Universal education, minimal learning

Tripura claims to have achieved the goal of universalisation of elementary education, with almost 100 per cent enrolment, 90 per cent retention and average attendance rates of 80 per cent for primary schools and 77 per cent for upper primary schools. Does that mean that on any random day, if you show up at an elementary school, you are going to find all the children in 6-14 years age group attending school?

Unlikely. A recently tabled CAG audit report that reviewed the performance of elementary education in the state during 2006-2011 shows that there is considerable mismatch between enrolment, attendance, etc. as enumerated in DISE (District Information System for Education) and actual percentages recorded in 60 schools where checks were carried out. On the day of inspection, average attendance was found to be 57 per cent. Not only is this significantly less than what DISE data claims, it was also less than the number present in the previous academic session's attendance registers.
Hidden behind the 'average' figures that paint a rosy picture of universalisation, retention and attendance are stark local variations. Thirty nine per cent of schools in Tripura show attendance rates below 50 per cent. In Dhalai district, with a high proportion of Scheduled Tribes, the attendance figures are quite worrisome.

 •  Focus on tribal education
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But in case one thinks the joint inspection team merely compared statistics in registers and DISE - a very common perception about auditors - you are in for a surprise. CAG's performance audit report spans across 33 pages and tells us that audit teams also held long interviews with teachers to gauge the reasons for low attendance and were told that such low attendance was due to 'less awareness of parents'.

The audit teams attempted to probe the reasons for low attendance and their relationship to learning outcomes, by examining the data more finely. They found that only two schools reported more than 80 per cent attendance and 50 per cent of students securing more than 80 per cent marks. Another 13 schools reported attendance ranging between 50 to 80 per cent and 25 to 50 per cent of students securing more than 80 per cent marks. As many as 45 schools, on the other hand, (75 per cent of the number sampled) showed poor attendance figures and poor learning outcomes.

The auditors also observed that except two schools, all the others had received teaching grants, but during inspection they did not appear to be using the teaching aids in classrooms. Fourteen out of 60 sampled schools didn't receive the Teaching Learning Equipment they were supposed to get as per SSA norms during the last five years. In Dhalai district, most of the children in schools were first generation learners, but none of the schools had provided any special attention to teach slow/weak learners. Thirty four schools did not have a regular head teacher, which meant that teachers had to attend to tasks related to school management, affecting their teaching duties.

The problem of schools not having a regular head teacher is wide-spread. Of the 4386 schools in Tripura, 2810 (64 per cent) do not have regular head teachers. The state needs to urgently promote more teachers into higher positions of responsibility as head teachers. This should not be too difficult, since Tripura has very positive Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) - in 2006 the state had a teacher for every 22 students and in 2011 it improved this ratio by having a teacher for every 18 students.

Impressive numbers on teacher recruitments also come along with poor school infrastructure, deficient training infrastructure, a depressingly low number of teacher educators, and uneven distribution of teachers. In many places, primary and upper primary schools are run in the same building, in morning and afternoon shifts. Thus, each of the schools on average functions for 22 hours a week for 100 to 284 days in an academic session. This is only half the time prescribed as working hours for teachers as per RTE norms viz. 45 hours a week (although the higher figure includes time that teachers have to spend in preparing for class as well).

While recruitment numbers are good, they are also highly uneven. The state has 11 schools where there is only one teacher for more than 100 students. There are also another 105 schools where there is one teacher for 50 to 100 students. Any intervention aiming to bring the PTR closer to the state average in these schools is constrained by policy hurdles. For instance, teachers recruited under SSA can't be transferred. Similarly as the Principal Secretary, Education suggested in a conference to discuss the audit findings, female teachers and teachers with health concerns can't be transferred either.

There is a need to identify schools/locations that have consistently reported adverse PTRs in the last ten years, and find the reasons that de-motivate teachers from accepting postings in these. That will help plan the incentives needed to overcome the hurdles.

Teacher quality remains an area of concern, despite continuous recruitment. As many as 71 per cent of the teachers do not possess the minimum qualifications mandated by the National Council of Teachers' Education. Only 22 per cent of the teachers are properly trained. Lack of Science and Maths teachers is a huge concern in many schools. 783 Upper Primary schools didn't have even a single Maths or Science teacher, and 1149 more didn't have a Maths teacher. In Dhalai, the shortage of teachers was particularly acute - Maths at 66 per cent, and Science at 50 per cent. This has affected learning outcomes in these subjects.

The state government has responded to the audit observations by stating that it is in the final stage of engaging 1000 Science teachers, but there is no word on addressing the shortage of Mathematics teachers. And even where there are teachers, problems eventually crop up; the poor training infrastructure and shortages of teacher educators deny a large number of teachers any in-service training to improve themselves.

On the whole, the education system in the State looks like one that is at best filling up numbers on a checklist, without much attention to any learning outcomes. And even this limited exercise appears incomplete in many places. One can only hope that this performance review triggers a discussion among educationists in the state, and an effort to address the bottlenecks to learning.

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Struggling to go beyond the basics

In August 2010, the Chief Minister of Sikkim, Pawan Chamling announced the Total Literacy Mission, 2015 - a vision to transform things in the state through equitable, holistic, inclusive and globally competitive education. The state government also claims to have accorded the highest priority to elementary education, and has incurred the highest per-child revenue expenditure on education in the country - Rs.6,667 as against the national average of Rs.1,337.

Certainly, the state has successfully provided access to elementary education for all, with equitable access to boys and girls, and rural as well as urban children. But there are areas where more needs to be done.

A recently-tabled Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit of the performance of elementary education in the state during 2006-2011 revealed that the Perspective Plan for the development of education was prepared by Education Consultants India Ltd in May 2003. Eight years from that date, the department hasn't still initiated any action to get the approval of the government to begin implementing the plan. Indeed, after spending Rs. 6.57 lakhs on preparing the document, the department also didn't care to incorporate any of the suggestions voiced by the consultants in the annual plans it prepared.

The planning process for the annual plan ideally starts at the habitation level, and moves upward to block, district and state levels. Also, annual plans should ideally flow from the Perspective Plan. However, the audit scrutiny revealed that annual plans were prepared by the Secretary, Human Resource Development Department without obtaining inputs from District Education Officers (DEOs). CAG report states that annual plans didn't contain any targets or strategies to ensure universal retention, improvement in educational outcomes etc.

Indeed, it appears that the only purpose for which the Annual Plans were made was to avail budget outlays on a year-to-year basis.

The grand announcment of the Total Literacy Mission did not spur the department into much action, either. The establishment of the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) was notified in September 2010, but even a year later, it had not been actually constituted, says the CAG audit. There was also a promise to embark on a Teacher Training Mission, and to formulate a Teacher Transfer Policy, but these remained on paper as well.

