Education News

Swift response triumph

Human and disabled rights activists, academicians and educationists from about a dozen countries convened for a five-day conference (February 28-March 4) in New Delhi, inaugurated by Union sports minister Sunil Dutt. The North South Dialogue-III on Inclusive Education discussed ways to sensitise education policy makers about the need to make not just disabled children but also girl and socially and economically marginalised children, centric to education policy initiatives taken at the local, national and international levels.

Dutt (centre) at North South Dialogue III inauguration

Inevitably, the conference focused heavily on the rights of the disabled, organised as it was, by the Mumbai-based National Resource Centre for Inclusion, India (NRCII) — an affiliate of The Spastics Society of India. There was less emphasis on attempting to understand how to develop schools and education policies for all excluded minorities.

This bias led to a division between participants over the issue of whether the global alliance should have as strong a disability focus as the organisers were pushing for, or whether the final declaration should treat all marginalised children as equal. "For me, inclusion involves an approach to education and society concerned with increasing the participation of all and reducing all forms of discrimination and exclusion," says Dr. Tony Booth, a UK-based professor of inclusion and international education and principal author of Index for Inclusion; Developing Learning and Participation in Schools. "If inclusive education is concerned with a principled approach to education it makes no sense to see it primarily concerned with one group," he says.

Though Booth doesn’t deny that rights of the disabled need urgent attention, he believes that pressure to include them into education and society "will have limited success if they disassociate them-selves with issues of gender, caste, class, ethnicity and poverty." Carlos-Reyes Manzo, a passionate social documentary photographer of Chilean origin agrees. "If this is an alliance on ‘inclusion’ how can you put one excluded group ahead of another?" he asks.

But disability activists argue that the disabled are perhaps the most severely excluded group, denied basic human rights like marriage, family life and sometimes, life itself. Hence they need special attention. "It doesn’t matter if you are a girl child or a child from a poor family. If you are disabled, that’s what defines you," says Michelle Daley, a London-based people with disabilities activist.

It was obvious that the conference was designed, in large part, to showcase the results of NRCII’s five-year Indo-Canadian project on inclusive education in India. The achievements of the project, which involved 3,000 children in 53 schools in India, and focused national attention on the unacceptable neglect of the rights of people with disabilities, are undeniably impressive. It’s resulted in a detailed three-volume Culturally Appropriate Policy and Practice (CAPP) manual that was released at the conference, which documents case studies of successful inclusive education practices in India. CAPP will be presented to the Union government and at the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Disabled this August, and is likely to prompt policy changes at both the national and international levels.

Meanwhile following the conclusion of North-South Dialogue III which attracted intense media attention in the national capital, disability activists have swiftly won a major commitment from the Central government. "My ministry has formulated a comprehensive action plan for the inclusive education of children and youth with disabilities. The need for inclusive education arises precisely because it is now well understood that most children with disabilities can, with motivation and effort on the part of teaching institutions, become an integral part of these institutions… It should and will be our objective to make mainstream education not just available but accessible, affordable and appropriate for students with disabilities," said Union HRD minister Arjun Singh in a statement in Parliament on March 21.

Unsurprisingly, Spastics Society and NRCII spokesperson are jubilant about this in-principle commitment to include "most children with disabilities" in mainstream institutions. Not the least because the ministry’s quick response to their case proves that all seminars are not mere verbal jamborees forgotten as soon as they are concluded.

Maureen Nandini Mitra (Delhi)

IITs’ new bouquet

In a landmark directive, the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has ordered India’s eight highly rated IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) — which collectively stimulate an annual scramble of over 200,000 aspirants to write the all-India Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) held every May to win one of the 4,300 seats offered by them — to diversify their curriculums. Hence, from the academic year of 2006, apart from traditional engineering and technology study programmes, the IITs will offer a bouquet of new courses in the pure sciences, linguistics, business administration and economics.

The decision to accept the MHRD directive and introduce new study programmes was taken by the directors of IITs at a meeting held in the capital in January. The proposal was further discussed and concretised in the first meeting of the standing committee of the joint IIT council held in mid-March.

Under the time-table drawn up by the council, first off the blocks will be the IITs in Mumbai, Kharagpur and Kanpur which will introduce study programmes in nano science, integrated economics, statistics and informatics. In the year following (2007), IIT entrants will have a wider choice with applied economics and pulp and paper technology becoming part of the triad’s curriculums. These new study programmes will offer students a double whammy — a graduate and postgraduate degree in one go.

