Education News

Campus blight (contd.)

Hoardings defaced by LUSU candidates: establishment striking back

For example, N.K. Pandey, a reader in the physics department and provost of one of the university hostels, has lodged a police complaint against student leader Ram Singh Rana, a front-runner in the race for position of general secretary of LUSU. Rana had allegedly threatened to gun down Pandey if the latter failed to provide rooms for his supporters in one of the university hostels.

Rana, who has four criminal cases pending against him and has the backing of the state’s ruling Samajwadi Party, insists he has been framed. "All this talk is just part of a conspiracy to tarnish my name before the elections. Someone must have used my mobile to call him," he says.

Although the trading of such grave charges and counter charges between students and faculty are likely to shock and alarm their counterparts elsewhere in country, in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh (pop. 166 million) where the education system has been dumbed down to unimaginable depths by rough-and-ready cow belt politicians, they hardly raise any eyebrows. Nine of the front-runners for high offices in LUSU have criminal charges pending against them for a range of offences and are also accused by police of violating the Lucknow high court’s code of conduct for elections. In a letter to the university management the police has recommended cancelling the candidature of all contestants.

Though somewhat belatedly, Lucknow University’s faculty — and citizens — seem to have lost patience with the shenanigans of students and their leaders who seem to have little time for their heavily subsidised study programmes financed by taxpayers. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) recently complained to the police about student leaders who have defiled hoardings and statues across the city with poll graffiti. On September 15, LMC sent a letter to Lucknow’s SSP enclosing a list of 30 names against whom FIRs should be lodged. As per directives issued by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court in 1998, campaigning for student union elections is restricted to the distribution of pamphlets and holding small meetings without disturbing the academics or décor of the campus or city. The high court order specifically prohibits pasting material on any buildings or hoardings.

Yet as elections approach wannabe student politicians have taken possession of hoardings around the city to advertise their virtues. In response to a writ petition filed by a local outdoor advertisement agency, in the last week of August the high court had ordered removal of all poll graffiti within three weeks. The student leaders responded by painting the hoardings black prompting LMC to lodge another police complaint demanding penalties for defilement of the hoardings.

Moreover Lucknow University’s proctor V.D. Misra claims that the varsity authorities are indeed serious about showing student leaders their place. "If we haven’t taken any action so far it does not mean they will be let off the hook. We are now serious about making them face the consequences of their acts. We won’t think twice before rusticating offender students," he warns.

Student leaders however say that the university authorities are targeting wrong doers selectively. Vijay Singh of the BJP’s student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) says the authorities choose to overlook the deeds of candidates with links to the ruling Samajwadi Party. "They only go after newer student leaders who have little clout or political patronage," he complains.

Those most hassled by LUSU elections are the minority of students who regard the university as a centre of learning. Abha Sharma, a second year M.Sc student echoes their thoughts when she says all she wishes for is the elections to be over and done with as soon as possible. But with the district magistrate, objecting to the absence of a voters list yet to finalise a date, there is dim possibility of campaigning being over soon.

Meanwhile though no arrests have been made in the Rana case thus far, student leaders are beginning to think twice before threatening faculty members, thanks to Pandey’s courageous stand. But despite police protection being provided to him, Pandey is worried. "The incident has disturbed my family. I have been unsuccessfully trying to contact the chief minister who is unresponsive. Moreover, when I first informed the proctor about the incident, instead of providing support he advised me to deal with the issue ‘tactfully’. Under the dispensation of the present government, things have become worse. Student leaders are bolder," he despairs.

Obviously there is little else to be expected in a state where the chief minister publicly gives a clean chit to erring student leaders (see EducationWorld September 2004) and tells the university authorities to indulge their "small mistakes" in the right spirit.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Belated makeover

Under relentless fire for their abysmal academic record, outdated infrastructure and pathetic staff working conditions, the national capital’s 932 government schools — which have 1,000,000 students and 35,000 teachers on their rolls — are getting a long overdue makeover. The Delhi state government’s directorate of education (DOE), which administers them, has finally woken up to the need for initiatives to make teachers more accountable, contemporise syllabuses and shore up infrastructure. As Rajender Kumar director of education puts it, this will "ultimately provide a child-centric system of education that will facilitate learning and thinking. Our aim is also to fix accountability and improve the lot of teachers."

