EducationWorld March 09

A chilling deluge poured from black clouds above the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in mid January. The college is Americas second-oldest university, chartered in 1693 by King William III and Queen Mary II.The mood indoors matched the weather. State appropriations for higher education, which depends on tax revenue, have plummeted — down 15 percent since October in the case of William and Mary — and interest from endowments has fallen even faster. With their parents suffering layoffs or business reversals, more students are likely to need financial aid. And donors, with their own investments drying up, have less to give. We really are a good case study for the perfect storm, says the universitys president, Taylor Reveley, rain coursing down outside the windows of his office. And were still early in feeling the full force. Although some seem to hope they can ride it out, the recession has now hit US universities. They have lined up behind banks and car manufacturers asking for money from the federal government, so far without response. They want billions of dollars for science and engineering staff, research into energy alternatives and infrastructure improvement. And they have started to cut spending. William and Mary has delayed the implementation of a 3 percent pay rise for all staff, for example, and has cancelled some journal subscriptions. But the sectors financial leaders warn that this downturn will affect higher education in ways that require far more drastic action than trimming at the margins or asking Washington for handouts. The nature of this challenge is so much greater than any of us have seen in higher education, says Stephen Golding, vice president for finance at Cornell University. If were going to continue to teach, if were going to continue to do research, if were going to continue to provide students access to our institutions, we have to stop doing other things that dont support the core mission. Golding and other leaders predict that American higher education will have to change its whole way of doing business — and many see that as an opportunity. The phrase I hear people around here use is, dont waste a crisis, says Golding. Lets go after things weve known are among our inefficiencies and make them better. One way of doing this is to reduce duplication, be it in e-mail systems in different departments, facilities management or administrative offices. Learning to share resources among departments and even universities is another option. You get into a group and go to Microsoft and say, whats your best deal? suggests Golding. A national cull of support staff, whose numbers have swollen from three for every student in 1976 to more than six today, is also likely. I expect to see some major paring in what you might call the bureaucratic armies, says Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist who studies higher education. New construction is also threatened, with even Harvard announcing that it is reconsidering the scale and pace of a…

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The Talibanisation of India and of the over-hyped Silicon Valley-state-of-India (Karnataka) in particular, which began with the infamous attack on five college girls lunching in a pub in the coastal city of Mangalore on the eve of Republic Day (January 26), is proceeding apace according to the not-so-secret plan of quasi-political outfits such as the Ram Sene, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, VHS and RSS — all affiliates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is making a desperate bid to emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, in the general election scheduled for this summer. Every day newspapers in Bangalore, the administrative capital of the BJP-ruled state of Karnataka, report instances of public assault and humiliation of working women and college students, for the crime of being clad in jeans and/or western attire.The complicity of the states BJP government is manifest because the citys bumbling police force hasnt yet made a single arrest for the serious crimes of assault and molestation of working women by foot-soldiers of the said BJP affiliated outfits. Or else, why has the state government appointed a brain-dead police commissioner who seems ignorant of the fundamental tenets of police manuals, which plainly state that the easiest way to arrest sexual predators is by way of deploying women police decoys to trap them? On the contrary, instead of discharging the traditional job function of nabbing lawbreakers, successive police commissioners have destroyed Bangalores nightlife by ordering early closure of pubs, clubs and restaurants, thus imposing heavy loss on the states exchequer by way of reduced tax revenue. Moreover the reluctance of members of the public to rush to the aid of women in distress indicates that under the post-independence socialist dispensation, India has degenerated into a nation of cowards. In boarding schools of yore, the unwritten code was that any verbal or physical assault on a lady automatically invited a mouthful of knuckles, no questions asked. With law enforcement in contemporary India reduced to a nasty joke, perhaps its time to reassert that unwritten code.