IIT-Bombay: first off the blocks

Meanwhile, MHRD’s proposal to make the IITs multi-disciplinary — which will also lead to a 12 percent rise in their undergraduate intake per year — has sparked a nationwide debate on its pros and cons. While some academics have welcomed this initiative as being in step with changing times, others have expressed misgivings about rampant diversification. Says Dr. Anil Wilson, principal of the blue chip St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (estd. 1880): "The IITs have already established themselves as centres of excellence in their chosen areas of engineering and technology and enjoy enviable brand equity worldwide. In the circumstances why tamper with this template to introduce courses that could well turn out to be mediocre?" Wilson says that the St. Stephen’s management too, has often been under pressure to include business management and life skills programmes in its liberal arts curriculum but they have "desisted all such attempts for fear of diluting our well-received courses".

However, a growing number of academics are veering around to the view that multi-disciplining the IITs will not only enrich campus diversity but enhance the quality of their intellectual discourse by providing opportunities for interdisciplinary research, thus enabling them to metamorphose into excellent academic crucibles for economics and pure sciences as well. Given the proven proclivity of IIT alumni to enroll for further education in B-schools in India and abroad, it makes sense for the IITs to provide further education programmes in-house. Also, there are world-class examples — like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University which have successfully diversified, offering a slew of subjects apart from engineering and technology. So why not the IITs?

"The IITs have to change with the times. They can’t remain hermetically sealed units stuck in a time warp, offering archaic curriculums all their lives. By offering new courses, the IITs have been given a wonderful opportunity to ultilise their excellent infrastructure optimally. The revenue generated by these programmes can be invested in better facilities," says P.N. Khanduja former professor at IIT-Delhi.

Even as the IITs prepare to introduce their new study programmes, aspirants preparing to join the mad annual scramble for admission are delighted with the increase in the annual intake, no matter how marginal. There’s general expectation that the IITs will impose the same teaching-learning and problem solving criteria upon the new disciplines, as they have done for technology and engineering subjects.

Unlike the great majority of institutions of higher education, they have a reputation to lose.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Microsoft steps forward

Microsoft India, the India affiliate of the world’s most valued corporate in terms of market capitalisation — the Seattle, USA-based Microsoft Inc, inaugurated Project Shiksha, its first IT academy in Pune, on February 28. The academy will provide hands-on training in Microsoft software to an estimated 20,000 teachers in 3,000 government schools across Maharashtra at an estimated cost (over a period of five years) of Rs.100 crore.

Microsoft India managers stress that the range and ambit of the ambitious Project Shiksha programme extends way beyond teacher training. It is to accelerate computer literacy for teachers and students in government schools across India and in particular, familiarise teachers and students with Microsoft’s range of software applications with the objective of mining India’s high-potential market for packaged software. Microsoft’s target is to train 200,000 students in its Pune academy and an equal number in Project Shiksha academies scheduled to be set up in Nagpur and Aurangabad in the next two years.

Similar Microsoft IT centres in Hyderabad, Delhi, Dehradun, Bangalore and Kolkata have already been established. "We will have ten centres in three years, but the demand from other states could force us to revise our targets," remarked Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Microsoft India on the occasion of the well-attended launch of the Pune academy inaugurated by Maha-rashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who assured Microsoft of his continued support for the initiative. Country wide Microsoft IT academies are targeting 80,000 teachers who will pass on familiarity with Microsoft software to an estimated 3.5 million school students.

Significantly, Project Shiksha is just one component of a much larger initiative undertaken by Microsoft in collaboration with front rank technology company Intel, Citibank and the Bangalore-based educa-tion consultancy firm Pacsoft. Known as the Partners in Learning Initiative (PLI), its objective is to empower schools to increase computer literacy through teacher development and leadership; by delivering high quality learning and development experiences to educators; providing resources to support success in classrooms and opportunities to network with colleagues. Microsoft is also looking at providing primary and secondary schools with licensed but subsidised copies of Windows applications and an annual subscription programme to reduce the cost of Microsoft desktop offerings.

However Maharashtra government spokespersons deny charges of bias in favour of Microsoft. "If Linux companies wish to set up similar teacher and student training centres, they are most welcome to do so," J.M. Pathak principal secretary (education) told the Indian Express (February 19).

