Education in India

Govt backtracks on home schooling; says not permitted under the RTE Act

In a volte face, the Govt has reversed its view (filed earlier in an affidavit in the Delhi High Court) that home schooling is permissible under the Right to Education Act.

Deccan Herald reports

The Union government took a U-turn before a division bench of the Delhi HIgh Court, saying its earlier stand that the Right to Education Act does not come in the way of home-schooling was "incorrect and contrary" to Section 10 of the Act.

The Centre had sought time to file a fresh affidavit clarifying its stand.

...

Advocate Ashok Agarwal, in the capacity of an intervener appointed by the High Court in this case, had objected to the government's and the petitioner's stand in their affidavits.

"The demand on the part of the petitioner for home-schooling or alternative forms of schooling and the stand taken by the Union Government in support of such demand through counter affidavit dated July 16, 2012 is based on completely casual and erroneous interpretation of the letter, spirit and intent of the RTE Act," he had submitted in his response.

The Delhi High Court directed the Union of India to file its counter affidavit by December 19th, 2012.

Case Details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 8870/2011

SHREYA SAHAI AND ORS  Vs. UOI AND ORS
Advocate: Somnath Bharti

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) , COURT NO. 1 ,  (DIVISION BENCH-1) 
HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE , HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

Additional Respondents:

Ashok Aggarwal
Central Board of Secondary Education 
National Institute of Open Schooling
Association of Unaided Private Schools

Jandhyala B G Tilak, has argued in the Economic & Political Weekly that the affidavit submitted in July 2012 by the Government to the Delhi High Court permitting home schooling under the Right to Education Act contradicts the letter and spirit of the Right to Education Act.

Home schooling is now permissible under the RTE Act. Govt. Clarifies the word "Compulsion"

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

On Oct 17, 2012, the Government reversed its earlier stand (referred to in the original post below) and now says home schooling is NOT permissible under the RTE Act. For more details, see new post on this. The Government will be filing a fresh affidavit on this in Delhi High Court on December 19, 2012.

--------------------- Text of my original post continues below ---------------------

The Government has clarified in the Delhi High Court that parents interested in home schooling their children or adopting alternate forms of education are now perfectly at liberty to do so. According to a report in the Indian Express (July 20, 2012),

In response to a public interest litigation, the Ministry of Human Resources Development filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, which stated that

"Parents who voluntarily opt for alternate forms of schooling may continue to do so. The RTE Act does not come in the way of such alternate schooling methodologies or declare such form of education as illegal."

The Ministry’s response came after the High Court directed it to respond to a petition filed by a 14-year-old girl, Shreya Sahai, who opted for home schooling but contended that Section 18 of RTE Act does not recognise any other mode of imparting education except the one through formal schooling.

“The benefits of all children aged 6-14 years and their parents who feel threatened because their right to choose a mode of education for primary education stands violated as the Act restricts the same only to a formal school,” she said.

All other modes of imparting education, except a formal school, like home schooling, alternate schools of education and the schools not subscribing to the norms and curriculum mandated in the Act stand declared illegal under sections 18 and 19 of the Act, said the petition. 

The Hindustan Times (July 20, 2012) adds,

The affidavit clarifies that the Act concerns itself with the rights of children, and is not a compulsion. “The compulsion is on the appropriate government and the local authority to provide free education to all children up to 14 years,” the affidavit said.

This statement in the affidavit provides complete clarity on the connotation of the world "compulsion" in the RTE Act. The compulsion is on the state to provide free education and not on the citizens to be educated in a conventional school.

Case Details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 8870/2011

SHREYA SAHAI AND ORS  Vs. UOI AND ORS
Advocate: Somnath Bharti

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) , COURT NO. 1 ,  (DIVISION BENCH-1)
HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE , HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

Additional Respondents:

Ashok Aggarwal
Central Board of Secondary Education
National Institute of Open Schooling
Association of Unaided Private Schools

Newspaper, magazine and television companies can help children learn their lessons

A brilliant idea proposed by Andrew Rotherham in his School of Thought column.

So here's a modest proposal: newspapers and broadcast networks are sitting on a trove of material that can be converted into curriculum and sold — yes, sold — for use in our nation's schools and universities. Digitizing these so-called rough drafts of history would not only bring to life many of the events and ideas that students (and adults) should understand as informed citizens, but would help a struggling industry expand its revenue sources.

He goes on to provide examples of media companies in America that are already doing something on this score, and also what more can be done.

This isn't an idle fantasy. There are already some efforts under way. A few years ago, NBC used its video archives to launch a curricular tool for teachers that is designed to supplement Advanced Placement classes. The site offers a free 30-day trial; after that, schools have to pay an annual subscription. Even though television archives contain just a part of our national story, teachers can use contemporaneous footage to craft engaging lessons about events such as the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.

