With the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdown forcing mass closure of education institutions, several state governments have issued circulars directing private school managements to defer/ waive tuition and other fees during the lockdown period. Moreover, some state governments such as Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have issued notifications prohibiting private schools from conducting online classes for pre-primary and primary children. These ill-advised knee-jerk notifications have severely disrupted the cash flow of private independent (unaided) K-12 schools, especially budget private schools (BPS) countrywide whose number is estimated at 400,000, and endangered the employment of over 5 million teachers of private schools. With a substantial number of parents withholding March-June tuition fees, private schools countrywide are experiencing an unprecedented financial crunch and are unable to pay teachers’ salaries Summiya Yasmeen & Akhila Damodaran present a national round-up of state government directives relating to tuition fees and online teaching-learning in major states of the Indian Union. “We have petitioned the state education minister to direct parents who are financially capable, to pay school fees. Many private schools have 25-30 percent fees pending from the last academic year. How can the government expect us to pay teachers and other staff when we are not allowed to collect fees? Also we are unable to conduct online classes because parents fear this will become an excuse for us to charge fees.” — A. Krishna Reddy, chief mentor, Andhra Pradesh Unaided Schools Managements “The state’s private schools are facing a grave financial crisis because of loss of fees revenue during the past three months. We have petitioned the state government to provide financial assistance to private school managements. Had the Central government allocated even 0.1 percent of the Rs.20 lakh crore Covid-19 stimulus package to education, it would have helped a great deal. We have placed our demand for financial support before the prime minister as well.” — Syed Shamael Ahmed, national president, Private Schools and Children Welfare Association “If private schools are not allowed to collect fees, we will have to close down. In Chhattisgarh, parents believe online classes are an excuse for extorting fees from them. Parents and government should understand that education, like any other service, cannot be provided free-of-charge. Government should allow us to collect fees; otherwise many teachers will lose their jobs.” — Jitendra Singh Thakur, founder-member, Chhattisgarh Private School Managements Association “All private schools in Delhi have complied with the government order and charged parents only tuition fees during the lockdown period. But there is huge shortfall in the collection of fees and most private schools are struggling to meet mandatory expenses including teachers salary payments. In its order the government clearly says that the fees collection restriction is for the lockdown period. Now with the Central and state governments officially beginning Unlock 1.0, we want them to issue a new order allowing schools to charge annual and development fees.” — Bharat Arora, general secretary, Action Committee Unaided Recognized Private Schools, Delhi Moreover, the state government has issued an order stating that the School Leaving…
In the thick of the unprecedented economic disruption following the ongoing national lockdown prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, India’s powerful 20 million strong politician-bureaucrat brotherhood steeped in socialist dogma, seems to have discerned an opportunity to deliver a hammer blow to private education – Dilip Thakore The country’s 375,000 private unaided schools, an estimated 400,000 budget private schools (BPS) and 300,000 private pre-primaries which provide superior education to over 50 percent of India’s 260 million inschool children, are suffering severe institutional stress and are being pushed to the edge of bankruptcy. Post-independence India’s establishment including the powerful 20 million strong neta-babu brotherhood steeped in socialist dogma has never acknowledged the massive nation-building contribution of private schools, colleges and universities. Now in the thick of the unprecedented economic disruption following the 68-day national lockdown prompted by the novel coronavirus (aka Covid-19) pandemic, it seems to have discerned an opportunity to deliver a hammer blow to private education. In particular to BPS which have emerged as formidable competitors of the country’s 1.20 million government schools. State governments across the country have issued a spate of notifications and circulars ordering private school managements to waive or defer tuition fees for the March- June quarter. Coterminously, school managements are directed to continue to pay salaries and emoluments of their teachers and support staff. School promoters, principals and managements who fail to comply are being threatened with prosecution under several provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. With parents of school-going children encouraged to breach their contract to pay their children’s school fees by confusing government notifications, and public sector banks reluctant to provide credit, a large and growing number of private schools — especially budget private schools — are laying off teachers and staff and contemplating closure. “Although MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and agriculture have been given stimulus packages and interest payment moratoriums by government and nationalised banks, education is the only sector which has not been given any relief for the damage and loss it has suffered for having to shut down schools and all institutions for over three months following outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. On the contrary, parents are being advised by the state government not to pay tuition fees despite private schools switching to providing online education. Thus far, this, our member schools have continued to pay teachers and staff salaries. But with only 50-60 percent of parents paying their children’s fees, we are struggling to stay afloat. If schools are forced to remain shut for another three months, 60-70 percent of our member institutions will have to fire teachers and staff and close down permanently,” warns M. Srinivasan, president of the Management of Independent CBSE Schools Association (Karnataka) which has a membership of 130 schools with an aggregate enrolment of 2.5 lakh children. An alumnus of Mysore and Connecticut (USA) universities and founder-principal of the Gifted Education and Research (GEAR) Innovative International School, Bangalore (estb.1995), Srinivasan says that notifications and advisories issued by the Karnataka government to schools…
The abrupt halt to international travel is more painful for Australian universities than their counterparts in other English-speaking countries, because they lean more heavily on revenue from foreign students. More than 440,000 such students enrolled in Australian institutes of higher education in 2019. At the last count, they took up roughly 30 percent of capacity. Almost 40 percent of them came from a single country, China. Foreign students are lucrative. In 2018, they brought in almost A$9 billion (Rs.46,784 crore) in revenue — just over a quarter of all university funding, and far more per head than local students bring in through fees and government subsidies. The boom turned education into Australia’s fourth-biggest export, behind coal, iron ore and natural gas. It funded world-class research centres, shiny new learning facilities and vast collections of art. Vice chancellors’ pay packets swelled (in big universities they rake in well over Rs.5.2 crore equivalent). Campuses bulged to sizes, as an academic at La Trobe University puts it, “matched only by the epic institutions in India and China”. For years, this has been the subject of heated political debate. Australian universities say they were forced to woo foreign students because the government does not give them enough money to cover their rising costs. Comments Michael Spence, vice chancellor of the University of Sydney: “The education of domestic students doesn’t break even.” If Australia is “more dependent on foreign student fees than comparable systems around the world, that’s a decision successive governments have made,” he argues. Some in the current conservative coalition government retort that universities have brought the crisis on themselves. They “bet big on the international-student dollar” and “have become badly over-exposed”, James Paterson, a senator, recently declared. Vice chancellors have “privatised profits” from foreign students, “building Taj Mahals to themselves”, a conservative commentator complains. Even some of those employed by universities are critical. “It wasn’t a Ponzi scheme,” says the academic at La Trobe, “but it’s in that ballpark.” Universities Australia, which represents the industry, is not sure exactly how many foreign students it has lost. The University of Sydney has fallen 17 percent short of its enrolment target for 2020, according to Spence, and now faces a budget shortfall of A$470 million (Rs.2,444 crore). Across the industry, revenue could fall by A$3-4.6 billion, according to Universities Australia, putting 21,000 jobs at risk, many of them in research. So far, the government has been disinclined to help. It says it will still fund the places of domestic students, even if they drop out rather than embrace online learning. But it has excluded universities from its A$60 billion (Rs.313,340 crore) wage-subsidy scheme JobKeeper. Dan Tehan, the education minister, has called for “a greater focus on domestic students”. Few seem to think universities will fail. Smaller, regional institutions are in greatest danger, but since they are an important source of jobs, state and federal governments might be persuaded to prop them up. They will, however, have to shrink to survive. Universities will be “smaller…