While Project Shiksha has been widely welcomed, educationists in the state are voicing scepticism. "Though Project Shiksha’s work is meant to reach teachers in far flung rural schools, the majority of them don’t have access to a single computer, or often even to electricity. It’s only a few schools in the urban areas which are equipped to benefit from Project Shiksha. In most rural schools there’s only one teacher managing four primary classes. Where is the question of him or her passing on the benefits of Project Shiksha with any efficacy?" asks Arundhati Chavan, president of the Mumbai-based Parent Associations Forum.

But Microsoft can hardly be faulted for this depressing scenario. Whatever its motives, the company has exemplarily stepped forward to offer useful and bankable skills training to rural teachers and students. It’s upto the targeted communities to avail of it.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

New placement initiative

A novel state level placement programme (SLPP) initiated on January 17 this year by Anna University, which provides a common meeting ground for corporate recruitment personnel and students from 222 non-autonomous, self-financing colleges affiliated to the university, has generated great enthusiasm within the student community in Tamil Nadu.

Large corporates which hitherto did the rounds of a mere 20 top-ranked colleges in the state for recruitment purposes, now have a wider range of students to choose from and students studying in colleges in non-metros have an opportunity to land better paid jobs. Perhaps most significantly and for the first time ever, students of colleges in remote rural areas of the state who have never experienced campus recruitment, have been given the chance of entering the employment registers of large pan-India and even multinational companies.

Balaguruswamy: upgradation objective

The recruitment initiative was flagged off by three IT majors — Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro —on January 17 this year. These companies have completed three recruitment cycles in the nodal centres designated by Anna University — Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai — and selected their candidates, while Satyam Computers, which joined the recruitment process recently, has already visited Madurai and plans to move on to Coimbatore and Chennai shortly. "Out of 1,000 students selected to appear for interview in the three locations, 650 have found jobs in CTS, TCS and Wipro. Other IT giants like Infosys and Tata Infotech have also expressed interest in participating in the recruitment programme. Besides, core engineering companies like L&T, Hind Motors and Ashok Leyland are likely to participate from the next academic year," says Dr. Mannar Jawahar, director of Anna University’s Centre for University Industry Collaboration, which organised the SLPP.

Though the SLPP model has proved to be a remarkable success in widening corporate choice, the recruitment process also highlighted uneven standards of engineering education inter se. Only 17 percent of students have secured jobs after the completion of ten recruitment cycles by four IT companies and recruits are from just 81 colleges. Moreover of the 222 self-financing colleges, only 168 were able to send candidates for recruitment. The rest could not even meet the minimum eligibility criteria set by the IT companies.

However, HRD managers of participating corporates are hopeful that the quality of SLPP candidates will improve. "This is the first time that a state-wide placement programme has been conducted. By and large the candidates are of good calibre; what’s lacking is an overall understanding of what IT companies are looking for and how students should prepare themselves. We have recruited about 90 engineers in Chennai, 90 in Madurai and over 50 in Coimbatore. SLPP will attract more companies in future as the process helps us save time, money and effort besides giving us access to graduates of diverse institutions," says B. Suresh, senior HR manager, Cognizant Technology Solutions.

Considerations of wider choice, social justice and equity apart, within Anna University hope has been kindled that SLPP will prove a catalyst and inspiration for proliferating sub-standard colleges in the state to upgrade academic standards to ensure their students find placements of honour in SLPP melas of the future.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Forced policy change

In mid-March several primary school managements in Bangalore were stunned and shocked by inspectors of the state government’s education department who swooped down upon in-session classrooms to seize English alphabet and primary textbooks from the hands and school bags of children. They were in search of ‘evidence’ of violation of the state government’s official language policy (formulated in 2001 and modified in 2004) which prohibits all government-recognised (aided or unaided) primary schools from teaching English, even as a subject, prior to class VI.

"Our Kannada-medium primary school has been functioning in suburban Bangalore for the past 27 years, with the majority of our students being from lower middle class families. Since we found that children experience great difficulty in learning English from scratch in class VI, we have been teaching the basics of English as a second language from class I. We weren’t aware we were committing a major crime," says the founder-secretary of a targeted school on condition of anonymity.

