Education News

Delhi

Severe indictment

The first major independent audit of rural India’s elementary education system, conducted by Mumbai-based NGO (non-government organisation) Pratham, paints a disturbing picture of the outcomes of the national elementary education programme spearheaded by the flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All) initiative of the Central government, on which Rs.12,242 crore is being spent in the current fiscal year. Its most disturbing finding is that despite high enrollment (85-90 percent), very little learning happens in the nation’s classrooms.

The independent audit indicates that 35 percent of children in the seven-14 age group cannot read a simple paragraph (class I level difficulty) in their mother tongue and almost 60 percent of all children cannot read a simple story (class II level difficulty). And these findings are not only about government schools. Thirty percent of private school students can’t read class I level paragraphs. Almost eight years of the District Primary Education Programme (1987-94), Bihar Education Project (1991 till it merged with DPEP in 1994), Rajasthan Shiksha Karmi Project (1987-2003) and Rajasthan Lok Jumbish (1992-2004) — seem to have had little impact in improving learning outcomes.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2005 was released by Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia deputy chairman of the Planning Commission on January 17. Speaking on the occasion Ahluwalia commented on the poor learning outcomes in rural schools. "If grade IV or V students can’t read simple class II texts, what happens to science and maths? Governments must remain open minded for solutions," he remarked.

There’s more embarrassment in store for Central and state government educrats who are doing all they can to discourage private investment and participation in education. Pratham plans to publish ASER annually until 2010, the target year for achieving universal primary education. "This is our country, these are our children, the snapshot is to inform ourselves, the people of India, so that we understand the situation first hand and act to change the picture. The ASER results will be taken back to districts and villages so that people can think about what to do next. We will extend a helping hand to the various levels of governments to change the situation," writes Madhav Chavan, promoter-director of Pratham and a member of the National Advisory Council, in the preface of ASER.

The data of the ASER study drawn from 485 rural districts and 9,521 villages between November 14 and December 2005, indicates that the number of children in the six-14 age group who are not in school is approximately 14 million — a statistic which compares closely with an independent IMRB survey commissioned by the government of India between July and December 2005, covering 55,442 rural and 32,432 urban households.

Although ASER is a severe indictment of government led efforts in elementary education, Union HRD officials put a brave face on it. "It (independent surveys) helps in developing redressal measures to improve the system. It is our policy to have key social issues, including education issues, in the public domain," says Vrinda Sarup, joint secretary in the department of elementary education.

With education issues moving upward on the national agenda, initiatives like ASER place them in the proper perspective. "There is a lot of latent strength in our university system and we must involve young faculty to do qualitative research. ASER is the outcome of their research," says Chavan.

With Pratham having rounded up 20,000 qualified volunteers for this survey, the country is already experiencing a silent revolution in education, which is a welcome development.

Autar Nehru (New Delhi)

Second opportunity

Anger, frustration and resentment are dominant sentiments on the 55-acre campus of the high-profile Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B), rated among Asia’s top 10 B-schools (AsiaWeek May 5, 2000). Faculty and students are outraged that the Union HRD ministry recently vetoed IIM-B’s proposal to establish an offshore campus in Singapore — a proposal which is at an advanced stage of negotiation with the Singapore government. An agreement has already been inked with the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Singapore which was to house the first IIM bricks-and-mortar campus abroad. According to a letter dated January 10 signed by Union HRD minister Arjun Singh, the IIMs should cater to increasing domestic demand instead of venturing abroad.

"If the government wants us to admit more domestic students, we are already doing so in a gradual manner. Our annual intake has gone up substantially from 176 in 2001 to 233 last year. Therefore our board of governors decided that this is an opportune time for us to establish a campus in South-east Asia, where IIM-B has a good reputation, particularly for its executive development programmes. We believe the Singapore campus will shore up our revenues and provide international exposure to faculty and students," says Prakash G. Apte an alumnus of IIT-Bombay, IIM-Calcutta and Columbia University, USA who taught business management at Columbia and University of Florida before taking charge as director of IIM-B in 2002.

Following a national outcry against the HRD ministry blowing this opportunity to establish the IIM brand globally, Singh went into a damage control mode, reiterating the operational autonomy of the IIMs. "Under no circumstances, not even in the least, have I ever interfered in their autonomy. But the present Memorandum of Association allows them to have only research tie-ups with institutions abroad. If the MoA is amended, IIMs can have campuses abroad," said Singh in an NDTV television interview.

