EducationWorld November 13 Archives

Postscript

Limited actors

Although it’s derisively referred to as the idiot box for the shallow, ephemeral infotainment it provides, the power of television news channels to expose ground realities in some of the country’s hidden areas of darkness cannot be matched by the print media. A case in point is CNN-IBN’s excellent multi-episode documentary titled No Country for Children being broadcast over the past few weeks, which graphically depicts the mind boggling deprivations — pervasive malnutrition, poor schooling conditions, sexual abuse and corporal punishment — that the nation’s 480 million children, especially the 158 million under age five, are heir to. The programme unsparingly aired government schools without furniture, drinking water, toilets and in one depressing instance — surrounded by overflowing sewage. Yet while emotions of shock, anger, and outrage aroused by the visual media can’t be generated by cold print, the economics of television news ensures the anger and indignation is short-lived. The No Country for Children episodes are punctuated by commercials plugging bling luxury products. One can’t help feeling that hyper-ventilating anchors and reporters of television news channels are mere actors playing a part for the reportedly astronomical sums they are paid. This sentiment is supported by the unwillingness of the celebrity anchors/editors of TV news channels to take a step beyond ritual lamentation and breast-beating about the callous neglect of the country’s children. Repeated offers by this publication to the top three English news channels to make common cause with us for root and branch education reform have not elicited any response. Emoting faux concern they are unable to rise above petty prejudices and insecurities in the cause of the country’s much-abused children. Mighty fallen Less than a century ago, it was the world’s most powerful nation and the centre of the civilized world renowned for its poets, writers and litterateurs. But now with the sun having irrevocably set for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, this former colonial power seems to be sinking into utter mediocrity. Last summer an execrable novel titled 50 Shades of Grey written by a puddle shallow English housewife — one E.L. James — became a national bestseller despite a ridiculous story line, featuring every cliché and stereotype and loaded with sadomasochistic sex. With reported sales of 70 million copies, a number greater than the population of the sceptred isle (62 million), how this repetitive, boring and desperate to shock novel enthralled the descendants of Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth etc boggles the imagination. Nor is the astonishing success of 50 Shades in Blighty a one-off case of summer madness. This autumn the latest Bridget Jones — a fictional woman character whose troubled emotional life spawned the bestseller Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and a globally acclaimed movie — novel Mad About the Boy has captured the imagination of Brits who seem to have resorted to greed, gluttony and sex big time. But although it’s considered stuffy to protest against the tidal wave of pornography sweeping the West and spreading through the internet imbalancing…

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Eduleader Bytes

Ratna D Reddy, Founder-director, CHIREC School

Ratna D Reddy, Founder-director, CHIREC School, Hyderabad Where would you place education on your national list of priorities? Top priority. How best to upgrade government schools? Through hand-holding by private schools and/or corporates. Thinker/philosopher you admire the most. I admire more than one person. Your favourite Nobel laureate. Mother Teresa, whose determination to carry out her mission against all odds is ever inspiring. Your leadership style. Leading by example, delegation, utilising the strengths of individuals while overlooking their weaknesses, and guiding them to give their best. Your favourite book on leadership. I don’t wish to single out a particular book. There are many. For or against the RTE Act mandating 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools? I am in agreement with the principle that every child has a right to education. However, I disagree with the process of its implemen-tation through reservations of a restrictive nature. Instead, it should be the social responsibility of private schools. Should education outlay be doubled by cutting defence expenditure? If the current allocated fund is optimally utilised, there won’t be any need to do this. How satisfied are you with the growth and development of CHIREC? Very satisfied. Over the past 25 years, CHIREC has become a benchmark institution in co-ed day schooling. Pessimistic or optimistic about the future of Indian education? Optimistic. Indian education up to the undergraduate and graduate levels can be revamped to global standards. Recommended: Outstanding Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2018 – Ratna Reddy

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Books

Samir’s success

The TOI Story: How a newspaper changed the rules of the game by Sangita P. Menon Malhan; Harper Collins; Price: Rs.350; 261 pp Of the four great estates of post-independence India — legislature, executive, judiciary and the press — the one that has most substantially fulfilled the expectations of the founding fathers of the Constitution is the press, aka the media (after the advent of 24×7 television news channels). With Parliament repeatedly disrupted by quasi-literates (one-third of whom have serious criminal charges filed against them), the executive destroyed by criminality and corruption, the judiciary rendered dysfunctional by archaic procedural codes and the law’s agonising delay, the media is the only estate manning the gates against the unholy coalition of lawless politici-ans, rogue businessmen and lumpen elements within Indian society. According to Sangita P. Menon Malhan, a former journalist of the Times of India, Mid-Day and The Statesman turned author, the transformation of the media industry began in the 1980s with the rise to preeminence of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), the holding company of the Times of India, Economic Times and several magazines. BCCL, under its dynamic publisher/proprietor Samir Jain, “was the first to break the rules” of news publishing and transform the media into the powerful fourth estate of the republic which it is today. Unfortunately although well-written and perhaps even riveting, this history of the blossoming of BCCL under Jain’s leadership into a news media publishing powerhouse and the rise of Times of India (estb.1838) from the grande dame of Bori Bunder to the world’s most widely read broadsheet daily with The Economic Times (estb. 1961) as the #2 worldwide business daily (after the Wall Street Journal), starts on a false note. The plain truth is that the transformation of the news publishing business began in the immediate aftermath of the internal Emergency imposed by the late prime minister Indira Gandhi and the resounding defeat of her Congress party in the historic general election of early 1977. At the time, following the end of a harsh regime of censorship imposed upon the media, an unprecedented magazine boom erupted within the country, with the almost simultaneous launch of India Today, Sunday and Business India. Piloted by hitherto unknown publishers and editors, these publications were the “first to break the rules of the game”, and refashion the staid and dull news media publishing world focused on crooked politicians, whose acts of commission and omission during the Emergency were extensively exposed by the new magazines. Thoro-ughly compromised for cravenly supporting the Congress and its spoilt brat Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency (a fact about which the author is totally silent), ToI and Samir Jain didn’t “break the rules” for over a decade thereafter. However, there is no doubt that Samir was perhaps the first newspaper proprietor to discern the importance of building media brands and derive profit and value from them. As Malhan accurately recounts, until the mid 1980s newspapers were essentially publications of official record, dutifully reporting the typically banal…

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International News

China: Surfacing linguistic animosities

As more people around the world start to study Mandarin, China’s education ministry has revealed that much work still needs to be done teaching the language at home. Last month it announced that 400 million Chinese, nearly a third of the population, are unable to communicate in Mandarin, and that many more cannot speak it well. That may seem like a lot of people unable to speak their own national language but, as recently as 2007, nearly half China’s citizens were unable to communicate effectively in what is known in Mandarin as putonghua (“common speech”). Some are speakers of ethnic-minority languages such as Uighur or Tibetan, which are unrelated to Mandarin. But others are ethnic Han Chinese whose mother tongue is a Chinese language that isn’t Mandarin. In Xibian village, near Fuzhou, capital of the south-eastern province of Fujian, most residents can speak Mandarin (with a strong accent). Classes at school are taught in it and most television programmes use it. But day to day, villagers chat, sing, haggle and pray in Min, a language unintelligible to Mandarin speakers. Though there are hundreds of different dialects that are variations of Mandarin, linguists say that Min is one of eight separate Chinese languages spoken within China. These include Cantonese (which is spoken by more people than live in France). They share some lexical and grammatical features with Mandarin, but are roughly as similar as English is to Dutch. They can also be written using Chinese characters, rather as English and Dutch can both be written using the Roman alphabet. Early education in regional languages is tolerated, as is some broadcasting. But Communist Party mandarins insist on calling them dialects, not languages, in an attempt to create “national unity and homogeneity” and promote the standard language, says Umberto Ansaldo, a linguist at the University of Hong Kong. Official efforts to spread Mandarin sometimes encounter resistance. In 2010, when the Cantonese-speaking city of Guangzhou hosted the Asian Games and officials ordered local broadcasters to switch to Mandarin for the occasion, hundreds marched in protest. That same year there were protests in Tibet about the forced use of Mandarin in schools. It ain’t just what you say that causes problems, but also the way you say it. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)

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International News

Brazil: Bright future for private varsities

At a time when you might have expected to hear the youth of Brazil chanting about the nation’s football team, they called out “vem pra rua” — “come to the street” — an invitation to protest against corruption, police aggression and poor public services. At the peak of the Confederations Cup competition in June, a dry run for the Fifa World Cup to be held in Brazil next year, millions were asking how the country could afford to spend more than R30 billion (Rs.83,985 crore) on sporting events while healthcare, education and infrastructure are neglected. For much of the population, the protests captured their frustration with the slow pace of the progress that had been promised by the country’s economic boom. But as the government looked to appease protesters by committing to reform and investment in healthcare and education, the financial markets predicted some unlikely beneficiaries. For example, the share price of Kroton Educacional SA, Brazil’s largest for-profit higher education provider, rose by more than 7 percent in the last week of June to double that recorded 12 months earlier. At the height of the protests, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, reignited plans to invest 75 percent of future offshore oil royalties in education — estimated to amount to R112 billion (Rs.313,653 crore) from oil already being extracted — as well as a 50 percent share of a fund created in 2010 to receive resources from a large “pre-salt” oilfield. Kroton’s chief executive, Rodrigo Galindo, hinted to the financial press that the government’s response to the social unrest might bring dividends. The government will try to invest as much as it can in the public sector, says Simon Schwartzman, social scientist and president of the Institute of Labour and Society in Rio de Janeiro. “In general, there isn’t public support for private education except money for research institutions,” he says. But companies in the private education sector — and their investors — are nonetheless optimistic that the knock-on effects of the government’s approach to education will fuel their business. In early September, Reuters reported that shares of Brazil’s four listed education firms are outperforming the market, up a combined 18 percent this year compared with a benchmark slump of 15 percent. Although a few private institutions, particularly in business and law, are among the best in the country, most of Brazil’s top universities are public, free and well-funded. But they currently educate just 25 percent of students — mostly wealthier graduates from private schools trained to pass the country’s tough university entrance exams. Most students attend for-profit private institutions, which offer cheaper-to-teach vocational courses, evening classes that fit around work and distance learning. Noises from the government so far suggest that schemes allowing poorer students to access private education may increase. These include the Student Financing Fund (FIES) — which covers 50 to 100 percent of tuition fees according to students’ gross monthly household income — and ProUni (“University for All”), a scheme through which private institutions provide free places to…