In some parts of Asia, masked but cautious students and faculty are beginning to fill up classrooms, laboratories and dormitories once more. If the spread of Covid-19 continues to be contained, most universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore expect to be open for at least some in-person teaching in the 2020- 21 academic year. Taiwan, has kept its universities open throughout most of the pandemic, with only a few weeks of disruption in February. Huey-Jen Jenny Su, president of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), told a Times Higher Education Live Asia event that the institution had set up screening facilities and implemented student check-ups, distributed face masks and rolled out social distancing measures. “It was a critical period for everyone to become literate” in disease control, she said. Administrators are nevertheless bracing for a dreaded second wave of infection. Many Asian institutions will continue running online classes simultaneously, just in case campuses need to shutter again. Distance learning will also benefit overseas students, who number in the hundreds of thousands and are unlikely to return to campus soon because of strict travel bans. Across the region, institutions are grappling with how to balance disease prevention and a return to some semblance of normal campus life. A recent walk (early June) around the University of Hong Kong unveiled a campus that was quieter than usual, but still lively and open to visitors. Faculty were back in offices, residential colleges were partially full and the museum was presenting an exhibition of Chinese ink paintings. Still, there was a mask on every face, plus a digital thermometer and hand sanitiser in every hallway. “We never had a lockdown; we had restrictions. We are looking ahead now,” Ian Holliday, HKU vice-president and pro vice chancellor (teaching and learning), said in an online dialogue on the Fight Covid-19 website. “The Hong Kong people have been exemplary in responding to the crisis. They have no hesitation in using face masks; they pay attention to and act on science; and they always act responsibly,” he told Times Higher Education. HKU will move to a “gradual and partial return to face-to-face teaching” for summer courses and the autumn semester, using hybrid teaching methods, adds Holliday. At the National University of Singapore (NUS), campus operations resumed on June 2, the first day that the city-state began exiting its “circuit breaker”, the name of its partial coronavirus lockdown. When students return for the new semester in August, they will have their temperatures checked and locations tracked on an app via a national digital check-in system. They will move by bus between special zones designated for teaching, research and residences, according to NUS’ emergency information website. Laboratory-based research staff have returned to campus on staggered shifts, while administrative staff work from home if possible. In mainland China, the return to campuses began in April. By late May, more than 90 universities, colleges and vocational schools in Beijing were practising run-throughs of temperature-taking and disinfection protocols, according to Chinese…
While publicly dangling possibilities and preparations for campus reopenings, US colleges must keep a serious internal focus on strengthening their remote learning options, advises their chief quality assurance advocate. US colleges seem to be making good progress towards online proficiency, says Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. “This is an opportunity to develop. From my perspective, there are several things that need to be addressed as we’re going forward.” This observation was made against the backdrop of a small but growing number of US colleges and universities having already acknowledged that they will spend at least part of the fall semester without students on campus. Yet even as medical professionals have expressed scepticism about the safety of holding large gatherings in coming months, the majority of institutions have been putting emphasis on their ideas for reopening their campuses — with details of physical distancing and facilities for disinfection — than on their strategies for improving the online educational experience. In a conference call with Mike Pence, the US vice president, and Betsy DeVos, the US education secretary, several university presidents reportedly expressed hope of legal protection in the likely event that their reopened campuses spread coronavirus infections.“We don’t know for sure, but it’s starting to look like we’re going to need to be more reliant on online options in the fall,” says Eaton. For colleges, however, the urgency of resuming in-person instruction is clear. Many students have been demanding it and have been threatening to skip the autumn semester or to press for substantial tuition fee reductions if their only options are online. Institutions of all sizes have been warning of serious financial problems if that happens, with hundreds already beginning to make salary or staffing cuts. Yet establishing a high-quality online operation — covering the full range of academic and administrative needs — demands dedicated commitment, says Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, whose 140,000-student operation is almost entirely remote. “To do online well, and to mount a major effort, requires investment at the precise moment that they don’t have the resources,” says LeBlanc, a leading expert being besieged by other institutions for advice. One of the most serious threats to US universities under financial stress is potential loss of accreditation, which the US Education Department requires for an institution’s students to be eligible for federal loans and grants. The department has been waiving or extending many accreditation- related deadlines and requirements for in-person instruction, and accrediting agencies whose judgement it officially recognises have been postponing inspection visits or conducting some aspects remotely. But according to Dr. Eaton, it isn’t clear how strictly creditors will treat online programmes that, by the autumn are set to remain little more than teachers talking to their students over Zoom and similar platforms. Also read: Asia: Varsities normalcy preparations
First-year students are set to be a priority across Europe when campuses tentatively reopen in autumn (September), to avoid an increase in dropout rates — but low reliance on tuition fees means there is less pressure to restart in-person teaching for some continental institutions. There is a patchwork of different approaches across the continent. German universities do not expect physical lectures to resume until 2021, but some countries, such as Denmark, hope to open almost as normal come the new academic year. Dutch universities have been among the most proactive in reassuring prospective students: “Dutch universities are open,” the Association of Universities in the Netherlands stressed in May. In reopening, European universities are freer to remain cautious and to be honest with prospective students because they are far less dependent on tuition fees, some institutional leaders told Times Higher Education. “We will not go as far as certain US universities,” says Prof. Robert-Jan Smits, president of Eindhoven University of Technology. He says he is “shocked” by some US institutions for “giving the impression” that student life would be “safe and normal” come the autumn, because they “need the cash”. At the Sorbonne University, “we don’t depend on students (financially),” says Marie-Celine Daniel, the institution’s vice president of education and lifelong learning. “The responsibility we have is to be candid that their experience of Paris from September onwards is going to be disappointing” because of ongoing restrictions introduced to fight the spread of the coronavirus, she adds. Staggering campus opening hours to avoid the rush hour has also been mooted in France, says Prof. Daniel. “We don’t have that many rooms,” she explains. As a result, big lectures will likely stay online, and students might have to be rotated on to campus for face-to-face group work, perhaps a third at a time. In such a rota system, first-year students would get priority on campus, she says. “We want them to be autonomous, but we know they are not autonomous when they come into university,” says Prof. Daniel. The risk is that a lack of physical contact stunts their social life and education, she says, leading to dropouts later on. In Sweden, “for first-year students, the welcoming part is one of the priorities”, says Marita Hilliges, secretary-general of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions. If new students do not settle in socially, it could lead to a higher dropout rate later, she warns: “It could be harder for them to find their way.” At the more cautious end of the scale are German universities, where lectures are expected to remain online and physical teaching restricted to hands-on training, until at least spring 2021, says Peter-André Alt, president of the German Rectors’ Association. “It’s somewhat looking into a crystal ball,” he says, but “if you want to avoid infections, you need to avoid mass meetings”. However, labs and libraries are beginning to reopen, he adds. Also reads: United states: Digital education urgency
Of all the regions covered by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Asia has arguably advanced the most in terms of higher education in recent years. Three Asian universities now feature among the Top 25 of the global league table — remarkable progress given that four years ago, in 2016, there were no regional representatives in this group. China has improved its position in the rankings more than any other country during this time, with seven of its universities now among the Top 200, compared with only two five years ago. THE’s Asia University Rankings 2020 beam a spotlight on this dynamic region, offering a clearer view of the transformation of the continent’s higher education landscape. Since the ranking was launched in 2013, mainland China has overtaken first Japan and then Singapore to become home of the top institution. The People’s Republic claims the top two places in the table for the first time this year, and seven of the top 20 positions. Japan, however, remains the leader on overall representation in the ranking, with 110 universities (compared with 81 in China and 56 in India). Overall, just under 500 universities from 30 countries/regions feature in this ranking (up from just over 400 in last year’s list). Countries/regions represented in THE Asia University Rankings 2020 The outbreak of Covid-19 has caused widespread disruption. Asian international students have been stranded, and teaching and research across the globe have been upset and unsettled. However, some have predicted that shifting global student flows as a result of the pandemic may lead to East Asia emerging as a regional higher education hub. Also read: France: Falling confidence in scientists
