EducationWorld October 16

An innovation introduced at the EducationWorld India School Rankings Awards 2016 was the presentation of the inaugural EducationWorld Grand Jury Awards 2016 instituted to felicitate low-profile and/or emerging schools which have introduced best 21st-century practices in primary-secondary education. To shortlist and select low-profile and/or newly-promoted progressive schools countrywide, we invited nominations from educationists, individuals and schools themselves supported by evidence of best practices in ten categories such as Green Schools, STEM Education Excellence, New Technologies Usage, Campus Architecture and Design and Communications Excellence, among others. Duly evidence-supported nominations were received for 500 schools countrywide. To assess the evidence and rank nominated schools in each category, a Grand Jury comprising eminent educationists including Rohit Mohindra (Raj Mohindra Consultants, Mumbai), Jawahar Surisetti (Delhi-based education consultant and advisor), Divya Arora (American Field Services, Delhi), Dr. Niren Suchanti (Pressman Advertising Ltd, Mumbai), Dr. Shayama Chona (Tamana, School of Hope, Delhi) and the Hyderabad-based Jaideep Gupta (Univariety Pvt. Ltd) was constituted. The Grand Jury duly assessed the nominations and supportive evidence and ranked the Top 10 schools in each category. Of them 3 were conferred awards at the EW India School Rankings Awards 2016 function on September 23-24. The complete EW Grand Jury Rankings 2016 will be published in our Anniversary issue (November). Meanwhile for the Top 10 rankings visit www.educationworld.in. Green Schools Schools were judged for constructing and maintaining environment-friendly campuses and practising environmentally responsible and resource-efficient processes and providing sustainability education. 1 Pathways School, Gurgaon 2 Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati 3 Sanjay Ghodawat International School, Kolhapur STEM Education Excellence These awards are for schools delivering innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics education through experiential pedagogies. 1 TVS Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Madurai 2 Ganges Valley School, Hyderabad   3 Kaanger Valley Academy, Raipur Community Outreach Schools were assessed for encouraging student-led community service projects, either in school-sponsored, regional or international community projects. 1 Fazlani L’Academie Globale, Mumbai 2 DCM Presidency School, Ludhiana 3 Sri Sri Academy, Kolkata Communications Excellence Schools that have developed and implemented well-planned communication programmes to connect with various publics including parents, media and local communities were awarded. 1 Oakridge International School, Bachupally campus, Hyderabad 2 Salwan Public School, Rajinder Nagar, Delhi 3 NL Dalmia School, Mumbai New Technologies Usage The Top 3 schools which integrate cutting-edge technology in their curriculums and teaching-learning: 1 Podar International School (IB & CIE), Mumbai 2 Gyanshree School, Noida 3 SVKM’s JV Parekh International School, Vile Parle, Mumbai 3 JBCN International School, Parel, Mumbai Emerging High-potential Schools These are low-profile or newly promoted schools that have demonstrated high-potential to quickly adopt and integrate 21st-century education best practices. 1 Doon International School, Riverside Campus, Dehradun 2 Delhi Public School, Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida 3 Bodhi International School, Jodhpur Innovative Teaching Several schools have demonstrated extraordinary capability to break away from rote learning, and introduce cognitive development and experiential education. The Top 3: 1 Amity International School, Mayur Vihar, Delhi 2 The Espee Global School, Roorkee 3 Mahatma Gandhi International, Ahmedabad Extraordinary Leadership These awards…

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Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 Capt. Raj Mohindra Citation Mumbai-based Capt. (Retd.) Raj Mohindra is widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the establishment of India’s first IBO, Geneva-affiliated international school — the Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI), Pune — almost 20 years ago. A distinguished officer of the Indian Navy (1950-1975), former general manager of the Shipping Corporation of India (1975-1989) and former chief executive of the Indian Express newspapers group, in 1982, Capt. Mohindra was commissioned to establish the subcontinent’s first IBO, Geneva-affiliated higher secondary school by the London-based office of the United World College (UWC) — an international education movement which has promoted 16 UWC schools and colleges worldwide. However, in the heyday of licence-permit-quota regimen of pre-liberalisation India, it took him 15 years to cut through red tape and obtain the necessary licences and permits before MUWCI, admitted its first batch of 100 students in 1997. Since then, it has matured into one of India’s Top 5 wholly residential international schools. In EWISR 2016 it is ranked #3 nationally. In 1998 after having successfully brought MUWCI on-stream, Mohindra promoted Mumbai-based Raj Mohindra Consultants (RMC) Pvt. Ltd with the objective of helping enlightened corporates and edupreneurs to promote and establish high-quality K-12 schools. Since then, RMC has been a project consultant to seven top-ranked internationally benchmarked education institutions including the Dhirubhai Ambani International, Mumbai, Ecole Mondiale World School, Mumbai, Pathways World School, Aravalli, Niraj International, Hyderabad, and Stonehill International, Bangalore among others. The consultancy’s research division has also published valuable manuals on rules and regulations governing promotion and management of high-end, capital-intensive schools in India. Moreover in 2003, RMC was project consultant of the Indian Institute of Gems & Jewellery, Mumbai — Asia’s largest gemmology vocational school. For his extraordinary contribution to the growth and development of primary-secondary education, particularly for enabling the entry of globally-benchmarked international education institutions in India, and for his tireless advocacy of the right of private edupreneurs to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, the Board of Directors and Editors of EducationWorld are privileged to present Capt. Raj Mohindra the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 and induct him into the EW Hall of Fame of Indian education.  

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Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 Dr. P.C. Thomas Citation Dr. P.C. Thomas is founder-principal of the Good Shepherd International School (GSIS), Ootacamund (aka Ooty), Tamil Nadu, ranked the country’s #1 wholly residential school in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2016. Over the past 39 years since this globally comparable, K-12 co-ed boarding school affiliated with CISCE (Delhi), CIE (UK) and IBO (Geneva) admitted its first batch of 54 children in 1977, GSIS has increased its enrolment to 850 — including 250 girl children — from over 40 countries, mentored by 217 teachers. A science, English literature and education postgraduate of Kerala University awarded a Ph D in education management by the Pacific Columbia University, California, Dr. Thomas began his professional career as an English teacher in the Loyola School, Trivandrum in 1969. In 1977 after his marriage with Elsamma, a science and business postgrad of Kerala University, the duo promoted GSIS on a modest scale. Since then, this K-12 school has incorporated the Fernhill Palace of the former Maharajah of Baroda which serves as the campus of the Junior School (K-VI) and hosts 200 children. Moreover, Dr. P.C. and Elsamma Thomas also acquired and developed the 140-acre Palada campus to host the superbly-equipped middle and senior campus of GSIS. Over the past almost four decades, the schools eco-friendly, Doric-style Palada campus designed by IIT-Kharagpur and University of Illinois-trained celebrity architect Sunil Kumar has been transformed into a self-contained holistic education haven with 60 fully-wired, IT-enabled classrooms, six computer labs and a library with 50,000 volumes and 110 journal subscriptions. For the holistic development of students, facilities for 20 sports and field games have been provided. Moreover, to encourage co-curricular music, dance, and performing arts learning 35 practice rooms are available to students. According to data of India’s excise and customs department, GSIS is one of the country’s largest institutional importers of musical instruments. Dr. and Mrs Thomas continuous and uninterrupted effort to develop and nurture GSIS into an international primary-secondary education institution comparable to the worlds best private schools has received acclaim in India and abroad. Dr. Thomas is a former president of the Nilgiris Education Society and vice president of the Association of Principals of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations. Moreover GSIS is an accredited member of the Netherlands-based Council of International Schools, the US-based New England Association of Schools and Colleges and has been conferred the British Council International School Award for the period 2014-17. In acknowledgement of his extraordinary contribution to global benchmarking and internationalisation of K-12 education in India and for developing and nurturing the Good Shepherd International School to provide uniquely balanced academic, co-curricular and sports education to India’s children, the Board of Directors and Editors are pleased to confer the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 upon Dr. P.C. Thomas and induct him into the EducationWorld Hall of Fame of Indian Education.