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International News

Canada: Religious identity symbols row

Just months after Quebec had at last emerged from waves of violent student protests over higher education funding, the prospect of another divisive row looms after the provincial government announced plans that would force secularisation on staff working in higher education. The separatist government of Pauline Marois — whose election as premier last year finally brought to an end the strife over higher tuition charges — has moved to ban public employees from wearing turbans, hijabs and kippas as well as “overt and conspicuous” crosses, Stars of David or crescents. This ban also applies to academics. The Quebec Charter of Values aims to make the province visibly religiously neutral, thus aligning it more closely with France’s laïcité model of secularism. Marois even cited multiculturalism in the UK as a reason why such proposals are necessary. “In England, they’re knocking each other over the head and throwing bombs because of multiculturalism and nobody knowing any more who they are in that society,” she told Le Devoir, a French-language newspaper, just days before the charter was revealed. Bernard Drainville, the minister for democratic institutions and active citizenship, avoided such incendiary comments when he unveiled the charter at a news conference on September 10. Nevertheless, he declared, “the time has come for us to rally around clear rules and common values that will put an end to tensions and misunderstandings” that stem from the public display of religious affiliation. However, opposition politicians in Quebec and federal Canadian leaders have been withering in their criticism. Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau — son of the late Pierre Trudeau, who as prime minister in 1982 entrenched multiculturalism in the Canadian constitution — called the proposed charter an “abomination”. Moreover, academics and students at universities have not hesitated to register their dislike of the charter. The opposition is perhaps most notable at McGill University in Montreal. Its new principal and vice chancellor, Suzanne Fortier, who assumed office in September, says that preventing staff from wearing visible religious symbols “runs contrary to our principles”, the Montreal Gazette reported. “The wearing of such symbols in no way interferes with the religious and political neutrality of McGill as an institution,” she adds. Meanwhile, Melissa Kate Wheeler, president of the students’ union at Concordia University in Montreal, says that dozens of students have been coming forward to voice their concerns. “These students whose identity includes an outward expression of their religious faith are worried about their future in Quebec and, especially, career prospects in the Quebec Civil Service,” she says. Such concerns may not have been allayed by Drainville, whose response to a question of whether a person might be sacked for wearing a headscarf, told the September 10 news briefing: “Let’s not talk about that now. We want to talk about values.” (Excerpted adapted from Times Higher Education)

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International News

Egypt: Growing liberal arts awareness

Students in countries affected by the Arab Spring are failing to get a proper university education because they still feel unable to challenge their tutors. Speaking at the annual conference of the European Association for International Education (September 10-13) in Istanbul, Khaled Fahmy, professor of history at the American University of Cairo (AUC), said the culture of deference to lecturers is more damaging to student development than overcrowded classrooms or lack of university resources. Prof. Fahmy was a Fulbright scholar who taught at New York University before joining AUC.Fahmy traces the culture of undue deference towards academics back to the hierarchy between teachers and students found in the French academy, which was the model for most Egyptian universities. This is the curse (of) Cairo University… far more than the large numbers of students, he argues, citing his neighbouring university, which has about 280,000 students. But Michael Willis, King Mohammed VI fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean studies at St. Antonys College, Oxford, says attitudes may start to change because young people feel more empowered to question orthodoxies since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. What most depressed me about living and teaching in Morocco was the sense of fatalism in young people, says Willis. They felt the future could not be changed and everything was fixed and tied down by self-appointed elites, but there is now a sense things can be changed. Fahmy also believes the current status quo is untenable, but that vibrant democracies cannot be established unless liberal arts begin to flourish within universities. There is actually no term in Arabic for liberal arts, he says, adding that universities are too focused on providing degrees in science, engineering and medicine. The result is that it is very difficult for critical thinking to take place on campus. Without new ideas arising from the humanities subjects, vocational skills cannot be effectively applied to real-world problems, he adds. In engineering, our expertise is how to pour concrete, but there is no knowledge of urban planning or how to organise public spaces. The overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt after growing discontent with its administration may also be attributed to its failure to engage with the liberal politics demanded by people nowadays, says Fahmy. The common critique of the Muslim Brotherhood is there isnt a single poet, artist or writer in their leadership — 85 percent of them hold engineering or medical qualifications. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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International News

Europe: Rising tide of English language courses

Thousand of international students may be shunning the US, UK and Commonwealth countries in favour of continental Europe, where a growing number of courses are being offered in English. A total of 6,407 taught Masters programmes in the language were offered in continental Europe in June this year — a 38 percent rise on the 4,644 courses available just 18 months earlier, according to a report by the Institute of International Education, a New York-based not-for-profit.That total was ten times higher than the overall number offered in 2002, says the report, titled English-Taught Masters Programs in Europe: A 2013 Update. The study is based on course listings from the Study Portals website, which provides information from 1,200 public and private universities in mainland Europe. Programmes in English account for almost a third of the 21,000 Masters courses advertised on the site in continental Europe, the report indicates. The increased selection of continental Masters programmes in English may explain why applicants visiting Study Portals are becoming less likely to search for courses in the UK, the report suggests. The UKs share of page views fell from 31 percent in 2011 to 24 percent in 2013, while Germanys share rose from 14 percent to 18 percent over the same period. Interest in courses in Sweden and France also increased. In this context its pertinent to note that tuition fees in European universities tend to be substantially lower than in the UK. Interest in the UK from potential Masters students is still strong and it is growing, but it is not growing as fast as interest in other countries, says Elias Faethe, head of Study Portals intelligence unit, who co-authored the report. If you look at the main competitor countries to the UK in Europe, they are all pushing forward their efforts to attract high-quality international students, and English-taught courses are a way to do this. Several Scandinavian countries appear to have switched almost all their postgraduate teaching to English. Some 708 Masters courses in Sweden were taught in the language this year — an increase of 73 percent on 2011 figures and more than four times the number offered in 2007. The Netherlands provides the highest number of English-taught Masters degrees on the continent, with 946 available compared with 386 six years ago. Meanwhile, Germany has 733 Masters programmes taught in the tongue this year — up from just 88 in 2007. In France, where a law banning teaching in anything but French is loosely enforced, the number of Masters courses available in English has soared from just 11 in 2007 to 494 this year. With Asian countries such as China and Hong Kong also offering courses in English, the UK may struggle to attract the same number of international postgraduates, especially given the governments decision last year to shut down the post-study work visa route, says Daniel Stevens, international students officer at the National Union of Students. The traditional destinations to study in English, such as the US, UK and Australia,…

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International News

United States: Shift toward digital textbooks

Several US projects launched this autums are expanding the availability of free electronic textbooks using open educational resources (OER), as commercial publishers scramble to make more of their own titles available digitally. The activity comes in response to the mounting cost of textbooks — up 812 percent since 1978, much faster than even tuition fees, according to the American Enterprise Institute think tank. A lot of students dont buy books, says Richard Baraniuk, professor of engineering at Rice University in Houston and founding director of OpenStax College, an OER project based there. They know theyre not going to do as well in their courses, but they still choose not to buy (prescribed) books because theyre too expensive. Impatient for publishers to rein in costs, Lynn University in Florida has provided tablets to all incoming students this term and said it will eliminate printed textbooks in core classes by next year. Pushed by student associations, the university system of Maryland is letting academics experiment with free OER textbooks in introductory courses. And several start-ups, eyeing a US textbook market worth more than $12 billion (Rs.73,254 crore), are promoting cheap alternatives created from OER content. Publishers are pushing back in unexpected ways. Many now offer cheaper e-versions of their textbooks (online products now account for 27 percent of the US industry). Global publisher Pearson has also created a cloud-based service which provides access to free OER content alongside its titles, allowing scholars to assemble their own course materials from both sources. And a group of publishers has collectively made its e-titles available through a service called CourseSmart. But although these trends have been building for a few years, the digitisation of textbooks has not taken off as fast as other technological advances in the academy. For one thing, staff and students have been surprisingly reluctant to abandon print. Nearly 80 percent of students surveyed by the National Association of College Stores say they prefer print to e-books, and academics assign digital texts in only 14 percent of study programmes. (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)

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International News

United Kingdom: THE World University Rankings 2013-14

Power among the world’s leading universities has shifted further eastwards, with mainland Europe suffering the worst losses, show the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-14. In general, this year’s tables are marked by their stability: the California Institute of Technology holds on to top spot for the third year in a row; the same institutions make up the Top 10 as last year (albeit with some changes in the pecking order); there is minimal movement among the world’s Top 30; and the two rankings powerhouses, the US and the UK, experience little overall movement at the national level. But one trend stands out: Europe’s flagship varsities are listing. The premier-ranked institutions in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russia, Belgium, the Republic of Ireland and Austria all fall down the tables. And although the power shift among nations is less marked than it has been in previous years, the top players in China, South Korea, Japan and Singapore have all risen up the Top 200 list. Asia now boasts six Top 50 institutions, up from five last year. “For several years, national governments in Europe have reduced or frozen investment in higher education and research as a result of the economic crisis — although they have done so while claiming the opposite, given the importance of the sector in the global knowledge economy,” says Hans de Wit, professor of internationalisation of higher education at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The UK cements its position as the #1 nation in Europe for world-class higher education and the strongest on the planet after the US. It has 31 institutions in the Top 200 — the same number as last year — with seven Top 50 representatives and 11 in the Top 100. A notable exception to Europe’s downbeat performance is offered by the Scandinavian countries: their top institutions are moving on up. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute (joint 42nd to 36th), the Technical University of Denmark (149th to joint 117th) and Finland’s University of Helsinki (109th to joint 100th) all improve their positions, while Norway regains a Top 200 foothold (the University of Oslo in joint 185th place). Overall, the US holds firmly on to its hegemonic position as the world’s leading higher education nation. It takes 77 of the Top 200 places (up from 76 last year) — including seven of the Top 10, 30 of the Top 50 and 46 of the Top 100 (all slight improvements on last year). A similar geographical effect is helping one tiny Asian nation make waves in the global rankings: Singapore. The city state’s two Top 200 representatives continue their ascent. The National University of Singapore rises from #29 to #26 and bolsters its growing status by becoming the second strongest university in the Asia-Pacific region (behind the University of Tokyo, which occupies 23rd spot), overtaking Australia’s University of Melbourne in the process. Similarly, mainland China continues to progress, albeit slowly. It still has only two Top 200 universities, but they have made further progress in their ambition…