In statements made in August 2010, the state promised to provide all schools with computers and internet connectivity, to facilitate computer literacy and computer aided learning. But only 15 schools out of 776 got computers along with internet facilities under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme. 426 computers and accessories purchased under Computer Aided Learning Program (CALP) funds were not put to use, since department had not yet developed the course curriculum, software applications and training module for teachers. Various important committees such as the State Advisory Committee and State Quality Education Committee, envisaged under the RTE framework, had not been constituted as of November 2011.

While the state boasts of the highest per-child spending on education, there was a 37 per cent shortfall in the funds it was supposed to contribute to SSA. The central government, for its part, wasn't doing any better - it indulged in short release of its share in SSA funds by 31.90 percent.

While the state has a very positive Pupil-Teacher-Ratio on average, there is a concentration of excess teachers in easily accessible areas, affecting the quality of education in remote areas. Records in respect of South District revealed that 42 out of 107 Junior High Schools had excess teachers, whereas 18 schools in this district suffered from a dearth of teachers.

The audit team selected 40 schools all over the state to verify this. Its joint inspections with department officers and head teachers showed a concentration of teachers in excess to the needed strength in 32 schools, and a shortage in two. This was the case despite the department's notification in February 2010 that laid emphasis on transferring excess teachers to the schools that had shortages.

In October 2009, state government amended the Teachers Recruitment Rules, 2008 and prescribed the minimum qualification for recruitment as a primary school teacher as 'Senior Secondary Pass with professional training of two years in DIET or equivalent'. Scrutiny of records in 40 schools showed that 124 teachers (out of 324) did not possess this minimum qualification, and were untrained as on March 2011. The percentage of trained teachers was comparatively better in Primary Schools (76 percent) that in Upper Primary Schools (56 percent). North district fared worse on this count than the three others.

In September 2010, state government implemented Advancement of Educational Performance through Teacher Support (AdEPTS) survey in 18 schools, covering 267 teachers of elementary schools. While none of the teachers scored 'A', 80 per cent scored 'B' or 'C' and the remaining 20 per cent got 'D'. Similarly in order to gauge teaching learning processes in classrooms, the department carried out the Basic Achievement Survey in 112 schools in February 2011. The survey results showed that while most students (82 to 97 per cent) were average or below average in Mathematics, 56 to 69 per cent were less than average in Environment Studies/Science and Technology.

In order to improve the quality of education in the state, the department had allocated funds to initiate two interventions: a Learning Evaluation Program aimed at developing language reading material and science and mathematics kits, and a Computer Aided Learning Program (CALP). The first one failed, since the department didn't actually spend the funds earmarked for it!

For the CALP, Rs.50 lakhs per district was allocated for training teachers, creating infrastructure, developing and producing state specific e-learning materials and sensitising statutory bodies. But although computers and accessories costing more than a crore were purchased and delivered to the schools, the department didn't develop the course curriculum and software applications, or even the training modules for implementing the program. It was nothing more than a purchase contract for computers, which were never used.

The excessive focus on creating 'infrastructural access' seems to be holding back the state, and preventing it from moving beyond achieving the basic indicators of literacy and enrolment. It is evident that mere policy announcements are not enough. A serious review of the system to understand why the highest per-child expenditure in the country has not delivered evident learning outcomes is needed, and may even help prevent other states from repeating Sikkim's mistakes.

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The real and present threat to our future

India and the world at large are witnessing the kind of change that we have not seen in recent times. We have been witness to worldwide ferment, revolutions, emergence of out-of-the-box ideas, inventions, disasters, untold agony, ecstasy and dramatic political, economic and sociological changes. And as the world changes, we have no choice but to revolutionise the field of education. Only that will help us ride the change.

We need innovations. We need people who will drive it, implement it and open the pathway for change by revitalizing and refashioning it. This is possible only with a dynamic education system churning out innovative students who can independently think, strategise and built the nation's future.

India needs an education system to empower teachers to teach differently. Ironically, ancient India had an ancient holistic education system aimed at creating well-rounded individuals who would reflect the soul of India. But the British changed it to one that historian and politician Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay introduced in 1935 - one that was specifically designed to create an army of clerks to run its administration. After more than 17 decades, the same continues at the primary and secondary school level.

Outdated and archaic

The goal of the British system was not to educate, but to enable people to get basic employment. Ironically, it appears we have even failed to achieve that objective consistently. As teachers and educationists, we have failed to develop the innate talent of our children that can help them do better in life, secure better jobs, get their creative juices flowing and contribute to society. At the moment, there is no foreseeable future effort by parents, teachers, educationists, policy makers and politicians to correct this and courageously bring in radical reforms. Talk to any of the thousands of engineering students passing out every year and the tragedy will be clear.

Politics is important in a democracy and has a rightful place, but if democracy is to succeed, it needs a literate thinking population to drive change and progress. Education should be our number one priority, as it has the potential to drive away many social ills, blind faith and, of course, poverty. It can help us think differently, build aspirations and inherent strengths. Political parties across sections have to realise this and hold hands to help the government in power to bring in reforms. We have already lost a lot of time. We cannot afford to miss this turning point in history.

Unprepared future

In ten years, India will overtake China as the world's most populous country. The good news is that India will be the only country with such a large young population. To turn around this demographic dividend, we need excellent schools, colleges and institutions of higher learning that have a revamped contemporary syllabus to meet the challenges of the future. Learning has to be exciting, proactive and practical.

Rote learning which thrives in India does not focus on learning or application of what is taught. It does not develop critical reasoning faculties. Joint studies by WIPRO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development have shown that rote studies at the primary and secondary school level actually resulted in students regressing in mathematics and science. The emphasis in our schools and colleges is on examinations that rely on such memorisation and not on intelligence, innovative thinking or even problem solving.

The Chinese leadership has realised that it cannot keep sustaining its economy by making cheap imitations but needs bright minds in research and development to compete with the western world that have made impressive strides in biotechnology, nanotechnology, knowledge intensive services and manufacturing. It has recognised rote learning cannot get them to achieve this. We in India need to see the logic too. How much research is done today in educational institutions? Pedagogical methods are archaic. Rarely are teachers sent for refresher courses or exposed to innovative methods of instruction. Teachers need to be paid attractive salaries so as to attract the best talent to the profession.

The challenges to innovation

It is not as if India has not experimented in education - there are schools that teach in innovative ways and create space for children to think independently. There are many experimental schools without examinations, such as the one established by the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry. The accent there is on learning, not performance. Students are encouraged to question, debate and put to test what they have learnt. They are given the space to think freely, have differing opinions, disagree and not be bogged down with mind numbing theories and ideas. No one laughs at their ideas.

However, parents themselves are wary of sending children to such institutions that operate differently, as they fear that they will not be able to compete with the outside world. This, despite the fact that those who have graduated from these alternative schools have done extremely well in a variety of fields. The need, therefore, is to figure out what ignited their learning and how it can be replicated.

