Measure of success
JOHN M. ALEXANDER
Some uncomfortable questionson what ails the system of higher education in the country.
Beyond Degrees, edited by Ira Pande, is a rich collection of essays on. With contributions from leading intellectuals, educationists, scientists, and economists, the anthology not only offers a perceptive analysis of the problems plaguing the country's educational system, but also puts forward valuable strategies and suggestions for revamping it in order to make it beneficial for every stakeholder.
What makes the collection engaging is that many authors have interwoven their thoughts and reflections with their personal memoirs and experiences. The contributions of Shashi Tharoor, Kumkum Bhattacharya, Zoya Hasan, Mrinal Pande and Lalit Joshi look back at their respective alma maters with nostalgia and a sense of pride.
The photo essays "Campus Styles" and "Breaching the Male Bastions" are a refreshing tribute to the earliest educational institutions and scholars of the country and highlight the gender dimension of the problem. Overall, the volume raises the alarm on the ailing conditions of the education system and sends out the message that confronting uncomfortable questions on the quality and future of higher education is already overdue.
Glaring Disparities
At the very outset, the huge disparity in the quality of colleges and universities in the country is striking. On the one hand, the Indian education system is globally acclaimed because of a few pockets of excellence such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. On the other hand, the vast majority of educational institutions are characterised by mediocrity and non-performance. When it comes to the quality of teaching, original and cutting-edge research, publication of peer-reviewed research articles in top journals, and winning of patents, Indian colleges and universities lag behind not just the ones in developed countries but also those in Brazil and China. This unevenness must be addressed swiftly as the future of the country depends on the quality of education and research.
Lack of applied knowledge
Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam points out in his essay "Knowledge into Power" that a major problem before the country today is unemployability. In spite of receiving a formal education, the vast majority of the youth in India suffer from a lack of adequate applied knowledge to carry out jobs effectively. One of the main reasons for this is the widening gap between academic knowledge and its applicability.
The university curricula should be restructured to meet the growing domestic and international demand for human resources with world-class skills. This aim can be reached only when there is a strong interface between what is taught in the classroom and the actual requirements of the economy. Otherwise, our education system will continue to produce unfinished products, leading to an even greater crisis of unemployability.
Purpose of education
Focussing on employment, however, should not lead to a sort of careerism where the whole point of education is reduced to converting students into an efficient workforce. Unfortunately, for many business schools, management institutes and universities today, the sole measure of success is campus placements and the average salary package rather than enkindling in students a spirit of scientific inquiry and a MACROBUTTON ViewFootnotes ( desire to pursue original thought. It is a miracle, Albert Einstein famously noted, that curiosity survives despite the formal education in our schools and universities. more
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Dancing through the Thesis
Meet the student who danced her PhD to victory!
Thu, Nov 27 02:55 PM
Melbourne, Nov 27 (ANI): In a rather innovative collaboration between science and art, a PhD student from University of Sydney has won an international dance contest, where participants had to actually dance their thesis.
Dr Sue Lynn Lau stood first in the graduate student section with her entry "The role of vitamin D in beta cell function".
She has won a trip to Chicago as her prize where she will see her winning entry performed by professional dancers in February 2009.
Her routine included a troupe of five dancers who danced on three pieces of music: the Latin rhythm of 'Hot Hot Hot', moving through the classical 'Nutcracker Suite', ending with the popular 'Walking on Sunshine'. more
Friday, October 24, 2008
Sex education for 5-yr-olds compulsory in UK schools
Reuters
Thursday, October 23, 2008 22:56 IST
Secondary school pupils will learn about the importance of stable relationships to family life and about how risky sexual behaviour can lead to infection and unwanted pregnancies. “Modern life is increasingly complex and we have a duty to equip our young people with the knowledge and skills to deal with it,” said schools minister Jim Knight. “It’s vital that this information doesn’t come from playground rumour or the mixed messages from the media about sex.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
New iTunes website: lectures from the prestigious universities available for free.
The Hindu, October 08, 2008 International
New iTunes website catch Britain's elite students' fancy
New iTunes website catch Britain's elite students' fancy
Oxford (AP): What's playing on your iPod? If you're an aspiring university student, Oxford and Cambridge hope it's them.
Britain's elite universities uploaded more than 350 hours of podcasts and video podcasts on Tuesday to a new iTunes Web site designed specifically for universities.
School leaders say they want to reach out to potential students from diverse backgrounds, including those who attend secondary schools not typically sending students to Oxford and Cambridge.
Oxford is advising potential applicants on how to write a personal statement, how to choose from the university's many programmes and how to get through an interview.
Cambridge includes a guide to admissions for parents.
The podcasts are freely available online, so applicants don't need an iPod to listen to them.
In addition, lectures from the prestigious universities will also be available for free. more
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Royal Society: Show respect 'creationism ''
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Royal Society: Schools should show creationism 'respect'
It's not as bad as it seems
Published Friday 12th September 2008 11:05 GMT
Updated The Royal Society has backed the discussion of creationism in school science classes, kicking off what promises to be a spectacular row amongst the country’s top boffins.
The boffinry talking-shop’s director of education told the British Association’s festival of science in Liverpool that creationism should be examined in school science classes as a legitimate point of view.
Michael Reiss, who is both a professor of biology and a Church of England clergyman, took the position that with ten per cent of UK school children coming from families with creationist leanings, teachers should convey a message of “respect” for those beliefs while continuing to teach evolution.
Ultimately, Reiss said, such children were unlikely to change their minds, but at least could be encouraged to view evolution as one way of understanding the universe.
Even more controversially, perhaps, The Royal Society told the Times that Reiss’ position reflected that of the society, on the basis that “teachers need to be in a position to be able to discuss science theories and explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism isn’t”.
Sadly, Reiss’ plea for understanding is more likely to spark an almighty punch-up – if not in classrooms then certainly in the scientific and educational community.
For a start, creationism is firmly off the national curriculum. More importantly, his fellow scientists rushed to rubbish the prospect of creationism being debated over the nation’s Bunsen burners and metre rules. More
Friday, September 12, 2008
'Professor' Kalam teaches at IIM-A: 'Globalising a Resurgent India..'
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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
FC students in Kerala to get quota benefit
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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
ABC News: Chicago Students Boycott First Day of School
ABC News: Chicago Students Boycott First Day of School: "Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Church in Chicago, who helped organize the boycott, echoed that sentiment.
'We're bringing these children to Winnetka today because we have exhausted other methods,' Acree said. 'We want the governor and the senate and legislators all across the state to hear our plea. We want them to see the innocent children from Chicago who are victims of apartheid-style education. We want them to see the inequalities and disparities in our system.'"
'We're bringing these children to Winnetka today because we have exhausted other methods,' Acree said. 'We want the governor and the senate and legislators all across the state to hear our plea. We want them to see the innocent children from Chicago who are victims of apartheid-style education. We want them to see the inequalities and disparities in our system.'"
Kerala to punish 4,000 schools for 'term' exam
Tue, Sep 2 06:53 PM
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 2 (IANS) Action would be taken against nearly 4,000 schools in Kerala for violating the guidelines for conducting Onam examinations, the state Education Department said Tuesday.
