Recently during one of EducationWorld’s teacher development seminars staged in Hissar, Haryana (yes, we regularly host seminars around the country), a “constructive critic” as she described herself — may her tribe increase — admonished me for featuring “too many gloom and imminent doom” lead stories in this publication.
While regrettably, gloomy stories — the outcome of prolonged benign neglect of public education in post-independence India — testifying to the great challenges of primary, secondary and tertiary education in the world’s most populous and high-potential democracy far outnumber cheerful ones, there’s no denying that a growing number of largely unsung citizens across the country and beyond, are responding to the challenges that confront Indian — and indeed global — education.
One of the many such stories which will henceforth be written up in EW, is featured in this issue. I got to know the Tirunevelli (Tamil Nadu)-born and Seattle (USA)-based Kalyan (‘Kal’) Raman because we have a common angel investor. When we met last year, Raman — who despite his youthful years is a veteran of new businesses of the wonder global medium which is the internet having served in senior positions with Wal-Mart, Drugstore.com and Amazon.com — recounted an amazing story of how empowered by Indian education supplemented by gritty and determined self-learning, he made his passage to America and is now poised to unleash an internet-driven education business which could reach low-cost, high quality education to every middle class household and school worldwide.
The engrossing story of how the Indo-American GlobalScholar.com, billed as the world’s most ambitious B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) education portal — which has its back office in Chennai and head office in the US — was conceptualised, engineered and rolled out in record time and what it offers to students, teachers, schools and the academic community in general, has been combined with an inspiring thumbnail biography by our persevering assistant editor Summiya Yasmeen. It’s infotainment at its best.
Moreover in the special report feature in this issue, I have utilised my legal education and learning at the bar (both kinds) to analyse the political and legal implications of the Supreme Court’s historic judgement delivered on April 10, which has given qualified approval to the 93rd Amendment of the Constitution and the consequent Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006. This legislation — the brainchild of Union HRD minister Arjun Singh — reserves an additional 27 percent seats (i.e in addition to the 22.5 percent reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) for other backward classes/castes in Central government promoted and aided institutions of higher education, including the much-prized IITs and IIMs. But indications are this ambitious minister’s last throw to break the massive OBC vote bank, even at the cost of further erosion of standards in some of the country’s most highly respected institutions of higher education, won’t pay off.
And if you want more positive news, check out our profile of the newly-established Assam Valley School which with a cheerful, young headmaster at the helm, is setting new standards in boarding school education.
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