There is no space for original thinking in most traditional schools. Can students have fun doing assignments which call for all their senses to be put to task? It will be tougher for a teacher to assess such assignments, but it is worth the effort as students would remember this more than any lecture. It may also be a good idea to have customised tests and evaluations as students are so different from each other and cannot be tested and evaluated in a general test.

Contemporary teaching today must have a lot of electives weaved into our higher education. Liberal arts should be available for all the streams so that students of both science and commerce students would benefit from learning history, sociology and psychology. And when they do, they will start looking at life around them with a different lens. A business school at Lavale in Pune, is attempting to do this. Business students are exposed to painting, sculpture, music, mask making, theatre, horse-riding and golf.

Minutes before the state board examination, students of Corporation Higher Secondary give their books a final go, after three revision exams and countless hours of in-school preparation during their study leave. Pic: B A Raju.

Serious shortage of skills and talent

In the Indian context, education must be job-oriented. Organisations today invest heavily in training new recruits as the education they completed did not teach them the required skills. Former President of India, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, admitted that only 25 per cent of graduating students were employable. The rest lacked technical knowledge, English proficiency and critical thinking. Sam Pitroda, former chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, also says that only 10,000 of the 90,000 MBAs who annually graduate are employable.

A study by Aspiring Minds of 230 fresh graduates in three out of the top 10 B-schools in India found them lagging in practical intelligence. The study attempted to gauge their mid-level managerial skills in business intelligence, judgement, risk taking ability, decisiveness, leadership, marketing, communication and personal effectiveness.

As various sectors such as information technology, engineering and manufacturing witness a boom, the emphasis will be on skilled and cost-effective manpower. Operational excellence will be the key. International companies are eyeing India as there is a serious shortage of young people in the United States, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In some years, China will also be counted among them. India cannot afford to miss this opportunity . it is the only country that has a young, upwardly mobile class ready to work hard, take risks and dream.

However, the present situation does not show our preparedness in positive light. Take for example the construction sector, which faces a serious shortage of civil engineers. A 2011 report by Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry pegs the overall labour shortage in the Indian construction industry at 30 per cent. The problem is compounded by the fact that there is a significant shortage of civil engineers in the country.

Speaking to an English daily shortly after the Uttarakhand mishap of 2013, Professor C V R Murthy of IIT Madras pointed out that of the 2,700 engineering colleges in the country, civil engineering is taught in only 400. It could also be a classic chicken-and-egg problem as students increasingly opt for the information technology discipline, with prospects in the IT sector appearing to be brighter. The Builders Association of India further adds that the curriculum at engineering colleges do not keep pace with changes in use of technology. The result is that construction firms are now hiring retired personnel at fat pay packages in the face of unavailability of fresh talent.

Various metro rail projects too face a shortage of engineers. Metro wizard E Sreedharan has asked IITs to start a course in metro engineering and is lobbying for a postgraduate course that will churn out engineers to meet the need of metros in the future. The situation is so serious that engineers are being poached by rival metros which are ready to offer them three times the salary! If things go the way it is going at present, India will have to get foreign workers in the years to come as there is not enough trained hands for sophisticated jobs.

The National Knowledge Commission has suggested that premier institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology take lesser-known engineering colleges under its wing so that their mentoring can help raise standards of graduates from these colleges.

The tale is similar when it comes to medical professionals. According to a Planning Commission report, India needs around 6,00,000 doctors, 10,00,000 nurses and 2,00,000 dental surgeons. The health ministry estimates that India needs at least 21,00,000 nurses, if there has to be one nurse for a population of 500. But only 11,00,000 are available. India has only one doctor for every 10,000 people. Compare this with Australia that has around 250 and the United States, which has about 550.

Wanted: Trained hands

Another major challenge for Indian policy makers is to introduce quality vocational training. One way for this to happen is for the government and private sector to hold hands. This is not impossible as the government has the infrastructure, credibility and scale. On the other hand, the private sector is innovative and dynamic with a wide network of industry links. Both training and placement will not be a problem as there is huge demand.

In the overall job market of around 496 million people, 30 million are in the organised sector. Of these 30 million, nearly 24 million are blue-collar workers, says Sudhakar Balakrishnan, chief executive officer of human resource solutions firm Adecco India & Middle East. This semi-skilled worker pool includes mechanics, fitter, electricians, plumbers and other technical hands who usually come out of the industrial training institutes or ITIs. These institutes take in students who have completed their tenth standard and put them through various vocational courses like carpentry, welding, motor winding and the like. There are 1896 of these institutes but most of them are in poor shape with outdated syllabus, equipment or machinery.

Can we ride the advantage?

India is in a singularly commanding position as it has a young upwardly mobile class ready to take the plunge. One opportunity lies in Knowledge Process Outsourcing which is a $3 billion industry. It has opportunities galore like financial analysis, equity research, treasury operations, credit decision processes and accruals. Then, there is Legal Process Outsourcing that has tremendous potential, as law services are comparatively cheaper in India. New opportunities are emerging in areas such as patent application, drafting, legal research, pre-litigation documentation, advising clients, analysing draft documents and writing software licensing agreements. The question is whether our education system is aligned to these realities and fashioned to produce the kind of talent that is needed.

However difficult it may be for students, it has become more important than ever today for teachers to encourage multiplicity of ideas, richness of thought and acceptance of differing viewpoints. They must allow minds to flower, not atrophy. The education system must give students the courage to question what they learn, infer from intelligent reasoning and become thinking individuals instead of senseless robots. One definite way is to stimulate their minds and reasoning by throwing ideas at them. They will be forced to think, analyse and then comprehend.

It is possible to do this, but it needs political will. We need reforms and teachers to drive it. We really do not have a choice. It is only an innovative education system that will help India take the next giant leap.

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Shielding campuses from violence

For most belonging to India’s middle class, politics is a dirty word. Be it the everyday ups and downs at the workplace, or the insidious psychological maneuverings of participants in a reality show, nobody seems to think that “doing politics” (as such situations are often tagged) is essential, or can be a remotely positive preoccupation. Power is widely held as that which erodes a person of her morals and fellow-feeling, and yet is the ultimate intoxicant.

Indeed, in a country where representatives of power often come with the excess baggage of criminal records or proceed to get mired in endless cases of corruption, it is difficult for the average person to accept that politics is not an external entity that one may or may not allow into one’s life, but a precondition of society. Politics is the manner in which we engage with daily structures of power, such as the family, the workplace, the state and the society. It is embedded in our existence, and no amount of non-complicity in partisan politics can erase our identities as political animals.

The erstwhile decision of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal to put on hold elections in colleges across the state, and the spate of events that it unfurled, have given rise to debates regarding involvement of the student community in politics. Views exchanged across newspaper op-eds or television programs have brought to light numerous streams of thought, ranging from the assumption of political naivete of students on the one hand to the fundamental democratic right of political participation on the other. But why this debate now?

