Students looking for part-time work are often caught between two less-than-ideal options. When they need extra money, they can take on low-skilled part-time work, such as stacking shelves in a supermarket or pulling pints in a bar. If they want professional experience, internships are preferred. But these are often unpaid, excluding all but the wealthy, and sometimes barely long enough to work out how to use the photocopier. German students, however, have a third option that advocates say combines the best of both worlds. ‘Work student’ positions have been offered by German companies since the 1920s and give undergraduates longterm experience in a firm alongside their studies — stints of a year are not uncommon — while often paying above minimum wage. “This system in Germany seems to be very special,” says Christian Schneickert, a sociologist at the University of Magdeburg who has studied the scheme. An online search for work student positions yields thousands of results, offered by global consultancies, industrial titans and banks. The work itself might not be the most thrilling — doing income tax returns, writing sales reports, testing new IT tools — but it is several steps up from fetching coffee and may lead to a permanent job upon graduation, acting as a kind of extended interview. The system is protected in law. Work students who labour for less than 20 hours a week, pay no health or unemployment insurance, meaning they keep most of their salaries, explains Frank Ziegele, director of Germany’s Centre for Higher Education (CHE). “The incentive for everyone involved is that it creates a win-win situation,” he says. “You can earn a living, but can do something that is tied to what you study.” Students commonly tackle questions pertinent to their employer in their bachelor’s or Masters thesis, he explains. At CHE, work students are drafted on a project basis to relieve regular employees of, say, relatively routine numbers crunching. “We benefit from a rather cheap labour force,” Prof. Ziegele admits. But still, “it’s much better for your career than working in a bar,” he argues. Not all employed German students enjoy work student positions. Like in other countries, they also toil in bars, cafes and factories in positions open to anyone. But the system is so well-established that almost a third of those employed have the equivalent of a work student position in universities and research organisations (the number in private companies is unclear). Still, there are low rumbles of concern about social fairness. Students who win such positions in universities are more likely to come from highly educated families, according to a spokeswoman of the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies. In some cases, the system is a “reproductive path for students from the higher classes”, admits Schneickert, although he stresses it is still fairer than unpaid internships. But the pandemic has really brought the weaknesses of Germany’s student job system into painful focus. Perhaps surprisingly for a wealthy social democracy, in Germany students rely heavily…
For children themselves, Covid-19 is not a big threat. They usually have mild symptoms or none at all. Among children with symptoms, only 0.1 percent of those younger than ten and 0.3 percent of those aged between ten and 19 end up in hospital, a study from Britain shows. For school-age children, a Covid-19 infection is less deadly than most flu infections. The big worry is that children may spread the virus through school. Studies in households where someone introduced the infection usually find that younger children are much less likely to catch the virus than adults. The evidence for older children is mixed, with some studies concluding that they are as susceptible to infection as adults. But even if children are less easily infected at home, when they mingle a lot, chances are that many of them will pick up the virus. In an overnight summer camp in the state of Georgia in June, at least half of the 346 children attending were infected. Whether the sort of mingling that happens at school is also a recipe for disaster is best judged by looking at countries where schools have reopened. Data from England published on August 23 is encouraging. Its schools reopened in June for some students before closing for the summer a month later. In that period, only 0.01 percent of preschools and primary schools had Covid-19 outbreaks, affecting 70 children and 128 staff — out of 25,470 infections recorded in England as a whole. Of the 30 school outbreaks involved, the probable source in 20 was a staff member. That teaching is not exceptionally risky is also the conclusion from Sweden. Staff at its nurseries and primary schools, which never closed, were no more likely to become infected than in other jobs. Less clear is the role of secondary schools in infections. They have stayed shut almost everywhere. Outbreaks in France and Israel suggest that the virus could spread more easily in secondary — than in primary — schools. Older students may be easier to keep apart in classrooms, but good luck trying to stop them congregating afterwards. America will struggle to contain school outbreaks as much of Europe has done, because infection rates in many states are too high and health officials are overwhelmed. Tough choices may be necessary. Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has warned that pubs might have to close (to keep infections down) so children can go to school. In America, where any constraint on freedom goes against the grain, such trade-offs may be an even tougher sell.
University leaders Are watching closely after Internet behemoth Google jumped deeper into post-secondary education, offering six-month certificate programmes in technical fields that it promises to treat in its hiring as the equivalent of a four-year university degree. Google says its new certificates represent an expansion of the skills-based training it already offers through the Coursera platform, timed to the retraining demand it expects from pandemic-driven job losses. “College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn’t need a college degree to have economic security,” says Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president of global affairs in a blog posting. Higher education experts are divided on the significance of the move, noting that the key elements of Google’s initiative already can be found elsewhere, but acknowledging that Google’s massive influence could drive industry standards and acceptance. Google’s pledge to treat its certificate holders as equivalent to applicants with four-year college degrees is a major commitment, says Ryan Craig, managing director of University Ventures, which helps companies provide quick and low-cost training to prospective workers for the jobs they need to fill. Whether hiring managers at Google actually end up affording the company’s own certificate holders the respect of candidates bringing a four-year degree “remains to be seen”, says Craig. Also unclear, says Paul LeBlanc, president of online innovator at Southern New Hampshire University, is whether such a promise has much hope for growth outside of some very limited technical competencies. “A degree remains a signal of other attributes, other than the specific skills needed for a job in the moment,” says LeBlanc. Google, however, already has shown its ability to attract attention in education. Beyond offering research tools such as Google Scholar and Google Translate, the company’s Google IT Certificate is the most popular certificate on the Coursera online platform, which was created by two Stanford University computer science professors. The three new Google Career Certificates are in the fields of data analytics, project management and user experience design. Median annual wage for these jobs at Google range from $66,000 (Rs.48.18 lakh) to $93,000, while tuition on Coursera runs to about $300 for six months. Google says it’s also expanding opportunities for apprenticeships for people who earn certificates, and is working with a network of more than 100 community colleges to offer certificates at the high school level. The company’s effort comes, however, amid signs that four-year degrees may be regaining popularity as an entry-level hiring barrier, says LeBlanc. That’s because high unemployment levels tied to the pandemic may be letting companies become pickier. Scott Pulsipher, president of Western Governors University, an online university headquartered in Utah, welcomes Google’s announcement. “Google’s move is further evidence that employers, industry groups and alternative providers are moving quickly to introduce new options and advance learning towards the skills-based future of work. We should expect this trend to accelerate, and it is imperative for colleges and universities to adapt. If not, they risk being disrupted,” he says.
Gandhi’s Hinduism — The struggle against Jinnah’s Islam; M.J. Akbar; Bloomsbury; Rs.699; 414 pp – Dilip Thakore This compelling narrative tracking events to the final run-up to independence and partition of the subcontinent has suffered a media blackout, despite being authored by media supernova M.J. Akbar, (Sunday, The Telegraph, Kolkata, Asian Age and author of several contemporary histories including Nehru: The Making of India (1998) and Tinderbox: Past & Future of Pakistan (2011). That’s probably because Akbar is in the national doghouse following his trial by frothing TRP-obsessed television news anchors on unsubstantiated sexual harassment charges, which has also cut short his political career as a junior minister of the incumbent BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. The title of Akbar’s latest oeuvre which suggests that the protagonists of this book were deeply religious personalities, is misleading. Though Gandhi was a devout Hindu, he was more a religious reformer than an orthodox practitioner of this ancient creed. His whole life was a struggle to excise the inherent inequities of the Hindu caste system, particularly the open, continuous and uninterrupted atrocities visited upon the lowest castes for millennia. Jinnah, on the other hand as Akbar recounts with numerous lifestyle examples and data was — like his Hindu alter ego Jawaharlal Nehru — a westernised sophisticate with ill-concealed disdain for religion and ritual, and at best a political Muslim. But he exerted powerful influence on his community. However, though Akbar believes that it was Jinnah’s antagonism towards Gandhi that infuriated the former and ultimately compelled him to press the demand for a separate nation for the subcontinent’s Muslims, there is sufficient evidence in this and other histories of India’s freedom struggle to suggest that Jinnah’s worst fear was to be obliged to serve under Nehru. The latter was adopted by Gandhi as his “spiritual son” and favourite right from the time the 29-year-old Jawaharlal, spoilt offspring of wealthy lawyer Motilal Nehru, succeeded his father as Congress president in 1929. To its merit, this fluent narrative also provides satisfying context and explanation for the sustained loyalty of the British to Jinnah. The plain truth obfuscated by most Indian historians, but highlighted by Akbar, is that in the early years of World War II, the British were in a blue funk following German dictator Adolf Hitler’s march through Europe and imminent invasion of Britain, and the quick conquest of the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore by Japan, Hitler’s ally. Therefore, the loyalty and support of the Indian Army, 40 percent Muslim — at the height of the “bloodiest war in history,” writes Akbar, 2.5 million Indians were fighting for Britain deployed in Europe and Asia — was vitally important for imperial Britain. It was fighting lone wars on two fronts, because until end 1941, America was not a combatant nation. As Akbar narrates in considerable detail, at this critical moment in the history of World War II, in March 1940, Jinnah offered the British viceroy Lord Linlithgow full Muslim League and community support for the…
