Education News

Clouded Peoples Report

The May 22 second anniversary celebration of the Congress-led UPA government which against all expectations and predictions (EducationWorld excepted), was voted into power at the Centre two years ago, proved to be a damp squib. In particular the UPA government’s much-hyped initiative of transforming 21st century India into a knowledge society under the guidance of the high-powered Knowledge Commission came a cropper, with two of its members including its convenor Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, resigning on the day.

Nevertheless, the anniversary was celebrated by the UPA government to trumpet its achievements and present a report card "to the people". In education, the government took special credit for creating a non-lapsable fund — the Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh — to receive the proceeds of the two percent education cess imposed on all Central taxes (Rs.8,746 crore) to finance elementary education, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan or Education for All programme. The government also took credit for the mid-day meal scheme covering 120 million children in over 9.5 lakh schools across the country, proclaimed the world’s largest school feeding programme. According to the Peoples Report, an exercise to extend the mid-day meal programme to upper primary schools has commenced.

In a society where outcome reports are hard to come by, the UPA government’s Peoples Report provides some hard data. "During 2005-06, opening of 35,306 schools, appointment of 156,610 teachers, construction of 34,262 school buildings, 141,886 additional classrooms, 65,771 toilets and 40,760 drinking water facilities have been approved." The report also proudly states that in fiscal 2006-07, compared to 2003-04, SSA’s annual plan outlay increased four-fold to Rs.11,000 crore; the mid-day meal allocation nearly four-fold (Rs.5,348 crore); elementary education and literacy plan outlay three-fold to Rs. 17,128 crore; and the overall education plan outlay was raised by 180 percent to Rs.20,744 crore. But typically while the Peoples Report is generous about divulging outlays, it is silent about outcomes.

"The future will judge as to how many primary schools in the country will actually become operational in rural and slum areas, and whether toilets and drinking water will become available to neglected citizens. The numbers are impressive but the ground situation must also be so," says Dr. J.S. Rajput, former director of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), who was sacked forthwith by the UPA for allegedly infusing Hindu myths into NCERT texts during the rule of the BJP-led NDA government (1999-2004). Expectedly, the Peoples Report card lists reversal of ‘saffronisation’ in education as a major achievement of the UPA government.

In higher and technical education, the report lists four merit scholarship schemes introduced by the UPA government. In these schemes 350 scholarships per year are for engineering students and 150 for medical students in government and aided institutions. The waiver of threshold for collateral for student loans by banks was raised to Rs.7.5 lakh, (up from Rs.4 lakh earlier). Moreover the report reiterates that a Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Scheme has been launched for funding 2,000 fellowships annually for SC and ST students; that the Private Professional Education Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fees) Act, 2005 has been enacted; that all IIM students from households with annual incomes below Rs.2 lakh are eligible for receiving financial assistance amounting to full tuition fee waiver; that a body for financing higher education through coordination of student loan schemes of several banks, and directly providing loans and scholarships is being considered. In addition the UPA government report card says that the Plan allocation for UGC has doubled between 2003-04 and 2006-07, from Rs. 615 crore to Rs.1,270 crore.

Although these liberalisation initiatives in education are not unimpressive, the UPA government’s weak-kneed response to the OBC reservations issue has taken the shine off its nuts and bolts reforms. "Such achievements happen despite the government. Some institutes excel, some schemes become successful, this is routine. But there’s a strong likelihood that the additional reservation for OBCs will snowball into a major setback for Indian education," says Prof. Subhash Kashyap of the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.

Sadly, Indian education which was once the greatest force of national integration and advancement is heading towards becoming its antithesis.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)

IIT-K reform winds

Against the backdrop of the intense reservations-for-OBCs debate which has polarised the country and ended the Nehruvian dream by resurrecting atavistic caste antagonisms in campus India, a quieter debate is also doing the rounds of the country’s higher educational institutions: how well will the new influx of students cope with academic pressure that is the handmaiden of admission into the country’s premier medical and engineering institutes?

On May 3, Sailesh Sharma (23) a final year chemical engineering dual degree student of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) committed suicide, apparently unable to bear the shock of failing two papers. On the sprawling 1,055 acre campus of IIT-K this latest suicide revived painful memories of Chandrakant Swapnil Dharasker, a second year mechanical engineering student who had jumped five floors to his death in November 2005, fearing failure in his third semester exam. Since 1981, five students at IIT-K have voluntarily ended their lives. Besides Sharma and Dharaskar, the suicides toll includes M. Chowdhary, (1981), Yadapalli Venkat (1987) and Vimal Jha (1999).