With the minister having climbed down and suggesting a solution, the IIM-B board, which met in Bangalore on January 20, resolved to amend the MoA and rules to include an enabling clause which will empower the board to promote bricks and mortar campuses within India and abroad. The board also resolved to devise effective mechanisms for the institute to enter into research tie-ups with corporate and government organisations and expand to meet domestic demand.

"We’ve decided to begin the process of amending the MoA to allow us to go ahead with the Singapore project. Although currently the rules do not permit us to proceed with the project, we’ll amend and (then) go before the HRD ministry for approval," says senior board member S. N. Agarwal adding that the task of amending the MoA is not easy. "Several clearances are required from the state and Central government and the entire procedure will take at least three-four months," he says.

Meanwhile as this issue of EducationWorld goes to press, Singh has convened a meeting of IIM directors in New Delhi on February 1 to discuss the issue of the high-profile IIMs establishing campuses abroad without neglecting local needs. But with the institutional autonomy issue having come to a boil, it’s quite on the cards that the big three IIMs (Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta aka Kolkata) will take the opportunity to cut the apron strings of the ministry and press for full autonomy — administrative and financial. With public opinion squarely behind them, they may well succeed. At last.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

Human rights initiative

The Mumbai Initiative for Human Rights Education (MIHRE), an NGO affiliated with the US headquartered International Human Rights Education Consortium (IHREC) which "is dedicated to the promotion of human rights in colleges and universities throughout the world", is in the final stages of developing training modules in human rights for school and college educators. MIHRE is scheduled to hold two human rights training programmes this year, in addition to a special training programme for schoolteachers.

The training modules are being developed with the objective of incorporating human rights education into subjects like social studies and English. MIHRE members will scrutinise textbooks of classes VI-VIII and suggest ways and means to seamlessly integrate awareness and respect for human rights into the curriculums of secondary schools across the country. "Our objective is to build a humane society in which all women, men, youth and children acknowledge, respect and enjoy human rights as well as make constant and special endeavours to promote a human rights culture," says Fr. Allwyn D’ Silva president of MIHRE and vice president (Asia) of IHREC.

The seeds of MIHRE were sown at a human rights education workshop organised by IHREC in Mumbai in October 2003. The consensus among participants was that Mumbai needed an NGO to promote human rights education in schools, colleges and universities. The steering committee includes Bella Das, Prof. M. Z. Shahid of the Maharashtra College; Kamayani Bali Mahabali of the Centre for Enquiry into Health Allied Themes; and lawyer Shweta Shalini of Documentation Research & Training Centre (DRTC) who is currently with IHREC on an exchange programme.

MIHRE is a recent initiative of the Mumbai-based Institute of Community Research Organisation (ICRO) which was registered as a trust in 1990 and has been active in propagating human rights education since it (MIHRE) was promoted in 2003. In June 2004, it conducted a three-day workshop for college educators and activists at St. Pius X College, Mumbai. Last September a two-day workshop for teachers from several universities in Maharashtra was conducted in association with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. In December, the University of Mumbai held a two-day seminar for teachers at its Kalina campus with support from the Maharashtra Human Rights Commission.

"With the rise of extremist ideologies in Indian society, it is important to aggressively promote human rights education in teaching-learning institutions. That is what MIHRE intends to do," says D’ Silva.

Human rights education is not entirely new to India. A number of universities/ institutes have been offering certificate, diploma and degree courses in human rights. For instance the Delhi-based National Human Rights Commission has been organising one-month summer and winter internship programmes since 1998 to give students exposure to human rights issues. Moreover a one-year postgraduate diploma course in human rights is taught at the 148-year-old Mumbai University. A foundation course in human rights is also being taught to second year students of arts, science and commerce in 22 out of the university’s 354 affiliated colleges and S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Mumbai offers a certificate course. "The prime reason why human rights is not being offered by all colleges in Mumbai University is because most colleges receive paltry government grants and are unable to recruit additional faculty. Colleges which do include human rights education rope in existing faculty with lesser workloads to teach the subject. As a result, teachers with little interest in the subject teach it most reluctantly," says a Mumbai professor who requested anonymity.

The MIHRE steering committee intends to rectify this situation in the public interest.

Ronita Torcato (Mumbai)

Dangerous diet

December 10. Anand Nishad (5) died after consuming kheer provided with the mid-day meal at Akana Primary School, Kanpur; 24 others taken ill. Cases registered against cook, principal and gram pradhan.

December 27. 200 students fall ill in Unnao after eating blue khichdi. Cases filed against cook, principal, shopkeeper and stockist.