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Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 Dr. R. Vardarajan Citation Dr. R. Varadarajan is the widely respected founder-chairman of the Mumbai-based National Education Society (NES) and Saraswathi Vidya Bhavan (SVB) group of 62 educational institutions with an aggregate enrolment of 47,280 students and 1,820 teachers in Mumbai and Thane. An alumnus of Mumbai University awarded a Ph D in educational management by Diandra University, Italy, Dr. Varadarajan promoted his first primary school in Mumbai in 1963 with an enrolment of seven children. Currently, the NES-SVB group includes 18 K-12 schools including two IBO, Geneva affiliated NES International Schools, four junior colleges, two full-fledged degree colleges affiliated with Mumbai University and a B.Ed college affiliated with SNDT University, Mumbai. Driven by the objective of providing high-quality affordable English-medium kindergarten-college education to middle class households in the neglected suburbs of India’s commercial capital, under Varadarajan’s leadership, NES and SVB trusts have educated, trained and certified 28,000 class X and 25,000 class XII school-leavers, and 15,000 graduates who have contributed significantly to the growth and development of the Indian economy. One of India’s most celebrated educationists, Dr. Varadarajan has been conferred several awards including the Best Teacher Award (1994) by the President of India and the Dronacharya Award (1996) by the Maharashtra state government. Moreover, in 1995 the Union government issued a special postal stamp to commemorate the NES-SVB groups 30 years of service to Indian education. For his extraordinary contribution to the growth and development of Indian education, particularly for his commitment to providing internationally benchmarked values-driven school and tertiary education in all NES-SVB institutions for the past five decades, the Board of Directors and Editors of EducationWorld are privileged to present Dr. R. Varadarajan the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016, and induct him into the EW Hall of Fame of Indian Education.

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I’m a class XII (commerce) student interested in gaming/game programming as a career. Which courses should I sign up for? Deepak Srinivasan, Chennai Game programme design relies heavily on math and physics. As a commerce student, you are at a disadvantage. However, don’t lose hope. You can sign up for a BCA or B.Sc (IT) undergraduate programme or enroll in programmes offered by the National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT). Several private colleges also offer short-term diploma courses in gaming-related areas. I suggest you sign up for these latter courses while reading for your bachelor’s degree. Subsequently, you can enroll for a full-time postgrad programme in game design. I’m a second year B.Sc student planning to sign up for an MBA programme. What are my specialisation options? Nandini Rao, Bangalore A range of MBA specialisations are on offer. They include rural management, telecom management, insurance, banking and finance with sub-specialisations such as actuarial and risk management. Some B-schools also offer specialisation in aviation, corporate social responsibility, and disaster, sports, events, retail, hospitality and luxury brand management. Which universities/colleges in India offer M.Tech in IT with specialisation in bioinformatics? Navin Arora, New Delhi M.Tech in bioinformatics is offered by the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad; West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata; Bharath University, Chennai; University of Hyderabad; Satyabhama University, Chennai and Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Allahabad Agricultural Institute. I’m a final year engineering (IT) student interested in enroling for an MBA in human resource management (HRM). I’m confused between applying for the MA in HRM offered by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and writing the JMET (Joint Management Entrance Test) for MBA programmes. Please advise. Neeta Advani, Mumbai Placement prospects for HR postgraduates of TISS are as good as those offered to MBA graduates from reputed business schools. If HR is your priority, then writing JMET isn’t very helpful. Instead, write the XAT for admission into XLRI, Jamshedpur or CAT for admission into MDI, Gurgaon and the IIMs. If you want to target MBA programmes for engineering graduates, then write JMET for admission into the IIT schools of management. I’m a class XII (arts) student interested in the sound engineering study programme offered by FTII, Pune. Apart from FTII, what are my options? Nalini Shah, Mumbai The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata admit Plus Two school-leavers with physics and maths or science graduates with physics into their sound engineering programmes. But since you are a liberal arts student, you are eligible for the nine-month audio engineering diploma programme offered by SAE Technology College, Andheri (W), Mumbai (www.saeindia.net) followed by its two-year degree programme in audio engineering (accredited by Middlesex University, UK). Other options include the Government Polytechnic, Bandra (E), Mumbai; Mumbai University’s music department; SVT College of Home Science, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai; and the Xavier Institute of Communication, St. Xavier’s College campus, Mumbai and the Digital Academy (www.digitalacademy.info). I want to pursue…

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Dilip Thakore interviewed the Rt. Hon’ble Lord Swraj Paul, chairman of the Caparo Group Ltd, London. As chancellor of the Thames Valley and Wolverhampton universities, you are actively engaged with higher education in the UK. To what extent, if at all do you share the pessimism of academics who say that learning outcomes and research standards in the UK are plunging? I am chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, a position I have held since 1999, soon after stepping down as chancellor of Thames Valley University — now known as University of West London. I also stepped down as chancellor of Westminster University in 2015 after serving there for nine years. As far as the University of Wolverhampton is concerned, we are actively upgrading our facilities and research and have made a lot of progress. Wolverhampton University is as good as any global university in terms of inputs and outcomes. This year, over 7,000 students participated in graduation ceremonies staged in 12 countries, which goes to show not only the reach of this university but also the increasingly global make-up of higher education. Would it be accurate to state that you have retired from the businesses of the Caparo Group and are now fully focused on the education promotion activities of the Ambika Paul Foundation and other charitable trusts established by you? No, I have not retired from the businesses of the Caparo Group but certainly, I have stepped back from its day-to-day administration. When you have grown a business for nearly 50 years starting with a loan of £5,000, you can never retire from it. Although after the very tragic and unfortunate death last year of my son Angad who had taken on full responsibility as CEO, I have got a little more involved on a daily basis, I hope this will be for a short period. However, I don’t want to step away completely from the business I love. Apart from Caparo, there are two things close to my heart — education and children’s causes. That is why the Ambika Paul Foundation, which we set up in 1978 in memory of my daughter, continues to address new projects. You have also promoted the Ambika Paul School of Technology in Jalandhar, India. What is the extent of your involvement in Indian education and how satisfied are you with the progress of your initiatives in India? I have no current involvement with the Ambika Paul School of Technology in Jalandhar. It was built by us and handed over to Punjab Technical University to run. However, I am a well wisher of this project. What is your assessment of the manufacturing/engineering capabilities of British and Indian industry? This is a very wide ranging question. As far as our business is concerned, our Indian plants for example with modern and up to-date machinery and buildings are far more contemporary because they were established in the past 20 years. Managements also vary from plant to plant. And in this day and age, we have…

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Its buses and trains arrive on the dot. Its engineers are famously precise. But when it comes to English, Japan is uncharacteristically sloppy. Signs are often misspelled. Taxi drivers point at phrasebooks to communicate with foreigners. Shops that take an English name to be trendy often get it horribly wrong: witness ‘Poopdick’, a second-hand cosmetics outlet. English-speakers are much less common in Japan than in most rich, globalised countries. In 2015, Japan’s average score in TOEFL, the popular test of proficiency for non-native speakers, was 71 out of 120, lower than in all East Asian countries except Laos and Cambodia. Companies seeking English-speakers tend to look for people who studied or grew up abroad, on the assumption that locally schooled candidates will not cut the mustard. The government wants to change this. In early August it announced plans to overhaul the teaching of English. Children may soon start learning the language two years earlier, when they are eight instead of ten. Lessons will emphasise communication over reading, writing and grammar. All this, it is hoped, will help Japan play a bigger role in a world where English is the lingua franca. “We need English to understand other cultures and explain ourselves to them,” says Hideyuki Takashima of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Some businesses have taken matters into their own hands. Sony has long insisted that workers be able to explain the workings of its products in English. Six years ago Hiroshi Mikitani, the Harvard-educated boss of Rakuten, an e-commerce giant with operations in 30 countries, decreed that English should become the firm’s main language; it no longer conducts any meetings in Japanese. Rakuten provides tuition in English for all its staff. Honda, a carmaker, said last year that by 2020 it too will make the linguistic shift. Kensaku Yoshida, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, reckons the biggest obstacle is lack of confidence. Many Japanese are so embarrassed by the inevitable mistakes that a non-native speaker makes that they prefer not to try at all. Many also struggle with English sounds: their language does not differentiate between “l” and “r”, for instance. The many English words used in Japanese are often so changed as to be unrecognisable to a native speaker: aidoru (idol), Makudonarudo (McDonalds), bareboru (volleyball). “We need to accept that we don’t have to talk like native speakers,” says Yoshida. “We just have to communicate.”

