Education News

Deep rot tragedy

Gutted school building in Kumbakonam: accident waiting to happen

The Saraswathi English Medium School’s ‘correspondent’ i.e promoter, and some management staff have been arrested and charged with criminal negligence, the school closed and its licence cancelled. Besides, 12 district education officials have been arrested on charges of failure to rush to the aid of the endangered children, misuse of education department documents and dereliction of duty. A commission of enquiry under the Commissions of Enquiry Act, 1952 has also been set up to examine circum-stances and causes which led to this grim tragedy, devastating numerous families in this district headquarter town (pop.140,000).

The state government’s post facto crackdown on negligent officials and indifferent school managements has drawn a cynical response from educationists who are well aware that despite Tamil Nadu’s relatively good record in education (the free mid-day meal scheme was pioneered in the state) this was an accident waiting to happen, given the general neglect of the government school system which has prompted the pell-mell growth of over 12,900 private sector primary and secondary schools offering much-prized English medium education. For over 40 years the correspondent of the school, Pulavar Palanisamy, ran two schools — the Tamil medium Krishna aided primary on the first floor, the high school on the second floor, and the self-financing Saraswathi English medium school on the ground floor of a building which had only one main entrance and a single narrow flight of stairs.

Quite obviously, by running two schools with 870 students in a cramped building with just one main entrance and no fire escape, the promoter allowed commercial considerations to overrule safety aspects. Following the tragedy it has come to light that the district chief educational officer and his staff had failed to conduct the mandatory annual inspection of the school for three years.

The commission of enquiry set up by the chief minister is expected to recommend several mandatory safety measures with the assistance of experts from different fields. Education department officials will also be required to check safety measures and procedures before granting recognition and approval to schools. A structural stability certificate from PWD/ chartered engineers, a public building licence under the Licensing Act, 1965 from the local tehsildar and sanitary and hygiene certificates from local health authorities will become mandatory.

Though welcome, this belated tightening of safety and inspection procedures which will intensify licence-permit raj and concomitant bribery in elementary education, skirts the basic problem that bedevils primary and secondary school education supervised by state governments in Tamil Nadu and every other state of the Indian Union. The ground reality of which everyone except state government officials are aware, is that there is ubiquitous and rising demand for low cost English medium education from the working and lower middle classes which state governments, for subnationalist reasons and fear of losing lucrative textbook printing rackets are unwilling to meet.

Since elite English medium schools in urban areas are out of reach of the majority, they flock to private anything-goes schools like the Saraswathi school offering poor quality English medium education. "The demand for English medium is a major factor luring children to sub-standard unaided schools. Other factors are the large number of teacher vacancies and lack of learning guarantee in government, local body and aided schools which fail to inspire minimal confidence among parents. So filling up teacher vacancies and eliminating teacher absenteeism are needed to improve the public education system. One hopes the commission of enquiry will also suggest ways to relocate hazardous kitchens a safe distance away from classrooms," says educationist S.S Rajagopalan.

Yet despite much hand-wringing and anguish following the horrific tragedy at Kumbakonam, educationists in the state are well aware that the commission of enquiry is a time-buying measure. Public memory is short and soon it will be business as usual for the state’s eduprenuers and hand-in-glove education officials. The stakes in state government delivered and supervised education for the hapless under-class are too high and the rot too deep to permit the honest root and branch reform required in elementary education.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Education-led budget

Chidambaram: first-time cess

For the first time ever, a 2 percent education cess will be levied on all Central government taxes — direct and indirect — which will mop up an estimated Rs.5,000 crore every year. These funds will be utilised for providing primary education and "a nutritious cooked mid-day meal" to all school-going children between the ages of six to 14 and to raise the national outlay for education from the current 4 to 6 percent of GDP (gross domestic product). Collections from the education cess will be added to the Rs.11,000 crore allocation of the Union human resource development ministry earmarked for education in this budget.

The other salient features of this education-led budget are to accelerate schemes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) or Education for All programme; allocation of Rs.50 crore for minority education from the National Minority Development & Finance Corporation (NMDFC); setting up of 500 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and upgradation of 100 existing ITIs. The budget has also doubled the amount available by way of education loans without collateral security from Rs.4 lakh to Rs.7.5 lakh.

This latter provision is good news for students aspiring to study abroad, as currently it is mandatory for them to furnish collateral for loans above Rs.4 lakh. Says Sheena Singh, a Delhi-based education consultant, "Students of undergraduate courses will benefit most from this enhancement as they are usually unable to finance themselves and have to borrow heavily. More years of study abroad translates into higher cost of study."

