CISCE’s hothouse politics
The well-known caustic wit Ambrose Bierce once famously remarked that success is the worst crime you can commit against your fellows. An individual who has perhaps learned this the hard way is Francis Fanthome, MP and hitherto the all-powerful chief executive and secretary of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the syllabus setting and school-leaving examination board preferred by India’s premier private sector schools including Doon, Mayo, St.Paul’s, Darjeeling among other secondaries of ancient and contemporary vintage.
A former teacher at the blue-chip Doon and St. Joseph’s, Darjeeling schools and former principal of the Tashi Namgyal Academy, Gangtok, Fanthome’s upward trajectory in India’s fast-track and flourishing private education sector began when he was appointed secretary of CISCE (the successor of the Senior Cambridge board, UK) in 1992. Within a decade, Fanthome transformed the low profile CISCE which then had 800 schools affiliated with it into a fully-wired, fast-growth board with 1,392 of the country’s most well-known schools as affiliates.
But quite obviously Fanthome’s personal career and reputation grew too far and too fast for the comfort of some of his colleagues in CISCE. Particularly when earlier this year he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha as the sole representative of the minuscule Anglo-Indian community (which runs CISCE) by President Kalam over front-runner former quiz master Neil O’Brien, the incumbent chairman of the board of governors of CISCE.
Immediately following his nomination to Parliament, a cabal led by O’Brien crystallised within CISCE to cut Fanthome down to size. Since then a show-cause notice alleging assets disproportionate to income, grant of affiliation to incomplete schools and writing text books for use by CISCE affiliated schools, was slapped on Fanthome, never mind the damage to the reputation of the council in affiliated schools and within the academic community.
Fanthome reportedly gave a spirited reply to some of the charges. He pointed out that securing the affiliation of Mumbai’s Dhirubhai Ambani International School on the basis of blueprints and reputation of promoters was a coup rather than aberration, and that most members of the council board of governors had themselves authored textbooks, the selection of which is optional for school managements.
All to little avail. With the long knives out for him, the best Fanthome could do was to request an independent inquiry into the charges made against him. Accordingly Justice Michael Saldahna a retired judge of the Karnataka high court, has been appointed to investigate the charges against him. Meanwhile Fanthome has been forced to go on leave pending the inquiry.
Quite obviously in the hothouse politics of Indian academia you can be too successful for your own good.
New English champions
A curious phenomenon is being witnessed in the backward cowbelt state of Uttar Pradesh hitherto notorious for its anti-English Hindi language chauvinism. In India’s most populous and illiterate state ruled by wrestler-turned-politician Mulayam Singh Yadav, as many as 1,050 applications to start English medium schools have been filed by members of his Samajwadi party and/ or their kith and kin. According to monitors of the education scene in Lucknow, these unusual requests for promoting English medium schools are prompted less by education contemporisation impulses than pure commerce.
Tuition fees in Hindi medium schools are subject to a ceiling of Rs.15 per month imposed by state government decree. On the other hand English medium schools can levy such fees necessary to pay the salaries of teachers, a clerk, a peon and a maid servant (sic). Consequently in the past year 380 English medium schools have sprung up across the state — 75 percent of them promoted by or connected with ruling party members.
A government order to the effect that the surpluses of English medium schools should not exceed 20 percent of total earnings is no impediment. Even in obscure village schools, where English education is a craze, cash-strapped parents are forced to pay between Rs.80-250 per month for English medium education since government schools insist upon providing teaching in Hindi. Consequently Samajawadi party members who can get easy approvals and best facilities for their schools, are rapidly transforming into English language chauvinists.
And chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav who in a mercifully brief stint as Union defence minister almost provoked an Indian army coup d’etat by insisting upon communicating with the top brass in Hindi, doesn’t seem to mind a whit.
Practice and precept
A great opportunity for India to become a member of the Washington Accord (1989) has been blown because of the administrative incompetence f the head of the country’s most prestigious B-school. Membership of the accord which has been signed by eight founder member countries (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Hong Kong and Ireland) is important because it would have placed the degrees of Indian engineering colleges approved by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) — a constituent of the All India Council for Technical Education — on a par with those of member and four provisional member countries.
The opportunity to become a member of the Washington Accord (WA) opened up following the visit of a high-level WA delegation in January which was coordinated by the then NBA chairman Dr. B.S. Sonde. Following the visit of the WA team, India was favoured to become a provisional member of WA which required renewal of its application before the next meeting of WA members scheduled for June 15 in Hong Kong. Meanwhile as part of his clean-up campaign in Indian education, Union HRD minister Arjun Singh abruptly reconstituted the NBA board appointing Dr. Bakul Dholakia, director of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad as NBA chairman — a position which Dholakia already saddled with IIM-A duties, showed unseemly haste in accepting.
According to HRD ministry sources, Dholakia is perceived as a hero by Arjun Singh for having reportedly stood up to the previous HRD minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi when in early 2004 Joshi made an infamous move to take control of the IIMs. The fact that this perception is erroneous (Dholakia refused to take any calls from EducationWorld when this publication took on Joshi — see EW March 2004) apart, Dholakia straightaway bungled his new job. He failed and neglected to file the renewal application for membership of WA which had to be submitted 120 days prior to the June 15 meeting in Hong Kong, presenting it instead on the day of the WA June 15 meeting. Consequently with the next meeting of WA members scheduled for June 2007, India’s membership application has been delayed by two years. Which means additional testing of Indian engineers abroad.
Quite evidently in Indian academia there’s a long shadow between preaching and practising business management.