'The new rules are very clear. There can be no examination during Onam (first term) and Christmas (second term). The new guidelines that came into effect from this academic year state that the schools can conduct only half-yearly and final examinations,' Mohammed Hanish, director of public instruction, told IANS.
He said 14 district education officers would submit a report on the list of schools which conducted examinations and violated the government directive. ...>full story
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 2 (IANS) Action would be taken against nearly 4,000 schools in Kerala for violating the guidelines for conducting Onam examinations, the state Education Department said Tuesday.
'The new rules are very clear. There can be no examination during Onam (first term) and Christmas (second term). The new guidelines that came into effect from this academic year state that the schools can conduct only half-yearly and final examinations,' Mohammed Hanish, director of public instruction, told IANS.
He said 14 district education officers would submit a report on the list of schools which conducted examinations and violated the government directive. ...>full story
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Aligarh Muslim University ties up with American universities
Aligarh Muslim University ties up with American universities
Submitted by Mudassir Rizwan on 16 August 2008 - 12:07pm.
By IANS,
Aligarh : The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has tied up with the Washington University Law School and the Johns Hopkins University to offer several academic programmes to its students, university officials said Saturday.
"The academic tie-up will help us in providing better career opportunities to our students," AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar told IANS.
Following the academic partnership, students and faculty exchange programmes would now be started among the three educational institutions, he added.
The academic exchange programmes are likely to be started from the next academic session, the varsity officials said.
AMU Vice-Chancellor P.K. Abdul Azis is in the US to sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with seven US universities with an aim of opening new educational and job opportunities for AMU students and scholars.
Addressing a gathering of AMU alumni in Washington Professor Azis said: "The academic standard of AMU is showing upward trend and plans are underway to upgrade research and library facilities and the infrastructure of the university."
Reference
Submitted by Mudassir Rizwan on 16 August 2008 - 12:07pm.
By IANS,
Aligarh : The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has tied up with the Washington University Law School and the Johns Hopkins University to offer several academic programmes to its students, university officials said Saturday.
"The academic tie-up will help us in providing better career opportunities to our students," AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar told IANS.
Following the academic partnership, students and faculty exchange programmes would now be started among the three educational institutions, he added.
The academic exchange programmes are likely to be started from the next academic session, the varsity officials said.
AMU Vice-Chancellor P.K. Abdul Azis is in the US to sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with seven US universities with an aim of opening new educational and job opportunities for AMU students and scholars.
Addressing a gathering of AMU alumni in Washington Professor Azis said: "The academic standard of AMU is showing upward trend and plans are underway to upgrade research and library facilities and the infrastructure of the university."
Reference
Monday, July 7, 2008
Teach India: Don't kill Right to Education Bill-India-The Times of India
Teach India: Don't kill Right to Education Bill-India-The Times of India
Teach India: Don't kill Right to Education Bill
8 Jul 2008, 0254 hrs IST
Print EMail
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In August 2005, a bill was drafted with a sense of hope. This was the bill that would change the face of education in India. The draft brimmed with new ideas, the most radical being a clause that made it compulsory for private schools to have reservations so that rich and poor rubbed shoulders in the schoolroom and learnt about the way the other India lived.
The ministers and bureaucrats were unimpressed by this Gandhian vision, authored by the Government of India's Central Advisory Board for Education. More than unimpressed, they were unwilling. Reservations is a prickly political chestnut at the best of times and this ambitious clause was something they certainly did not want on their heads.
Three years have passed. The bill has been bounced around like an unwanted ball from department to department, it has been buried and resurrected and sent to limbo land. The cabinet has not bother- ed to read or discuss it. It was not introduced in the budget session. Right now, it is stuck somewhere in the bewildering maze that is the bureaucracy.
After the 2002 86th constitutional amendment made education a fundamental right for children under fourteen, the NDA government drafted a bill on the right to education. The bill never reached parliament. When the UPA government was elected, the issue was brought up again and a new bill was drafted in 2005. While the NDA bill had been drafted by government officers alone, the UPA bill involved a much wider range of professionals including university teachers, NGOs and government servants. The signs were good but educationists have long learnt not to always trust the signs.
So what is the Right to Education bill all about? Broadly speaking, it aims at setting minimum standards for both public and private schools so that the quality of education improves throughout the country and current inequities are levelled. While most will have no quarrel with this aim, many may have serious reservations about the method. A controversial clause makes it compulsory for all private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for poor children from the neighbourhood. This includes elite ICSE and IB schools, too. So even a school like a DPS in Delhi would be subject to this clause as would a Cathedral or a Dhirubhai Ambani in Mumbai and a St Xavier's and a La Martiniere in Kolkata. The bill has been fiercely opposed by the private school lobby which feels that opening its doors to the dhobi's son and the driver's daughter will dilute its brand value and lower standards. There is also the problematic issues of the high fees that some schools charge and the culture of elitism they espouse.
On another front, the bill aims at plugging some of the loopholes in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. For instance, it wants to outlaw non-formal education and do away with the contract system of recruiting teachers which has proved disastrous.
"All non-formal schools across the country will as per the bill have three years to upgrade themselves to formal schools, which provide the minimum standards prescribed by the bill," says Vinod Raina, one of the architects of the bill. A physics teacher at Delhi University, Raina was one of the founders of the Eklavya Program, set up in Madhya Pradesh in 1972 to bring quality education to disadvantaged children.
As for the contract system, the government currently allows schools to appoint teachers on a contract basis and pay them a paltry sum of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month. Very often these teachers are simply not qualified to teach. The bill wants that this be abolished and that all teachers, both in private and government schools, be appointed on a permanent basis and given a full salary as long as they are qualified. Recognising the fact that there is a huge shortage of trained teachers across the country, the bill provides for a five-year period for the government to create a talent pool by launching wide-scale teacher-training programs.
Teach India: Don't kill Right to Education Bill
8 Jul 2008, 0254 hrs IST
Print EMail
Discuss New
Bookmark/Share
Save Write to Editor Single page view
In August 2005, a bill was drafted with a sense of hope. This was the bill that would change the face of education in India. The draft brimmed with new ideas, the most radical being a clause that made it compulsory for private schools to have reservations so that rich and poor rubbed shoulders in the schoolroom and learnt about the way the other India lived.
The ministers and bureaucrats were unimpressed by this Gandhian vision, authored by the Government of India's Central Advisory Board for Education. More than unimpressed, they were unwilling. Reservations is a prickly political chestnut at the best of times and this ambitious clause was something they certainly did not want on their heads.
Three years have passed. The bill has been bounced around like an unwanted ball from department to department, it has been buried and resurrected and sent to limbo land. The cabinet has not bother- ed to read or discuss it. It was not introduced in the budget session. Right now, it is stuck somewhere in the bewildering maze that is the bureaucracy.
After the 2002 86th constitutional amendment made education a fundamental right for children under fourteen, the NDA government drafted a bill on the right to education. The bill never reached parliament. When the UPA government was elected, the issue was brought up again and a new bill was drafted in 2005. While the NDA bill had been drafted by government officers alone, the UPA bill involved a much wider range of professionals including university teachers, NGOs and government servants. The signs were good but educationists have long learnt not to always trust the signs.