A sign outside the Union Room of a college in Kolkata. Pic: Ritaj Gupta

The context of such a decision had been a series of violent clashes that had taken place across various college campuses in the state, most notably the incident at Harimohan Ghose College on 12 February, 2013, in which a fight had broken out between miscreants from the local Congress and Trinamool Congress stables over the filing of nomination papers for the students’ union elections. Caught in the crossfire, sub-inspector Tapas Choudhury was shot dead, and this sparked off discussions about the violent turn that student politics had taken in the state. It was not long before it was found that the clash was, in reality, between local Trinamool Congress councillor Mohammad Iqbal and Congress leader Mokhtar who aimed to settle political scores through union elections at the college.

As the state sought to issue a blanket ban on college and university students’ union elections on 18 February, Education Minister Bratya Basu stated that this decision was not related to the Harimohan Ghose College incident, but rather the imminent state and other Board examinations, effectively denying the increase in violence within the precincts of colleges and universities under Trinamool rule.

Protesting against this crackdown on the political process within institutions, activists of the Left-backed Students Federation of India (SFI) started holding demonstrations. From one such gathering, a group of activists were arrested on 2 April and were being taken to the Presidency Jail under police supervision, when 22-year-old student activist Sudipto Gupta reportedly hit a lamppost and was grievously injured. Within hours, he succumbed to his injuries. The “collision” theory was rejected by many and suspicions were rife that the real cause of Sudipto’s death had been heavy lathi-charge by the police, who have been accused on more occasions than one of acting as agents of the state’s high-handedness.

The entire state went into shock over Sudipto’s death even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed this a “small incident.” The SFI, in retaliation, heckled the Chief Minister and her finance minister Amit Mitra in Delhi on 9 April in Delhi, unchaining a spate of violence from the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad front back in Bengal. While CPI (M) party offices were destroyed across the state, the most notable incident was the ransacking of the prestigious Presidency University and its historic Baker Laboratory the next day.

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

 •  A shocking development
 •  Stemming campus violence

In this entire chain of events, what has emerged is a strengthening of public opinion in many quarters towards one of complete vilification of politics as an aspect of student life. Public pleas for depoliticisation of the student community and college campuses have started surfacing with more regularity and frequency than ever before.

Student Politics and Bengal

While student politics in Bengal has had a long legacy of clashes between different student organizations, it cannot be denied that the current regime has seen a marked increase in the entrance of anti-social elements into the precincts of college. Many, however, see this merely as a continuation of the lumpenisation of student politics that had started under the Congress government of the 1960s and had gathered strength over the long rule of the Left Front.

“There is an imagined sanity of student politics, a naivete of thought that assumes that college politics is dissociated from the general politics of the country”, says Upal Chakrabarti, assistant professor of Sociology at Presidency University and former student activist himself. According to him, the extent to which political parties involve themselves in deciding the fate of student unions across colleges and universities in West Bengal is acceptable per se, as there is a need to stop looking at student politics as an entity that is contained within the walls of the institutions alone. But what is unacceptable is the visible violence and narrow vote-garnering tactics that partisan politics brings into the ambit of educational institutions that is unacceptable.

Indeed, the incidents referred to above have all had direct supervision of ‘bigger’, mainstream politics, and cannot strictly be dubbed as reflections of the increase of violence within the student community alone. Those who feel that students should dissociate themselves from such politics largely predicate their opinion on the belief that student politics is suffering from a poverty of ethics; instead, they should perhaps read this upsurge in violence as part of a larger picture. One cannot view it as an isolated issue outside the presence of violence in the larger political setup and society as a whole. Earlier in February this year, the State Crime Records Bureau, in response to an RTI application filed by a resident, revealed that the state had seen 586 cases of political violence and 56 clashes between student groups between May 2011 and October 2011 - the first five months of the tenure of the present government. At least 926 political workers including 128 students had been injured in such conflict.

Filmmaker Rangan Chakravarty, an SFI activist in his student years at Jadavpur University in the late 70s, admits to an erosion in political ethics within the larger party scenario, which had a direct effect on student politics of his time. “The politics lost its politics,” he says. Subhendu Dasgupta, former Professor of Calcutta University and also a student activist during his college years in the 60s, acknowledges the importance of partisan politics within the campus, but with the caveat that contemporary college politics and its closeness to mother parties is a nexus for producing cadres and garnering votes. “There is an absence of broader politics within the political programs of the parties themselves. The race for votes takes precedence and this obviously introduces lumpenism and muscle-flexing,” he states.

Aritra Bhaumick, an ex-student of Scottish Church College and an SFI activist, sums up the situation that contemporary student politics faces in Bengal. “We feel we are fighting to uphold an ideology, a class, but we end up promoting and serving selfish people and that is exactly the difference between how student politics should be and how it actually is.”

The assumption that while mainstream politics has irretrievably mired itself in violence, student politics has a responsibility to divorce itself from such a brand of realpolitik is an assumption whose practicality and advisability need to be thoroughly questioned. This is not to condone violence within the realm of student movements, but to acknowledge that it is impossible to strictly distinguish or distance student politics from larger political trends. Biman Bandopadhyay, the registrar of Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) and a student activist during his college years, raises some important questions that he thinks are coming out of the present scenario. “If young people are exposed to violence that is a part of everyday life at present, is it possible for them to remain completely outside of it? Furthermore, is it acceptable to argue for a ban on student elections and political participation based on the presence of violence in politics? This ultimately raises the question of whether students have a stake in societal change at all.”

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

“Violence in college politics has been there for a while, but as far as I have seen, always as an ‘anticipation’ of sorts. Union elections would take place under police protection, and while clashes would happen, it was always under control,” says Atreyee Sengupta, ex-student of Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and former member of Federation of Arts Students, an independent political organization. Alluding to the presence of violence on campuses during the Left Front rule, an ex-student of Maulana Azad College mentions that there was no visible sign of an opposition on campus when SFI controlled the union during her time. “The presence of local miscreants and the imminent threat of armed clashes were always there,” she mentions.

Violence, then, as an aspect of student politics in the state, needs to be seen within a historical continuum, and cannot be identified as a reason to dispel political participation from the sphere of education. Says a student activist from the International Relations department of Jadavpur University in the context of violence in union elections, “Shouldn't we be asking the questions then, are state assembly and panchayat elections devoid of violence? I don't think they are. But do you put a stop to them?”

To many students, the role that mass media is playing in this refashioning of student politics in the state as a realm of unbridled goondaism is becoming evident. Shabnam Banerjee, a student activist from Medical College, Kolkata, rightly observes, “The death of Sudipto Gupta had not happened in a clash between students at all. So why is it that the public debate that arose out of it in the media centered around whether students should be allowed to be a part of politics?”