China’s transformation: The success story & the success trap; Manoranjan Mohanty; sage publications; Rs.1,195; Pages 376 – Ravi Bhoothalingam (The Book Review) If you had to pick just one book to read on a desert island (or more realistically, during a Covid-19 lockdown) that would give you an authoritative and readable account of China’s rise to global superpower status and its current predicament, it should be this book. The reasons will be clear later in this review, but first, let us consider the crux of the argument of political scientist and China scholar Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty. The introductory chapter presents the case that Mohanty sets out to prove in the book. It goes as follows: China’s transformation into a modern industrial powerhouse started with Deng Xiaoping’s policies of ‘reform and opening up’ in 1979. As these policies were implemented, economic growth started accelerating; as the plans evolved and changed with increasing contact with the outside (capitalist) world, so did the range and impact of the resulting economic and social changes. Gradually, interest groups started forming, power balances (within and outside the Party) shifted and the character of transformation began to shed its socialist origins. The consequences: regional and income inequalities, urban pollution and environmental degradation, ‘democratic centralism’ with increased Party control, and less responsiveness to public sentiment. To use a medical analogy, Mohanty’s hypothesis is that the ‘diet’ prescribed by the reforms produced biochemical changes in China’s body politic. The symptoms were described graphically by former prime minister Wen Jiabao (March 2007) as “… growth (that) is unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable”. Any good physician would test this hypothesis by examining the anatomy and physiology of the patients’ organs, to determine how cause is linked to effect. And this Mohanty duly proceeds to do in Part II — the heart of the book — which is a masterpiece of longitudinal social science fieldwork at the very grassroots of Chinese society. Over three decades of work in Wuxi district and Hela township, he studied in minute detail the various agencies formulating and implementing the reforms — from Party HQ right down to the village level — their organisation, working methods, relationships and responsiveness to challenges. With a surgeon’s precision, Mohanty points to the CPC’s (Communist Party of China) abandonment of the early and innovative approach to rural industrialisation adopted through the collectively-owned Township and Village Enterprises (TVE) model. Moreover, this was followed by creeping bureaucratisation, changes in the Party’s class character and the dilution of participative public monitoring mechanisms. The first word in the Party’s slogan ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ was beginning to sound distinctly dodgy. The symptoms of the resulting ailment are described in Part III of the book. They include rural depopulation and increasing distress in the countryside — even while the overall tide was rising — environmental stress and the reducing role of China’s public health system. Most telling is the chapter about the problems faced by China’s women in ‘the success trap’, especially set against Mao Zedong’s…
An annual feature of Mumbai (pop. 18 million) — the country’s commercial and financial capital — is the heavy damage caused to the city and its productive citizens by the monsoon rains year after year. This year, according to the Indian Meteorological Department, between June 1 and September 24, Mumbai received 3,679.8 mm rain, just short of its highest ever seasonal rainfall of 3,759.7 mm in 1958, causing damage to livelihoods, property and by way of business disruption estimated at Rs.51,000 crore. However the heaviest rainfall of 1958 is testimony that the annual deluge is not a latter-day phenomenon. According to informed environmentalists the quantum of rain the megalopolis receives annually has remained unchanged for the past 80 years. Moreover prolonged delay in building a motorway to the mainland, a mere 10 km as the crow flies — a project first proposed in the 1970s — because the metro’s powerful politician-builder lobby conspired to keep property prices sky-high, has added to the chaotic congestion of the commercial capital. To a substantial degree maximum city’s citizenry has brought this misery upon itself. Since 2012 it has continuously elected the Shiv Sena — an organisation with a notorious record of routine extortion, intimidation and skulduggery — to run the city’s municipal government. Under Sena rule the politician-builder lobby went on a haphazard building spree while stalling construction of the Mumbai-Nhava Sheva motorway to the mainland, work on which finally began early this year. The plain truth is that the city’s indifferent middle class doesn’t vote in municipal elections, let alone run for office. Therefore Mumbai’s multiple miseries, including highest rents worldwide and copious flooding every year is self-inflicted misery. Also read: Ingenious tangled web
It’s a measure of the degree to which religious communalism and identity poison is spreading within Indian society under rule of the BJP/NDA government, that the Supreme Court mandated CBI investigation into the alleged suicide/murder of rising Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14 has morphed into a covert anti-Muslim and anti-liberals witch-hunt in Bollywood, the world’s largest feature films factory. Led by prime-time English television news proconsul, Arnab Goswami who has attained national fame for conducting a nightly witch-hunt on the Republic TV news channel which slavishly toes the BJP line, the Rajput investigation has gradually mutated into a covert campaign to end the perceived domination of Bollywood by liberals and the Muslim community, and in particular to dethrone the ‘4 Khans’ — Salman, Aamir, Shahrukh, and Saif Ali — box office male stars of the Bollywood fantasies factory. With the weight of emerging evidence indicating that Rajput, a troubled and insecure young (33) individual who often used soft drugs, had made his own quietus, Goswami has widened the ambit of the investigation to the alleged drugs addiction of Bollywood celebrities i.e, the 4 Khans and popular actress Deepika Padukone who has often embraced Left-liberal causes. Backing whistle-blower and blatantly pro-Hindutva actress Kangana Ranaut who alleges that 99 percent of top Bollywood stars are drug users, the RSS/BJP chorus orchestrated by the self-righteous Goswami is hell-bent on religious cleansing of Bollywood, whose stars are demi-gods of the country’s largely illiterate population. Besides, the national focus on the Narcotics Control Bureau investigating the country’s most revered movie stars serves the useful purpose of distracting public attention from government mismanagement of the economy, the sweeping Covid-19 pandemic, the India-China border standoff and other embarrassing issues. Indeed an ingenious tangled web woven to deceive.
Founded by Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence (1766) and president of the United States (1801-1809), UVA is routinely ranked among the Top 5 public universities of America – Dipta Joshi Over the past two centuries, the University of Virginia (UVA, estb.1819) has acquired an excellent reputation for teaching and research with the institution routinely ranked among the Top 5 publicly-funded universities in the US. In the 2020 edition of America’s Best Colleges of the US News & World Report, UVA is ranked #4 among public universities while the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 ranks it among the Top 200 worldwide (#117). The university was founded by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of America’s founding fathers, author of the Declaration of American Independence (1776) and the country’s third president (1801-09). Departing from established tradition of the time, Jefferson promoted UVA as a religiously secular institution of higher learning. The university’s campus layout designed by Jefferson himself, is an architectural landmark and the first varsity campus worldwide to be awarded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO. UVA’s 12 academic schools, located in Charlottesville, offer a wide range of study programmes to 16,000 undergraduate and 7,800 postgrad students. A second campus (estb.1954) in Wise, Southwest Virginia hosts a public liberal arts college with 2,065 students. After remaining shut for over six months to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UVA campus began in-person instruction for undergraduates on September 8. Charlottesville. Named in honour of Princess Charlotte, the wife of King George III of England (ousted by George Washington), Charlottesville is sited on a hill overlooking the River Rivanna in Albermale County, Virginia. A picturesque town surrounded by rolling countryside and dotted with aesthetically designed buildings and historical landmarks, the city is regularly ranked among America’s most preferred habitations. Charlottesville (pop.48,457) was named as the ‘happiest city in America’ by the US National Bureau of Economic Research (2014) and featured among the ‘Top Ten College Towns’ rankings of Partners for Livable Communities. A small but historically important habitat, Charlottesville is best known for contributing America’s three founding presidents — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. Jefferson’s renowned mountain-top home Monticello, attracts a steady stream of tourists every year. Downtown Charlottesville is the legal, financial and social hub of the community, and hosts a plethora of shopping malls, cafes and restaurants. The climate is sub-tropical with hot and humid summers and cold winters. Rain falls throughout the year in Charlottesville. Campus facilities. Together with Jefferson’s home at Monticello the UVA campus is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sprawled over a 3,392-acre campus the varsity hosts 560 buildings with the central campus popularly known as the Grounds extending over 1,166 acres. The university revolves around its Academical Village, which includes the specific areas of The Lawn (a grand terraced green space surrounded by residential and academic buildings), The Gardens and The Range. The Rotunda, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, stands at the north-end of The Lawn…
Even the occasional follower of the US presidency election campaign — the electorate of the world’s most powerful democracy will vote on November 3, less than a month from now — can’t help noticing the extent to which unapologetic ageism has crept into political jousting. According to President Donald Trump (74), his Democratic party rival Joe Biden (78) is too aged to be able to shoulder the cares of presidential office and his campaigning is enabled by performance enhancing drugs. However in the scrappy first head-to-head presidential debate which Biden won hands down, the latter proved that he not only is totally compos mentis, he is an intelligent, well-informed, experienced and compassionate political leader, the mirror opposite of Trump. If the American electorate re-elects Trump, it will be clear proof that those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Given the slavish tendency of influencers in Indian society to follow American trends, it’s unsurprising that ageism — described as “stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age” — is also rife in Indian society. Despite chronic vacancies in the higher judiciary, experienced Supreme Court justices are compulsorily retired at 65, and high court judges at 62. Most of them continue their careers in arbitration or as heads of tribunals with perfect ease. Why shouldn’t they continue to serve the public interest? Ditto army generals and seasoned civil servants. Why shouldn’t they continue to serve the public when 80 is the new 60? In this connection it’s worthy of note that judges of the US Supreme Court continue in harness until death or proven incapacity. It’s quite obvious the real rationale of pushing perfectly capable oldies out of office is to artificially create employment within a low growth economy in which an aged political class (there’s no retirement age for politicians) is unwilling to relinquish control and command of all economic activity. It’s a wonder why the passive public tolerates aged politicians blundering on forever while capable professionals are put out to pasture prematurely.