Shocked students are unanimous in blaming the faulty grading system which leaves everything to the discretion of exam evaluators. Rumours are also circulating about faculty members influencing fellow professors to fail particular students.

The common belief is that once a student tops the IIT-JEE (joint entrance exam) held in two stages in May and June every year, and is accepted into an IIT, the worst is over. Last year for instance, 2.99 lakh aspirants wrote the joint entrance examination for admission into the IITs in Delhi, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee, Kanpur and Madras as well as the School of Mines, Dhanbad, and Technology Institute, Banaras Hindu University. Only 5,444 who averaged above 95 percent in IIT-JEE were admitted.

But for some of them, particularly students admitted under the SC and ST (scheduled caste and scheduled tribes) quotas who tend to have relatively weak foundational (school) education, their troubles have just begun. Magasaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey, who was on the IIT-K faculty in 1993, labels the IITs’ continuous assessment and examination system, "an excruciating, almost inhumane, process".

"I introduced an evaluation system under which students — who have to be graded — would get unlimited chances to appear for unwritten examinations and the process would be complete only when they felt that they had put in their best performance. The idea was to make students learn at their own pace," says Pandey.

Prawal Sinha, IIT-K’s dean (student’s welfare) initially defended the grading system saying that students are shown their examination papers to decide if they are satisfied by the marks allotted. "Students are asked to examine their own papers and justify if they deserve higher grading," he says.

Nevertheless as a first step towards reforming the grading system, Sinha has been dispatched to the US to study evaluation systems there. "The challenge is to safeguard students’ interest without compromising academic standards of IIT-K," he said before leaving for the US.

Other exam reforms are also being debated within IIT-K’s staff rooms. These include scrapping public display of results and a new nine-point grading system instead of the current five-point system. The authorities plan to add four ‘plus’ grades — A+, B+, C+ and D+ which give students greater encouragement. Incidentally IIT-Bombay has abolished the F grade. But of the 2,000 undergraduate students who took the 2005-06 semester exams in IIT-K, 300 got at least one F grade.

Teachers have also suggested three-day preparation leave for exams. Presently there are no gaps between classes and exams. Another recommendation is doing away with the practice of making students write more than one test per day.

Student counselling is also being buttressed with a consultant psychiatrist and 80 student or peer counsellors drawn from various faculties. IIT spokesperson Ravi Shukla says student counsellors chosen on the basis of their academic record and team leadership, will be intermediaries between the counselling department and depressed students and will report abnormal or suicidal behaviour of classmates.

Students admitted into IITs after topping the gruelling, high-stress IIT-JEE are the country’s best engineering and technical talent. Once inside the enabling and conducive environments of the globally respected IITs, they need a break. Although hard-driving IIT professors don’t seem to know it, learning can happen naturally.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Other side of excellence

For the fourth consecutive year, students in the Chennai region (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman and Diu) of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) have topped the board’s class XII pre-university examinations (held in March) with an impressive pass percentage of 91.45. Among CBSE’s six regions (Chennai, Ajmer, Chandigarh, Delhi, Allahabad and Guwahati) across which 8,278 schools affiliated with the country’s largest pan-India school examinations board are distributed, Chennai region also secured the maximum number (878) of merit certificates given to the top ranking 0.1 percent of students securing A1 grades. Delhi region followed with 836 merit certificates.

While the performance of the Chennai region in the CBSE exams was good, the performance of students in Tamil Nadu (pop: 62.1 million) was excellent. Of the 4,206 TN students who wrote CBSE’s testing class XII exam, 4,012 passed, with many of the top scorers from schools in Chennai, which has 16 CBSE affiliated schools. In the science stream, Nivedita Bhaskar of P.S Senior Secondary School and Suman Pravagiri of Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School averaged 97.6 percent (488/ 500) and in the commerce stream, V.R Manikandan of Chettinad Vidyashram averaged 97.2 percent (486/ 500). Other star performers were from leading schools in the city including D.A.V. Mogappair, D.A.V Gopalapuram, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, Bala Vidya Mandir and Vidya Mandir.

Despite this fine showing by city students who were showcased on national television channels, a growing number of parents and academics complain that school managements have created competitive high-pressure environments which prevent children from discovering their other talents. They allege that students are relent-lessly pressured in maths and science for entrance into engineering and medical schools, and those who can’t compete with the best, often experience shame and disillusionment.