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The Rise And Fall Of Nations by Ruchir Sharma Penguin Books; Price: Rs.799; Pages: 464 For the Indian economy with its pathetic 2 percent share of international trade, the global financial crisis of 2008 triggered by the subprime mortgages investment boom in the US, wasn’t a big deal. The economy recorded 8.4 percent GDP growth in the year 2008-09 under the watch of the Congress-led UPA government. But according to Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist and head of emerging markets at the US-based Morgan Stanley Investment Management which manages $272 billion on behalf of cash-rich pension funds, investment banks and high net worth individuals in the US in high-returns emerging nations, it marked the end of an era of sustained optimism which spurred huge transnational capital flows. “After surging for more than three decades, flows of capital reached a historic peak of $9 trillion and a 16 percent share of the global economy in 2007, then declined to $1.2 trillion or 2 percent of the global economy — the same share as they represented in 1980,” writes Sharma in his engaging second global bestseller after Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (2012) which was highly recommended on these pages (EW August 2012).  The basic proposition of this well-researched and engagingly narrated oeuvre is that the era of 7 percent plus annual GDP growth rates in hitherto highly-fancied emerging countries (China, India, Brazil) is over for the foreseeable future (defined as five years), and that in the developed OECD countries 2.5 percent annual economic growth will be a good achievement. The skill of the serious mega-bucks investor is to read tell-tale signs to identify well-managed rising economies which will yield high returns to foreign (and domestic) investors and lead global recovery. In this book Sharma presents his ten rules of diagnosing whether a nation is on the rise or decline. (i) Is its talent pool growing? (ii) Is the nation ready to back economic reforms/reformers? (iii) Is income and wealth inequality threatening growth? (iv) Is the government meddling more or less? (v) Is the country making the most of its geographic location? (vi) Is investment as share of the economy rising or falling? (vii) Is inflation high or low? (viii) Does the country ‘feel’ cheap or expensive? (ix) Is debt growing faster or slower than the economy? (x) How is the country portrayed by global opinion makers? These are the metrics which the author — a practising investor in emerging economies — applies to determine whether a country is on the road to growth and prosperity, or going downhill. The BJP-led NDA coalition government in Delhi and governments in all state capitals are desperate to attract foreign investment to increase manufacturing output and create jobs for the 12 million youth entering the jobs market countrywide every year. This brilliantly argued book replete with statistical and exemplary evidence is an excellent assessment metric to ascertain whether they have positioned themselves to inspire confidence in big bucks foreign — and domestic…

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Post-independence India’s Nehruvian socialist legacy has ensured there’s no stopping the slide of academia into mediocrity. Not only has public expenditure (Centre plus states) remained stuck in the 3-3.5 percent per annum groove for over 60 years as against 6 percent recommended by the high-powered Kothari Commission in 1966, the country’s higher judiciary has facilitated back-door nationalisation of privately-promoted education (Unnikrishnan Case 1993), by legitimising reams of rules and regulations stymieing all private initiatives in education. The latest higher judiciary pronouncement that shoots the already hobbling Indian education system in the foot, is a September order of Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw of the Delhi high court, dismissing a suit filed by Cambridge University Press, James Taylor & Co and Oxford University Press against Rameshwari Photocopying Services sited on the Delhi University campus. The latter replicated reams of material from textbooks published by the plaintiffs and has created “course packs” mapped with college and university study programmes, sold to students at a profit. The court held this doesn’t amount to infringement of copyright. The 94-page ruling observed that photocopying and creation of course packs for the use of students is permitted under provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957. Commonsense would indicate this issue has wider implications than interpretation of the Copyright Act. It’s a plain act of theft of intellectual property and violates the right of citizens (book distributors, retailers etc) to carry on a business, trade and profession (Article 19 (1) (g). If the Copyright Act permits such theft, the Act itself is violative of several constitutional provisions. This populist verdict is dangerous for Indian education because it will dissuade foreign publishers from exporting textbooks to India where indigenously written textbooks tend to be of pathetic quality. Therefore, the already poor learning attainments of school and college students will go from bad to worse. The learned judge should have known better. Neta-babu freeloaders  There’s a seemingly incorrigible blind spot in the greedy Indian middle class which stepped into the shoes of British colonial rulers who lived life king size in the immiserised subcontinent for almost two centuries, during which the rate of annual GDP growth averaged 1 percent. Despite the deep poverty of the masses, particularly in rural India, they see no reason to cut down the perquisites of office, especially foreign travel at public expense. The example was perhaps set by independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who during an era when foreign exchange purchase by the public for leisure and travel was limited to $5, nevertheless sojourned in the UK and elsewhere every summer on official business, undeniably mixed with rest and recreation. Since then, this perk of office has become an entitlement not only of Central government leaders and bureaucrats but of their counterparts in India’s 29 states and seven Union territories as well. Unsurprisingly, neither the Central nor state governments publish data disclosing the annual cost of neta-babu junkets. This expenditure is buried in ministry expenses under various heads. The latest worthy commendably outed by…

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Huang Yanlai was 74 when he first raped 11-year-old Xiao Yu. He threatened her with a bamboo-harvesting knife while she was out gathering snails in the fields for her grandmother in Nan village, Guangxi province, in south-west China. Over the following two years, Xiao Yu (a nickname meaning Light Rain) was raped more than 50 times, her hands tied and a cloth stuffed in her mouth. She was a left-behind child, entrusted to relatives while her parents worked in distant cities. Her father returned home once a year. Told that his daughter was in trouble, he asked her what was wrong but she was too frightened to tell him. So he beat her up. Xiao Yu’s story came to national attention after it was reported by state media. At the end of May it formed part of a study released by the Girls’ Protection Foundation, a charity in Beijing founded to increase awareness of child sexual abuse, a crime officials preferred not to discuss openly until recently. The study said that 968 cases of sexual abuse of children were reported in the media between 2013 and 2015, involving 1,790 victims. Wang Dawei of the People’s Public Security University says that for every case reported, at least seven are not. Because of the country’s size, however, the absolute numbers are staggering. Perhaps 25 million people under 18 are victims of abuse. In any country, child sexual abuse is hard to measure. China has never conducted a nationwide survey, though it is talking about holding one in the next couple of years. And as there are no studies of abuse over time, it is hard to detect trends. Even so, there are reasons to believe that children are at growing risk. First, China has huge numbers of “left-behind” children, like Xiao Yu. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, and Unicef, the UN agency for children, 61 million children below the age of 17 have been left in rural areas while one or both parents migrate for work. Over 30 million boys and girls, some as young as four, live in state boarding schools in villages, far from parents and often away from grandparents or guardians. Another 36 million children have migrated with their families to cities, but their parents are often too busy to look after them properly. Another risk factor is a combination of ignorance, shame and legal uncertainty that makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves. Fei Yunxia works for the Girls’ Protection Foundation, the NGO that released the recent study of abuse cases. She travels to schools, giving sex-education classes. “No one tells these students about their bodies or how to protect themselves from harm,” she told Xinhua, a government news agency. Sex education in China is rare and never touches on abuse. The lack of well-developed sex-crime laws means victims are often failed by the justice system. In Liaoning province eight school girls aged between 12 and 17 were kidnapped, stripped, beaten, and forced to watch…