January 2. Nine children fall sick in Unnao after mid-day meal.

January 3. Ten students fall ill in Varanasi.

January 24. 160 students taken ill in Azamgarh, 15 seriously

More than a year after the mid-day meal schemewas introduced in 95,000 schools and education centres catering to 15 million children in Uttar Pradesh, it has become a serious health hazard with children across the state succumbing to food poisoning with alarming regularity.

Kiran Pal Singh, UP’s minister for basic education blames the Food Corporation of India (FCI). "What can the state government do? The FCI which supplies foodgrain for distribution to schools comes under the jurisdiction of the Central government. I have written to the FCI to ensure supplies of clean, quality foodgrain. We conducted an inquiry into the cases in Unnao and Varanasi and found that contaminated unhygienic foodgrain was responsible for the poisoning," says Singh.

Moreover Singh denies any linkage between children’s deaths and school mid-day meals. "The death in Kanpur happened because the child was suffering from dengue. How is it that of the 2,300 children who ate the meal that day, only one died?" Vis-à-vis two deaths reported from Meerut: "The children took some poisonous substance at home after school hours," he opines.

The minister’s explanation is a poor cover up, for media inquiries into the Unnao incident indicate that the mid-day meal was deliberately poisoned. "There was a blue powder on the khichdi served. As soon as this was brought to my notice I stopped the children from having it. But the warning came too late. I suspect Gambhir Pal, a former cook at our school, who was sacked a while ago. While leaving, Pal had threatened us with dire consequences," says Ram Sevak Tiwari principal of the government school in Unnao.

Meanwhile in his comfortable office in the state’s capital, Singh is devising a typically bureaucratic solution to the problem. "We will constitute a special cell to be monitored by officers above the rank of additional director to ensure that quality and quantity parameters of the mid-day meal scheme are strictly adhered to," he declares. This is hardly a novel suggestion. Way back in July 2004, the then education secretary Hariraj Kishore had also appointed a committee to monitor food quality, which suggested that teachers or the cook taste the food before serving it.

Unsurprisingly UP’s faltering mid-day meal scheme has also attracted the attention of the judiciary. In early January, UP Lok Ayukta Justice S.C. Verma dispatched fact-finding teams to various districts to evaluate the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme. The teams reported that in a large number of UP schools, children were throwing away food, as it tasted bad or they feared falling ill.

Describing the implementation of UP’s mid-day meal scheme a "nightmare", Justice Verma observed: "Instead of providing nutrition and strength, the mid-day meal is eating into our children’s health. How do we justify something like this?"

Answer: In India’s most populous (166 million) and most politicised state, children can be easily ignored. They are not a vote bank.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Cynical largesse

Undoubtedly with an eye on the state assembly elections due to be called before May this year, Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa has decreed a slew of populist measures to boost the electoral appeal of the AIADMK, the political party which she indisputably heads. The largesse includes free food in temples and mosques; bicycles gifted to higher secondary girl students; free textbooks for students of government schools; free saris, dhotis; an allowance of Rs.500 for members of women self-help groups; loan reliefs for farmers and a Chennai city beautification drive. Despite near empty state government coffers, last month (January) the chief minister lifted the ban on government recruitment imposed by her in November 2001; decreed that 50 percent of dearness allowance would be merged with the basic pay of government employees and teachers; and sanctioned pay and perks concessions to the tune of Rs.1,648 crore for government employees, teachers and farmers.

As if all this wasn’t enough, the chief minister felt it incumbent upon herself to make things easier for over 500,000 higher secondary students in schools affiliated to the Tamil Nadu State Board (TNSB). On January 23 she introduced the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Admission in Professional Courses Bill 2006, in the assembly. The Bill exempts Plus Two students of state board affiliated schools from writing the annual TNPCEE (Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination), success in which determined admission into the state’s 229 institutions of professional education.

The rationale of the new Bill is that it creates a level playing field for rural school leaving students who usually don’t have access to TNPCEE coaching classes and reduces the stress of Plus Two students. However the academic community is under no illusion that the calculated exemption of state board school students from writing a post Plus Two common entrance test is intended to win the gratitude of the bulk of the population whose children are enrolled in state board affiliated schools.

Unsurprisingly, the Bill has aroused the ire of students in schools affiliated to other examination boards and the academic community for its discriminatory intent. Under the provisions of the Bill, students of other boards such as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) are obliged to write a common entrance test based on the state board syllabus for admission into the state’s institutes of professional education.