ISDM has quickly built an excellent reputation for educating and training graduates for employment in India’s fast-growing voluntary services sector – Autar Nehru Promoted in 2016 with the objective to “professionalise the leading and managing of social purpose organisations”, the Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), Noida has quickly built an excellent reputation for educating and training graduates for employment in India’s fast-growing voluntary services sector. India hosts one of the world’s largest number of social impact, aka voluntary services, organisations — 3.17 million including schools, colleges, faith-based institutions and NGOs. “ISDM is committed to strengthening the domain of development management with study programmes that transcend the silos of ‘development perspectives’ and ‘management principles’. General business management practices cannot be retrofitted to execute development projects effectively. The social sector requires managers and leaders trained in development management. Over the past few decades in particular, India’s development sector has experienced huge changes in the character and role of social impact organisations, which need people with specialised knowledge and skills to realise their goals. ur mission is to develop a cadre of reflective, committed professionals capable of leading and managing organisations that can stimulate sustained social change and impact at scale,” says Gaurav Shah, an alumnus of BITS, Pilani and IIM-Calcutta and former management consultant with Procter & Gamble, American Express, Azim Premji Foundation, and Lok Capital, prior to his appointment as founder-director of ISDM four years ago. ISDM is the brainchild of a group of highly-respected social entrepreneurs and industry leaders including Ashish Dhawan, former venture capitalist and founder of the Central Square Foundation; Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, co-founder of Ashoka University and senior partner at 9.9 Media; Rohit Kapoor, vice-chairperson and CEO of EXL; Ravi Sreedharan, formerly at HSBC and Azim Premji Foundation; and Sharad Agarwal, board member at IIMPACT (a Gurgaon-based NGO working for education of girl children). In 2016, the founder group crowd-funded ISDM which launched its flagship one-year postgraduate programme in development leadership (PGP-DL) “to develop a cadre of management professionals that can manage and lead social purpose organisations for sustainable social impact at scale”. Thus far, 200 graduates have been certified by ISDM and campus-recruited by well-known NGOs and development organisations including Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative, Hindustan Unilever Foundation, Quest Alliance, Dasra, Barefoot College, Dr. Reddy’s Foundation, SRF Foundation and Udhyam. According to Shah, the unique feature of the institute’s specially designed PGP-DL curriculum is that it combines immersive classroom learning experience, collaborative group learning, and field studies under its Realising India programme. “Our PGP-DL programme has been specially designed to include courses, workshops and guest lectures specific to the social sector. Moreover our context-based collaborative group learning pedagogy adapts business management concepts and practices to voluntary service organisations. It involves students collaborating with peers in groups facilitated by a bricoleur i.e, mentor,” says Shah. Sited within a modern, thoroughly-equipped four-storey building in Noida’s Sector 62, ISDM also hosts a Knowledge and Research Centre which collaborates with development and academic institutions around the world to create…
– Autar Nehru (Delhi) Jalandhar-based agri-genetics postgrad Sumant Bindal (22) has made media headlines in Punjab, by bagging a whopping Rs.1.3 crore Ph D scholarship awarded by the Australian National University (ANC), Canberra — ranked Australia’s #2 public research university and #50 worldwide in the THE World University Rankings 2020. For the past two years, Sumant has been intensively researching ways to make tomatoes resistant to Fusarium wilt — a plant fungus — that ruins tomato crops worldwide. In India, this widespread fungus causes a 45 percent yield loss annually. This Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar (LPU) alum has every reason to be elated. “The generous scholarship is beyond my wildest expectations. ANU is a leading research institution and I am excited about continuing my research in pest resistant horticulture practices. I am very grateful to my faculty and mentors at LPU who assisted me in my applications process,” acknowledges Sumant. Born into a farming family — his Solan (Himachal Pradesh)-based father Arvind Bindal is a seeds production specialist — Sumant believes that if low productivity and high wastage in India’s agriculture sector is reversed, the country can double its annual GDP growth rate. “Almost 60 percent of our population is employed in agriculture and the yields of India’s ingenious farmers are not low. However, most of their effort is negated by post-harvest losses. Therefore, I want to work on disease-resistant seed strains and empower India’s neglected rural majority,” says this young agri-scientist. Committed to this cause, last year (2019) Sumant interned at the globally reputed non-profit World Vegetable Center in Tainan (Taiwan), one of 15 students shortlisted worldwide for this fully funded fellowship of the Taiwan government. Sumant is especially grateful to the management and faculty of LPU’s School of Agriculture, a leader in agriculture education in India. “Its programmes are designed to help students build research aptitude and it offers ample opportunity of ‘learning-by-doing’ on its 1,000-acre farmlands,” says this dedicated agri-scientist, set to go places.
– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Mumbai-based social worker and medical student Meera Mehta (21) was among 150 global citizens conferred the prestigious Diana Award 2020 of the British government on July 1, at a specially organised virtual felicitation ceremony. The Diana Award was initiated in 1999 in memory of the late Princess of Wales (1961-1997), to recognise outstanding young leaders worldwide for initiating and sustaining positive social change in their communities. Meera has also been an active volunteer and fundraiser for the global non-profit Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care (SRLC) for the past 15 years and has raised over Rs.1.5 crore for its slew of charitable activities to aid and enable tribal and underprivileged communities of Dharampur and Kaprada talukas, in south Gujarat’s Valsad district. She has inspired a large number of youth for voluntary services towards fund raising for socially beneficial projects. The only child of Dr. Bijal, an ophthalmologist, and software engineer Kabir Mehta, Meera is a third year student of MGM Medical College, Navi Mumbai, who took to community service at age six, inspired by the teachings of her family’s spiritual guru Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai, founder of SRLC. “Over the years, I have realised that transparent reporting of project objectives and targets transforms enlightened people into willing donors,” says Meera, who has raised funds to build tertiary healthcare centres, a science college for tribal students, and a skill development centre for empowering rural women, among other institutions. During the Covid-19 national lockdown, Meera raised Rs.45 lakh to provide free-of-charge meals for the city’s stranded migrant population, PPE kits/masks for frontline workers and sponsored the return journey of two busloads of migrants back to their hometowns in Bihar. Looking into the future, this indefatigable compassionate social activist aspires to qualify as a surgeon after completing her MBBS degree. “My dream is to serve at the free-of-charge multi-specialty Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital at Dharampur for which I have raised funds,” she says, modestly.
