Education News

Twenty-one focus groups covering major areas of the school curriculum have been formed, chaired by renowned scholars and teachers to suggest syllabus/ curriculum changes which will cover most subjects — curricular and extra-curricular — taught in schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), India’s largest national school-leaving exam-ination board with 6,370 schools in India and several abroad affiliated with it. As such CBSE which is also a subsidiary of the Union HRD ministry, is a benchmark curriculum-setting examination board for the 28 state examination boards. The monographs prepared by the national core groups will shape the NCFSE.

Krishna Kumar (right): co-option effort

The National Steering Committee will organise consultation meetings, public hearings, workshops, and seminars in different parts of the country, and utilise the NCERT website and other media to invite views of teachers and students, apart from other members of society before finalising its draft curriculum for CABE approval. "I am excited about the outcome because the focus groups constitute a wonderful team," say Yash Pal.

The new curriculum which will be introduced in CBSE affiliated schools at the commencement of the next academic year in July, is likely to herald a marked departure from the rote learning and memorisation curricula which characterise school education in India and have attracted heavy criticism from progressive educationists. "The new NCFSE is likely to be child inspired where teachers are not couriers of learning but partners in interactive learning with children. There is a broad consensus within the steering committee that education cannot be delivered, it has to be created and acquired," says Yash Pal.

However it’s pertinent to bear in mind that education is a concurrent list subject under the Constitution and that most state governments boast their own SCERTs (State Council for Education Research and Training) which devise syllabuses and curriculums and publish local language and region specific textbooks. The widely ignored reality that state level examination boards with their amateurish syllabuses and textbooks have dumbed down (govern-ment and aided) school education to abysmal depths apart, state examination boards are under no obligation to follow the new NCFSE when it’s finalised next year.

But Krishna Kumar is hopeful that the policy framework, even if not the CBSE syllabus/ curriculum, will be accepted by the state examination boards. To this end representatives of state boards and educationists from across the country have been co-opted into the National Steering Committee and the 21 focus groups. "It will be a collaborative and cooperative effort. We need a curriculum that is truly federal, but not hierarchal. The 1986 National Education Policy had envisaged a national system of education in which the states will be key participants in all spheres of decision-making and reform, including curriculum design and examination," says Krishna Kumar.

Despite Krishna Kumar’s optimism, it’s unlikely that the SCERTs and state examination boards will readily adopt the forthcoming NCFSE given their flourishing textbook printing rackets and vested interest in the status quo. Nevertheless if the new and overdue NCFSE is finalised early next year and implemented in 6,370 CBSE schools across the country, its liberal philosophy — if not actual practice — will filter into the school education system in the states. And that’s not a small blessing.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Children’s Day gift

In an initiative which is a befitting Children’s Day (November 14) gift to the country’s estimated 20 million physically challenged children, including 200,000 in Delhi, the Union HRD ministry has ordered all schools (private or government-owned) to adopt a slew of measures to make the academic experience easier for this short-changed minority. The measures include provision of free text-books, uniforms, special transport, scholarships and disabled-friendly school buildings.

For visually disabled children, the ministry has specified that Braille, talking books, sensory training kits, canes for mobility, text-to-speech software and computer hardware with Braille keyboards are mandatory. Also, it will now be obligatory for all schools to set up special forums for redressal of grievances of parents of challenged children.

The landmark directive was initiated following a public interest litigation (PIL) writ filed by Social Jurists, a Delhi-based group of socially conscious lawyers, in the Delhi high court. The writ petition prayed for the implementation of the Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 whose provisions have been in the main ignored by the Central and state governments. "The purpose of filing the petition was to sensitise the government and schools to the plight of the large number of physically challenged children. Societal attitudes and mindsets about physically challenged children must change. Even though it took us 18 long months to win the case, we were determined to pursue the matter relent-lessly," says Ashok Aggarwal, the can-do convenor of Social Jurists.

Physically challenged children: short-changed minority

Comments Mohina Dar, principal of the CBSE-affiliated Amity School, Noida, (estb. 1982) which has 3,200 students on its rolls: "The government’s announcement is most welcome. Education must contribute towards the growth of every individual in society. And contrary to popular belief, given an enabling environment the great majority of physically challenged children can evolve into contributing, productive citizens."