The budget also makes a provision for "promoting private initiatives in higher education, strengthening women’s education and earmarking funds for education in the north-east". "The most noteworthy feature of this year’s budget," says Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai, vice-chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC) and former vice-chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kochi, "is that it reconciles growth and reform in the education sector with the redressal of many social imbalances. Its commitment to primary education is commendable given that we have a constitutional obligation to provide free primary education to an additional 30 million children in the next three years. To teach these children, we have only 4 lakh teachers as against the requirement of at least one million! So this additional money will hopefully improve infrastructure and teacher availability which will have a beneficial effect on secondary and higher education as well."

However the provisions of the Union budget 2004-05 relating to education have not aroused universal enthusiasm. "The education cess measure sounds good on paper but it’s unlikely to improve the condition of primary education in the country. Most likely, it’ll be just another liability for the tax-payer. Governments in India — especially state governments — have a terrible record of monitoring education spending. Chances are high that the cess money will get sucked into a bureaucratic black hole," says a member of the Government School Teachers Association (GSTA).

Such fears are not unfounded given that a separate account hasn’t been created for cess collections. This means that amounts unspent by the Union HRD ministry will lapse if not spent during the year. Judging by the expenditure pattern of the ministry and given the unlikelihood of matching allocations by the state government (a mandatory requirement), some of the amounts collected will remain unspent and disappear into the consolidated fund. Just this year, for instance, the ministry has shown an expenditure shortfall of Rs.1,443 crore in the SSA programme and another Rs.30 crore in Access and Equity, a centrally sponsored grant to provide hostels for girl students.

"With just eight months left of this current fiscal, the 2 percent cess will translate into about Rs.2,500 crore," explains P.K. Joshi, director of the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). "A lot of time will be spent in transferring this amount to the HRD ministry and then to the states. So its real impact, if at all, will only be felt next year."

Yet despite such scepticism, a laudable feature of the Union budget 2004-05 is that the cash strapped education sector has been moved to the top of the national development agenda. With over 59 million children between the ages of six-14 out of school and over 75 million suffering from malnutrition, this re-drawing of national priorities cannot but augur better days ahead for the nation’s 340 million children (0-14 years of age) who are entitled to receive quality elementary education.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Dyslexia reporting row

A July 13 order passed by the state government with instructions to add a corrigendum to a govern-ment resolution concerning students with learning disabilities, (LD — a complex and often undiagnosed condition which affects possibly 10 percent of all children in India), has brought good cheer to students and parents in Maharashtra. The education department, which grants LD affected students extra time while writing their exams and 20 grace marks in certain subjects, has allowed affected children additional time to submit certificates verifying their disability to their schools.

According to state government rules, the necessary certificate has to be obtained from Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General (LTMG) Hospital by August 10, for students to avail these concessions. This year additional time has been given because last year LD afflicted students in several Mumbai schools, were denied extra writing time and grace marks because they were not able to submit their certificates within the stipulated period. Therefore parents of affected children who complained to the education department, are happy with the new order, described by education secretary J.M. Phatak as "a one-time dispensation for students and parents who have discovered late that their children have LD." However, a deadline has not yet been set within which the certificates have to be submitted. "This is yet to be decided," says Phatak.

Even so, considerable confusion has been generated by a report in The Times of India, Mumbai edition (paid up circulation 525,000) on the subject. "Unfortunately, since the reporting was not clear, LD affected students who have already written their SSC and HSC board examinations are under the impression that this provision of extra time applied to them as well. But this is not the case. This corrigendum applies only to students currently in school who have been detained by school managements because they have not yet submitted the necessary verification certificates," says Pathak.

Such cases of inaccurate reporting on the topic of LD have in fact been creating something of a furore amongst educationists in the city. Kate Currawalla, president of the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association, a non-profit organisation registered in 1996 committed to spreading awareness, understanding and acceptance of LD, is highly critical of the media and TOI in particular. "Apart from this incident, there have been other reports sloppily written, providing slanted views and using quotes which are quite out of context," she claims. "While the attention suddenly being given to LD affected children is very welcome, reports should be balanced and provide accurate information," she adds.