Surprisingly, the new Tamil Nadu Regulation of Admission in Professional Courses Bill 2006 has been tabled despite the fact that when the state government made an earlier effort to abolish TNPCEE by a government order on June 6 last year, the Madras high court struck down the order citing the statutory provisions of the Medical Council of India (MCI) Act and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Act which mandate common entrance tests in states with more than one school examination board. The court also remarked that if the government relies only on the marks obtained in the Plus Two examination of the state board, Article 14 of the Constitution which prohibits discrimination by the state, would be breached.

But while moving the bill in the assembly, Jayalalithaa said that repeated requests sent by the state government last year asking the Centre to amend the MCI and AICTE rules drew no response, compelling her to introduce the Bill. She blamed Union minister for health and family welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (which is an opposition party in Tamil Nadu) for driving her to table the Bill. "Even now if Dr. Anbumani amends the MCI rules there will be not be a need for this legislation," says Jayalalithaa.

However, informed educationists and legal experts in Chennai doubt if the new Bill, which is certain to be challenged in the courts, will withstand judicial scrutiny. "It is absurd to require students of CISCE and CBSE schools to write a common entrance test based on the state board syllabus when it is common knowledge that CISCE and CBSE syllabuses are of higher standard than the state board. Besides, the state government’s contention that an additional common entrance test is a heavy burden on students and its abolition will ensure a level playing field for rural students, is equally true of CISCE and CBSE school students. The Bill is patently discriminatory and is likely to be struck down," says P. Haridas, an eminent counsel and former president of the Association of Managements of Private Colleges.

But even if the new Bill is struck down by the courts, right now it has served the AIADMK’s electoral purpose and established actress turned chief minister Jayalalithaa’s credentials as a champion of the rural masses, which should stand her in good stead in the assembly election only three months away. Unfortunately in contemporary Tamil Nadu, such cynical jockeying for power takes precedence over the education and future of the 525,000 Plus Two children enrolled in the state’s schools.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Another admission imbroglio

The Delhi high court has asked private schools in the capital to evolve a mechanism for selecting children for admission into nursery and pre-primary classes, without subjecting them to interviews. While admitting an appeal filed against the order of a single judge of the court who rejected the plea of three parents to ban admission interviews for infants applying for admission to nursery and play schools, Justices Virendra Jain and Rekha Sharma on December 19, made plain their disapproval of interviews of children or parents.

The cause of the aggrieved parents has been taken up by the Delhi-based NGO Social Jurist (estb. 1999) which has been in the vanguard of school education justice and equity issues for the past several years. According to Social Jurist’s crusading promoter-counsel Ashok Aggarwal, the practice of interviewing children is violative of their fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14 (right to equality), Article 21 (right to life and liberty) and Article 21-A (right to education for children below 14) of the Constitution, as well as provisions of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973. Moreover subjecting tiny tots to interviews is also contrary to the spirit of the recommendations of the Kothari Commission (1964-66) and Yashpal Committee (1993), says Aggarwal.

In the appeal petition filed in the high court, Social Jurist has also asked for a court order banning school managements from asking "non-essential" questions about parents’ jobs, salaries, car brands and "what can you do for the school?" in admission forms. According to Aggarwal, the prime objective of school managements in soliciting such information is to ascertain the economic status of parents with the objective of extracting grants and donations. "A bias against socio-economically disadvantaged children is inherent in the design and structure of admission application forms. It would be much fairer to draw lots or lucky numbers to determine admissions," says Aggarwal, who believes post interview rejection can damage a child’s esteem and academic performance in the long run.

However school principals are dead against lucky dips or draws to determine admissions. "With parental involvement in schools becoming increasingly important — the Right to Education Bill 2005 now under consideration of Parliament, envisages a major role for School Management Committees, three fourths of whose members must be parents — giving admission to children of like-minded parents is a vital consideration for school managements. It’s absurd to deny private unaided schools the right to admit students of our choice. We are the best judges of the type of children who will fit into our schools," says Usha Ram principal of Laxman Public School, Delhi which has 125 pre-primary students on its rolls.

Quite clearly the issue of managements of private unaided education institutions administering themselves without third party interference — an issue over which the Supreme Court and the Central and state governments are at loggerheads — is involved in this imbroglio as well, given that most private pre-primaries don’t receive a penny by way of government support. Despite the initial adverse remarks of the Delhi high court, educationists are convinced there’s an inevitability about the court conceding the right of school managements to admit children of parents of their choice.

Priyanka Gupta (Delhi)