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With the term of the 14th Lok Sabha having expired on February 26, the decks are being cleared in right earnest for the next general election this summer, with poll dates due to be announced any day now. Fortunately and unexpectedly, the last day of the final session of the Lok Sabha ended peacefully without any acrimonious hullabaloo in Parliament, for which this collapsing democracy has become infamous.But while for the majority of members of this Parliament, which disgraced itself for the least number of sittings and hours of debate in post-independence India, the pay and perks laden party is over, for the Indian media — which is experiencing hard times because of the global economic slowdown — election time is party (pun intended) time. With typical recklessness about spending public money for personal aggrandisement, ministers of the outgoing Congress-led 17-party UPA government in New Delhi have commenced an ad spending spree which has delighted the countrys media barons. Without wasting any time, several ministries of the outgoing UPA government are flooding television channels and newspapers with long ad bytes and full-page advertisements, trumpeting their self-proclaimed contributions to the common good and welfare of the citizenry. For instance on February 26, several Union ministries including family health and welfare, shipping, road transport and highways, civil aviation, new and renewable energy, and coal, trumpeted their great and hitherto unknown and unfelt achievements on full-page ads in 19 editions of the Times of India, reportedly the most profitable daily newspaper worldwide. ToIs reported bill for the February 26 advertising blitzkrieg which signals the onset of the election silly season: an estimated Rs.95 lakh, paid out of each ministrys budget allocation. To what purpose? the hapless taxpayer might bleat. The Congress high command reportedly believes this is the route to winning sympathetic coverage and support of Indias largest and most powerful media house. Given that the lucre obsessed ToI management admittedly and officially sells editorial coverage, that might be smart thinking.

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In the over-regulated education sector, politicians with clout, connections and insider knowledge, can cut through red tape and quickly expand capacity. But political wheeling and dealing habits die hard with scandals and allegations of corruption surfacing with tedious regularity. Vidya Pandit reports from Lucknow • August, 2005. Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, sanctioned a government grant of Rs.103.44 crore to the Choudhary Charan Singh Post Graduate College (CCSPGC), sited in his parliamentary constituency of Etawah and managed by the Siksha Prasar Samiti, headed by his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav. Shortly thereafter, the chief minister diverted Rs.69 crore from the UP state govern-ments total budget of Rs.71 crore for unaided degree colleges, to CCSPGC • February, 2007. The management of the NDMVPS Medical College, Nasik, promoted by Nationalist Congress Party MLA Vasantrao Pawar, provoked an outrage by doubling annual tuition fees from Rs.97,000 to Rs.180,000 without any notice to enrolled or applicant students. • May 2008: P.K. Misra, UP chief secretary, resigned after being forced by chief minister Mayawati to transfer 74 acres of land to the Dr. Shakuntala Mishra Seva Sansthan Trust. The objective of the trust constituted by her trusted ally Satish Misra (a Rajya Sabha MP and Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary), was to promote a university for the disabled, for which it had received a grant of Rs.51 lakh. When Misras resignation precipitated a media outcry, Mayawati announced that the university will be constructed by the state government. • November 2008. The higher education department of Maharashtra imposed fines totaling Rs.3 crore on 45 engineering colleges for admitting students in excess of sanctioned capacity. Most of the erring colleges are run by politicians. For example, three engineering colleges owned by MLA Satish Patil were fined Rs.11.46 lakh, while another run by the states textile minister Satish Chaturvedi was penalised Rs.17 lakh. These are a few randomly chosen examples of prominent politicians involved with education being indicted on charges of corruption. Though exact numbers are unavailable, according to industry observers the recession-proof education sector and in particular professional education, is a perennial investment favourite of politicians of all ideologies, with a sizeable number of them actively engaged in running education institutions in Indias 28 states and seven Union territories. Some of the big names include G. Viswan-athan, AIADMK MLA (promoter-director of Vellore Institute of Technology); Chhagan Bhujbal, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra (MET League of Colleges in Mumbai and Bhujbal Knowledge City in Nashik); D.Y. Patil, former member of the Maharashtra legislative assembly (DY Patil Deemed University, Pune); Manohar Joshi, former chief minister of Maharashtra (Kohinoor Technical Institutes in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) and Akhilesh Das Gupta, Samajwadi Party MP (Babu Banarasi Das Group of Educational Institutions, Lucknow). (see box). In the heavily over-regulated education sector, to which the licence-permit-quota regimen has migrated post 1991, politicians with clout, connections and insider knowledge, can quickly cut through red tape to create and expand capacity in school as well as tertiary…

