over 150 years vintage — is ranked in the Top 200 World University Rankings league tables published annually by the highly respected institutional rating agencies QS and Times Higher Education. The unkindest cut? Neighbouring China has six in the Top 100 QS league table and seven in THE Top 200.   To ascertain the causes and effects of this alarming situation, after the disappointing Union Budget 2018-19 presented to Parliament and the people on February 1 made a paltry provision of Rs.85,010 crore (0.45 percent of GDP) for educating the world’s largest child and youth population (670 million), EducationWorld reached out to over 50 of the country’s most respected school principals and vice chancellors soliciting their opinions for mending the country’s broken education system. Regrettably, of the dozen plus leaders of higher education institutions, a mere four made the time and minimal effort required to respond, suggesting that vice chancellors are too immersed in the minutiae of administration to look at the big picture. However, of the 50 school principals contacted, 36 responded, a sufficiently large number to enable our indefatigable managing editor Summiya Yasmeen to write this month’s unprecedented cover story.  There’s much more in this Spring mega issue of EW. Check out our Budget 2018-19 Focus special report. It’s a response to politicians’ usual bleat of paucity of resources for human capital development. I advise all right-thinking citizens to mindfully read and generate a national debate on these vitally important issues. For the sake of our children and theirs. Education is too important to be left to the neta-babu brotherhood. 

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Driven by populist politics rather than rational economics, the 1969 decision of then prime minister Indira Gandhi to nationalise the country’s 28 major private sector banks which were joint stock companies with substantial shareholding of the public, and managed by some of the most reputed business houses of the subcontinent, including Tata, Birla and Lalbhai, among others, was a good political but bad economic idea. It helped her to prevail over the Syndicate — the conservative wing of the Congress party — and triumph in the General Election of 1971. But economically, it was a disaster because the country’s major banks with wide public shareholding, in effect, became the private banks of the country’s amoral politicians, and the Congress party.  Nemesis was not long in coming. Within two years, rampant loot of the banks by way of loan melas in which assets of the newly nationalised banks were looted and disbursed among Congress party officials and workers, prompted the country’s highly respected Gandhian leader Jaiprakash Narayan (JP) to come out of political hibernation and launch a nationwide anti-corruption campaign against Mrs. Gandhi and the Congress party.  By then, the worst apprehensions of bank nationalisation critics had been realised. A mere phone call from the prime minister or cabinet minister’s office was enough for careerist bank managers to advance large and small loans to nominees. Consequently when OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) imposed an embargo on oil supply to the United States in 1973 and crude oil prices doubled overnight, the Indian economy was in no shape to confront it and inflation soared out of control, depleting public sector banks (PSBs) which had to be repeatedly recapitalised.  With public agitation led by JP snowballing and an Allahabad high court judgement in an electoral malpractice case going against her, in 1975 Mrs. Gandhi declared India’s first — and as yet only — internal Emergency. JP and over 100 opposition leaders were arrested and jailed, and heavy censorship was imposed on the press.  The subsequent history of post-Emergency India is well-known and does not bear repetition. However the moot point is that PSBs were untouched by the slew of reforms following the historic liberalisation and deregulation of industry and business in 1992. That’s because PSBs had become an invaluable resource for politicians of all parties who infiltrated cronies and kith and kin ready and willing to do their bidding, into top decision making positions. Therefore, the hundreds of banking scandals in which crony capitalists squandered unmerited loans disbursed by PSBs.  The solution is self-evident. The country’s PSBs should be de-nationalised. The public interest will be far better served if PSB shares are held by thousands of shareholders rather than a single owner, i.e, the Union government.   

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A flirtatious wink made a young actress of Malayalam cinema a social media darling and a hate object of self-appointed guardians of Muslim culture within 24 hours. A few days earlier, the annual phenomenon of envious youth harassing and/or assaulting young couples played out on Valentine’s Day. These incidents have once again focused — or should have focused — the attention of right-thinking people on the issue of social restrictions being imposed on young citizens by a deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset which is alive, and indeed enjoying a new lease of life under the benign watch of BJP governments at the Centre and 19 states.  Continuous denial of the elementary freedoms of inter-gender socialisation has sprouted poisonous fruit. Widespread ignorance of gender equality norms and exoticisation of women, has resulted in an explosion of sex crimes across the country. Molestation and harassment of women citizens and foreign visitors by socially illiterate and sexually repressed males has become a national embarrassment. According to records of the National Crimes Bureau, the incidence of kidnapping and trafficking of women has risen sharply and a rape outrage is committed every 20-30 minutes countrywide. Worse, the incidence of child abuse has shown a sharp rise in recent times.  The proximate cause of runaway sex and gender crimes in recent years is undoubtedly the dawn of the Internet age, which has made the most perverse pornography available at the click of a computer mouse. Shockingly, the US Supreme Court has held that the right to broadcast pornography is part and parcel of the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. This ruling has been seized by ugly American capitalism to flood the digital airwaves with perverse pornography which has unbalanced minds around the world, particularly in third world countries where illiteracy is widespread. For mysterious reasons the government of India refuses to block streaming of pornography into India despite this publication’s repeated demand.  Nevertheless, the root cause is the control-and-command mindset of the older generation which under the cover of religion and culture, economically blackmails and denies the country’s youth elementary freedoms of inter-gender socialisation. Regrettably the great majority of the country’s shallow teachers and educators share this regressive mindset, presumably because they were denied free socialisation in their youth. Unfortunately as Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, professor in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences), Bangalore, has trenchantly observed, the downside of the much trumpeted glorious Indian culture is control-and-command households in which patriarchs and parents have little love and less respect for the personhood of children and youth. Changed attitudes conceding socialisation freedoms of children and youth is a necessary precondition for abating the rising wave of sex and gender crimes in contemporary India.

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Kudos to you for your cover story on fees regulation fever and the challenges confronting private schools in India (EW February). You aptly observe that these hapless institutions are unimpressed with the appeals mechanism of the Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017, because they “dread the prospect of incremental interaction with the country’s bureaucracy globally infamous for its red tape and venality”.  The stage has indeed been set for determining if Indian education will emerge victorious in its war against not mere official indifference but sheer systemic obstructionism, the objective of which is to extort speed money and bribes. Neelabh Choksi Ahmedabad   Wrong answer I agree with your views in ‘Fees regulation fever: End of the road for India’s top private schools?’ (EW February) that it’s irrational for the Gujarat government to decide on common tuition fees for all private primary, secondary and higher secondary schools in the state. This is a populist stunt by politicians to appease the middle class.  Parents are well-aware of a school’s tuition fees structure when they choose to enroll their child there. The real problem arises when the schools sharply hike their fees in subsequent academic years. It would be advisable for state governments to cap these annual fee hikes at 10 percent. Imposing a blanket ceiling on fees is not the answer to curb commercialisation of education. Alice D’Souza Panaji   Absorbing keynotes Congratulations on the success of your EW Early Childhood Education National Conference staged in Bangalore! In your special report (EW February), I found the keynote addresses of Dr. Rekha Sharma Sen, Dr. Niranjanaradhya V.P, Swati Popat Vats, Shailaja Menon and Divya Punjabi very absorbing. Especially, Swati’s address which called for establishing independent ECCE affiliation/accreditation boards. I believe the quality of early childhood education is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently. Priya Nair Kochi   Commendable conference Congratulations Team EW for your commendable effort in staging your eighth consecutive Early Childhood Education National Conference featuring an innovative teachers’ workshop, five keynote addresses, the EW India Preschool Rankings Awards ceremony and the inaugural EW Promising Preschools of the Future Awards.  All this packed into one day enabled you to cover a lot of ground in ECCE and generate greater awareness of the vital importance of early years learning.  Keep up the good work!  Piu Sanyal Bangalore   Eye-opening career option I am a Plus Two student and a regular reader of EducationWorld, especially its very informative articles on emerging careers. The spotlight on the new ‘restoration architect’ (EW January) career was well-written and interesting.  It was an eye-opener for me as I wasn’t aware such a career existed. Thanks to EW I am now well-informed and so is my peer group.  Ian Colaco Mangalore   Teachers prime consumers I am a secondary school teacher and found your Teacher-2-Teacher essay on Edtech trends in 2018 (EW February) an interesting read.  As much as these technology trends appear to be impactful in education, I agree with Sivaramakrishnan V. that…