Moreover the government notification also outlines an integrated scheme of education for disabled children. Henceforth, schools will have to modify or re-structure their curriculums to ensure that these children are assimilated in inclusive classrooms and learn together with mainstream children. Alternative modes of examining these students have also been detailed.

Given that less than one percent of the 20 million physically challenged children in the country, and only 6,000 of the 200,000 in the national capital, attend school, the notification prompted by the Delhi high court’s order is clearly overdue. But as a government school teacher wryly remarks, the government notification could also become a dead letter as was the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995. "Court judgements, government notifications and statements of intent are the first step towards cutting a better deal for disabled children who have been cruelly neglected by the education system. Thereafter school managements and teachers have to implement them in their classrooms. That’s the stumbling block. The real onus of inclusive education is on the teachers community. It needs to implement noble sentiments at ground zero level."

There’s the rub.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

New home for National Library

The gigantic exercise of shifting the locus of the National Library, Kolkata has begun. Statutorily mandated to function as a "permanent repository of all reading and information materials produced in India as well as of all printed material authored by Indians and inclusive of those concerning India but authored by foreigners and wherever published in whichever language," the National Library is moving house, though fortunately within the same campus. Currently housed in a stately, 230-year-old mansion that was once the official residence of the British viceroy in India, the National Library is moving to a newly-constructed state-of-the-art building christened Bhasha Bhavan, built on its sprawling 30-acre grounds.

The task of moving this treasure trove of books, precious manuscripts and documents is mammoth. According to official statistics, on March 31, 2003 there were 2.9 million books and 491,092 official documents in the library on that day. With a steady stream of new arrivals every day, the tally of books could well have crossed 3 million since then.

The library’s recently appointed director Dr. Sudhendu Mandal says the building — despite its carpet area of 9,787 sq m — is bursting at the seams and simply can’t accommodate any more books. Therefore Bhasha Bhavan, whose foundation stone was laid by the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi 18 years ago, has been completed in the nick of time. Says Mandal: "One should bear in mind that the building we’ve been using was constructed as a private home and not with the idea of housing one of the largest libraries in Asia visited by over one thousand readers per day."

Nevertheless there is considerable nostalgia about vacating the old building which has an interesting history. In the 18th century, the original house was the residence of a wealthy native named Ali — whose identity has since been lost to posterity, but after whom Kolkata’s posh Alipore district is named. The East India Company took over this magnificent property, christened it Belvedere House and converted it into the residence of the viceroy. Among others, Warren Hastings lived here. After independence, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru farsightedly decided to dedicate this former symbol of imperial rule to the cause of education. The erstwhile Imperial Library, set up by Lord Curzon in 1903 in modest premises in downtown Kolkata, was renamed the National Library and shifted to Belvedere House.

Mandal hopes that Bhasha Bhavan, an elegant, centrally air-conditioned, five-storeyed glass-and-steel structure with a carpet area of over 40,000 sq m, will be able to cope with the pressures of increasing usage for many years to come. "Apart from the fact that we can offer much more space to readers, Bhasha Bhavan also has the most contemporary facilities to preserve precious books and manuscripts," he says. Constructed at a chastening cost of approximately Rs.80 crore, Bhasha Bhavan is also equipped with seminar and conference rooms as well as a grand 580-seat auditorium fitted with a state-of-the-art acoustic system.

Though Union minister of culture Jaipal Reddy inaugurated the reading rooms of Bhasha Bhavan at a low-key event in October, the formal inauguration of this perhaps India’s No. 1 library, will be by prime minister Manmohan Singh, possibly next February. By then, the task of shifting all books from the old viceregal lodge to Bhasha Bhavan will have been completed.