Iniquitously the city’s mushrooming five-star and upscale schools affiliated with pan-India and foreign examination boards (CISCE, CBSE, IB, IGCSE etc) are exempt from this policy directive and use English as the medium of instruction from the kindergarten stage. Only aided schools affiliated with the Karnataka State Secondary Education and Examination Board (KSEEB) or hoping to be aided (‘recognised’) fall within the ambit of the Kannada-only-until-class-VI policy. Inevitably these schools enroll the children of the poor and socially disadvantaged who are cruelly denied the chance to become fluent in English — the language of higher education and of business and commerce.

Responding to public criticism of "inspector raj heavy-handedness" Sanjeev Kumar, commissioner of public instruction, government of Karnataka, denies that department inspectors had been high-handed. "The press report about our department inspectors seizing English textbooks from the hands and bags of school children is utterly false. No such thing has happened. Following reports of violation of the government’s language policy by our inspectors who visited some schools for routine inspection, we have issued notices to over 80 schools in Bangalore. If they don’t heed the warning and continue to teach English, we will be forced to take action and perhaps even derecognise them," says Kumar.

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As this issue of EducationWorld goes to press, in an unexpected development which has come as a pleasant surprise in academia, on March 23 Karnataka’s primary education minister R. Ramalinga Reddy announced a revision of the state government’s Kannada-only primary school policy. Following loud criticism of the language policy in the legislative assembly, Reddy promised to introduce English from class I onwards from the next academic year beginning July. "If the entire legislature wants it, the government can certainly introduce English as a subject from class I or III in the next academic year," declared Reddy.

Quite evidently the sheer volume of public outrage following the mid-March raids on primary school children has prompted an immediate policy change. That’s the power of concerted public opinion.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

Coming quotas

The Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) which was rendered almost defunct by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, Union human resource development minister of the previous BJP-led National Democratic Alliance but was reconstituted by its successor Congress-led United Progressive Alliance last year (July), has finalised the Free and Compulsory Education Bill to be tabled in the coming monsoon session of Parliament. CABE has reportedly incorporated the recommendation of a parliamentary sub-committee chaired by Union science and technology minister, Kapil Sibal, to mandate a 25 percent reservation in private schools for poor and socially disadvantaged children.

According to CABE sources, the Kothari Commission’s recommendation of introducing a common school system and the Supreme Court’s observations on commercialisation of education by private schools were taken into consideration while formulating the draft bill. The proposed bill which reportedly has the backing of the PMO (prime minister’s office) will do away with the existing option of reserving a minimum of 5 percent of capacity for disadvantaged students and also substitute the lower and upper limits by a flat percentage.

Once the bill is enacted it will compel a drastic change in the fees structure of private schools, which will have to cross-subsidise the freeships of poor students by hiking tuition and other fees across the board. The managements of private schools who in the garb of ‘afternoon schools’ for poor students were hitherto exploiting loopholes in existing law will find this option closed as the bill provides for integration of both categories of students.

In a related development in Delhi, the state government has threatened to impose stiff penalties on private schools failing to reserve 20 percent of their seats for poor students from this academic session onward in compliance with a 2004 order of the Delhi high court. Delhi’s education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely says he is determined to enforce this judgement of the court.

Ashok Agarwal, senior counsel and convener of the NGO Social Jurist (the public interest group responsible for persuading the court to issue this order), recently revisited this issue in a letter to Lovely. "Some schools are making a mockery of the court’s order. Students admitted under reserved quota are being asked for parental income certificates every year. Imagine two lakh students queuing up at the SDM (special divisional magistrate) offices for this certificate. Therefore, we have asked the state government to centralise the admission process by appointing nodal officers to oversee the admission procedure without involvement of schools," says Agarwal.

Meanwhile in an issue related to school admissions, the Delhi state government is also considering acting on suggestions from its own teachers and other groups that students from low-end private primary schools should not be admitted into government secondary schools, because they tend to be lagging behind in studies. "They spoil our results and teachers have a tough time teaching them," says D.K. Tiwari, general secretary, GSTA (Government School Teachers Association).

The implications of this suggestion are huge as hundreds of private institutions are either primary (upto class V) or middle schools (class VIII), after completion of which students move into government and other senior secondary schools. "The state government will streamline the school education system. We are determined," says the proactive Lovely.

Certainly major changes in school education are in the offing in the capital which could well serve as a blueprint for the rest of the country.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)