In support of her criticism of the media, Currawalla cites TOI reports, (March 20- 21) with provocative headlines: ‘Normal children labeled backward, say experts’ and ‘Parents take advantage of learning-disability perks’. In strongly worded letters of protest to the publication, Dr. M. Kulkarni head of the department of pediatrics, LTMG Hospital and Dr. Dharmishta Mehta, reader in the department of special education, SNDT University objected to "selective quotes" and "sweeping generalisations". In her letter Dr. Mehta claimed that she had been quoted out of context thus giving her quote a "twisted connotation" and also objected to the reporter (Roli Srivastava) stating that "in these money driven days, even an ailment can be hyped into an epidemic".

Mehta particularly objects to reports which claim that parents get their children diagnosed as dyslexic to avail of LD related concessions. "Ms. Srivastava’s unfortunate turn of phrase is an insult to the thousands of people who struggle with the devastating effects of this neurological disorder on a daily basis. The accommodations offered by the Maharashtra board at the SSC and HSC level make it possible for these talented young people to complete their basic education and move on to lead productive lives instead of dropping out of school," she said in a letter to TOI.

When your correspondent tried to get in touch with Roli Srivastava for clarification of her report, it took four telephonic calls to learn that she has been transferred to Hyderabad. Inevitably TOI’s resident editor Dina Vakil was not available for comment, and her office directed your correspondent to contact a certain Anil Kumar Singh, who was on leave.

Comments Currawalla: "Our letter of complaint to TOI was never printed at all. Such irresponsible reports can cause a lot of damage. I have often heard LD children being accused of faking disability so that they can avail of the concessions which various boards in the country offer affected students. Surely they deserve better? Society and the media should support LD students rather than grudge them minor concessions."

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Wake-up call

Shock waves are rocking the not-so-tranquil groves of academia in Mumbai following the abrupt resignation on July 12 of the highly regarded Dr. S.D. Varwandkar principal of the city’s Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI). In his letter of resignation to the state government Varwandkar accepted moral responsibility for the failure of the Delhi-based All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to pay stipends for research conducted by postgraduate students enrolled in VJTI.

"Each of 300 VJTI students pursuing research while reading for their Masters in 12 branches of engineering studies is entitled to Rs.5,000 per month from AICTE, which has reportedly sanctioned the money. But these students have not received their stipends for the past 10 months," says Varwandkar.

However according to AICTE sources the council has sanctioned Rs.2.65 crore, which was not released earlier due to flaws in documentation submitted by VJTI. Krishna Gowda, the Mumbai-based regional officer of AICTE claims that nevertheless, the money had been sanctioned on July 13 and a demand draft had been forwarded to the college on July 14. But when this correspondent spoke with Varwandkar on July 21 the sanctioned and reportedly disbursed amount was yet to arrive.

Varwandkar: greater responsibility

After submitting his resignation to the state government, Varwandkar wrote a letter to AICTE chairman, R.Natarajan stating, "I have come to a dead end in my efforts to get the sanctioned amount released from AICTE. I have no face to meet our postgraduate students to whom I have been advertising the vital role of AICTE in encouraging research. The concerned section of AICTE has belied my simple and justified expectations," he wrote. Obviously to no avail.

Meanwhile VJTI postgrads, some of whom have been driven to desperation have welcomed Varwandkar’s moral stand. "Academics need to stand up to bureaucrats in funding agencies such as AICTE and UGC who derive sadistic pleasure in making respected professors beg and plead for their legitimate dues. I’m sure Dr. Varwandkar’s resignation won’t be accepted, but he’s served notice that academics deserve some respect and that Dr. Natarajan of AICTE is dispensing public rather than his personal funds," says an evidently financially embarrassed VJTI postgrad student.

Personal affronts and slights apart, Varwandkar believes he has acted in defence of this highly-rated engineering college, than out of personal pique. "VJTI is a world class institute and I am trying to convert it into a world class research institution. For that, I need both funds and students. If the latter are not awarded their legitimate scholarship and research stipends, they will either opt out or do substandard research," warns Varwandkar.

Message to AICTE, Delhi: Wake up folks! 2005 is around the corner.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)

Populism perils

More than two years following the landmark 11-bench Supreme Court judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation & Ors Vs State of Karnataka & Ors (2002 8 SCC 481) case, and nearly 18 months after the court’s follow-up ‘clarification’ judgement in the Islamic Academy of Education & An Vs State of Karnataka & Ors (2003 SCC 697) the issues of admission quotas and fees chargeable by Karnataka’s 109 engineering, 27 medical and 41 dental non-government colleges are still enveloped in clouds of confusion.