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Teacher-to-Teacher

Global education lessons from America

The need for education systems dispensing globally accepted knowledge and skillsets is too well-known to bear reiteration. The emergence of a global marketplace for high order critical thinking, analytical and communication skills, the blurring of national boundaries in relation to life-and-death matters such as terrorism and environmental degradation, rapidly rising standards of educational achievement around the world, are but a few of the drivers of global education systems worldwide.Considerable amounts of time, money and effort are being expended in the US on developing global systems in school education. However, much of this effort seems to be driven by the fear of economic competition from a resurgent China which is close to acquiring superpower status in the new millennium. How far is the US experience relevant for India? And what in the Indian context is ‘globalised education? Let us first look at the basic building block of all educational systems — the curriculum. In India curric-ulums, by and large, and in spite of brave efforts of the NCERT, tend to be heavily content-based, requiring accumulation of a huge body of facts understood as synonymous with knowledge. On the other hand, education institutions in the US are steadily moving away from a content-heavy to skills acquisition curricula which develop critical thinking, analysis and problem solving skills. The rationale of this education definition change is that contemporary societies require youth equipped with initiative and problem-solving capabilities. While there is much merit behind this mindset change, it is equally true that youth develop these skills only after acquiring a solid grasp of the basics. The Indian school education system, for all its faults, builds a strong foundation as testified by the success of our students in universities abroad. The solution therefore is to develop syllabi which blend content and skills. And in doing so we must not forget (as American educators seem to be doing) that education is not just about producing professionals and workers capable of competing in the emerging global marketplace. Its definitely about producing artists, poets, dreamers and philosophers as well. Admittedly, over-emphasis on rote learning will kill creativity. But the power of recall should never be undervalued, especially when one has to make quick decisions. After all, lets not forget that the most important component of the computer is its memory! Consequently, the disturbing tendency to debunk all memorised knowledge in the US is ill-advised and could have far-reaching and deleterious consequences for American society. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that a great infirmity of Indian school education is exaggerated respect for tutors and mentors which discourages questioning in our classrooms. The reason is partly cultural (respect for elders) and partly logistical (too many students in classrooms). But its also true that most teachers are not equipped to encourage creativity and curiousity. Indian students who reject this cultural and logistical baggage transform into global gladiators competing with the best of the West. Undeniably the american focus on students leading the learning process, a hallmark of current educational practice in the…

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Sports Education

Do sports develop character?

Can you tell me, Socrates — is virtue something that can be taught? Or does it come by practice. Or is it neither teaching nor practice that gives it to a man but natural aptitude or something else? — (opening question in Platos Meno)It has become normative for leaders and coaches to focus on the importance of evolving into positive role models: If youre going to talk the talk, youve got to walk the walk. This popular phrase captures the essence of the message I have been propagating for more than six decades in sports and education. Great philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas to name only a few, struggled with the question of teaching values, and despite their deep wisdom, were unable to produce satisfying answers. Aristotle concluded that acquiring virtue (values) required a combination of learning (becoming good by understanding what it is to be good); practice (becoming good by doing good), and nature (either you have it or you dont). Two millennia later, we continue to search for meaningful ways to inculcate values in youth. Past and present sports administrators and physical educationists have acclaimed the numerous personal and social benefits of sports education. Sports builds character and keeps you in good shape mentally and physically. Learning to play fair in the classroom and on playing fields prepares you to play fair in life. The list goes on. I once asked legendary bask-etball coach John Wooden, if he believed sports builds character. George, it can . . . or it can tear it down. It all depends on leadership, he said. Unfortunately, claims about meaningful ways to instill values and virtue (build character) through sports and physical activities by far outnumber the evidence to support such statements. However, this is not to deny the potential of sports, exercise and physical education. But its foolish to assume that positive outcomes will flow automatically from sports participation. Changes in feelings, attitudes, values and behaviour are more likely to follow if someone who exemplifies character-building qualities, preaches them. Physical activity whether on the playing field, gym, in the fitness room or in any instructional setting, is conducive to wholesome influences because these environments are emotional, interactive, and salubrious Activity on playing fields provides unlimited opportunities for development of personal and social qualities. Teaching values requires a liberal education without resort to indoctrination. While I have always been uncomfortable about employing techniques bordering on indoctrination to transmit values, I strongly believe it is possible to encourage children and youth to discuss, explore, and reflect critically on values and ethical positions that exist in our diverse, complex and ever-changing society. However, academic and informed opinion is unanimous — and I concur — that teaching values through sports education is a hard and complex task. But its not impossible and its the duty of teachers and educators. Here are some pointers: Develop receptivity. People dont have the capability to learn at the same time and pace. Sometimes a student is focused…

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Career Focus

Your Counselor Replies

I want to pursue a career in design after completing my B.Com degree next year. However I’m confused whether I should sign up for a course in web or graphic design. Please advise. Shalini Jagannath, Bangalore Graphic design is the better option as it prepares you for production and layouts of newspapers, magazines, journals, corporate reports and other publications. In addition, as a qualified graphic designer you will be equipped to design promotional displays, logos, packaging materials and marketing brochures for products and services. In contrast, web design is a narrow specialisation restricted to planning, designing and constructing websites for clients. Once you master graphic design, you can always upgrade by signing up for a short course in web design. Is it necessary to acquire a Masters degree in IT (information technology) to secure a good job, or will a B.Sc (IT) degree suffice? I’m a first year B.Sc student and would like you to recommend some courses which will improve my career prospects. Deepak Chhabria, Mumbai A bachelor’s degree is insufficient to land a fast-track job, particularly in the IT industry with its fast-changing dynamics. A B.Sc degree is a good foundation but a Masters degree identifies you as a high flier. You could also consider signing up for an MCA (Master of computer applications) degree programme if your interest is in software development. Other options are an MBA with specialisation in IT and/or an M.Tech degree. Make your decision in your second year to enable you to prepare for entrance exams. How rewarding is a career in the patents field? Is there sustained demand for patent professionals? Navin Bhatia, New Delhi Patents, trademarks and IPR (intellectual property rights) are important legal specialisations and are steadily gaining importance in India. There are numerous postgraduate courses you could sign up for in these specialisations. NALSAR Law Univer-sity, Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Patents and Trademarks, Hyderabad, and Government Law College, Delhi, among others, offer courses in these fields. I’ve been working as a sales manager in a reputed company for the past two years. I want to improve my career prospects by signing up for a regular or part-time MBA study programme. Please advise. Amol Patil, Pune Since you have only two years’ work experience after graduation, I suggest you enroll for a full-time MBA programme. You could write the CAT exam, clearance of which qualifies you for admission into the IIMs or XAT/CMAT exams for entry into XLRI, Jamshedpur or other top B-schools. I will graduate in home science in 2014. I’m keen on working in the armed forces but don’t know how to go about it. Please advise. Nalini Sen, Kolkata You could apply under the Women Special Entry Scheme (WSES) for entry into the Indian Army. The WSES examination notification is advertised in prominent dailies with details of eligibility requirements. For entry into the Indian Air Force/Indian Navy, keep a lookout for similar notifications. All vacancies lead to a Short Service Commission. After you apply in response to an advertisement detailing eligibility and…

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Career Focus

Private equity professionals

Contrary to conventional wisdom, venture capital firms aren’t run by wealthy financiers who magnanimously fund start-ups, but by professionals who study, analyse and assess capital mobilisation proposals submitted by entrepreneurs If you believe you have the ability to spot a good business opportunity and aspire to fund the dreams of entrepreneurs who can create jobs and tax revenue streams for public investment, a new career option which merits consideration is private equity, aka venture capital funding. In the popular imagination, a venture capitalist is a wealthy financier who magnanimously funds start-up comp-anies. However, the contemporary reality is that venture funds are pools of capital, usually limited liability part-nership firms which invest in start-ups and growing businesses in expec-tation of high rates of return within five to seven years. Far from being passive financiers, venture capitalists enable the growth of investee companies through involvement with management, strategic marketing and planning. They are entrepreneurs first and financiers next. Typically, venture capital (VC) firms raise money from wealthy individuals, corporates, financial institutions, and non-profits to build a corpus which is deployed into start-ups, especially new technology firms and businesses. VC professionals study, analyse and assess capital mobilisation proposals submitted by entrepr-eneurs. The aim and objective of VC professionals is to fund high-potential business ventures and killer apps, and exit when funded enterprises receive high valuation and/or go public. For entry into established venture capital firms as a professional, a commerce degree is sufficient, although top-ranked VC firms prefer to recruit MBAs in finance or chartered accountants. Financially, a career in private equity can be highly rewarding. Young professionals usually start as analysts obliged to do research and administrative work. At this level, compensation packages are normatively Rs.10-15 lakh per year. After a few years experience, or alternatively, with a Masters degree or MBA you could start as an associate earning Rs.20-30 lakh annually. The next step up is to the position of principal who typically manages the ‘deal flow’ and short-lists promising proposals. At this level, annual remu-neration packages vary between Rs.30-50 lakh. And at the very top are fund partners — high performers with excellent investment track records of identifying, nurturing, hand-holding and maturing start-ups into high valu-ation corporates. Partners are the public face of private equity funds whose knowledge, business analysis and trends forecasting skills prompt high networth investors to entrust their savings to their equity funds for steady or spectacular returns. Partners are usually investment superstars who earn crores of rupees by way of salaries and bonuses, with some of them morphing into independent investors and starting their own VC firms. “Private equity is a highly rewarding profession as there are over 350 private equity funds from around the world investing in India. Remuneration pack-ages are excellent and comparable with foreign banks, and the ‘carry’ offered by most VC firms is an addition. ‘Carry’ is a percentage of the profit made by a fund from investee companies,” says Ashish Chugani, head of private equity at the Mumbai-based Centrum Capital Ltd,…

