Education News

Soul-less education

In a historic, first ever national survey of its kind conducted by the Union ministry of human resource development (HRD) among the country’s public (or privately-funded) schools, some shocking facts have come to light. Foremost among them is the verdict that while India’s independent schools pass muster in imparting quality education, they are pathetically inadequate in creating good citizens out of their students. According to the survey — conducted within 80 schools in the four metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) and Guwahati — private schools are spending a piffling Rs.1.50 per month per student on community service programmes, care for the disabled and other socially useful productive work.

Art class in Sanskriti School, Delhi: charitable credentials

However, simultaneously, the survey has also drawn up a list of the top 10 philanthropic schools in several cities across the country. Topping the list is St. Mary’s, Delhi, which though less renowned for its academic scores, is engaged in a gamut of charitable activities (including care for the disabled and a raft of scholarships for the underprivileged) which, say the authors of the report, is "definitely worth emulating". According to the survey, in 2001-02, St. Mary’s spent a whopping Rs.31 lakh on charitable causes.

Interestingly, half of the top 10 most charitable schools are in the national capital. Apart from St. Mary’s, there’s Sanskriti School, St. Columbus, Holy Child and Delhi Public School, Mathura Road. In Mumbai, the honours go to Don Bosco and Villa Theresa while Chennai features only one — Chettinad Vidyashram. Kolkata’s most socially conscious is the Lakshmipat Singhania Academy and Guwahati’s the Miles Bronson School.

Inevitably the report has stirred a controversy in academic circles with several private schools debunking the survey as "totally unnecessary". Their claim is that though charity is a "laudable" objective, there’s no reason why private schools should be singled out for attention. "Given the intense competition for good grades," asserts a school principal, "we can’t afford to be in the business of charity. It is PCM (physics, chemistry, maths) percentages which determine student admissions into the best colleges, not community service." School managements argue that there is already tremendous pressure on infrastructure and resources with classrooms bursting at the seams due to the paucity of good private schools. In such a scenario, the prime objective is to impart quality education. The dilution of this objective will erode the ability of their students "to cope with pressure in today’s competitive environment".

However, liberal academics dismiss this self-serving argument. "The whole point of education," opines Arun Sharma, a retired government school principal, "is to produce well-rounded personalities and charitable work definitely goes towards achieving that objective. Private schools have to show more compassion to the less privileged which will, in the long run, create a more harmonious and equitable society."

Comments a stinging editorial in the Times of India (October 15): "These schools forget that they are morally obliged to do their bit for the greater common good. They enjoy all manners (sic) of government subsidies from the land they occupy to the price of text-books. It is then incumbent upon them to set aside some part of their enormous profits for the disadvantaged."

Quite obviously private school managements which are very much in the public eye because of the ‘good’ education they provide (compared to government schools), will have to practise charity and compassion as much as preach it in their classrooms. Because sooner or later the truth will out.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Belated facelift

The much maligned Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHE, which has more than 3,000 schools in India’s most industralised state affiliated with it) which for many years has been getting flak for its outdated syllabus and textbooks as also its unresponsive management, has decided to give itself a much-needed facelift. Undoubtedly a contributory factor behind this overdue decision is the fact that during the past year, several high profile schools, hitherto affiliated with MSBSHE have switched allegiance to the upscale and more accommodating Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). Among them the G.D. Somani Memorial School (notwithstanding the fact that its principal M.P. Sharma is a member of the Maharashtra State Advisory Board of Studies), New Era High School, Hindi Vidya Bhavan, S.K. Jain and Lady Visanji High, all in Mumbai.

According to Sharma who has a string of degrees from Bombay University and has been principal of G.D. Somani since 1987, the Pune-based State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) met last November to discuss a thorough transformation of MSBSHE. More than 1,500 principals from schools across the state, educators from all over the country and officials of SCERT and NCERT participated. "The meeting highlighted four principal focus areas in urgent need of reform, viz. hopelessly outdated syllabuses and textbooks; the crying need to improve students’ spoken as well as writing skills; their lack of basic communication skills and immediate combating of widespread cheating which has become the norm in many examination centres. In addition, the board was concerned about the last state board examination results. Over 1.24 million students wrote the board’s class X SSC exam and another 8.3 lakh the higher secondary class XII school leaving exam. Certain night schools and even day schools recorded pass percentages of less than 30 percent," says Sharma.

