Education News

Uttar Pradesh

Fast-growth industry

With the law and order maintenance system subjected to continuous strain bye interfering politicians, cheating and illegality has thoroughly permeated Uttar Pradesh’s public examinations systems and processes. When on March 8, 3.6 million (2.5 million class X, 1.1 million class XII) students wrote the UP state board’s examinations, the logistics involved invited comparisons with war operations. Of the 6,641 examination centres spread across 13 divisions in which the students wrote their papers, 1,018 were labelled highly sensitive. To prevent mass cheating, flying squads of 480 mobile teams were constituted to keep an eye on 1.8 lakh invigilators, and 27,000 police personnel were put on full alert.

Examinees in Uttar Pradesh: mass cheating virus

This year the problem has been compounded by the provision of ‘home centres’ for examinations. Even though 90 percent of the invigilators in these centres are external, this clearly has not deterred the state’s ingenious cheating mafia. Often on-campus living quarters of school staff and teachers are turned into exam centres for ‘privileged’ students. Flying squads of invigilators also find it difficult to reach schools sited in a maze of narrow alleys that dot the older areas of UP’s cities. Political pressures too play a role. Thus, a Lucknow college that did not fulfill the requirements laid down by the UP board was granted examination centre status at the eleventh hour upon the intervention of influential politicos. Lucknow’s district inspector of schools (DIOS) Vikas Srivastava is cautious in his defense of the move. "We are keeping a strict eye on the centre," he says.

That this strict eye is proving useless is illustrated by a few stray incidents that demonstrate how exams in India’s most populous state (160 million) are little more than a farce. In one local school, invigilators arrested a girl who appeared for the exam in an intricately embroidered skirt which had answers written around the dense threadwork. In another incident a school was de-recognised when the principal himself was found to have organised an exam paper leak.

"No district is untouched by the mass cheating virus; methods range from helping students copy from blackboards to providing dummy candidates. The benefits are mutual. The students pass the exams and their schools get a 100 percent success rating which attracts new students. These are schools which manipulate government recognition only to enroll students, not to teach. This is especially true of coaching institutes, which advertise guaranteed success to each enrolled student. It is only the poor students without this elaborate support system who are caught cheating. The rich, big cheats go scot-free, " says Panchanana Rai, a teacher and municipal corporator in Lucknow.

Rai is sceptical about the grandly publicised plans of the state government to stem the cheating rot. "We had proposed that examination centres should have students from nearby areas only, but the centres get unknown students from far flung districts. We had also recommended strict review of all media reports on the issue so that loopholes could be plugged, but those proposals were hardly discussed," says Rai.

And finally in a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, on March 20, the UP Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh, (teachers union) and the managements of private unaided schools staged a dharna outside the office of the DIOS each blaming the other for the cheating epidemic in the state. Both parties were accompanied with armed personnel for good effect.

"There are several private schools where answers are dictated to students in return for a hefty sum. In other schools and colleges, examinees are given extra hours to complete papers. Some school managements also hire goons to keep flying squads at bay. The problem is particularly acute in unaided schools where dubious characters are deployed as invigilators in connivance with the authorities. Teachers who refuse to cooperate are threatened and students who refuse to pay up harassed," says R.P. Mishra president of the sangh. V.N. Shastri of the association of private schools in turn alleges that the sangh finds it difficult to accept the fact that private schools get good results year after year.

The state government’s response is typical. Elaborating on the stringent arrangements made to prevent cheating DIOS Srivastava says, "Minor incidents do not cast a shadow on the basic soundness of our examination system." As for charges of widespread cheating and malpractices, he dismisses them. "If any incident of contract copying is brought to our notice, appropriate action will be taken," he says unfazed.

The obvious solution would be to permit decentralisation of the system and permit several examination boards to set and evaluate papers. But that would perhaps destabilise UPs fast-track cheating industry.