The sweeping reforms will be introduced piecemeal staggered over the next few months. On the reform agenda is a unique ‘track-the-student’ scheme, under which alpha-numeric tags will help evaluate their academic progression over a period of time. Moreover under DOE’s continuous and comprehensive evaluation project (CCEP), students of classes V-XII will henceforth be required to write four objective-type tests per academic session "to get a feel of competitive examinations" in addition to the two mid-term exams they already write.

Delhi government school students: new beginning?

However, the proposed objective testing — which mandates cash incentives to teachers whose students do well and disciplinary action against non-performers — will also bring teachers under the scanner, a long awaited move that should hopefully stimulate professionalism among notoriously complacent government school teachers.

Expectedly, teachers are up in arms against the DOE. Says a vociferous member of the Government School Teachers’ Association (GSTA), whose genesis goes back to 1959: "This new measure is humbug. Academic perfor-mance in government schools is heavily impacted by the non-availability of textbooks, late admissions and whimsical transfer of teachers. The problem is with the system. Why crucify teachers?"

Despite this, teachers are pleased with the directorate’s freshly-minted transfer policy which is part of the makeover package and will allow teachers rather than whimsical bureaucrats to determine their own posting. Indeed teachers will now be proactively asked about their posting preferences, though principals will continue to be posted at the discretion of the directorate. According to Lovely, the new transfer policy will ensure that the current shortfall of 4,000 teachers will be evenly distributed among all the 932 government schools. "Out of the total number of 35,000, only about 2,500 teachers have asked for transfers. So we can assume that the satisfaction rate is over 80 percent. This shows that we have been able to assign teachers to schools of their first choice," says Lovely.

To further drive home its seriousness of intent in reforming education in government schools, the directorate has also — for the first ever time in its history — downed shutters in 53 government schools. The students of these schools, some of which had barely 300 students on their musters, have been streamed into neighbouring government schools. "The rationale of closing low-attendance schools is to post more teachers in schools where there is a shortfall and save infrastructure costs." However, it’s doubtful whether the money saved will be substantive enough to build new classrooms. According to a recent survey, DOE requires at least 2,234 additional classrooms in 2004 to evenly spread students across all government schools in the national capital.

But within the teachers’ community there’s some satisfaction that a beginning has been made to upgrade government schools which are leagues behind their private counterparts. "The rot in government schools has set in so deep that it will take forever for the system to get cleansed. But powers-that-be have at last woken up to the need for reform. That’s some consolation," says the principal of an independent school, who adds that the time when upwardly mobile middle class parents will consider sending their children to neigbhourhood govern-ment schools is still decades away.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Fruitful fifth anniversary

In a country where 90 percent of an estimated 40 million children with disabilities are out of school, due to the indifference of government authorities and worse, because the great majority of parents of the so-called ‘normal’ children don’t want their offspring in the same class as children with disabilities, Sir Shapurji Billimoria Foundation, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on September 3, is pulling out all the stops to advance the cause of inclusive education. "We celebrated our fifth anniversary with a seminar which took stock of our campaign for the inclusion of all children into classrooms in a developmentally appr-opriate education system," says Roda Billimoria, founder-trustee of the foundation constituted in 1999 to train teachers to deliver inclusive education through an integrated approach. "The objective of the seminar was to convene like minded persons and review the successes and shortfalls of our campaign."

The two day seminar entitled ‘Inclusion in action: issues and strategies’ attracted 95 participants including a mix of policy makers, students, parents, teachers’ trainers and teachers from general, special and remedial schools in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi. Among the panelists were Dr. Vijaya Murthy (SIES Institute of Comprehensive Education), Vijaysheela Sardesai (chairperson, Maharashtra SSC Board), Dr. Avinash Kumar Singh (reader, unit for research in sociology of education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences) and the well-known Mumbai-based psychiatrist Dr. Harish Shetty.

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To this end during the past quinquennium the foundation has designed a two-year teacher training syllabus and study programme for teachers with specific emphasis on integrated education. The first batch of 17 teachers will be awarded a diploma in education — recognised by the SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai — in April 2005. Comments Ranjan Amin education consultant with the foundation since its inception who has over 60 years of teaching experience behind her, including a long stint as head of the department of child development and family relations, Nirmala Niketan College of Home Science: "We have formulated our D’Ed programmes with total focus on inclusive education. We hope that as our batches graduate every two years and take jobs in education institutions, they will not only preach but also practise inclusive education to mainstream a larger number of children with disabilities."