So what is the Right to Education bill all about? Broadly speaking, it aims at setting minimum standards for both public and private schools so that the quality of education improves throughout the country and current inequities are levelled. While most will have no quarrel with this aim, many may have serious reservations about the method. A controversial clause makes it compulsory for all private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for poor children from the neighbourhood. This includes elite ICSE and IB schools, too. So even a school like a DPS in Delhi would be subject to this clause as would a Cathedral or a Dhirubhai Ambani in Mumbai and a St Xavier's and a La Martiniere in Kolkata. The bill has been fiercely opposed by the private school lobby which feels that opening its doors to the dhobi's son and the driver's daughter will dilute its brand value and lower standards. There is also the problematic issues of the high fees that some schools charge and the culture of elitism they espouse.
On another front, the bill aims at plugging some of the loopholes in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. For instance, it wants to outlaw non-formal education and do away with the contract system of recruiting teachers which has proved disastrous.
"All non-formal schools across the country will as per the bill have three years to upgrade themselves to formal schools, which provide the minimum standards prescribed by the bill," says Vinod Raina, one of the architects of the bill. A physics teacher at Delhi University, Raina was one of the founders of the Eklavya Program, set up in Madhya Pradesh in 1972 to bring quality education to disadvantaged children.
As for the contract system, the government currently allows schools to appoint teachers on a contract basis and pay them a paltry sum of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month. Very often these teachers are simply not qualified to teach. The bill wants that this be abolished and that all teachers, both in private and government schools, be appointed on a permanent basis and given a full salary as long as they are qualified. Recognising the fact that there is a huge shortage of trained teachers across the country, the bill provides for a five-year period for the government to create a talent pool by launching wide-scale teacher-training programs.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Controversy over a seventh standard textbook In Kerala
Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 14 :: Jul. 05-18, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
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THE STATES
A lesson to learn
R. KRISHNAKUMAR
in Thiruvananthapuram
A seventh standard textbook invites controversy and politically motivated street battles.
From the lesson ‘No Religion for Jeevan’ in the Class VII textbook which agitators say creates social disharmony and hatred in young minds.
These developments are controversial, for these involve deep conflicts and we are still too close to the events. Yet we can ask some questions central to the political change in this period.
What are the implications of the rise of coalition politics for our democracy? What is Mandalisation all about? In which ways will it change the nature of political representation? What is the legacy of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and the Ayodhya demolition for the nature of political mobilisation? What does the rise of a new policy consensus do to the nature of political choices?
The chapter does not answer these questions. It simply gives you the necessary information and some tools so that you can ask and answer these questions when you are through with this book. We cannot avoid asking these questions just because they are politically sensitive, for the whole point of studying the history of politics in India since Independence is to make sense of our present.
The above excerpt from a Political Science textbook for Class 12 students prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in 2007 would perhaps serve as an introduction to the unusually intense controversy and motivated street battles over a few school textbooks brought out this year by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala.
The inclusion of comparatively recent developments in Indian history, society and politics into the social and political science curricula in schools – a silent revolution of sorts ushered in by the NCERT in institutions following the national syllabus, and, without any opposition from political parties – has seemingly hit a roadblock in Kerala, a State that enthusiastically responded to the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework (2005) guidelines and has attempted wide-ranging alterations in the State school syllabus based on them.
However, in what seems to be a determined warm-up exercise before the elections to the Lok Sabha in a State crucial for the Left parties, a predictable coalition of politically powerful forces led by the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and minority, Christian and Muslim and caste-based Hindu organisations, some with major business interests in the education sector, have found common cause mainly in the content of a Social Science textbook (Part One) for Standard VII students of the State secondary school system.
Petrol bombs, Stun Lac grenades, tear-gas shells and water cannons have become part of the everyday street scenes in the State since the first week of June. Opposition leaders and other agitators want nothing short of the withdrawal of the textbook (along with a few others that have been revised this year), which they accuse of spreading “anti-religious outlook” and “communist ideals and ideology” and of “denying the Congress and important national leaders their role in the national movement” and instead “presenting them or their views but only in contexts far removed from their main contribution to Indian society”.
Despite the government’s explanations to the contrary, and its insistence that the controversial textbook is only the first part of the Social Science series for State students now in Class VII, the opposition has been disrupting Assembly proceedings, its student unions and affiliated organisations have been destroying public property, setting alight textbooks and senselessly fighting the police in most districts. Pro-UDF teachers’ unions and managements of certain minority educational institutions have announced they would not teach the controversial portions in the textbook at all.
A meeting organised by the Thrissur diocese of the Catholic Church has even declared it would formulate an alternative curriculum that would “present a more objective view of history and a fairer approach to religion and belief in God”. A joint declaration of the leaders of a section of Christian school managements and churches and the Nair Service Society (NSS), the socio-political organisation of the Nair community, has demanded immediate withdrawal of the textbook. After a meeting with Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Education Minister M.A. Baby, leaders of 12 Muslim organisations, including the Muslim League, have announced a Statewide agitation from the first week of July if the government does not withdraw the textbook.
The allegations raised by them are many: The textbook encourages divisiveness, social disharmony and hatred in young minds; under the pretext of promoting secular ideals it encourages students to deny religion and discourages belief in God; it denies the role of parents in the moral and religious upbringing of their children; it analyses important national and local historical events from a class perspective and uses such interpretations for narrow political ends of the ruling party; it ignores the role of the mainstream freedom movement and important national and social reform leaders of the State in the building of modern India; it fails to provide children a complete education, focussing on the unimportant and teaching them “wrong precepts that would only lead them astray”; its content is weak, it lacks quality, and compared with the textbooks prepared by the NCERT, it puts students following the State syllabus at a definite disadvantage.
No doubt, the revised textbook is a far cry, both in form and content, from the ones students, parents, politicians, religious and caste group leaders and school managements in Kerala are used to. Among other things, it draws attention to a lot of characters, events and concepts in recent Kerala society, history and politics that have so far remained absent in school curricula: landlords, tenants, savarnas, avarnas, farmer, farm worker, tenancy, price rise, ownership of land, food safety, reclamation of paddy fields, eviction, peasant movements, literacy, life expectancy, the Land Reform Bill of 1957, Dalits and their lot, untouchability and denial of educational opportunities that existed in the State, and traditional dress codes and other forms of exploitation that forced people of the lower castes into servility.
It talks about the concept of freedom and what it entails, how British traders became British rulers of India, about the Quit India movement, the Wagon Tragedy, the Shannar agitation, the Vaikom and Guruvayoor satyagrahas, the massacre at Jallianwalabagh, the Khilafat movement in Malabar, the Dandi March and Salt Satyagraha and the Karivallur (north Malabar) peasant struggle. It also speaks about Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (which fought against discriminatory practices within the Christian community) and Muslim Aikya Sangam (which fought against social evils in Muslim society) and about Mangal Pandey and Pir Muhammed, and Shanti Ghosh and Sunitha Chaudhari, Bengal schoolgirls and freedom fighters who shot down a British magistrate in 1931.
It quotes from a letter written by Bhagat Singh from the gallows, from A.K. Gopalan’s autobiography (about the life of a peasant family when landlordism prevailed in Kerala) and Congress leader K. Madhavan Nair (about a Namboothiri landlord family of his village and their profligate lifestyle). It quotes the Mahabharata and the Bible, and the Prophet Mohammad and Guru Nanak. It also calls attention to superstitions, religious evils, inflation, epidemics, scarcity of drinking water, earthquakes, the activities of liquor lobbies, illicit distillers, sexual harassment, and accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. Several questions are also posed: “Is there discrimination among members of the same religion?” “Are there any checks and controls on the dress code of women in our locality?” “How far would a common dress code help in curbing social segregation?”