Puja Rawat (Lucknow)

Delhi

Academics as usual

It’s hardly a matter of dispute that India’s universities dumbed down to facilitate the passage of students of the lowest common denominator through the system, are in poor shape. Therefore quite evidently some initiatives have to be devised to reform and upgrade the tertiary education system. But surprisingly academics — the people who have a ringside view of the nation’s crumbling varsity system — seem determined to oppose all initiatives to alter the status quo.

Last December, the Delhi-based UGC (University Grants Commission) circulated a ‘concept paper’ to universities across the country, to which it invited written responses. The ‘concept paper’ contained a set of guidelines which UGC said would assist it to frame a Model Act — "a useful framework which enables universities to have some uniformity in their governance, organisation, and management".

The intent behind the framing of the Act is to improve the quality of governance in universities around the country, upgrade the quality of education being imparted and shape the nation’s universities for the new demands of the 21st century. Appended to the concept paper was a 10-page questionnaire which addressed issues pertaining to the applicability of the proposed Act, its thrust issues, appropriate goals of universities, impact of globalisation on Indian universities, the extent of autonomy to be granted to universities, methods of expanding the curriculum and allocation, distribution, and management of funds, etc. In principle, the new Model Act is based on the report of the Kothari Commision (1968) and other official documents which have in the past proffered recommendations pertaining to the governance and management of universities.

But the concept paper for the proposed Model Act has ballooned into a national contro-versy. Earlier this year, teaching was suspended in all Central universities on January 22 following a call for a bandh by the Federation of Central Universities Teachers Associations (FEDCUTA) and the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA). The bandh was complete and teachers’ unions of all universities including Delhi U, Jamia Millia Islamia, JNU, and IGNOU, protested and held demonstrations in all colleges affiliated to Delhi U. The striking unions accused UGC of ulterior motives to privatise and commercialise higher education in a big way, by adding a clause that would, in the words of DUTA, "force universities to mobilise resources to become self-sufficient, paving the way for the withdrawal of government funding from education". The January 22 bandh was followed by another DUTA protest on February 24.

UGC officials claim the allegations of the teachers associations are "totally baseless" and "motivated", and reflect ignorance about the actual details of the proposal, which is an attempt to improve standards in higher education. "The idea behind the Model Act is to give universities the option to introduce changes in their governance, including the mobilisation of resources. Universities are at liberty to use or not use it — there’s no compulsion. The Model Act will benefit the entire university community. Teachers should be happy, this is not a move to curb their autonomy or to privatise education," says Dr. (Mrs.) Pankaj Mittal, under secretary of UGC.

Sharma: commercialisation charge

In short if the teachers unions have their way, it should be academics as usual.

Meenakshi Venkat (Delhi)

Lose-lose situation

One would have thought that the easiest and safest way to get around examinations is to study and to write them. Not so in soft state India ruined by decades of licence-controls-permit raj where consequential corruption is now a way of life. Barely had the swirling dust storm generated by the leak of CAT (Common Admission Test) papers for management schools settled, when Delhi was sucked into the vortex of another exam scam. This time round it was the capital’s 960 government schools, who for the first time ever in the history of their existence, experienced a leak of the class IX Sanskrit and English exam papers.

The question papers of both the subjects for the exam in the first week of March, were being peddled for a piffling Rs.5 in east and north-east Delhi, the evening before the exams. The scam was busted by Rashtriya Sahara, a prominent Hindi national daily, which bought the test papers and produced them before the state government’s directorate of education which conducts examinations in Delhi’s government schools. And even as people conjectured about a nexus between Megha Printers (where the exam papers were printed) and the officials of the directorate, Delhi’s education minister, Arvinder Singh Lovely, was quick to announce: "This is a very serious offence. A strict probe has been ordered and the guilty will have to face serious consequences."