With its strident advocacy of a fair deal for children with disabilities and for their inclusion in mainstream schools, the Shapurji Billimoria Foundation has made an impact.

Comments Gool Ghadiali, currently the principal of the CISCE-affiliated Maneckji Cooper Education Trust School and former principal of New Era High School: "The seminar provided us an excellent opportunity to get an insight into and update ourselves on contemporary education best practices. It provided a chance to meet with eminent educationists to share their expertise, so as teachers we can begin to implement and practise inclusive education."

Certainly the movement for inclusive education — another curious blindspot of the nation’s omniscient educrats — is gaining momentum. Now the decks are being cleared for the third global conference on inclusive education. Convened by the National Resource Centre for Inclusive Education, Mumbai and spearheaded by the formidable Dr. Mithu Alur. The global conference is scheduled to be held in Delhi on February 27-March 4.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Tamil Nadu

Engagement initiative

Unlike American industry which has a live and vital relationship with US academia, the captains of corporate India seem to believe that industry-ready professionals will drop down like manna from heaven. But some re-thinking about dependence on divine providence and old fashioned good luck is beginning to happen — at least in the outward looking, fast-track information technology (IT) industry.

Bridging the demand-supply gap and building an industry-ready workforce was the theme of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM)-sponsored seminar titled ‘NASSCOM HR Summit 2004’ held in Chennai on September 2. The day-long first-of-its-kind seminar was attended by several big names of the IT industry (Harinarain, IT secretary in the Tamil Nadu government; Hema Ravichandar, senior vice president (HR), Infosys Technologies; Neelesh Hundekuri, associate director of KPMG Advisory Services, and Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and CEO of Mind Tree Consulting among others) and Indian academia ( Prof. R.Natarajan, chairman, All India Council for Technical Education; Ajit Ragnekar, deputy dean, Indian School of Business; and Prof. S.V. Raghavan of IIT-Madras).

Karnik: demand-supply gap fear

This NASSCOM initiative has been long overdue. As has been often reported in features, newsreports and opinion columns of EducationWorld among other publications, the science and technology syllabuses and pedagogies of the overwhelming majority of India’s 5,000 plus engineering colleges and technical institutes are near obsolete. Moreover, most of them are hobbled by inadequate infrastructure in terms of labs and equipment and aren’t able to attract high quality faculty. Not surprisingly Indian industry has perhaps the highest annual in-house training expenditure bill worldwide.

Therefore, to enable industry and aspiring students to distinguish between bad and worse colleges, Karnik suggests that all private and state-run technical and engineering institutions should be ranked based on their facilities and faculty, as in the US and UK. "Such ranking will be useful for IT companies at the time of recruitment. Besides, colleges should attract well-qualified faculty by offering perks, giving access to the best libraries and sending them to national and international seminars," says Karnik. Quite evidently NASSCOM is less than impressed by the institution rating efforts of the National Board of Accreditation — (NBA) a subsidiary of the Delhi-based All India Council for Technical Education.

On the obverse side of the coin, academics are of the opinion that apart from paying lip service to the cause of upgrading and contemporisation of science and technology education, Indian industry is disengaged from the problems and pressures of academia. "It’s not that our syllabuses are heavily outdated, they are revised every four years. Practical exposure must reinforce theoretical content and experts from industry should provide inputs to upgrade the quality of education offered. In effect, industry must engage more actively with engineering colleges and institutes as they are nurseries of industry. On their part, apart from delivering classroom instruction, teachers should encourage students to keep abreast of latest trends by reading IT magazines and spending time in the library," says R. Ramaprabhu, dean of the highly rated College of Engineering, Guindy.

Apart from NASSCOM’s resolve to work closely with technical institutions of higher education, IT companies will be casting their nets wider in the near future to recruit even B.Sc graduates with programming knowledge. Moreover if the fast growth of BPO (business process outsourcing) is included within the IT industry — as it should be — its employment potential is huge. "But even this will require a commensurate effort in the education sector. Schools and colleges must give greater emphasis to English language education to create a large pool of English-fluent professionals for the growing IT-enabled services (ITES) and BPO businesses. In NASSCOM we are planning to initiate an assessment and certification process which will help industry recruit the personnel it needs quickly," says Karnik.

