Thanks for your cover story on the EW Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013 (EW February). The keynote addresses of Rabiatul Adawiah and Dr. S. Anandalakshmy were excellent as were reports on the panel discussions. In particular I’m pleased you chose to beam focus on the ‘Dangers of age-inappropriate ECE’. This is a big problem in preschools across the country. Most of their curriculums are rote-centric, unstructured, unresearched, inappropriate and not in sync with children’s development stages. Children as young as two and three are made to learn the 3 Rs, do cursive writing, punctuation and are even made to write tests and exams in disciplined classroom environments. In such a scenario where learning is forced upon young children by untrained teachers, it’s more than likely children will grow up with fear of learning and dread formal schooling. Sunaina Mukherjee Delhi Saving our universities Your special report ‘Mumbai University’s downward spiral’ (EW February) comprehensively analyses the sad decline of a once highly-reputed institution. Years of government interference with the university’s administration and faculty appointments is primarily responsible for MU’s sliding reputation. The worst practices of politics — corruption and nepotism — have been imported into the university resulting in sharp decline in academic standards. Not to mention the descent into parochialism with language and regional chauvinism accorded more importance than merit. Unfortunately MU is not the only Indian university going downhill. Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore and several other state government-funded varsities countrywide are following the same path. It’s sad how these institutions built and supported by taxpayers’ money are going to ruin. The onus is on the public, particularly the academic and students communities to speak up and pressurise the government to act and save our universities and restore them to their former glory. Rajeev Patil Mumbai Gender crimes shame Re your editorial ‘Gender crime wave requires cold analysis’ (EW January), we must hang our heads in shame that in 21st century India, a young woman has died because of the lust of a few cowardly and insane men. This represents the lowest ebb of our society’s mental imbalance. One cause of gender crimes is that most citizens, especially criminals, don’t fear the law. Because of vote-bank politics, no action is taken in most cases. The ruling party is responsible for the failure of the law and order machinery, which has created an unsafe environment for women. School curriculums must incorporate and emphasise social values, and parents must not discriminate on the basis of gender. Mahesh Kapasi Delhi Surprisingly low ranked I recently came across your September issue featuring the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012. I am a senior clinical psychologist in Mumbai and appreciate the care taken by your team to identify parameters for ranking of schools. However, I was surprised to see that Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Vidyalaya, Malad and Bombay Cambridge School, Andheri (East), have been ranked low on the parameter of ‘special needs education’. Both these schools offer the best in-house resource centres for special needs children in the country. They have…