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Happily, a solution has been found because of India’s cordial relations with Malaysia. Though it might be an eye-opener for many, the fact is that Malaysia possesses latest digitisation and preservation know-how lacking in this country. In an initiative which is likely to strengthen ties between the two countries, the National Library of Malaysia has invited officers from its Indian counterpart to come across and learn the art of digitisation and preservation. With typical mean spiritedness, bearing the piffling expense of travel and lodging of Indian library officials was a sticking point for educrats in the Union HRD ministry. "The National Library of Malaysia has also agreed to bear the cost," says Mandal. "Once I assured the Centre that we would not have to bear the cost of the officials’ stay there, the government cleared our proposal. Two officers are flying to Kuala Lumpur on December 6 to learn about digitisation, maintenance and shifting of books and documents."

Somewhat belatedly in a nation where public libraries — particularly well-maintained ones — are rare, there’s a growing awareness of the importance of libraries, the storehouses of history and knowledge.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

B-schools venture abroad

Though the managements of the great majority of India’s 305 universities and 14,000 colleges are quaking in their boots about the possibility of institutions of higher education abroad establishing campuses in India, some Indian institutions seem hellbent on taking the fight to enemy soil.

Under the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which becomes operational next April, education is one of the 12 services which could be freely traded i.e exported and imported between signatory nations of WTO. Though the impact of GATS upon the education sectors of developing countries is yet hazy, there’s a distinct possibility of developed industrial nations insisting upon the export of higher education services as a quid pro quo for entry of goods and services into their markets.

In anticipation of higher education becoming internationally tradable, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has somewhat optimistically constituted an expert group to suggest ways and means for the Promotion of Indian Higher Education Abroad (PIHEAD). The expert committee has identified eight education disciplines with potential for export: business management and entre-preneurship; engineering and technology; computer sciences, software and applied mathematics; health sciences; basic sciences; social sciences; development studies and Indian studies.

But even as the expert committee is deliberating the contours of PIHEAD, several B-schools have taken the ball and scored touchdowns. For example the S.P. Jain Institute of Management Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, has already set up a B-school in Dubai (S.P. Jain Center of Management, Dubai); the ICFAI Business School (IBS) is planning affiliates in Sri Lanka, Dubai and Bangladesh by 2005-2006, and the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai, is all set to establish campuses in Dubai and the UK.

First off the block has been SPJIMR whose S.P. Jain Center of Management, Dubai became operational last May (2004). Sited in Dubai’s Knowledge Village, it offers a one-year postgraduate diploma in management with specialisation in several fields including investment banking, wealth management, and retail and hospitality management. "We are planning to set up a similar centre in Singapore which should be operational next year," says Dr. M.L. Shrikant, dean of SPJIMR.

Bhushan: reaching out

But while SPJIMR and IBS are nimble, private sector B-schools, JBIMS which is answerable to the Maharashtra state government, is set to establish campuses in Dubai — and more ambitiously — in Britain. Both centres will offer JBIMS’ full-time and part-time MBA and executive MBA study programmes. "The cross-flow of ideas, curriculums and faculty will help upgrade the quality of our study programmes in India. That, rather than profit, is the motivation behind venturing overseas," says Dr. R.K. Jhadav dean of JBIMS.

Though the managers of these B-schools are tight-lipped about how they propose to mobilise the substantial investments required to establish affiliates abroad, the general consensus is that their financial outlays are likely to be modest. The model favoured by them is to contract with a local partner who will finance construction and infrastructure while the Indian B-school will provide courseware and faculty.

Be that as it may, the belief that proposed centres/ affiliates will attract local and foreign students is indicative of the new confidence which pervades the campuses of India’s B-schools.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)

Rough passage to Russia

Getting admission into foreign universities and emplaning for unfamiliar climes is not always the exhilarating experience which glossy varsity brochures promise. Three students from Tamil Nadu who left India on October 10 this year to study medicine at the St. Petersburg I.I Mechnikov State Medical Academy in Russia, learned this truth the hard way. Mercilessly ragged and ill-treated at the academy’s hostel, they returned home on October 29, a fortnight after they emplaned for Russia with great expectations.