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There was once a popular joke in Georgia about a man who visited a university professor. “My son is such an idiot that he will never pass your entrance exams,” said the despairing parent — to which the academic replied: “I bet you $1,000 that he will.” The joke highlighted just how rampant bribes to university staff had become after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. According to some estimates, more than half of university places were sold to students in the early 1990s for as much as $30,000 (Rs.19.25 lakh) at a time. Low pay for academics helped to institutionalise corruption throughout the academy, with many staff receiving kickbacks worth hundreds of dollars to graduate mediocre students. Sweeping anti-corruption reforms enacted after the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003 have put an end to these practices and jokes. Students entering Georgia’s 75 higher education institutions must now pass a countrywide university entrance exam, introduced in 2005, with a rigorous checking process under which each exam answer paper is read by at least six independent graders. Those writing the exam in its early years did so under CCTV surveillance, with scripts theatrically escorted to exam markers under police escort, explains a 2015 report published by the Legatum Institute, a London-based thinktank. “The exam has worked very well in addressing issues that existed,” says Mikheil Chkhenkeli, who was appointed Georgia’s minister of education in November, having previously been vice-rector at Tbilisi State University, the country’s leading higher education institution. “We are now thinking about improving the exam by involving more university and high school representatives (in its design) so it reflects the needs of universities.” Georgia has been equally determined in rooting out other forms of academic corruption. Moves to shut down diploma mills by introducing a new accreditation process led to the closure of more than half of the country’s higher education institutions in 2005, halving the undergraduate intake that year to about 16,500 students, says the Legatum Institute. Many academics suspected of landing their jobs thanks to nepotism or bribes, were forced to reapply for their posts under an open and competitive process. “There is now a very clear and transparent hiring process,” says Prof. Chkhenkeli, who spent 20 years teaching at US universities after acquiring his Ph D in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania.  “Georgia’s mathematical schools are extremely strong and we do well in physics, but we’ve also been strong in psychology and languages too,” he says, pointing to the many poets produced by the Black Sea state, sandwiched between Russia and Turkey. Prof. Chkhenkeli is also aiming to attract more young people to consider an academic career — a task aided by the growing faith that job applications will now be assessed on merit, rather than by “academic barons”. “We have academic strengths in science and technology, but also in the humanities,” he explains, “and when you combine this with Georgian hospitality and our lifestyle, it will offer a very fulfilling experience to students”.

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Global Innovators and Researchers Conclave THE TEXTILE ASSOCIATION (INDIA) CENTRAL and TAI Delhi unit along with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Delhi), Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology (DCRUST) and Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai organized a two day Global Innovators and Researchers Conclave at Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, Sonepat, (Haryana) on January 20 and 21, 2018 to usher in new ideas for improving quality of education and provide holistic solutions. Around 1000 people attended the first day of the function including industry people from neighbourhood areas, bureaucrats and faculty members from all affiliated colleges of DCRUST University. While students took part in poster presentations and verbal orations, faculty members presented high quality papers held at the university’s magnificent auditorium which has a seating capacity of 1500 people. On day two, around 300 students and faculty members made their presence felt. The highlight of the two-day events were the plenary sessions. Dr. B.K. Behera, IIT Delhi, Dr. M.D. Teli, Mr. Ujjwal Uke, retired assistant Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra were among the list of speakers who presented educative papers. While the local media covered the event, Kavita Jain, minister, Government of Haryana visited the conclave and appreciated the contents and efforts. The credit of the success of the conclave should also be attributed to the active participation by TAI, Delhi, represented by its President D.K. Singh and other members. Following the success of the event, the two universities has offered to host the same conclave next year on their campuses.

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A first step forward for over 80,000 talented student athletes, a stage set for the millions of other young aspiring sportspersons of the country Sports in India has gained a new definition recently with many different sports leagues catching the attention, yet India still punches well below average when it comes to Olympics and other important international sports events. Have we ever wondered why? Is it the lack of facilities? Is it the lack of talent? Is it the lack of coaches? Is it the lack of a professional sporting experience from a young age? Is it the non-seriousness at school levels towards sports? There is no one real answer to this but perhaps, it is a mix of all these factors. Even though there is a growing awareness of including sports education as a compulsory subject in Indian schools, there lie some endemic obstacles which are preventing its growth trajectory. Current Scenario of School Sports: In India, sports are not considered as profession, and hence investment by schools as well as by parents for excellence in sports is limited. Though today’s education system has made sports education a compulsory subject, in practice it is yet to get the seriousness and importance. There is a dearth of qualified coaches- Coach training programmes are not encouraged in India and as a result schools lack trained coaches. There are not enough infrastructure or sports facilities in the school premises. Sports should be stopped to be looked upon as a gateway to admissions or better grades or attendance fulfillment due to missed classes. Passion towards sports has to be instilled since the early days of players. Sports as a part of early life: The schools in India should make sports mandatory for students in order to promote sports. Not only do sports instil team effort and learning through the game, it’s also the best way to keep a young mind engaged and healthy and attain healthy body weight. Sports inculcate qualities like leadership, discipline, sharing, team work, honesty, team spirit, tolerance and many more among the students. Providing the best facilities to players at school level will encourage participation and interest in sports.  Where Indian Students Stand: India is a land of talent where one sees many budding sport stars in the narrow gullies of small towns. However a lot of these young talents hang up their sporting shoes at an early age because they don’t get a chance to come to the forefront or they lack the experience of playing professional sports. These talents need to be identified, they need to be given a platform to showcase their sporting prowess, they need to be enhanced and guided by showing the way out to excel in their sporting skills. Need of the Hour: Whatever it takes, schools in India need to make an extra effort to promote sports at the grass roots. Competitions and tournaments at the grass roots should be conducted often to help find star talents and then work on their strengths, turning them into…

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If there is one unambiguous objective of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept General Election 2014 with a huge majority and rules at the Centre and in 19 states across the country, it is a determined bid to impose Hindi as the lingua franca of the nation. The party’s leadership seems oblivious of India of the 1960s when Parliament declared Hindi the national language and riots and widespread agitations broke out down south — Tamil Nadu in particular — resulting in loss of life and property until English was declared the associate national language.  However it’s important to note that this time round the imposition of Hindi is not being attempted through parliamentary legislation, but indirectly. For instance, prime minister Narendra Modi’s much-hyped monthly radio broadcast is entirely in Hindi with the PM seemingly heedless that half the country doesn’t understand a word of what he’s on about. Last September, although the prime minister is well-acquainted with English, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, he chose to declaim entirely in Hindi, when India also applied to declare Hindi a UN recognised language. On February 4, when he launched the BJP’s campaign for the Karnataka legislative assembly elections by addressing a huge rally in Bangalore, he again spoke in full-throated Hindi, unmindful of the reality that very few people rounded up for the grand oration knew what he was talking about.  Unwittingly, the BJP’s grand strategy of dividing the electorate along religious lines to consolidate the Hindu vote bank is being cancelled by the party’s clumsy agenda of imposing Hindi as the language of politics, business and diplomatic discourse, arousing hitherto dormant fears of Hindi imperialism in peninsular India.