Print archives go back much further, of course, and a project called Chronicling America, which is run by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, is digitizing newspaper archives for classroom use. The New York Times offers lesson plans linked to specific articles and groups these plans by category — and yes, one of them is civics!

Meanwhile, Time and other publications offer free access to their amazing digital archives. But that content could help students even more if it's aligned to academic standards about what students need to know and put in a format teachers can easily incorporate into lessons.

I wonder if there have been any such efforts in India. If not, this is eminently doable by Indian media companies, especially by the print media - they have a veritable treasure trove in their archives.

The Advent of the Jedi and AWIM augurs well

Kindling the Joy of Engineering, Design and Innovation is the theme of the Jed-i program. They have launched the Jed-i Project Challenge for engineering students in India - an annual event designed to identify and showcase the best final year engineering project. The challenge is open to students from all branches from all engineering colleges across India. For more details, check out their website or contact [email protected] - registration closes on March 15, 2011.

A similar program to expose school children in India to the joy of exploring the physical sciences is A World in Motion organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers India.

The A World in Motion curriculum joins together teachers, students, and industry volunteers in an exploration of physical science while addressing essential mathematic and scientific concepts and skills. Industry volunteers play an essential role in motivating the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math by bringing their everyday experiences into an AWIM classroom. Each of the AWIM activities is designed around current math, science, and technology standards, and SAE India provides the AWIM curriculum and materials at no cost to classroom teachers who complete a Statement of Partnership.

Current (courtesy of SAE International)
Students make balloon - powered toy cars that meet specific performance criteria like travels far, carries weight, or goes fast. Jet propulsion, friction, air resistance and design are the core scientific concepts students explore in this challenge.

Electricity & Electronics - Standard VII to IX
The Electricity & Electronics - High School activities guide student teams through in-depth experiments involving transistors & semiconductors, analog integrated circuits, and digital integrated circuits.

SAEIndia conducted the AWIM Olympics 2010 in many schools across India. The AWIM project is a part of the worldwide A World in Motion and A World in Motion II programs developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Here's how they describe the program.

A World in Motion and A World in Motion II are two programs developed under the leadership of the Society of Automotive Engineers that are designed to enable teachers, supported by engineers, scientists, and other technical professionals, to give students in grades 4-6 and 7-8 respectively hands-on inquiry-based experiences in which they learn about certain physical principles. In AWIM II especially, they also learn about the many aspects and challenges of engineering design. Because engineering bridges the gap between pure science and the "real world", the students in A World in Motion II become familiar with its many strands: science, technology, planning, design, making presentations, marketing, etc. The programs are thus truly interdisciplinary, involving the academic disciplines of science, mathematics, technology, social studies, and language arts.

The educational experiences provided by the instructional materials and led by teachers benefit from the presence of volunteer technical professionals who can make one-time visits, can play a more frequent consulting role, or can even become mentors in the classroom. In the elementary-school program, there is a partnership between a teacher and a volunteer. In the middle-school program, the partnership is established between school administrators, and a business or organization. In both cases, the partnership is a valuable feature and is key to the success of the program.  

Goals. The goals of these two programs are 1) to educate children about certain physical principles, 2) to introduce them to the nature of engineering design and the excitement that its challenges can generate through teamwork, 3) to provide interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students, and 4) to involve engineers, scientists, and other technical professionals and their employing organizations in support of scientific and technical education in grades 4-8.
 

Strategy and Scope. These two programs are designed to teach children in grades 4-6 and 7-8 about certain physical problems and many aspects of engineering design. To accomplish these goals, engineers, scientists, and other professionals go into the classroom in support of teachers who are using these materials. These professionals are usually supported by their employing organizations or other interested organizations. More than 33,000 elementary-grade kits have been distributed, while the middle-school kits are, less than a year after their publication, spreading rapidly to middle-school classrooms.

In an earlier post, I had looked at Design Kids, a very interesting reality TV show on PBS in the United States, to promote engineering concepts to school children in the age-group of 9-12 years.

Jed-i and AWIM are a good start towards impressing upon children at an early enough stage the joy and excitement of science and engineering. I hope they continue to do well and more such initiatives come about.

Reality TV show on engineering education

Thinking further about the idea of a reality TV show for school teachers in India, I stumbled on Design Kids, a very interesting reality TV show on PBS in the United States, to promote engineering concepts to school children in the age-group of 9-12 years. It would be great to have something like this in India to promote Science and Engineering to children at an early enough stage to impress upon them the joy and excitement of science and engineering.

Here's how Design Squad, now into their third season, describe themselves,

Design Squad is high-energy, high-drama reality TV that lets kids show off their smarts as they design and build working solutions for real-world clients-people who are hungry for clever ideas from a new generation of innovators. From creating remote-controlled flying football targets for Hasbro to dry land dog sleds for the Jamaica Dog Sled Team, the action culminates in the final episode when the top two scorers battle for the Grand Prize: a $10,000 college scholarship from the Intel Foundation.

and their educational philosophy.