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Cover Story

Cover Story Contd: 51 New Millennium Edupreneurs

A.K. & Sanjay Agarwal MDN Edify Education, Hyderabad Both commerce graduates of Osmania University, siblings Anjani Kumar (AKA) and Sanjay Agarwal (SA) are directors of the Hyderabad-based MDN Edify Education Pvt. Ltd. Since the company was incorporated in 2009, it has signed content and curriculum provision and management contracts with 164 preschools and 16 K-12 schools with an aggregate enrollment of over 64,000 students countrywide, run under the Edify brand. The Agarwal brothers ventured into education in 2003 with the state-of-the-art CBSE, IBO (Geneva) and CIE (UK)-affiliated DRS International School, Hyderabad. What’s the history of MDN Edify? AKA: My father Sri Dayanand Agarwal, the promoter of Agarwal Packers and Movers, had a vision of setting up a school which would offer high quality education. During his journey, he realised the importance of an educated workforce and desired to establish a school. Building on his aspirations, in 2003 under the guidance of former Doon School headmaster Gulab Ramchandani, we promoted the DRS International School (DRSIS), Hyderabad, which is running to full capacity today. After fulfilling my father’s vision of establishing DRSIS, we resolved to provide quality school education to children across the country. We chose the franchise route to attain our objective. Thus MDN Edify Education was born in 2009. We are happy to state that the Edify brand has gone international with the establishment of franchisees in Nepal and the Gulf region. What were the major challenges and how did you meet them? SA: Initially we faced problems in creating awareness among parents about our enquiry-based system of education. Secondly, we had a tough time finding quality teachers to adapt to our curriculum and deliver it to students in franchisee schools. By constantly meeting and educating groups of parents across the country, we succeeded in winning them over to our new concepts of teaching. Currently Edify Education is empanelled by CBSE to conduct training programmes for teachers and principals of CBSE-affiliated schools. What are your future growth and development plans? SA: By the year 2018, we expect to launch 250 preschools and 100 world-class K-12 schools across the country under the Edify Education brand. Unwind/de-stress. AKA: Spending time with children rejuvenates both body and mind. SA: Long drives. Ashish Rajpal XSEED Education, Gurgaon Ashish Rajpal is founder-managing director of XSEED Education (formerly iDiscoveri), which offers its XSEED programme to 1,000 schools with an aggregate enrollment of 400,000 children and 40,000 teachers. An alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in 2001 Rajpal forsook by-all-accounts a spectacular career as the worldwide marketing director of the Paris-based Groupe Danone, to return to India and promote XSEED. What prompted you to start XSEED? In my growing years, I spent a lot of time in the hill areas which may have sparked a desire to accomplish something with a wide social impact. The birth of my own children was also a huge turning point and aroused my interest in education and how best to realise a child’s potential. Hence returning to India and venturing…

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Cover Story

51 New Millennium Education Entrepreneurs

Although only the intellectually honest — and this excludes the vast majority of the country’s Left intellectuals who dominate the academy — will admit it, Indian education is steadily and inexorably being privatised. While post-independence India’s fast-expanding middle class seceded from the public/government school education system several decades ago, of late even aspirational lower middle class and bottom-of-the-pyramid households are voting with their feet — and thin wallets — for the country’s unwarrantedly maligned private education system. In his well-researched and under-appreciated book A Beautiful Tree (2009), Dr. James Tooley, professor of education at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University, UK, exposed the curious phenomenon of India’s ubiquitous ‘unrecognised’ private budget schools — low-cost primaries established in low-rent and slum habitations — run by education entrepreneurs levying monthly tuition fees of Rs.100-500. Through numerous interviews with less-than-well-to-do parents and promoter-principals of private budget schools, Tooley proves (and official statistics of several state governments including Maharashtra and Karnataka among others confirm) that there’s a swelling exodus of children from all but the poorest households fleeing dysfunctional government schools defined by decrepit infrastructure, chronic teacher absenteeism, anti-English language prejudice and abysmal learning outcomes, for private budget schools run by dedicated education entrepreneurs mindful of reputation. According to Dr. Parth Shah, founder president of the Delhi-based Centre for Civil Society, the country’s top-ranked think tank, the number of unrecognised private budget schools countrywide is more than 400,000, equal almost to one-third of the country’s 1.40 million recognised primary-secondaries. “More than 100 million of the 230 million school-going children in India are enrolled in private schools, with nearly 40 percent of all students attending less than 10 percent of the total number of schools countrywide, the vast majority of them private. This is confirmed by the Annual Status of Education Report 2012 published by the well-known education NGO Pratham. It shows that the enrollment of children in the 6-14 age group in rural India has risen from 18.7 percent in 2006 to 28.3 percent in 2012, with private school enrollment growing at over 10 percent year-on-year. Real and perceived advantages of private schooling are impacting parents across the country, prompting them to opt for private education for their children. Unfortunately there is little acknowledgement of this reality in the Central or state governments. Indeed, instead of acknowledging the role of private and budget schools and evolving policies to encourage them to improve learning outcomes, governments are stubbornly holding on to outdated policies and mindsets,” comments Anand Sudarshan, hitherto vice chairman and managing director of Manipal Global Education, and currently founder-director of the Bangalore-based Sylvant Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a strategic education advisory firm. Quite clearly unmindful of official peeves and ideological prejudices, across the demographic spectrum parents and students are opting for superior K-12 and post-secondary private education. And to their credit, despite government and judicial discouragement, driven by the spirit of enlightened self-interest blended with altruism, a growing number of education entrepreneurs are promoting internationally benchmarked capital-intensive schools and higher education institutions across the country. In our 14th…

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Young Achievers

Lakshmipat Singhania Academy, Kolkata shining dozen

A dozen shining stars of the co-ed, CBSE-affiliated Lakshmipat Singhania Academy, Kolkata (LSA, estb.1996), a K-12 day school (ranked #14 in the latest EW India School Rankings in the city of joy), won the 20 Settlement Design Competition of the Johnson Space Centre, Houston, Texas, held between August 2-5. Earlier in February, the LSA team won the first prize in the Asia preliminary held at Manesar, Haryana, under the guidance of their teacher Subroto Chakraborty. The school’s ‘outer space shining dozen’ comprised nine boys — Pulkit Parolia, Devansh Agarwal, Yashwant Kedia, Pronil Roy, Yash Mehta, Yash Manpuria, Yashwardhan Nevatia, Vibhor Sharma, Amitabh Agrawal — and three girls viz, Manshi Sanghai, Darshika Agarwal, and Vatsal Mohta. In Houston, they were included in Team Grumbo Aerospace comprising students of Edgewater High School (Orlando, USA), Princess Margaret High School (Vanco-uver, Canada), Cardiff Sixth Form School (UK) and the Johnson Space Centre Team (Texas, USA). Team Grumbo Aerospace was one of four ‘companies’ consisting of school teams from India, Pakistan, USA, Australia, Wales, Arg-entina, Romania, China, and Uruguay. Each company had 48 students aggreg-ating a total of 192 participants in this annual global competition. The International Space Settlement Design Competition, supported by America’s pioneer National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), required each company to design a human colony in space, in different locations, with different scenarios. To qualify for the finals in Houston, two schools had to win the Asia Round to represent Asia. “Our company comprised two teams from Pakistan, a team from China and LSA. We won because of innovative solutions, addres-sing the key issues of water production in space, and methods of ensuring a constant supply of solar power. In the Asia Round, we were given 22 hours to complete the propo-sal, and in the Houston Inter-national, we worked the entire 45 hours in shifts,” enthuses team member Amitabh Agrawal. “The magnitude of the competition, and the chance to work cooperatively with schools from Asia, if not the entire world, was hugely motivating,” adds Pronil Roy. From among the shining dozen, Devansh Agarwal is studying aero-space engineering at Georgia Tech, USA, and Pulkit Parolia is pursuing the aerospace engineering degree programme of Purdue University. The rest are class XII students of LSA, who intend studying and researching space and other sciences. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

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14th Anniversary Essays

Growing importance of flipped learning

On education seminars and workshops circuits in India and abroad, the new buzzwords are 21st century, new millennium, and communication and soft skills learning. Even in India, theres been a sudden shift in favour of developing critical thinking, analysis and problem solving skills. In particular, theres a new and welcome awareness that contemporary education requires more than academic proficiency which can also be absorbed in environments far removed from bricks-and-mortar classrooms.With this in mind, the first assignment I set for a recent training programme was for participants to think of one stand-out moment in their journey from school to the present day, a turn-around moment when they discerned, ‘I am good at this! or ‘I am this sort of learner! or ‘Oh, thats why we did that thing at school! My objective was to make them think about the process of learning itself, not merely the outcomes. Some of the responses are worth noting because they say so much about the type of education dispensed in Indias classrooms. ‘I was on an important business trip to the US when I lost my slides. I made the presentation ‘jugaad style in the awareness that if I had confidence in myself, people would have confidence in me. ‘The car broke down on a dark road. I angled my make-up mirror to reflect the only light onto the chassis, to help me change a tyre. It was the first time I realised there was a practical application to what I learned in college. What struck me was that none of these reflective moments happened in a standard classroom on a normal day. Even now for the current generation of young learners in India, a normal school day is mostly about competitive achievement against a narrow set of markers set by others, viz, examinations that act as a barrier to high quality further education. Learning for exams doesnt require any self-awareness, and more crucially, doesnt stimulate the strong creative and adaptive instincts necessary for success in the world beyond school gates. Hence the growing importance of out-of-classroom learning. Getting out of the classroom in essence means getting your nose out of textbooks! But unfortunately the time children spend not studying formally is often seen as educationally less important than the moments when they are working hard, copying and memorising facts and dates for tests. One solution is to combine the two and connect the dots between study and exploration in childrens minds. For instance, if theres a chapter on water pollution in a civics or biology textbook, teachers could take students to a connected institution such as the Sulabh Museum of Toilets in Dwarka, Delhi, where the latter can witness the operations of a biogas plant and learn about the history and evolution of sanitation in different parts of the world. If an appropriate museum is inaccessible or logistics are a problem, there are other ways of getting out of classrooms to acquire on-site education. Take children on a tour of an arboretum, a…