A survey has revealed that the French public has lost confidence in scientists during the coronavirus pandemic, largely because of a policy U-turn over face masks and the antics of a “populist” microbiologist who has vocally championed hydroxychloroquine, the treatment touted by US President Donald Trump. Since the crisis began, trust in science appears to have risen in the UK, Germany and — at least among Democratic voters — the US. But science policy experts warn that researchers could face a backlash from a frustrated public as lockdowns drag on and a blame game begins, and France appears to be the first country to produce evidence that the mood has soured. At the start of the crisis in mid-March, 84 percent of the French public had confidence in scientists. Now, according to latest data from late May, this has dropped to 74 percent. This is still far higher than the confidence reported in the government, the president and the media. Nonetheless, “there’s a significant decline in confidence”, says Sylvain Brouard, research director of the National Political Science Foundation at Sciences Po and one of a team tracking public opinion in France during the pandemic. Meanwhile over the same period, there has been a rise in the proportion of people who say scientists are hiding information about the coronavirus from the public. Thirty-six percent of respondents now believe this is the case. Dr. Brouard attributes this shift in mood, which began in mid-April, to two controversies that have played out in the French media. The first is confusion over face masks. Initially, the government said there was no scientific evidence in their favour, he explains, and official scientific advisory groups did not contradict this. But later, the government changed tack, and the wearing of face masks is now compulsory on public transport. “It’s a complete reversal of policy,”says Brouard. The second incident to shake public trust is that of Didier Raoult, director of the Mediterranean Infection Foundation in Marseilles, whose early — and much criticised — study of hydroxychloroquine set off hopes that it could be an effective treatment for Covid-19. Prof. Raoult has vocally defended the treatment in the French media — and to his more than half a million Twitter followers — dissing a decision at the end of May to stop using hydroxychloroquine onpatients by France’s top public health council. That decision followed a major study in The Lancet that found that the drug was associated with higher mortality and heart problems. But after questions about the study’s data, the article has been retracted. “The house of cards is collapsing,” Prof. Raoult tweeted, although he had previously questioned the data himself. Raoult has even challenged France’s minister of health to a public popularity contest. A follow-up survey found Prof. Raoult to be somewhat more trusted, particularly outside Paris and among the poor and unemployed. “Raoult seems to adopt a populist stance in which the ‘people’ would become the arbiter of scientific truths,” says Michel Dubois, a sociologist based…
A spate of newly promoted globally-benchmarked private universities are set to highlight the severe inadequacies of government colleges and universities. Promoted through specially enacted legislation of state governments (education is a concurrent subject under the Constitution) which tend to be less nitpicking and fault-finding than the mandarins of the Union HRD ministry and its handmaiden regulatory agencies (UGC, AICTE, NAAC), this new genre of private universities is stealing the thunder from vintage colleges such as St. Stephen’s and Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, St. Xavier’s, Mumbai, MCC, Chennai. In particular, they are bad news for state government arts, science and commerce colleges that constitute the majority of the country’s 39,000 undergrad colleges dispensing reckless, untrustworthy certification. Admittedly these contemporary residential private universities — Ashoka and Jindal Global in Delhi NCR, Ahmedabad University, Bennett, Noida (Uttar Pradesh) and Plaksha University, Mohali (Punjab) among others, levy tuition and residence fees which are sky-high by India standards, but way lower than demanded by even third rung American and British universities. Moreover, being well endowed ab initio, they tend to be generous with scholarships and freeships. And although their arrival on the higher education scene has prompted much head-shaking and disapproval (“commercialisation of education”) within the tenured closet communist professariat which continues to dominate academia, these privately promoted universities are here to stay. Ambitious school-leavers are delighted as testified by the scramble for admissions. Also read: Raj end mercy
The latest news that the apples of discord have divided the London-based Hinduja brothers, one of the greatest entrepreneurial families of Indian business, has aroused mixed feelings in your editor who has interacted with them off and on for over four decades. On the one hand, it’s impossible not to admire their sharp business acumen, and capability to quickly spot strategic opportunities and carpe diem. The four brothers Hinduja built their initial fortune in Iran under the ruthless autocratic rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1941-1979) and fled Iran just before Ayatollah Khomeini radicalised the country into an austere clerical autocracy. In the UK as well, the enterprising Hindujas rapidly built their second fortune which soon dwarfed their first, and acquired far greater political influence than they ever had in Iran or India where they prudently invested only a small portion of their huge fortune. To the extent that in the 1990s when Srichand Hinduja’s citizenship application ran into rough weather, prime minister Tony Blair reportedly cleared it directly. Soon their business operations and clout spread to continental Europe, India and the Middle East. In 1978, the plutocrats joined the exclusive fraternity of foreign nationals allowed to establish a bank in Switzerland (Hinduja Bank). Inevitably in the heyday of neta-babu socialism (1970-90), entrepreneurial capabilities and extraordinary business management expertise had little value in India, and the Hindujas had an unsavoury reputation. At that time as editor of Business India and Businessworld, your correspondent was the first to extol their business and finance expertise. However, one also became aware that they were totally focused on primitive capital accumulation. Despite the positive write-ups the said business magazines gave them, they were tight-fisted about reciprocating by way of occasional advertising. Ditto with then struggling EducationWorld, despite the brothers’ professed interest in matters educational. Admittedly they are not legally obliged, but the unwritten social contract is that it’s obligatory for prosperous business enterprises to lend a small helping hand to struggling enterprises labouring in the broader public interest. Especially if they have spoken up on their behalf. Hence the schadenfreude. Also read: Welcome privatisation
The belated decision of Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), the Indian subsidiary of the London/Amsterdam-based globe-girdling household and personal care consumer products behemoth (annual revenue: $5.4 billion/Rs.38,785 crore) to drop the descriptive ‘fair’ from its best-selling Fair & Lovely (F&L) skin-lightening face cream, has come as a vindication for your editors in EducationWorld. For the past two decades, we have been highly critical of HUL for marketing Fair & Lovely which subtly conveys the message that being colonially light skinned is the pre-condition of being classified as beautiful. Splashed across all media, the damage that aggressive marketing of F&L by insensitive compradors of HUL has inflicted on the collective Indian psyche is immense. Braindead Bollywood producers routinely choose pasty white heroines or their heavily made up facsimiles, for lead roles in their movies. Relentlessly advertised for over half a century, this fairness cream has paradoxically transformed India into a colour prejudiced nation, as evidenced by its regressive matrimonial advertising and offensive treatment of African and black people. One of the company’s “astonishingly insensitive” F&L ad campaigns was targeted by your editors way back in 2004. The storyline of the ad depicted a perfectly good looking ethnic lass with cricket commentating aspirations not getting anywhere until she lightens her skin tone and charms her way into national television. The irony was that the ad was aired on a programme hosted by former test cricketers Laxman Sivaramakrishna and V.V.S. Laxman, tall, dark and handsome, but implicitly disqualified because of their ethnic skin tones. Although the ad campaign was dropped soon after, our criticism cost this then struggling publication dearly. HUL cut off all ad support and has never advertised with us since. Fortunately, the British Raj ended outside the Sobo headquarters of HUL 58 years earlier. If it hadn’t, the price would have been greater. Your editor perhaps, would have been tending the gardens of the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands. Also read: Welcome privatisation
Over the past decade, we have witnessed unprecedented churning in India. Iconic leaders of the freedom movement including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have been criticised and reviewed as never before. Different groups in Indian society project new icons to take their place in what a historian has described as “history wars”. Often, these new icons have as complex a legacy as the ones they are vying to replace. But history wars are not an exclusively Indian phenomenon. The Black Lives Matter campaign that erupted after the horrific murder of African-American George Floyd has questioned why monuments to leaders of the southern confederacy of states that fought to maintain slavery and apartheid during the American civil war (1861-65) occupy pride of place in many of America’s cities. Earlier this week in a surprising initiative, the king of Belgium formally expressed regret to the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo whose experience of Belgian colonisation more than a century ago was one of the most savage and genocidal in modern history. Similarly a few years ago, Dalits in Maharashtra were harshly prevented from celebrating the bravery of a Mahar contingent that fought (on the side of the British) during the battle of Bhima Koregaon which led to the final defeat of the Marathas in 1818. Dalits are questioning why their history should remain invisible in modern India. This, in a nutshell is why teachers need to rethink how to teach history in primary-secondary education. For most school students, the study of history is restricted to memorising mind-numbing facts, figures and dates in a single narrative to be learned by rote and reproduced in exams. Moreover, history has repeatedly been pressed into the service of the nation or states and every year controversies break out over inclusions and exclusions in school history textbooks of different states. Therefore to rethink teaching history in schools, we must rethink history itself. On the one hand, there is the discipline of history and its practice with established research protocols, sources, standards of evidence and narrative styles. On the other hand, the discipline of history does not stand above the values of society and concerns about justice. E.H. Carr, the famous British historian, observed that history is the story of the past seen through present eyes. The narratives of historians are inevitably influenced by concerns of their times. If in the past, historians thought it was possible to write objectively about their chosen subjects based on research in government archives whose collection of documents was presumed to represent the most truthful version of events, contemporary historians tend to question the capability of anyone to write unbiased history even while consciously striving for objectivity. We dispute the presumption that official archives are the sole repositories of history. Moreover, in the past, history was written as the story of nations and great men. Today, history’s subject matter is considerably more varied, and includes narratives of groups at the margins of society. The imperatives of social justice make it…