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During exam time, terrorists walked into a school in Baghdad, picked a pupil at random and decapitated him. They left his head on display outside the school building. This was one of a succession of similar incidents during the recent insurgency in Iraq: it was not uncommon for teachers to be murdered in front of their classes, or pupils in front of their teachers.Khureir al-Khuzaie, Iraqs education minister, acknowledges he has a lot to do. He is working with a population that for several years, has seen little value in education. In February he visited Britain with a delegation aiming to improve Iraqi education. They were attending the Learning and Technology World Forum in London. Wherever you go in the Islamic world, you see the fingerprints of Iraqis, said Dr. al-Khuzaie. Iraqi universities used to graduate doctors and engineers of international standard. But after Saddam Hussein came to power, he turned Iraq into a camp for military conflict. Young learners had no hope for the future, because of the wars. Since Saddam was overthrown, little has changed. No schools have been renovated since 1986. And, in addition to the terrorist threat, teachers have had to contend with sudden influxes of refugees from conflict zones: class sizes regularly swell from 30 to 70 in a single day. Weve had to choose between overcrowded classes and students out on the street with no education, says Dr. al-Khuzaie. Comments Radgwan Sultan of the British Council in Baghdad: At some stage, most of the jobs were as policemen or security guards. And you know kids and weapons. But now theres a ban on plastic toy weapons. And theres been a 200 percent wage rise for academics. So it makes a difference whether you have a degree or not. Sultan and Rasheda Zaher Dracey, of the Kurdistan education ministry, also visited Northern Ireland to observe how it has coped in the aftermath of sectarian violence. They were particularly impressed with the integrated schools which bring together Catholics and Protestants. Kurdistan, which avoided the worst of the recent violence, has seen large numbers of refugees from other parts of Iraq. New schools have opened specifically for these refugees, with lessons in Arabic instead of Kurdish. The teachers are Kurdish, says Ms. Zaher-Dracy. But they give Arab pupils food, clothing, pocket money. The reconciliation in schools can affect the whole of society. Were building a country together. Dr. al-Khuzaies ministry is now revising the curriculum, expunging Saddam and his achievements, pictures and ideas from textbooks. The new books, he hopes will be acceptable to everyone, from the mullahs to Marxists. And English will feature prominently. When France came into countries in our region, it dealt culturally with the people and left cultural bridges, says Dr. al-Khuzaie. Britain and USA didnt do that in Iraq. They came in by force and left without building bridges. But the greatest gift of God is forgetting. People forget wars and pain. Theres still an opportunity for England and America to change…

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Private school teachers will be subject to the same strict code of conduct as their state colleagues under plans put forward by the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE). The council is pressing the case for all those in the independent sector, who are exempt from registration, to sign up with the organisation. Currently, just 9,000 teachers — from a total of more than 45,000 working in private schools — are on GTCEs register voluntarily. This means four out of five are not answerable to external regulation if they are accused of incompetence or unprofessional behaviour. Keith Bartley, chief executive of the council, has met four private school associations representing almost 1,000 schools. He says registration would give schools a quality assurance mark.State school teachers are already governed by GTCEs rules. The council has the power to reprimand and even strike off registered teachers guilty of professional misconduct or incompetence. It also provides members with training support. Says Alan Meyrick, the councils registrar: Professional registration has clear benefits for teachers, schools, pupils and to the wider public interest, no matter where teachers work. Our current legislative remit focuses on the state sector, but we welcome and advocate registration for the independent sector as a rounded model of quality assurance and professional support. The independent sector has been increasingly courted by government in recent years, but remains a fierce opponent of the creeping regulation of its schools. Comments David Hanson, the chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools: GTCE came to try and persuade me of the benefits of making registration compulsory. I think some of our schools see it as a quality mark, but many are not persuaded. At the moment its role is seen as policing the profession, not helping it. In 2008, more than 2,100 teachers moved from the state sector to private schools, while almost 600 transferred the other way. There are also increasing links between staff in the two sectors — through academy sponsorship and other partnerships. GTCE spokespersons say it is not seeking legislative changes needed to make the registration of private school teachers compulsory. But John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, says private school teachers should be forced to register to stop unsuitable staff transferring into the state system without the schools knowledge. There is every logic in all teachers in the private sector being required to sign up, says Bangs. They should be subject to the same kinds of controls. (Excerpted and adapted from The Times Education Supplement)

