“School readiness blah blah blah, school readiness, but I think schools should first be made ready to welcome every child.”
Uma Mahadevan, principal secretary, women and child welfare, Karnataka government, on twitter (December 16)
“Do we need another Education Policy? The problem with education is not prescription. It is with application. How about a monitorable action plan clearly outlining what needs to be done? How it will be done? Who will do it? And by when it will be done?”
Anil Swarup, former Union HRD ministry secretary, on twitter (December 18)
“Every morning as they (children) start their journey towards school, they see a terribly fragmented nation — a nation that reproduces gross inequality through stratified schooling. While air-conditioned buses take well-dressed English-speaking children to all sorts of ‘international’ schools, visibly malnourished faces move towards municipality schools… Do any of them ask the question: for whom does the nation exist?”
Avijit Pathak, sociology professor, JNU in ‘Rethinking the idea of a nation requires new sensibilities, not bookish knowledge’ (thewire.in, December 18)
“The inconvenience caused by changing textbooks in the middle of the academic year would be far less damaging to students than the lies they are being forced to study. Even one more term to let school children learn that Maharana Pratap defeated Akbar at Haldighati; pre-Independence Congress leaders had no connect with the people; and how Nehru was just a footnote in our history, is one term too long.”
Jyoti Punwani, journalist, on correcting falsehoods in school textbooks (Indian Express, December 27)
“Our airports are symptomatic of public facilities throughout the country — shoddy, dirty, unfriendly and frequently unsafe — that mock ordinary citizens for their meek complacency.”
Kanti Bajpai, noted academic-analyst, on the pathetic state of India’s airports (Times of India, December 29)