Why bad things can’t happen to good people! Because apples can’t grow on mango trees; Atman in Ravi; Air Institute of Realization; Rs.122; Pages 175 It is the human condition for every person to want happiness and conversely, to avoid pain. Yet, why is happiness so elusive and pain so ubiquitous? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Most of us must have reflected on this question at some point. A related issue is unwarranted pain worldwide. Why do people who are genuinely good and selfless often experience excruciatingly painful situations in life when they obviously don’t deserve it? While it is easy to accept pain and suffering of the sinful and corrupt as just punishment, it’s far more difficult to explore the complexity of noble, upright and god-fearing people visited by pain and anguish. On a larger canvas, the enormous pain and suffering that millions of people are subjected to as a result of war, poverty, and displacement could prompt utter despair and make us lose hope in goodness and justice in this world. For people who believe in God, the Creator and Controller of the universe, what we may view as unjust suffering poses major theological questions concerning the power, goodness and justice of God. If God is, as many religions aver, all-powerful, all-just and all-good, why does He permit suffering and distress on such a massive scale? If God is, as believers say, all grace, why doesn’t He put an immediate end to all misery in the world? Atheists often raise such questions in their critique of the concept of God. It’s almost impossible to be powerful, good and just, as is claimed by believers and allow innocent people to suffer hurt and pain, at the same time, is their argument. To this argument, theists respond by articulating the rationalisation that human suffering can be reconciled with faith in the existence of a benign and just God. However, different theistic traditions offer varied explanations in this regard. This brilliantly written book by Bangalore-based spiritual teacher Atman in Ravi or AiR attempts to provide an explanation to the cryptic question of why bad things happen to good people. Writing from a theistic perspective, AiR believes that the answer is to be found in the karmic Law of Action and Reaction, and belief in rebirth. According to the Law of Action and Reaction, people reap what they sow. To use a simile from the title of the book, apples can’t grow on mango trees. If we sow a mango seed, we can’t expect it to produce apples. Doers of bad deeds receive retribution sometime in the future, if not immediately, and conversely, good deeds have intended consequences in this world or the hereafter. All religions believe in the hereafter, the afterlife that follows in the undiscovered country whose bourn no traveller returns. But the afterlife is differently conceptualised in various religions. Some scriptures believe that human beings have just one life, after which they will either go…
We are displaced: My journey & stories from refugee girls around the world – Malala Yousafzai (with Liz Welch); Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Rs.399 Pages 212+xi Displacement — within and across countries — of large numbers of people, owing to political instability or civil strife, is a fact of contemporary life. UN statistics indicate that nearly 70 million people or 9 percent of the world’s population are displaced at present, of whom more than 25 million are classified as refugees. The human suffering such displacement causes — and the heroic way some affected individuals and groups overcome it to give humanity a message of hope in a sea of gloom, strife and pain — is usually ignored. This volume is a corrective in that regard. Malala Yousafzai’s personal story is well known. But in addition to the narrative of her own journey, she presents in this volume the stories of nine other young women from around the world, recounted in their own words, to give us a more complete picture of suffering and its sublimation. To sum up Malala’s story first, her father, Ziauddin, ran two schools in Mingora town of Swat Valley in Pakistan, one of which was for girls. It was from him that Malala first learnt of the Taliban, whom her father first thought of as “more of an annoyance than a real terror”. This viewpoint was soon changed by events. As Malala understood relatives. This is where Malala understood the true meaning of “internal displacement”. She was in her own country and with her family, “and yet I still felt so out of place”. At the local school, “I spoke too much and did not look down when the teacher entered the classroom. I wasn’t being disrespectful; I was just being myself, not shy in the classroom, but always polite. I asked questions, like all the boys, but was the last to be called on,” she recalls. When peace gradually returned to Malala’s hometown, her family still had to spend weeks in displacement before returning home. In the process, Malala realised that “to be displaced, on top of everything else, is to worry about being a burden on others”. She says she “knew, even as a 12-yearold girl, that the home I knew no longer existed except in my dreams”. It was to become obvious soon that the Taliban had not been destroyed. it, the Islam the Taliban wanted to enforce “was not our Islam”. Their radical fundamentalist ideology “attacked our daily way of life in the name of Islam… most of all, they tried to take away the rights of women.” Soon after they gained influence, they declared that educating girls was un-Islamic. When the Taliban issued a decree closing all girls’ schools and then began to bomb girls’ schools in the Swat Valley, 11-year-old Malala began writing a blog for BBC Urdu, and this helped get the story across to the outside world. She also joined her father in TV and radio interviews, which forced a…
Nikhil Lemos (12), a class VII student of the Navrachna Sama School, Vadodara is one of eight winners from an estimated 2 lakh school children around the world who submitted entries for the May 2020 edition of the Coronavirus App Challenge of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Nikhil’s ‘Know the Corona’ app — designed with the help of a block coding tool — is a one-stop application providing users critical information including the number of positive cases in all countries, Covid-19 symptoms, preventive measures, helplines, neighbouring grocery stores, WHO donations page, with a separate chat feature for users to communicate with each other in these challenging times. Started in 2012, the MIT App Inventor platform enables teenage children and adults to develop apps for smart devices. Over the past eight years, the platform has attracted 6 million registered visitors — and 400,000 active users every month — who have designed 22 million apps to date. MIT conducts monthly app inventor challenges on various themes in three age categories — young, teen and adult. The elder child of Tyrone Lemos, director of steam turbines company Rotycan Turbotech Pvt. Ltd, and his wife Karen, a homemaker, Nikhil has been a digital technologies enthusiast since he started attending the Lego Robotics Institute, Vadodara in his after-school hours over a year ago. “I love to take cars apart and rebuild them. So when I heard about MIT’s Coronavirus Challenge, I signed up at the insistence of our robotics teacher Mukesh Ganga Sagar Bind, who provided me with valuable support and guidance to develop the app,” recalls Nikhil. Enthused by his success in the highly competitive monthly MIT Coronavirus App Challenge 2020, Nikhil is brainstorming ideas to upgrade his app. “I believe such global competitions encourage innovation and improve one’s technology management skills regardless of winning and losing considerations. This win has stimulated me to develop more innovative apps for the benefit of humanity,” says Nikhil, also an avid reader and table tennis player. Way to go, Bro! Akhila Damodaran (Bangalore) Also read: Shivam Thakur
Within three years of taking to the shooting range, Kulesara village (Uttar Pradesh)-based teenage sharpshooter Shivam Thakur (17) bagged gold and silver medals in individual and group categories of the men’s 10m air pistol shooting event at the Indo-Malaysia International Championship 2020 organised by the Malaysia School Games and Activity Development Foundation in Kuala Lumpur in early February. In March, Shivam pledged 60 percent of his annual earnings for the next three years to sportspersons in the grip of financial loss during the pandemic induced lockdown. The younger child of grocery store proprietor, Arun Kumar Thakur, and his homemaker wife Mamta, Shivam quit a promising career in cricket after suffering a knee injury at a U-19 national camp in Kochi in 2014. This life changing event prompted the young sports aficionado and his father to co-promote the non-profit SGADF (School Games and Activity Development Foundation) in 2016. Formally registered with international sports federations (TAFISA, IAKS, ICSSPE) and recognised by the International Olympic Committee in 2017, the foundation which enables budding athletes to realise their dreams, has thus far been represented by 600,000 athletes in multiple tournaments countrywide. Simultaneously, this then class IX student of the DVM Public School, Greater Noida took to the sport of pistol shooting as he “had to play competitive sport”. “Since engaging a private coach is very expensive, I learned the techniques and nuances of pistol shooting from watching You-Tube videos, attending shooting championships and doing extensive reading on marksmanship,” he recalls. In 2018, he won his first gold medal at an international shooting championship in Bangladesh, and his extraordinary shooting skills prompted sports foundations in 17 countries worldwide to connect with him. This publicity won him several advertising contracts and corporate sponsorships, notably from the Bangalore-based Shiv Naresh Sport Apparel and Indigo Airlines. His rise to the top in the 10m pistol shooting event is an extraordinary narrative of spirit, determination and ability to seize the moment. Right now this young, socially committed shooting star is training for the European Youth Games in September and the World Youth Games in Portugal in October 2021. “I also intend to send at least ten athletes from SGADF to represent India in international tournaments. My ultimate dream is to win a medal for India at the 2025 Olympics,” says this gritty teenager with his heart in the right place. Autar Nehru (Delhi) Also read: Nikhil Lemos
