Education News

New texts row

The Delhi-based National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT), India’s largest publisher of school textbooks, is in the eye of yet another storm. Previously, during the five-year rule (1999-2004) of the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government in New Delhi, NCERT under the leadership of BJP ideologue J.S. Rajput had precipitated a national storm by revising school history texts and including Hindu myths and legends in them, thereby giving historical events a Hindu nationalist spin.

The slants and nuances of NCERT textbooks are important because not only are they prescribed in the country’s 8,278 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) schools, they are also standard texts in all Central government schools including 928 Kendriya Vidyalayas and 509 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas as also army, navy and air force schools. Moreover they serve as model texts to the country’s 31 state examination boards.

Therefore a recent proposal of the NCERT textbooks committee to update the content of class XII social science textbooks to include socio-politically sensitive events of the recent past like the Gujarat riots of 2002, the Ayodhya row, demolition of the Babri Masjid (1992) and the pogrom against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, has set the dovecotes of Delhi aflutter.

According to Prof. Yogendera Yadav, a well-known political scientist and chief advisor to NCERT’s textbooks panel, all the post-1947 landmark events including the Emergency, wars and other controversies will be covered. "Political science cannot be taught by side-stepping major events which influence society and polity," says Yadav.

This decision to include recent history in school texts has evoked sharp response from the BJP (now in opposition) with its spokesman Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra attributing malafide intentions to the Congress-led UPA coalition government at the Centre. "The government is trying to instill anti-Hindu sentiment among children and together with leftists and pseudo-secularists is playing vote bank politics," he says.

Meanwhile the country’s Left and communist parties have welcomed the NCERT initiative. "Most politicians are born fools. Let academics judge these historical narratives rather than politicians. I don’t believe they are biased. If the Gujarat riots of 2002 allegedly sponsored by the BJP are covered, so are the Congress-engineered 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the Emergency of 1975. The new texts will definitely help students understand the major blots on our political and social history," says Ashis Nandy, eminent socio-political analyst and a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

Academics also argue that class XII students are old enough to judge these narratives themselves. "It is imperative to put the facts in the right perspective and make them available for reference, more so because students of class XII have sufficient maturity to make their own judgements and discern propaganda," says Prof. Mohd Mujtaba Khan, who teaches political science at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia.

However BJP ideologue Prof. J.S. Rajput, who was sharply criticised during the NDA regime for ‘saffronising’ NCERT texts during his tenure as director believes that the council is playing into the hands of "agenda seekers". "The basic responsibility of a curriculum provider is to delete obsolete ideas and incorporate creative interpretations of history to right established prejudices," he says

Yet the key question is how to ensure the new texts are free of the propaganda of the ruling party. EW’s request for a response on this question was not answered by NCERT. "Every human is biased, so those who write it must have integrity and competence to resist their biases. There is no harm in engaging students critically in such issues but the textbooks must make objective reading," says Prof. Ashok Acharya who teaches political science at Delhi University.

But given the proclivity of handpicked Left and later BJP historians to insinuate their ideological biases into children’s texts without suffering any pangs of conscience, one will have to withhold judgement until the textbooks are actually printed and published.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Collective quandary

The well known Mumbai-based Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd, (KKEL — estb. 1993), which has 55 affiliated schools in 15 cities across India as well as one in Dubai, is embroiled in a major row following the refusal of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) to grant affiliation to the Billabong High School (Goregaon), franchised by KKEL to the Rustomjee Kerawalla Foundation (RKF) which runs three other Billabong High Schools in Mumbai, Baroda and Pune.

For KKEL which over the past decade has established a sound reputation in Mumbai in particular for dispensing high quality pre-primary education, the unexpected refusal of CISCE to grant affiliation to Billabong High (Goregaon) which has an enrollment of almost 200 students including the progeny of high-profile celebs such as superstar Shah Rukh Khan and renowned ad films director Prahlad Kakkar, has precipitated a major storm. Given that the great majority of high-profile parents had registered their precious children in Billabong High (which currently offers education upto class VII), they besieged Lina Asher, the Australia born founder and managing director of KKEL, to sort out the crisis.

Asher flew to Delhi to check out the status of Billabong High’s affiliation application but was unable to persuade CISCE’s tough acting secretary Rita Wilson to grant affiliation to the school. Although CISCE sources are tight-lipped about the issue, Wilson reportedly refused to grant affiliation to Billabong High on the grounds that the infrastructure is incomplete, the school doesn’t have a principal or enough teachers as yet. "The reason extended by RKF for not having received CISCE affiliation is that the land on which the school is situated is less than 2 acres," Asher told EducationWorld.

