Education News

Deadly student politics

Election security at Lucknow University: common qualification

For instance Bajrangi Singh, currently general secretary of LUSU and presidential candidate, is a notified gangster in the UP police records. Eight cases are pending against him for attempted murder and exploding crude bombs on the university campus. But he has the backing of the Samajwadi Party (SP) which heads the Uttar Pradesh state government.

On the other hand the Akhil Bharti Vidhyarthi Parishad (student wing of the BJP) supports Vijay Singh who has three FIRs (first information reports) lodged against him under the Gangsters Act and one for attempted murder. Likewise Shiv Bhushan Singh, an incumbent LUSU vice president and another presidential hopeful, has 11 criminal cases for offences ranging from murder to rioting filed against him.

But a harsh reminder of the depths to which LU’s student politics has sunk, was provided on July 20, when student leader Upendra Singh (charge-sheeted in ten criminal cases) was shot dead at point blank range in one of the university’s hostels, even as another student was critically wounded. According to police investigations, the shoot out was the result of union rivalry. The main accused, who surrendered later, was another student leader Aditya Mishra who has five criminal cases listed against him. Now Singh’s supporters are demanding that a statue be erected on the campus in recognition of his "brave struggle for student rights".

Kamal Saxena senior superintendent of police in Lucknow argues that the onus for eradicating criminal elements from LU is on the university administration. "I have given vice-chancellor Prof. S.B.Singh a list of students with criminal records urging him to expel them from the university. The real problem is in the university hostels which are occupied by all types of undesirable elements. The proctorial board must maintain a seniority list and strictly allot hostel rooms accordingly. If this is done and there’s a problem the police is always willing to support the administration."

Lucknow University’s vice-chancellor S.B.Singh on his part claims to have already issued a notification that outsiders and firearms are not allowed on the campus. Prod him on how effective the notification has been and he mumbles about "practical difficulties". Singh should know, for his official residence transforms into a fortress at the first hint of campus trouble.

Proctor V.D. Mishra however refutes allegations of intensifying campus violence. "The law and order situation is well under control and the campus offers a congenial atmosphere for serious students. The murder was a stray incident highlighted by the media. Law and order is better than what prevails outside the boundaries of the university. Even the firearms that the media never tires of mentioning are available only to those student leaders who have been provided police protection." But Mishra seems to have forgotten that student leaders have made life miserable for teachers as well. He himself has been the butt of several ugly demonstrations and shrill calls for his resignation. During last year’s annual examinations, a couple of student leaders openly abused and defied the vice-chancellor when he attempted to block the entry of rowdies into the campus.

With LUSU elections around the corner, Uttar Pradesh’s capital is bracing itself for trouble. The campus is awash with graffiti, banners and posters despite high court orders banning them. In 1998 the court had directed the varsity’s management to ensure that campaigning for student union elections should be through pamphlets and small meetings which wouldn’t disturb academic activity and decorum on campus. Obviously to no avail.

Merchants who have their establishments near the LU campus are particularly apprehensive. "Every time an election is called, money is extorted from us. The higher the post a student is fighting for, the more money we have to give him. This is where the lakhs of rupees spent on posters, hoardings and even liquor comes from. The police is of no use whatsoever. If we complain, they indicate that it would be in our best interest to maintain cordial relations with student leaders who are likely to become political leaders of the future," says an anguished shopkeeper.

Clearly the ugly fallout of Lucknow University’s brand of student politics is felt much beyond the university’s campus. And nobody seems quite sure how to reform it.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Primary relief

Finally in discharge of its long-delayed promise to reduce stress levels within the student community, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — the country’s largest pan-India examinations board (7,050 affiliated schools) — issued an advisory circular to all affiliated schools last month directing them not to fail students in primary school, to abolish homework for class I and II students and make provision for students to leave books in school, so they didn’t have to ferry them back and forth everyday.

"Our broad aim is to ensure students’ welfare and make the experience of primary education as tension free as feasible. Education has become too competitive, so we’re trying to introduce piecemeal measures to reduce unwarranted tensions within the youngest students," says CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly.

The board’s move has drawn widespread appreciation from school managements and educationists who believe that the board has taken the first step towards diminishing the importance of competitive examinations to focus upon children’s holistic development — intellectual, cognitive, physical and creative. Enlightened educationists have been pressing for less exam-centric syllabuses which would enable teachers to develop childrens’ alertness, observation, compassion and reasoning in equal measure, for several decades.