New Delhi, July 1. The Sonipat (Haryana)-based Ashoka University hosted a ‘Shaping Organisations of the Future’, a virtual conference on June 27. The conference was addressed by business, finance and industry leaders including Pramod Bhasin, Genpact; Amitabh Chaudhry, Axis Bank; Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip, and Ashish Dhawan, Ashoka University. The conference was attended by over 2,000 corporate leaders, professionals, students and a variety of audiences in 26 countries. “The virtual conference brought human resource development communities, corporate leaders, global thinkers and stakeholders to discuss the future of work practices including work anytime, anywhere, virtual internships, redesigning of workplaces and developing skills such as critical writing, analytical thinking, effective communication and social responsibility that will be essential in the post Covid-19 era,” says an Ashoka University spokesperson. A recording of the conference can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fepsECie4GM EIF training initiative Mumbai, June 22. EdIndia Foundation (EIF, estb.2019), an edtech non-profit supported by the Mumbai-based Sterlite Power — a power transmission and solutions company — hosted a two-day online training workshop for 8,000 teachers on June 17-18 in partnership with the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC). The workshop was designed to help teachers of TMC’s 850 schools adapt to new digital technologies and ensure learning continuity in the post Covid-19 era. “All schools have been disrupted by the pandemic. Therefore, it is imperative for all stakeholders to work together for our children’s education and well-being. The workshops encourage teachers to embrace technology, nurture child well-being and prepare for post Covid-19 challenges and innovations,” says Sonakshi Agarwal, founder, EIF. Over the past two years, EdIndia Foundation has impacted 30,000 teachers and 500,000 students. MBD Group Scholarships New Delhi, July 10. The Delhi-based MBD Group of companies engaged in the businesses of publishing textbooks, eco-friendly notebooks, e-learning apps and online skill development programmes, paper manufacture, ICT infrastructure, hospitality, real estate and mall development and management in India, the UK, South Africa and Sri Lanka, disbursed 100 scholarships to mark the 75th birth anniversary of MBD Group founder Ashok Kumar Malhotra. “Malhotra Ji was a visionary who always believed in making a difference in the lives of people by bringing positive changes. Keeping in mind the welfare of MBDians during the pandemic, medical insurance has been almost doubled for them. We are also implementing a work-from-home strategy to safeguard our workforce during this pandemic,” said Smt. Satish Bala Malhotra, chairperson MBD Group, speaking on the occasion. IB 2020 results Mumbai, July 7. The Geneva/Haguebased International Baccalaureate exam board announced the IB Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme results on July 6. 174,355 students around the world have been awarded certification. The number of students who received their results in India this year is 4,662, a 9.5 percent increase over last year (4,217). “An IB education has always been about more than results and, this year, students have had to deal with a level of global disruption that has never been experienced before,” says Dr. Siva Kumari, director-general at International Baccalaureate. Following cancellation of the May 2020 examinations due to…
Bhubaneswar, June 11. The Odisha government has cancelled undergraduate and postgrad final semester examinations of all study programmes except medicine, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic spike countrywide. However pending theory and practical examinations of medical courses will be conducted according to schedule, said a government spokesperson. Addressing the media, the spokesperson said this decision was taken at a video-conference meeting presided over by the state’s higher education minister A.K. Sahoo and attended by vice chancellors, principals of autonomous colleges and senior education ministry officials. Universities and autonomous colleges will follow the evaluation methodology recommended by UGC for semester and final examinations whose results will be published by end-August, he added. “If students are unhappy with their assessment marks, they can apply for re-examination in November, the results of which will be published in December,” he said. Kashmir radio classes initiative Bhaderwah, June 13. With the majority population unable to access high speed Internet services and smartphones, a Kashmir education department’s initiative to start ‘radio classes’ from June 1 has enabled over 25,000 class IXXII government school students in Doda district to complete their syllabus after the Covid-19 pandemic forced mass closure of education institutions countrywide. The local station of All India Radio — AIR Bhaderwah — airs 90 minutes of education content daily. “When the district authorities started online classes for 63,406 students from March 27, data collected by the education department showed that only 37,837 of them had access to Internet and smartphones,” says Anis Ahmed, nodal officer, Doda district radio classes. To reach the remainder 25,569 students, the majority in BPL (below poverty line) households in remote hilly regions, the Delhi-based Prasar Bharti has provided a time slot on AIR-Bhaderwah for radio classes. Tripura teachers recruitment drive Agartala, June 9. The Tripura government is set to recruit 297 school teachers and 40 assistant professors for induction into government degree colleges, according to the state’s education minister Ratan Lal Nath. Additionally, 175 graduate and 65 postgraduate teachers will be deployed by the education ministry. “We are in the process of recruiting teachers for elementary, high and higher secondary schools. The Tripura Board of Secondary Education has requested the Teachers Recruitment Board to hire these teachers after thorough review,” said the minister. West Bengal government largesse Kolkata, June 11. The West Bengal government has announced state provision of masks, soap and food items under the mid-day meal scheme, to public schools. The state’s education minister Partha Chatterjee says these items will be handed over to guardians of students as schools are under closure. Free-ofcharge textbooks, exercise books and pencils will also be provided to students in the Amphan-affected areas of the state, the minister added. Rajasthan smart classrooms initiative Jaipur, June 18. Smart classrooms will be set up in 100 government schools across Rajasthan at an estimated cost of Rs.2 crore, said the state’s education minister Govind Singh Dotasara. The government has signed an MoU with the Power Grid Corporation of India and Educational Consultants India Ltd to facilitate the smart…
“On one hand, a porous lockdown makes sure that the virus will still exist and as you said, it is still waiting to hit you when you will unlock. So you have not solved that problem. But you have definitely decimated the economy. You flattened the wrong curve. It is not the infection curve, it is the GDP curve.” – Rajeev Bajaj, CEO of Bajaj Auto Ltd, in a conversation with Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi (June 4) “Migrants from the villages might get better wages in the city, but their living and health conditions, particularly of women and children are abysmal. Can we do something about all this? Plenty… We need to trash the superstitions and shibboleths of 30 years of market theology. And build the kind of state the Constitution of India mandates, where there is, for all citizens, “Justice, social, economic and political”.” – P. Sainath, founder-editor of People’s Archive for Rural India, on the ‘Migrant mess and the moral economy of the elite’ (India Today, June 8) “To increase capacity to meet the needs of our population, we need to inaugurate one new university a day, every single day, for the next 20 years – such is the insurmountable scale of the problem.” – Kapil Viswanathan & Vijay Govindrajan, in ‘Three pathways for us to achieve the Indian dream’ (Mint, June 18) “A deadly combination of social distancing mandates, area-wise lockdowns and high stress due to job losses are recipe for a coming disaster… post Covid-19 suicide epidemic.” – Stephen David, well-known journalist, on how social isolation is a silent killer (Deccan Herald, June 20) “States should be wary of school shutdowns. Not only do they have little effect, but they lead to massive future costs in lost learning and lower long-term productivity and income. A World Bank study estimates that the global lost income from school closures could amount to a global loss of $13 trillion.” – Bibek Debroy, chairman PM’s Economic Advisory Council & Bjorn Lomborg, president, Copenhagen Consensus (Times of India, June 23