Design Squad is one of the few places on TV where kids can learn about engineering. The specific educational goals of the Design Squad television series, web site and outreach events are to:

• Increase students' knowledge of engineering and the design process
  Design Squad will be as hands-on as television can be. Viewers see Design Squad teams take raw materials and with very little adult intervention, transform them into workable solutions. The series presents kids using technology (such as computers, electronics, and machine tools) to do a wide range of activities that have a scale and complexity that will excite the viewing audience, and motivate them to do these activities on their own.
  
  
• Improve the public image of engineering
  Design Squad presents viewers with positive role models who experience engineering as a fun and engaging process.
  
  The image many still have of engineers is the outdated 'nerds with calculators and pocket protectors.' Design Squad goes a long way to address this. Our diverse cast of high school students are high-energy, smart, and approach the challenges they face with enthusiasm. And not a single one of them wears a pocket protector.
  
  
• Encourage further exploration
  Design Squad is more than just a television series.
  
  The Design Squad Web site extends the concepts presented on the show and provides viewers with an opportunity to explore content through the lens of "engineering as problem-solving using science, math, and technology."
  
  Engineers and educators have partnered with Design Squad to help support kids as they try out the ideas first-hand. These real world experiences give kids a stronger understanding of engineering, equip them with science and math skills, and ultimately lay the foundation they need to participate in engineering activities later in life.

Their list of funders and sponsors include the Government, Foundations, Corporations and the Professional Engineering Associations.

Major funding for Design Squad is provided by the National Science Foundation, the Intel Foundation, and the Lemelson Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Noyce Foundation, United Engineering Foundation (ASCE, ASME, AIChE, IEEE, AIME), National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, ASME, the IEEE, Northrop Grumman, and the Intel Corporation.

DST / CSIR, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian National Academy of Engineering and other professional associations, foundations and companies should be funding something like this here in India.

The case for working with your hands

is the subject of a book by Matthew Crawford titled Shop Class to Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. In an article he wrote in the New York Times, Crawford, a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago, describes the insidious nature of his own experience of being a knowledge worker and how and why he chose to switch careers to running his own bike repair shop, very satisfyingly at that.

Ian Jack, writing about Crawford's book in The Guardian, wonders if our rush to embrace higher education has started to become economically destructive.

In this context, I remember an engineering student fresh out of college who had applied for a job, some job, about ten years ago, when I was looking to hire someone for some simple HTML work at Cricinfo. He knew no HTML at all, but said he was willing to learn. I was thinking of giving him a chance to learn on the job and prove himself, but was taken aback by his salary expectation and his justification for it. He wanted a monthly salary of Rs. 8,000. His justification was that even a mason was paid as much. When I pointed out that the mason built something and added value, whereas he knew nothing to start with and had to learn before he could prove he could add value, it didn't cut. His point was that he was an "engineer'.

Crawford, in his New York Times piece, argues for exposing children to some trade or craft involving hands on work, early on in their lives.

A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.

Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences.

The visceral experience of failure seems to have been edited out of the career trajectories of gifted students. It stands to reason, then, that those who end up making big decisions that affect all of us don’t seem to have much sense of their own fallibility, and of how badly things can go wrong even with the best of intentions (like when I dropped that feeler gauge down into the Ninja). In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?

There is good reason to suppose that responsibility has to be installed in the foundation of your mental equipment — at the level of perception and habit. There is an ethic of paying attention that develops in the trades through hard experience. It inflects your perception of the world and your habitual responses to it. This is due to the immediate feedback you get from material objects and to the fact that the work is typically situated in face-to-face interactions between tradesman and customer.

A reality television show for teachers - a game changer?

Imagine the best school teachers from across the country competing on live TV to teach us Algebra & Geometry, The History of the Indus Valley Civilization , Darwin's theory of Evolution, Each and every Indian Language, The Geography of the Himalayas, Newton's Laws of Motion, The structure of the atom, The story of the Indian Independence Movement, The Working of the Human Digestive System and more, in an absorbing and exciting manner.

Also imagine not just school children watching these shows on TV each night, but doing so along with their parents who will also get the benefit of getting an education from India's best teachers.

How can we do that? Consider a reality TV show for teachers that will unearth teaching talent, enable it to bubble up to the top and showcase it to the national audience. Wouldn't that be a game changer?

How would it work?

