EducationWorld December 11

In a small room of his home, Pune-based Murlidhar Kabra has brought the heavens to earth. Passionate about astronomy since childhood, Kabra has converted the room into a mini planetarium that can accommodate 20 school children at a time, to gaze at a dome that covers the ceiling and study the celestial system. This transformation has been enabled by a portable planetarium developed by a Japanese company Goto which has outsourced its manufacture to the Kolkata-based Goto Optical (India) Pvt. Ltd.Newspeg. The EX-3 mini planetarium resembles a globe and through pinhole methodology the hemisphere is projected on a 3-metre diameter vinyl dome depicting the stars, sunrise and sunset, phases of the moon, the solar system and 12 zodiac signs. The system also pinpoints the location of stars through the use of coordinates and displays the polar star, and the journey of the sun and moon through the 24-hour cycle that brings day and night into play. The planetariums most remarkable feature is that it can be installed in a standard 12×12 sq.ft room. Direct speech. While its true there are big planetariums in cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, they are not interactive since children dont get to whet their curiousity through informal question-answer sessions. My objective in installing this home planetarium is to give astronomy lessons to students enabling them to learn the basics of the solar system and develop a deeper interest in astronomy, says Kabra. History. In his late sixties now, Kabra graduated in physical chemistry from Pune University in 1964 and worked in the defence sector for more than 20 years before opting for voluntary retirement. Deciding to make use of his interest in astronomy, he became a consultant for setting up planetariums in Guwahati, Jaipur, Trivandrum, Burdwan, Kolkata and Hyderabad. This includes not only the design and installation but also regular maintenance of projection systems, etc, he says. How-ever, brewing in his mind was the desire to bring young children closer to the cosmic world of the sun and stars. Future plans. Now that Kabra has experienced the popularity of his mini planetarium among students, he wants to reach out to schools and convince them to install this system. Even municipal bodies should take interest and install planetariums in city museums. They can charge a nominal fee to cover maintenance costs even though the system has no complicated parts or any electronic razzmatazz, and can be operated by class V students, says Kabra. Whether that happens or not, Kabra right now is in an orbit of his own with children from numerous schools and neighbourhoods trooping in to stargaze. Huned Contractor (Pune)

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In late 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in the modest gymnasium of what had once been the tiny teaching college he attended in Texas and announced a programme to promote education. It was an initiative that exemplified the ‘Great Society agenda of his administration: social advancement financed by a little hard cash, lots of leverage and potentially vast implicit government commitments. Those commitments are now coming due.Economists tell us that improvement of education has been responsible for one-fourth to one-half of the growth in our nations economy over the past half-century, Johnson said. We must be sure that there will be no gap between the number of jobs available and the ability of our people to perform those jobs. To fill this gap, Johnson pledged an amount that now seems trivial, $1.9 million (Rs.9.6 crore), sent from the federal government to states which could then leverage it ten-to-one to back student loans of up to $1,000 for 25,000 people. This act, he promised, will help young people enter business, trade, and technical schools — institutions which play a vital role in providing the skills our citizens must have to compete and contribute in our society. Almost a half-century later, these modest steps have metastasised into a huge, federally guaranteed student-loans industry. On October 25, the Obama administration added indebted students to the list of banks, car companies, homeowners, solar manufacturers and others which have benefited from federal handouts. Deanne Loonin of the National Consumer Law Centre has one client with $300,000 in debt from a failed effort to become an airline pilot. Two things, however, are clear. The size of student debt is vast (touching $120 billion or Rs.612,000 crore), and lots of borrowers are struggling. More than 10 million students took out loans for the latest academic year, according to a report issued on October 26 by the College Board, a consortium of academic institutions. Almost a third of students graduating from college, and 69 percent of the ones dropping out, hold debt tied to their education. The total amount of debt is staggering. The New York Federal Reserve Bank puts it at $550 billion (Rs.2805,000 crore), but includes a footnote in the ‘technical notes section suggesting this may be an underestimate. Sallie Mae, the school-loan equivalent of the housing industrys Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reckons there are $757 billion-worth of outstanding loans. A bank heavily involved in the area says there is at least another $111 billion (Rs.566,100 crore) in purely private loans, and with new lending estimated in excess of $112 billion for this year alone, the total amount outstanding will surpass $1 trillion in the not-so-distant future. Signs of strain are everywhere. In September, the department of education reported that in 2009 the default rate, which is defined as non-payment for 270 days, had reached 8.8 percent. By some estimates, delinquency rates — an earlier indicator of stress — for student loans exceed 10 percent, ten times that for credit cards and car loans. Loonins…