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14th Anniversary Essays

Digital age mandate for teachers

As digital age technology becomes increasingly integrated with the daily lives of people around the world, teachers will be working with a new generation which has been ‘born digital’ — a population of young people who use technology intuitively. Consequently schools will have to match the pace of change and teach students by using 21st century digital technology. At our annual Cambridge Schools Conference in Singapore on October 16-17, attended by over 370 teachers from around the world, the focus was on how to prepare learners for the new digital age. We looked at the impact of new digital devices on learning; the latest technologies in the workplace; the emergence of new categories of jobs driven by technological innovation and how technology can best be integrated into the classroom to benefit learners. The resounding message from teachers and speakers at the conference is that effective application of digital technologies will be the prerequisite of success in the 21st century. “To prepare our students for these changes it’s important to use technology not only as a tool but as a partner,” commented Ayesha Khanna, chief executive at Urban Intel. Across the globe, schools must keep step with students whose access to technology at home means that much of their work will be prepared on digital devices. The results of a recent survey of over 500 CIE (aka Cambridge)-affiliated schools around the world clearly show the significance of new digital technologies is being acknowledged by sch-ools, teachers and learners. Over half of teachers have a strategy for using technology in the classroom, and 90 percent believe all lessons will be supported by some form of technology ten years from now. Indeed, a third of teachers feel the march of technology may well make bricks-and-mortar classrooms obsolete in the near future. Technological developments offer a fantastic opportunity to increase the level of student engagement and produc-tivity and many teachers are starting to employ them to transform their lessons. During the two-day conference, several teachers commented that technology had afforded them access to a wealth of content and enabled them to infuse more variety into their lessons. Over a third of teachers are using the latest smartphones and tablets in their classes, and the same number are using apps or social networks for educational purposes. While traditional technology such as TV, radio and CD players are falling out of favour, over 80 percent of teachers now use laptops to support teaching in their classrooms. Over two-thirds of students have individual access to laptops and PCs, and 80 percent of teachers expect their IT budget to increase over the next five years. At the same time, schools are addres-sing the access issue by encouraging students to use their own technology. We are therefore seeing the rise of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in schools, with over 60 percent of teachers confirming that students are allowed to bring their own devices for use in the classroom. Interestingly, our survey reveals that the technology application with the…

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14th Anniversary Essays

Schools by other names

– Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times In the latest THE (Times Higher Education) World University Rankings 2013-14 published in October, none of India’s 33,000 colleges and 659 universities are ranked among the Top 200. As usual, the THE league tables are headed by American and British universities — California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, University of California (Berkeley) etc. Several Asian varsities are ranked among the Top 50, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore and Seoul universities, as well as China’s Tsinghua and Beijing universities. We have to go to the Top 400 in THE World University Rankings league table to find any reference to India. Punjab University, believe it or not, is India’s top-ranked (#226-50) followed by IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee (351-400). India’s vintage Bombay, Calcutta and Madras universities, established in 1857 and Delhi University (1922) are conspicuously absent from the Top 400. More tragic is the fact that the gap between Indian and foreign universities is widening. Ten years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru University’s department of social sciences was ranked a commendable 42. Now, it’s nowhere in the Top 400. The gap between foreign and Indian universities is widening because there is declining comprehension in the academy about the meaning and purpose of post-secondary education. Post-independence India’s academics tend to view college as an extension of school. There’s little awareness that higher ed institutions need to provide liberal environments in which students acquire academic as well as broad-based life skills and lifestyle education. The difference between collegiate education in India and abroad became clear to me way back in the 1960s when I was pulled out of St. Stephen’s, Delhi — one of India’s best liberal colleges — by my father and made to write the entrance exam to King’s College, Cambridge University (UK). I passed the exam and that’s how I found myself as a student of one of the world’s Top 10 universities. Among the first things that struck me at Cambridge was the wide choice of extra-curricular activities — debating, film, photography, dramatics, sports — available to students. The point is that while pursuing studies, one had the opportunity to also develop a variety of life skills. The Cambridge Union (debating society) sharpened the communication skills of innumerable British and non-native politicians and leaders including our very own Mani Shankar Aiyar, while the rival Oxford Union honed the skills of the likes of the late Benazir Bhutto. It was official policy not only to encourage academic excellence but also develop students with well-rounded personalities. Interaction and socialisation between the sexes was accepted as natural, and ‘bird-and-bottle’ parties were de rigueur. Moreover, unlike Indian universities, it’s not mandatory to attend a mini-mum number of lectures at Cambridge; you are free to opt out of all lectures as the university authorities presume you are adult enough to decide for yourself. According to Deepak Nayyar, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and a former vice chancellor of…

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14th Anniversary Essays

Teacher training stumbling block

Following the proclaimed success of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (‘education for all) primary education programme introduced in 1999, the government of India has recently set its sights on rapidly expanding — indeed universalising — secondary education under its Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) programme. Given the nations massive population of 480 million children below age 18, this objective is hugely ambitious and needs rapid expansion of the government and private school system countrywide.However, instead of a facilitative and enabling regulatory system, private secondary school promoters and managements continue to be confronted with formidable policy obstacles including obtaining recognition and ‘no objection certificates (NOCs) from state governments, and securing affiliation with one or more of Indias 34 school-leaving examination boards. Admittedly, the norms and conditions governing recognition, NOC and affiliation are well-meant and were formulated to ensure minimum standards in school education. But unfortunately subsequent and independent legislation has made it almost impossible for school mana-gements to qualify for recognition and NOCs. For instance in Uttar Pradesh — Indias most populous state (200 million) — a precondition of government recognition of a newly promoted private school is that it must pay teachers government-presc-ribed salaries. However, the state governments rules formulated under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, also mandate that private schools cannot increase tuition fees by more than 10 percent in three years. Against this, the dearness allowance of government employees (including teachers) rises by more than 12-14 percent annually. Therefore these contradictory rules render private schools financially unviable ab initio. Secondly, the most fundamental problem with the norms and conditions stipulated by the RTE Act is that they are based on a flawed idea of what constitutes quality in education. Most of the norms and conditions stipulated by s. 19 of the Act relate to inputs into schooling such as insistence on teachers with pre-service teacher training; maximum prescribed pupil-teacher ratios (e.g. 30:1); owned rather than rented buildings with playground; and payment of government-prescribed salaries to teachers. Internationally available — and scanty Indian — research indicates theres no correlation between the prescribed inputs and student achievement or learning outcomes. Therefore the RTE Act compels schools to invest in resources and inputs that have no demonstrated relationship with schooling quality. Against this backdrop it would be socially beneficial to review the mandatory requirement that all teachers should have pre-service teacher training degrees/diplomas. Most exam boards insist that only schools in which all teachers have already completed B.Ed degrees will be granted affiliation. Its not enough for a school to show that its teachers are currently enrolled in B.Ed programmes to be completed within two years. Consequently, the promotion of new and expansion of existing schools is constrained by this requirement. Surely, the critical qualification required of a teacher should be her competence to teach her subject in terms of wide subject knowledge. Moreover in English-medium schools, it is an irreducible requirement that teachers are able to speak and write English. But neither of these two basic…

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Institution Profile

New York University, USA

Set in the heart of one of the world’s most famous and dynamic cities, New York University (NYU), USA is a top-ranked private research higher ed institution with an enrollment of over 50,000 students mentored by 3,100 full-time faculty. Founded in 1831 by Albert Gallatin, who served as secretary of the treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, with the objective of establishing “in this immense and fast-growing city… a system of rational and practical education fitting for all and graciously opened to all”, New York University, USA has evolved into a globally respected university ranked among the best higher education institutions within the US and worldwide. The US News and World Report ranks it #32 in its America’s Best Colleges 2013 rankings while Times Higher Education ranks it #40 in its World University Rankings 2013-14. Currently New York University’s 14 schools and colleges offer over 2,500 study programmes in the humanities, science, and social sciences; law; medicine; business; education; fine arts, studio art, performing and cinematic arts; music; social work; public administration; the ancient world; and continuing and professional studies. With NYU’s campus sited in downtown Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and many academic and administrative buildings and residence halls bordering Washington Square Park, the varsity’s location within New York City (NYC) provides students myriad opportunities to soak in the plethora of social, cultural, business and leisure buzz the Big Apple offers. Its New York campus apart, New York University is also the first US university to establish a comprehensive liberal arts campus in Abu Dhabi with another fully-fledged research campus in Shanghai, China, inaugurated earlier this year. Comments John Sexton, president of NYU: “Today, New York University, USA is the first truly global network university, tied into the worldwide flow of talent, with portal campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, acad-emic sites for teaching and research throughout the world, and the largest number of students studying abroad of any US college or university.” New York City. Although its famous Twin Towers no longer pierce the Manhattan skyline, NYC (pop.8.4 million) is still regarded as the nerve centre of international business and hosts some of the world’s premier business and finance corporates. The Big Apple also boasts more globally famous landmarks than any other city of the world — the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, and Ground Zero. Other popular attractions include Staten Island Ferry, the streets of SoHo (offering fine art galleries and upscale boutiques), Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, Grand Central Station, Times Square, Central Park, Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art and the American Folk Art Museum. With NYU’s campus sited in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and many of its buildings and residences bordering Washington Square Park, the neigbhourhood sidewalks are vibrant with students on their way to class, and New York University, USA community members fill its restaurants, shops and other businesses. Campus facilities. Most of NYU’s buildings are located across a 229-acre area bounded by Houston Street to the south, Broadway to the east, 14th Street to the…