But the most controversial lesson, perhaps, is titled “No Religion for Jeevan” and reads as follows (warts and all, exactly as in the Social Science Reader for English-medium students of Class VII):
“Jeevan’s parents came to school seeking admission to him. The parents were seated on the chairs and the Headmaster started to fill up the application form.
‘What is the name of your son?’
‘Jeevan’
‘Good, nice name; ‘Father’s name?’
‘Anwar Rashid’
‘Mother’s name?’
‘Lakshmi Devi’
The headmaster looked at the parents and asked.
‘What about the religion of the child?’
‘Need not record anything.’
“Write no religion’
‘Caste?’
‘No need of that too’
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
PROTESTING MUSLIM STUDENTS' Federation activists damage textbooks
The headmaster reclined in the chair and asked seriously.
‘When he grows up if he wish to have a religion?’
‘In that case let him choose the religion of his choice’.”
The lesson is accompanied immediately by an excerpt from the will and testament of Jawaharlal Nehru in which he declares that no religious ceremony be performed for him after his death and says, “I do not believe in any such ceremonies. To be forced to do them even as a formality is hipocracy [sic] and an attempt to scare us and others”, and quotations from religious texts that promote friendship and harmony among members of various faiths.
All over Kerala, today, this lesson is being read aloud (mostly in chaste Malayalam, without the language errors that mar the English version) in homes, schools, churches, mosques, public places, political party and government offices and repeatedly on TV channels, or followed with keen interest for what it conveys in a society where political loyalties are sharply divided and religious and caste factors and business interests (notably, in the education sector) have invariably played a role in making or marring the fortunes of the two coalitions led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M), and the Congress.
Importantly, therefore, the allegations being raised by the opposition and others have also to be viewed in proper perspective. On the one hand, clearly, a political mobilisation of social, religious and economic vested interests is sought to be engineered by the Congress-led UDF with the issue of textbook revision as a pretext and with the Lok Sabha elections in mind. Recently, the forces that run a number of educational institutions and claim support among sizable religious (especially Church-based) and caste groups in Kerala’s deeply polarised society have been aggrieved a lot because of the various pro-people measures adopted by the LDF government that go against their vested interests. They have been worried especially by the repeated legal, political and government measures to curb blatant profiteering by an array of self-financing professional colleges established by managements under the umbrella of various community and religious labels. The Class VII textbook is now like manna from heaven for a variety of such forces, making it possible for them to rally openly under the UDF.
On the other hand, however, the controversy needs to be seen also in the context of the major revision of school curriculum and method of teaching that is under way all over India, based on NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 guidelines.
The focus of the NCF guidelines is the introduction of “critical pedagogy”, which, as defined by one of its leading exponents, Ira Shor, is “habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organisation, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse”.
As sought to be implemented by the NCERT and the State Education Department, it implies activity-oriented teaching and learning (also with examples from the local environment) and development of a critical outlook in students to help them question life’s events and circumstances critically and come to wise conclusions. It is also meant to help them identify social evils and counter them effectively, to question preconceived notions and trends in society and reflect on them critically in terms of their “political, social, economic and moral aspects” and to engage learners in “actively constructing their own knowledge” by connecting the new with the old, accepting various ideas and viewpoints with equanimity and a discriminatory outlook, and engage in all this, with a commitment to democratic forms of interaction.
Thus, for example, in an important chapter on “Secularism”, an NCERT Political Science textbook introduced for Class XI students in 2007 presents examples of various forms of secularism as had been practised in different parts of the world – from Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, which banned the ‘fez’, the traditional cap worn by Muslims, and introduced Western clothing as part of attempts to modernise and secularise Turkey in an aggressive manner, to modern-day France, which decided to ban the use of “religious markers” such as turbans and veils in educational institutions, to the distinctive form of secularism as propounded by Jawaharlal Nehru, who wanted a secular state to be one that “protects all religions, but does not favour one at the expense of the others and does not itself adopt any religion as the state religion”.
The chapter throws up several issues for the students to debate over. For example, it raises arguments like, “Should learning more about other religions” and “learning to respect and accept other people and their beliefs” mean that “we should not be able to stand up for what we feel are basic human values?”
It encourages students to read short stories or watch movies like Bombay and Garam Hawa and asks: “What are the different ideals of secularism that they depict?” And it poses several critiques of Indian secularism for learners to dwell upon: secularism is anti-religious; secularism threatens religious identity; (the concept of) secularism is linked to Christianity, which is Western and therefore unsuited to Indian conditions; is Indian secularism’s advocacy of minority rights justified? Secularism is coercive and it interferes excessively with the religious freedom of communities; secularism encourages the politics of vote banks, and so on.
The textbook has given a platform for disparate political forces.
But eventually what the chapter offers through these activities and posers is a firm, professionally managed and academically balanced grounding for the student to come to her own true wisdom on secularism.
It concludes by telling the students: “It should be clear by now why the complexity of Indian secularism cannot be captured by the phrase “equal respect for all religions…. Indian secularism allows for principled state intervention in all religions. Such intervention betrays disrespect to some aspects of every religion. For example, religiously sanctioned caste hierarchies are not acceptable within Indian secularism. The secular state does not have to treat every aspect of every religion with equal respect. It allows equal disrespect for some aspects of organised religions.”
As in the controversial Class VII textbook produced by the Kerala government, there are many lessons in the NCERT’s new series of textbooks, on equality, freedom, dress code, unequal treatment of women by religions, the inequalities in education, and so on, which attempt to tackle sensitive aspects of recent Indian society and which could have come in handy for motivated political parties, religious leaders, caste-based organisations or other vested interests in any part of India, if they indeed chose to find them as convenient red rags.
But while copies of the State textbook are burnt on the streets and this is causing a breakdown of law and order in many districts of Kerala, the NCERT’s one-year-old textbooks are hailed as a welcome change in classrooms for encouraging critical thinking and for their “long-lasting implications on how children grasp the workings of their own democracy”.
From a cursory reading of the textbooks belonging to the two streams, the difference obviously is not in the general nature or academic intention of their content, but perhaps in the extra care that has gone into the choice of content in the NCERT textbooks and in the professionalism and academic balance evident in the way the lessons, questions and activities related to them have been presented.
Perhaps the agitators in Kerala and the textbook makers in the State Education Department should treat “The Case of Kerala’s Class VII schoolbook” as a lesson worthy of some critical thinking, with a few questions or activities that are posed at the end: Activity One: List some of the ways in which a school textbook that deals with recent history or events can become a convenient tool in the hands of political parties, religious leaders and caste-based organisations to pursue their vested interests. Activity Two: List some of the ways in which the Class VII textbook could have achieved the very same academic purpose without giving cause for such widespread grievance, real or artificial. Question: What will be the long-term implications of the opposition coalition’s smart choice of a schoolbook as a tool for such political mobilisation?