To add to Asher’s woes, citing a July 19 order of Mumbai’s assistant charity commissioner S.S. Tambe, RKF sent a notice to KKEL severing the franchise agreement. In response, the parents of four enrolled children moved the city civil court praying for an injunction restraining all parties from making any changes in the curriculum, pedagogies and systems in the school. The petitioners contend that the curriculum provided by KKEL to the Billabong High should be followed since at the time of admission of their wards they were assured that the school would be run as per the standards and pedagogy prescribed by KKEL.

Inevitably in the row that’s broken out between KKEL and RKF, Billabong High parents have developed conflicting loyalties. One group of parents issued a notice in leading Mumbai dailies on August 15, expressing their faith in Asher and KKEL while others pilloried her at a meeting convened by RKF the same day. The first group praised the stress-free learning methodology evolved by Asher and informed anxious parents that they would ensure that a new state-of-the-art Billabong High managed by KKEL will become operational by June 2007. But pro-RKF parents sharply criticised Asher alleging that KKEL had failed to design an innovative curriculum.

In the drama that followed, KKEL challenged the charity commissioner’s order setting aside the franchise agreement between KKEL and RKF. On the very day (August 21) RKF convened a public meeting at which it announced that it was working on a fresh curriculum designed to meet the standards of ICSE, IGCSE and the IBO and that it has changed Billabong High’s name to Vibgyor. However a few days later the KKEL petition was upheld by the Bombay high court and the charity commissioner’s order was quashed.

But if Vibgyor’s affiliations don’t come in on time, it could mean trouble for at least one batch of students who might find themselves ineligible to write any school-leaving board exam. On the other hand if new affiliations are sought and obtained, it might prove difficult for children who have followed the CISCE syllabus thus far to switch to another syllabus. Little wonder parents of children enrolled in this now twilight zone school are in a collective quandary.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

CET revisionism

In the south-eastern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 61.5 million), the more things change the more they remain constant. On the eve of the election to the state’s legislative assembly in May this year, former chief minister J.Jayalalithaa had decreed the abolition of the government-managed Common Entrance Test (CET) which governs admission into tertiary level institutes of professional education (medicine, engineering, business management, nursing etc). Her contention was that preparing for CET which is written by 150,000 students annually, imposes an additional burden upon students after they have just completed their class XII exam, and upon rural students in particular as they seldom have access to coaching or preparatory classes for CET. Instead she proposed that admission into profes-sional colleges should be governed by percentages averaged in the class XII school-leaving examinations.

At the time this proposal was widely condemned as populist because it would equate marksheets of students writing the state board’s school-leaving exam with those of students writing the more rigorous and demanding class XII exams of the Delhi-based pan-India CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and CISCE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations). Parents and students of the estimated 9,000 schools countrywide affiliated with these all-India boards prefer the CET system on the ground that it creates a level playing field for all professional education aspirants.

Among the critics of the Jayalalithaa led AIDMK government was the opposition DMK alliance headed by Jayalalithaa’s implacable foe Dr. M. Karunanidhi. However following the ouster of the AIDMK in the legislative assembly election three months ago, the new DMK government seems to have discovered the virtues of Jayalalithaa’s populist proposal and is adamant about the abolition of CET. Although the former government’s CET abolition proposal was struck down by the Madras high court on January 27, the newly elected state government appointed a committee of experts in July this year headed by M. Ananda-krishnan, former Anna University vice-chancellor, to suggest ways and means to abolish CET on constitutionally valid grounds. On the basis of the report of the committee, the government plans to appeal the January 27 high court judgement in the Supreme Court.

Interestingly, when the Anandakrishnan Committee held its first public hearing on August 7 this year on the Anna University campus in Chennai, dominant opinion was in favour of the continuance of CET. However, a few dissenting voices argued that the CET is an academic and financial burden on poor and rural students. The state higher education secretary K. Ganesan says that of the 66,000 students who applied for admission into engineering colleges in the state in 2005-06, only 1,517 had written the CBSE or CISCE class XII school-leaving exams. He questions the need for conducting CET for the sake of such small numbers.

Although the state government is keen to abolish CET to level the playing field for rural school-leaving students, an expert analysis of two years’ marksheets of urban and rural students in state board examinations indicates that urban students score higher percentages anyway. "Instead of abolishing CET, the government can subsidise coaching class fees of students from rural areas or provide them free coaching. Another alternative is to change the examination pattern of the state and incorporate both objective and descriptive type questions, which will test their competitive skills," says Jayaprakash Gandhi, a Salem-based career consultant.