The mega Rs.20.97 lakh crore Covid-19 economic aid package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 12, provided tax breaks for small businesses, incentives for domestic manufacturing and free foodgrains for the poor. However, it totally ignored the pandemic-battered education sector – Summiya Yasmeen The raging Covid-19 pandemic has pushed Indian education into a state of chaos. Closed since early March to check the spread of the deadly Coronavirus which has claimed 108,000 lives and infected 7 million people across the country (October 10), India’s 1.4 million Anganwadis (government run child nutrition and early childhood education centres), estimated 60,000 private pre-primaries, 1.5 million K-12 schools, 41,901 colleges and 1,028 universities are experiencing huge disruption in education delivery. In the country’s 1.2 million state government schools, learning has all but stopped, with a few states such as Kerala and Delhi broadcasting token classes over television and radio. Moreover, with 214 million children enrolled in anganwadis and government primary schools deprived of nutrition and mid-day meals for six months, child malnutrition has scaled new heights. The country’s 450,000 private schools, especially budget private schools, are also in deep trouble with thousands confronted with the prospect of bankruptcy, as unpaid tuition dues have accumulated during the past two quarters following confusing and contradictory fee deferment directives passed by several state governments during the lockdown, even as these directives mandate schools to continue paying teachers’ salaries and provide online education. A recent report of the Hyderabad-based Cerestra Ventures estimates that over 1,000 private schools are up for sale countrywide with managements having suffered massive revenue loss. Moreover, according to the Delhi-based National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), which has a membership of 60,000 budget private schools (BPS) countrywide, “hundreds” of BPS have already shut down across the country. Likewise the Telangana Recognised Schools Management Association estimates that 2,000 BPS have closed statewide as on September 24. In light of this unprecedented distress and turmoil in Indian education, child rights activists, K-12 education leaders, private school managements and teachers associations have been petitioning — and continue to petition — the Central and state governments to urgently provide bridge finance, loans and/or grants to ensure learning continuity of the country’s 260 million school-going children of whom 47.5 percent are in private schools. But, this SOS chorus has fallen on deaf ears. The mega Rs.20.97 lakh crore Covid-19 economic aid/stimulus package — “equivalent to almost 10 percent of India’s GDP” — announced by prime minister Narendra Modi on May 12, and christened Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (ABY), provided tax breaks for small businesses, incentives for domestic manufacturing and free foodgrains for the poor. However, it totally ignored the pandemic-battered education sector. In sharp contrast, governments worldwide have provided substantial grants, loans and financial aid to schools and higher education institutions. For instance, the United States government in its $2 trillion (Rs.146 lakh crore) Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27 allocated $31 billion (Rs.2.35 lakh crore) to education. The law provides $13.5…
History teaches us one important lesson. Countries cannot grow their economies first and develop public education and health services later. The reverse is true. Unfortunately India has under-invested in these crucial services – Sarojini Rao is principal, Indus International School, Bangalore The on-going skirmishes and stand-offs at various points on the 3,488 km Sino-India border in the north-west stretching all the way to Arunachal Pradesh in the north-east, has brought the asymmetrical power balance between China and India into sharp focus. It is a matter of deep regret and anguish to recall that on October 1, 1949, when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was proclaimed, newly independent India was educationally far ahead of our neighbour nation. India had a string of excellent British-style public — including boarding — schools around the country and well-reputed universities including the Presidency universities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras established in 1857, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (estb.1908). On the other hand in 1949, China was educationally and economically backward, devastated by the Japanese invasion. Seven decades later, the situation is completely reversed. While in India, 30 percent of the adult population is still illiterate, PRC is 96.8 percent literate, has a GER (gross enrolment ratio) of 81.7 percent in pre-primary education, high learning outcomes in its schools and higher education institutions, and significantly higher productivity in agriculture, industry and services. Moreover six Chinese universities are ranked among the Top 200 in the WUR (World University Rankings) league tables of the pioneer London-based rating agency QS and three in the WUR of Times Higher Education (THE). Not one of India’s 40,000 colleges and 1,000 universities is ranked among the Top 200 of either agency. There are two major causes for the relative backwardness of Indian education. First, the archaic pedagogy of rote memorisation of content continues to be encouraged to this day in the vast majority of the country’s 1.5 million schools. Opening young minds to develop the competencies of critical thinking, experimentation, research, innovation, design thinking, risk taking and problem solving which are of vital importance, is confined to a small minority of education institutions across the country. The second major cause of the pathetic condition of foundational K-12 education is the rock-bottom quality of education dispensed by India’s 6,846 teacher training colleges, 90 percent of them privately promoted, recklessly licensed institutions of professional development. The fact that barely 10 percent of the country’s 9 million primary-secondary teachers have passed TET (teacher eligibility test) despite being given a five-year time window to prepare for it, is testimony of the poor quality of the B.Ed degree awarded by teacher training colleges and endorsed by Indian universities. As a result, most teachers still believe their role is to teach and prepare students to pass examinations. Too many parents also believe that the purpose of education is to enable school students to get the best possible placements in prestigious colleges and universities. This dominant mindset has to change in the emerging highly technology-driven academic…
– Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore) International early years’ educator Dr. Rebecca Isbell teaches the Ph D programme in early childhood care and education (ECCE) at the East Tennessee State University, Johnson City (USA). Despite also being a busy motivational speaker and ECCE consultant, Dr Rebecca Isbell has authored 13 books and penned numerous essays on creativity, learning environments, literacy, the arts and child development. Newspeg. In early September, Dr. Rebecca Isbell was invited to deliver a (virtual) keynote address (‘United to nurture young creative thinkers who can flourish in the changing 21st century world’) at the second edition of the International Summit on Early Years (ISEY) — a global summit on early childhood care & education — organised online by the Bangalore-based KLAY (Kids Learning And You) Group which runs a chain of over 150 preschools and day care centres countrywide. History. Awarded a PhD in early childhood education: literacy and child development by the University of Tennessee, Dr. Isbell began her career as an elementary school teacher and later taught gifted and talented children at several elementary schools. Subsequently in 1979, East Tennessee State University in Johnson City appointed her as faculty to teach final year early childhood education undergrads. Since then for over two decades, she taught courses offered in the varsity’s undergraduate programme on child, infant/toddler development, language and literacy development, creativity and the arts, and curriculum design and headed its Centre of Excellence in Early Childhood Learning & Development. Direct talk. “My goal is to spread awareness of the critical importance of children’s early years development through specially curated workshops and presentations. I try to pack my presentations with latest research, practical ideas, visuals of early childhood classrooms, anecdotes and experiences to celebrate the joys of working with creative young children,” says Isbell, who has conducted workshops throughout the US from Alaska to New York, and has addressed international conferences in Denmark, Singapore, China and Canada. Future plans. Delighted by the enthusiastic response to her keynote address at the KLAY global summit, Isbell plans to deepen her engagement with ECCE centres and teachers in India. “I was pleased to discover that India which has the world’s largest child population, has acknowledged the importance of universalising ECCE in its new National Education Policy 2020 that I had the privilege of reading recently. If implemented in letter and spirit, young learners across the country will benefit from quality programmes designed to strengthen their critical competencies including developing language, literacy, science, math, social, collaboration and problem-solving skills, in a holistic manner. Therefore I look forward to participating in more workshops and summits in India,” says Rebecca Isbell. Swagatam! Also Read: National Teachers Award winner – Jyoti Arora Serial edupreneur’s new initiative – Vineet Gupta Coding education missionary – Rahul Ranjan
– Autar Nehru (Delhi) Jyoti Arora is the founder-principal of Mount Abu Public School, Rohini, Delhi (MAPS-R, estb.1998). In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2019-20, MAPS-R is ranked #55 (out of 300) schools in Delhi NCR and was conferred a Grand Jury Award for campus architecture and design. Newspeg. On Teachers Day (September 5), Arora received the National Teachers Award 2020 in the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) category from President Ram Nath Kovind through the online digital delivery mode. She was adjudged winner of the award by an independent national jury constituted by the Union education ministry. The jury reviewed applications and presentations made by 153 teachers across the country who were shortlisted by 36 state and Union territories selection committees. History. A committed believer in life-long learning and graduate of Delhi, Himachal, Maharshi Dayanand (Rohtak) and Manipal universities, Arora is currently researching for her PhD dissertation on education at Rajasthan University. In 1998, she was appointed founder-principal of Mount Abu Public School, Rohini, promoted by the Mount Abu Education Society (regd.1987), established by renowned Delhi-based educationist Shri Dina Nath. In 1989, the society promoted the Mount Abu Public School, Shalimar Bagh (Delhi). The society’s second school (MAPS-R), which admitted its first batch of 35 children mentored by four teachers in 1998, has since evolved into a “full capacity” K-12 day school with 2,800 students and 115 faculty. Direct talk. “Although this year our CBSE board exam results were good with our students averaging 85 percent, in MAPS-R our priority is to teach a much wider curriculum to our students to prepare them for the complex higher education and workplaces of the future. Moreover in MAPS-R, we take the United Nations SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) very seriously and have established several labs in which our students can study and research options to implement the SDGs in school and incorporate them into their daily lives,” says Jyoti Arora. Future plans. A firm believer in the value of children developing skilling capability from early age, Arora intends to extend the menu of skilling options available to MAPS-R students. “One of the most overdue and positive features of the recently released National Education Policy 2020 is its mandate to introduce holistic multi-disciplinary and skilling education. We intend to implement this mandate very enthusiastically,” says this visionary award-winning school leader. Also read: ECCE evangelist – Dr. Rebecca Isbell Also read: Serial edupreneur’s new initiative – Vineet Gupta Also read: Coding education missionary – Rahul Ranjan
– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Rahul Ranjan is co-founder and CEO of LeapLearner India (LLI, estb.2020) — the India partner of the Israel-based coding education company LeapLearner Inc, which has 1 million subscribers in 20 countries worldwide. Under a recently signed agreement, LLI will offer computational thinking programmes through courses in coding, robotics, apps development and logic for children in the five-14 age group. A serial edupreneur, Ranjan is also founder of edtech company Alphabyte, and two affordable Sunshine schools in Delhi NCR for underprivileged children which have 1,000 students mentored by 40 teachers on their muster rolls. Newspeg. LeapLearner is currently working in six schools in Delhi NCR and Gujarat to design new curriculums that include coding and robotics. By the end of this year, LLI will also launch its self-learning gamified mobile app to make coding education affordable and accessible to everyone, including children from underprivileged households who don’t have access to high speed Internet and laptops. History. A graduate of the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (NIT), Bhopal, and America’s top-ranked Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, Ranjan began his career as a Java programmer with Cognizant Technologies in 2007 before taking on an assignment as a full-time primary school teacher under the Teach for India programme. In 2011, he set up KLAY Prep Schools & Day Care’s North India business as founding director. Four years later in 2015, he signed up with the Dubai-based Varkey Group’s GEMS Education as head of business operations and established the group’s K-12 schools in Kochi, Karnal and Gurugram. The same year, he went solo and registered the Sunshine Education Foundation, a philanthropic venture for urban underprivileged children, and edtech company Alphabyte, an online learning platform to deliver computational thinking courses for primary school children. The joint venture with LeapLearner Inc enables Rahul Ranjan to offer contemporary curriculums on a globally tested platform. Direct talk. “Coding education is not just about children being able to create apps and games. It’s about building strong computational thinking and algorithmic intelligence — CTAI — skills. A decade into the future and almost all tools used by industry will need foundational CTAI skills,” predicts Ranjan. Future plans. Given that India hosts the world’s largest child and youth population, Ranjan believes that in the fullness of time, teaching of CTAI skills will be accorded as much importance as numeracy and literacy. “My goal is to democratise access to coding education. We are witnessing strong demand for coding education from periurban and rural markets. With the launch of our self-learning tool focussed on tier-II and III cities, we are expecting a surge in the number of sign-ups in the post-pandemic era. With NEP 2020 mandating computational thinking for all schools, the future of LLI is bright,” says Rahul Ranjan. Way to go! Read: National Teachers Award winner – Jyoti Arora Also read: ECCE evangelist – Dr. Rebecca Isbell Also read: Serial edupreneur’s new initiative – Vineet Gupta
– Dilip Thakore (Bangalore) Vineet Gupta is the promoter-managing director of the Delhi-based Jamboree Education Pvt. Ltd (estb.1995), a pioneer test prep company for students aspiring to study abroad, and a founder-trustee of the highly-reputed, privately-promoted liberal arts Ashoka University (AU, estb.2014). Within a short span of time AU has risen high in public esteem and is ranked India’s #3 private university in the latest EW India Higher Education Rankings 2020-21. Evidently, inspired by the runaway success of AU, Gupta has ventured once more unto the breach, this time to establish a state-of-the-art, globally-benchmarked STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) private varsity. Plaksha University (PU) is fast assuming shape and form in the Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), Punjab, which also hosts 14 reputable higher education institutions including the Indian School of Business, IISER and PEC. Newspeg. Named after a famous tree in Indian mythology (also the origin of the mythical River Saraswati), PU has recruited its first faculty and is on target to admit its first batch of students next August. History. A mechanical engineering grad of IIT-Delhi, Gupta took to the entrepreneurial path ab initio. Immediately after graduation, he promoted two companies which he sold for a “tidy profit” and in 1993, together with his wife Akrita Kalra, an alumna of Delhi University, promoted Jamboree Education. Since then, they have nurtured and developed it into the country’s largest test prep company for school and college-leavers preparing for admission tests (SAT, GRE, ACT, IELTS, TOEFL) of universities and higher education institutions abroad. Currently, the company which has a headcount of 450 employees, including 150 faculty, prepares 20,000 students annually in 39 centres across India, the Middle East, Singapore and Nepal for admission into colleges and universities in the US, UK and Commonwealth countries. In 2014, Gupta teamed up with several highly-educated, successful entrepreneurs including Ashish Dhawan (Chrys Capital), Sanjeev Bhikchandani (Naukri.com) among over 140 Indian entrepreneurs and industry leaders worldwide to co-promote AU. Now the top priority of this serial edupreneur is to develop Plaksha U on the Ashoka University “collective philanthropy” model. Direct talk. “India produces 1.3 million engineering graduates every year. But over half of them are unemployable because their foundational education is not sufficiently strong or because they are too narrowly specialised in mechanical, civil, electronics and computer sciences engineering, when the need is for engineers with multi-disciplinary skill-sets. Therefore, Plaksha University will offer reimagined curriculums that diffuse the conventional boundaries of STEM education to develop multi-disciplinary engineers and scientists well-versed in new digital technologies. The requirement of contemporary corporates and businesses is multi-skilled STEM professionals with cross-functional problem-solving skills,” says Vineet Gupta. Future plans. The ambitious PU project has already attracted 80 donors including Neeraj Aggarwal (Boston Consulting), Hitesh Oberoi (InfoEdge), Manas Fuloria (Nagarro) among others, who have collectively raised an impressive endowment corpus of Rs.325 crore — above the phase I target of Rs.250 crore — for Project Plaksha. Gupta is optimistic about the future of this high-potential, path-breaking venture. “It is…
For children from bottom-of-pyramid households, China’s infamous gaokao, a punishingly hard university-entrance exam taken by over 10 million students every year, offers the only chance to escape a life toiling on farms and factories. As a result, Chinese education has long involved little more than rote learning, aimed purely at the gaokao. Pupils attend late-night cram sessions and shoulder twice as much homework as the global average. But the People’s Republic’s deep reverence for tests is not shared by reformist educators and some head teachers, who somewhat belatedly have started to downplay them. They have a radical vision — of reducing study loads, expand the curriculum and encouraging students to take up hobbies. Nanjing, a former imperial capital, is the centre of their experiments. In 2016, Nanjing Number One Secondary School, the city’s oldest and most competitive, began to let students borrow points from a “marks bank” to boost low grades. These are repaid by deducting points scored in a later test, or earned from good classwork. The aim is to take a bit of pressure off exams. At the school, teachers and students are encouraged to be “on an equal footing”, an appreciative former pupil wrote in an online forum. Nanjing Number One has a vibrant students union, a literary society and other clubs. Its university-acceptance rate this year was 95 percent, a record for the school. Yet the scene outside Nanjing Number One in late July, soon after the gaokao results were released, was not of jubilation. Dozens of angry parents brandished placards demanding the head teacher step down. They blamed their children’s lower-than-expected scores on what they saw as his attempts to make light of tests. More traditional schools in Nanjing, they noted, churned out top-scorers. Nanjing Number One mollified the protesters by extending compulsory revision sessions to 10 pm for final-year students. On social media, theories circulated that officials who advocated a less demanding curriculum really just wanted to make it harder for students from humbler families to get ahead. Many in China once supported what schools such as Nanjing Number One are trying to do. In the early 2000s, a bestseller about raising children in the West, Education for Quality in America, popularised the idea of suzhi jiaoyu. The term refers to a well-rounded education that attaches importance to building character as much as knowledge. It guides most of Nanjing’s more liberal teaching. The author, Huang Quanyu, became a household name in the middle class, writes Teresa Kuan, an American academic, in Love’s Uncertainty: The Politics and Ethics of Child Rearing in Contemporary China (2015). In 2010, China published a ten-year education plan which admits that the country’s teaching is “relatively outdated”, and that people have “strong yearnings” for suzhi jiaoyu. From next year, a tweaked gaokao will give students leeway to pick and choose some subjects, beyond the compulsory ones. But China is reluctant to overhaul a test that remains remarkably meritocratic. “By sticking with the exam, we waste students with other talents. By…
As the US continues to reckon with a string of deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers, attention is turning to a new focus: institutions that train police, including universities. Three states have announced reviews to consider how they can improve police education and training, including Minnesota, where the killing of George Floyd when he was stopped by four police officers ignited worldwide protests. Questions are mounting about the quality of education being provided by universities that train large numbers of police, considering that the Floyd case is only one in a litany of fatal encounters between police and black civilians. “There’s some soul-searching going on because what people have begun to realise is how we as educators have become complicit,” says Jason Williams, assistant professor of justice studies at New Jersey’s Montclair State University. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes and has been charged with second-degree murder, received a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement from a public university. Given the job security of careers in law enforcement, nearly 300 US universities have police training programmes; they account for 45 percent of police academies (the rest are run by law enforcement agencies) and two-year community colleges collectively graduate the largest number of recruits. But critics complain that students in these programmes are predominantly taught by serving or former law enforcement officials, making them unlikely to change long-held practices, and that they focus more on firearms instruction than cultural diversity or bias. The 45,000 police recruits per year nationwide, spend an average of 168 hours apiece learning about defensive tactics, weapons and use of force, and 25 on reports writing, versus 12 on cultural diversity and nine on conflict resolution, according to Federal Bureau of Justice statistics. “We train students like we train soldiers, and therein lies a fatal flaw in the training police officers,” says John DeCarlo, director of the Masters degree in criminal justice at the University of New Haven, speaking about police education in general. “Because soldiers have enemies and police officers have communities.” The Minnesota State University system, which educates 86 percent of that state’s police, is forming a task force that includes civilian advocacy groups to review the quality of its programmes and improve the diversity of faculty. The chancellor of California’s community colleges has also recommended an assessment of that system’s law enforcement training programmes, which produce 80 percent of police of the state. And a commission in Virginia has been named to ensure the police training programmes at its community colleges teach the skills required to deal with diverse populations. Northeastern University started a police academy last year that requires each trainee to introduce him or herself to a stranger every week and report back with the story of that person, and to practise peacefully resolving violent conflicts staged by actors. As it stands, police “have very little training in how you speak to another human being”, says…
An alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the blue-chip Georgia Tech University, Atlanta (USA) with professional experience in Reliance Industries, Mafatlal Industries and the Sunflag Group (Tanzania), Prof. Hitesh Bhatt signed up in 2010 with the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA, estb.1979), Gujarat, founded by the legendary Dr. Verghese Kurien, and was promoted to the director’s office in 2017. Excerpts from an interview: By common consensus, IRMA is ranked India’s #1 agriculture/rural India B-school. What in your opinion are the major achievements of IRMA? Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) was established in 1979 by Dr. Verghese Kurien, father of India’s White Revolution. The philosophy behind the institute was to professionalise managements of organisations that serve underserved sectors of our economy. The unique strength of IRMA is our ability to develop managers with capability to nurture agriculture-focused institutions and organisations. Over the past 40 years, IRMA has certified 3,500 nation builders and global leaders who have been awarded our two-year postgraduate diploma in rural management to fulfill Dr. Kurien’s dream. Some of our most notable alumni are: Dr. R.S. Sodhi, managing director of the Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation (Amul); V. Vivekanandan, CEO, South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies; Alkesh Kumar Sharma, IAS; Sanjeev Asthana, CEO, Ruchi Soya; Angshu Mallick, COO, Adani Wilmar Ltd; Girish Menon, CEO, ActionAid UK; Sivakumar Surampudi, CEO, ITC (e-Choupal initiative); Andy Mukherjee, business journalist, Bloomberg; Rajiv Khandelwal, co-founder and executive director, Aajeevika Bureau; Mayank Midha, co-founder and CEO, GARV Toilets; Apoorva Oza, CEO, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India), Anusha Bharadwaj, executive director, Voice4Girls, among others. How satisfied are you with the growth and development of IRMA? Over a period of 38 years, IRMA has been able to attract the best students as well as the best corporates and voluntary organisations for campus recruitment. This is because of the high pedigree of our faculty members and excellent rural development curriculum. IRMA’s commitment to knowledge creation has led to its re-invention as a knowledge institution as opposed to a mere hub for teaching, training and research. Despite 60 percent of India’s population being engaged in agriculture/farming, this sector contributes only 17 percent of annual GDP. How do you explain the low productivity of Indian agriculture? This is a misreading of the situation. It’s not agriculture production and productivity that has gone down. It is because the share of the services sector in the economy has risen exponentially. Until the mid-1980s, the contribution of the services sector to GDP was negligible. But currently, its contribution is over 50 percent. Therefore, the contribution of agriculture to GDP has declined. However, agriculture production and productivity has risen steadily. Foodgrain production has quintupled since 1950 and there’s been great progress in recent years of poultry, fisheries and dairy products in response to shifting public demand. India’s agriculture universities and IRMA have all contributed to increased productivity and management of farm produce. What’s your take on the new legislation passed by Parliament to liberalise and deregulate Indian agriculture? The three Bills passed by…
An alumnus of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and former manager at UPASI (United Planters Association of South India), Dr. N. Kumar signed up as an assistant professor at TNAU in 1979. In 2018 he was appointed vice chancellor of his alma mater. Excerpts from an interview: TNAU is ranked among India’s Top 10 (#7) agriculture universities in the ICAR Rankings 2020. What are its major achievements? Today TNAU offers 10 undergrad, 33 postgrad and 29 Ph D programmes to 4,000 students and comprises 15 constituent colleges, 38 research stations and 14 KVK (Krishi Vidya Kendras) which deliver our lab to land extension programmes. Over the years we have developed several new strains and varieties of foodgrains, especially rice varieties which have enabled Tamil Nadu’s rice production to increase to 10 million tonnes — equivalent to 8.5 percent of India’s annual production. Our #7 ICAR ranking is very satisfactory considering we were ranked #33 in 2018. It’s also a noteworthy achievement that we have received ICAR’s Krishi Karma Award for the past five years. How satisfied are you with the growth and development of TNAU? TNAU is a 114-year-old university with an excellent research record. We have developed 868-plus varieties in 91 crops, 170-plus new farm machinery, and 1,500 management technologies as per the requirements of farmers and other stakeholders. New strains of crops developed by TNAU such as ADT 36, 37 and 39, and CO 51 rice, MCU 5 and MCU 7 cotton, CO FS 27 fodder sorghum, TMV 4 and TMV 6 sesame, ADT 3, ADT 5 blackgram, CO Rg 7 redgram, PKM 1 tomato, PKM 1 and 2 Moringa, are very popular with the farmers of Tamil Nadu. Moreover, nano technologies have been employed in weeds reduction, improving the germination of pulses and oilseeds, crop and soil nutrition and for containing pests etc. Besides, TNAU has evolved several agro technologies for enhancing crop growth and for optimising the use of water, nutrients, fertilisers. Thus, the growth and development of the university is inclusive and satisfactory. In 2010 we were awarded the Sardar Patel Award for Outstanding Institution by ICAR. Despite 60 percent of India’s population being engaged in agriculture/farming, this sector contributes only 15 percent of annual GDP. How do you explain the low productivity of Indian agriculture? Indian agriculture can become more productive and profitable if farmers adopt the latest technology. In TNAU, we have developed agri technologies which are steadily improving the per-unit productivity of land, resources, water, nutrients, labour, machines etc, used by farmers of Tamil Nadu and beyond. If the agriculture sector is not making the contribution it should to national GDP, it’s because the high yield foodgrains and other produce strains developed by India’s agriculture universities are not reaching small farmers. It should be noted that 48 percent of our farmers are working plots of less than two hectares which makes profitable farming a very difficult proposition. Moreover the market prices of farm produce are very low even as input prices are…
– Paromita Sengupta with bureau inputs New Delhi, September 5. At a specially organised virtual ceremony to mark Teachers’ Day (September 5), President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the National Teachers Awards to 47 selected teachers from around the country for their unique contribution towards developing teaching innovations to enrich the lives of their students. To select India’s best teachers, the Union ministry of education invited nominations including self-nominations, from teachers on an online portal. First-level scrutiny was done by a district selection committee (DSC) chaired by the district education officer. Based on prescribed criteria, DSC shortlisted three names per district which were forwarded to state selection committees. Subsequently, final round nominees made presentations to a high powered jury through video conferencing. For list of awardees, visit national awards to teachers. mhrd.gov.in. Jammu & Kashmir: Tata Technologies project Srinagar, September 3. In collaboration with Tata Technologies Ltd, the Union territory authority of Jammu and Kashmir is constructing two Centres for Invention, Innovation, Incubation and Training (CIIIT) on the Jammu and Baramullah campuses of the Government Polytechnic College, Srinagar. These centres are scheduled to become operational in November. “The centres are being built at a cost of Rs.360 crore with the objective of bringing quality improvement in technical education to facilitate creation of a ready pool of skilled manpower and increase employment opportunities in the region,” said a government official, addressing the media. Andhra Pradesh: SRM-Northeastern concordat Amaravati, September 11. The Amaravati-based SRM University signed a partnership agreement with Northeastern University, Boston (USA), for advancement of education and research. “Northeastern University is among the world’s most respected universities and this collaboration will provide an opportunity for our students to visit and learn at this highly reputed American university,” said vice chancellor V.S. Rao, speaking on the occasion. Collaboration between the two universities will begin with initiatives of the computer science and mechanical engineering faculties, he added. This partnership agreement will facilitate joint research programmes between faculty and scholars, joint teaching and cultural activities and collaboration in academic publications and development of curricula. Uttar Pradesh: Greenfield forensics university Lucknow, September 13. A greenfield Uttar Pradesh Police and Forensic Sciences University sited at Piparsand village on the periphery of Lucknow, has been sanctioned by the state government. A sum of Rs.20 crore has been budgeted for construction of the university, said additional chief secretary Awanish Awasthi in a media interaction. The objective of the university, which will be built on a 3.16-acre campus, is to provide education, training and research in forensic sciences to police officers and the ranks in Uttar Pradesh. Assistance is being provided by the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, to get the project off the ground. “We have reached out to the Gujarat Forensics University as also to an institute in Israel for technical assistance,” added Awasthi Goa: E-learning project Panaji, September 14. An e-learning pilot project is ready for launch in anganwadis and government pre-primaries in the Sattari and Ponda suburbs of Panaji with the support of…
Established on huge scenically landscaped 100 acre-plus estates on urban peripheries, ICAR and the country’s 71 government agriculture universities manage model farms with impressively high yields, but maintain minimal connect with rural communities and farmers – Dilip Thakore The recent turmoil in the Rajya Sabha on September 20, the upper house of Parliament, when three Bills, viz Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 were passed by a voice vote amidst vociferous protests by several opposition parties, has belatedly brought the country’s agriculture sector into media and societal spotlight. The objective of the three Bills is to direct the beneficial winds of liberalisation and deregulation across the country’s vast and varied rural hinterland to fulfil a promise made in the Election Manifesto 2019 of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. According to several respected political pundits, this assurance substantially contributed to the BJP/NDA coalition government being returned to power at the Centre with a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha (the more powerful lower house of Parliament) in General Election 2019. Incontrovertibly, socio-economic conditions in rural India are appalling. It’s a telling statistic that although 60 percent of 21st century India’s 1.30 billion citizens reside in the rural hinterland, they contribute a mere 16 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product) estimated at Rs.227 lakh crore in 2019-20. Per capita income in rural India is a mere Rs.40,925 against Rs.98,435 in urban India. Worse, according to the recently released Human Capital Index of the World Bank, 35 percent (142 million) of under-5 children in India — the great majority in rural India — are stunted and “likely to suffer lifelong cognitive disability”. Quite obviously, there was a fundamental flaw in the detailed plans of the Soviet-inspired high-powered Planning Commission (estb.1950) which produced 13 voluminous five-year plans to ensure the balanced growth of the Indian economy for 65 years until the commission was mercifully abolished in 2014. In retrospect, it’s clear that as in communist Soviet Union and China, savings of the rural citizenry of post-independence India were canalised into giant public sector enterprises (PSEs) which were naively expected to generate vast surpluses for investment in public education, health and rural infrastructure. Tragically, PSEs managed by business-illiterate bureaucrats and government clerks never produced the budgeted surpluses with the result that contemporary India is among the world’s most under-educated, medically under-served countries with a desperately poor rural citizenry. These infirmities of the Indian economy have been brought into sharp focus during the current Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting that the country has neither the intellectual capital nor economic resilience to effectively combat the sweeping virus devastating Indian society. Widespread rural poverty which prompts mass annual migration of rural youth to work in urban India in humiliating conditions and live in Dickensian squalor, has exposed the problems-solving inadequacy of central planners and the neta-babu…