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Work never stops at Jamia Sirat-ul-Mustaqeem, a madrassa in a rundown part of Rawalpindi in Pakistan Punjab. After its 20 pupils are in bed, the teachers use Skype to connect to homes in Britain, France, Norway and Sweden, where teenagers attempt to read the unfamiliar Arabic script of the Koran. Many European parents find these online sessions more convenient than after-school classes at the local mosque. The owner, Maulana Malik Muheisen Shafiq, decided to go round-the-clock four years ago to spread the message of Islam — and subsidise the education of the madrassa’s poorer boys. He charges £35 (Rs.3,100) for three half-hour sessions a week, or £50 for five sessions. “People in Europe spend a huge amount of money seeking knowledge,” he says. Online Koranic academies range from one-man affairs to call-centre like institutions, with IT managers and teachers working shifts. Competition is getting tougher, says Shafiq who now offers free trial sessions to lure new customers. Parents have no way to check teachers’ background. One former fighter from Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the UN regards as a terrorist front group, teaches from Lahore. But proprietors say parents would quickly realise if teachers strayed beyond reading and reciting the Koran. “We don’t discuss anything related to politics, violence and jihad,” says Shafiq. Four miles away, in a smarter area, the Zakariyya mosque takes a more traditional approach to spreading the word. It is the Rawalpindi headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) missionary movement, which sends preachers round the world to attract Muslims to the Deobandi movement. The movement seeks to return to the perceived purity of seventh-century Islam and is in some respects similar to the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. Although nearly all Pakistan’s militant groups are within the Deobandi fold, experts disagree on whether TJ poses a security threat. On August 11, the army banned Tariq Jameel, one of its best-known preachers, from speaking at its institutions. Gulam Rasool, a missionary, has just returned from Indonesia. Britain is one of his favourite destinations, he says: “They’re accepting the true version of Islam in large numbers.” His globe-trotting life of prayer and preaching leaves little time for his family. He is yet to meet his youngest child. When he does see his family, it is usually over Skype.

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The Netherlands’ university association has defended the growth of English-language courses at Dutch institutions, claiming that it will “enhance the quality of education” and boost the country’s “innovative strength and competitiveness”. Figures revealed by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant in August found that 60 percent of courses at Dutch universities are taught in English, and this increases to 70 percent when only Masters degrees are counted. The analysis was based on 1,632 degree courses at 13 of the country’s most research-intensive universities. The growth of English-language courses has come under fire from some academics; one scholar claims that lectures delivered in English “lose subtlety and humour” and Dutch students’ English-language skills are not strong enough to “write and express themselves properly and without mistakes”. A poll by Dutch students’ union LSVb last year also found that 60 percent of students are confronted with incomprehensible lecturers owing to the rise of teaching in English. But Bastiaan Verweij, a spokesman at the Netherlands’ Association of Universities (VSNU), which represents the interests of the country’s 14 research universities, told Times Higher Education that the elements that make up an international classroom include “a good mix of students from home and abroad and an approach to content that integrates the students’ cultural backgrounds into teaching”. Robert Tijssen, chair of science and innovation studies at Leiden University, says the growth of English-language courses is an “almost inevitable impact of internationalisation processes” throughout the higher education sector and although “quality issues will emerge” these will be “resolved within a few years”. “I expect more European countries will be going in this direction, especially the smaller nations with open societies and service-intensive, international trade-oriented economies; their university graduates will benefit most from enjoying dual-language higher education,” he says.

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Nearly half of prime minister Theresa May’s cabinet went to comprehensive (i.e, non-selective) state schools; Justine Greening, the new education secretary, is one of them. Outside 10 Downing Street on July 13, May pointed out that children in state schools had less of a chance of making it to the top than their privately educated peers. That, she said, must change: “We will do everything we can to help anybody (sic), whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.” Her first step in that direction may prove controversial. On August 7 the Sunday Telegraph reported that the government would seek to lift a ban on new grammar schools, which are allowed to select pupils at age 11 on the basis of ability. It would be a big change. At their height, in the early 1960s, grammar schools educated around one-quarter of pupils. Then, in the mid-1960s, the Labour government sped up their conversion into comprehensives. Anthony Crosland, the education secretary, declared he would destroy every grammar school in England. Some local authorities held out. But there remain just 163 grammars in England, educating 5 percent of pupils. (Scotland and Wales have none; Northern Ireland has lots.) Many Tories are delighted by the proposal. Grammars are seen as a ladder by which clever, poor children can climb up the social hierarchy. In 1964-97, all five prime ministers were grammar school alumni. So is prime minister May. If the government goes ahead with its plans for more grammars it will face strong opposition in Parliament. But polls suggest that voters like the idea. The government may allow some other form of selection, perhaps encouraging ‘chains’ of state schools to concentrate the brightest of their pupils in one school that specialises in teaching gifted children. Regardless of Ms. May’s fine intentions, reintroducing selection will do little to improve the diversity of future cabinets.

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As the new school year approaches, most pupils in Detroit and New Orleans are preparing to return to desks in America’s charter schools. First permitted by Minnesota in 1991, charter schools are found in 43 states; in a few cities they have become mainstream. Academies — their equivalents in England — were set up later but have grown faster. Just 14 years after the first one opened in London, a quarter of all English state schools and two-thirds of secondaries are now academies. These schools remain the great hope of education reformers in both countries and beyond. Though charters and academies differ in many ways, they were both conceived as alternatives to schools run directly by local governments. They are publicly funded but operated by charities or, in some American states, by companies. This model of public-private partnership has inspired several other countries including India, Kenya, Liberia, South Africa and Uganda. International evidence suggests that schools do best when freed from government control. Competition from newly founded schools tends to raise others’ standards. But in both America and England, researchers have recently produced some troubling numbers. Although some charters and academies have achieved spectacular results, on average they appear to be little better than other schools when pupil characteristics are taken into account. As a result, reformers are thinking afresh about autonomous schools. They are seeking ways to ensure that they are held to account, are well-led and that the exceptional teaching found in the best becomes the norm. Before he was elected president, Barack Obama pledged to increase funding for charter schools. (There are still about 1 million children on charter waiting lists nationwide, and 23 of the 43 states that allow charter schools limit their growth). Race to the Top, a programme passed as part of the 2009 fiscal stimulus package, offered cash to areas that encouraged charters, introduced common standards and put measures to evaluate teachers in place. The main motivation for creating the first group of academies in England was to raise standards for poor children, recalls Conor Ryan, an adviser to Tony Blair, the prime minister of the day. Many attended awful schools run by local authorities. So, in 2002, the Labour government said that failing schools would become academies, with more control over recruitment, timetabling and finances. When Labour left office in 2010 there were 200 such schools in England. (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have distinct education systems, and no academies.) Yet political enthusiasm seems to be waning on both sides of the Atlantic. Hillary Clinton is less keen on charters than President Obama. In England teachers, and even many Conservative MPs, fiercely opposed plans to increase academies. Theresa May, the new prime minister, has yet to comment on her plans for education. The scepticism is partly a result of research suggesting that the impact of school autonomy is less impressive than advocates had hoped. A study in 2013 by the Centre for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University compared the…