Primary school students in Delhi: welcome initiative

This viewpoint is endorsed by Aruna Broota, a well-known student counsellor in the national capital. "Our examination system is flawed. It leads to information overload which crushes the spirit of enquiry and joy of learning. Exams trigger off psychological and psychosomatic problems — even suicides — among students and should be totally abolished," asserts Broota.

Educationists in Delhi have particularly welcomed the abolition of examinations in CBSE affiliated primary schools because they believe it will influence other — particularly state examination boards — to follow suit. This in turn will help the recently elected United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All) programme, because it will make primary school a more pleasant experience. According to the pre-budget Economic Survey 2003-04, the percentage of students dropping out of upper primary schools is rising — from 53.7 in 2000-01 to 54.6 percent in 2001-02, because initial schooling is an off-putting experience.

Inevitably some parents entertain the fear that abolition of competitive exams will make it difficult for children to handle competition after primary school. "Rather than making such token and insignificant changes, why doesn’t the CBSE focus on weighty matters like question paper leakages and overhaul of the examination system? Competition is a bitter fact of life and the sooner children get used to it, the better. It sharpens their competitive skills and transforms them into fighters. Why does the CBSE want to blunt this edge?" queries Kamini Minocha, whose two teenage daughters study in Frank Anthony Public School, Delhi.

Quite obviously CBSE’s enlightened initiative hasn’t won’em all.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Study of history debate

Former Union human resource development minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi’s abortive effort to rewrite it to suit his hindutva agenda and the uproar that followed may have had something to do with it. That is perhaps why a seminar titled ‘History is Dead — Long Live History’ held in Kolkata recently packed the Modern High School for Girls (MHS) auditorium to the rafters with students from 15 schools in the city. "We have been witnessing the dwindling number of history students in our Plus Two classes with growing concern. And I was recently informed by other school principals of a similar trend. The latest statistics from the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), New Delhi about the declining number of history students is alarming. Therefore this seminar," says Devi Kar principal of MHS.

The CISCE study cited by Kar titled Course of Studies Embarked on by Students after Completing ISC-2003 Examination was published in March. It gauges the popularity of several subjects among students who wrote the ISC (class XII) examination of CISCE last year. Physics and chemistry topped the list (52 percent of candidates having opted for these two subjects) with mathematics cited as the third choice (49 percent). Economics (41), commerce (37), accounts (37), computer science (24) and biology (21) were the other preferred subjects.

Surprisingly history, which is engrossing enough to have merited a dedicated television channel, was the choice of only 4.9 percent of ISC students. For the record, four subjects were even less popular viz, geography (3.3), psychology (2.3), sociology (1.5) and home science (1.1). Interestingly, only 18 percent of the students who chose history as a subject of study were male.

According to feedback received by CISCE’s research and consultancy division from heads of schools, future career prospects is the single most important deciding factor followed by the level of interest a student has in the subject. Parental pressure is the third most significant factor. The other two factors are a student’s perception as to whether it is easy to score marks in the subject and peer pressure.

To make the seminar which examined the pros and cons of the study of history broad-based, Kar invited eminent persons from several walks of life. Dayita Datta, vice-principal of Welham’s Girls’ School, Dehra Dun and winner of the first Mastermind title from India five years ago, was appointed moderator. The panel included a bureaucrat (Kasturi Gupta Menon, secretary, department of women and child welfare, government of India); a physicist (Dr. Bikash Sinha, director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics); a business entrepreneur (Harsh Neotia, director, Gujarat Ambuja Cements); a career counsellor (Dr. Amrita Dass); a journalist (Dr. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, editor — The Telegraph); a psychiatrist (Dr.C.S. Mukherji); an advocate (Sarbani Sen); two senior history professors (Prof. Bharati Ray, former pro-VC of the University of Calcutta and ex-MP, and Dr. Arun Kumar Dasgupta, retired professor of history at Presidency College), as well as two students, Zoya Parveen and Shrutarshi Basu from Loreto House and St. Xavier’s Collegiate School respectively.

Admitting that the theme of the seminar was somewhat hazy, Kar in her inaugural address, stressed what the seminar was not going to be. "I ruled out any discussion about the poor quality of history teaching in schools and about the colour of textbooks — saffron, red or green," she recalls.