With conflicting opinions and suggestions pouring into its office from all quarters, the Anandakrishnan Committee has its task cut out. Its brief is to recommend valid and tenable grounds for the abolition of CET and also suggest an impartial, alternative merit-based admission system. If it recommends abolition of CET which has been successfully conducted over the years by Anna University in the form of the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE), it has to satisfy the student community or face its wrath.

Be that as it may, the general sentiment of informed educationists, legal experts, parents and students is that the state government should respect existing Supreme Court judgements regarding CET, as it has proved itself a transparent methodology for assessing the merit of higher secondary school- leavers. If the new government intends to establish itself as a champion of the rural masses, it can do so in other ways without tinkering with CET. But perhaps the newly inducted DMK-led government needs to learn common sense the hard way.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Evaluation system switch

What several other state examination boards did yesteryear, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education did on July 19 viz, dump the marks-based evaluation system in favour of awarding grades to students in the class XII school-leaving exam. The council held an emergency meeting on that day to finalise its decision to assess higher secondary (HS) examinees with grades from 2007.

Similar grade point evaluation systems were introduced by the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as well as the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) which respectively conduct the CBSE and ISC examinations.

"The marksheets of HS students will look completely different from next year," says Gopa Dutta, president of the council. "There will be no mention of division or aggregate in the marksheets. Instead, they will show grades obtained by students in individual subjects."

The council members have approved a five-point gradation scale under which students scoring between 80 and 100 percent will be awarded A+ (excellent). Those securing between 60 and 79 will be graded A (very good). Those scoring between 45 and 59 will be placed in grade B (good). Students marked between 30 and 44 will get grade C (satisfactory), while those scoring less than 30 will be graded D (disqualified). To clear the HS exam, students will have to score above 30 in six subjects, including two languages (first and second), three elective subjects and environmental education.

"We have brought about thorough changes in the syllabus, question patterns, teaching techniques and examination systems, in tune with the grading system adopted by other boards in the country. A thorough revision of the form of marksheets was also necessary to match this revised structure," says Dutta.

Although officials of the council don’t seem to be aware of it, according to expert educationists who favour the grading over the marks based system, the grading format will place examinees into groups of relative excellence (A, B, C etc) rather than awarding merit ranks (first, second, third etc). The new system enables college admission committees to give weightage to the co-curricular and extra-curricular activities of school- leavers and thus indirectly encourage students to develop interests other than pure academics. With the abolition of rankings, excellent students won’t see any virtue in spending laborious days and nights to secure top ranks as they will be clubbed together in the A+ category. The expectation is that they will utilise some of their time to develop other interests.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

Girl child focus

Among India’s most literate states with 82 percent of its citizenry literate (cf. the all India average of 65 percent), the picture postcard western seaboard state of Goa (pop. 1.33 million) has embarked on an ambitious campaign to achieve 100 percent enrollment and retention in primary and secondary schools. The special focus of this campaign is on educating girl children and students from economically backward communities, including SCs and STs (scheduled castes and tribes).

"We have recently introduced Kanya Dhan, a unique programme for SC, ST and economically backward class girl children. Under this scheme the state government deposits Rs.25,000 in the name of each girl admitted into class XI. The deposit with interest is given to the girl after she passes class XII," says Luizinho Faleiro, former chief minister (1998-99) and currently minister for education and industries in the Congress-led Goa state government. According to Faleiro, who is determined to make this tourist haven into India’s most education and child-friendly state, bank deposit accounts have already been opened for 1,272 SC/ ST girls studying in class XI. "When these girls complete class XII they will have the option of using this money to study further," says Faliero, a law and commerce postgraduate of Mumbai University.

Another scheme for boosting enrollment of girl children — 6-7 percent of girls drop out before class VII in Goa — is the Girls Motivation Scheme. Under this scheme girl students from SC, ST and socio-economically backward households who enroll in class V become eligible for Rs.1,000 deposited in their names. For every year each girl child remains in school from class V all the way until class X, Rs.1,000 is added to the bank deposit. Thus, she will receive Rs.6,000 and the interest accrued after completing class X. "Each girl student is also gifted a bicycle after getting admission into class VIII. More than 1,100 girls have benefited from this scheme already. We have allocated Rs.40 lakh for this project in this academic year," says Faleiro.

With this sunny unpolluted state with its excellent road network and well-developed towns and villages beginning to attract the attention of the non-polluting computer software development industry, the state government is also preparing to train professionals for the IT industry.