A beneficial fallout of the seminar/ symposium is that a new syllabus is being framed drawing upon the flexibility and application-oriented approach of the CISCE syllabus, while incorporating the needs of a wide range of students from different socio-economic strata across Maharashtra. With the objective of keeping in step with the times, obsolete portions will be deleted and a large number of charts and diagrams will be visible in textbooks. Topics like environment awareness, population studies, water management and globalisation will be important features of the revised syllabus.

Likewise to improve the language and communication skills of students in affiliated schools, MSBSHE is examining a new system under which students will have to submit projects as well as participate in group discussions in each of the three languages they study. "Within the current system, secondary school students write three language papers of 80 marks each until class IX, while 20 marks are reserved for the year’s work," says Ramakant Pandey, principal of Bansidhar Agarwal School, Mumbai and advisory member of MSBSHE. "This 20 marks section will now be split into project work and group discussion sections of 10 marks each. Group discussion will be on a topic not necessarily related to the curriculum, but to everyday life. For example children who live in villages can have discussions about, say, farming."

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But the big question, even as the number of independent schools seeking disaffiliation is growing, is whether the rusty machinery of MSBSHE can be cranked up to transform noble policy pronouncements into effective imple-mentation on ground zero.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Mid-day meal pains

When the state government of Uttar Pradesh following several Supreme Court reminders, finally got down to launching its mid-day meal scheme on September 28 (way beyond the September 1 deadline set by the court) in 33,000 primary schools (of a total number of 86,301) across 16 districts (of a total of 70), it was a classic case of too little too late. The scheme, which entitles every child to 100 gm of cooked food per day for 20 days in school, has already hit roadblocks such as lack of provisions, pots and pans, absence of cooks and plain disinterest.

There were other school-specific problems that hadn’t been tackled. At the Chandganj Primary School in Aliganj for instance, there is no water. Comments headmaster Gurudin: "There are 210 students in the school but there is no arrangement for drinking water. We have to go miles to get water. We barely manage enough drinking water for students, so where do we get water for cooking? We were told about the scheme in a hurriedly convened last-minute meeting. We don’t have the necessary utensils or any other facility for preparing the mid-day meal. Today I have brought some utensils and a gas stove from my home. But that will last only a few days."

Mid-day meal time in UP: implementation chaos

In Lucknow’s neighbouring district of Sitapur, the village headman of Mishripur complains about lack of detailed information about ways and means to implement the mid-day meal scheme. "For instance each of the three schools in our village has been given Rs.1,200 for buying utensils. What about spices, fuel and cooking oil? We don’t know with what frequency we will get these provisions. We’ve been abruptly ordered to implement a scheme about which we know nothing. The government did not take us into confidence."

Lucknow’s basic shiksha adhikari (director of elementary education) Pankaj Gupta dismisses these "teething problems" and claims the state will pioneer best practices for the scheme. It’s a sentiment that’s not shared by civil society organisations which have been demanding the scheme’s implementation. Activists opine that the greatest drawback is haphazard management and that the scheme would have been better implem-ented by a central co-ordinating agency as suggested by the Supreme Court.

The state government has set aside a budget of Rs.20 crore (an infinitesimal percentage of the state government’s annual Rs.49,000 crore expenditure) for the scheme. Every primary school where it is to be implemented will be provided Rs.2,000 besides Rs.35,000 for the construction of an 8 X 10 ft tin shed where the cooking is to be done. The Rs.500 that has been set aside as wages for cooks has to come from the savings made in the 10 days when meals won’t be served. Cooks will preferably be Dalit women, widows or divorcees.

Inevitably in Uttar Pradesh where caste is a major factor in state politics, the last provision has led to communal tension. In Mawar, a village in Kanpur (rural) which is home to 2,500 Muslims and Dalits, parents of Muslim children objected when the principal chose Savitri, a Dalit, to cook the mid-day meal. Angry parents declared that they won’t allow their children to eat anything cooked by a Dalit and would rather withdraw their children from school. The Dalits retaliated by declaring they would not eat if a Muslim cook was employed. Village elders didn’t help by opining that traditions are meant to be honoured. The confrontation turned ugly and police had to be rushed in to control the situation. The school has since been closed.

