Credit omission

I am a regular reader of EducationWorld and delighted that this pioneer education publication has completed 18 years of uninterrupted publishing. Many congratulations! Your 18th anniversary issue is a collector’s item. The cover story on child safety is brilliant, the anniversary essays are insightful and relevant and the special report ‘EW’s unfinished long march to save Indian education’ has beautifully summed up the education milestones of the past 18 years. You have rightly taken credit for helping bring education from the periphery to the near centre of the national development agenda, and for changing many misdirected government education policies such as the proposal to dilute the autonomy of IITs and IIMs. However, an important victory EW has failed to take credit for is the ouster of R.K. Chaturvedi as chairman of CBSE. I am convinced your cover story (EW February 2017) highlighting how under Chaturvedi, CBSE was transforming into a command-and-control organisation and stifling the autonomy of affiliated private schools, was instrumental in his being fired from his post. Kudos to you! Manish Sharma Delhi Cultural deficit Your anniversary cover story ‘How to make our schools safe’ (EW November) was timely and well-researched. Child safety is a neglected issue nationally particularly in government schools. I was horrified to read about the government school in Bangalore with no compound walls and a stinking drain near children’s classrooms. Such neglect and indifference to children’s well-being is unheard of in any Western or even south-east Asian country. I tend to agree with Dr. Shekhar Seshadri’s analysis that there’s a national cultural deficit of love and care of children. One has to just walk down any Indian street and notice the sad plight of unsupervised young children begging and/or peddling sundry goods. The government as well as the public don’t care two hoots that millions of children face daily physical, sexual and emotional abuse. We need to put pressure on government to ensure all children are in school and learning in safe and secure environments. Manushree Gupta Kolkata   Voice in wilderness Congratulations on EducationWorld’s 18th anniversary and the outstanding work you have done over the years to highlight the major challenges confronting Indian education. Yours has been a lone voice in the wilderness fighting for education reform and a better deal for all of India’s children. Though there’s some realisation within the political class of the importance of education in national development, I don’t think we have made great strides in upgrading public education. Government schools still lack basic infrastructure such as labs, libraries, electricity and usable toilets; teachers are poorly qualified and trained; learning outcomes are abysmal; rote learning is rampant and curriculums are outdated. Unfortunately, your persistent demand to increase spending on public education to 6 percent of GDP has fallen on deaf ears. Strong public pressure needs to be exerted on politicians to reform the public school and higher education systems. Keep up the good work and keep fighting for India’s children!  Dharmesh Darshan Mumbai   Killing creativity I loved…