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Although it isn’t quite cricket to say so, your editor couldn’t help deriving satisfaction from witnessing South Africa opening batsman Dean Elgar being struck on the body twice in a row by India’s fast bowler Mohammed Shami, and the never-before spectacle of lower order batsmen edging towards the leg umpire as India’s fast bowlers steamed in to bowl in the third Test match between India and South Africa at Johannesburg, which India won by a handsome margin. This moment of schadenfreude was prompted by your correspondent’s long memory of post-independence India’s opening bowlers being the subject of derision and barely disguised contempt until the start of the Kapil Dev era in the 1980s. Today, test teams of all cricket-playing countries are well aware that if their fast bowlers pitch short and/or intimidate our batsmen, India’s quickies can and will, retaliate. Clearly, Indian cricket has come a long way since teams of international cricketing nations — all 10-12 of them — looked forward to gentle medium pace bowling when playing against Indian Test teams.  The changed circumstances are to a large extent due to the country’s gradual — but yet far from complete — retreat from debilitating socialism starting in the 1980s, and the injection of money into the game. For over three decades, India’s test cricket stars were paid peanuts for filling stadiums, while the then government-dominated Board for Cricket Control of India (BCCI) lorded over the cricket scene. But fortunately India’s then larger-than-life cricket star Sunil Gavaskar secured players a substantially larger slice of BCCI’s massive revenues, which received a huge boost after the belated advent of the television age. If it wasn’t for liberalisation and the flow of big money into the game, India’s test stars and fast bowlers — described as Gunga Dins by England quickie Fred Trueman who terrorised them in 1950-60s — would never have graduated from sweaty factory floors to pay back a historical debt. Capitalism is not without its benefits, comrades. 

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Song of the Magpie Robin, Zafar Futehally, Shanthi Chandola, Ashish Chandola, Rainlight Rupa; Rs.500, Pages 197 2018 has been declared the International Year of the Bird by National Geographic, BirdLife International and more than a hundred conservation organisations. From this year, efforts will be intensified to celebrate and protect avian species around the world. To mark the International Year of the Bird in India, Rupa — the well-known Delhi-based publishing house — has fittingly reprinted the autobiography of Zafar Futehally, whose life-long odyssey to document and protect India’s birds and their habitats is chronicled in his own words. The magpie robin, a common songbird in danger of extinction, is closely associated with him.  The life of Zafar Futehally was spent in the shadow of Salim Ali. A distant cousin of the great birdman, Zafar married Laeeq, Salim’s niece. Admitted into the family circle, he naturally fell under the mesmeric spell of the older man and took up ornithology as his life’s mission. But unlike Salim, Zafar had a day job in his brother’s engineering company, a filial relationship that fortunately enabled long absences from work for birding trips. Salim Ali is nationally renowned, but his protégé, Zafar Futehally, is equally prominent in birdwatching circles. This book is Zafar’s autobiography, reluctantly written at the behest of friends. The self-effacing Zafar gave in at the age of 92, and his memoir is the last literary effort of a prolific author who was encouraged and urged to write about the country’s abundant avian species by his mentor Salim Ali.  Annoyed by a journalist’s essay about the magpie robin in The Times of India which was full of howlers, Zafar wrote a column called Birdwatcher’s Diary for ToI. It ran for 30 years, perhaps the longest innings ever of a newspaper columnist. Zafar was the longest serving honorary secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), functioning also as one of the co-editors of the society’s journal through the 1960-70s. Those were turbulent years, marked by political rifts and rivalries within the society, but Salim and Zafar were able to restore administrative and financial stability. It was in those decades under the influence of BNHS and Futehally’s ToI column that the Central government initiated action on conserving India’s dwindling wildlife, propelled by Indira Gandhi’s redoubtable firmness. Her ardent championing of wildlife conservation causes is splendidly documented in the recently published Jairam Ramesh’s Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature (2017). Perhaps the individual who had the greatest influence on her and provided data for her decisions was Salim Ali, if one were to judge by the number of references to him in the index of Ramesh’s book. But Zafar’s interactions with Madam were influential in their own way.  Perhaps the best known event on wildlife conservation to date in India was the 10th General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1966, which was organised by Zafar, then vice president of the IUCN. Indira Gandhi accepted his invitation to inaugurate the assembly and…

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After an interregnum of almost a year, private books and stationery shops (aka tuck shops) are set to reopen for business inside 20,345 schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) countrywide. A February 21 Delhi high court order quashed a CBSE circular of April 19 last year, which barred these shops from operating within campuses of affiliated schools. The circular had advised schools to shut down in-school bookshops as their operations constituted “non-permissible commercial activity” within school premises violating an affiliation bye-law of the board.  Understandably, this whimsical and over-righteous circular aroused the ire and indignation of members of the Association of School Vendors (AOSV) — small businesses which offer school students the convenience of being able to purchase texts and notebooks, and snacks on school premises. Soon after the CBSE first issued the circular on April 19 last year, AOSV filed a petition in the Delhi high court but the court directed them to petition CBSE instead. Inevitably CBSE — which in recent years has acquired a notorious reputation for high-handedness — dismissed the association’s petition saying it had no locus standi in the matter.  Also in April last year, CBSE had issued affiliated schools a letter recommending usage of textbooks published by the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT), an autonomous organisation of the Union government, which is also India’s largest school textbooks publisher. “NCERT books are reasonably priced, scientifically designed and are in conformity with National Curriculum Framework 2005. They also keep in view (sic) the integrated nature of learning from class I onwards… CBSE recommends the textbooks published by NCERT for classes IX-XII for all major subjects,” said the letter.  But after having ordered closure of in-school stationery/tuck shops, yet experiencing a need of having them back for dispensing NCERT books and stationery within school premises, the CBSE top brass partially modified its April 19 circular and permitted tuck shops to sell NCERT books and stationery under a modified circular dated August 24-25 last year. However, in a follow-up circular of December 18, CBSE prohibited sale of non-NCERT books from in-school shops. In this connection it’s pertinent to note that CBSE and NCERT are not-quite-so autonomous, and mutually supportive organisations of the Central government under the supervisory jurisdiction of the Union ministry of human resource development. Meanwhile, another writ petition filed by AOSV was admitted by the Delhi high court after tuck shops were reopened for sale of NCERT books last August. This time, the high court upheld the right of in-school vendors to also sell non-NCERT books on condition that there won’t be any coercion of students or parents to buy them. School managements have reacted cautiously to the judgement given the widespread perception that they are hand-in-glove with private publishers and overprescribe textbooks to fleece parents. According to Rajesh Hassija, director of Indraprastha International School, Dwarka (Delhi), and the vice chairman of NPSC (National Progressive Schools Conference), a network of elite private schools affiliated with CBSE, the court’s order…