The Madras High Court has passed strictures against the AIADMK-led state government for restraining private schools and colleges from collecting tuition fees from parents, as this has led to non-payment of salaries to teachers and non-teaching staff. A government order issued on April 20 under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, had directed private school and college managements not to compel students/parents to pay fees for the forthcoming academic year 2020-21 or to collect dues for the lockdown period, which began in mid-March and has been extended to July 31. Admitting a writ petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Association of Private Schools on June 30, Justice R. Mahadevan wondered how unaided institutions prohibited from collecting fees even as most of them are conducting online classes, can be expected to pay salaries to teachers and staff. Adjourning the hearing to July 6, the court directed the petitioner associations to file a detailed report suggesting ways and means by which schools can collect tuition fees without interrupting children’s education. The April 20 government order has adversely impacted an estimated 18,000 private unaided schools (including nursery and primary schools) across the state, which are experiencing great financial stress in meeting the salaries of 300,000 teachers and 200,000 support staff. During the hearing, advocate-general Vijay Narayan informed the court that the state government in the meanwhile had expeditiously cleared payment of a sum of Rs.248.79 crore owing to private schools as reimbursement for admitting poor children in their neighbourhoods under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. He suggested this amount could be utilised to pay the pending salaries of teachers and staff. “The amount of Rs.248.79 crore belatedly disbursed by the government is insufficient to pay teachers and staff statewide. The amount pending under the RTE reimbursement for the year 2018- 19 is Rs.280 crore, and the amount pending for 2019-20 is Rs.550 crore. Against this, the government has released only Rs.248.79 crore for 2018-19 and left out private schools in Chennai which have not received s.12 (1) (c) reimbursements for 2018- 19 and 2019-20. How can the government expect the RTE reimbursement amount would be sufficient to meet the expenses of private unaided schools of the entire state?” queries Martin Kennedy, president of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association. “Several private school associations will be staging a statewide online protest on July 10 to press demands for permitting schools to collect tuition fees from parents who can afford to pay, immediate release of s.12 (1) (c) reimbursements due for 2018-19, 2019-20 and urgent release of RTE reimbursement for schools in Chennai,” adds Kennedy. The patronising attitude of the AIADMK government towards private independent (unaided) schools is indicated by the allusion that the state government had performed an act of charity in paying the rightful dues (payable under s.12 (2) of the RTE Act) to them for educating poor children in their neighbourhoods. Moreover, the amount disbursed is a fraction of the total amounts…
An out-of-the-blue statewide ban imposed by the Karnataka government on online teaching-learning in pre-primaries and lower primary (up to class V) schools on June 15, provoked mass outrage within middle class parents and teachers’ communities and resulted in a writ petition filed in the Karnataka high court by several private schools grouped under an informal alliance. Stating that it had received several complaints from parents about children being compelled to spend long hours before computer terminals and digital devices, the state government imposed the ban in mid-June without consultation with school managements. Following widespread anger and indignation from parents and educators and over 40,000 protest tweets on Twitter on June 21, a government spokesperson cited a report by the Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) to the effect that “excessive screen time” is harmful for youngest children. Admitting the writ petition of private schools on June 19, Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka of the Karnataka high court observed the government’s decision was “ill-considered” and posted hearing of the petition to June 29. Following the Twitter storm of June 21 and the caustic observations of the court, on June 27, the state government revoked its order of June 15 and prescribed 30 minutes per week of online learning for pre-primary classes; two periods of 30-45 minutes three days per week for classes I-V; two periods of 30-45 minutes for five days for classes VIVIII and four periods of 30-45 minutes for five days for classes IX-X. “I don’t understand why the government needs to micromanage education institutions run by qualified professionals at a time teachers are pulling out all stops to maintain continuity of learning. We have invested large sums in online infrastructure to ensure that children don’t lose interest in learning. Therefore, the arbitrary ban imposed without consultation with representative school associations is unconstitutional,” says Dr. Ratna Ghose, an alumna of Calcutta University with 32 years of teaching and admin experience in top-ranked schools and universities, and currently principal of the CBSE-affiliated Capstone High School, Bangalore (estb.2014). Pruthvi Banwasi, general secretary, Karnataka Council of PreSchools (KCPS, estb.2015) which has 2,000 members statewide, describes the 30 minutes per week ceiling on online learning for preschool children prescribed by the government as “unreasonable” and “illogical”. “If online learning for our children is restricted to 30 minutes per week, we won’t be able to complete teaching the alphabet to children by the end of the academic year 2020-21. Private education has already been severely damaged by needless interference and micromanagement by the state government and official meddling has become worse during the pandemic,” says Banwasi. Meanwhile, on July 7, an expert committee constituted by the Karnataka government on June 11 and chaired by M.K. Sridhar, educationist and member of the Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2019, submitted a 51-page report prescribing online learning guidelines to the Karnataka government. The expert committee has recommended the blended learning model — traditional synchronous and online learning and has…
The coronavirus aka covid-19 pandemic has swooped down on the country’s 375,000 private unaided (independent) schools and estimated 400,000 budget private schools (BPS) like a totally unexpected black swan calamity. With the economy in total lockdown for 68 days and a large number of employees and workmen in MSMEs (micro, small and medium) firms and companies, which employ 90 percent of the national labour force, suffering salary cuts, furloughs and lay-offs, state governments have ordered private schools to desist from collecting fees for the lockdown period. These orders have created unprecedented challenges including closure of thousands of private schools especially BPS countrywide. Against this backdrop, the Trinamool Congress government of West Bengal (pop.91 million) led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee has emerged as perhaps the sole state administration with some sympathy for private schools. The notifications and orders of the state’s education ministry are mild. They advise West Bengal’s 1,200 private independent schools and nearly 300 BPS to refrain from raising tuition fees for the academic year 2020-21 (which began in April), and to desist from imposing penalties on parents for late payment of school fees of the past four months. Moreover in media interviews, Banerjee made it clear that she doesn’t support the ‘no fees during lockdown’ demand of some parents associations bearing in mind that schools need to continue paying teachers and staff salaries. Responding to the state government’s appeal and also to parents facing financial difficulties due to the lockdown, prominent city schools have agreed not to hike the school fee for this year. However, in spite of fee hike waiver, parents of many children in private schools haven’t paid fees for the first quarter (April-June), and have pleaded for waiver of library, laboratory, games, computer and transport charges since schools are shut. With the fees payment due date for the July-September quarter approaching, some school managements in the state have started offering partial waivers excluding bus fees and meal charges and waiving penalties for late payment. Some schools have also given parents the option to clear arrears in instalments. Inevitably, these adjustments and concessions have had a cascading effect on teachers’ remuneration with several schools slashing teacher salaries by 20 percent which has nullified the pay rise that teachers in the state had belatedly received in January under the Sixth Pay Commission Award. On June 29, 100 principals of private CBSE schools in Kolkata and neighbouring districts wrote to chief minister Mamata Banerjee requesting the right to suspend online classes for children of defaulting parents. However, with an eye on West Bengal’s legislative assembly election which is less than a year away, unlike chief ministers of most other states who have taken the populist line of ordering private schools to desist from collecting tuition fees while continuing to pay teachers, Banerjee is treading warily. Well aware that West Bengal’s bhadralok (refined middle class) places a premium on the high-quality education dispensed by the state’s private schools, she has abstained from directly intervening in the…
Maharashtra’s teachers’ community has become the unsuspecting casualty of the state’s messy post Covid-19 lockdown education system. Scores of preschool to higher secondary private school teachers have lost their jobs with school managements citing financial inability to make even partial payment of salaries because parents haven’t paid children’s school fees for the past four months. The state government’s confusing notifications and GRs (government resolutions) issued since the lockdown began in mid-March, are to a great extent to blame for their predicament. Even as private schools were yet to collect fees for the April-July quarter, a May 8 GR warned private school managements of stern action if they compel parents to pay pending dues or make payment of admission and term fees for the academic year 2020-21 a precondition of admission. Moreover, another government circular (June 15) banned online teaching for pre-primary-class II children and reopening of preschools until the end of 2020. The government’s circular effectively made 9,000 preschools across the state and the teachers employed in them, redundant until the end of this year. With a large number of private primary-secondaries laying off contractual teachers in the past three months to reduce expenditure, managements of the state’s 22,477 budget private schools (BPS) have been crying foul since May, about being unable to pay the emoluments of 80,000 teachers and support staff. In a letter to the state’s education minister Varsha Gaikwad, several budget private school associations — the Maharashtra English School Trustees Association (MESTA, estb.2014), Private Unaided School Managements Association (PUSMA, 2000), Independent English Schools Association (IESA, 2014), and the Unaided Schools Forum (USF, 1980) — have stated that nearly 40 percent of their member schools are unable to comply with the government’s June 15 directive to provide online education to classes III-XII due to financial difficulties. For managements of private unaided (independent) — especially budget private schools — which are being exhorted to continue paying teachers and staff without getting any mention in the MSMEs (medium, small and micro enterprises) stimulus package announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in May, the most unkindest cut is that the state government has shown no signs of paying up the Rs.700 crore it owes them for the academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 as compensation for admitting poor children in their neighbourhoods and providing them free-of-charge education in primary/elementary (classes I-VIII) under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. S.12 (2) obliges state governments to reimburse private unaided schools the expense incurred for educating students admitted under s.12 (1) (c) by paying them the equivalent of per child expense it incurs in its own state schools. In the circumstances, BPS which don’t have the wherewithal to switch to digital online learning, are in no condition to continue paying teachers and staff salaries. Meanwhile, teachers of 7,000 schools dispensing education in vernacular languages including Marathi, Hindi and Urdu to 1.5 million students in rural Maharashtra unserved by government schools, have also been left high…