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Institution Profile

Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati

Named after American missionary Miles Bronson who published the first Anglo-Assamese dictionary in 1867, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati has come a long way from its rented premises in Jyotinagar Sited on a spacious 26-acre campus abutting the international airport in Borjhar on the outskirts of Guwahati, the CBSE-affiliated Miles Bronson Residential School (MBRS, estb. 1987) is Assam’s pioneer co-educational boarding school. Named after American missionary Dr. Miles Bronson who came to Assam in 1837 and published Asomiya Abhihan (1867), the first Anglo-Assamese dictionary, the school has come a long way since it admitted its first batch of 17 students in rented premises in Jyotinagar in 1988. In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013 (EW September), Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati is ranked second among co-ed boarding schools in Assam (pop. 31 million), #18 nationwide and among the Top 10 boarding schools (across all sub-categories) for infrastructure. The history of Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwhati goes back to 1987 when Nripen Kumar Dutta, a history postgraduate of Delhi University who also acquired a Masters in education from Gauhati University, was preparing for the UPSC (Union Public Services Commission) exam, in the course of which he met several successful alumni of top-ranked boarding schools. Well aware that Assam was under-served by way of nationally benchmarked primary-secondary boarding schools, Dutta abandoned his plan to join the IAS, and invested all his savings into starting MBRS to enable students from different parts of north-east India to get quality education. Under Dutta’s focused and committed leadership, enrollment inched up to 58 students in 1990 and the school moved to a larger campus in Beltola near Dispur where enrollment further rose to 220. In 2002, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati was again translocated to its present state-of-the-art capital intensive campus which hosts fully residential 360 boys and 275 girls mentored by 206 teachers and support staff. “Our prime objective is to provide students quality education blended with latest technology and international pedagogy. My vision is to empower our teachers to develop the minds, bodies and souls of our students so that they emerge with strong personalities and are prepared for global citizenship,” says Dutta, who was awarded his Ph D by the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune in 2010, and is currently selected for enrollment at Exeter University for a Ph D in education. To attain these ambitious institutional objectives, the Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati management has invested a massive sum estimated at Rs.185 crore, to create a conducive home-away-from-home environment for its 635 students. The school offers three aesthetically-designed and composite girls and two boys’ hostels with each offering en suite residential (four to a room) equipped with study facilities and dining rooms, and “world class” games and sports arenas. Among the latter are facilities for swimming, tennis, basketball, football and taekwondo. Moreover a mini golf course, a 400 metre synthetic athletics track, and a multi-purpose indoor sports auditorium with facilities for a whole range of indoor games and a seating capacity of 3,000,…

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Education Briefs

UoC academic centre in Delhi

The University of Chicago (UoC) is set to inaugurate a new academic centre in the central business district of Connaught Place, Delhi, next spring (March-April). The varsity’s Delhi centre will be a base for research and education for UoC faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates working in India and South Asia. “The centre in Delhi reflects the importance the university places on global engagement and our commitment to India and South Asia particularly,” said UoC president Robert J. Zimmer addressing a news conference in New Delhi on October 25. “It will support the work of our faculty, provide a platform for collaboration and opportunities for Indian scholars, prepare our students with a much greater understanding of India, South Asia, and global issues. Our goal is to create an intellectual destination in Delhi, where scholars and students from the United States, India, and around the world benefit from the free exchange of ideas.” According to Zimmer, the centre will promote scholarship and teaching under three broad umbrellas: business, economics, law and policy; science, energy, medicine and public health; and culture, society, religion, and the arts. It will represent all units of the parent university, including the college, academic divisions, and affiliated laboratories. Edupreneur Quest invites entries The Delhi-based Central Square Foundation (estb. 2012) in partnership with Villgro Innovations Foundation, has launched Edupreneur Quest –– India’s first ever business plan competition for talented, aspiring entrepreneurs to translate their ideas into reality. “Do you have the next big idea to promote high quality education for the over 240 million children in India? Are you willing to take risks and use all your entrepreneurial energy to make your idea a reality? Are you looking for funders and mentors to support your dream education venture? If yes, we are looking for you! Apply by November 25, 2013 for the chance to win up to Rs.50,000!” says a media release of the Central Square Foundation. According to Central Square spokespersons, the Edupreneur Quest business plan competition accepts entries from teams of up to four members with an idea or project to disseminate education among India’s underprivileged youth. “We are seeking both non-profit and for-profits, and specially invite people working in the areas of high quality affordable schools, human capital development, technology in education, and school accountability,” says a Central Square spokesperson. Project proposals must be submitted to [email protected]. Sportseed’s Olympic sports programme The Delhi-based K.S.R. Sportseed Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2011) which provides Olympic sports curriculums, training and consultancy services to schools and six state governments across the country, has joined hands with the Gujarat state government for providing integrated sports curriculums to schools across Gujarat. Under the terms of the agreement, Sportseed will identify schools with good track records, sufficient space and inclination to develop Olympic sports in Gujarat and design a viable public-private partnership (PPP) model. “Sportseed will develop an appropriate talent identification programme and design curriculums which will integrate the academic programmes of high-potential young sportspersons with their pursuit of sporting excellence,” says Sudhanshu Fadnis, founder and…

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Education News

Education Notes

Nagaland Chief minister exhorts youth Expressing the opinion that education is the most important investment for development and progress of society, Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio said the state government has established private colleges in almost every district. Addressing the All-Nagaland College Students Union’s 16th biennial confer-ence at Phek district on October 3, Rio said the state has a literacy rate of 79.55 percent, higher than the national average of 74.04 percent. However, the chief minister expressed regret that despite 50 years of statehood, Nagaland still lacks technical and medical colleges. “Fifty years of state-hood and still the state government is pursuing the issue of establishing technical and medical colleges with the Union government,” he said. The chief minister further added that despite a high literacy rate, “Naga society is yet to be civilized” and exhorted youth to take the lead in bringing change to Nagaland. Jammu & Kashmir Kashmir U special convocation Describing universities as a repository of knowledge and information, Jammu & Kashmir governor N.N. Vohra called upon Kashmir University’s faculty to impart practical and values-based education and training to students and scholars to equip them for future challenges. Addressing students and faculty of Kashmir University in Srinagar on the 132nd birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (October 2), Vohra said univ-ersities are expected to be repositories of knowledge and unless they are able to transfer knowledge and information to society, they are “somehow failing” in their duties and responsibility. “Therefore, universities need to be proactive and make sure that the education dispensed to students and scholars provides them a global view on various aspects and problems of life,” he said, at a special convocation of Kashmir University. The special convocation was convened to confer a Ph D upon Prof. Goverdhan Mehta, national research professor, School of Chemistry, at the University of Hyderabad. “I have had the opportunity to work with some students of Kashmir University whom I supervised for M Phil and Ph D degrees. They are brilliant and second to none in the world,” said Mehta, speaking on the occasion. Karnataka Premji calls for greater effort Industry captain and philanthropist Azim Premji has called upon govern-ment and other stakeholders to invest greater resources to improve the state of education in the country. Addressing the first convocation of the Azim Premji University (APU, estb. 2010) — which offers Masters progra-mmes in education and development with multiple specialisations — on October 2, Premji especially called upon state governments to become proactive. “They need to invest more in school education, in teacher education and other school-related issues, including higher education. They also need to reform governance of all related syst-ems,” he said, while lamenting the lack of education institutions offering study programmes in the field of education. The founder-chairman of IT major Wipro Technologies, who has endowed APU with an irreversible corpus of Rs.65 crore, Premji added: “Equally, I have no doubt that other stakeholders need to do more. This means that more people and civil society organisations must engage in…

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Education News

They said it in October

“I will run RJD with my son, like Congress is run by Rahul-Sonia.” Rabri Devi, wife of former Bihar chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav after he was convicted in the fodder scam case (India Today, October 14) “Innovation and creativity are a part of the American culture, a natural trait of an immigrant society. But China’s is a culture of conformism.” Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore (Forbes, October 18) “Mr. (Rahul) Gandhi, though, hardly looks a leader in waiting. Since his intervention, he has not explained just how he would tackle corruption. He caused a stir mostly because it is so rare the scion of the Gandhi family says anything that is not a trite generalisation.” The Economist on Congress leaders pushing forward Rahul Gandhi as an anti-corruption figure (October 18) “We will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays, who will be… barred from entering.” Yousuf Mindkar, director of public health in Kuwait, explaining his plan to conduct medical screenings to keep gay people out of Kuwait (Time, October 21) “This school has been a scandal from day one because public land and taxpayers’ money were appropriated to provide fine education to the children of men and women who provide for the citizens of India the worst schools in the world.” Tavleen Singh, well-known columnist, on the Delhi high court passing strictures against Sanskriti School, Delhi, which is run by (IAS) “officers’ wives” (National Standard, October 27) “Who will clean up politics. You will always keep demanding, and demanding what you need from the same set of people. Today criminals are sitting in Parliament. They cannot deliver. You tell me how to clean the system.” Arvind Kejriwal, president of Aam Admi Party (AAP) in an interview to Outlook (October 28) “Talk of PPPs is getting so boring that anesthetists are considering lecturing on PPPs to help patients slip into unconsciousness.” Kaushik Basu, chief economist, World Bank, on public-private partnerships in India (Times of India, October 28)