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Almost 70 percent of children in Bangladesh who complete primary education are unable to read, write or count properly, according to an internal report by the department of primary education (DPE). Sixty-nine percent of students who had completed five years of primary school were unable to read news headlines in Bangla newspapers properly, while 87 percent of pupils failed to do simple mathematical calculations, says the study, entitled National Assessment of Pupils of Grades Three and Five — 2006.Conducted by the Second Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-II) — a donor-assisted initiative to ensure quality primary education for all children — the study reported that 72 percent of children were unable to write a short composition in Bangla, the mother tongue of over 95 percent of the population. The report also found students pitiably weak in English, which plays a key role in day-to-day life particularly in business, higher studies and technical education. The quality of education in remote rural areas is far worse than in cities, because of a scarcity of English teachers and the predominance of religious schools (madrasas) where English is shunned. The report says students in class V complete only about 56 percent of the Bangla syllabus, 46 percent of the mathematics and 47 percent of the English syllabus. Many poor students come to school half-fed and cannot pay attention to their studies in afternoon classes as thirst for knowledge is replaced by hunger for food. Inadequately qualified teachers, lack of devotion on the part of the teachers, (and) poor support and monitoring from family, largely contribute to poor learning outcomes, says Rawshan Ara Begum, head teacher of the Chakhar government primary school in southern Barisal district. The study recommended that at least 90,000 new teachers be recruited and 60,000 new classrooms be built immediately. Some 200,000 teachers educate close to 19 million students in about 38,000 government primaries countrywide. Teachers are paid by the government which also supplies free text books. At least 40 percent of students receive financial assistance based on their performance, attendance and the level of family poverty. (Excerpted and adapted from and www.irinnews.org)

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The great majority of middle class India, I suspect, owes a deep debt of gratitude to Christian missionary educationists who run perhaps one-fifth of Indias 75,000 private aided and unaided schools across the subcontinent. The great majority of them provide all-important English medium school education which — although the countrys cynical politicians elbow-deep in sub-standard vernacular textbook printing rackets will never admit it — is the indispensable passport to affluence and socio-economic status in this ruthlessly unequal society shaped by the brain-dead heirs of the Mahatma.Certainly I do owe and acknowledge, a deep debt to Christian missionary educationists for the dedication and forbearance with which they taught me the 3 Rs. Indeed such was the reputation and fame of Indias church-run boarding schools that I was sent a long way from East Africa to study in one of them, a parental decision which — despite the caning culture and peer bullying which boarding schools of yesteryear were heir to — I have never regreted. On the contrary, the experience persuaded me to migrate to India to do my bit for the greater good of the greatest number here. Although my alma mater — Bishop Cotton Boys, Bangalore — is an Anglican church-run institution, I am well aware of the comparable K-12 education provided to thousands of students across the country by the dedicated and committed education missionaries of the Society of Jesus, famously known as Jesuits. Some of my most cherished triumphs were scored in epic battles on the games field with the rival Jesuit-run St. Josephs School, Bangalore. Yet its perhaps accurate to say that although the Society of Jesus runs 155 schools across the country, it doesnt dominate the primary-secondary schools sector to the same extent as it does collegiate education. All the 31 Jesuit colleges countrywide are highly rated by NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council), and four of them are routinely ranked among the top 10 in the annual India Today league tables of the countrys most reputed colleges. Therefore when we heard on the grapevine that the Society has made a formal proposal to the Union government to establish a centrally-funded Xavier University of India which will affiliate 22 of the best Jesuit colleges across the country, naturally there was considerable excitement in the editorial office of this publication. After some hesitation, the modest leaders of the Society were persuaded to share their dreams and aspirations about the proposed university with EducationWorld. The outcome is an inspiring story about the low-profile Society of Jesus and its high-potential plan, which could hugely raise teaching-learning standards in Indias rapidly obsolescing higher education system. And to write this months special report feature on the pros and cons of politicians in education, Lucknow-based special correspondent Vidya Pandit networked with EW correspondents across the country to file a thought-provoking feature. Contrary to popular belief, yes, there is benefit to society.