Days of strict probing later, interesting facts came to light. Abdul Shakeel, a binder in Megha Printers whose daughter was due to write the class IX exam got the relevant papers photocopied from a neighbourhood machine. The photocopier (Pradeep Jain) quickly produced scores of clones for sale, triggering a chain reaction which snowballed into a lucrative business opportunity for many.

The police acted with alacrity and booked Megha Printer’s proprietor Arun Bansal, Abdul Shakeel and Jain (under ss. 420 and 379 IPC) within a couple of days but not before the leaks had thrown the exam into disarray. While all examinations (including those which had already been written) for class IX were scrapped, those yet to be held for classes VI-VIII and XI were also postponed to April.

The ripple effect of this over-reaction upon government schools, many of which routinely make do without principals, has left them fuming. Comments Madhu Dang, officiating head, Government Girls’ Senior Secondary School, Lodhi Road: "April is the time when teachers are required to check board exam papers. But if this duty overlaps with conducting fresh exams for government schools, there will be chaos. Moreover, rather than focusing on the new session, students will now be mugging up for another round of exams."

-

But clearly, the move has backfired. Opines Om Singh, president of the Government School Teachers’ Association (GSTA), Delhi’s only recognised government teachers’ union which has 40,000 members: "In this age of decentralisation, it is ridiculous to centralise exams for so many classes. In fact had the directorate stuck to the earlier system, the leak would have affected only class IX students and not children in other classes."

Such large-scale centralisation flies in the face of the directorate of education’s efforts to decentralise its own administration. While hitherto the department was administered by the director of education, it has recently been whittled down to five units, each under a separate regional director.

Not surprisingly, in the wake of the hullabaloo created by the media and teachers about over centralisation, Lovely quickly withdrew his order, promising to return to the earlier system of holding decentralised exams for classes VI to VIII. Not that this exercise will undo the damage already done to scores of students for whom the leaks not only mean postponement of exams but also a delay in the start of the new academic year and a curtailment of summer and winter vacations. A lose-lose situation for all.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

West Bengal

Model Act fears

In a deliberate show of defiance, the University of Calcutta has also rejected reform proposals of the University Grants Commission (UGC). At a stormy, five-hour session of the monthly meeting in Kolkata of the university’s syndicate, its members — all known to be hand-picked by the ruling Left Front — rubbished the UGC proposals as "nothing but Delhi’s attempt to establish full and direct control" over the University of Calcutta.

The controversy centres around the so-called Model Act for universities drawn up by UGC to replace existing legislation governing the country’s 305 universities. For the past few months, reportedly at the behest of the Union ministry of human resource development, UGC has been pushing the country’s government-aided universities to substitute extant legislation with the Model Act. The stated aim is to facilitate fundamental reforms within the nation’s crumbling varsity sector.

The salient features of the Model Act drafted by UGC are:

• There should be no elected representatives in university senates or executive councils; alternatively, the majority should comprise nominated and a few ex-officio members

• Senates or executive councils should be of smaller size

• The pro vice-chancellor should take charge of resource generation, particularly in the current context of diminishing central support

• Each university should appoint a Visitor, mandated to implement the recommen-dations of the central/state governments

• The President of India or the state governor should be normally appointed Visitor

The University of Calcutta’s syndicate has opposed each one of these recommendations. To wit, it wants only elected members in its governing bodies, and never mind their size. Its senate, for instance, has 158 members. Some of them privately admit that no "meaningful discussion" can take place in senate meetings simply because there are too many people present. The university also sees no cause to change the existing role of the pro vice-chancellor and neither does it want a Visitor. The governor, as chancellor, is good enough, says its management.

"We have reason to believe that the Model Act represents a subtle attempt by UGC to rob us of autonomy," says Prof. Suranjan Das, pro vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Calcutta. "We believe this university and its affiliates should be run in a democratic manner. There is no need to restructure our governing Act to fall in line with the UGC’s Model Act. But we are open to suggestions for improvement," he adds.