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The fashionable new buzzword in contemporary education is ‘inclusive education’. The Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which makes it mandatory for privately promoted schools to admit children from socio-economically disadvantaged households in their neighbourhoods (s.12 (1) (c)), is the latest instance of inclusive education. Earlier, inclusive education was propagated to accommodate children with physical and mental disabilities into mainstream schools. But paradoxically, education is also becoming more exclusive. If not, how do we explain near-impossible cut-off marks ranging from 97-99 percent, which have become mandatory for admission into the country’s best undergrad colleges particularly in Delhi, or the high tuition fees demanded by elite schools and newly emergent private universities and B-schools? This phenomenon of lip-service to inclusive and universally accessible education while at ground zero quality education is becoming increasingly exclusive, cannot be explained away by saying schools and colleges have limited capacity and that the student-teacher ratios must be maintained. The plain truth is that education in our country is systemically flawed. Even in expensive and exclusive private education institutions, learning-by-rote androgogy or pedagogy is widely prevalent. And despite the dawn of the new age of the Internet, ‘cut and paste’ is the favoured pedagogy of students and teachers. In the country’s 1.2 million public/government schools, the situation is worse because of chronic teacher absenteeism. Contemporary education has become very complicated due to several new factors: the need for balance between work and study, lifelong education, education for women, working people, challenged persons etc. The new Internet age demands a steady flow of learning precepts from childhood to adulthood unimpeded by the trauma of failure to acquire degrees and pursuit of ‘disinterested’ learning for its own sake and pleasure. Within an education system confronted with myriad seemingly intractable problems, open learning systems can play a vital role in infusing it with dynamism, flexibility and continuity. New technologies-driven distance learning systems can address the problems of inclusivity, burgeoning teacher-pupil ratios and rote learning. They are ideal for addressing the problem of ‘drop outs’ from the system as they give students unlimited time to complete courses and programmes as also the opportunity to resume learning after one or more breaks. Moreover, they offer flexible options such as associate degrees and credit transfers and enable dialogues with other institutions, facilitating inter-institution mobility. Little wonder that open and distance education freed of myopic restrictions, has become increasingly popular in India with annual enrolment amounting to 25 percent of students in higher education. Moreover, distance higher education counters degree bias by offering a range of professional, vocational and short-term diploma programmes. Unfortunately, instead of being encouraged, the spread and reach of open and distance learning in higher education is being discouraged by regulatory organisations. The University Grants Commission, the apex body for licensing distance education programmes, insists on reviewing curriculums every two-three years, imposes restrictions on introducing new courses and prohibits twinning programmes. Likewise, NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education), AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education),…

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The discerning among the rising number of regular readers of this publication are likely to have noticed that during the past few months, a searchlight has increasingly been focused on school examination boards and the role they play in syllabus development and design. This is because in the light of authoritative reports highlighting declining learning outcomes in primary, secondary and higher education countrywide, awareness is dawning that what children study is perhaps as important as how well they study it. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the phenomenon of declining learning outcomes across the education spectrum is rooted in indifferent syllabus and curriculum design in the country’s 33 school examination boards, including the HRD ministry-controlled Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the autonomous Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). This realisation prompted a cover feature on CISCE in June after a National Achievement Survey 2015 commissioned by the HRD ministry and released in March this year, revealed that class X students of CISCE-affiliated schools outperformed their peers in CBSE and state board schools in standardised and context-free objective tests measuring unprepared learning outcomes. However, it’s pertinent to note that students of CISCE-affiliated schools were the best of a bad lot. The average score of a sizeable sample batch of  277,416 class X students of 7,216 schools countrywide tested in five subjects — English, maths, science, social science and the dominant state language — was below the pass mark (50 percent) in all subjects except dominant state language. Quite clearly, the syllabuses and exams designed by the country’s 33 examinations boards, which encourage rote learning and reward memorisation, are unsuitable for 21st century learning. Rising awareness of this blindspot of Indian educationists and school examination board administrators led your editors to investigate the organisational culture, systems, processes and modus operandi of the UK-based Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) board, the world’s largest school-leaving exams board which has over 10,000 schools in 160 countries affiliated with it, and which is signing up almost two schools worldwide every day. This necessitated a visit to CIE’s high-security head office at 1, Hills Road, Cambridge (UK) in July. Our cover story in this issue explains why CIE, which has revived its ancient ties with India in the new millennium, is the world’s largest and most popular transnational school examinations board. And in our 30-page special report feature (divided into two disparate sections to reduce reader fatigue), we present a pictorial essay of the two-day EducationWorld India School Rankings Awards 2016 staged in Gurgaon (Delhi NCR) on September 23-24. We believe this was the largest gathering of trustees, promoters, principals and teachers of the country’s most admired schools in Indian history.

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Yoga is a multi-billion dollar business and an attractive career option for youth and adults aspiring to teach this ancient Indian mind and body healing science: Indra Gidwani From a relatively unknown spiritually uplifting discipline, today yoga has become a transnational cultural phenomenon with millions of practitioners worldwide and a dedicated International Yoga Day. The fact that yoga is a multi-billion dollar business has also made it an attractive career option for youth and adults aspiring to make a living by teaching this ancient Indian mind and body healing science. There are different schools of yoga including Hatha yoga, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Vinyasa etc and each of them requires separate dedicated training for a few years to qualify as a teacher. The best teachers live their yoga practices on and off the mat. It takes many years of systematic practice to make a good yoga — as any other — teacher. Study Programmes Yoga instructors are essentially fitness professionals who teach yoga, a low impact exercise that uses controlled posture (asana) and breathing techniques (pranayama) to improve physical strength and flexibility. However, all yoga instructors must complete a basic training and certificate programme, with the option of specialising in a particular discipline. There are numerous well-known yoga institutes such as Iyengar Institute, Pune; Ramdev Institute, Rishikesh; the Anahata Retreats, Mumbai for Kundalini Yoga training and several specialising in other yoga disciplines. Pay & Perks Aspiring yoga teachers/instructors should budget for a modest start. Initially, most yoga practitioners start their careers by teaching in schools and colleges or as counsellors or instructors in hospitals and rehabilitation centres. A beginner won’t earn much until she builds a strong clients base of satisfied customers. Starting income will vary between Rs.400-900 per hour depending upon the policy of the employer institution and teacher’s experience. However, the rising popularity of yoga among high-income celebrities makes teaching yoga a lucrative profession for expert practitioners. Yoga teachers of the rich and famous charge astronomical sums, that are willingly paid, for yoga training can be — and usually is — a life changing experience. Unsurprisingly, thousands of youth sign up for training programmes to become yoga teachers every year. “Given the rate at which the popularity of yoga is growing, we will need all these and more teachers to fill the gap between demand and supply,” says Bijay J. Anand, a Kundalini yoga teacher and founder of Anahata Retreats, a Mumbai-based yoga institute that attracts acclaimed teachers of yoga, Ayurveda, wellness and spirituality from around the world to teach students and seekers of knowledge in Goa, Ladakh and New Zealand among other locations. Anand’s journey began 25 years ago after he experienced the uplifting and healing power of yoga for mind, body and soul. Since then, he has deeply studied and schooled himself in Asthanga, Vinayasa and Hatha branches of this classical discipline. But it was his first experience of Kundalini yoga under the tutelage of one of its most revered practitioners — Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa — that…