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Every month shelter Don Bosco, sited in Wadala, Mumbai stages a two-day mela (festival) for the ever growing number of street children in Indias commercial capital. It is the brainchild of Dr. (Fr.) Barnabe DSouza, an alumnus of University College, Worcester (UK) and Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai. Shelter Don Bosco is a Mumbai-based NGO which has been educating street children since 1987.Initiated by the Salesian Society, the Shelter is part of the Don Bosco group of institutions which work with, and for youth. Fr. Barnabe worked as a teacher with Don Bosco High School, Lonavala and was vice-principal of the orders school in Panjim, Goa, before accepting his current assignment. In 1995 the Shelter had only three programmes — monthly melas (for medical check ups, initiation into the Shelter and recreation of street children); Outreach (a programme for identifying street children and bringing them into the Shelter), and a residential home housing 180-200 children in Wadala, central Mumbai. The philosophy at that time was ‘let the street children be and infuse some happiness into their lives which were being wasted in the streets. I wanted to see them become contributing citizens of society, says Fr. Barnabe. As director of the Shelter, he has expanded its activities to getting children off the streets and uniting them with their families. In 1997, Shelter Don Bosco began its first non-formal classes with an enrollment of 38 boys. Last year the enrollment was 125 boys with 110 of them undergoing non-formal schooling, and the rest enrolled in municipal schools. Thus far the programme has benefited 3,500 street boys. In 1999, Fr. Barnabe promoted Maria Ashiana, a youth drug rehabilitation programme in Lonavala near Mumbai, which runs six-month programmes for batches of 40-50 children. Together with Fr. Xavier, a previous director of the Shelter, Barnabe has conceptualised the Don Bosco Yuva Pratishthan in Karjat near Mumbai, where boys are taught life skills and trained in motor car driving and mechanics. Over the next five years, Barnabe wants to popularise the use of FINO (financial information network and operations) cards, promoted by the Union Bank of India, among street children and the poor and homeless. There are several social groups without identity in Indian society. With FINO, they can establish their identity by swiping a biometric hand held machine with the card and using their thumbs as the key, he says. The annual budget for the Shelters activities is around Rs.1.50 crore, and most of the funding comes from Christian missionaries in Europe. Funds are drying up and last year the annual budget took a 90 percent dip. Thats why we have initiated Mission Shikshan to raise a corpus of Rs.1 crore through staging cultural events, to create awareness within Indian industry about Don Bosco. We wont give up, says this tireless samaritan. Harshikaa Udasi (Mumbai)

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Im a second year B.Com student. Please brief me about entrepreneurship study programmes. Vikram Swamy, Chennai The Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Ahmedabad (www.edi india.org) offers a two-year full-time residential postgrad diploma programme. The institute also provides the option of distance education. Alternatively, theres the one-year postgrad progra-mme in family owned business and entrepreneurship offered by IIM-Indore and the NIIT Imperia Centre for Advanced Learning, both open to graduates with at least a year of work experience. You could also opt for short-term courses such as the six-month certificate in entrepreneurship develop-ment offered by the Stanford Techno-logy Venture Programme, Stanford University, USA in collaboration with the National Entrepreneurship Network of the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune. And the diploma in entrepreneurship offered by Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. Ill be graduating in civil engineering this year. Would you advise me to pursue further studies at the National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR), Hyderabad, where Ive secured admission, or should I sign up for a job? Deepak Rao, Bangalore NICMARs two-year programme in advanced construction manage-ment trains students for techno-management positions in the construction industry. This programme is tailor made for civil engineering graduates and improves their career advancement prospects. Moreover NICMAR, established by the Indian construction industry and recognised by the government of India, is a scientific and industrial research organisation. Im presently reading for an MA in history. I wish to press on to acquire a Ph D from an American university. Please advise. Nilima Seth, Mumbai Doctoral studies in american universities are conducted in three stages. First, a postgrad needs to complete a preliminary programme comprising seminar and laboratory studies and pass a written examination. Next, the student selects a subject for dissertation, forms a dissertation committee and designs her research. Once the student has developed and presented a research design blueprint acceptable to her advisor and committee, the independent research (third) phase begins. Im in class XII. My subjects are physics, chemistry, maths and biology. I want to pursue a career in nutrition and dietetics or genetic engineering. Please advise. Nandini Mukherjee, Kolkata If you are interested in making a career in nutrition and dietetics, its advisable to enroll in a B.Sc (home science) study programme and specialise in these subjects. For genetics or genetic engineering studies, a B.Sc in biological/life sciences is the starting point, to be followed by a Masters in related subjects and specialisation in genetics. Alternatively, you could pursue B.Sc/B.Tech (biotechnology) en route to genetic engineering. If you want to keep both options open after B.Sc, then opt for microbiology/biochemistry/life sciences. After completing your bachelors degree, you can study for an M.Sc (home science) with specialisation in nutrition and dietetics, or a postgraduate diploma in dietetics or M.Sc with specialisation in genetics. Im in second year B.Com and confused whether I should read for an LLB or MBA after graduation. Which of the two offers better career prospects? Nalini DSouza, Panjim Both law and business management offer good employment prospects. Your…