With the opposition insisting on the withdrawal of the textbook, refusing to acknowledge the expert committee appointed by the government to examine the disputed portions and threatening to prolong the agitation along with Church leaders, Muslim organisations and other community-based organisations like the NSS, it would surely be a shame if, with rising political costs, the Kerala government is forced to throw the baby out with the bath water, as it were.
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
without the written consent of Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 14 :: Jul. 05-18, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
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THE STATES
A lesson to learn
R. KRISHNAKUMAR
in Thiruvananthapuram
A seventh standard textbook invites controversy and politically motivated street battles.
From the lesson ‘No Religion for Jeevan’ in the Class VII textbook which agitators say creates social disharmony and hatred in young minds.
These developments are controversial, for these involve deep conflicts and we are still too close to the events. Yet we can ask some questions central to the political change in this period.
What are the implications of the rise of coalition politics for our democracy? What is Mandalisation all about? In which ways will it change the nature of political representation? What is the legacy of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and the Ayodhya demolition for the nature of political mobilisation? What does the rise of a new policy consensus do to the nature of political choices?
The chapter does not answer these questions. It simply gives you the necessary information and some tools so that you can ask and answer these questions when you are through with this book. We cannot avoid asking these questions just because they are politically sensitive, for the whole point of studying the history of politics in India since Independence is to make sense of our present.
The above excerpt from a Political Science textbook for Class 12 students prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in 2007 would perhaps serve as an introduction to the unusually intense controversy and motivated street battles over a few school textbooks brought out this year by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala.
The inclusion of comparatively recent developments in Indian history, society and politics into the social and political science curricula in schools – a silent revolution of sorts ushered in by the NCERT in institutions following the national syllabus, and, without any opposition from political parties – has seemingly hit a roadblock in Kerala, a State that enthusiastically responded to the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework (2005) guidelines and has attempted wide-ranging alterations in the State school syllabus based on them.
However, in what seems to be a determined warm-up exercise before the elections to the Lok Sabha in a State crucial for the Left parties, a predictable coalition of politically powerful forces led by the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and minority, Christian and Muslim and caste-based Hindu organisations, some with major business interests in the education sector, have found common cause mainly in the content of a Social Science textbook (Part One) for Standard VII students of the State secondary school system.
Petrol bombs, Stun Lac grenades, tear-gas shells and water cannons have become part of the everyday street scenes in the State since the first week of June. Opposition leaders and other agitators want nothing short of the withdrawal of the textbook (along with a few others that have been revised this year), which they accuse of spreading “anti-religious outlook” and “communist ideals and ideology” and of “denying the Congress and important national leaders their role in the national movement” and instead “presenting them or their views but only in contexts far removed from their main contribution to Indian society”.
Despite the government’s explanations to the contrary, and its insistence that the controversial textbook is only the first part of the Social Science series for State students now in Class VII, the opposition has been disrupting Assembly proceedings, its student unions and affiliated organisations have been destroying public property, setting alight textbooks and senselessly fighting the police in most districts. Pro-UDF teachers’ unions and managements of certain minority educational institutions have announced they would not teach the controversial portions in the textbook at all.
A meeting organised by the Thrissur diocese of the Catholic Church has even declared it would formulate an alternative curriculum that would “present a more objective view of history and a fairer approach to religion and belief in God”. A joint declaration of the leaders of a section of Christian school managements and churches and the Nair Service Society (NSS), the socio-political organisation of the Nair community, has demanded immediate withdrawal of the textbook. After a meeting with Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Education Minister M.A. Baby, leaders of 12 Muslim organisations, including the Muslim League, have announced a Statewide agitation from the first week of July if the government does not withdraw the textbook.
The allegations raised by them are many: The textbook encourages divisiveness, social disharmony and hatred in young minds; under the pretext of promoting secular ideals it encourages students to deny religion and discourages belief in God; it denies the role of parents in the moral and religious upbringing of their children; it analyses important national and local historical events from a class perspective and uses such interpretations for narrow political ends of the ruling party; it ignores the role of the mainstream freedom movement and important national and social reform leaders of the State in the building of modern India; it fails to provide children a complete education, focussing on the unimportant and teaching them “wrong precepts that would only lead them astray”; its content is weak, it lacks quality, and compared with the textbooks prepared by the NCERT, it puts students following the State syllabus at a definite disadvantage.
No doubt, the revised textbook is a far cry, both in form and content, from the ones students, parents, politicians, religious and caste group leaders and school managements in Kerala are used to. Among other things, it draws attention to a lot of characters, events and concepts in recent Kerala society, history and politics that have so far remained absent in school curricula: landlords, tenants, savarnas, avarnas, farmer, farm worker, tenancy, price rise, ownership of land, food safety, reclamation of paddy fields, eviction, peasant movements, literacy, life expectancy, the Land Reform Bill of 1957, Dalits and their lot, untouchability and denial of educational opportunities that existed in the State, and traditional dress codes and other forms of exploitation that forced people of the lower castes into servility.
It talks about the concept of freedom and what it entails, how British traders became British rulers of India, about the Quit India movement, the Wagon Tragedy, the Shannar agitation, the Vaikom and Guruvayoor satyagrahas, the massacre at Jallianwalabagh, the Khilafat movement in Malabar, the Dandi March and Salt Satyagraha and the Karivallur (north Malabar) peasant struggle. It also speaks about Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (which fought against discriminatory practices within the Christian community) and Muslim Aikya Sangam (which fought against social evils in Muslim society) and about Mangal Pandey and Pir Muhammed, and Shanti Ghosh and Sunitha Chaudhari, Bengal schoolgirls and freedom fighters who shot down a British magistrate in 1931.
It quotes from a letter written by Bhagat Singh from the gallows, from A.K. Gopalan’s autobiography (about the life of a peasant family when landlordism prevailed in Kerala) and Congress leader K. Madhavan Nair (about a Namboothiri landlord family of his village and their profligate lifestyle). It quotes the Mahabharata and the Bible, and the Prophet Mohammad and Guru Nanak. It also calls attention to superstitions, religious evils, inflation, epidemics, scarcity of drinking water, earthquakes, the activities of liquor lobbies, illicit distillers, sexual harassment, and accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. Several questions are also posed: “Is there discrimination among members of the same religion?” “Are there any checks and controls on the dress code of women in our locality?” “How far would a common dress code help in curbing social segregation?”
But the most controversial lesson, perhaps, is titled “No Religion for Jeevan” and reads as follows (warts and all, exactly as in the Social Science Reader for English-medium students of Class VII):
“Jeevan’s parents came to school seeking admission to him. The parents were seated on the chairs and the Headmaster started to fill up the application form.
‘What is the name of your son?’
‘Jeevan’
‘Good, nice name; ‘Father’s name?’
‘Anwar Rashid’
‘Mother’s name?’
‘Lakshmi Devi’
The headmaster looked at the parents and asked.
‘What about the religion of the child?’
‘Need not record anything.’
“Write no religion’
‘Caste?’
‘No need of that too’
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
PROTESTING MUSLIM STUDENTS' Federation activists damage textbooks
The headmaster reclined in the chair and asked seriously.
‘When he grows up if he wish to have a religion?’
‘In that case let him choose the religion of his choice’.”
The lesson is accompanied immediately by an excerpt from the will and testament of Jawaharlal Nehru in which he declares that no religious ceremony be performed for him after his death and says, “I do not believe in any such ceremonies. To be forced to do them even as a formality is hipocracy [sic] and an attempt to scare us and others”, and quotations from religious texts that promote friendship and harmony among members of various faiths.