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In a classroom in Seoul a throng of teenagers sit hunched over their desks. In total silence, they flick through a past exam paper. Stacks of brightly coloured textbooks are close to hand. Study begins at 8 a.m and ends at 4.30 p.m, but some won’t go home until 10 p.m. Like hundreds of thousands of South Koreans, they are preparing for the suneung, the multiple-choice test that will largely determine whether they go to a good university or a bad one, or to university at all. Over the course of a single generation, degrees have become close to ubiquitous in South Korea. Seventy percent of pupils who graduate from the country’s secondary schools now go straight into university, and a similar percentage of 15-34-year-olds hold degrees, up from 37 percent in 2000. Students scramble for admission into the most prestigious institutions, with exam preparation starting ever younger. Sought-after private nurseries in Seoul have long waiting lists. South Korea is an extreme case. But other countries, too, have seen a big rise in the number of young people with degrees. In the OECD club of 35 countries, 43 percent of 25-34-year-olds now have degrees. In America, the figure is 48 percent. Policymakers regard it as obvious that sending more young people to university will boost economic growth and social mobility. Both notions are intuitively appealing. Better-educated people will surely be more likely to come up with productivity-boosting innovations. As technological change makes new demands of workers, it seems plausible that more will need to be well-educated. And a degree is an obvious way for bright youngsters from poor families to prove their capabilities. In the meantime the decision not to go to university remains risky, even though many graduates will end up doing work that used to be done by non-graduates — or struggle to find a job at all. Around half of unemployed South Koreans now have degrees. For them, the very concept of a “graduate premium” may seem a mockery. Kim Hyang Suk, a recruiter in South Korea, says that half the applicants for customer-service jobs at her firm are graduates, even though only a secondary-school education is specified. She would prefer school-leavers with experience, says Ms. Kim, to inexperienced graduates whom she will have to train. She is not looking for swots, but people who are “engaging, good on the phone”. But when few employers are this open-minded, most young people will want a degree. It may not boost their earnings as much as they had hoped, but without one, they would probably fare even worse. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times Higher Education)

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Japan and Taiwan’s higher education systems face the dual challenges of an ageing academic workforce and deteriorating working conditions, a major survey warns. The Changing Academic Profession in Asia Survey, completed by nearly 7,000 academics across seven East Asian countries, found that 51.3 percent of Japanese respondents and 42.7 percent of Taiwanese participants feel their working conditions have deteriorated in recent years. The profile of respondents to the survey, while not fully representative, suggests that the two countries also face the challenge of an ageing academic workforce, says Futao Huang, a professor in Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for Higher Education. In Japan, more than one in five (20.5 percent) respondents to the survey was aged over 60, and a further quarter (25.2 percent) were in their fifties. Only a quarter (25.1 percent) were under 40. In China, more than half of respondents (59.7 percent) were aged under 40, and fewer than one in 10 (9 percent) was aged 50 or over. In a working paper produced by the UCL Institute of Education’s Centre for Global Higher Education, Prof. Huang suggests that the deteriorating working conditions in Japan and Taiwan reflect “steady” declines in university budgets in the two countries in recent years. Commenting on the data, Peter Cave, a senior lecturer in Japanese studies at the University of Manchester, says the declining youth population of Japan means that universities aren’t expanding their student numbers, and therefore their academic staff numbers. “Because academic staff have permanent positions, most are only replaced when they retire. And because of falling or flat student enrolments, some staff are not replaced after retirement, leading to fewer younger staff,” says Dr. Cave. According to Huang, falling enrolments mean that many qualified young academics are unable to find suitable jobs. “With increased ageing (of the) academic workforce, it would be incredibly difficult for young academics to be employed as full-time academics and for them to be promoted to the upper ladders of professional positions.” The study does reveal some of the strengths of Taiwan and Japan’s higher education systems: 86.5 percent of Taiwanese respondents and 81.6 percent of Japanese participants said they have doctorates, the highest proportions in the survey apart from Singapore (91.9 percent). In China, the figure is 41.3 percent, and as low as 9.6 percent in Cambodia.

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Emmanuel Macron’s rapid rise to France’s presidency was always likely to raise the international profile of his alma mater. But Frederic Mion, director of Sciences Po, where the French president was also once a visiting lecturer, is surprised by the 60 percent increase in international applications to the elite Paris institution for 2019. “We’ve seen increases of 6-7 percent, even 10 percent, but never this kind of increase,” says Mion, who has little doubt the applications boom is caused by the “Macron effect”, which has led to renewed interest in France from business leaders too. “This is a direct result of what the world is now feeling towards France — this specific French moment is great for business and a bonus for higher education and I am glad to see Sciences Po is well positioned for that,” Mion told Times Higher Education. Macron — described by his tutors as an “exceptional student in all respects,” despite his “tendency to be too sure of himself”, according to press reports — has yet to visit Sciences Po since he was elected last May. If the 40-year-old French leader does return towards the end of his five-year presidency, he is likely to find that the elite institution has changed dramatically. By 2022, Sciences Po aims to move into its new Hotel de l’Artillerie campus — a 14,000 sq. metre former Dominican convent previously occupied by France’s ministry of the armed forces. Once combined with its Rue de l’Universite site, it will create a 22,000 sq. metre campus in Paris’ historic 7th arrondissement, bisected by the famous Boulevard Saint-Germain. “We’ve been given a historic opportunity to create a proper urban campus — one that will be comparable to some of the great campuses found in New York, Singapore and Hong Kong,” says Mion. Sciences Po will not significantly increase its numbers from about 13,000 students — 8,000 of whom are in Paris, with the others based in its network of six regional campuses — but will close 17 sites to consolidate teaching and research in just four locations, he explains. Like its sister institution, the London School of Economics, which was modelled on Sciences Po when it was founded in 1895, it is also highly international, with about 50 percent of students coming from abroad. That international fee income has further empowered Sciences Po’s long-held tradition of academic autonomy, allowing it to experiment with new degrees mixing different disciplines, says Mion. “Only about 38 percent of our income comes from the State, which is much less than it was for us a few years ago,” he says, comparing it with other French universities, which typically receive 90-95 percent of their funding from the government.