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Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to conduct 11 parent-training workshops, working with parents who have a strong desire to do the right thing when it comes to guiding their children through the world of sport.While interacting with them, the issue that has strongly impacted me is the huge frustration and helplessness that most of them seem to experience. Its more than likely that parents reading this page experience these feelings, too, as they witness their children encounter the challenges, disappointments, and physical and psychological pain that come with playing games and sports. The natural inclination of every parent is to protect her child. Thus, when you witness an official making a bad call, or a coach cutting down your childs play time, or an opposing player physically or verbally attacking your child, you instinctively want to step in to ‘handle it. But when you intervene, you are likely to be labeled a bad sports parent. With all the media attention directed at sports parents these days, the last thing any parent wants is to be featured on the five oclock news! Of course, sitting back and doing nothing wont make you feel good, either. So what must a respon-sible parent do in such a situation? The first thing is to understand that wanting to rush on to the field and push the kid who just pushed your kid, is a perfectly normal sentiment. Experiencing this sentiment doesnt make you a bad person. Its a perfectly natural response. In fact you should worry if you dont experience this rush of emotion. Yet its important to understand that how you feel and how you choose to react to such situations, are distinctly separate issues. Sentiment is neither good nor bad; it just is. Behaviour, on the other hand results in action which is open to judgement. In such situations the best course is to acknowledge your feelings and choose to act in a way that will make a positive impact on your child. And the best course of action that will have the greatest positive effect is to let your child handle the situation. This is a parents hardest job: to step back and let children make mistakes, experience frustration, and even get hurt (within reason). Because if you dont let a child resolve the problem of reduced play time with the coach, what will she do when shes 27 and her boss passes her over for a promotion? If your children assume that every time they face a challenge or setback, mom or dad will step in, what message does it send them about their own competence? By step-ping in parents may offer reassurance and appease their fear for the moment, but such protectiveness will have the negative impact of pushing the child towards diffidence in the future. Rather than helping by stepping in, parents prevent their children from taking independent decisions and learning through experience — bad and good. Engaging in sport teaches children numerous life…

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California-based NComputing Inc, a global provider of low-cost personal computers and virtual desktop software, has enabled shared-computing in 5,000 government schools in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to improve the learning outcomes of 1.8 million students. Under the state governments PPP (public-private partnership) build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) model, several ICT companies including NIIT, ECIL, Educomp, Everonn, IEG, Terasoft and Social Computers are utilising NComputings X-series shared-computing technology, reducing the companies aggregate expenditure by Rs.80 crore. NComputing which began its operations in India in 2007, is working with 15 state governments to pilot or implement its cost-saving shared-computing solutions.Our shared-computing technology is best suited for Indian conditions. It cuts the cost of computers by about half, reduces electricity consumption, and is easy to manage and secure, says Raj Shah, global chief marketing officer of NComputing Inc.

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In partnership with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Hewlett Packard India announced the launch of Hewlett Packard-TERI Schools Future Programme — an initiative to upgrade environment projects in schools, on February 17. To fund the project, HP India has conferred a grant of $250,000 (Rs.1.25 crore) comprising cash and technology resources to TERI.Learning about waste management, energy conservation and ecological sustenance has become essential in this day and age, because the world needs the new generation to treat our environment responsibly. We are pleased to be partnering with TERI, a renowned organisation in the field of environment education, which has been a driving force behind environment conservation and awareness at the grassroots level, said Ms. Neelam Dhawan, managing director, HP India. Under the partnership agreement, the Hewlett Packard-TERI Schools Future Programme will help primary and secondary schools in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi to take practical action to conserve energy and water to reduce their utility bills. The programme will support schools directly with ideation, and help implement their environmental initiatives. The initiative also involves providing HP technology to schools, which will enable them to network with other schools and share best practices.

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The Delhi-based Educomp Solutions Ltd –– Indias largest ICT (instructional communication technologies) education company –– proposes to promote budget schools in small towns countrywide. To be known as Vidya Prabhat Schools, they will offer world class, affordable schooling which will blend latest innovations in education technology with traditional Indian knowledge and values.There is a shortage of over 200,000 schools in the country, especially in small towns and rural areas. Most tier-3 towns dont have access to schools that offer high-quality, standardised education available to children in metros and large towns. We hope to fill this gap, said Shantanu Prakash, the promoter-chief executive of ESL at a press conference in New Delhi on February 3. We expect to start five Vidya Prabhat schools by July 2009, and over the next two-three years establish 100 schools through this model across India, he added. The first five Vidya Prabhat schools will become operational in Bazpur, Kashipur, Bahl Parav and Gadarpur in Uttarakhand. These schools will admit their first batches in July/August. Monthly tuition fees will average Rs.700 per student.