Syndicate member Shyamapada Pal is more blunt. "On the one hand, the Centre wants to reduce its grant commitments. On the other, it obviously wishes to establish greater control over the university. This is unacceptable," he says.

The guideline in the Model Act that the syndicate found "most unacceptable" was that the university should junk its system of having elected representatives of stakeholders to monitor the administration. "This is against the tradition of the university, as we have been following a democratic method," says pro VC Das. The syndicate also slammed the UGC demand for an "all-powerful Visitor".

The university’s negative response to the Model Act is reportedly fuelled by the fear that if it is adopted, it will allow the university’s constituent or affiliated institutions like Presidency College, St Xavier’s College or Lady Brabourne College — all strong contenders for autonomy as per existing UGC policy on accreditation — to bypass the university and deal directly with Delhi. "The Model Act will destabilise our traditional role in the affairs of many of our institutions," says Das.

At the political level, West Bengal’s Left Front government is determined to resist all attempts by the Centre to have a greater say in the running of the state’s universities. Monitors of the academic scene predict that in the wake of the syndicate’s refusal to toe the UGC line, the governing bodies of other universities in West Bengal like Jadavpur, Rabindra Bharati and Kalyani, among others, will raise similar objections.

According to one analyst, the fate of the Model Act hangs on the outcome of the forthcoming general elections. If the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is voted back to power at the Centre, the chances are that the HRD ministry will take a strong stand on its pending policy initiatives, including the Model Act for India’s govern-ment-aided universities.Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

Maharashtra

Quality lesson

The Maharashtra government’s education department seems to have a penchant for shooting itself in the foot at regular intervals. In early 2002 it was forced to withdraw an order imposing a means tested fee structure upon aided English medium schools in the state following protests from all sections of society. Another chorus of protest forced it to rescind its resolution of July 15, 2002, which sought to introduce board examinations (the Primary School Certificate Examinations) for 2.7 million class IV students across the state. The exam was finally cancelled by the Bombay high court towards the end of 2002, but the controversy reared its head again last month with teachers and parents fearing that the ministry was trying to reintroduce it through the back door (see EW March, p.31).

These snafus have prompted several schools in Mumbai which were hitherto affiliated to the state examination board to switch allegiance to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) board. During the past year, several high profile schools, viz. G.D. Somani, New Era High, Hindi Vidya Bhavan, S.K. Jain and Lady Visanji High, Sulochana Devi School, Kasturi Memorial and Rustomji Kerawala have made the switch. And while there have been some protests from parents over this move (since it translates into considerably higher fees), managements of the newly converted schools are probably heaving a sigh of relief over their switchover decision. Reason: reports of outrageous cheating, (students being assisted by supervisors and teachers) and exam paper leaks have tarnished the reputation of the Maharashtra Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board whose exams have just been written by 300,000 students from over 3,000 affiliated schools in the state.

"This year cheating has been rampant. Mass copying has become the norm in several city centres, where there seems to be absolutely no law and order. Even peons who provide drinking water to students writing the SSC exams are involved. It’s a racket with supervisors charging students a fee for passing on guides or answers of other students," says Arundhati Chavan, president of the Parent Teacher Association United Forum (PTAUF). According to Chavan, the state government’s education department has completely failed to control malpractices and that most complaints about mass copying are from municipal schools.

Apart from this, the entire education community in the state received a rude shock when media reports alleged that the Nagpur-based Bhange Coaching Classes had leaked the social science paper to its students a month before the examination. Following widespread outrage, the SSC board lodged a police complaint against the proprietor, Nagorao Balaji Bhange who together with a teacher was arrested on March 14. As a consequence the paper was rescheduled and long-suffering students had to write it again. Says Narendra Bhambwani, secretary of the Maharashtra Class Owners’ Association with a membership of 300 tutorial centres: "Though printers’ staff or exam paper setters are usually responsible for the leaks, they are not possible without the active participation of government employees."