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Experts fear the crackdown on academic freedom in Turkey will be followed by a drive towards the Islamisation of campuses, after the country’s president accused one of its top universities of failing to “lean on national values”. President Tayyip Erdogan’s claim in a speech that academics at Bogazici University in Istanbul are against “Turkish values” and the Turkish state, has drawn criticism from student groups and from the institution’s former rector. It has also prompted some observers to suggest that the president expects to reshape a sector already reeling from the dismissal and arrest of thousands of academics for alleged sympathy towards Kurds or the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen blamed for a failed 2016 coup attempt. Umut Ozkirimli, a guest professor at Sweden’s Lund University, who has written on Turkey’s academic crackdown, says the comments could be a “harbinger” of a broader purge at the university, where some faculties are perceived to be sympathetic to “secessionist” Turkish Kurds. Some of the most prominent members of Academics for Peace, a group that in 2016 publicly condemned a Turkish government offensive in Kurdish areas of the country, have come from Bogazici — and have been subsequently arrested. “We were expecting this to happen,” Prof. Ozkirimli says of the president’s speech. “He has a strategy in his mind… there’s an order in what he’s doing.”  Although President Erdogan’s rhetoric is still couched in nationalist rather than religious terms to avoid alienating overseas allies, the president “very clearly” has an Islamist agenda, adds Ozkirimli. The anti-intellectual tone of the Turkish government is “driving the brightest minds out” of the country, he says. The government has already set up 20-30 Islamic or nationally focused universities, says Faruk Birtek, professor emeritus at Bogazici’s department of sociology, which “creates slots for their people” to gain faculty positions. “He doesn’t have to destroy universities like Bogazici, but he creates his own scheme of universities and professors. It’s a battle against secular Turkey.”

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Chinese universities have continued to surge up the latest Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings, thanks to strong year-on-year improvement in the quality of their research. According to data underlying the ranking, released on February 7, the overall average score of the country’s institutions has climbed by more than 2.5 points since 2017, with about half this change a result of the increased citation impact of its scholarship. Other major research nations in the region have either been unable to match such improvements in research impact or, in the case of South Korea and Taiwan, have slipped back on this measure, which forms almost a third of the overall score. The overall ranking — which uses the same 13 performance indicators as the main World University Rankings but with slightly different weightings to reflect the priorities of Asian institutions — has again been topped by the National University of Singapore. China’s Tsinghua University has taken second place, swapping positions with its Beijing rival Peking University, which is third this year. Three institutions from Hong Kong, two from South Korea and one each from Singapore and Japan complete the rest of the Top 10. Overall, China has 63 institutions in the slightly expanded 2018 ranking, up from 54 last year, and a breakdown of its average scores in each metric shows that as well as citation impact, it has also made significant gains in research income and reputation of its universities. Writing in the THE Asia University Rankings supplement, Phil Baty, editorial director for global rankings, says “two decades of focused investment in excellence” is “paying off” for the country. “After tens of billions of dollars invested under 1995’s Project 211 and 1998’s Project 985 to create world-class universities in China, yet more vast investment is secured through 2017’s ‘Double First Class’ plan to lift China’s leading institutions even higher,” he adds. The country is still behind Japan, which has 89 institutions in the 2018 ranking, in terms of representation, but the average score of Japanese universities has remained relatively static with only slight improvements in most areas. India, the third most represented country in the list, with 42 institutions, has also seen its average citation impact scores go up, although not as strongly as China. Improvements in its performance on metrics covering income, research productivity and Ph D awards also contributed to its overall score rising. Meanwhile, in western Asia, Turkey is interesting for managing a positive outcome despite its reputation scores taking a serious knock. And Saudi Arabian universities had a relatively high overall score change driven by a large improvement in research productivity, despite falling back on some other metrics.

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Students at the 27 public colleges of applied technology in the US state of Tennessee earn qualifications in such complex fields as computer-aided design, information technology, advanced manufacturing and aviation maintenance. This autumn onwards, they and their employers will get something else, too: a warranty. If graduates fail state or national licensing exams in their professions within one year, they will be retrained at no charge. The idea is “to stand behind our graduates,” says Carol Puryear, vice chancellor for economic and community development for the Tennessee Board of Regents. “We want to make sure that industry is satisfied and our students are satisfied.” The move is part of a growing debate in the US over whether higher education institutions, like other businesses, should offer such guarantees — especially considering the high cost of tuition which students often pay for through loans. Many new players in the sector, such as fast-paced for-profit computer coding schools and the online course provider Udacity, are promising all or some of their students their money back if they don’t get jobs. This has prompted a handful of traditional universities to offer similar guarantees. Several public universities in New York will let students finish their degrees for free if it takes them longer than four years, for instance. Private Davenport University, in Michigan, will provide additional education at no cost to students who haven’t secured jobs within six months of graduation. But there’s a long list of requirements and restrictions: Davenport, for instance, makes its guarantee to students in only three high-demand fields. Other institutions mandate that students maintain certain grade point averages and take minimum number of courses. Whatever the impact, lawmakers are now joining a chorus of students, parents and consumer advocates calling for forcing universities to take on a greater stake in their students’ success, a proposition which would shake up India’s colleges and universities given to recklessly dispensing degrees and certificates.  With more than 43 percent of US students failing to graduate within even six years, and a record 8.1 million now in default on the money that they have borrowed to pay tuition fees, there’s a bipartisan effort in Congress to make colleges reimburse a share of the loans that their future students cannot. This would make the institutions “pay attention to rising costs and failing students” says Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat senator and co-sponsor of the proposed legislation.

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I want to pursue a gems and jewellery course in a reputed college/university in the US. Please advise.  — Deepak Shah, Baroda The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) offers study programmes in gemology, jewellery and design. The GIA School of Business (2003), a unique school teaching real-world business principles specific to the gems and jewellery industry, offers online and on-campus degree courses. Write to GIA headquarters in California or e-mail [email protected] for more information. You could also search the Internet for other options and check out GIA India, which offers gemology and diamond grading courses and the Gemological Institute of India, Mumbai.  After completing my final CA exam in India, is it advisable to pursue CPA (Certified Public Accountant) certification in the US? — Sunil Kulkarni, Pune CPA deals with the accounting and taxation structures of the US and consequently will not help your accounting practice in India. CPA has value only if you plan to work with organisations which need to conform with US accountancy protocols. I am keen on studying law after Plus Two. Please advise. — Manish Agarwal, Nagpur The legal profession is now entering a boom period with a large number of American-style law firms springing up in the larger cities. This development has sharply reduced the ‘waiting period’ of new lawyers. You could enroll in a five-year course in law for a BA.LLB degree directly after your Plus Two. This course is available in many universities including the premier National Law School of India University, Bangalore. You need a minimum of 45 percent average in all subjects to be eligible to write the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission into 19 premier law schools in the country. Other institutes offering law degree courses in Maharashtra are the Shivaji University of Pune and Nagpur University.  A postgraduate in library and information science, I am currently working in a self-financed engineering college as assistant librarian. I now want to sign up for a degree/diploma course in library automation. Which institutions offer distance education programmes in the subject? — Subhash Sharma, Kurukshetra Distance education library science programmes are offered by the B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad; Annamalai University; Kakatiya University, Warangal; University of Madras and IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University), Delhi. Check out their websites or write to them for information about library automation programmes.  I’m a final year engineering student interested to write the CAT next year. Please advise. — Cyrul Patel, Mumbai  The Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission into the country’s top-ranked B-schools is advertised in the month of August and held in November or early December in 140 centres across the country. The examination is of the objective type with multiple-choice questions.  The usual areas tested are verbal ability; reading comprehension (in the English language); quantitative aptitude; analytical reasoning and data interpretation. CAT is used for selecting candidates for postgraduate courses in management at 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the premier ones being Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode and Lucknow. Around…