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Ian Weller got more than he bargained for when he decided last year to take time off from Drake University in the US and study abroad, not in London or Dublin, but in Egypt. A third-year student, used to life in the Midwestern state of Iowa, Weller merely wanted to practise his Arabic for an intended career in the US Navy. But he ended up in Cairo during the Arab Spring and spent a lot of time photographing the protests.Ive seen things that scare my parents half to death, says Weller, who is studying international relations. But being able to see this part of the world under these circumstances, as an outsider, was cool. This will be a chapter in the textbooks that come out. The number of Americans who, like Weller, are choosing to study abroad in unconventional destinations such as Egypt, India and China is rising dramatically, according to a report released in mid-November by the Institute of International Education, while interest in traditional destinations such as Western Europe is comparatively flat. The UK, Italy, Spain and France remain the top four host destinations, according to the report, Open Doors, which covers the academic year 2009-10 — the most recent period for which data is available. But the number of students going to Europe rose only 2 percent year on year, compared with an overall 5 percent increase in the number of Americans studying abroad. In the past ten years, Europes share of the US student market has fallen from 62 percent to 54 percent. Its globalisation, and people are realising that relationships have to be built everywhere, says Allan Goodman, the institutes president. China has roared into fifth place, playing host to 14,000 US students, compared with fewer than 3,000 a decade ago. Fifteen of the top 25 destinations are now outside Western Europe; among them are India (up 44 percent), Brazil and Egypt. The number of US students heading to Africa, Asia and the Middle East rose by more than 8 percent. Students are intrigued by the Middle East. They want to see for themselves whats happening there, says Joanna Holvey-Bowles, executive vice-president of the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University. They realise they need to understand the context of the world theyre competing in. That was Charlotte Ashfords motivation when she left Rhodes College, Memphis in the southern state of Tennessee to study in Shanghai. Everything you see every day is focusing on this part of the world, says Ashford, another international relations student. Europe and the West in general are becoming less and less relevant in terms of politics and finance. Cost may also be affecting decisions about studying abroad, and nations such as China are offering financial aid while European universities become more expensive. Students are concerned about cost, but theyre also concerned about value, says Holvey-Bowles. Not only what am I getting for my money, but how will this help me in the future? is the refrain. (Excerpted and adapted from…

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The scene is familiar enough: a student-recruitment fair featuring stalls and banners from 15 universities — all hoping to tempt the prospective undergraduates milling around. But this is not the usual overseas operation by British or US universities. The first such event was recently staged in the UK by Chinese institutions, a sign of their new priorities as they look to boost their reputations by expanding international recruitment.A group of the institutions presidents and vice-presidents attended the Study in China Exhibition and Student Forum. The event was organised by the Chinese ministry of education and the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, and was held at the Institute of Education, University of London on October 28. It marked the culmination of a week-long visit which included a summit with British vice chancellors hosted by the UKs education secretary, Michael Gove. Speaking to Times Higher Education at the exhibition, Cui Xiliang, president of the Beijing Language and Culture University, said his institution is seeking opportunities to enhance links with universities in the UK. The chance to study Mandarin at the university is very attractive for UK students, he said, adding that his institution attracts about 10,000 international students a year, the largest body of international students in China. Also in attendance was Sun Bing, deputy dean of the International Cultural Exchange School at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, who said that China had traditionally attracted most of its overseas students from South Korea. It is equally important to attract students from every country, she said, speaking through an interpreter. But the Chinese envoys acknowledged that there are obstacles in the way of their efforts to recruit British students, a group often seen as more reluctant to study abroad than their peers in other countries. We did some research and the biggest (hurdle) is the language barrier for students coming from Europe, says Dr. Sun. Chinese is very difficult for them. With this in mind, overseas students at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics are now being given the opportunity to study their courses in English. Indeed, in the final two years of their degrees, domestic students are also taught English, except for courses in Chinese history. Joanna Burke, China director for the British Council, which supported the event, studied Mandarin at Beijing Language and Culture varsity during her University of Leeds degree programme. While the UK needs its students to understand China, given the nations importance in the world, she says Chinese universities want to increase their world reputation. Internationalisation is a key element of that. Youre not going to build a world-class university if you dont attract international talent, she adds. Backing up the British Councils aim to encourage greater outward mobility for UK students in a globalised society, Burke says her own time as a student in China was the best year of my life and one that changed my life. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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At the base of the modern state there is the professor, not the executioner, writes Nurit Peled-Elhanan at the end of her new book, for the monopoly of legitimate education is more important than the monopoly of legitimate violence. A professor of education and linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who also works at the David Yellin Academic College of Education, Peled-Elhanan is well known in Israel as an activist and co-founder of Bereaved Families for Peace.As part of her work, Peled-Elhanan teaches courses on textbooks to the nations current and future schoolteachers. Nobody is critical of what textbooks say, she explains. People dont doubt the subtexts or look for ideology in textbooks. They dont even remember the names of the authors and assume that they just give ‘the facts. I teach my students to read critically. I give them analytic tools and they reach conclusions themselves. According to Peled-Elhanans Palestine in Israeli School Books, based on the methods of multimodal and discourse analysis applicable to ten history books, six geography books and one on ‘civic studies, all of them published in the years 1996-2009, non-orthodox Jews and Palestinians are presented in the most obviously racist terms. Arabs and Palestinians dont do much in Israeli school books except for lurking, attacking in all sorts of ways and multiplying. The few transitive verbs I came across regarding this unanimous group of people included ‘poison, ‘attack, ‘refuse, ‘evade tax payment and ‘thank Israel for the progress it has brought into their life. Illustrations include an Israeli Arab wearing Ali Baba pants and shoes, kaffiyeh, a moustache followed by a camel and the common Oxfam image of the primitive farmer who follows a primitive plough pulled by oxen or donkeys. Much of this is, of course, ridiculous as well as offensive to Arab-Israeli teachers and students who dont come from families of primitive farmers and who find no doctors, lawyers or any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life in the textbooks. Students leave high school knowing nothing about the history and borders of the state, and seeing Palestinians as intruders, and then have to go out and control and sometimes kill them. Furthermore, the country is very small, but education can fence off neighbours and prevent them from having any real contact, she says. Highly pessimistic about where Israel is going, Peled-Elhanan sees no hope of convincing the authorities to change tack. And her book concludes with the gloomy reflection that the past three generations of Israelis are, for the most part, not aware of the geopolitical or social realities of their country, given that most schoolchildren do not run to libraries to verify the facts (in their textbooks) and fill in the gaps, and that most teachers were brought up on similar books. Yet she retains a strong faith in the potential for education to help move things forward gradually. When her students start to analyse the textbooks, she observes: They often say ‘weve been blind and feel empowered…

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