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“This (moral policing) is ridiculous. Todays youngsters have a better value system than us.” Infosys chairman and mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy in DNA (February 18) “Courts should be clean, run on the basis of a straight, transparent and accountable code of conduct with the aid of a performance commission with punitive powers. If even one corrupt judge pollutes the glory of the great tribe, expel him.” Former Supreme Court justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in The Hindu (February 19) “We have a skewed higher education system and institutions are concentrated only in urban and metropolitan areas. We dont have good quality educa-tional institutes in small and backward regions.” B.B. Bhattacharya, vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Education Plus (February 23) “The essence of the film is about optimism and the power of hope. All my life I had a choice of hate over love. I chose love, and Im here.” Music director A.R. Rahman in his Oscar awards acceptance speech for the musical score of Slumdog Millionaire in Los Angeles (February 23) “In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity — it is a prerequisite…” US President Barack Obama delivering his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress (February 24) “A researcher or film-maker can barge into a slum home any time — no permission sought or needed. On the other hand, an upper class door does not yield under pressure. This why both academics and artists can make a lifetimes reputation purveying the lives of the poor.” JNU sociology professor Dipankar Gupta in Times of India (February 28) “We cant deceive the world. We should openly oppose terrorism.” Former president Pervez Musharraf on why Pakistan shouldnt hide its role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks

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Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Under fire from the media and the middle class for tacitly supporting moral policing in the state, the BJP government in Karnataka (pop. 57 million) is making a desperate bid to focus public attention on its development initiatives, particularly in education. On February 25, the state governments education department repackaged an eight-year-old school adoption scheme and presented it in a new avatar — the ‘School Nurturing Programme, inviting corporates to cooperate with the government in establishing public-private partnerships to upgrade the states languishing Kannada medium government schools.Under the repackaged School Nurturing programme, corporates and non-government organisations, which ‘adopt one or more of the 48,987 government schools in the state, will be given the freedom to improve learning outcomes in adopted school/s. Unlike the earlier school adoption scheme in which the prime focus was on infrastructure upgradation, in the new programme nurturers (i.e corporate sponsors) will be free to intervene in teacher training, teacher selection, and introducing ICT (instructional communication technologies) to improve learning outcomes. IT companies could specially focus on introducing IT in education. Given that the industry is the biggest beneficiary of a high-quality education system, it must complement the governments efforts in upgrading the public school education system, said Azim Premji, chairman and chief executive officer of Wipro Technologies and founder chairman of the Azim Premji Foundation, speaking on the occasion. Since the School Adoption Programme was launched with much fanfare in 2001, only 9,000 of Karnatakas 48,987 government schools have attracted sponsors, with most of them making one-time contributions for infrastructure upgradation and providing little or nil academic/teacher training inputs. The state governments public instruction department website (www.schooleducation.kar.nic.in/SchoolNurturing.htm) lists 20 investors including Infosys Foundation, Rotary Clubs, Azim Premji Foundation, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Round Table, India (Bangalore), Lions Clubs, as partners in its new School Nurturing Programme. Ironically Madhumita, a spokesperson of the Azim Premji Foundation, denies that the foundation has adopted any school under the programme. The Azim Premji Foundation is not partnering (sic) with the government in the School Nurturing Programme. Mr. Premji was invited as chief guest for the inaugural function because of his immense contributions in the field of education and the positive relationship that the foundation shares with the government of Karnataka, she said in an e-mail response to EducationWorld. Likewise an Infosys spokes-person also denied that the company has adopted any school under the scheme. The hesitation of private sector companies to enter into public-private partnerships with the state government is understandable. Karnatakas education department is infamous for nit-picking educrats and inspectors given to micro-managing government primary and secondary schools. Sponsor companies fear that precious time and resources of their corporate social responsibility teams will be wasted in getting government approvals for their school upgradation and teacher training proposals. The approval process takes a long time and requires constant follow-up with education department officials, who behave as if theyre doing us a big favour by accepting our plan. Its better to work with committed NGOs already involved with education, says a…