Therefore in a sharp departure from past practice, some school heads are beginning to exhibit their liberal credentials. "In our school there is no pressure to score high marks. Instead we help our children to reach their full potential. In other words, we believe in facilitating learning. We don’t demand very high scores for admission into Plus Two (classes XI and XII) and gauge students purely on the basis of aptitude and minimum eligibility marks. Moreover we never compare percentages and marksheets, so children are greatly relieved and perform well in board exams," says Subbala Ananata-narayanan, principal of Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, which nevertheless boasted cent percent results this year with 108 out of its 110 students who wrote the CBSE class XII exam placed in first class.

Unfortunately such academic liberalism is the exception, and fear of parental anger, disappointment and peer pressure often drives some students to extreme self-punishment. Within 24 hours of the results of the Plus Two examinations, reports of one suicide and two failed attempts were reported in Chennai. Nevertheless, despite some dissenting murmurs, there’s quiet satisfaction in this port city about Chennai’s unique learning culture that motivates students to aim high and achieve. But, with pass percentages in the CBSE exams having risen this year in every region, and with a considerable increase in the number of students who have secured above 90 percent, admission cut-offs for popular courses in reputed institutions are likely to be higher.

With the Union and state governments having neither the will nor resources to address the supply side and build and/ or sanction a large number of greenfield higher education institutions, even for class XII toppers, tough entrance exams just got tougher.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Education politics

With the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front juggernaut predictably rolling back to power in the May 2006 state assembly elections, the new Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has inducted fresh talent to manage the education portfolio which will be divided between five ministers.

They will have their work cut out for them, as the state’s education sector has been experiencing a considerable churn in the recent past. Select institutions of higher education have been granted autonomous status by the Bangalore-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India (NAAC), including St. Xavier’s College and Presidency College, both of whom have been graded A+. But since Presidency College is wholly state government owned, a committee of eminent academics under Dr. Bimal Jalan will shortly meet its stakeholders — teachers, students, and alumni. Its terms of reference will include evaluating whether the institution has the necessary infrastructure required of an autonomous institution of higher education.

Among other issues, the committee will look into whether Presidency should be an autonomous college under the University Grants Commission, or a deemed university or even a university with affiliating powers. The Government College Teachers’ Association (GCTA) wants this premier institution to be elevated to a state university, with other state government colleges affiliated with it. GCTA is ready with a detailed road map to make this happen. The outgoing higher education minister Prof. Satyasadhan Chakraborty who had been denied an election ticket comments surlily: "The chief minister is personally looking into the matter. I cannot comment on it."

Academics, irrespective of political ideology, are unanimous that West Bengal’s education system needs urgent attention. Experiments in institutional autonomy are closely related to examination reforms and upgrading syllabuses and classroom pedagogies. But in West Bengal (pop. 80 million) which has been under communist rule since 1977, institutional autonomy is likely to be interpreted by party faithfuls as loss of power.

Therefore following the triumph of the CPI (M)-led Left Front coalition in last month’s election, there was high drama in the choice of the new minister of higher education. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya clearly wanted former Harvard don and finance minister in the outgoing government Dr. Asim Das Gupta shifted to higher education, a suggestion widely welcomed by the academic community. Apart from his sound academic credentials, Das Gupta has acquired a good reputation as finance minister of West Bengal for three terms, during which he built a rapport with the World Bank — a tour de force for a committed communist. Das Gupta’s friends say that he was enthusiastic about moving to the education ministry.

But the CPI (M) politbureau and especially the party’s elder statesman and former chief minister Jyoti Basu refused to let Das Gupta give up finance. As a result, a low-profile first-time MLA Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, has been handpicked by the politbureau and appointed to the post. Roy Chow-dhury has no ministerial experience and it remains to be seen how well, and how quickly, he can grasp the complexities of his first ministerial job. Incidentally, Roy Chowdhury is an alumnus of Presidency College who dabbled in Naxal politics in the early seventies and even served a jail sentence at that time. He left Naxalism to join the CPI (M), a party he has served ever since.

Now there is widespread speculation in West Bengal’s groves of academia whether Roy Chowdhury will prove to be an active new broom or a neophyte overwhelmed by the complexities of his challenging new job.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

Cults blotch

The reputation of India’s most eastern state, Mizoram (pop. 1.5 million) which is racing to become the country’s second (after Kerala) fully literate state, has suffered a blow by revelations that Indian Army units had to be called upon to ‘free’ children from parents who are members of a fanatic cult which prohibits education.

Thirteen children between six-14 years of age are now lodged in a protected camp after being rescued on May 4 from their households in Melriat, 10 km south of the state capital Aizwal. However the children, including five girls, are reluctant to learn despite affectionate persuasion.

The children are currently housed in a home run by the Centre for Peace and Development in Aizwal. "They are given access to television, radio, playing kits and computers with the intention of opening up their minds to education and the contemporary world," says Robert Rawmawia Royte, district project coordinator of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), the national Education for All mission.