All over Kerala, today, this lesson is being read aloud (mostly in chaste Malayalam, without the language errors that mar the English version) in homes, schools, churches, mosques, public places, political party and government offices and repeatedly on TV channels, or followed with keen interest for what it conveys in a society where political loyalties are sharply divided and religious and caste factors and business interests (notably, in the education sector) have invariably played a role in making or marring the fortunes of the two coalitions led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M), and the Congress.
Importantly, therefore, the allegations being raised by the opposition and others have also to be viewed in proper perspective. On the one hand, clearly, a political mobilisation of social, religious and economic vested interests is sought to be engineered by the Congress-led UDF with the issue of textbook revision as a pretext and with the Lok Sabha elections in mind. Recently, the forces that run a number of educational institutions and claim support among sizable religious (especially Church-based) and caste groups in Kerala’s deeply polarised society have been aggrieved a lot because of the various pro-people measures adopted by the LDF government that go against their vested interests. They have been worried especially by the repeated legal, political and government measures to curb blatant profiteering by an array of self-financing professional colleges established by managements under the umbrella of various community and religious labels. The Class VII textbook is now like manna from heaven for a variety of such forces, making it possible for them to rally openly under the UDF.
On the other hand, however, the controversy needs to be seen also in the context of the major revision of school curriculum and method of teaching that is under way all over India, based on NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 guidelines.
The focus of the NCF guidelines is the introduction of “critical pedagogy”, which, as defined by one of its leading exponents, Ira Shor, is “habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organisation, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse”.
As sought to be implemented by the NCERT and the State Education Department, it implies activity-oriented teaching and learning (also with examples from the local environment) and development of a critical outlook in students to help them question life’s events and circumstances critically and come to wise conclusions. It is also meant to help them identify social evils and counter them effectively, to question preconceived notions and trends in society and reflect on them critically in terms of their “political, social, economic and moral aspects” and to engage learners in “actively constructing their own knowledge” by connecting the new with the old, accepting various ideas and viewpoints with equanimity and a discriminatory outlook, and engage in all this, with a commitment to democratic forms of interaction.
Thus, for example, in an important chapter on “Secularism”, an NCERT Political Science textbook introduced for Class XI students in 2007 presents examples of various forms of secularism as had been practised in different parts of the world – from Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, which banned the ‘fez’, the traditional cap worn by Muslims, and introduced Western clothing as part of attempts to modernise and secularise Turkey in an aggressive manner, to modern-day France, which decided to ban the use of “religious markers” such as turbans and veils in educational institutions, to the distinctive form of secularism as propounded by Jawaharlal Nehru, who wanted a secular state to be one that “protects all religions, but does not favour one at the expense of the others and does not itself adopt any religion as the state religion”.
The chapter throws up several issues for the students to debate over. For example, it raises arguments like, “Should learning more about other religions” and “learning to respect and accept other people and their beliefs” mean that “we should not be able to stand up for what we feel are basic human values?”
It encourages students to read short stories or watch movies like Bombay and Garam Hawa and asks: “What are the different ideals of secularism that they depict?” And it poses several critiques of Indian secularism for learners to dwell upon: secularism is anti-religious; secularism threatens religious identity; (the concept of) secularism is linked to Christianity, which is Western and therefore unsuited to Indian conditions; is Indian secularism’s advocacy of minority rights justified? Secularism is coercive and it interferes excessively with the religious freedom of communities; secularism encourages the politics of vote banks, and so on.
The textbook has given a platform for disparate political forces.
But eventually what the chapter offers through these activities and posers is a firm, professionally managed and academically balanced grounding for the student to come to her own true wisdom on secularism.
It concludes by telling the students: “It should be clear by now why the complexity of Indian secularism cannot be captured by the phrase “equal respect for all religions…. Indian secularism allows for principled state intervention in all religions. Such intervention betrays disrespect to some aspects of every religion. For example, religiously sanctioned caste hierarchies are not acceptable within Indian secularism. The secular state does not have to treat every aspect of every religion with equal respect. It allows equal disrespect for some aspects of organised religions.”
As in the controversial Class VII textbook produced by the Kerala government, there are many lessons in the NCERT’s new series of textbooks, on equality, freedom, dress code, unequal treatment of women by religions, the inequalities in education, and so on, which attempt to tackle sensitive aspects of recent Indian society and which could have come in handy for motivated political parties, religious leaders, caste-based organisations or other vested interests in any part of India, if they indeed chose to find them as convenient red rags.
But while copies of the State textbook are burnt on the streets and this is causing a breakdown of law and order in many districts of Kerala, the NCERT’s one-year-old textbooks are hailed as a welcome change in classrooms for encouraging critical thinking and for their “long-lasting implications on how children grasp the workings of their own democracy”.
From a cursory reading of the textbooks belonging to the two streams, the difference obviously is not in the general nature or academic intention of their content, but perhaps in the extra care that has gone into the choice of content in the NCERT textbooks and in the professionalism and academic balance evident in the way the lessons, questions and activities related to them have been presented.
Perhaps the agitators in Kerala and the textbook makers in the State Education Department should treat “The Case of Kerala’s Class VII schoolbook” as a lesson worthy of some critical thinking, with a few questions or activities that are posed at the end: Activity One: List some of the ways in which a school textbook that deals with recent history or events can become a convenient tool in the hands of political parties, religious leaders and caste-based organisations to pursue their vested interests. Activity Two: List some of the ways in which the Class VII textbook could have achieved the very same academic purpose without giving cause for such widespread grievance, real or artificial. Question: What will be the long-term implications of the opposition coalition’s smart choice of a schoolbook as a tool for such political mobilisation?
With the opposition insisting on the withdrawal of the textbook, refusing to acknowledge the expert committee appointed by the government to examine the disputed portions and threatening to prolong the agitation along with Church leaders, Muslim organisations and other community-based organisations like the NSS, it would surely be a shame if, with rising political costs, the Kerala government is forced to throw the baby out with the bath water, as it were.
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
without the written consent of Frontline
Monday, June 30, 2008
Harvard pupils' cunning trick to get luxury cars, financial aid
Book reveals Harvard pupils' cunning trick to get luxury cars, financial aid
Mon, Jun 30 04:05 AM
New York, June 30 (ANI): A journalist claims in his upcoming book that pupils at Harvard Business School used to play a cunning trick to buy luxury cars and get financial aid, when he was a university student.
Philip Delves Broughton writes in 'Ahead of the Curve' about his two years at the Ivy League university, telling that he was stunned to find a number of students driving BMWs, Porsches, Lexuses, Mini Coopers and Lincoln Navigators, while he only had a 2,000-dollar Toyota.
"Once you get accepted into HBS, you want to clear out your bank account so that you can get more financial aid. When you list your assets in the financial-aid application, you don't have to mention your car . . . You buy a car for 20,000 dollars, maybe you get an extra 20,000 dollars in financial aid, so basically HBS buys you a BMW. If you hadn't bought the car, you'd have to pay 20,000 dollars out of your savings," the New York Post quoted him recalling what a student once told him.