According to a government report on the operations of the Integrated Child Development Scheme, the world’s largest food programme inaugurated way back in 1975 and of which the mid-day meal scheme is a part, there are 20 million children below the age of 11 in India. Of these 12 million are forced to work instead of attending school. By 2020, at least 2 million more will be added to the number of malnutritioned children. The problem is especially acute in regions like Bihar, Jharkhand and UP. Though 1.4 million anganwadis (nurseries) are required to successfully implement the scheme, on October 14 additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran conceded to the Supreme Court during the hearing of a PIL (public interest litigation) filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties that only 600,000 such centres have been set up till now. Besides, many of these centres are not operational.

Quite obviously much more ground work needs to be done before the mid-day meal scheme, devised to attract children to school, fulfills its stated purpose.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Sartorial diktat

Though the comrade commissars of West Bengal’s Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front government claim to be progressive intellectuals, they remain enslaved by puritan petty bourgeois morality. A huge row has erupted in West Bengal schools following school education minister Kanti Biswas’s latest diktat prescribing a dress code for teachers. Last month (October) Biswas asked the school education directorate to issue an order specifying a dress code for teachers in government and state aided schools.

The minister says he is responding to complaints from parents protesting ‘inappropriately attired’ teachers. "In view of the possibility of some of our younger teachers falling prey to indecent dress sense prevailing in society, we have decided to instill a sense of discipline within the educators," explains Biswas.

According to the minister, there is no problem if a female teacher sports a de-sexed salwar kameez. "But the clothing should fit loosely to maintain the dignity of the profession," advises Biswas. In other words, body-hugging dressing is proscribed because young students are already exposed to a lot of "shameless garb" on television channels. If, on top of this, teachers also "dress fashionably", it will be "difficult to control" adolescent imaginations, rationalises Biswas. "Students spend only four or five hours in school. We are trying our best to discipline them within this short span. Teachers have to be role models for children," he opines.

Not surprisingly school managements resent this Taliban-style micro management which expands the discreti-onary powers of education ministry officials. "This is absurd," says Kevin Roberts, secretary of Pratt Memorial School, Kolkata. "Our teachers have enough good sense to know what they should wear on duty."

But some schools have welcomed the diktat and have imposed a sartorial code for faculty. For instance the South Point High School, one of the largest secondaries in India with an estimated 15,000 students on its rolls. "Ours is a co-ed school. We have to deal with adolescents. Our teachers are instructed not to wear anything that may evoke teenage curiosity," says principal Jayanti Solomon. Therefore even a de-sexed salwar kameez is taboo. "Not that salwars are indecent," says Solomon, "but the sari is the accepted norm."

GenNext high school students — and their parents — are dead against Biswas’ diktat. "In an age when students aspire to become fashion and textile designers, who is the government to tell anyone what to wear?" fumes Pampa Das, a guardian at Alipore Multipurpose School, Kolkata, one of the numerous government-run or aided institutions where the new rule will be applicable. According to one student "the rule is unnecessary because none of our teachers wear tight-fitting clothes". Interestingly, her neighbour Sayantan, a student of Julian Day School, expects teachers to be smartly turned out. "I would hate a teacher who wears ill-fitting clothes. It’s not smart," he says.

Academician and former MP Krishna Bose thinks the state government which has many more important issues to worry about, is exceeding its brief. "Prescribing a dress code for teachers is taking things too far. If a teacher is inappropriately attired it’s for the school authorities to request her to follow basic decorum. There’s no cause for the government to get involved."

In a state where education and politics are closely intertwined, it’s not surprising that students’ unions have jumped into the fray. The CPI (M) backed Students’ Federation of India (SFI) — probably keeping a watchful eye on the pulse of its young-adults constituency — has lambasted Biswas. Comments SFI Kolkata district president Ritabrata Banerjee: "This is a form of Talibanism! How can someone be told what to wear?"

But Biswas is unfazed: "The SFI doesn’t understand much about in-school discipline." However there’s uncertainty about whether the state government’s education directorate will issue a formal government order on this subject. School administrators such as Kevin Roberts, quoted above, hope that schools will adopt a self-imposed and informal code of conduct rather than be led by a government diktat. "One doesn’t mind being realistically conservative. Freedom, after all, is not what you like to do, but what you ought to do," says Roberts.