According to Royte, the Aizwal district administration is being persuaded to detain the children under the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. Earlier SSA officials led a strong contingent of security personnel to Melriat and forcibly took the children away from their parents. The children had been enrolled in an SSA learning centre in the village, but their families had immediately pulled them out of school.

Although overwhelmingly Christian (92 percent of the population) and almost fully literate (98 percent), Mizoram harbours small groups of religious fanatics spread over villages in Aizwal and the adjacent Lunglei districts who believe that involvement in worldly matters including education, the electoral process and voters’ lists, and even in church congregations would make them vulnerable to the Devil as depicted in the Book of Revelations of the Old Testament.

Although these fanatic cults describe themselves as Christian, the great majority of people in the state don’t acknowledge these pawlchhuak (outsiders) as Christians. "These are small sectarian fringe groups. By denying their children education they are involved in wrongdoing," says Rev. Chanchinmawia, leader of the Presbyterian Church, the largest religious denomination in Mizoram.

Nevertheless the wide publicity the rescue of the 13 pawlchhuak children received in the north-eastern states has embarrassed the state’s Congress-led government and blotched Mizoram’s reputation as India’s second most literate state. "Illiteracy is the main bugbear of poor and backward people who become cult members," says Royte. "However we will win the hearts and minds of these children and their parents and make the SSA mission a complete success in Mizoram."

Syed Sajjad Ali (Agartala)

Morality offensive

Even as a new vice-chancellor, Prof. H.A. Ranganath, has taken charge at Bangalore University (BU), billed as Asia’s largest (enrollment: 400,000 students in 375 affiliated colleges), members of the varsity’s syndicate — BU’s apex administrative authority — instead of focussing on life-and-death-issues such as crumbling infrastructure, obsolete syllabuses and pedagogies which have plunged this pioneer (estd. 1964) varsity’s academic reputation to a nadir — are heatedly debating trivia such as campus dress codes and classroom segregation of the sexes. On May 17 BU’s nine-member syndicate comprising "eminent educationists" approved a proposal made by a septuagenarian member K. Narahari to segregate male and female students in classrooms and impose a dress code — only salwar kameez and sari for women, and formals (no T-shirts) for men. Never mind the minor detail that university students are by definition adults engaged in postgraduate studies.

According to university sources, the provocation for this out-of-the-blue moral policing offensive was a fracas over sitting arrangements, with rivals fighting to sit contiguously to preferred female students. This minor incident which led to an altercation, made Narahari see red.

This somewhat extreme reaction rooted in the petit bourgeois morality which has gripped Bangalore in recent times (dance bars have been proscribed and night life is shut down at 11.30 pm), has aroused the indignation of liberal students and parents alike. "How do you help adolescents grow into adults if you don’t give them the power to choose and the right to decide such trivial issues? Segregating males and females and enforcing dress codes for adults is hardly the way to help their development. The syndicate should focus on more important issues like enhancing the quality of education and academic standards," says Fr. Ambrose Pinto, principal, St Joseph’s College of Arts and Science.

The storm of protest which greeted the syndicate’s segregation proposal has forced BU administrators to backtrack. "We have taken due consideration of public opinion against the dress code and segregated seating. We will rethink on the issue at the next syndicate meeting on May 30," said B.G. Sudha acting vice-chancellor of BU. But Narahari (74) stands his ground, arguing that it’s in the interest of women students’ safety. "The decision was taken after an ugly incident on campus where girls were beaten up during a fight. Such incidents should not happen in an academic environment," he says.

But liberal educationists believe that such archaic talibanisation will exacerbate rather than mitigate gender and sexual tensions in campus India. "Our education system is not designed to develop vital life skills such as gender sensitivity, sexual propriety, social interaction and effective communication skills of students entering university. Instead of imposing regressive rules and regulations and infringing students’ freedoms, it would help if all students are given gender orientation courses before, or even while they are in college," says Dr. A.S. Seetharamu, hitherto professor of education at the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore.

Quite obviously Narahari’s is a minority point of view which astonishingly advocates application of class X rules for postgraduate university students. Although he preferred not to criticise the university’s syndicate, the newly appointed vice-chancellor tends to dismiss the seating fracas as a trivial incident. "I’ll take action only after I study the real situation. However this is not the way to interact with postgraduate students. They are adults and basic freedom is necessary for a congenial campus environment. However my priority is to re-establish BU as a higher education institution of excellence, particularly in research," says Ranganath, a zoology postgraduate of Mysore University with over three decades of research and teaching experience.

At least he’s got his priorities right.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)