Somewhat belatedly Indian industry is waking up to the need to pay attention to the education sector and the nurseries of the high quality talent it will require to succeed in the competitive emerging global market. But better late than never.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Act of redemption

A latecomer on the newspaper publishing scene in Bangalore (1986), a rapidly deteriorating city which harbours pretensions to being the nation’s education capital, the venerable Times of India (estb. 1838) for over a decade remained a distant also-ran way behind the Deccan Herald. Then in 1995 its star assistant editor Bachi Karkaria was deputed to the garden city to radically overhaul its personality and give Deccan Herald a run for its money.

Within a remarkably short period Karkaria attained this objective and transformed the then Mumbai-centric daily into the largest circulation daily (500,000 copies per day cf. Deccan Herald’s 190,000) in Bangalore. But her success formula — the introduction of the supplementary Bangalore Times featuring lifestyle and party-hopping reports of page 3 people — prompted a lot of head shaking disapproval, if not despair, within the city’s intellectuals and old die-hards.

However in early September, presumably alarmed by the pace at which the city’s infrastructure is crumbling because of the pressure of numbers and government neglect, TOI-B introduced a new section — Times City — as part of its daily editorial mix. And in several hard-hitting exposes, TOI reporters have redeemed some, even if not all, its reputation.

In particular the best-selling daily’s reports on the mess in the city’s government schools recently, highlighted the other side of the education scene of a city which boasts the Indian Institute of Science, IIM-Bangalore, NIMHANS and several state-of-the-art, capital intensive nexgen schools such as Jain International, Sarla Birla Academy and The International School, Bangalore. These first-of-their-kind reports on the shabby state of the government school sector has jolted education department officials and drawn plaudits from the city’s intelligentsia.

The reports of Times City on education spread over three days (September 8-10) paint a shocking picture of deprivation and neglect of public (i.e government) school education in a city which prides itself as the infotech and education capital of India. The very first report published on World Literacy Day (September 8) indicates that 34 schools in the city (and over 1,100 in the state) are roofless, open-air institutions; 2,500 don’t have electricity (28,000 statewide); 24,118 don’t have toilets; and 500 don’t offer drinking water (11,000 statewide). "Students have to make do with dingy classrooms, dirty floors to sit on, no drinking water and toilets without water. Worse the Karnataka government claims it is revolutionising education through information technology in classrooms which have no electricity," says the report.

The day following on September 9 a hard-hitting report focussed upon the generally negligent attitude of the state’s 254,000 teachers toward their jobs. "In many government schools in the state, teachers either never turn up or appear well after the lunch-hour, teach a few letters of the alphabet and leave," says the report. Not surprisingly the report also states that the pass rate of government and aided schools students in the school-leaving state board’s public exam is less than 50 percent. "Worse, there are hundreds of schools in the state where the pass percentage is public examinations is zero!" says the report.

The September 10 report focuses on the little that children in government schools learn even when they stay the course. In this connection it highlights the efforts of several privately promoted education foundations such as the Akshara and Azim Premji foundations to improve learning levels in government schools. S. Seethalaksmi the author of this news report is unimpressed by Karnataka’s higher than national literacy percentage of 69.4 and relatively low number of out-of-school children. In a refreshing departure from mainstream media confusion on the subject, she makes a distinction between literacy and education. "The craze to achieve 100 percent literacy rate for the state to push up Karnataka’s social indicators is perhaps the cause (of low learning levels). As long as children attend school, it does not matter if learning is taking place on the campus or not," she remarks caustically.

Another refreshing departure from the norm of the path-breaking reports on the state and city’s pathetic education scenario by the TOI team, is that it isn’t soft on government, or make excuses for it as is usual in Indian print media. The reports rightly laud the efforts of private foundations and NGOs to raise the floor of the public education system. "Private agencies have shown the way to the government," says the September 10 report unequivocally. "Now it is for the latter to take it forward."

By taking time off from its page 3 conspicuous consumption obsession to write a hard-hitting exposé of the other side of Bangalore and Karnataka’s much-hyped school education system, Bangalore’s no.1 daily has redeemed itself. Substantially, if not in full measure.

Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)