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Special effects aka prosthetics professionals can transform the visual appearance of actors to make them look older or younger, alien or supernatural – Paromita Sengupta Special effects (aka prosthetics) make-up can transform the visual appearance of actors and stage performers making them look older or younger, alien, supernatural or even severely sick or wounded through usage of rubber or plastic masks and image-altering prosthetics. Special effects (SFX) make-up is unlike ordinary beauty products and its application requires specific skills and understanding of product ingredients which include wax, latex and silicon of different grades and quality. Latterly an acknowledged new-age profession in India in its own right, SFX make-up artistry is a career option which offers great skill-development and entrepreneurial opportunities. There are abundant jobs in theatre, television, films and fashion, advertising campaigns and concept shoots with photographers, theme-based shows for fashion designers, catwalk make-up and character events. Exhaustive preparation of moulds and sculpts, which usually requires tedious detailing, are some of the job challenges of an SFX artist. Other challenges include hairstyle and wig setting, removing make-up after  performances/events and hygiene warnings and other advisories before and after the make-up process. STUDY PROGRAMMES To qualify as a professional special effects artist, class XII school-leavers can sign up for a six months to year-long certificate/diploma programme in prosthetics. Among the country’s reputed institutions which offer these study programmes are Make Up Designory, Bandra (a franchise of MUD, USA), Pearl Academy, Delhi, VLCC Institute, Gurgaon, Lakme Academy, Delhi, One Stop Makeovers, Mumbai, Makeup Studio Training Centre, Kalkaji, Delhi and SMA International Makeup Academy, Pune, among others.  MUD, New York City and Los Angeles campuses; Gorton’s School, UK; Vancouver Film School and Cinema Makeup School, Los Angeles (USA) are among the more well-known academies offering certification programmes abroad.  PAY & PERKS Remuneration depends on an individual’s skills, artistry and size of project. Currently, the motion picture, fashion and video industries offer the best salaries with freshers’ starting packages in the Rs.20,000-25,000 per month range. SFX professionals working on advertising campaigns could take home Rs.2,000-3,000 per day, while for SFX make-up artists with three-five years of experience, pay packages of up to Rs.50,000 per week are de rigueur. PROFESSIONAL PROFILE “A constantly rising number of young people with imaginative bent of mind are entering this skills and talent profession, given the ever rising demand from theatre, motion picture and television industries. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics projects a 19 percent growth in jobs for make-up artists by 2024,” says dancer-SXF artist Aradhana Khanna, a graduate of the Amity Business School, Noida and Make Up Designory, New York.  An avid movie buff, Delhi-based Khanna developed an interest in fashion make-up and prosthetics in her school years. But while working as a choreographer with Danceworx, a school run by well-known dance guru Ashley Lobo, she suffered a major knee injury in 2008 which put her out of action for two years. “I converted this forced rest period into an opportunity to follow my interest in SFX…

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In Maharashtra, 75,000 junior college (classes XI-XII) teachers have threatened to boycott assessment of the state board’s higher secondary certificate exam papers unless the state government accedes to their long-pending demands relating to filling vacancies and raising remuneration of junior college teachers. According to the Maharashtra State Federation of Junior College Teachers’ Organisation (MSFJCTO), it has been protesting the government’s inaction on a list of 32 grievances for the past three years without avail. Maharashtra — India’s most industrialised state (pop. 120 million) — hosts 1,576 unaided and 7,500 government-aided junior colleges. Blaming successive governments of neglecting the service conditions of junior college teachers, MSFJCTO says teachers in the state’s higher secondary education institutions are at the mercy of college managements with the government reluctant to implement its government resolution (GR) of February 26, 2014, under which it notified an intent to progressively convert the state’s 1,576 unaided colleges into government-aided institutions by 2019. However, the notification “remains only on paper” with none of the colleges receiving any aid from the BJP government of Maharashtra.  Conversion of the state’s 1,576 private unaided junior colleges into aided colleges is an issue of critical importance to their teachers because aided colleges are obliged to pay faculty minimum salaries decreed by Pay Commissions established by the Central government every ten years to compensate its 3.8 million pampered babus (bureaucrats) for inflation. As soon as Pay Commission scales are announced, it’s customary for state government employees to demand pay parity with Central government employees, which includes government and private-aided school, college and university teachers.  For school and college teachers, transformation of private into private-aided institutions is critical because salary differences are huge. Currently, private unaided junior colleges pay teachers Rs.10,000-12,000 per month. Private-aided and government colleges pay a minimum of Rs.45,000 under the Sixth Pay Commission award. The Seventh Pay Commission’s award implemented on January 1, 2016 has raised Central government bureaucrats and university teachers’ pay by 22-28 percent. Currently, Maharashtra’s private-aided and government junior colleges are paid Sixth Pay Commission scales. But implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission’s award is around the corner. Hence MSFJCTO’s grievance.  “The five-year delay in implementing its February 2014 resolution has impacted at least 20,000 teachers who are paid a pittance of what they would have rightly earned as per the Sixth Pay Commission’s award. In some cases, private unaided college teachers have not been paid at all. But with few teaching jobs available, they continue to work hoping the government will start implementing its 2014 GR soon,” says Anil Deshmukh, president, MSFJCTO.  This mess in critically important pre-collegiate higher secondary education which determines undergrad college admissions, has been compounded by another GR of October 23, 2017 which decrees tougher criteria for pay increments of all teachers in aided government schools. Teachers will now be eligible for annual increments only if their school is recognised as an ‘A’ grade institution according to parameters set by the state government’s ‘progressive learning scheme’ — an initiative to improve learning outcomes.…

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Government-owned higher education institutions in Karnataka are reeling under an unprecedented leadership crisis. Of the state’s 412 government degree-awarding arts, science, commerce and law colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 300,000 students, only 19 have a permanent principal. The remaining 393 are managed by ‘in-charge principals’, usually the senior-most lecturers of the colleges.  The crisis has been brewing for several years. The last time the state government made an ‘enhancement of positions’ (formal description of the process to appoint principals) in its colleges was in 1983 and again in 2005. Over the years, as principals were transferred and retired, the colleges remained leaderless as successive governments neglected to appoint new principals reportedly because of the financial liability involved.  Much to the resentment of college lecturers, in 2009 the state government also amended the College Cadre and Recruitment Rules, 1963, abolishing seniority-based promotions to the office of principal, and the top administrative position in the directorate. Following the amendment, principals of government colleges and the directorate became contractual appointees with five-year terms. The Karnataka Government College Teachers’ Association (KGCTA) challenged the amendment in 2010 and the case is pending before the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal (KAT). KGCTA, which has a membership of 5,000 tenured (permanent) teachers, lecturers and professors, has now threatened to call a strike on March 11-12 if the government fails to respond to their several demands including immediate appointment of principals. Comments H. Prakash, associate professor at Bangalore’s Maharani’s Arts, Commerce and Management College for Women, and president of the association: “The government is not serious about filling academic and administrative posts in its colleges and state universities. It is trying to save money as the appointment of 400 principals will cost the exchequer Rs.4 crore per month. However, because of faculty/principals shortage, government colleges are experiencing a crisis. Major administrative issues are pending as ad hoc principals don’t have the authority or will to address them. Academic standards are falling because of faculty shortages and pending curriculum reform issues. Students are the ultimate victims.”  M.S. Thimmappa, a highly-respected former vice chancellor of Bangalore University (2002-2006) and former member of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, warns about complacency on the issue of leaderless higher education institutions. “A college principal is the leader of the institution. Without a leader invested with full administrative and academic management authority, faculty and students will lose the drive and will to strive for excellence. Ad-hoc principals who are usually academicians without admin experience seldom have the vision, zeal or the authority to introduce curriculum changes or undertake administrative reforms. Without full-time principals, the quality of education and research will nose-dive and colleges will lose ranking and public respect. Government cannot continue taking shelter under ad-hoc arrangements for such long periods as the function of colleges is to prepare school-leavers for industry, business and advanced education,” says Thimmappa. With the state government advertising heavily to attract domestic and foreign investors to establish new-age industries in the state which has acquired the reputation of the IT (information…