Meanwhile the education department and SSC board’s laid back attitude has created a problem for low income group households who are keen to provide quality education to their children. For instance, parents of the S.K. Jain School, many of whom are fruit and vegetable vendors in Mumbai’s popular Crawford Market, are in a bind. "With the school having switched its affiliation to CISCE, the monthly tuition fee for each child has risen from Rs.400 to Rs.750. I just don’t know how I am going to afford this additional expenditure," says a parent whose four children are enrolled in the S.K. Jain School. This is perhaps why several schools with a reputation for delivering high quality education cling loyally to the state board. Among them: St. Anne’s High School (for girls), St. Mary’s (for boys) and J.B. Vachha School. Comments Chavan: "When children from disciplined schools have to write their board examinations in municipal schools where cheating is rampant, you can imagine their predicament."

Though none of the authorities of these schools agreed to comment on the subject, it’s well known that they endeavour to provide education to children from a wide cross section of society. A switch to CBSE or CISCE affiliation necessarily translates into higher tuition fees. Thanks to the indifference if not negligence of the state’s education department and the SSC board, a growing number of parents in the city are learning that quality education comes at a high price.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Silent makeover

The general consensus is that India’s entertainment industry dominated by Bollywood which excels in producing puerile flop movies which are an insult to the meanest intelligence, is stuck in a time warp. But according to film director Shekhar Kapur and feel-good guru Deepak Chopra writing on the op-ed page of The Times of India (March 25), Asia — and by implication India — is all set to "spearhead a global transformation" of the entertainment business. This was also the dominant sentiment at the Frames 2004 global convention organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in mid-March in Mumbai.

An annual convention of those in the films, television and animation industry, Frames 2004 attracted 1,500 delegates — a 30 percent increase over last year. Delegates from over 400 companies in 20 countries including South Africa, USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Pakistan, Germany, France, Singapore, China and Thailand checked into Frames 2004.

Frames 2004 inauguration: animation industry focus

Given the huge growth potential of the animation industry, one of the main themes of the convention was the challenge of creating enough trained professionals to satisfy the huge potential demand in this field. Several countries and delegations pitched their schools and universities to Indian students, particularly in the field of digital animation, film and television. Others examined the possible outsourcing of entertainment-related work such as art, animation, pre-production and post-production to India.

"Right now there are about 3,000 animation professionals in India. With major studios looking to outsource animation work here, the demand for trained animation professionals will rise to 30,000 by 2005," says Dr. Michael Collins, dean of Sheridan College, School of Animation, Canada.

Sheridan offers students a certificate programme in digital animation spanning 14 weeks and costs international applicants C$9,950 per term (Rs.3.2 lakh). Students in this programme can specialise in either digital character animation or digital visual effects. Other courses at Sheridan include applied degrees in animation and illustration. Sheridan offers 25 programmes at the certificate, diploma and degree levels and has over 3,400 students.

Other canadian animation and design schools which participated in Frames 2004 included Algonquin College, the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Capilano College, Concordia University, the Emily Carr Institute of Arts and Design and Ryerson University.

Representatives of Indian industry were particularly enthused by the possibility of a growing volume of animation jobs being outsourced to India. Comments Tapaas Chakravarti, CEO, DQ Entertainment Ltd: "The vast potential of the animation market can be better appreciated when one takes into account the fact that its global revenue in 2001 was $175 billion (Rs.787,500 crore). Indian studios can grab a large slice of that pie through good co-production deals."

Andy Bird, president of Walt Disney International, who delivered his keynote address on the second day of Frames 2004, is also bullish about the Indian animation industry. Bird discerns huge opportunities in India in this domain. The Indian animation industry is currently estimated to be US $1 billion (Rs.4,500 crore) and is expected to grow at the rate of 30 percent per year in the near future. "Other than focusing on films and TV animation, the entertainment industry could also tap other user segments like gaming, advertising, music videos, and documentaries," says Bird.