The admission of Sujay Dwarakanath Tukral of Chennai and Cyril Patrick and Frank Dhanraj of Arakkonam into the St. Petersburg Mechnikov Academy was arranged through Study Abroad Educational Consultants housed within the Russian Cultural Centre Chennai, which collected a service charge of Rs.85,000 from each student for airfare to Moscow and towards a month’s study of Russian. Study Abroad which has its headquarters in Chennai, facilitates admission of more than 100 students annually into medical and engineering colleges in Russia. Under its standard contract, the education consul-tancy firm undertakes full responsibility for students’ safety and well being during their six-year MBBS study in Russia and also provides regular progress reports to parents. The students were advised to carry US$ 800 (Rs.36,000) for food and living expenses in Petersburg apart from an annual tuition fee of US$ 3,900 (Rs.1.75 lakh) to be paid to the university towards tuition.

On arrival at Moscow airport on October 13, the three boys who were part of a 15-student contingent were received by a representative of an agency named Promecks. He demanded 2,000 roubles (Rs.1,200) from each student for the train journey to St. Petersburg, against the actual fare of 675 roubles.

Another Promecks agent received the students at the Academy’s hostel, and left them in charge of a senior student who took them up the broken steps of a dark, badly lit hostel. "We were not provided accommodation though Study Abroad Consultants had promised and were left stranded on the 9th floor of the building. After undergoing an HIV medical test, a student asked us to pay him US$ 400 (Rs.18,000) for hostel accomm-odation. Since we weren’t clear about whom to pay, we were accommodated by some senior students from Tamil Nadu for four days and nights in a small, dingy, unheated room while forced to sleep on the floor in freezing cold," says Sujay who has still not recovered from the traumatic experience.

Following frequent telephone calls from the students detailing their miserable plight, parents of the trio pleaded with Study Abroad to arrange for their return. "Study Abroad consultants merely connected us by telephone to Promecks in Russia, and washed their hands off the matter. Meanwhile Promecks withheld the boys’ passports and returned them only after collecting a sum of US $100. They also collected the airfare to Delhi without providing tickets and would not permit them to leave Russia unless they paid fees for the first semester. However, we contacted some friends in Moscow and with their help, the children returned home," says a traumatised parent.

Study Abroad spokespersons deny all wrong-doing or negligence. "This is the first time in 15 years that we’ve received such a grievance. We sent 12 other students in the same batch and they have not complained. These three students were ragged by some senior Tamilian students and were obviously homesick. We don’t manage their study or stay there and had advised the students to carry US $80 per month for food expenses," says C. Ravi Chandran, managing director, Study Abroad, the accredited official India representative of the ministry of health of the Russian Federation.

According to Ravi Chandran students of Mechnikov Medical Academy are given permanent lodging only after they pass a medical test. The three students did not attend the medical check-up and their passports were not registered in the university as they refused to pay their tuition and hostel fees. "We help all parents who approach us. In this case they came back without paying the prescribed first semester or hostel fees. But for our efforts, the students would not have been able to return. However we have sent a formal complaint to the university and are awaiting their response," he says.

Quite obviously, all is not what it seems at the Mechnikov State Medical Academy which could — like many state institutions and assets in post-communist Russia — have been captured by one of the many mafias which are ubiquitous in this former super-power nation. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at the Study Abroad Consultants in Chennai where queues of medical and engineering students don’t seem to be visibly shortening. But for the three students who emplaned for the new Russia to study medicine and for their parents who contracted large bank loans to fulfil their children’s dreams, the passage to St. Petersburg is a nightmare they would rather forget.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Autonomy give and take

Though most politicians, bureaucrats and educationists pay lip service to the concept of autonomy for well-managed colleges with proven track records, when the opportunity to confer autonomy presents itself, inevitably there is procrastination and back-sliding.

In October the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC) following top rating being granted to them by its subsidiary NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) issued an order granting autonomy to 35 colleges in Karnataka. The names of five colleges — St. Joseph’s Arts and Science College, St. Joseph’s Commerce College, St. Joseph’s Evening College, Christ College and Jyoti Nivas, all in Bangalore — were announced in the first list of UGC on October 10. In the second list — to be released later this year — the remaining 30 colleges are expected to be conferred autonomy.