For many like Shabnam, the conflation of student clashes and local gang skirmishes that is being highlighted in mass media representations is influencing the larger understanding of student politics and vilifying political participation in popular belief. Student movements have always played an important role in educating young people to become responsible and conscientious citizens and political beings, and public opinion against collegiate participation in political processes will effectively deny the very human predisposition towards politics, aiding the growth of a culture of uninformed consent.

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Tamilnadu's striking progress in welfare

Tamilnadu's achievements in the provision of public services are reasonably well established. Could it be possible that as many people with "voice" remain invested in these public services, be it education or health or the PDS, that has prevented the collapse of these services in TN?

As someone who had not visited rural areas south of Maharashtra in the capacity of a researcher, my first trip to a few villages in Tamilnadu left me wondering if that field visit wasn?t a dream. We were looking at the state of public services in rural areas and were pleasantly surprised at the existence and quality of these services ? be it government schools, primary health care, or last (but not trivial at all) bus services - compared to what I had observed in the north Indian states.

This comparative qualification is important. If readers in Tamilnadu react to this article by protesting or by bringing to my notice the many failings of the system there, I will not be surprised. In fact, the high standards that they set are an important part of the Tamilnadu story (more on this later).

Seeing is Believing: Education and Health Services

The better education and health outcome indicators in the southern states (especially Kerala and to some extent Tamilnadu), compared to the north, has been acknowledged for a long time. And yet to see it with one?s own eyes really drives home the point.

An anganwadi in Villupuram district. Pic: Reetika Khera

Government schools in rural areas resemble what one imagines schools should look like: a school compound, with a boundary wall, classrooms, an office, a playground; teachers for (almost) each class, teaching activity using text books and blackboards.

Another impressive aspect was the mid-day meal (MDM) programme. The MDM is one programme which has found roots in the north Indian states as well and yet there are several issues with its implementation: the complaints include irregularity, menu not being followed, quality of the food, that it takes away from teaching time since teachers get involved in some aspect of the MDM (e.g., record-keeping). However, it was easy to see that Tamilnadu is still years ahead of many of the north Indian states that are taking this programme seriously: the question of the meal not being served on any particular day does not arise here; children get more nutritious food, including eggs thrice a week (and sprouted chana, we were told, on the other three days); further, the Tamilnadu MDM programme also has a health check-up which includes ?injections? (as one child told us in Maamandur village), measuring of height and weight of children, eye testing and a dental examination.

In Sicko, a film on healthcare, Michael Moore starts by documenting the difficulties of individuals in the US who are at the mercy of private health insurance companies. Then, he visits countries that have a decent public health system based on a strong commitment to free and universal health care. Starting with Canada, he visits the United Kingdom, France and ultimately, Cuba. I felt in December 2009, that the film should have ended in Tamilnadu. A primary health care centre in Chintalpalli, Dharmapuri district confirms that what I saw in Villupuram was not a dream. Pic: Reetika Khera

The most striking contrast between public services in northern states and in Tamilnadu was the provision of free primary health care (which includes immunisation, ante-natal care, post-natal care, eye care), with a noticeable emphasis on preventive health care. PHCs were well-equipped and functioned well. Amongst the ones we visited was the Iruvelpattu Block PHC (Villupuram district, TN), which provides 24-hour service (each Block, we were told, has one 24-hour PHC). It had a 30-bed hospital, an operation theatre, x-ray machine, a TB unit, an AIDS unit, a pharmacy which provides free medicines to everyone, facilities for blood and urine tests and colour-coded dustbins for segregating medical waste. Not unimportantly, the toilets had running water supply, a bucket and tumbler and soap.

The staff at this PHC was equally impressive: four doctors (including two female doctors) one of whom was a surgeon; five nurses, a lab technician, a pharmacist, two drivers for the two ambulances and other support staff. The staff are highly motivated and are courteous to the patients seeking treatment at the PHC. (When we visited, we were also received courteously, but patients were given priority over us - as they should - in sharp contrast to visits to government offices in northern states, where routine activities sometimes come to a standstill in order to attend to us.)

There is pride and joy in doing their work which was hard to miss amongst other government staff as well (whether it?s the time-keeper at the bus stand, or the anganwadi helper/worker, or the panchayat clerk or the school teacher). At the Tiruvannainallur PHC (Villupuram district, TN), we met a nurse who had quit her Apollo Hospital job in order to "give back" to the state that had made her education possible.

Lessons from Tamilnadu

The functioning of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Tamilnadu has already been written about. And it provides some insights into why things work there but are in shambles in large parts elsewhere in the country. In 1997, when other states in the country were forced to move to a "targeted" PDS, the Tamilnadu government was forced to reverse its decision within a few days under public pressure (Srinivasan, 2010). As mentioned in the opening paragraph, continuous public pressure has been an important part of Tamilnadu's "success".

Everyone was entitled to subsidised foodgrains from the PDS at Re. 1/kg. (Now it is free.) The PDS is not a source of just foodgrains in TN. Ration shops in TN, we were told, provide seventeen items (including sugar, salt, spices, soap, semolina, edible oil, kerosene). Unlike the north, where the opening of the ration shop remains a bit of an occasion, in TN these shops seem to open at least once a week. It is not uncommon to see people carrying large bags full of groceries from the ration shop.

Whether providing rice at Re. 1/kilo (or free) is required or sustainable is debatable, but there is no doubt that the inclusion (in the PDS) of those with ?voice? has certainly played a role in preventing a collapse of the system in TN.

Similar remarks apply to other government services. We found that gram panchayat officials and elected representatives reside in the village and access the same facilities as the most disadvantaged (including Dalits and other marginalised groups). When the children of the "thalaivar" (panchayat president), the organiser of the MDM, of the panchayat clerk go to the same school as the children of the NREGA labourers (this still happens in some places we visited, though private school enrolment is far from negligible in Tamilnadu), it is in everyone?s interest to make the schools work.

In Pratapgarh (Uttar Pradesh), on the other hand, the husband of a government school teacher told us that their children went to a private school (not to the government school that his wife taught at) because the government school was no good!

The fact that at least some people with voice have remained "loyal" to the government system in Tamilnadu (to some extent), appeared to have a visible impact on the quality of government schools as well. When we asked the panchayat clerk (Villupuram, TN), how it was that teachers were always on time and teaching in government schools, he found it hard to comprehend our question; finally he said that if the teacher were to come an hour late, there would be four parents at the school demanding to know why he/she had come late.

In response to our question as to why things worked in TN, we were often told that there was a strong monitoring system which prevented theft, or slack. However, people weren?t able to tell us why the monitoring system had not fallen prey to corruption and collusion in TN, to the extent that it had in the north.

Rosy as all this might sound, one should not assume that there is no corruption there: we were told of a lab technician charging Rs. 5 to make an x-ray in the general hospital; the noon meal organizer said that it was possible to pilfer a little from the stocks that come for school children (but not too much); a thalaivar told us very candidly that he had to spend lakhs for his election campaign and equally openly told us that this money was spent on buying votes by distribution of ?sarees, shirts and drinks?.