Another country which registered its presence in the entertainment education business at Frames 2004 was Australia. IDP Education Australia, the well-known marketing arm of Australian education with 61 offices worldwide promotes Australian education. While the Cana-dians primarily focused on animation, IDP Education highlighted film and television study opportunities Down Under.

Among the Australian universities that participated in Frames 2004 and offered entertainment-related study programmes were Monash; Edith Cowan; Sydney; Melbourne; Adelaide; Canberra, and Queensland.

Besides foreign universities there were also a few homegrown companies at Frames 2004 offering students education and training in digital arts and animation. Among them was the Indian Academy of Arts and Animation Private Ltd (IAAA), with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, the US and Dubai.

This institute offers study and training opportunities in several courses, taught by both Indian and visiting faculty from abroad. "We can put together a tailored package to suit each student’s needs and charge them accordingly," says Rajeev Dwivedi, technical director of IAAA.

Another participating Indian company which offers specialised study programmes is Filmmaker Tools which trains students to prepare pre-production software for scripting, scheduling, budgeting and storyboarding. Its current clientele includes Aamir Khan Productions; BBC World Service Trust; Balaji Films Ltd; Bennett Coleman & Co; Cutting Edge Entertainment and the Film and Television Institute (FTII), Pune. "Besides offering pre-production software to companies, we also train professionals and aspiring professionals in developing this software," says Rikin Choksi, a spokesperson of the company.

Though one wouldn’t think so, judging by the stale melodrama being tiresomely churned out by the old and new badshahs of Bollywood, quite clearly the enter-tainment business in India is experiencing a silent makeover. Kapur and Chopra may well prove to be prophetic seers.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)

Tripura

Tuition warfare

The prolonged battle between the state government and teachers in this tiny north-eastern state (pop. 3.1 million) of whose whereabouts most citizens have a hazy notion, on the issue of government school teachers taking private tuitions shows no signs of termination. The West Bengal style Left Front government is determined to enforce a complete ban on private tuition, but teachers backed by groups of parents and students are sworn to resist it.

"We are committed to ban the practice of private tuitions by government school teachers. It’s necessary in the interest of students to create a proper environment in schools and provide a decent education," says education minister Anil Sarkar who believes that private tuitions allow students from rich families to excel in school and board exams to the disadvantage of children from poor households. An education commission constituted to recommend ways and means to improve and develop the education sector in its report last year also recommended a complete stoppage of private tuition by government teachers.

The Tripura government argues that as it accepted the commission’s report in toto, it is bound to implement its recommen-dations. According to Sarkar the majority of government teachers are not involved; the practice is mainly prevalent in towns and urban locations. "There are about 700,000 students in schools across Tripura. Most of them do not even think of paying a private tutor," he says

But ranged against the government determination to ban private tuition is a growing number of parents who argue that government schools provide substandard education. Therefore they are compelled to ‘buy’ education from subject teachers before and after school hours for the sake of their children’s future.

"In this competitive world our children are expected to do well in secondary and higher secondary examinations to secure entry into good institutions of higher education. What’s the harm if I provide my son extra coaching from a teacher?" asks Jaidev Roy, an Agartala-based parent reflecting a popular viewpoint.

Inevitably the issue has become politicised with the opposition Congress party alleging that the Left Front government is sidestepping the issue of improving the quality of education being delivered in schools. "The Left Front government is not addressing core issues like reopening closed schools in interior and tribal areas, upgrading the status of government schools and maintenance of hundreds of school buildings," says Ratan Lal Nath, leader of the opposition in the state’s legislative assembly.

Other critics say the government’s prime motive behind banning private tuition by government teachers is linked to rising unemployment in the state. Following its failure to generate employment, the government wants unemployed youth to resort to private tuitions.

Meanwhile chief minister Manik Sarkar is caught in the crossfire between his own party colleagues and influential middle class parents. It will be interesting to see how the government wriggles out of its dilemma.

Syed Sajjad Ali (Agartala)