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A disturbing spurt in suicides and violent disruptive classroom behaviour among adolescents in Tamil Nadu’s 53,000 government and aided schools and 19,161 private schools over the past few years, has belatedly prompted investigation into the causes and effects thereof.  In 2016, the Nazareth College for Women, Chennai, in collaboration with University of Queensland, Australia, studied the behaviour of 50 students in the 13-15 years age group in the Nazareth Higher Secondary School (NHSS), Avadi, Chennai — a private school with students from rural low-income households. Faculty from the two institutions studied disruptive behaviour — refusing to complete academic work, making inappropriate gestures, sleeping in class, destroying school property and other attention-seeking behaviour challenging teachers’ authority — in the school’s classrooms.  Ten teachers of NHSS were given three online one-hour behaviour management training lectures per week for six weeks by University of Queensland faculty. These lectures were followed by weekly online interaction via Skype in which specific case studies and techniques used to improve children’s classroom behaviour were discussed.  Subsequently, feedback on behaviour change in the school’s classrooms was reviewed by teachers and students. The results were positive. Before the Queensland University training programme, teachers tended to be peremptory and terse with students. Therefore, they were trained to be more explanatory, offer praise liberally, suggest routines and advise students to stick to them.  An analysis of student behaviour after the training and implementation of positive teaching practices showed there was significant reduction in aggressive and disruptive classroom behaviour, with the greatest benefit being readiness to follow directions and sharp reduction in attention-seeking behaviour. Currently, the classroom behaviour management modules are being implemented in all schools of the Nazareth Group including NHSS, Nazareth Matriculation School, Kovilpathagai and Nazareth Academy, a CBSE school at Kovilpathaigai, Avadi. Although based on a small sample group, this pilot project has impressed a large number of educationists and psychologists in Tamil Nadu, where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage a new generation of aggressive and disruptive children with low tolerance thresholds. On February 5, a class XI student of a private-aided higher secondary school in Vellore district stabbed his headmaster in the abdomen with a kitchen knife, because the latter had advised the student to get a haircut and summoned his parents to complain about him. Last November, four girls studying in the Panapakkam Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School in Vellore ended their lives after being reprimanded for disobedience and mediocre academic performance by the headmistress.  “Environmental factors including parental conflict, child abuse, inadequate attention from working parents and rising parental and faculty pressure to excel in academics are prompting teenagers to explode in anger, fear and frustration. Teachers and parents have to identify what is disturbing children and counsel them on how to handle conflict situations. Teachers too are stressed and need mentoring and training programmes to help them cope with angry children,” says Dr. Latha Janaki Ramanujam, child psychologist at JAYS Multi-Speciality Counselling & Psychotherapy Centre, Chennai. However, educators and child counsellors say that a…

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After a period of chaos with a complete freeze on teacher recruitment, incidents of rampant campus violence, mass copying, and recruitment test scandals during its first five years of office, the TMC government of West Bengal seemed set to introduce the much-proclaimed poribartan (‘change’) in the state’s languishing education sector. After clearing the long-stalled primary teachers’ recruitment process last year, the state government conferred deemed university status to several private colleges including Techno India, JIS, Brainware, Amity, IISWBM, and St. Xavier’s College. However, a recent notification of January 16 issued by D. Nariala, principal secretary of the state education department, has resurrected misgivings about the real objectives of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government. The notice says all state-run schools barring those constructed in the past five years or painted in the past three years, whose number is estimated at 59,000, will soon get a fresh coat of paint. But to give uniformity to all government and aided education institutions, their colour has to be according to “government norms”. Partha Chatterjee, education minister of the state, has sanctioned Rs.500 crore for this initiative with the tacit understanding that schools agreeable to the party’s blue and white colours will be given preference. That chief minister Mamata Banerjee has a personal preference for blue and white, is well known. She routinely wears white sarees with a blue border and matching blue-white sandals. In fact, the state government has attracted widespread criticism because TMC local governments have gone on a spree painting bridges, parks, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings blue and white over the past seven years since the TMC was voted to power in 2011 after ousting the Communist Party of India (CPM)-led Left Front government which ruled — and ruined — West Bengal uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011). In 2014, Kolkata’s mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay announced a one-year waiver on property tax to homes painted in the chief minister’s favourite colours.  Given the pathetic condition of Bengal’s 92,000 government schools directly run by the state or financially aided, the allocation of Rs.500 crore, i.e, Rs.84,745 per school for repainting, has drawn heavy flak. Most government schools lack basic infrastructure such as blackboards, classrooms, libraries and laboratories. Moreover, more than 60,000 primary teachers’ posts are vacant. Unsurprisingly, Abdul Mannan — a senior Congress legislator and opposition leader in the West Bengal assembly — describes the schools repainting directive as an indicator of the state government’s ridiculous priorities. “Infrastructure facilities in government schools are abysmal with 40 percent lacking libraries, 36 percent without separate toilets for girls, and 96.5 percent schools without computers. Instead of focusing on these serious deficiencies, the government is imposing cosmetic and motivated changes upon them. It’s a disgrace,” says Mannan. Adds Rahul Sinha, former president of the BJP’s state unit: “There is an acute shortage of teachers, incumbent teachers aren’t getting dearness allowance arrears, and the quality of mid-day meals is deteriorating. Against this backdrop, how can a government spend valuable resources on painting up crumbling schools?” Meanwhile,…

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 “To write a biography about Modi will be very difficult because he doesn’t write. He only tweets and someone else writes his tweets.”  Ramachandra Guha on the ‘Art and craft of historical biography’ at the Times Litfest, Bangalore (February 5) “I have begun to fear now, because even girls have started drinking beer. The tolerance limit is being crossed.” Mohan Parrikar, Goa chief minister, addressing the State Youth Parliament (February 9) “So why does Tharoor’s English charm and impress dorky middle-class Indians? Because we are still Macaulay’s misfits and mimics, some of us. Also, because English is the language of aspiration and advancement in India. Not so long ago, children were told to circle difficult words in newspaper editorials and learn them. This is why Indian kids abroad regularly win spelling bee contests. They notice language, having grown up with more than one.”  Amulya Gopalkrishnan in ‘Why are we so charmed by (Shashi) Tharoor’s English’ (Times of India, February 11)   “If the coach had a firearm in his locker, when he ran at this guy (the shooter)… he wouldn’t have had to run. He would have shot him and that would have been the end of it.” Donald Trump, US president, on arming teachers after a mass shooting in a Florida school (February 22)  “The culture here is one of success based upon academic excellence, studying, learning, practising and having a good job and a great life…That’s a lot like Singapore study, study, work hard and you get an MBA, you will have a Mercedes, but where is the creativity? The creativity gets left out. When your behaviour is too predictable and structured, everyone is similar. Look at a small country like New Zealand, their writers, singers, athletes, it’s a whole different world.” Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple on the Indian education system (Sunday Times of India, February 25)