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Education News

Gujarat: Strange priorities

A performance audit for the year 2012-13 of the Central government-sponsored Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS, estb.1975) in Gujarat tabled in the legislative assembly on October 3, has embarrassed the three-term chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party’s officially anointed 2014 prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. In his audit report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) observes that one of three children below age five in the state is underw-eight and suffering severe malnutrition. The objective of ICDS introduced by the Centre in 1975, is to address the problem of widespread malnutrition among children aged three-six; adoles-cent girls (11-18 years), and expectant and lactating mothers. Wholly funded by the Centre for over three decades, 10 percent of the cost was passed onto the states in 2008-09. Under the scheme, supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-ups and health education besides informal education is given to beneficiaries in 1.04 million anganwadi centres established countrywide. The report is a major embarrassment for Modi, who has emerged as the front-runner in the race for the PMO (prime minister’s office) next year. Particularly since the Gujarat model of industry-led development is a major plank of his — and the BJP’s — election campaign which is gathering momentum. Two months ago, a Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index chaired by former IMF economist Dr. Raghuram Rajan, prior to his being appointed chairman of the Reserve Bank of India in September, had classified Gujarat as a “less developed” state on the basis of its weak socio-economic indicators. According to the CAG report, the total number of eligible citizens deprived of ICDS benefits in Gujarat (pop. 60 million) aggregates 10.87 million, and the shortfall in providing subsidiary nutrition to children under five was 96 (out of 300) days. “Against the requirement of 75,480 Anganwadi Centres (AWCs), 52,137 were sanctioned and 50,225 were in operation in the state, thereby a population of 1.87 crore (10.87 million) was deprived of the benefits of ICDS,” notes the CAG report, which also highlighted the lack of basic amenities (building, safe drinking water and toilets) in 9-40 percent of AWCs in eight audited districts. “There cannot be more damning evidence of Modi’s misrule than this authen-tication by a constitutional watchdog agency. Modi’s so-called development model is a mirage created through massi-ve advertising at state exp-ense,” crows Shankersinh Vaghela, leader of the opposition in the state’s legislative assembly. However, the state’s finance minister Nitin Patel disputes Vaghela’s interpretation of the CAG report “which highlights some errors in implement-ation”. According to Patel, there’s been a sharp fall in child malnutrition from 63.4 percent in 2007 to 25.9 percent in 2013. “Gujarat with 27 percent of under-nourished children compares favourably with the nation’s average of 36 percent and 32.69 percent in neighbouring Rajasthan,” says Patel. Although modi has emerged a clear favourite of India Inc in the post May 2014 prime ministerial stakes, there’s no doubt that on socio-economic development indicators, Modi’s long tenure (2001-2013) hasn’t made much impact. After over a decade in power, 42.7 percent of homes in Gujarat…

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Education News

Andhra Pradesh: Forced self-reliance

An unforeseen silver lining to the dark cloud of partition hanging over the south-eastern littoral state of Andhra Pradesh (pop. 84 million), is the sudden awareness of student leaders, who have been at the forefront of the agitation for and against bifurcation, that English language proficiency is essential for airing their opinions in the national media. Consequently several student leaders of Osmania University (estb. 1918) are taking informal lessons in English language proficiency from students of the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. Curiously, although the medium of instruction in Osmania University and its 800 affiliated colleges is English, proficiency in the language is not a prerequisite of admission into its undergrad or even postgrad study programmes in arts, commerce, science and engineering. “Because of decades of slapdash, ad hoc policy formulation, there’s a fundamental contradiction in India’s higher ed system which is behind the phenomenon of unemployable graduates. Driven by myopic linguistic sub-nationalism, state governments encourage primary and even secondary education in vernacular languages. But in higher education the medium of instruction is predominantly English. Consequently colleges and universities have been forced to overlook English proficiency while admitting students. The result is students with minimal English language skills struggle to make sense of engineering, science, and business management texts written in English. Subsequently these students are certified on the basis of model answers and textbook passages memorised by them with hardly any understanding of their subjects,” says a senior science professor at Osmania University, who preferred to remain anonymous. Virtually guaranteed a degree because of too-liberal assessment, student leaders haven’t thus far bothered about English language communication skills. But now experiencing the need to connect with national audiences to argue for and against bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, they have turned to EFLU students for peer-to-peer instruction. “English language skills are absolutely necessary if we are to collaborate and communicate with students across the country. At present we are unable to express our views as we are very poor in communicating in English,” admits T. Mahesh, a student leader of the 300-member Telangana Students’ Federation. Students of the English and Foreign Languages University, formerly the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (estb. 1958), which was accorded Central University status in 2006, are running classes every evening on week days to upgrade the English reading, speaking and writing skills of more than 30 Osmania University students in Hyderabad. The quid pro quo is that the politically savvy Osmania students will support EFLU students during their on and off agitations for better hostel facilities, rights of foreign students and other such issues. The bandhs, strikes and agitations this time around have had greater imp-act on students of the Seemandhra region — made up of 13 districts — who have been agitating for a united Andhra Pradesh ever since the Congress-led UPA-II government announced its decision in July to bifurcate the state by carving out a new Telangana state comprising 10 of Andhra’s 23 districts. There have been protests on and…

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Education News

Karnataka: Pay conundrum

Over 80,000 high school teachers of 20,000 state government and government aided secondary schools in Karnataka are all set to strike work in mid-November to force the six-month-old Congress state government led by chief minister M. Siddaramaiah, to raise their pay to the Sixth Pay Commission scales of Central government schools. At a meeting organised by the Karnataka State High School Assistant Masters Association (KSHSAMA) in Bangalore on October 22, teacher representatives from 35 education districts of the state adopted a resolution to boycott the evaluation of answer scripts of the state board’s class X SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) exam scheduled for March 2014, if the state government doesn’t concede their demand. According to the association, for over a decade state government secon-dary school (classes IX-X) teachers have suffered unequal pay scales. Currently the basic pay of a newly recruited government high school teacher in the state is Rs.17,000 per month, while the Sixth Pay Commission (2012) recommended Rs.40,000 for Central government (Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jawahar Navodaya, Indian Railways schools etc) teachers. “Our salaries are still stuck at the Third Pay Commission level. While the state government has raised the basic pay scale of its clerical cadre employees to Rs.21,600-40,050, it has neglected high school teachers’ salaries which have been frozen at Rs.17,600-32,500 since 2003. This is unfair as all government secondary school teachers are postgraduates with B.Ed qualifications, unlike government administrative staff who may be mere grad-uates,” says H.K. Manjunath, secretary of KSHSAMA. The state government’s response to the teachers’ demands is lukewarm if not indifferent, though education department officials are wary of a full-blown strike. “The government will negotiate with the association to see how best its demands can be met. Teachers associations always threaten to go on strike, but we will ensure the SSLC exams evaluation is not affected at any cost. In the current economic situation, it’s difficult for the state government to give teachers such a huge raise,” says H.S. Rama Rao, additional commissioner, department of public instruction. Addressing the teachers’ demands requires the state government to substantially increase its budget allocation for school education. In the state Budget 2013-14 presented by the newly elected Congress government, the allocation for primary and secondary education is Rs.15,599 crore — a mere 3.39 percent of the state’s GDP — clearly insufficient to provide quality education to the state’s 10.97 million school-going children, and favourable work condi-tions to 221,410 teachers. Moreover, several research studies have estimated that 92 percent of the school education budget goes towards paying adminis-trative and teacher remuneration, leaving little for upgradation of infrastructure and academic facilities. However KSHSAMA is unlikely to attract public sympathy despite their good case for pay parity with Central government school teachers, if not with clerical cadre civil servants. That’s because it’s hardly a secret that government school teachers are well-paid in comparison to teachers employed in state board-affiliated private unaided schools where monthly salaries are as low as Rs.6,000-Rs.12,000. “In private schools, teachers are forced to work long hours and…

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Education News

Maharashtra: Casual neglect

The overwhelming majority of Indias 1.40 million schools — especially 1.30 million govern-ment primaries — are bleak, uninviting institutions defined by crumbling classrooms, insanitary conditions, corporal punishment and chronic teacher absenteeism. The countrys 200,000 fee-levying private schools which host almost 40 percent of all school-going children are relatively more inviting. But getting to school — government or private — is becoming an increasingly hazardous and arduous exercise.In rural India where the law, order and justice machinery is almost non-existent (Indias Central and state governments employ a mere 129 police personnel per 100,000 population cf. 564 in Russia, 1,493 in Egypt, 181 in China and 233 in the US), school-going children are in perpetual danger of kidnap, sexual abuse, rape etc. However, even in relatively better policed metros, getting to school is rapidly becoming a dangerous obstacles race for school — especially girl — children and higher education students. For instance in September in Mumbai — Indias commercial capital — four cases of rash driving were booked against school bus drivers; bus atten-dants sexually abusing children as young as four and for inadequately maintained buses and vans without permits bursting into flames. Although under pressure, the Maharashtra state government issued a policy document of School Bus Rules and Regulations, 2011 (under the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles Act, 1989), two and a half years on it has not yet been forwarded to school administrations in Mumbai As per a government resolution of March 2011, all 103,628 schools in the state were to be sent the policy document containing annexures and prototypes detailing model forms for collection of bus fees; a common standard agreement mandatory for bus owners/contractors permits, as well as the rules to be followed by bussed students for their own safety. However, apart from a standard manual published by the RTO (regional transport office), they have not received any policy document. All schools in Maharashtra should have received the policy document containing annexures a long time ago. It is indeed a sad state of affairs that even education inspectors are not aware of it. The main cause of this inordinate delay is the many errors discovered by me in the Marathi translation. The corrections are underway and I have been assured that the schools will receive it within a week or so. The policy document has been put together in such a way so as to ensure that all schools, irrespective of their social/economic standing, implement it uniformly. Many buses are running without permits due to ignorance of the mandatory Common Standard Agreement, says Indrani Malkani, a transport expert and consul-tant, who was appointed member of the government-appointed committee to draft the School Bus Rules and Regul-ations, based on the success of her model school bus service which she had established in 2002 for the top-ranked Cathedral and John Connon School. According to Anil Garg, president of the Maharashtra School Bus Owners Association, 70 percent of the 9,700 school buses in the state are policy-compliant. While we maintain that the (school…