In a situation where the Panchayat President is not paid any salary, it is not hard to guess how this money is recovered. The real mystery is how, in spite of the existence of corruption, public services in Tamilnadu remain functional in a way that few other Indian states have managed.

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Shielding campuses from violence

For most belonging to India’s middle class, politics is a dirty word. Be it the everyday ups and downs at the workplace, or the insidious psychological maneuverings of participants in a reality show, nobody seems to think that “doing politics” (as such situations are often tagged) is essential, or can be a remotely positive preoccupation. Power is widely held as that which erodes a person of her morals and fellow-feeling, and yet is the ultimate intoxicant.

Indeed, in a country where representatives of power often come with the excess baggage of criminal records or proceed to get mired in endless cases of corruption, it is difficult for the average person to accept that politics is not an external entity that one may or may not allow into one’s life, but a precondition of society. Politics is the manner in which we engage with daily structures of power, such as the family, the workplace, the state and the society. It is embedded in our existence, and no amount of non-complicity in partisan politics can erase our identities as political animals.

The erstwhile decision of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal to put on hold elections in colleges across the state, and the spate of events that it unfurled, have given rise to debates regarding involvement of the student community in politics. Views exchanged across newspaper op-eds or television programs have brought to light numerous streams of thought, ranging from the assumption of political naivete of students on the one hand to the fundamental democratic right of political participation on the other. But why this debate now?

A sign outside the Union Room of a college in Kolkata. Pic: Ritaj Gupta

The context of such a decision had been a series of violent clashes that had taken place across various college campuses in the state, most notably the incident at Harimohan Ghose College on 12 February, 2013, in which a fight had broken out between miscreants from the local Congress and Trinamool Congress stables over the filing of nomination papers for the students’ union elections. Caught in the crossfire, sub-inspector Tapas Choudhury was shot dead, and this sparked off discussions about the violent turn that student politics had taken in the state. It was not long before it was found that the clash was, in reality, between local Trinamool Congress councillor Mohammad Iqbal and Congress leader Mokhtar who aimed to settle political scores through union elections at the college.

As the state sought to issue a blanket ban on college and university students’ union elections on 18 February, Education Minister Bratya Basu stated that this decision was not related to the Harimohan Ghose College incident, but rather the imminent state and other Board examinations, effectively denying the increase in violence within the precincts of colleges and universities under Trinamool rule.

Protesting against this crackdown on the political process within institutions, activists of the Left-backed Students Federation of India (SFI) started holding demonstrations. From one such gathering, a group of activists were arrested on 2 April and were being taken to the Presidency Jail under police supervision, when 22-year-old student activist Sudipto Gupta reportedly hit a lamppost and was grievously injured. Within hours, he succumbed to his injuries. The “collision” theory was rejected by many and suspicions were rife that the real cause of Sudipto’s death had been heavy lathi-charge by the police, who have been accused on more occasions than one of acting as agents of the state’s high-handedness.

The entire state went into shock over Sudipto’s death even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed this a “small incident.” The SFI, in retaliation, heckled the Chief Minister and her finance minister Amit Mitra in Delhi on 9 April in Delhi, unchaining a spate of violence from the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad front back in Bengal. While CPI (M) party offices were destroyed across the state, the most notable incident was the ransacking of the prestigious Presidency University and its historic Baker Laboratory the next day.

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

 •  A shocking development
 •  Stemming campus violence

In this entire chain of events, what has emerged is a strengthening of public opinion in many quarters towards one of complete vilification of politics as an aspect of student life. Public pleas for depoliticisation of the student community and college campuses have started surfacing with more regularity and frequency than ever before.

Student Politics and Bengal

While student politics in Bengal has had a long legacy of clashes between different student organizations, it cannot be denied that the current regime has seen a marked increase in the entrance of anti-social elements into the precincts of college. Many, however, see this merely as a continuation of the lumpenisation of student politics that had started under the Congress government of the 1960s and had gathered strength over the long rule of the Left Front.

“There is an imagined sanity of student politics, a naivete of thought that assumes that college politics is dissociated from the general politics of the country”, says Upal Chakrabarti, assistant professor of Sociology at Presidency University and former student activist himself. According to him, the extent to which political parties involve themselves in deciding the fate of student unions across colleges and universities in West Bengal is acceptable per se, as there is a need to stop looking at student politics as an entity that is contained within the walls of the institutions alone. But what is unacceptable is the visible violence and narrow vote-garnering tactics that partisan politics brings into the ambit of educational institutions that is unacceptable.

Indeed, the incidents referred to above have all had direct supervision of ‘bigger’, mainstream politics, and cannot strictly be dubbed as reflections of the increase of violence within the student community alone. Those who feel that students should dissociate themselves from such politics largely predicate their opinion on the belief that student politics is suffering from a poverty of ethics; instead, they should perhaps read this upsurge in violence as part of a larger picture. One cannot view it as an isolated issue outside the presence of violence in the larger political setup and society as a whole. Earlier in February this year, the State Crime Records Bureau, in response to an RTI application filed by a resident, revealed that the state had seen 586 cases of political violence and 56 clashes between student groups between May 2011 and October 2011 - the first five months of the tenure of the present government. At least 926 political workers including 128 students had been injured in such conflict.

Filmmaker Rangan Chakravarty, an SFI activist in his student years at Jadavpur University in the late 70s, admits to an erosion in political ethics within the larger party scenario, which had a direct effect on student politics of his time. “The politics lost its politics,” he says. Subhendu Dasgupta, former Professor of Calcutta University and also a student activist during his college years in the 60s, acknowledges the importance of partisan politics within the campus, but with the caveat that contemporary college politics and its closeness to mother parties is a nexus for producing cadres and garnering votes. “There is an absence of broader politics within the political programs of the parties themselves. The race for votes takes precedence and this obviously introduces lumpenism and muscle-flexing,” he states.

Aritra Bhaumick, an ex-student of Scottish Church College and an SFI activist, sums up the situation that contemporary student politics faces in Bengal. “We feel we are fighting to uphold an ideology, a class, but we end up promoting and serving selfish people and that is exactly the difference between how student politics should be and how it actually is.”

The assumption that while mainstream politics has irretrievably mired itself in violence, student politics has a responsibility to divorce itself from such a brand of realpolitik is an assumption whose practicality and advisability need to be thoroughly questioned. This is not to condone violence within the realm of student movements, but to acknowledge that it is impossible to strictly distinguish or distance student politics from larger political trends. Biman Bandopadhyay, the registrar of Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) and a student activist during his college years, raises some important questions that he thinks are coming out of the present scenario. “If young people are exposed to violence that is a part of everyday life at present, is it possible for them to remain completely outside of it? Furthermore, is it acceptable to argue for a ban on student elections and political participation based on the presence of violence in politics? This ultimately raises the question of whether students have a stake in societal change at all.”