The two student speakers set the tone of the seminar by confessing their ambivalence towards history. While not dismissing the subject as useless they emphasised the dryness of the syllabus they are expected to master: "Like it or not, you’ve got to memorise what the textbooks say and try to reproduce it in the examinations," said Parveen.

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Although expectedly, speakers used the term ‘history’ in more senses than one, a couple of important points emerged from the panelists’ observations and discussions. One was that history, as narrated in Indian school text books, is dull, boring and unreadable. Books are unattractive not because they do not have acceptable quality visuals but because syllabuses are poorly designed. The consensus was that the mainstream political narrative fills textbooks, leaving little room for coverage of art, literature, social conditions etc. According to Prof. Arun Kumar Dasgupta: "The structure of the history syllabus has not changed since colonial times."

Yet, as Dasgupta argued, there is a great deal to be said in favour of the study of history: "History satisfies natural curiosity about the past. It is a search for environment in time. We all live in our time but how did this time form itself out of other times that have gone before? We go back to history to escape from the tyranny of the present. History enables us to judge our own time in the context of other times — it is a study of both change as well as continuity…"

However the utility of the study of history for the job market remained unanswered. Nevertheless, Kar is happy that the seminar made a strong case for the study of history. "Creating a pro-history awareness was one of the main objectives of the seminar and the great reward was the high level of student interest. Quite obviously if taught properly, history can be interesting. Hence the great enjoyment participants derived from this novel seminar," says Kar.

Quite obviously the prime cause of the unpopularity of history is not the subject per se, but the teaching of it.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

British option renaissance

British universities have established themselves as next best destinations of Indian students travelling abroad for higher study. Over the past five years, the number of students in higher education in the UK has risen from a little over a thousand in 1999 to 14,000 currently. Though much of the credit for this is given to the British Council which orchestrates the Education UK exhibitions and fairs, several other factors are responsible for the re-emergence of Britain as a favoured higher education mecca.

One of them is the prime minister’s initiative (PMI) master-minded by British prime minister Tony Blair in June 1999 to increase Britain’s annual intake of foreign students to 50,000 by 2005. Under this initiative, international students are permitted to work for 20 hours per week; avail of industry-related training for a year after completion of study and obtain work permits of two years after completing their education if they are able to secure full-time employment. Other softer incentives include easier visa procedures and increase in the number of Masters and doctoral scholarships awarded to Indian students, which aggregate 250-300 fully paid scholarships.

With more demanding visa regulations and reduced funding for American universities, Indian students are part of a growing exodus of South Asian students turning to the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand for higher education. Easy availability of bank loans of up to Rs.15 lakh for overseas study has also helped.

Education UK fair scene: next best destination

Surprisingly, even the high cost of education in UK, which varies between universities and ranges from Rs.9-15 lakh per year including residential accommodation, does not seem to deter Indian students. Though the US still has the largest share of the Indian market, UK is bridging the gap. "Education in the UK is affordable as the duration of most postgrad courses is one year and students can start earning faster. Besides, at the postgraduate level in India, there is a capacity shortage in several fields — network engineering, bioinformatics, IT, nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, biotechnology — for which there is a huge demand. Universities in the UK are constantly innovating and introducing courses relevant to meet current needs of industry, which is looking for ready-to-employ graduates," says Singh.

However educationists believe it is the massive shortage of institutions of higher education in India, which is the prime cause of Indian students braving huge debts to explore the foreign varsity option. Though India boasts 317 universities and 15,000 colleges, this number is not enough for its one billion strong population and currently only 10.5 percent of India’s 84 million youth in the age group of 18-24 are in college. Moreover, there are only around 100 top rank institutions offering qualitative education and only the very best school leavers with sky-high cut-off percentages are admitted into them. Those who fail to gain admission apply to foreign varsities.

This argument, however, is unacceptable to some Indian education-ists. "There are plenty of institutions and courses available in India for students with aptitude and interest and new courses are constantly being introduced. Those who choose to study abroad are mainly from big corporate families with money power and those who are incompetent even for middle-level institutions in India and can afford foreign education. But their education neither guarantees them employment in the UK nor does it increase their marketability in India," says well-known educationist M. Anandakrishnan, chairperson of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

Expectedly, Singh disagrees. "British education has international acceptance and graduates are eligible for employment anywhere in the world," he says.