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Education News

Delhi: Fudged issues

With the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on October 3 approving Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), a Central government-sponsored scheme for upgrading the higher education system in India’s 29 states and seven Union territories, new hope has risen in official circles that the “sick child of Indian education’’ — the tertiary education system as described by the late Union human resource development minister, Arjun Singh — can be resuscitated. Under RUSA, to be implemented in the remainder of the 12th Plan (2012-17) and 13th Plan (2017-22) periods, 316 public universities and 13,024 colleges in the states will receive additional funding for infrastructure development and faculty recruitment. In the remainder of the 12th Plan period, the financial outlay for RUSA is budgeted at Rs.22,855 crore, of which the Central government’s share will be Rs.16,227 crore. In addition, the allocation of Rs.1,800 crore for upgradation of polytechnics will also be subsumed in RUSA, raising the Centre’s total invest-ment during the next four years to Rs.18,027 crore. As per the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (universal primary education) scheme of 1999, state governments have to chip in. The funding pattern for RUSA will be in the Centre-state proportion of 65:35 and 90:10 for the north-eastern states, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. RUSA is a serious effort to raise teaching-learning standards in laggard state universities. Comments Pawan Agarwal, advisor (higher education and culture), to the Planning Commission: “RUSA is chan-ging the paradigm for funding higher education in two distinct ways. First, the Central funding will augment the higher education budgets of state governments and is a departure from the system of grants for chosen univer-sities and colleges. This systemic funding approach will ensure that the discretion to allocate RUSA funding will be vested in state governments. Thus, Central funding becomes a powerful tool to enable state governments to address access and equity issues, and improve quality in their colleges and universities. Secondly, RUSA will stim-ulate administrative, academic and financial reforms in state government-promoted and supported higher educ-ation institutions.” Obviously the Centre’s belated awakening to the pathetic condition of higher education institutions in the states and its modest allocation to address the issue doesn’t come without strings attached. States will have to fulfill certain prerequisites which include creation of a State Higher Education Council, and accreditation agencies, as well as prepare perspective plans and fill vacant faculty positions. These conditionalities may turn off state governments. “The idea of RUSA was mooted over 60 years ago by the Radhakrishnan Commission in 1949. The Centre’s belated interest in funding state gover-nment colleges and universities — the poor cousins of Central universities — is welcome, but implementation will be a big issue,” warns Prof. K.B. Powar, former secretary general of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU). According to Powar, the pre-condition that state governments must establish State Higher Education Councils is unlikely to find takers, given that they had vehemently opposed the National Commission for Higher Education & Research proposal mooted by the Yash Pal Committee in…

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Off-putting invitation

Your cover story ‘Few takers for grudging invitation’ (EW October) has accurately anal-ysed why foreign university managements are not jumping with joy, following the HRD ministry’s ordinance allowing foreign education institutions to establish campuses in India. The slothful bureaucracy, corruption, and archaic rules and regulations are so cumber-some to navigate that the best-intentioned foreign varsities would get cold feet. Moreover the many scams and scandals plaguing the UPA-II government have dented India’s image in the global community. Foreign universities — the global Top 400 in particular — have built prestigious reputations over several decades and wouldn’t want to risk losing them over an Indian misadventure. If the government is serious about its foreign institutions initiative, it must first liberalise the higher education regulatory system, set out acceptable conditions and establish a single-window clearance cell. These measures will infuse confidence in foreign univer-sities. An ordinance full of dire warnings won’t persuade them to invest in India. Deepak Sharma Delhi Wrong target The dress code for university students proposed by the Tamil Nadu government is ridiculous (Education News ‘Trivial pursuits’, EW October). Students in colleges and universities are adults and perfectly capable of making choices about their attire; imposition of a dress code is unnecessary interference and violation of their personal freedoms. At a time when the higher education system in the country is at its nadir, academics, politicians and policy makers are wasting time in this absurd debate instead of contemporising syllabuses and pedagogies, which should be their priorities. I agree with the author that in Tamil Nadu, the talibanisation of college campuses is being prompted by “socially backward politicians-turned educationists” who have appointed themselves guardians of public morality. Curiously these people have nothing to say about the more than “indecent” — in fact obscene — attire of Tamil film heroines who caper about in clothes leaving noth-ing to the imagination. If these arbiters of public morality want to seriously curb gender crimes and safeguard Indian culture and society, they should target the Tamil film industry which portrays women as objects of lust and promotes molestation and sexual crimes. Sujata Ramaswamy Chennai Invaluable contributions Congratulations for organising the EW India School Rankings Awards Nite 2013 in Delhi (Pictorial Essay, EW October). It’s a wonderful initiative to acknowledge and honour the excellent work being done by schools and educationists across the country. I was especially impressed by your lifetime achievement in education leadership award recipients — Sumer Singh, Augustine and Grace Pinto, and Achyuta Samanta. Their citations reveal the invaluable contributions they have made towards quality school and higher education in the country. Indeed these people are the true heroes of Indian education. Keep up the good work! Ramakant Deshpande Mumbai Surprising scores In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013 (EW September), Delhi Public School (DPS), Bokaro Steel City, has been ranked #3 in the state of Jharkhand and #109 nationally. This is indeed very surprising as our school has been ranked all-India #1 on the parameter of ‘academic reputation’ for the…

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Editorial

Children First Party of India launched On October 7, the first shot of what promises to be a protracted war for the hearts and minds of the Indian people was fired at a sparingly attended media conference at the Press Club, Bangalore. The Children First Party of India (CFPI), registered by the Election Commission of India — promoted by your editors after a long and arduous process spread over a year — on August 7, was publicly proclaimed. We have begun a national campaign to enroll 100 million primary members to mobilise a mighty army to lead the betrayed people of free India out of the wilderness of neta-babu socialism, which has reduced the vast majority of citizens to humiliating poverty, ignorance and beggary. The body of evidence testifying to the beggared status of this high-potential nation is overwhelming. By every yardstick — food intake, clothing, shelter, public education and healthcare, corruption, ease of doing business — India, which less than 400 years ago generated 20 percent of global GDP, is bottom ranked among the world’s 20 worst performing economies. And perhaps the most shameful statistics of all are that 46 percent of India’s 158 million hapless children under five years age suffer severe malnutrition, and 53 percent of children drop out of dysfunctional government schools before completing elementary (class VIII) education. While the public is numbed into acceptance, the Congress party led by three generations of under-qualified leaders which has inflicted untold misery upon the population, claims credit for partially curing the sins of its own making. Meanwhile, unmindful of the bloody history of the partition of India in 1947, the opposition BJP is hell-bent upon releasing the virus of communalism into the country’s charged environment. Implicit in the nomenclature of CFPI and its tagline ‘Let’s Save Generation Next’ is an admission that it’s too late to save the first generation of independent India’s children, but through urgent implementation of the plans and policies outlined in the party’s manifesto, it may be possible to save the next. Although this is the core objective of the party which gives top priority to executing a detailed lib-lab-lav project to equip all 1.40 million schools countrywide with a library, laboratory and lavatories within 12 months, CFPI is not a single issue party. The party’s comprehensive manifesto (see www.childrenfirst.in) details a strategy to reduce gender crimes by 75 percent within a year; legislate Anna Hazare’s Jana Lok Pal Bill in toto; urgently legislate comprehensive police and justice system reforms; freeze defence expenditure; resolve the long-festering Kashmir dispute while negotiating Indo-China border issues; drasti-cally reform agriculture by integrating it with industry; and release the entrepreneurial drive of Indian business. All these initiatives are not only possible, but imperative to save Generation Next. Our appeal is to all right-thinking people, and especially the nation’s 120 million youth voting for the first time next year, to register as CFPI members. Together it is possible to build a new Second Republic and realise the noble aspirations of…

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Letter from the Editor

For the Central and state governments, and the judiciary which abhors the â€œcommercialisation of educationâ€, they are hate figures. Even the middle class which canâ€™t do without their services and prefers to entrust the future â€” indeed the lives â€” of their precious children to them, has been brainwashed by the countryâ€™s confused socialist intelligentsia to believe they are exploitative. But your editor believes that Indiaâ€™s education entrepreneurs (aka edupreneurs), starting from the ancient gurus to Christian missionaries to latter day businessmen and women, are the unsung heroes of Indian education. Reflect upon it. Without private education what would be the quality of the great Indian middle class? Could post-independence Indiaâ€™s governance and industrial infrastructure have been built by citizens equipped with government school and higher education? Certainly the English-speaking middle class which unites and governs â€” however imperfectly â€” this multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country would never have come into existence. The plain reality which everybody prefers to ignore is that because of sustained government under-investment and neglect, the vast majority of Indiaâ€™s 1.30 million government schools defined by pathetic infrastructure, multi-grade teaching and chronic teacher absenteeism donâ€™t provide any worthwhile education. This explains the steady flight of children from even the poorest bottom-of-the-pyramid households to the countryâ€™s 200,000 private schools which although a mere tenth of government schools, educate 40 percent of Indiaâ€™s children. And if you count the number of children enrolled by desperate parents in the countryâ€™s estimated 400,000 â€˜unreco-gnisedâ€™ private budget schools which have mushroomed in urban slums and low-income habitations, itâ€™s quite likely the majority of the countryâ€™s cruelly short-changed children are in private education, which it is pertinent to note is cheaper at all price points than anywhere else in the world. The same is true of higher education. The overwhelming majority of Indiaâ€™s 33,000 colleges and 659 universities run by careless and corrupt state governments provide education and certification which is the despair of Indian industry. The 42 Central government universities and their affiliated colleges apart, the countryâ€™s youth are provided professional (engineering, medical, business management etc) education by an estimated 15,000 private colleges and 166 deemed (private) universities. These are the reasons why on the commemorative occasion of the 14th anniversary of this publication, your editors have chosen to swim against the tide and broadcast and celebrate the contributions of 51 edupreneurs who ventured into the perilous waters of private education at approximately the same time when EducationWorld was launched (1999), with the mission to â€œbuild the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item of the national agendaâ€. I am certain the history, profiles and opinions of these education entrepreneurs driven by a combination of enlightened self-interest and altruism featured in this anniversary issue, will prove as inspiring to our readers as they did for me. I believe itâ€™s high time society and the establishment sheds its irrational prejudice against â€œcommercialisation of educationâ€, and accepts that provision of knowledge and learning is a legitimate business, profession and occupation serving…

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