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Valuable public audits

Thank you for publishing a balanced cover story on the All India Council for Technical Education (EW July). In your argument with Dr. Natarajan, I believe the truth lies somewhere in between, i.e, it’s partly true that the shoddy construction and infrastructure work which is a feature of the Indian landscape is the result of poor quality technical education and managerial and systemic failure as well.

India’s near-top ranking on the international corruption index compiled by the Berlin-based Transparency Interna-tional is testimony to the systemic failure suggested by Natarajan. On the other hand it’s also well known that the engineering and technical education delivered by hundreds of engineering colleges — barring the IITs and NITs — is outdated, if not obsolete.

What’s the remedy? Quite obviously the education upgradation efforts of AICTE are useful, even if belated. But equally valuable is the searchlight that EducationWorld is beaming upon organisations such as AICTE and UGC and the public audit of these supervisory organisations which hitherto have operated in the shadows. You and your team in EW deserve the thanks and gratitude of the nation for your pioneer publication.

Keep up the good work!

N.S. Shivshankar
Chennai

I am a regular subscriber of Education- World magazine and would like to congratulate you for creating such a valuable resource for education professionals. I feel there is a great need for professional education managers who are market savvy.

Rahul Choudaha
Mumbai

The June issue of EducationWorld was packed with useful information on education programmes and admission into reputed schools and institutes of higher education.

In the same issue ‘The siege of Corbett Tiger Reserve’ by Bittu Sahgal was stimulating. His emphasis on preserving the forests of Kumaon is a laudable appeal. Local demands for road building will cause silt to slide down into rivers and in the process destroy the water and wildlife, especially tigers and birds. His sorrow for the loss of forests and wildlife is understandable as he is a committed environmentalist and editor of Sanctuary magazine.

Unfortunately the demands of development and the need to find employment for local people will result in the destruction of forests and wildlife.

Jagdish Gandhi
City Montessori School
Lucknow

The cover story on the All India Council for Technical Education (EW July) is very detailed. Reading it was an educating experience.

However I don’t quite agree with your analysis that the pathetic infrastructure and shoddy construction of roads/ public buildings is a result of bad engineering education. Rather I agree with Dr. Natarajan, who says that it is primarily due to systemic managerial failure. In the past five decades since independence successive governments at the Centre and in the states have been led by under-educated politicians who are more concerned with lining their pockets rather than building public infrastructure.

Suresh Kamat
Mangalore

Thanks for highlighting the inequity which exists in our schooling system in the special report ‘Swelling support for common school system’ (EW July). I have recently moved from Britain to Mumbai and while in London both my children went to a government school in the neighbourhood. The infrastructure facilities, faculty and syllabus were of extremely good quality and there was no necessity for enrolling them in a fee-charging private school. There would be a civil war in Britain if there wasn’t a common school system.

Hence I’m shocked and amazed that even 57 years after independence the Indian government cannot guarantee education of equitable quality to all children. On the one hand there are super private schools which offer horse riding, swimming and air-conditioned classrooms (one of which I admit my children attend) while on the other hand there are thousands of run down government schools without even a blackboard. The gap between these two is so wide that everyone seems to think this inequity is God given. I hope your article helps the education minister realise that quality education is not a privilege to be enjoyed by the progeny of the rich and famous but a right which should be guaranteed to all children irrespective of their economic status.

The leisure and travel piece titled ‘India’s islands in the sun’ (EW July) made interesting reading. It is an irony that most Indians are unaware of the existence of these islands. I was particularly impressed by the water sports facilities offered in Lakshadweep. I was under the impression that there are not many facilities in India for water sports, and even if there are, participation costs are too high for middle class people. But the comprehensive information provided in the feature about the costs, duration and certification rules for scuba diving has enthused me enough to pack my bags and head for the Lakshadweep islands.

Gaurav Patel
Mumbai

After reading several reports in the newspapers on the rewriting of history textbooks by former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi, your report on tendentious textbooks under fire in Pakistan (International News, EW July) didn’t surprise me. Governments in developing third world countries seem to think that rewriting textbooks to project their world perspective is the best way to brainwash young children. Given their abysmal literacy rates one would think that the Indian and Pakistani governments would concentrate on providing basic education to all children. Instead they prefer to waste their precious resources on commissioning spurious new textbooks every year.

Surendranath Mishra
Lucknow