In 1980 Karnataka became a haven for promoters of professional education (medicine, dentistry and engineering) colleges, following liberal licensing of privately-promoted medical and engineering colleges. But in 1985 following public outcry against capitation and high tuition fees, the state government regulated admissions and tuition fees through the conduct of its CET (Common Entrance Test) and allocated seats in government as well as private unaided colleges to qualifying students at varying fees prescribed by it (the state government).

But in 1999 the pendulum swung the other way when private colleges complaining of excessive state government regulation went to the Supreme Court which overruled its own judgement in Unnikrishnan’s Case (1993) upholding the elaborate CET schema and in a 318-page judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation Case affirmed the constitutional right of religious minorities and all citizens to establish and administer non-government, unaided institutions of education free of state government micro-management, provided admissions are transparent and tuition fees reasonable.

However following widespread protests by middle class students against higher tuition fees, the Supreme Court issued a ‘clarification’ judgement in the Islamic Academy of Education Case (August 2003), ordering state governments to form committees to oversee admission processes and fee structures.

Though in early July after prolonged scrutiny of fee calculuses submitted by private colleges, the fees committee headed by retired high court judge A.M. Murgod mandated Rs.140,000-165,000 for medical, Rs.35,000-55,000 for engineering and Rs.90,000-110,000 for dental colleges, they proved unacceptable to both students and private college managements — the former condemning these tuition fees as too high and the latter as too low. Under extreme pressure from the government to reduce tuition fees further, Murgod and several other members of the committee resigned in mid July.

For fear of antagonising middle class ‘merit students’ long accustomed to heavily subsidised professional education (the three state government-owned medical colleges levy an annual tuition fee of a mere Rs.15,000 as against Rs.315,000 per year calculated as the minimal cost of providing medical education by the Medical Council of India), the state government has been pressuring private college managements grouped under Comed-K (Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges — Karnataka) which claims a membership of 70 unaided institutions to accept a 75:25 government-private seat sharing ratio.

Implicit in this seemingly innocuous proposal is a substantially lower tuition fee of Rs.45,000 for medical and Rs.10,000 for engineering courses as per the former ‘merit quota’ in private colleges. Given the wide tuition fees gap between the Murgod committee’s fee structure (dismissed as too low by Comed-K members) the 75:25 proposal was vehemently opposed by Comed-K.

Meanwhile in May state level assembly elections were called and a coalition government under the leadership of N. Dharam Singh was sworn into office. The new government started the process all over again by commencing fresh negotiations with private college managements on the seat-sharing issue. Unable to persuade Comed-K to accept the 75:25 formula the state government tabled a resolution on July 26 in both houses of the legislature stating that the government "shall regulate by law — if necessary by a special legislation — a seat sharing ratio of 75:25 between the government and management respectively as a one-time stipulation for selection of students to medical, dental and engineering courses in the state for the academic year 2004-05".

Clarifying that the proposed resolution will legislate fair and reasonable fees for private colleges, Singh has reportedly proposed a three-tier fee structure — Rs. 1.65 lakh for management quota (25 percent), Rs.45,000 for merit students (25 percent) and in-between fees to be determined by government for the remaining 50 percent admitted under the ‘government non-merit’ category.

But according to legal experts the state government’s via media proposal is likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. "The Supreme Court’s decision (in the Islamic Academy of Education Case) cannot be overruled by legislation. The apex court itself must review its judgement and dispose the matter by a larger bench. Otherwise the state will be accused of disobeying an SC judgement. The only other solution is for the government to take over all the colleges and run them," says retired high court judge H.G. Balakrishna speaking to the Times of India, Bangalore (July 27).

With classes in professional colleges scheduled to commence on October 1 and seat allotment and counselling completed by September 30, time is running out for the estimated 37,000 students who will commence classes in private professional colleges. But with the state government’s July 26 resolution and follow up legislation of doubtful legal validity, yet another battle in the Supreme Court is in the offing. Until this next round of state government-Comed-K impasse is resolved by the apex court with a further clarification judgement, the interregnum is likely to prove a period of suspense for would-be medical practitioners, dentists and engineers.

Quite evidently state government ministers are unable to balance the interests of students and the managements of Comed-K colleges. In its collective anxiety to please the subsidy-addicted middle class constituency, it is endangering the financial health of hundreds of institutions of professional education promoted in good faith by well-meaning edupreneurs. There seems to be little awareness in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly that given the empty government treasury, privately promoted education institutions need to be encouraged and nurtured rather than strangled.

Such are the perils of political populism.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)