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More than 180,000 students of the 6.6 million who had registered for classes X and XII school-leaving exams conducted by the Uttar Pradesh state board of secondary and higher secondary education starting on February 7, didn’t show up to write them following stringent measures initiated by the state government to check examination malpractices. “On the first day, over 53,100 higher secondary and 127,000 secondary students did not write the examinations,” Vikas Srivastava, deputy director of education, informed media in Lucknow on February 8. According to Srivastava, this is the consequence of a slew of measures initiated by the state government, including installation of CCTV cameras in examination halls and using special task forces and local intelligence to check cheating in board exams.     Madhya Pradesh Teachers dress code order State government school teachers will be required to follow a uniform dress code — maroon ‘jacket’ for women and navy blue for men — from the new academic year beginning June 2018, according to an education ministry order. In addition, teachers will also be required to wear a name tag on their jackets together with a new descriptive rashtra nirmata (maker of the nation) inscribed on it. “Uniformity in dress is important and ends personality differences,” said the order, citing the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Adhyapak Sambarg (service conduct conditions) Rules, 2008. In the order issued in Bhopal on February 11, the education ministry issued directives to the Directorate of Public Instruction and the Rajya Shiksha Kendra director to implement the teachers dress code statewide.   Punjab New Amity campus Amity University proposes to set up a state-of-the-art campus in Mohali with capacity for 20,000 students. A university delegation led by the Delhi-based Amity Education Group president Dr. Atul Chauhan, met chief minister Amarinder Singh to discuss plans for constructing a campus with an aggregate investment of Rs.1,000-1,500 crore. Sharing details of the February 1 meeting in Chandigarh with the media, an official spokesperson said Amity plans to establish a 50-acre science-focused university campus in Mohali with a large residential student population. The final site is yet to be finalised. The chief minister directed the state’s education and housing ministries to take the proposal forward and extend all support to Amity.   Odisha Theft charge against headmistress The headmistress of the government-run Dadhibaman Upper Primary School, Bahabalapur in Nandipur gram panchayat, was suspended from service on charges of stealing rice from the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme and selling it in the market, a government official informed the media in Odisha’s Jajpur district on February 4. In January, a group of students, parents and locals brought the irregularities to the attention of the Jajpur DEO (district education officer) Krushna Chandra Nayak, who directed BEO (block education officer) Ajay Kumar Das to conduct an inquiry and submit a report. The report confirmed the headmistress’ involvement in the misuse of MDM materials, the official added.   Tamil Nadu Bharathiar VC suspended Governor Banwarilal Purohit suspended the services of A. Ganapathi, vice chancellor of Coimbatore-based…

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Seventeen social entrepreneurs were honoured by the Delhi-based School for Social Entrepreneurs India and PwC India on February 5 for graduating from its flagship Social Start-Up Fellowship programme, an initiative supported by PwC India. The graduating class of 2017-18 is working on social enterprises in diverse fields such as livelihood, healthcare, children and women’s welfare, disability and technology, education, policy implementation and community development through arts, cinema and rural development. “Social entrepreneurship is steadily gaining momentum in our country and we are proud to be part of this journey which for PwC began with its association with SSE India in 2016. We have derived immense value by mentoring SSE Fellows over their nine-month course. The personal experiences gained through these interactions have truly helped in multiple ways, reflecting PwC’s purpose of building trust and solving important problems in society,” said Satyavati Berera, COO of PwC India, speaking on the occasion.   CFA Research Challenge finalists The CFA Society India declared IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Trichy, and IIM-Calcutta winners of the national final of its CFA Institute Research Challenge India 2017-18. The CFA Institute’s annual global Research Challenge provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Under the rules of the research challenge, B-school students work in teams to research and analyse a publicly traded company. Each team writes a research report on its assigned company with buy, sell, or hold recommendations and later present and defend their recommendations to a panel of industry professionals. Teams of these B-schools will represent India at the Asia Pacific Regional competition to be held on April 25-26 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 11th edition of the research challenge attracted participation of 55 B-schools including IIM-Indore, NMIMS, Mumbai, AIMS Institute, Bangalore, IIFT, Delhi and IIM-Raipur among others from 25 cities across the country.  They pitched their equity research on four companies — Indigo (Inter Globe Aviation), Hero MotoCorp, Titan and Asian Paints — in brief, time-bound presentations followed by a round of questions from the high-powered jury comprising senior investment professionals of CRISIL and Ambit Capital among others. “The CFA Institute Research Challenge gives B-school students a unique opportunity with live environment equity research challenges. The rigour of research supported by quality professional mentors, and opportunity of presenting to experienced fund managers, is unmatched,” says Kishor Bagri, director, the CFA Institute Research Challenge India.   Delhi Dynamos football workshop  The Gurgaon-based J. Knitwear Pvt. Ltd (estb.1995), a company which markets the well-known T10 sports brand of activewear and sportswear and is the brand company of the India Football League team Delhi Dynamos, hosted a training session for students at the Kunskapsskolan School, Gurgaon on February 17. Coaches and students from the school and several other schools of Delhi and Gurgaon were invited to learn the finer points of football by Delhi Dynamos star players Edu Moya, Nandkumar and Albino Gomes.  “Most companies hold such events in hotels. But we thought it fitting to hold our promotional event on the sports ground of the Kunskapsskolam…

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A three-member team of India’s premier Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur (West Bengal) is making waves nationwide with its revolutionary wireless sleep assistant SleepDoc+. The team of Laxmi Kant Tiwari, Alok Mishra and Anurag Verma bested 12 teams at the grand finale to be crowned champions of the inaugural Accenture Innovation Challenge 2017, staged in Bangalore on November 28. Each member of Team IIT-Kgp was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to The Dock, Accenture’s research and incubation hub in Dublin, Ireland. Organised by the Bangalore-based Accenture Solutions Pvt. Ltd — a subsidiary of the globally renowned management consultancy and IT professional services company Accenture Plc — to nurture the spirit of innovation among college students, the competition based on the ‘Disruptive Businesses’ and ‘Tech for Good’ themes attracted participation of over 13,000 students (4,000-plus teams) from 900 higher ed institutions countrywide.  A device which works on wireless radar technology using a mobile phone display monitor, SleepDoc+ records vital physiological and environmental parameters such as respiration rate, pulse, temperature, humidity and air quality. Based on live data monitored over a specific time period, the device analyses a range of sleep disorders and suggests lifestyle changes to the user by using its intelligent voice interactive system.  “We ideated the project in January 2017, bearing in mind the rise in sleep disorders plaguing the current generation. In the Innovation Challenge, our challenge was to design the final prototype working model within two months,” says team spokesperson Laxmi Kant Tiwari, who mobilised Rs.10 lakh for developing the innovation. After graduating from IIT-Kgp in December last year, the team has been focused on formally launching SleepDoc+ in the market. “We promoted a start-up named mBreath Technologies Pvt. Ltd last May. Since then, we have bagged five business innovation awards, the prize money of which we have invested in further product development. For proof and validation of our innovation, we have filed three patents with the intent of marketing it. Our long-term plan is to capture the medical monitoring and diagnostics market through continuous innovation,” enthuses Tiwari. Wind in your sails! Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

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