The fifth edition of the NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) Rankings 2020 released by the Union ministry of human resource development on June 11 has generated considerable excitement in some higher education institutions (HEIs), especially government colleges and universities. This year, a total of 3,771 institutions (294 universities, 1,071 engineering institutions, 630 business schools, 334 pharmacy and 97 law colleges, 118 medical and 48 architecture colleges and 1,659 general degree colleges) submitted data to the HRD ministry to be ranked in NIRF 2020. In all, 5,805 HEIs submitted data in prescribed formats to become eligible for inclusion in NIRF’s ‘overall’ Top 200 league table and in each category. They were assessed under five broad parameters — teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity and public perception — with institutions in each discipline required to submit documentary evidence of academic attainments. The number of participating institutions increased by 644 over last year. However, although detailed and elaborate, the NIRF league tables have not resonated with the public because the ranks awarded defy not only the perceptions of informed educationists, but all common sense. For instance the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, (BITSP, estb.1964) is inexplicably ranked as low as #30 although it is widely acknowledged as an engineering university on a par with the IITs. In the latest EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings 2020-21 (EWIPHER) BITS-P is ranked India’s #2 private university and #1 private engineering college. But in NIRF 2020, the Amrita School of Engineering (20) and the parvenu IIT-Patna are ranked higher than BITS-P. Ditto in the NIRF B-schools league table. The B-schools of IITKharagpur (#5) and IIT-Delhi (#8) are ranked above the well-reputed S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai (#18) and the B-school of Jamia Millia Islamia (#34) is ranked above IMT-Ghaziabad (#37), although the latter has a national reputation for excellent delhi Education News research and faculty. In EWIPHER, IMT-G is ranked #5 among India’s private B-schools. The infirmity of the NIRF Rankings is that “participating institutions” — assessment is voluntary — are obliged to submit dozens of data sets in prescribed formats for evaluation of the quality of their teaching, learning and research capabilities. Nor is the identity of assessors specified. The unique feature of the NIRF Rankings is that these Union HRD ministry rankings are awarded entirely on the basis of data submitted by HEIs themselves with institutions even obliged to assess public perception suo motu. Although participating institutions are warned that the information submitted by them is subject to cross-checking and audit, the process permits a high degree of subjectivity. Unsurprisingly, a large number of top-ranked private HEIs — Ashoka University, Indian School of Business among others — don’t participate in this official annual rankings exercise because the ministry’s anti-private sector bias is self-evident. “The NIRF Rankings are a joke because it is plainly a self-assessment exercise, with cursory if any audit of the data submitted by HEIs. The world’s most respected university…
I’m sure your brilliant cover story ‘50 leaders who can revive Indian education’ (EW June) has brought considerable cheer to many parents like me who are disillusioned with the quality of the education system. Now with the Covid-19 pandemic forcing closure of all education institutions, the future of our children and youth is uncertain. I was comforted by reading the interviews of the 50 leaders who have outlined innovative solutions and ideas to revive Indian education, including the shift to online learning to ensure education continuity. I was especially impressed by the solutions outlined by prominent educators such as Dr. K. Kasturirangan and Gerry Arathoon. Keep up the good work! Jhimli Bose Kolkata Inspirational but… Compliments to the EducationWorld team for highlighting 50 great institutional leaders across India who offer hope of reviving KG-P hD education (EW June). It was inspirational to read how these leaders and their institutions have adapted to learning challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. However my fear is that HRD ministry officials will ignore the excellent reform recommendations proposed by these worthy representatives of India’s private and public education sectors. Vishakha Jain Mumbai Reinvigorate Digital India Dr. Ashwin Fernandes’ Teacherto-teacher essay on the QS IGAUGE Further Academic Interest Report 2020 (EW May) highlights the greatest challenge confronting Indian education in the Covid-19 era — the glaring digital divide and inadequate IT infrastructure and connectivity. According to the 2017-18 National Sample Survey report, while 66 percent of India’s population lives in villages, only 15 percent of rural households have access to the Internet. Moreover only 24 percent of India’s households have Internet connectivity and a dismal 8 percent of children and youth in the 5-24 age group have access to a computer and Internet connectivity. Therefore without delay, the Central government should assess the effectiveness and implementation bottlenecks of its Digital India campaign launched by prime minister Narendra Modi in 2015 with much fanfare. Clearly, there is urgent need for substantial government investment in building IT infrastructure to ensure underprivileged children can avail online education. Sheela Chitnis Hubli Free teachers! The ‘Corona in the curriculum’ expert comment column (EW June) written by eminent educationist Dr. Krishna Kumar is a wake-up call for Indian educators. I totally agree with Dr. Kumar when he says “it is never too late to imagine doing things differently”. But, unfortunately most teachers in India are preoccupied with covering prescribed syllabuses and have little time for ideating innovative pedagogies. I believe it’s time our teachers are given the freedom to teach beyond prescribed textbooks and engage in curriculum design to make teachinglearning meaningful. Ankita Singh on email Higher ranking enthusiasm We sincerely appreciate the initiative taken by EducationWorld to rate and rank higher education institutions across the country and for especially dedicating a separate league table to private autonomous colleges (EW April). Autonomous colleges are indeed “a class apart and above the vast majority of the country’s undergrad colleges”. Therefore we are greatly enthused that Bhavan’s Vivekananda College of Science, Humanities &…
With the unlock 2.0 strategy of the country announced by the Union government on June 29, it’s now official. All education institutions which have been closed since mid-March will be obliged to remain shut until July 31. This means that children in preschool-class XII in north and western India where the school year begins in April, lose four months of the new academic year, and children in peninsular India where the academic year begins in June will lose two months. Although some wiseacres have suggested that nothing much will be lost if the new academic year is written off as a gap year for all children, it will be too high a price to pay for a nation with rock-bottom learning outcomes in primary education. There is clear and present danger that tens of millions of pre and primary school children will forget what they have learned and will have to restart learning afresh. The consensus of opinion of informed educators is that remote online learning is no substitute for group learning in brick-n-mortar schools which offer the advantages of teacher pupil mentoring and invaluable peer-to-peer learning. Moreover, it’s now well-accepted that education is more than academic accomplishment, and should include development of life skills such as communication and reasoned debate capability, teamwork and social interaction. Every child also has the right to holistic education which develops her co-curricular and sports and games intelligences. This rounded education is best delivered in traditional classrooms and campuses. In the circumstances, the public and national interest demand that the unprecedented four-month lockdown of education institutions is not extended beyond July 31. The risk of a substantial number of children contracting the coronavirus has to be carefully minimised through strict implementation of now well-known safety measures such as face-masking, frequent hand washing, regular sanitisation of institutional premises and social distancing. An additional child safety measure that could be implemented is to reduce classroom strength by inviting children to learn from home and attend classes on alternate days, i.e, three times per week. Inevitably, the blended learning education model outlined above will raise the price of learning. As argued at length in our cover story, middle class and elite households need to rework their budgets to pay for better, safer education provided by private schools. Simultaneously, the Central government has to take the lead and substantially increase its public education budgetary outlay. The standard excuse of paucity of funds has become paper thin and unacceptable. Your editors have repeatedly presented the Union government and the Delhi establishment a detailed calculus (https://www.educationworld.in/ union-budget-2020-21-small-changefor-human-capital-development/) on ways and means to mobilise Rs.8 lakh crore for investment in developing the country’s abundant, high-potential but long-neglected human resource. The prolonged national education deficit has to be urgently made good. Sine qua non.