But we can’t expect comrade commissars of the politbureau accustomed to control and command to appreciate this fine distinction.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

Scholar supplement

The well-attended launch of Heriot-Watt University’s Scholar online learning system in schools in southern India, on October 11, at the British Council in Chennai is one indicator that progressive schools are prepared to experiment with e-learning techniques to supplement classroom teaching of maths and science at the higher secondary (Plus Two) level.

Arthur (left) & team: enthusiastic reception

"India’s natural academic strengths are in science and maths but the content is huge in the Plus Two years, leading to cramming and rote learning by students who don’t understand the basic concepts. Indian education should become more child-centred instead of being wholly exam-oriented. With the increasing use of computers in both government and private schools and at home, it’s the right time to think of how students can learn best and shift focus from mere teaching in classrooms to active online learning. The Scholar programme’s interactive teaching materials use animations, diagrams, quizzes and online assessments to motivate children to learn and is well suited for India’s mixed ability classes as it reinforces learning," commented Lady Plaxy Arthur at the formal launch of the programme. Arthur has extensive teaching experience in British and American schools, the Open University in Paris, and is also a fellow of the Mathematical Science Foundation in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

The Scholar programme developed by Heriot-Watt University in 1999 is currently being used by 60,000 registered students and teachers in secondary schools in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, China and Norway. In India, the programme will be launched in Kolkata, Delhi and Ahmedabad, and will offer free access to over 4,000 pupils in four regions of India throughout November to enable students and teachers to assess the benefits of the web-based programme as a classroom and homework support supplement. After the free trial period, schools wishing to avail of Scholar can sign up for the programme, priced at Rs.82,000 per year.

Teachers and principals who attended the launch in Chennai seemed enthusiastic about the professionally developed online content and delivery programme, but are doubtful if all schools can implement it as its price is prohibitive and most lack the supportive infrastructure. "We are yet to decide about signing up for Scholar but are availing the one-month free trial offer. The price of the programme is high and Scholar doesn’t cater to any particular syllabus though undoubtedly, highly motivated students can supplement their routine study programme with e-learning at home," says SriVidya Chandrasekar who teaches physics at Chennai’s reputed Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School.

Some elite schools in the city, on the other hand, which don’t foresee price and infrastructure constraints, are unsure about Scholar’s compatibility with the current Plus Two curriculum. "The online material is good and price is not a limiting factor for us as most parents of our school are in favour of taking technology into classrooms. But the content is exhaustive and students and teachers have to learn to make proper use of it. Since Plus Two students have to be groomed for board exams within the time frame of a year, we have to cull the relevant content and ensure students don’t waste precious time plodding through the in-depth information available on every subject," says Dr. Bhavani Shankar, principal, Chettinad Vidyashram School.

For quite a few upscale schools in south India which already use multimedia technology in classrooms, the Scholar e-learning programme is a natural step upward. It could be the answer to Indian schools’ and parents’ relentless quest for a learning system that can ease pressure on students, while equipping them to perform better in the all-important class XII school-leaving exam.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Adolescence education initiative

Even as the subject of introducing sex education into school curriculums continues to be debated — as it has been for the past three decades and more — the government of the tiny north-eastern state of Tripura (pop. 3.1 million) is all set to introduce sex or ‘adolescence’ education in 200 government and aided schools in the state. The State Council of Education Research & Training (SCERT) has finalised its curriculum and is planning a dry-run to implement it as per guidelines of the National Population Education Project.

Chanda Debnath project officer in SCERT’s population cell says that introduction of adolescence education has become an urgent necessity because psychological and physical behaviour at pre-adult stage is intimately connected to incidence and spread of deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS. "The curriculum has been developed with a view to provide adolescents authentic knowledge which will help them adopt rational attitudes and responsible behaviour," she says.

Students in Agartala: quick adjustment forecast

Since sex education is a sensitive subject which educators as much as parents tend to wish away, the curriculum takes particular care to emphasise the need for sexual respect, apart from responsible behaviour towards sex and drugs. "Traditional pedagogies are not effective for teaching components of adolescence education, mainly because of the sensitive nature of the subject. Thus non conventional methods have been adopted," explains educationist Santunu Choudhury.

The about-to-be introduced curriculum comprises interactive sessions, couns-elling and audio-visual demonstrations as well as print material. Moreover care has been taken to offer the new curriculum only from class VIII upwards from the next academic year (2005), according to education minister Keshab Majumder.