According to Faleiro the Congress-led state government, which was voted into power in June 2005, has launched an ambitious Computer Education Plan 2005-09. Under this plan composite computer labs, equipped with ten computers, one printer, scanner, web camera and a 24-hour internet connection, will be installed in 432 government high and higher secondary schools across the state. "The total project cost is Rs.28 crore with each computer lab priced Rs.6.40 lakh," says Anil Pawar, deputy director, Goa education department. Every govern-ment high school teacher is also eligible for a subsidy of Rs.20,000 to buy a laptop computer.

Other education initiatives launched by the state government include community mobilisation courses in 33 locations across the state to empower parent-teacher associations and community leaders; a Rs.3 crore drive to build toilets, compound walls and classrooms, provide drinking water in government schools; and free distribution of textbooks to students from class I-VIII in all government schools in the state.

But perhaps what Goa’s can-do education minister will be most remembered and admired for by parents who enroll their children in state government primary schools is the introduction of English as a subject from class I this academic year. "While the mother tongue is important, today there is a universal demand for English speaking workers. A growing number of parents have been switching their children from government to English medium schools. In the last decade 209 government primary schools offering Marathi/ Konkani medium education had to be shut down because of falling student enrollment. Hence, the early English learning decision of the government," says Faleiro.

Already educationally ahead of other states of the Indian Union, Goa quite obviously intends to remain that way.

Michael Gonsalves (Goa)

Endless language debate

The education ministry of the shaky, scandal-plagued JD(S)-BJP coalition government in Karnataka (pop. 56 million) which has been in office for seven months, is at sixes and sevens over the long-pending issue of introducing the teaching of English from class I. Under the current law all primary schools — public and private — promoted in the state after 1994 are obliged to provide education upto class V exclusively in Kannada or the student’s mother tongue. The teaching of English is prohibited even as a second language — a law which is practised more in breach.

Last month the Karnataka government’s primary education department went into an overdrive to ‘penalise’ schools teaching English in classes I-V. On August 18, it issued closure notices to over 3,500 primary schools across the state including 1,028 in Bangalore.

Ironically the very next day (August 19), addressing graduating students of the Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic, Bangalore, Kaushik Mukherjee, principal secretary of Karnataka government’s higher education department said all children in the state need to improve their English language — writing and speaking — skills because it has emerged as the premier global language of business and commerce. "With the world having transformed into a global village it is imperative that students develop strong English language skills. Enhanced language skills will provide them the necessary platform for global interaction," said Mukherjee.

Caught in the crossfire between primary and higher education departments are parents and students in Karnataka’s 10 million households who have made their preference for early English language learning clear long ago. For over two decades, those who can afford to, have been switching en masse to private primary schools which have multiplied from about 2,500 in 1990 to an estimated 7,000 in 2005. The latter routinely sign forms and affidavits agreeing to abide by the state government’s Kannada-only-in-primary-school policy but provide English teaching — and often full-fledged English medium education — to meet parental demand. Under a mutually beneficial arrangement, inspectors of the education department have been turning a Nelson’s eye to this common infraction. In the circumstances after having paid out a fortune to bribe-hungry school inspectors and their complicit political masters, private managements are outraged by the state government’s volte face.

"Under the universal declaration of human rights 1948 to which India is a signatory, parents have the right to choose education most suitable for their children. We are under sustained pressure from parents to provide not only English learning, but also English medium education. Our primary responsibility is towards fee paying parents. Therefore we have filed a writ petition in the Karnataka high court supported by over 4,000 parents against the closure notices issued to our members. We are confident of a favourable judgement which will compel the government to amend its obsolete primary school language policy," says G.S. Sharma, president of Karnataka Unaided School Managements Association (KUSMA), an umbrella body of private school managements in the state which has over 5,000 member-institutions with a gross enrollment of 2 million students.

KUSMA’s stand is implicitly supported by Karnataka’s most famous global icon, N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Ltd (annual revenue: Rs.9,521 crore), the company which has placed Karnataka and Bangalore in particular on the global IT industry map. "Every child must have the option to attend an English-medium school. Even the cleaning women in Infosys would like to send their children to English-medium schools, so when they grow up they can enter the computer software and other industries. The government should encourage private entrepreneurs to promote English-medium schools without hindrance. The poorest of poor should have access to English-medium education," Murthy told the media on the sidelines of a high-power panel discussion on Bangalore’s future (August 17).

Meanwhile suffer little children.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)