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The Educomp Schools Conclave 2016 of Educomp Solutions Ltd — India’s largest education company and pioneer of the Smartclass education system in India — was held in Noida (Delhi NCR) on September 27. Over 50 principals of top-ranked schools in Noida attended the conclave where the company unveiled its latest offering in innovative learning branded SmartSTEM. “The aim of the annual Educomp Schools Conclave is to update schools about the latest teaching modules and technologies. The conclave is staged to enable educators to become future-ready with state-of-the-art technology integration. The Educomp SmartSTEM designed to enable enjoyable and experiential learning of science and mathematics was enthusiastically welcomed by delegates to the conclave,” says Anubhav Singh, state business head of Educomp Solutions. Over 4,000 schools across India are expected to participate in this year’s Educomp School Conclaves to be held across 85 Indian cities/towns countrywide. Pearson Voice of Teachers Survey The fourth edition of the Pearson Voice of Teachers Survey, 2016 was released on Teachers’ Day (September 5). According to the survey, teachers feel that only 55 percent of students are actively engaged in learning. The survey highlights significant variations in student engagement with students of government schools far less engaged (51 percent) than of private schools (67 percent). Further, student engagement is perceived to drop from the school level (61) to 50 percent in higher education. The 6,494 teachers in 546 cities/towns countrywide polled believe that excessive use of personal gadgets by students and lack of parental support are the main deterrents to student engagement. The survey included 12 key inhibitors to engagement. In private schools across India, excessive use of personal gadgets by students, lack of parental support and too much pressure to perform are identified as top factors for low student engagement. Lack of parental support is a much bigger barrier to student engagement in government schools, followed by challenges faced by students outside of school/college. “As the world’s largest education company, Pearson is not only committed to ensuring efficacy for better learning outcomes through its products and services, but is also working with the education system globally to bring focus to it. The Pearson Voice of Teachers survey is a step in that direction. We engage with teachers every year to identify topical issues and suggest measures to bring effectiveness into the Indian education system,” says Deepak Mehrotra, managing director of Pearson India, speaking on the occasion. OUP introduces Epigeum Oxford University Press (OUP), the world’s largest university press, introduced Epigeum to the media in Delhi on September 23. A spin-off from Imperial College, London, Epigeum is a global provider of “exceptional online courses” designed to help universities and colleges transform their core activities in teaching, research, academic leadership and management. The courses are designed through global collaboration of experts and accessed through subscription. “We are very pleased to launch Epigeum in India. It’s an innovative and collaborative approach to supporting university priorities of teaching, research, study, leadership and management. We hope Epigeum will be welcomed by the…

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Tamil Nadu TCS-Sastra concordat To celebrate Teachers’ Day (September 5), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India’s premier IT services, consulting and business solutions company (annual revenue: Rs.110,084 crore), inked a partnership agreement with the Thanjavur-based SASTRA University. Under the terms of the agreement, TCS will train over 2,000 government and private school teachers in Tamil Nadu to use new ICT (information and communications technologies) to improve students’ learning outcomes. The company will also establish a teacher training centre on the SASTRA campus. “TCS believes that by empowering teachers through digital learning programmes, the quality of education delivered in 57,153 schools in Tamil Nadu will improve sharply,” said TCS executive vice president and global human resources head Ajoyendra Mukherjee, speaking on the occasion. Puducherry Online education initiative Pondicherry University (PU) is all set to roll out several distance education programmes including MBA (Masters in Business Administration) through a specially designed Android app for students and working professionals living in tier II and III towns and cities. More than 2,500 students are already accessing these programmes, says a PU communique issued in Chennai on September 26. For online delivery of courses, students can download the mobile application from the Avagmah Technology Platform, it added. “Through adoptive technology, we have endeavoured to make quality education accessible to students in far-flung areas who would otherwise have no access to quality education,” said Sibnath Deb, director (distance education cell) of PU. Goa Yoga education drive The state government is all set to introduce khel khel mein, a yoga textbook published by Patanjali Yogpeeth, a Haridwar (Uttarakhand)-based yoga institute run by celebrated yoga guru Baba Ramdev, for yoga teachers and students in government primary schools in Goa. “The problems school children face these days, such as stress, depression, lack of concentration, exam phobia, relationship issues and drug addiction are addressed in this book,” G.P. Bhat, director of education, informed the media in Panaji on September 15. The (yoga training) scheme will be implemented by the Goa Educational Development Corporation for a period of six years commencing in the current academic year. Under the scheme, 15 government primaries in each tehsil will be selected for introducing yoga education and a teacher from each school will be selected for training by Patanjali Yogpeeth. Kerala Official assessments promise Delivering a Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Memorial Lecture at the Vedavyasa Vidyalayam Senior Secondary School in Kozhikode on September 25, Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar said the Central government will soon conduct its own assessments of students’ learning outcomes to provide a clear picture of the quality of education being imparted in public primary schools. “We have a mission to improve the quality of education. Therefore, learning outcomes are important… Now the government will also conduct assessments every year of mathematical, language, reading and writing capabilities of students in government schools,” said the minister. Uttarakhand Welfare schemes awareness blitz In an initiative to spread awareness about its socio-economic development schemes, the state government has directed schools in the Chamoli district…

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“Nearly 90 per cent of teacher training institutes are now in the private sector. A new kind of post-liberalisation inspector raj governs them, with rampant corruption. There’s pervasive commercialisation in this sector and little room for quality concerns.” Dr. Krishna Kumar, professor of education, Delhi University on the crisis in teacher eductation (Hindustan Times, September 4) “The BJP may be trapped by its inflated claims and ideological leanings. But the sheer self-destructive pettiness and parochialism of the other parties is making it likely that the BJP’s failings will not be challenged by a credible Opposition, but by an outbreak of infantilism, where each alternative leader seems to get smaller by the day.” Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of Centre for Policy Research, on the lack of a strong opposition to the BJP (The Indian Express, September 15) “We will support good universities by giving autonomy and reducing regulation, while universities that are not performing well would be heavily regulated.” Prakash Javadekar, Union HRD minister, on the Centre’s plans to support universities that encourage innovation (The Economic Times, September 26) “The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again. In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top  percent of the people in this country than we’ve ever had. I call it trumped up trickle-down.” Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party presidential nominee, criticising Donald Trump’s proposed tax reforms in the US presidential debate (firstpost.com, September 27) “We are in a federal structure and in a democracy like India, no State can say it will not obey the Supreme Court’s order. You cannot pick up a fight with everyone.” Supreme Court Bench on the Karnataka government’s refusal to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu (The New Indian Express, September 28)

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Six years after it became law on April 1, 2010, the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act — particularly s. 12 (1) (c) of the Act which makes it obligatory for private non-minority schools to reserve 25 percent of seats in elementary classes (I-VIII) for children from poor households in their neighbourhood — is tying private school promoters and managements in knots. Although in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan vs. Union of India (2010), the Supreme Court in a 2-1 split verdict, upheld the constitutional validity of s. 12 (1) (c) while exempting minority and boarding schools from applicability of this provision of the Act, the overwhelming majority of private school promoters believe that s.12 (1) (c) is tantamount to “backdoor nationalisation” of private school education. Therefore a growing number of private school managements are claiming exempt religious and/or linguistic minority status with some highly respected school promoters going to great lengths to claim exemption. On September 6, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) cancelled the affiliation of six National Public Schools in Bangalore and Mysore routinely ranked among Karnataka’s Top 10 days schools in the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR), for forging documents to avail minority status, sending shock waves through the city’s academic and parents communities. These schools are run by the Bangalore-based National Education Trust and allied trusts constituted by Dr. K.P. Gopalkrishna, an eminent Bangalore-based educationist. The six mid-market NPS schools in Bangalore and Mysore highly-reputed for their academic rigour apart, Gopalkrishna has also promoted the high-end CIE, UK and IBO, Geneva-affiliated The International School, Bangalore (TISB), ranked #3 countrywide among international day-cum-boarding schools in EWISR 2016. Several telephone calls and email messages sent by your correspondent to Dr. Gopalkrishna elicited no reponse. However, after much pressure, The PRactice, a Bangalore-based public relations firm, sent a reply to several questions posed by EW to Dr. Gopalkrishna. “Citizens Education Trust and NAFL Trust have followed all norms and procedures while applying for minority institutions category for the schools. All official documentation that was handed over to the school was accepted in good faith and trust. The recent stay order from the high court of Karnataka on the disaffiliation move bears testimony to the fact that NPS is an institution that is held to (sic) high ethical and moral standards. We had admitted all students under RTE for the academic years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16, as directed by the BEO (block education officer),” says the email sent on behalf of Gopalkrishna which adds that due to the stay order, no s. 12 (1) (c) admissions have been made in the current academic year 2016-17. Academics and educationists in Bangalore are unanimous that the exemption granted to minority schools by the Supreme Court has opened a can of worms. “The process by which minority status is granted to schools lacks transparency,” says Nagasimha Rao, convener of the RTE Task Force, a non-government advocacy group monitoring implementation of the RTE Act in…