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During the 31 years it has been in power in West Bengal (pop. 80 million), the CPM (aka Communist Party of India-Marxist) dominated Left Front government has taken every care to run the states education system, from primary school to university postgraduation, to suit its ideological predilections. Therefore, the criterion for appointment of teachers and education administrators is not academic merit, but allegiance to the party. As a result, West Bengals once hallowed academic institutions — hitherto respected countrywide — have become synonymous with inefficiency and mediocrity.Students suffer most, especially the brightest and best. Their plight was recently illustrated by the curious case of Pritam Rooj, a second year mathematics honours student of Presidency College, Kolkata, one of the few surviving centres of academic excellence in West Bengal. In paper V of his University of Calcutta (UCal) maths examination, Rooj was awarded an unexpected 28 percent. When he appealed to UCal for review, his score was increased to 32, the minimum pass mark. Suspecting foul play, Rooj asked UCal to show him the corrected answer script. UCal rejected his request on grounds that university rules do not provide for showing answer scripts. Dissatisfied, Rooj filed a writ petition in the Calcutta high court (Pritam Rooj vs. University of Calcutta and Others, W.P. no. 22176(W) of 2007). In a widely appreciated judgement delivered on February 5, Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice Dipankar Dutta upheld the right of examination candidates to inspect their answer scripts. Invoking Article 19 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression to every citizen, the court pronounced: If inspection of answer scripts is denied to the examinee, the spirit of the Constitutional right to free expression and information may be lost. The knowledge-builders — the universitys — bid to perpetuate the draconian, elitist, one-sided right to know and judge and rule without being open to question or accountable to the examinee, cannot be encouraged. For a system to foster meaningful proliferation of knowledge, it must itself be crystal clear to its core. Following the courts judgement, the state governments education bureaucracy has gone into a tizzy. Dr. Mamata Ray, president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Examination, declined to speak for the record as judicial implications of implementing the ruling are still under review by the school education department. The secondary and higher secondary boards commandeer the services of around 70,000 school teachers to evaluate scripts of 1.1 million school leavers. The quality of examiners recruited by CPM bosses in the districts is so poor that erratic marking and evaluation is the norm, says a school teacher who is also an examiner. Hasty, incompetent evaluation is the norm at university level as well. And given that UCal evaluates over 300,000 scripts annually, officials fear that the ratio decidendi of the February 5 judgement could lead to a flood of review applications resulting in additional work-load for the varsitys administrative staff. Meanwhile there is considerable speculation in academia whether the state government will appeal the high…

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The imperial experience and link of the English language prompts Indian intellectuals and scholars to automatically look West for national development nostrums and inspiration. But the current crisis of capitalism in the US and the imminent bankruptcy of Britain and other erstwhile European imperial powers, suggests its time to look East for more meaningful socio-economic development models and motivation. A first ever week-long (holiday) visit to Thailand, which one assumed was a third world country, humbled your editor into acknowledging this South-east Asian nation (pop. 60 million) as leagues ahead of reportedly shining India in the national development race.Admittedly, national development can be measured in myriad ways. For some countries such as the former Soviet Union and contemporary North Korea, national development was — and is — synonymous with military capability. Another more common yardstick for gauging national development is by weighing gross national product and per capita income. Yet such simplistic indices fail to indicate wealth distribution within societies, and consumption gaps between rich elites and poor majorities. Hence the perpetual search for alternative ‘gross national happiness and ‘human development indices. Against this backdrop, its necessary to measure the development of nations and societies by mixing macro statistics with intelligent observation. With a per capita income of $8,677 adjusted for purchasing parity, and adult literacy attainment of 92.6 percent, the constitutional monarchy of Thailand (78) is ranked way above India (128) in UNDPs human development index (HDI). Yet the gap between the two nations is even wider than suggested by HDI, if one factors in intangibles such as quality of infrastructure and public services, visible standards of living, health of population, good manners and social harmony. On all these counts, contemporary Thailand is light years ahead of purportedly shining India. The excellent quality of Bangkoks public transport system, which includes efficient sky train and underground metro networks; affordable multi-mode road transport; disciplined road traffic (use of car horns is rare) despite frequent traffic jams and the ubiquity of clean toilets, suggest high standard elementary education. Moreover the astonishingly polite service provided in hotels, restaurants, transport and government departments suggests high quality life skills-oriented primary-secondary education. Even within the entertainment industry, short-changing of customers is a rarity and commercial sex workers are accorded the respect given to all citizens and visitors. In this context, its pertinent to note that in terms of infrastructure provision and maintenance of hygiene and service standards, modern Thailand is not only superior to laggard India, but also to western countries including the US and Britain. Yes, its time to look East to learn valuable lessons in building service-oriented, harmonious societies dedicated to the greater good of the greatest number.

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