The author writes that he was jolted by "the idea of these 25-year-old Wall Street jerks fiddling with their financial aid forms, with the connivance of their parents and the local BMW dealerships."
Representatives for the school were unavailable for comment. (ANI)
Mon, Jun 30 04:05 AM
New York, June 30 (ANI): A journalist claims in his upcoming book that pupils at Harvard Business School used to play a cunning trick to buy luxury cars and get financial aid, when he was a university student.
Philip Delves Broughton writes in 'Ahead of the Curve' about his two years at the Ivy League university, telling that he was stunned to find a number of students driving BMWs, Porsches, Lexuses, Mini Coopers and Lincoln Navigators, while he only had a 2,000-dollar Toyota.
"Once you get accepted into HBS, you want to clear out your bank account so that you can get more financial aid. When you list your assets in the financial-aid application, you don't have to mention your car . . . You buy a car for 20,000 dollars, maybe you get an extra 20,000 dollars in financial aid, so basically HBS buys you a BMW. If you hadn't bought the car, you'd have to pay 20,000 dollars out of your savings," the New York Post quoted him recalling what a student once told him.
The author writes that he was jolted by "the idea of these 25-year-old Wall Street jerks fiddling with their financial aid forms, with the connivance of their parents and the local BMW dealerships."
Representatives for the school were unavailable for comment. (ANI)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Rising Cost of Education: Schools more expensive than Colleges
'School expenses rise by 160% in 8 years'
30 Jun 2008, 0140 hrs IST, Abantika Ghosh,TNN
NEW DELHI: While politicians battle it out over inflation and the prices of onions and brinjals, the probable blow for the Indian middle class with its obsession for a 'good' education are the rising school expenses. According to an ASSOCHAM survey, the costs of sending a child to school have risen by 160% in the last 8 years. What's more, this figure is exclusive of the tuition fees hiked every now and then.
The survey, done under the aegis of the Social Development Foundation of ASSOCHAM on 'Rising school expenses vis-a-vis dilemma of young parents' says annual school expenses for a single child excluding tuition fees have risen from Rs 25,000 in 2000 to Rs 65,000 in 2008 while the average annual income of fairly well-off parents has not risen by more than 30% in the same period. The average tuition fees for a private school is Rs 35,000 per year, with Rs 30,000-35,000 per year as expense for a host of 'overheads'. An estimated 3 crore children in the country study in private schools, says the survey.
The 2,000 working parents across were surveyed across nine cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Dehradun, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Chandigarh—during April and May this year. One in 10 respondents said the cost of schooling did affect the choice of school. These were parents of young enough kids who had the option of changing schools. Sixty-five per cent respondents said more than half of their salary was spent on their children's education while 50% conceded schooling was actually a 'strain' on the family budget.
Nearly 60% of parents felt education had become a business and that the high tuition fees did not actually indicate the academic standards of a school. Rather, it indicated a demand-supply function so that school managements could effect erratic fee hikes every year—something parents can not protest. Even private preparatory schools charge Rs 25,000 a term, the survey says.
Said a parent with two children studying in a very reputed chain of schools, 'Every year there is a hike. Every few days there is something or the other in school for which I have to cough up more money.'
Transport has emerged as one of the most expensive components of a child's schooling with an average annual cost of Rs 12,000 per child. Packed lunches cost Rs 9,600 per year per child and shoes cost Rs 4,000-5,000 per year per child.
Said Rakhi Sengupta, whose daughter studies in a reputed private school in south Delhi, 'It's all a racket but we can do nothing about it.' This 'brand consciousness" too finds a mention in the survey.
30 Jun 2008, 0140 hrs IST, Abantika Ghosh,TNN
NEW DELHI: While politicians battle it out over inflation and the prices of onions and brinjals, the probable blow for the Indian middle class with its obsession for a 'good' education are the rising school expenses. According to an ASSOCHAM survey, the costs of sending a child to school have risen by 160% in the last 8 years. What's more, this figure is exclusive of the tuition fees hiked every now and then.
The survey, done under the aegis of the Social Development Foundation of ASSOCHAM on 'Rising school expenses vis-a-vis dilemma of young parents' says annual school expenses for a single child excluding tuition fees have risen from Rs 25,000 in 2000 to Rs 65,000 in 2008 while the average annual income of fairly well-off parents has not risen by more than 30% in the same period. The average tuition fees for a private school is Rs 35,000 per year, with Rs 30,000-35,000 per year as expense for a host of 'overheads'. An estimated 3 crore children in the country study in private schools, says the survey.
The 2,000 working parents across were surveyed across nine cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Dehradun, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Chandigarh—during April and May this year. One in 10 respondents said the cost of schooling did affect the choice of school. These were parents of young enough kids who had the option of changing schools. Sixty-five per cent respondents said more than half of their salary was spent on their children's education while 50% conceded schooling was actually a 'strain' on the family budget.
Nearly 60% of parents felt education had become a business and that the high tuition fees did not actually indicate the academic standards of a school. Rather, it indicated a demand-supply function so that school managements could effect erratic fee hikes every year—something parents can not protest. Even private preparatory schools charge Rs 25,000 a term, the survey says.
Said a parent with two children studying in a very reputed chain of schools, 'Every year there is a hike. Every few days there is something or the other in school for which I have to cough up more money.'
Transport has emerged as one of the most expensive components of a child's schooling with an average annual cost of Rs 12,000 per child. Packed lunches cost Rs 9,600 per year per child and shoes cost Rs 4,000-5,000 per year per child.
Said Rakhi Sengupta, whose daughter studies in a reputed private school in south Delhi, 'It's all a racket but we can do nothing about it.' This 'brand consciousness" too finds a mention in the survey.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Debate on SEx education:Did Ellen Lindsey cross the limit?
Did Sex-Ed Class Cross Thin Line?
Some Parents Enraged at Explicit Talk; Sex Experts Say Guidelines Too Restrictive
By DAN CHILDS, JON WIENER and RUSSELL GOLDMAN
June 6, 2008
In an episode that has reignited debate over what kids in classrooms should hear about sex, a Utah middle school teacher has come under fire for leading what parents said were explicit discussions during an eighth-grade sex education class.
Teacher placed on leave for "educational" pamphlet sent home with students.
The teacher was placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation is carried out.
But the case has divided sex experts and some educators, who believe that the state's restrictions on sex education are far too strict, which, they say, prevents 13- and 14-year-olds from receiving adequate information about risky sexual behaviors.
The teacher, Ellen Lindsey, is in her first year on the faculty of Fort Herriman Middle School in Herriman, Utah. Before taking her current post, she had taught for 30 years in another district.
Exactly what the lesson included is unclear. But the parents of the children involved have alleged that Lindsey exposed their children to explicit messages and pictures in the course of the class.
Attempts to reach Lindsey at her home number were unsuccessful. Mike Sirois, principal of Fort Herriman Middle School, said that he has since talked to Lindsey about the discussions that took place in her class. And he said that it appears the subject matter discussed went beyond the border of what is permitted by the state regulations on the discussion of sexual material in a classroom.
"It was stuff of a sexual nature that went beyond the curriculum, he said. "Her side is that hindsight is 20/20, that she probably shouldn't have said some of the things that were said."
But, Sirois noted, "She disputes some of the issues, like the depth of her discussions on these matters."