The troop skirmishes in the Galwan River Valley sector of the 3,488 km undemarcated India-China border which extends from Aksai Chin in the north-west all the way to Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast, that resulted in the brutal clubbing to death of a colonel and 20 men of the Indian Army on June 15, is a tragic consequence of the egregious failure of successive governments in New Delhi to negotiate a stable border line between the two countries. The plain truth is that the People’s Republic of China claims to bits and pieces of the disputed border region are not entirely unmaintainable. It’s common knowledge that during almost two centuries of British rule over the Indian subcontinent, “unequal treaties” were forced upon neighbouring countries, including Afghanistan, Burma and Tibet. Yet, despite SinoIndia bonhomie of the early Nehruvian years, this opportunity was lost. The price of this continuous failure has been repeatedly paid in blood by the Indian Army in the 1962 border war and even after that by troops patrolling uncharted territory in subzero climatic conditions. In retrospect it’s shocking that for over half a century, the Delhi establishment adopted an ostrich-like attitude towards the simmering Sino-Indian border dispute. Astonishingly, since the BJP/NDA coalition was swept to power at the Centre in 2014 and again five years later, prime minister Narendra Modi has had 18 one-on-one confabulations with China’s president Xi Jinping. The long-festering border dispute should have been placed on the agenda and resolved through expeditious give-take negotiations. Meanwhile despite the 20 Indian lives needlessly lost in the vicinity of hazy line of actual control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley, the national interest demands the latest incident is acknowledged as a localised skirmish that flared out of control. At a time when our coronavirus pandemic curve is spiking and the Indian economy is struggling to recover lost momentum after the 68-day national lockdown, this is not an opportune moment for debilitated India with an annual GDP of $3 trillion to take arms against PRC with its $14 trillion economy and superior military capability. Moreover, it’s important to bear in mind that our quarrel is with the unelected 100 million-strong Communist Party of China (CPC) which lords it over modern China, rather than with 1.4 billion Chinese people with whom we have had amicable diplomatic and commercial relations for several millennia. Therefore, the best option in the national interest is to agree to redraw Sino-Indian border lines, even at the cost of conceding some ground to buy time. Simultaneously, we should use our soft power to export freedom and democracy to China by making common cause with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and the growing pro-democracy movement within China, to block and overthrow the brutal, dictatorial CPC regime. Its crimes against the hapless Chinese people are far worse than its atrocities on the India-China border in the north.
The capacity of the people of this country to endure suffering and official ineptitude is matched by a analytical skills deficit and chronic incapability to derive logical conclusions. How else can one explain India’s sustained love affair with Soviet-style socialism which has collapsed in its country of origin and around the world? Jawaharlal Nehru, post-independence India’s first well-intentioned but totally delusional prime minister, endowed the nation with a toxic legacy of neta-babu socialism perpetuated and consolidated by his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv, all prime ministers and leaders of the Congress party which has intermittently ruled at the Centre and in most states of the Indian Union for over 50 years. Despite overwhelming evidence indicating this inorganic development model wasn’t working, the people of India, including the academy and the intelligentsia, repeatedly elected the Congress party which rubbished free enterprise and the native spirit of entrepreneurship to power, ignoring the historical reality that for a millennium before conquest of the sub-continent by British imperialism in the mid-18th century, our merchants and traders had developed ancient India into the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous region. Although somewhat belatedly Congress prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao discerned the damage caused to the economy and substantially dismantled the country’s infamous licence-permit-quota (LPQ) regimen in 1991, over the past 70 years, the country’s 20 million-strong neta-babu brotherhood has acquired a vested interest in LPQ raj. Like marauding locust swarms, this unholy fraternity has ruined Indian industry, agriculture, law and order and public education. And now the bad news is that after devastating the public education system and provoking a continuous exodus of children from the country’s 1.20 million government schools into low-cost, affordable budget private schools, under cover of the Covid-19 pandemic, the brotherhood has focused its attention on regulating and micro-managing the country’s 375,000 private unaided (independent) and estimated 400,000 budget private schools which provide half-decent K-12 education to almost 50 percent of India’s in-school children. Consequently there’s clear and present danger of private schools being levelled down to the status of dysfunctional government schools. Our cover story in this issue is especially a warning to a rising number of middle class parents who welcome incremental government regulation of private education institutions. Although this July issue of EducationWorld is late because of Covid-19 pandemic problems, it is rich with content. In particular our Katha success story, national and international news reports relating how states around the country and nations around the world are coping with the global coronavirus pandemic, as also the expert comment columns, are highly recommended.
Decoupling & crash of civilisations
Sudheendra Kulkarni was aide of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) and currently the Mumbai-based founder of Forum for South Asia “The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to shake off our ancient prejudices, and to build the Earth.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) The global Covid-19 pandemic ought to have united the world as never before. It has caused severe disruption of economies and livelihoods in countries and communities around the world, and precipitated the worst global public health crisis since the outbreak of the Spanish flu a century ago. Thus far (July 3), the total number of Covid positive cases worldwide has almost touched 11 million and the number of deaths 523,177. Of the total global fatalities, the US accounts for 131,423, while in India, the toll has crossed 18,000. In Mumbai, the coronavirus has claimed as many lives (4,632) as in all of China (4,634). According to conventional wisdom, people unite when confronted with danger or calamity. Therefore, faced with twin crises — a deadly health pandemic and consequential debilitating economic crisis — the global community should have united in multiple acts of cooperation and solidarity. Unfortunately, the very opposite is happening. Unity is nowhere in sight. Despite being led by Antonio Guterres, a great global citizen, the United Nations is paralysed. The world’s richest country, led by an unworthy president, first maligned the World Health Organisation and then withdrew from it altogether. The world’s two largest economies — USA and China — which should have become allies in a common war against the pandemic, have on the contrary, begun an ominous new Cold War. “De-coupling” is the bellicose new word guiding this slugfest. Global value chains are being recklessly disrupted, just when the international community urgently needs to strengthen global cooperation links. Closer home, our accursed South Asian neighbourhood has fared no better. The last word in the acronym SAARC stands for ‘cooperation’. But what cooperation can there be within an organisation sunk in a coma? Even though prime minister Narendra Modi has called for SAARC nations to join together to fight the coronavirus pandemic, there is little cooperative action on the ground. How can there be? Modi has refused to attend SAARC summits for the past four years, since it is now Islamabad’s turn to host it. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan has blamed India for the terror attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange, even as the Indian government continues to point accusing fingers at Pakistan for the continuing terrorist attacks in Kashmir. Moreover, guns of the two armies have not stopped firing across the line of control (LoC). All this is happening when the Covid-19 induced lockdown has worsened people’s suffering on both sides of the border. When the visible virus of mutual hate is so uncontrollably active, what hope is there for our two countries joining forces to combat the invisible virus? Equally depressing are border skirmishes between the other…