Meanwhile training for heads of schools will start in November followed by training of selected teachers. Adolescence education will be introduced in all high schools in the state, but in phases. For now 200 schools have been identified. The general expectation is that the new curriculum may cause initial embarras-sment in classrooms, but students are expected to adjust quickly to the new subject whose introduction has been long overdue

Syed Sajjad Ali (Agartala)

Syndicates scramble

A row has broken out over the controversial nomination of 48 individuals bereft of any education track records into the syndicate(s) of Karnataka’s seven universities (Bangalore, Mysore, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Kuvempu, Karnatak and Tumkur). Bangalore University’s syndicate is slated for reconstitution in the first week of November while in Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore and Karnatak universities the process has already begun.

On the eve of the expiry of the three-year term of the syndicates (and academic councils) of the state’s universities, there is a scramble among businessmen, politicians and former bureaucrats for nomination into these powerful academia governance bodies. According to press reports, aspirants have budgeted as much as Rs.30-40 lakh for their ‘lobbying campaigns’. The scramble is reportedly inspired by the wide discretionary powers syndicate members enjoy under s. 29 of the Karnataka State Universities (KSU) Act, 2000 which offer rich pickings. Some of the discretionary powers of the syndicate are: "… to manage the affairs of the university, in particular to administer the funds and properties…"; "to enter into, vary, carry out and cancel contracts on behalf of the university"; "to make recommendations regarding admission of colleges to affiliation"; "to recognise hostels… to suspend or withdraw such recognition", among others.

The fact that the 2003-04 budget of Bangalore University — reputedly the largest in Asia with 400,000 students in 375 colleges — is Rs.95 crore, provides one clue as to why there is a scramble among all and sundry to serve the cause of higher education on university syndicates. Of this budgeted amount an estimated 20-25 percent i.e almost Rs.25 crore is spent by way of maintenance and administrative expenses for which purposes contracts are awarded at the discretion of the syndicate. Likewise the annual budgets of Karnataka’s some other universities are: Karnatak University Rs.58 crore and Kuvempu Rs.31 crore.

Moreover under s. 59 of the KSU Act, university syndicates are empowered to grant or reject college affiliations. With an estimated 45 private colleges being promoted annually across the state not permitted to award their own degrees and obliged by law to affiliate with government-sponsored universities, syndicate members have the power of life and death over them. Currently Karnataka has over 1,100 colleges affiliated to its seven universities. The KSU Act also stipulates that colleges have to renew their affiliation every year. And the chairman of every local inquiry committee (LIC) — the sole authority to recommend, grant and renew affiliations — has to be a syndicate member. "It’s an open secret that the going rate for new college affiliations is Rs.1-3 lakh depending upon the number of students enrolled. Subsequently university i.e syndicate, permission is required to expand enrollment and increase the number of study programmes offered. All these sanctions and permissions have a price tag," says a lecturer of the Government Science College, Bangalore.

Under the KSUact the syndicate is the highest decision making authority in all universities in the state. The syndicate headed by the vice-chancellor comprises 20-22 members (14 ex-officio and eight nominated). The state government nominates six (one SC/ST, one OBC, one woman, a member from a religious minority community and two others). The chancellor of the university (also governor of the state) nominates two members to this university authority. As per s. 28(g) of the Act the nominees should be ‘eminent educationists’ who have contributed to the enhancement of education in the state. But this law is followed more in the breach than observance.

"I feel the pre-2000 system of academics and university graduates electing members to the syndicate was better. Elected members are accountable to their voters, whereas those nominated are accountable only to politicians who appoint them. If people become members of the syndicate by paying money or politicking they will be more concerned about recovering their investment than contributing to enhance education standards," says Dr. M. K. Sridhar, reader in management at the Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Bangalore University.

According to Sridhar even if the government insists on nominations there should be transparency in the process. "Once the syndicate is constituted the government should put the entire profiles of the members in the public domain and justify each nomination. Speaking for myself, I feel that the syndicate should be abolished. Ideally when a new college is established it should be under the university’s control for a period of say, five years. Once it begins to function properly the university should withdraw and allow it to run independently. Monitoring can be by way of independent ratings and recognition. National-level organisations such as NAAC, AICTE and UGC are already doing this," adds Sridhar.

While educationists and academics are demanding deregulation and delicencing of education, the Karnataka state government seems to be interested in framing more rules to bring universities under its control. A similar scramble is set to begin sometime next month when the academic councils of universities are reconstituted.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)