As India becomes a valuable market for British varsities, local agents representing UK universities have sprung up offering information and counselling to students. Their wide network has now begun to tap smaller cities and towns in India. "We foresee huge markets in Coimbatore and Ooty and other smaller towns. We plan to take our fairs to them soon," says Singh.

And if the huge response at the UK education fairs held in Chennai is any indication, the number of students opting for education in the UK is certain to increase steadily if not as rapidly as it has in the past two years.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Unending confrontation

The war between the state government and managements of private, self financed, professional colleges in Maharashtra over the issue of tuition fees shows no signs of ending. Although almost two years have elapsed since a stand-off began following the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation Case (2002) and the court’s follow up clarification judgment in the Islamic Academy vs Union of India (2003) which established permanent committees headed by retired high court judges to regulate admissions and tuition fees of these colleges. Approximately 870 private, professional colleges (17 medical, 134 engineering and 719 institutions offering other courses, including business and hotel management, computer applications, architecture and pharmacy), are at loggerheads with the state government. Never mind that almost 100,000 students were supposed to have begun their first term in early August.

The Shikshan Shukla Samiti constituted by the Maharashtra government on August 25, 2003, headed by Justice (retd.) R.A. Jahagirdhar within 11 days of the judgement in the Islamic Academy Case, recommended on June 2 this year that private medical colleges slash their fees by half and added for good measure that the new fee structure should hold good for three years. Despite a chorus of protest from shocked medical college managements, on July 14 the committee decreed that interim tuition charged by colleges offering courses in other streams across Maharashtra should also be cut by 50 percent or more. Thus the committee/ samiti slashed tuition fees for MBA and MMS study programmes from Rs.94,000 to Rs.40,000 per year for accredited colleges. Colleges offering a bachelor of architecture course are permitted to charge Rs.32,000 this year against the Rs.35,000-1 lakh they charged last year. Moreover the Samiti decreed variable fees between Rs.24,000-38,000 depending on their grading, leviable by engineering colleges.

Stunned by the "populist irrationalism" of the Jahagirdhar Committee, 134 representatives of private colleges, (many run by powerful politicians) met at Nasik on July 18 and resolved that they will levy Rs.9,000 more than the tuition fee prescribed by the committee while some decided to adhere to the 2003-04 fee structure, regardless of the committee’s recommendations. Yet other private colleges have put admissions on hold until the fee structure issue is resolved. Unsurprisingly 15 unaided medical colleges have filed writ petitions in the high court challenging the fee structure recommended by the committee.

Given this huge gap between the calculuses of college managements and the Jahagirdhar Committee, the Bombay high court while it gave temporary sanction to the fees fixed by the committee also directed the petitioners to return to the committee for review and reassessment of its June 2 and July 14 fees fixation orders. The court directed that admissions for the current academic year 2004-05 should be granted on the basis of the fees fixed by the Jahagirdhar Committee but advised them to obtain an undertaking from students that if the committee enhances tuition fees after review, the difference will be paid within four weeks. The court said that the colleges can approach the committee within three weeks and the committee has to arrive at a decision within three months thereafter.

Quite evidently Jahagirdhar is unhappy about the court directive to review the tuition fees decreed by him after a year of effort. "I do not want to insult the court, but it is very difficult to fix a new fee structure in three months," he says. But Jahagirdhar is not the only displeased party in this long-drawn out imbroglio. Though they welcome the new fee structure devised by Jahagirdhar, students are less than happy about the continuing uncertainty which could well result in higher tuition fees.

But the most annoyed are beleaguered managements of private unaided colleges struggling to stay afloat in a sea of red ink. "We are going ahead with our admission process right now but if the fee issue is not settled to our satisfaction we will appeal to the Supreme Court. The state government must be out of its wits to be handling education in this manner in our state. Even a government college requires Rs.50,000 per student to run the institution. How can a committee, which meets twice a month, decide that a fee of Rs.32,000 per year is sufficient for us? We are one of the top three architecture colleges in the country and one of the 100 in the world to be recognised by the Commonwealth Association of Archi-tecture — a truly international standard education institution. How can we deliver international standard education at this ridiculous fee? This mess is not only compromising the quality of our education but the very future of the country," expostulates Akhtar Chauhan director of the Rizvi College of Architecture, Mumbai.

Quite clearly the Jahagirdhar committee has some explaining to do.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)