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

“Violence in college politics has been there for a while, but as far as I have seen, always as an ‘anticipation’ of sorts. Union elections would take place under police protection, and while clashes would happen, it was always under control,” says Atreyee Sengupta, ex-student of Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and former member of Federation of Arts Students, an independent political organization. Alluding to the presence of violence on campuses during the Left Front rule, an ex-student of Maulana Azad College mentions that there was no visible sign of an opposition on campus when SFI controlled the union during her time. “The presence of local miscreants and the imminent threat of armed clashes were always there,” she mentions.

Violence, then, as an aspect of student politics in the state, needs to be seen within a historical continuum, and cannot be identified as a reason to dispel political participation from the sphere of education. Says a student activist from the International Relations department of Jadavpur University in the context of violence in union elections, “Shouldn't we be asking the questions then, are state assembly and panchayat elections devoid of violence? I don't think they are. But do you put a stop to them?”

To many students, the role that mass media is playing in this refashioning of student politics in the state as a realm of unbridled goondaism is becoming evident. Shabnam Banerjee, a student activist from Medical College, Kolkata, rightly observes, “The death of Sudipto Gupta had not happened in a clash between students at all. So why is it that the public debate that arose out of it in the media centered around whether students should be allowed to be a part of politics?”

For many like Shabnam, the conflation of student clashes and local gang skirmishes that is being highlighted in mass media representations is influencing the larger understanding of student politics and vilifying political participation in popular belief. Student movements have always played an important role in educating young people to become responsible and conscientious citizens and political beings, and public opinion against collegiate participation in political processes will effectively deny the very human predisposition towards politics, aiding the growth of a culture of uninformed consent.

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Liqvid e-Learning seeks up to $10 million venture capital funding

Liqvid e-Learning seeks up to $10 million venture capital funding - Economic Times You are here: Home>Collections>Venture CapitalLiqvid e-Learning seeks up to $10 million venture capital fundingBiswarup Gooptu, ET Bureau Jan 21, 2014, 04.42AM ISTTags:venture capital funding|Liqvid e-Learning|educational software(Liqvid e-Learning is seeking…)

NEW DELHI: Educational software maker Liqvid e-Learning Services is seeking a second round of equity funding and has begun talks with a number of venture capital funds as investors show renewed interest in India's education services sector.

Liqvid, whose flagship product is the customised English language learning software EnglishEdge, is looking to raise up to $10 million (Rs 61.5 crore), and has held earlystage discussions with Matrix Partners India and Nexus Venture Partners, among others, according to people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

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A successful deal could value the company at about $50 million (Rs 307.4 crore). The company expects to use the funding to expand into international markets, including South-East Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America as well as build its mobile business.

Vivek Agarwal, cofounder and chief executive of Liqvid declined to comment on the proposed deal.

A spokeswoman for Nexus Venture Partners said the fund had not invested in Liqvid while Matrix Partners India did not respond to email queries on the deal.

In August 2012, the Noida-based company raised $3 million (Rs 18.4 crore) from a unit of one of Japan's largest investor firms, SBI Holdings. However, it could not be ascertained if SBI Holdings, which manages assets exceeding $3 billion (Rs 18,444 crore), will participate in this latest round.

The negotiations, if successful, will see venture capital make a comeback to the country's e-learning space. Barring British media group Pearson's 100% takeover of consumer internet services firm TutorVista last year, there have been few exits from the sector for investors.

"There has been a slowdown in the space, because there have been only a few large players that have emerged. Barring TutorVista, which catered to the US market, the others have found it hard to scale," said Raja Lahiri, partner at Grant Thornton India.

Participation by venture capital in India's broader education space also took a sharp plunge in 2013 when investments dropped to $13 million (Rs 79.9 crore) compared with $77 million (Rs 473.4 crore) invested in 2012, according to research firm Venture Intelligence. "The (e-learning) companies cannot focus simply on the domestic market, because it's not big enough for them to scale up," said Lahiri.

Founded in 2002, Liqvid, which has already made a foray into US and Singapore, caters to the consumer as well as enterprise markets. It counts the various Indian Institutes of Technologies, British Council, Cairn Energy and the Essar Group among its clientele.

body{margin:0px;}google_ad_client=\"ca-pub-8415620659137418\";google_ad_slot=\"3278470286\";google_ad_width=\"640\";google_ad_height=\"110\";google_ad_channel=\"9126527482,1000001862,1000000195\";google_adtest=\"off\";google_safe=\"high\";google_hints=\"venture capital tutorvista e-learning\";google_max_num_ads=\"2\";google_override_format=true;google_page_url=\"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-01-21/news/46411340_1_matrix-partners-india-nexus-venture-partners-sbi-holdings\";");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="640" height="110">FEATURED ARTICLESBig Bazaar leases 50 trucks to sell products during the 3-day Republic Day saleHow Akshai Varde has made Vardenchi Motorcycles a Rs 1 crore remodelling businessLal Bahadur Shastri's grandson Adarsh Shastri leaves job at Apple to join AAPMore:Lal Bahadur Shastri's grandson Adarsh Shastri leaves job at Apple to join AAPLimited offer: SpiceJet, IndiGo cut fares by 50%; Air India, Jet, GoAir may followIncome Tax department puts HRA exemption under scannerAAP finally asks Somnath Bharti to mind his languageWant to withdraw from your provident fund account? Here's how!Google maps find alien 'spaceship' on Moon? body{margin:0px;}google_ad_client=\"ca-pub-8415620659137418\";google_ad_slot=\"4755203488\";google_ad_width=\"300\";google_ad_height=\"250\";google_ad_channel=\"9126527482,1000001862,1000000195\";google_adtest=\"off\";google_safe=\"high\";google_hints=\"venture capital tutorvista e-learning\";google_max_num_ads=\"4\";google_override_format=true;google_page_url=\"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-01-21/news/46411340_1_matrix-partners-india-nexus-venture-partners-sbi-holdings\";");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="300" height="250"> RELATED ARTICLESVenture capital firm Kalaari closes $150 million...
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February 7, 2012IN-DEPTH COVERAGEVenture CapitalE-learningTutorvista© 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reservedIndex by Keyword|Index by Datewww.economictimes.comFeedback|Privacy Policy|Terms of Use|Advertise with us document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js' %3E%3C/script%3E")); COMSCORE.beacon({ c1:2, c2:6036484, c3:"", c4:"", c5:"", c6:"", c15:"" });

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HC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelines

HC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelines - Economic Times You are here: Home>CollectionsHC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelinesPTI Jan 20, 2014, 01.26PM ISTTags:UN Court|nursery admission guidelines|Lieutenant Governor|HC|directorate of education|Delhi High Court|Central Government(The court also made it clear…)

NEW DELHI: In a setback to unaided private schools, the Delhi High Court today dismissed their plea seeking a stay on city government's nursery admission guidelines that included scrapping of 20 per cent management quota.