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After storming to power for a second consecutive term in 2016, the Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has established its supremacy in West Bengal (pop. 91 million). The 2016 assembly election results have vindicated the TMC’s socialist populism. Metalled roads in more than 170 rural constituencies, village electrification, rice at Rs.2 per kg and education scholarships for women and students have proved to be a winning strategy, which has overshadowed corruption. However, the state’s once vaunted education system, which was heavily infiltrated and ruined by ill-educated CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) apparatchiks and cadres, has hit an all-time low with the almost complete suspension of teacher recruitment because of recruitment test scandals. But, following an order passed by Justice C.S. Karnan of the Calcutta high court on September 14 directing the TMC government to immediately declare the results of the state’s Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2015, the School Service Commission (SSC) and West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) have published the scores of 492,000 candidates who wrote the upper primary TET held on August 16, 2015 and of 2.2 million who wrote the primary TET on October 11 last year. Although SSC and WBBPE are yet to declare the number of successful candidates, according to education minister Partha Chattopadhyay, about 124,000 candidates passed the primary TET. Adhering to chief minister Banerjee’s promise to appoint 60,000 teachers immediately after the Calcutta high court’s judgement in several pending cases, SSC and WBBPE have published recruitment ads for teachers in primary and upper primary schools. More than 18,000 aspirant teachers who cleared the tainted TET 2011 are also eligible for recruitment together with those who qualified in 2015. According to the recruitment ads, there are 14,088 vacancies in West Bengal’s public upper primaries and 41,559 in primary schools. With an additional 16,529 teacher vacancies in government high schools, there’s an imminent possibility of a massive cohort of 72,176 teachers being recruited for the state’s 92,000 government schools this year. Inevitably, in this once economically prosperous eastern seaboard state ruined by 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPM-led Left Front governments during which West Bengal suffered massive de-industrialisation and capital flight as a result of which jobs for the educated middle class are scarce, candidates who have failed to clear TET are alleging fudging of results. According to Tulsi Masant, convenor of the DL.Ed (diploma in elementary education) Students Forum, the state government is violating guidelines of the Delhi-based NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) which stipulates that only candidates who have passed the B.Ed exam are eligible to write TET. “The relaxation period for recruiting untrained candidates expired on March 31 this year. Thus, only trained candidates are eligible for appointment as teachers in government schools. Our agitation against this malpractice by the state government will continue till graduate teachers are given a fair chance,” says Masant. However, Swapan Mandol, assistant general-secretary of the Bengal Teachers and Employees’ Association, who has been a vocal…

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A May 24 ordinance of the union government which granted aspiring medical students the option of exemption from NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) — a common national exam for admission into undergraduate and postgrad medical and dental study programmes of all medical colleges countrywide — for one year (2016-17), came as a great relief to thousands of aspirant medicos in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million), which had abolished entrance tests for professional education programmes in 2006. However, some students who wrote NEET on July 24 this year and qualified for admission into Tamil Nadu’s 13 private medical colleges and ten deemed (private) universities, are unhappy with their admission processes. This is because the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducted the country’s first-ever NEET and announced the results on August 16, hasn’t released a ranked list which would enable students to enter colleges of their choice. Moreover, they are particularly peeved by a circular issued on September 15 by the University Grants Commission (UGC) which asks deemed universities to publish their own merit lists based on the NEET scores of applicants. Parents and students believe this is a loophole for unscrupulous private college/varsity managements to favour students willing to pay outlawed capitation fees. After the historic Supreme Court judgement of April 11 which abolished all other entrance exams and mandated NEET as the sole entrance exam for admission into all medical colleges countrywide, the common practice of college/varsity managements demanding — and getting — sky-high capitation fees (upfront lump sums) for favoured admissions under the management quota of seats, has become redundant. With effect from July/August 2017, NEET scores in order of merit will become the sole criterion for admission into the country’s 174 government and 212 private medical colleges/universities with all discretionary quotas abolished. This has prompted private medical education institutions in Tamil Nadu to substantially increase their tuition fees since the capitation fees window has been closed. For instance, the annual tuition fee of the Chennai-based SRM Medical College, affiliated with the SRM University, has zoomed from Rs.10 lakh per year to Rs.21 lakh. In other private medical colleges across Tamil Nadu, annual tuition fees range from Rs.12-19 lakh effective this year. Quite obviously, private college managements in Tamil Nadu who were hitherto obliged to admit 45 percent of their annual intake of students on the basis of their scores/grades in the class XII school exams at government prescribed tuition fees and allowed to admit the remaining 55 percent at their discretion under the ‘management quota’ on payment of high capitation fees, have factored capitation fees into determining the now common tuition fees. In effect, this means high tuition fees for all without management quota students subsidising government recommended students. “If the Union government is sincere about making medical education affordable, it should have constituted a tariff committee of eminent professionals to determine common tuition fees chargeable by different categories of institutions providing medical education. Without a proper system in place, the objectives of NEET will remain unfulfilled,” warns…

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A row has broken out between the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, estb.1936), reputed as among the country’s best social sciences higher ed institution (ranked #25 in the EducationWorld India National University Rankings 2015), and the University Grants Commission (UGC, estb.1956), the apex non-technical higher education regulatory and funding organisation. A deemed (public) university, TISS accuses UGC of having short-changed it of Rs.13 crore of the amount sanctioned by the Union HRD ministry for payment of faculty and non-teaching staff in the fiscal year 2015-16. As a Central government-funded university which levies below-cost (Rs.1.3-1.5 lakh per year) tuition fees in the public interest, TISS receives an annual non-plan grant of Rs.45 crore from the Union government routed through UGC. Promoted by the highly-reputed business house of Tata 80 years ago, as the Sir Dorabji Tata Institute of Social Work, it was rechristened The Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1944. In the heyday of Nehruvian socialism when tuition fees in higher education institutions were strictly controlled by the education ministry, the Tatas ceded control of the institute which became a wholly publicly-funded institution. In 1964, TISS, which has campuses in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Tuljapur and 5,000 students on its muster rolls, was conferred deemed university status, and awarded a 5-star ‘A’ grade rating by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in 2010. One of the few Centrally-funded universities countrywide, TISS receives a total annual grant of Rs.60 crore to meet its non-plan (salaries, maintenance and overheads) and plan (capital) expenditure. However, the TISS management has made several complaints to the HRD ministry about the failure of UGC to make timely disbursal of the sanctioned non-plan grant. Last year in a letter (April 29) to the higher education secretary, TISS director, S. Parasuraman complained about having to avail bank loans to pay for salaries, pensions and overhead expenses of the institute in March and April 2015. Curiously although several newspapers have quoted verbatim from letters written by TISS, several calls to TISS director S. Parasuram’s office by your correspondent went unanswered. “There is no need to humiliate us. TISS is not asking any favours, we are only asking for rightful grants. And we have no one at the UGC to turn to demand to be treated in a dignified manner,” Parasuram is reported (The Economic Times, September 12) to have written in a letter to UGC in July. Also curiously, none of the other eight deemed universities countrywide, funded by the Central government, have experienced similar “accounting problems” with UGC. They are the Agra-based Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Tamil Nadu), Avinashilingam University, Coimbatore, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Delhi, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati and Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar. According to knowledgeable academics in Maharashtra ruled by the BJP which swept to power in the state legislative assembly elections of October 2014, the troubles of TISS are rooted in the “intolerable liberalism” of its faculty and student bodies. The Akhil…