Meanwhile, school board officials would not confirm the nature of the topics that Lindsey discussed in her class.
"It's an employee issue," said school board spokesman Mike Kelley. "On the specific issues we do not have a lot we can say."
And, according to ABC affiliate reports, officials from the Jordan Education Association have instructed Lindsey not to talk to the media for now. One education official involved with the matter said Lindsey has not yet conferred with the JEA attorney on her next step, which could involve a statement to the media.
But some parents have been vocal about the alleged incident.
"The teacher was entertaining questions and expounding on topics outside the state statute," said Dewayne Smith, the father of a 14-year-old eighth grader in the class. "She was talking about anal sex, oral sex, masturbation, mechanical instruments to enhance masturbation and historical instances of self-abortion with a hanger.
"If I met a kid on the street and started talking this way to a minor I'd be thrown in jail."
Smith also said he heard that Lindsey presented her students with an adult-themed cartoon and solicited questions from the students about sex.
Some Parents Enraged at Explicit Talk; Sex Experts Say Guidelines Too Restrictive
By DAN CHILDS, JON WIENER and RUSSELL GOLDMAN
June 6, 2008
In an episode that has reignited debate over what kids in classrooms should hear about sex, a Utah middle school teacher has come under fire for leading what parents said were explicit discussions during an eighth-grade sex education class.
Teacher placed on leave for "educational" pamphlet sent home with students.
The teacher was placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation is carried out.
But the case has divided sex experts and some educators, who believe that the state's restrictions on sex education are far too strict, which, they say, prevents 13- and 14-year-olds from receiving adequate information about risky sexual behaviors.
The teacher, Ellen Lindsey, is in her first year on the faculty of Fort Herriman Middle School in Herriman, Utah. Before taking her current post, she had taught for 30 years in another district.
Exactly what the lesson included is unclear. But the parents of the children involved have alleged that Lindsey exposed their children to explicit messages and pictures in the course of the class.
Attempts to reach Lindsey at her home number were unsuccessful. Mike Sirois, principal of Fort Herriman Middle School, said that he has since talked to Lindsey about the discussions that took place in her class. And he said that it appears the subject matter discussed went beyond the border of what is permitted by the state regulations on the discussion of sexual material in a classroom.
"It was stuff of a sexual nature that went beyond the curriculum, he said. "Her side is that hindsight is 20/20, that she probably shouldn't have said some of the things that were said."
But, Sirois noted, "She disputes some of the issues, like the depth of her discussions on these matters."
Meanwhile, school board officials would not confirm the nature of the topics that Lindsey discussed in her class.
"It's an employee issue," said school board spokesman Mike Kelley. "On the specific issues we do not have a lot we can say."
And, according to ABC affiliate reports, officials from the Jordan Education Association have instructed Lindsey not to talk to the media for now. One education official involved with the matter said Lindsey has not yet conferred with the JEA attorney on her next step, which could involve a statement to the media.
But some parents have been vocal about the alleged incident.
"The teacher was entertaining questions and expounding on topics outside the state statute," said Dewayne Smith, the father of a 14-year-old eighth grader in the class. "She was talking about anal sex, oral sex, masturbation, mechanical instruments to enhance masturbation and historical instances of self-abortion with a hanger.
"If I met a kid on the street and started talking this way to a minor I'd be thrown in jail."
Smith also said he heard that Lindsey presented her students with an adult-themed cartoon and solicited questions from the students about sex.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Delhi students carry weapons
Thursday, May 29, 2008
11 per cent of south Delhi students carry weapons
New Delhi: Over 11 per cent of students in the upscale south Delhi carry weapons, a study by Safdarjung Hospital said on Wednesday.
The hospital's community medicine department studied three schools and two colleges in south Delhi and surveyed 550 students mainly below 19 years of age.
Rahul Sharma, professor at the department, said they carried out the survey to assess violent behaviour among students. He said many students carrying weapons said they do so as means of self-protection.
The survey found both male and female students are carrying weapons though the percentage of female students was very low.
Weapons that students carry vary from a knife to a hunter to a gun. Sticks and daggers too have made it to schools and colleges.
In December 2007, a class 8 student shot dead two of his classmates inside a school in Gurgaon on the outskirt of Delhi.
Source: Indo-Asian News Service
11 per cent of south Delhi students carry weapons
New Delhi: Over 11 per cent of students in the upscale south Delhi carry weapons, a study by Safdarjung Hospital said on Wednesday.
The hospital's community medicine department studied three schools and two colleges in south Delhi and surveyed 550 students mainly below 19 years of age.
Rahul Sharma, professor at the department, said they carried out the survey to assess violent behaviour among students. He said many students carrying weapons said they do so as means of self-protection.
The survey found both male and female students are carrying weapons though the percentage of female students was very low.
Weapons that students carry vary from a knife to a hunter to a gun. Sticks and daggers too have made it to schools and colleges.
In December 2007, a class 8 student shot dead two of his classmates inside a school in Gurgaon on the outskirt of Delhi.
Source: Indo-Asian News Service
Marginalisation of Muslims now part of NCERT textbook'
Marginalisation of Muslims now part of NCERT textbook'
Wed, May 28 07:51 PM
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Social inequalities with respect to religion and caste prevailing in India and the Muslims not getting adequate benefit in the economic development of the country are now part of school textbook prepared by the NCERT. To make students understand this phenomenon, the NCERT has introduced a chapter 'Muslims and Marginalisation' in the Class-VIII Social Sciences textbook which speaks about how the Muslims have not got proper benefit in the social and economic development in the country.
The chapter has also cited the findings of the study on Muslims' status prepared by Justice Rajinder Sachar in 2006. The chapter also gives data about economic and educational development of the Muslim community.
"Social inequalities have been clearly mentioned in the book so that the students can themselves understand the reality in terms of caste, religion and gender," Dipta Bhog, advisor of the book, said. The chapter speaks about the proportional representation of the community in various service sectors.
Examples on social inequalities have been given as case studies to help the children better understand the issue, she said. "Through the chapter, an effort has been made to explain how marginalisation is related to the feeling of prejudices and lack of ability.
Marginalisation not only weakens the social status but also deprives the people of availing education and utilisation of resources," said an NCERT official. PTI.
Wed, May 28 07:51 PM
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Social inequalities with respect to religion and caste prevailing in India and the Muslims not getting adequate benefit in the economic development of the country are now part of school textbook prepared by the NCERT. To make students understand this phenomenon, the NCERT has introduced a chapter 'Muslims and Marginalisation' in the Class-VIII Social Sciences textbook which speaks about how the Muslims have not got proper benefit in the social and economic development in the country.
The chapter has also cited the findings of the study on Muslims' status prepared by Justice Rajinder Sachar in 2006. The chapter also gives data about economic and educational development of the Muslim community.
"Social inequalities have been clearly mentioned in the book so that the students can themselves understand the reality in terms of caste, religion and gender," Dipta Bhog, advisor of the book, said. The chapter speaks about the proportional representation of the community in various service sectors.
Examples on social inequalities have been given as case studies to help the children better understand the issue, she said. "Through the chapter, an effort has been made to explain how marginalisation is related to the feeling of prejudices and lack of ability.
Marginalisation not only weakens the social status but also deprives the people of availing education and utilisation of resources," said an NCERT official. PTI.
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