"We feel that the appellants (Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for promotion of quality education for all) have not shown any immediate injury due to the guidelines ," a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said.

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While paving the way for resumption of admission process in nursery classes as per the Directorate of Education (DoE) guidelines, the bench cautioned the media against running unverified reports pertaining to its judgement on the issue.

"There was no delay in passing of the judgement," the bench remarked.

The court also made it clear that its observations have no bearing on the final outcome of the petition pending before a single judge bench.

"So far as the larger issue of autonomy and the applicability of the government's guidelines on the unaided private schools are concerned, they will be decided by the single judge bench without being influenced by our observations in this judgement," it said.

The private school bodies had moved the larger bench of the HC against the order of its single judge who had refused to grant them interim relief or stay the notification.

The plea was filed challenging the nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lieutenant Governor (LG) by which various steps including weightage to neighbourhood kids and abolition of 20 per cent management quota were taken.

It had sought setting aside of the 2014-15 guidelines on the ground that the LG office lacked the power to frame them.

It had claimed the guidelines were against the principle of autonomy and the recognised unaided private schools were given the power by the Central government to formulate their own admission criteria for 75 per cent seats.

Central government, the Directorate of Education (DoE) and the office of LG were made party in the plea.

body{margin:0px;}google_ad_client=\"ca-pub-8415620659137418\";google_ad_slot=\"3278470286\";google_ad_width=\"640\";google_ad_height=\"110\";google_ad_channel=\"9126527482,1000001875,1000000195\";google_adtest=\"off\";google_safe=\"high\";google_hints=\"nursery admission private schools admission process\";google_max_num_ads=\"2\";google_override_format=true;google_page_url=\"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-01-20/news/46374921_1_own-admission-criteria-nursery-admission-guidelines-unaided-private-schools\";");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="640" height="110">FEATURED ARTICLESBig Bazaar leases 50 trucks to sell products during the 3-day Republic Day saleHow Akshai Varde has made Vardenchi Motorcycles a Rs 1 crore remodelling businessLal Bahadur Shastri's grandson Adarsh Shastri leaves job at Apple to join AAPMore:Lal Bahadur Shastri's grandson Adarsh Shastri leaves job at Apple to join AAPLimited offer: SpiceJet, IndiGo cut fares by 50%; Air India, Jet, GoAir may followIncome Tax department puts HRA exemption under scannerAAP finally asks Somnath Bharti to mind his languageWant to withdraw from your provident fund account? Here's how!Google maps find alien 'spaceship' on Moon? body{margin:0px;}google_ad_client=\"ca-pub-8415620659137418\";google_ad_slot=\"4755203488\";google_ad_width=\"300\";google_ad_height=\"250\";google_ad_channel=\"9126527482,1000001875,1000000195\";google_adtest=\"off\";google_safe=\"high\";google_hints=\"nursery admission private schools admission process\";google_max_num_ads=\"4\";google_override_format=true;google_page_url=\"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-01-20/news/46374921_1_own-admission-criteria-nursery-admission-guidelines-unaided-private-schools\";");document.close();})();' frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="300" height="250"> RELATED ARTICLESDelhi High Court declines interim relief to schools against...
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Ashish Nanda’s global blueprint for IIM-Ahmedabad

Kala Vijayraghavan & Rica Bhattacharyya, ET Bureau Jan 21, 2014, 04.23AM IST

In early-2013, AM Naik, Chairman of Larsen & Toubro, took a private plane to Boston to convince a professor at Harvard University to take the reins of IIM-Ahmedabad. Naik, chair of the IIM-A board, could have called, but he wanted to personally tell Ashish Nanda why India's premier business school wanted him. "I wanted to look you in the eye and talk to you across the table to convince you," Naik had told Nanda.

Naik and a few others had done exactly that a few months back, when Nanda was in Ahmedabad to attend the 30th reunion of his IIM batch. Nanda returned, flattered and unsure. "How nice of them to consider me," he told Shubha, his wife. "I will send in my thanks and regrets."

Shubha, a practising dentist and a professor at Tufts Dental School, saw something else. "I thought it would be great for Ashish to take up the offer with a sense of adventure," she says. "And he did not need much convincing. Every time he spoke of his reunion, there was a sparkle in his eyes. Eventually, it was truly the spirit of learning, contributing and adventure that got him to return to India."

In September 2013, the 53-year-old returned to India and his alma mater, after more than 20 years. In the institute's 52-year history, Nanda was the first director to be hired from an overseas institute, and he came in with a mandate to take IIM-A to the next level—coveted by students and academics, sought by industry and respected by global peers. "I believe in global benchmarks," says Naik, who pushed Nanda's case with his colleagues and the government. "IIM-A, being a premier institute in India, needed new leadership to make it a truly global management institute that encourages diversity, thought leadership and research."

The breadth of that assignment is matched by the superlatives rolled out for him by those who have worked with Nanda: scholar, teacher, researcher, manager of academic programmes, global thinker...and, they add, pretty good in all those roles. Four months into his IIM-A assignment, an appointment offers a clue of what could follow in Nanda's fiveyear tenure.

Sharon Barnhardt worked on Wall Street, before doing her PHD in public policy at Harvard. In August, she joined the public systems group at IIM-A as fulltime faculty. "Ashish Nanda perfectly understands what makes research faculty tick because he's a great researcher," she says. "Ashish also understands how important it is to bring up the infrastructure and research environment of the institute to global standards in order to attract faculty and people from outside."

Academic Connect

Be it people appointments, orientation shifts or directional turns, 'global' is a refrain while discussing Nanda. It's for good reason, says Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School who has known Nanda personally for 20 years, and has taught and researched with him.

  Nohria cites the experience of an executive program they took together for a company that was struggling with a range of issues related to its globalisation. "We had developed a case study for the company, and it brought to the surface a range of tensions as the discussion unfolded," he recalls. "Ashish used the teaching process to help the participants navigate these tensions and recommit to a shared strategic vision."

Nanda will need to draw on such skills to balance a key challenge: adding new faculty while managing the old guard. During Nanda's days as student at IIM-A, between 1981 and 1983, the institute had about 400 students and a faculty of about 80—a teacher-student ratio of 1:5. Today, with about 1,000 students and a faculty of 90, that ratio has declined to 1:11.

Nanda wants to correct that ratio, but he wants to do it while improving quality: though a mix of young and old, Indian and global. IIM-A is looking to hire more professors in their early-30s at entry-level positions, like Barnhardt, and experienced faculty at senior levels. "They are bright academics who are intrigued by the idea of working and research in India, and want to build specialisation in the Indian setting," says Nanda.

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