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With an education budget of Rs.10,690 crore in fiscal 2016-17, the highest ever allocated by any government of Delhi state which includes the national capital, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government — elected to power in February 2015 with a sweeping majority — raised hopes of radical changes in Delhi’s 924 government schools. Unfortunately, the AAP government has conspicuously failed to bring about the promised change in the state’s public education system. On the contrary, the Delhi high court has admitted a PIL (public interest litigation) writ against an education programme of the state government’s Directorate of Education titled Chunauti (‘Challenge’) 2018. Chunauti 2018 was launched on June 29 to test and support students of classes VI-IX to improve the rock-bottom pass percentage of government school children, half of whom fail the school-leaving class X exam of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). “The idea behind Chunauti 2018 is that by the year 2018, all students enrolled in class IX in the academic year 2016-2017, regardless of their learning levels at this point, will be trained and mentored to successfully appear for class X examinations in 2018. No child will be left behind,” said Manish Sisodia, state minister for education and deputy chief minister of Delhi, speaking on the occasion. However, the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Civil Society (estb.1997), which is a champion of education causes and school choice in particular, has filed a writ petition (Centre for Civil Society vs. Directorate of Education and Ors (W.P.(c) 7949/2016) questioning why the Chunauti 2018 programme is limited to children in classes VI-IX and ignores students in the state government’s primary schools in which learning outcomes are abysmal and the dropouts percentage is 25-30 percent. Admitting the petition, a two-judge bench of the Delhi high court has issued notices to the three Delhi municipal corporations (north, south and east) to respond by November 28. “Assessments only for middle classes while leaving out primary classes is against the letter and spirit of the Act (i.e, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009), since as per the Act, government must ensure learning outcomes for all children up to class VIII in government schools,” says the CCS petition which has prayed for the inclusion of primary classes of all state and local government schools in the Chunauti 2018 programme. “The ‘no detention’ provision in the RTE Act (s.16) has been misconstrued by government school managements and teachers as no testing or assessment. Teachers in government schools have completely ignored assessment of the learning outcomes of class I-VI children resulting in increase in failures in class IX with students not even attaining basic learning levels,” says Amit Chandra, associate director (policy advisory) of CCS. The consequence of this blindspot of government school managements and teachers is highlighted by the Chunauti 2018 programme itself. An assessment by the education ministry indicates that 74 percent of class VI children cannot read and grasp simple paragraphs in Hindi textbooks. Likewise an Urban Wards…

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Please refer to our email sent to C fore dated July 15 in which we clearly disagreed with the format of the EW India School Rankings 2016 survey and conveyed our refusal to participate in it. We have serious objections that in spite of our refusal, you have printed the name of DPS, Faridabad in the EWISR 2016 league tables (EW September). Using the name of DPS, Faridabad on your part is unethical and illegal as you did not have the required authorisation from us. We request you to delete DPS, Faridabad from your list of schools with immediate effect irrespective of our ranking, and also to ensure that the school’s name is not used while announcements are being made in your awards ceremony held on September 23. We appreciate your cooperation. However, if our school’s name is used in your publication or during the awards ceremony, we will be forced to pursue legal action. Anil Kumar Principal, DPS, Faridabad We believe Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution empowers us to fairly and objectively rate and rank education institutions of our choice in the public interest — Editor Not acceptable In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2016 under the co-ed day schools category, Delhi Public School (DPS) Indore has been ranked #3 in Indore and #4 in Madhya Pradesh whereas in 2015, it was ranked #2 in the city and state respectively (EW September). It is a real surprise that the Choithram School, North Campus, with lesser infrastructure facilities and unclaimed merit positions and results is rated higher — #2 in Indore and Madhya Pradesh as well. We regret to inform you that this is not acceptable to us as DPS, Indore meets all your prescribed parameters. For instance on the parameter of teacher welfare and development, our teachers are paid as per Sixth Pay Commission scales with all perks and perquisites and provided continuous training by the HRD Centre, Dwarka of the DPS Society. Academically, we have recorded excellent results with our class XII students averaging 84.8 percent in the CBSE board exam and 41 students scoring 90 percent-plus. In light of the above, we request you to kindly revise the ranking and assessment parameters. Sudarshan Sonar Principal, DPS, Indore All schools in the league tables are rated and ranked according to the perceptions of an independent, informed sample of respondents. Please see page 42 (EW September) for our rankings methodology — Editor Philanthropic initiative Re the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2016, VidyaGyan, a philanthropic venture of the Shiv Nadar Foundation, is ranked #2 in Uttar Pradesh and #1 in Bulandshahr in the category of co-ed boarding schools. The school has also been ranked #1 for ‘value for money’. The #1 ranking for ‘value for money’ is incorrect and misleading given the philanthropic nature of the institution. Please note that VidyaGyan is a leadership academy aimed at nurturing meritorious, underprivileged rural students of Uttar Pradesh. The academy provides free-of-charge education to its students and also takes care of their nutrition…

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The stand-off between the bjp-led NDA government and the Supreme Court over the former’s delay in appointing judges proposed by the apex court’s collegium, threatens to paralyse the country’s already sclerotic judicial system. On August 13, a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur rebuked the Centre for bringing the entire judiciary to a “grinding halt” by sitting on the recommendations of the collegium. Currently, 478 judicial posts are vacant in various high courts countrywide (sanctioned strength: 1,079), and three in the Supreme Court. This constitutionally dangerous impasse has its roots in an apex court verdict in which by a 4-1 majority, the Supreme Court struck down the 99th Constitution Amendment passed by Parliament, which had proposed a six-member strong National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) comprising the chief justice and two senior most judges of the Supreme Court, the Union law minister (ex officio) and “two eminent persons” to appoint higher judiciary judges. The prime purpose of the pursuant NJAC Act, 2015, passed by both houses of Parliament in 2014, was to replace the collegium system of selection devised by the Supreme Court on the basis of its own judgements in three rulings (1981-98) known as the Three Judges Cases, under which a collegium comprising the chief justice and four senior judges of the Supreme Court, took it upon itself to appoint judges in consultation with the President (advised by the Union government). The collegium system became operational in 1993 after the apex court’s judgement in the Second Judges Case. However, the BJP/NDA government questioned this schema on the ground that a judges-appointing-judges system is undesirable, and a broader consultation process involving the people’s representatives would best serve the public interest. This unresolved stalemate has resulted in most high courts countrywide working with only 40 percent of their sanctioned judicial strength, while the backlog of cases gets longer. On August 12, 2016, 22.4 million cases were pending in various courts across the country — the world’s largest judicial backlog. Though there’s an urgent need for the higher judiciary which has recently been rocked by charges of corruption and nepotism, to proactively improve the system of selecting, vetting and appointing judges, it’s also noteworthy that 34 percent of the country’s MPs and legislators are charged with serious criminal offences and are best kept out of the selection process. Against this backdrop, the admittedly imperfect collegium system is the lesser evil. Moreover, the BJP-led NDA government needs to accept that a sufficiently well-staffed and efficient judiciary is a prerequisite of attracting foreign (and domestic) investment, and exhibit urgency in accepting the collegium system. Further delay in resolving this dispute could bring the wheels of the justice system — already moving with painful sloth — to a complete stop. School Education Neglect Fallout Once upon a time not so long ago, it was the garden city of India. Over the past two decades as Bangalore’s population has grown from 4.74 million in 1995 to 8.42 million in 2015 and…

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