According to the order these colleges have been awarded autonomy for a six-year period starting 2004. But the state government which (under s.64 of the Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000) had given its concurrence to Bangalore University recommending these five colleges for autonomy, has changed its mind. According to the state’s higher education minister D. Manjunath, this "cautious subject" has to be thoroughly studied before the state government finally clears the autonomy proposal.

Implicit in the threat not to clear the autonomy proposal is withholding annual grants from the state government which meet the salary bill of these colleges who aspire to academic autonomy, while being abjectly dependent upon state government subsidy. All the colleges proposed for autonomy receive annual grants ranging between Rs.2-4.5 crore from the state government. For example St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science receives an annual grant of Rs.3 crore to pay faculty salaries while the college generates only about Rs.80-90 lakh annually by way of tuition fees. Moreover of the revenue generated, nearly 50 percent is remitted to the parent Bangalore University as examination, affiliation, approval, convocation and other fees.

Nevertheless academic autonomy is highly prized by these top-rated colleges which would like to differentiate themselves and break free of the obsolete syllabuses and rules and regulations of Bangalore University — reportedly Asia’s largest with over 395 good, bad and ugly colleges under its umbrella. Under UGC guidelines, autonomous colleges are eligible for an additional UGC grant of about Rs.7-12 lakh per annum for infrastructure upgradation, are allowed to frame their own syllabuses and curriculums, devise administrative procedures, design and conduct their own examinations and even award their own diplomas. Only the degree certificate and final year marks card would be of Bangalore University with the autonomous college’s name clearly embossed on the degree, permitting differentiation.

With the academic year 2004-05 having already begun in July, the prevarication of the state government means that autonomy status won’t be available until next July. "We should have got approval before the Bangalore University semester exam-inations began on November 22. If we get state government approval now, we will have serious administrative hassles throughout next year. We’ll have to introduce a three-tier — annual, semester and autonomous — system of syllabuses, teaching, evaluation, and degrees/ diplomas. If we had been granted autonomy this year, we would have only two schemes running in the college, making things far easier," says Fr. Ambrose Pinto S.J. principal of the highly-rated St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Bangalore which has over 2,900 students.

Quite obviously long accustomed to exercising undue influence upon the higher education system, politicians and educrats of the state government are loath to surrender any of their powers — even though in this case they will continue to exercise the all-important financial control over colleges proposed for autonomy. "Academically autonomous colleges have been functioning successfully in Tamil Nadu for the past 27 years. This is the first time colleges in Karnataka have been granted limited i.e academic autonomy which is necessary because government involvement and control is a major hindrance to delivering quality education. It would be ideal if the state government limits itself to providing financial support and lets us function independently," adds Pinto.

The excuse proferred by Karnataka higher education minister Manjunath is that the state government is awaiting the report of the Central Advisory Board of Education, chaired by West Bengal higher education minister Kanti Biswas, which is comprehensively examining the autonomy issue afresh. "We are closely examining various aspects of autonomy and want to take all precautions before it is implemented in the state. The report will be submitted to the HRD ministry by February next year, and we will announce our decision soon after," says Manjunath.

But according to some educationists the question of control of the country’s best colleges with reputations greater than their parent universities would become redundant if their managements would attempt to make themselves financially autonomous. This would require unilaterally raising the unconscionably subsidised tuition fees mandated by state governments and resorting to American style fund-raising from alumni and corporates. "The fact is that hooked on government handouts, the managements of these colleges have become too lazy and gutless — fearing student unrest — to become truly autonomous. They want to have their cake in terms of subsidies, and eat it too," says a Bangalore-based education consultant who preferred to remain unidentified.

But with UGC and state governments continuing to exercise a financial stranglehold over even the country’s most highly-rated institutions of higher education, their managements are likely to discover that academic autonomy will continue to be severely limited without financial independence. It is arguable that the Supreme Court’s historic judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation Case (2002, 8 SCC 481) has opened the door to complete collegiate independence in the vital matters of charging viable tuition fees and regulating admissions. But to transform their colleges into truly autonomous institutions, the managements of India’s front-rank colleges will have to overcome their dependency culture.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)