“Government intervention should be minimum in the new education policy. The more teachers and students are associated with the policy, the better will be its functionality and its results.” – Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Governors’ Conference on National Education Policy (September 8) “The report fails to take into account the impact of poor-quality higher education on rural youth who, in many ways, are manifesting signs of alienation from their roots, are disaffected and amenable to being recruited into violent anti-social activities.” – A.R. Vasavi, social anthropologist, on NEP 2020 ignoring the crisis in education among the marginalised majority in rural India (Indian Express, September 15) “IT (information technology) has been presented as a harbinger of a revolution in education for more than three decades now. However all reliable studies seem to indicate that ICT in the classroom helps in already well-functioning systems, and either has no benefits or negative impact in poorly performing systems. That does indicate much hope from IT in our education system.” – Rohit Dhankar, professor, Azim Premji Unversity, Bangalore on why e-learning in India won’t improve bad education (The Hindu, September 23) “The government intends to invite the top 100 foreign universities to set up campuses in India. This will promote competition and consolidation in higher education, as we saw with Indian industry after the economic liberalization of 1991.” – Rajendra Srivastava, dean of the Indian School of Business, on NEP 2020’s recommendations for internationalisation of higher education (Mint, September 24) “A family business in cinema is not necessarily creative. It is generally about prolonging your family fortune.” – Naseeruddin Shah, Bollywood actor, on ‘family business’ (Forbes India, September 25) Also read: They said it in August
– Special Correspondent (Bangalore) The vacillation of the BJP government of Karnataka on the issue of reopening K-12 schools in the state is causing great confusion within school managements, parents’ communities and among students. According to the normative calendar, the state’s 46,000 government and 20,000 private schools (aggregate enrolment: 15 million students) should have commenced classes in June. But because of fear of vulnerable children being susceptible to the dreaded Coronavirus which is raging statewide and has already claimed 9,891 lives, the decision to restart schools has been put off time and again. On July 29, the state’s primary and secondary education minister S. Suresh Kumar informed media and the public that schools would restart in September. But with the number of Covid positive cases and fatalities continuing to rise, Kumar (who himself recently tested positive for the virus) stated schools would be open for senior secondary students to “clarify their doubts with teachers” on September 21. But come September and the date was deferred to October 15. Again on October 3, he declared: “We have not taken any decision regarding reopening of schools in the state yet. The government does not have any such plans to reopen schools at present. We are taking the opinions of legislators, MPs, and concerned people. We will also have a discussion with education experts and institutions.” The indecision and resultant confusion is costing private schools and students heavily. While government teachers continue to receive their salaries, private schools — particularly budget private schools which charge fees as low as Rs.300 per month — are experiencing increasing difficulty in meeting payroll expenses. “The state government’s education ministry has issued circulars deferring school fees payment for parents. At the same time, it has directed school managements to conduct online classes and pay teacher and staff salaries. How can we pay teachers and staff when our income flows have dried up? This confusion has cost budget private schools heavily and many are on the verge of bankruptcy,” says Shashi Kumar, president of the Associated Managements of Primary & Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS, estb.1988). According to the Delhibased NISA (National Independent Schools Alliance), a mere 5 percent of parents of children in budget private schools in Karnataka have paid contracted fees during the past quarter (April-June). With the government dithering on the issue of reopening the state’s primary-secondary schools, parents have also become nervous. “While I would like schools to reopen with safety precautions, realistically speaking it’s not practical. Maintaining physical distancing, wearing masks and maintaining discipline at all times is very difficult. Therefore, I prefer online classes this academic year for my son,” says Divya Sreedharan whose son is a class VI student of the Auro Mirra International School, Bangalore. While most upscale private schools have smoothly switched to online classes, the great majority of government and lowpriced budget private schools (BPS) don’t have the infrastructure to provide online learning. Neither do students of low-priced affordable private and government schools have digital devices (laptop, PCs…
– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) A new bill providing a 7.5 percent quota within the existing reservation totaling 69 percent of all seats in Tamil Nadu’s 50 medical colleges was passed by the state’s legislative assembly on September 15 for students graduating from state government schools who have also passed NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test). In 2013, the Central government mandated NEET as the sole examination for admission into all medical colleges nationwide. Top scorers in descending order in NEET get the choice of their medical colleges subject to 85 percent of seats in medical colleges being allotted to students domiciled in every state. However, the prime motivation of the new Bill is that too few school-leavers from government schools affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education (TNBSE) are scoring sufficiently high marks in NEET to be admitted into the state’s 50 medical colleges under the 85 percent domicile quota. Most seats are being bagged by private school-leavers. The new quota Bill is the outcome of the recommendation of a committee headed by P. Kalaiyarasan, former judge of the Madras high court. The committee proposed reservation between 7.5-10 percent for class XII students graduating from schools affiliated with TNBSE. This Bill has been unanimously passed by the state’s legislative assembly following loud protests that state government school students are under-represented in Tamil Nadu’s 50 medical colleges including 14 private medical colleges, because the TNBSE curriculum didn’t prepare them sufficiently to be highly ranked in NEET. The mismatch between the TNBSE curriculum and NEET was dramatically highlighted in 2017 when a girl student who topped the annual TNBSE school-leaving exam committed suicide for failing to qualify under NEET. On March 21, chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami announced reservation of sub-quota in medical admission for state government school students who clear NEET, but score below the prescribed cut-off marks. Under the Bill, the 7.5 percent TNBSE affiliated school students with highest NEET rank/score are eligible for admission into undergraduate programmes in allopathy, medicine, dentistry, Indian medicine and homeopathy colleges within the state under the new special quota. Under NEET’s domicile rule, 85 percent seats in medical colleges in every state are reserved for students resident within all 29 states and seven Union territories, with 15 percent to be allotted (to those who clear NEET) at the discretion of the institutional management. “This is an overdue initiative of the AIADMK government. The total number of seats in Tamil Nadu’s government medical colleges are 3,300 per year, of which 2,785 are for domiciled students. In addition, government-aided and private medical colleges have 2,347 seats. Therefore, under the new quota Bill, 200 seats will be available for state government school-leavers. However, private school students who may have higher NEET scores will have to stand down. But if this ‘horizontal reservation’ of 7.5 percent is augmented with an increase in the number of colleges, private school-leavers wouldn’t be excluded,” explains R. Karthikeyan, a second year MBBS student at Chennai’s Tagore Medical College. ollege. Chennai-based educationist Dr.…
– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With the West Bengal legislative elections scheduled for May 2021 fast approaching, the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) has reportedly drawn up a multi-pronged strategy to take on its principal challenger, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling at the Centre, which has emerged as the second-largest party in the state, eclipsing the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) which ruled over West Bengal (pop.91 million) uninterruptedly for 34 years (1977-2011) until it was routed by TMC in 2011 and again five years later. Campaigning for a third term in office, TMC supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee has made law and order and socioeconomic development — including education — her main campaign issues. The heinous gang-rape and murder of a young Dalit girl in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh (Hathras) allegedly by four upper caste men prompted Banerjee to call a huge protest rally in Kolkata on October 3. Moreover, the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 presented to the nation by the BJP/NDA government at the Centre has aroused the chief minister’s ire. Emerging from a governors’ conference staged virtually on September 7, attended by President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to debate NEP 2020, West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee declared that the state won’t be implementing the new policy “for the time being” because its provisions need additional examination and debate. Chatterjee expressed apprehension that NEP 2020’s higher education regulation proposals will lead to centralisation of education and will defeat the main purpose of the new policy. “We have expressed our reservations about certain aspects of NEP 2020, which was framed without taking the states into confidence. Excessive centralisation in the new policy is against the federal structure of India. Moreover, we are surprised that Bengali — the language of Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay among others — does not figure in the list of classical languages in this new education policy,” he added. While NEP 2020 which formalises and integrates Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) with primary schooling, extends the years of K-12 education and unbundles supervision of higher education, has been welcomed as a ‘visionary’ document across the country, in Bengal it was greeted with a volley of protests from all quarters including ministers, political leaders, academics and student unions. In a state where communist ideology has struck deep roots, the major grievances are commercialisation of education, lack of consultation with states, omission of several recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee’s policy draft, increasing administrative expenses by forming multiple regulatory agencies and rejecting India’s cultural and historical diversity. The list is long. Indeed some monitors of West Bengal’s increasingly bubbling political scene believe NEP 2020 will play a decisive role in the forthcoming assembly elections. Maintenance of law and order is also emerging as a major issue. There’s been a sharp spike in grassroots political violence. Since the beginning of the phased unlocking of industry and commercial activity, 12 political workers — six of the BJP, five…
– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) The state’s tri-party Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government comprising the Shiv Sena, Indian National Congress (INC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), suffered a major setback on September 9 with the Supreme Court staying the state government’s Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018. The Act provides 12 and 13 percent reservation quotas for the Maratha community (who constitute 32 percent of the state’s population of 115 million) in government jobs and education institutions. Hearing five petitions filed against the constitutional validity of the Act, a three-judge bench of the apex court stayed the Act and referred the case to an 11-judge constitution bench. Annoyed about the MVA government’s inability to vacate the stay, Maratha organisations across the state have been protesting since September 27, threatening to intensify their protests. Quotas for Marathas who classify themselves as a backward caste/ community has been a long-standing issue in the state with successive governments making a reserved quota for the community a standard electoral promise. However, neither the Mandal Commission (1980) nor other commissions set up by the Maharashtra government have identified Marathas as a socially or educationally backward community/class perhaps because ten of the state’s 18 chief ministers since the state’s formation in 1960, have been Marathas and the community controls the state’s sugar, milk, cooperative banks and numerous private education institutions. The previous Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena (BJP-Shiv Sena) coalition government was finally inspired to carve out a reserved quota for Marathas following the report of an 11-member Justice M.G. Gaikwad Committee, submitted in 2018, which states that the community’s creamy layer apart, 37 percent of Marathas live below the poverty line and 93 percent of Maratha households earn less than Rs.1 lakh per year. Therefore, the committee recommended 12 percent reservation in government colleges/ universities and 13 percent in government jobs for Marathas. It’s pertinent to note the SEBC Act was enacted by the previous BJP-Shiv Sena government which ruled the state from 2014-19 after members of the traditionally militant Maratha community went on a state-wide rampage that resulted in 40 deaths. This prompted the previous administration to introduce the Act which mandated a 16 percent quota for the community in public higher education institutions and government employment. On June 27, 2019 the Bombay high court upheld the Act but trimmed the quotas to 12 percent in education and 13 percent in government jobs as recommended by the Gaikwad Committee. However, following judicial sanction of the 12 percent quota for Marathas in education institutions, total reservations in higher education institutions has risen to 75 percent after taking into consideration quota for scheduled castes (15 percent), scheduled tribes (7.5 percent), other backward castes (27 percent) and nomadic tribes (2.5). Another ten percent quota was reserved countrywide by the Central government’s Economically Weaker Section Reservation Act, 2019, in January 2019 applicable to all states. These quotas when added up are far in excess of the 50 percent ceiling for all reserved quotas imposed by the…
– Autar Nehru (Delhi) The academic year for higher education institutions which should have begun in July/ August is scheduled to begin from November 1 this year, according to latest UGC guidelines issued on September 22. The two national higher education regulators — University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — have directed all universities and colleges in India to adopt and implement a new set of guidelines for first year undergraduate and postgrad programmes including completion of the admission process by the end of this month (October). It’s pertinent to note that India has the world’s third largest higher education system with over 1,000 universities and 52,000 colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 37.4 million students (2019). It has been shuttered since mid-March because of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The revised UGC Guidelines on Academic Calendar for the First Year of Under-Graduate and Post Graduate Students of the Universities for the Session 2020-21 in view of Covid-19 Pandemic has been drawn up by an expert committee constituted in April this year. The committee presented its first set of guidelines on April 29, which were revised on July 6. Though the number of Covid positive cases is still rising as are fatalities, the five unlocks announced by the Union home ministry have steadily opened up economic and livelihood activities. However, education institutions are among the last being cautiously unlocked. Under the latest (September 22) guidelines, admission into first year study programmes for 2020-21 have to be completed by October 31. Subsequently, the last date to fill up remaining vacant seats is November 30. Classes for fresh batches of undergrad and postgrad students will begin from November 1, and semester exams will be held between March 8-26, 2021. The second semester will begin in the first week of April (2021) and exams held between August 9-21. The next academic year will begin end-August. “The modes of teaching, conduct of examinations, importance of physical and social distancing etc, shall remain unchanged and shall remain mandatory in that respect,” say the guidelines, which will be subject to state regulations related to the pandemic To make up for lost time — the new academic year should have begun three months ago — the guidelines suggest eliminating festival holidays and vacations so that this batch of students will get their final results for the timely award of degrees in August next year. It also directs higher education institutions (HEIs) a six-days per week schedule for this and the next (2021-22) academic years. With a large number of India’s 52,000 colleges and 1,000 universities sited in the country’s ill-planned metros where land is scarce and expensive, HEI campuses tend to be crowded and cramped. Therefore sanitation, hygiene and social distancing are challenging propositions. In the circumstances, HEI managements are advised to tie up with hospitals and clinics in their neighbourhood for testing and other processes. However, the successful conduct of IIT-JEE and NEET public examinations has inspired college and university managements,…
Your special report ‘Implementing NEP 2020 — Expert advice for Central government’ (EW September) is well-timed as the public debate has now moved to translating this lofty document into reality. Even as the newly renamed Union education ministry has rather belatedly invited suggestions from school teachers and principals for ways and means to implement NEP 2020, the ministry will do well to heed the recommendations of your carefully selected panel of education experts. They have done an excellent job of recommending ways to execute NEP 2020. I believe the key to successful implementation of NEP 2020 is doubling spending on public education to 6 percent of GDP. Without money, none of these grandiose plans to transform India into an education superpower will materialise. Mallika Bothra, Gurgaon Dispelled myths Your cover story ‘Private Schools in India Report 2020: Brilliant case for the defence’ (EW September) makes a compelling case for supporting private education. The report’s finding that 70 percent of private schools in India charge less than Rs.1,000 per month dispels many deeply rooted myths about private schools, particularly that they are exclusive elitist institutions that levy exorbitant fees. Unfortunately the National Education Policy 2020 endorses many biases against private schools. In fact as you rightly say, its ‘anti-privatisation’ stance will discourage private investment and healthy competition — widely acknowledged as the recipe for excellence — in Indian education. Moreover, the deliberate exclusion of inputs of private education leaders in the NEP drafting process is alarming when close to 50 percent of India’s school-going children are enrolled in privately promoted schools. Despite its seemingly futuristic vision, the devil lurks in the details of NEP 2020! Devi Batra, Bangalore Teacher training priority Thank you for the excellent cover story on the National Education Policy 2020 (EW August). I welcome the renewed emphasis on teacher training and professional standards in NEP 2020, with the hope that this too-good-to-be-true policy document is implemented in letter and spirit! Drawing from my varied experience of several decades as an educator, I am of the opinion that more than anything, India needs high quality teachers passionate about the profession. But this profession can only become effective when teachers are paid respectable salaries on a par with corporate professionals. I am in sync with NEP policymakers that teacher education — the Achilles heel of Indian education — needs urgent overhaul. It’s noteworthy that in most foreign countries, youth aspiring to qualify as teachers first work part-time in a school and based on feedback from the head of school, students and parents get the go-ahead for pursuing teacher qualifications. A major challenge confronting principals and school leaders is of assessing would-be teachers for temperament and personality, love for children and the profession. Written exams followed by interviews are hardly indicative of good teaching and communication skills that enable meaningful teacher-pupil interaction. Moreover, with 70 percent of the population living in rural India, it’s important for urban students to be sensitised about life of their rural counterparts. My suggestion is…
The 65-page National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, proclaimed on July 29, has set ambitious goals. Yet with each passing day, there’s additional apprehension about policy implementation capabilities of the bureaucracy and red-tape ensnarled government machinery, to deliver its exciting promises. In particular, there’s rising concern about the capability of the Central and state governments hamstrung by severe loss of tax revenue in the economy which is forecast to contract by 5-14 percent in fiscal 2020-21, to double their combined budgetary allocation for public education from the current 3.1 percent of GDP to 6 percent as promised by NEP 2020. Please note this promise has been made repeatedly ever since the Kothari Commission first made this recommendation in 1967. But it has never been fulfilled by any government at the Centre or in the states. The price of this brazen and continuous neglect of public education by government, and mute acquiescence by the academy and intelligentsia, has been very heavy. Just how damaging is indicated by the Human Capital Index (HCI) 2020 of the World Bank released on September 16. A human development measurement innovation introduced in 2018 by the bank, HCI measures the quantum of productivity (on a scale of 1-100) a child born today in 174 countries can expect to attain by age 18. Unsurprisingly, against the global average of 56, because of suboptimal education and healthcare, a child born in India will attain only 49 percent of her potential productivity when she attains the age of 18. Against this, the productivity potential of an Australian child is 77, China 65, Brazil 55, UK 78 and US 70. HCI 2020 provides several other data points which measure the progress of nation states in nurturing their human capital. Predictably, contemporary India whose leaders and compliant television anchors are given to boastful rhetoric relating to the country’s huge achievements, fares miserably under all parameters. A child who starts school at age four in India can expect to complete 11.1 years of school by her 18th birthday. But her ‘learning-adjusted years of school’ which factors in actual learning outcomes, is only 7.1 years — cf. 11.5 in the UK, 10.6 in the US and 9.3 in China. Moreover, on the parameter of harmonised test scores with 625 representing most advanced attainment and 300 the minimum, HCI 2020 awards India a modest 399. And perhaps the worst news is that 35 percent of children born in India today will be stunted — because of child and maternal malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare facilities — and “at risk of cognitive and physical limitations that can last a lifetime”. Even as academia and intelligentsia maintain the silence of lambs, NEP 2020 forecasts the transformation of 21st century India into a “global knowledge superpower” and believes the new policy which multiplies government control-and-command over education, will “instill among the (sic) learners a deep-rooted pride in being Indian”. Lofty rhetoric is not sufficient; it needs to be supplemented with purposive action.
Kamala Harris reviving the American dream
Being black, Asian, the daughter of immigrants from coloured lands like India and Jamaica, Kamala Harris poses a huge threat to the one-dimensional mindset of angry working class whites in America
– Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist
The recently concluded debate between US Vice President Mike Pence and Senator