• Students and school managements submit the names of their best teachers to the TV Production House, for each class from class I to class XII, for each of the school subjects.
• The TV Production House goes from city to city across the country and conducts an audition of the teachers registered from that city. The teachers are invited to come on a specific day for the audition to the studio and teach any concept/topic of their choice in a 10-15 minute slot before an invited audience comprising of students, parents and judges who are experienced educators. The teachers come prepared and the judges evaluate the teachers on a set of parameters and select the best teacher in each city for each class and each subject.
• The best teachers from each city, as chosen by the judges, are then invited to the second level of the competition where teachers from different cities compete with each other. As before, the competition will cover every subject for each class from class I to class XII and cover everything in the syllabus.
• The reality show will culminate in selecting the best teachers in the country for each subject by the end of the school year and give away the Best Teacher awards along with a substantial monetary prize for the winning teachers.
• The teachers can be asked to teach in English and/or the local languages of each of the states to enable the large audience of school going children across both rural and urban areas to benefit.
• The teachers will be evaluated on their ability to bring about conceptual understanding amongst the viewers and stimulate further interest and excitement in the subject.
• This program can run right through the school academic year to cover all subjects for all classes, with a break during the summer holidays.

The benefits of the reality TV show for teachers

• We can discover India's best teachers and offer them national level recognition
• We will enable every teacher across the country to watch from home and learn from India's best teachers in action and strive to improve and do as well as the best.
• We will be providing students and parents across the country, whether in rural areas or urban areas, with a high quality education right in their homes through exposure to excellent teachers. The students and parents will not only end up learning but will also then expect more from their own school teachers, thereby raising standards overall. We often settle for what we have, only because we haven't seen anything better yet.
• We can make the teaching profession sexy. We can change the perception of the teaching profession by presenting it as exciting and rewarding both emotionally and financially, for good teachers. We will inspire today's students to become tomorrow's teachers and attract talent into the profession.
• The best teachers will be courted by the schools who will compete to recruit them to teach their children. Salary levels will rise for the better teachers.
• A huge amount of superb educational content will be created in the process. All of the content can be put up on the Internet and students will have the ability to watch the programs of their choice in future at any time and learn at their own pace and progress step by step. One can always go back to relearn a concept which may not be clear or something that one may have forgotten. This will become a continuing education opportunity for adults too - they can learn things they didn't learn in school.
• We could do the same thing for college and university level education too.

Funding and operationalising the reality show for teachers

• A huge audience of students and parents are likely to watch these programmes. There will be substantial interest from advertisers for this huge nationwide audience, especially since parents themselves will want their children to watch this program. Which other TV programs do parents want their children to watch every day?
• Given the multitude of reality television shows to discover musical talent with no dearth of advertisers, a reality television show for teachers ought to be viable. I'm sure we can find a way to make it work - our television executives are amongst the best in the business.
• The details of the duration of each teaching segment, the structuring of what to teach in each slot, how to link it to the syllabus, the parameters on which the teachers will be evaluated, selection of the judges etc.. will have to be worked out. When multiple channels pick up on this, there will be constant innovation in these operational aspects to try and do better than the others and the innovations that work with the audience will get picked up by the other channels.

This could potentially revolutionise education in multiple ways, if we can make it work.

Thoughts on improving the education system

My friend Badri has written up his thoughts on the problems with our current education system in his blog Thoughts in Tamil. His post is in Tamil. For all those others who can't read Tamil, here's an English translation of his post. Badri has incidentally made a conscious choice to blog in Tamil rather than in English.

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The Indian Education system is in great trouble. These are some of the faults I find in the current education system.

• Several children do not even get a basic elementary education.

• The rich and upper middle class in cities find decent quality private schools to send their children to. Even in these schools, getting a pass in the exams is the priority, not learning. Even these schools fail in teaching various arts, and in particular common sense to children.

• Both the private and government schools in smaller towns and villages are uniformly pathetic.

• Even if a student graduates from a higher secondary school, there are not enough colleges. The only hope left to most high school graduates is correspondence education. It is not clear to me whether one can be motivated enough to study through the correspondence course material sitting at home.

• Even if one graduates from college, the graduates are mostly unemployable, because of poor quality course material and teaching in the colleges. I have myself seen a number of such people while interviewing them for various posts in my organization.

Despite all this, several thousand young men and women have been leading our nation forward. On just about all counts of economic indicators including the foreign exchange reserves, "India is Shining". Just imagine where we can be if only we resolved our education related problems?

Here are some of my (not so complete) ideas:

1. Compulsory free education should be made available till Class XII

   The state and central governments should completely absorb the cost of providing free education till 12th standard to every child, irrespective of caste, religion and economic status. This should cover not just school fees, but also free books, food if necessary, uniform clothing and even a place to stay if the parents cannot afford that to their children. Those with money can always opt for their favourite private school, and feed their own children. Alternately, some rich may decide to send their children to the govt. schools.

2. Govt. schools should be run by private entities/entrepreneurs.

   It is very doubtful if the government can manage hiring qualified teachers and provide quality education to children. Like in the USA, the government can opt for building the schools and make them available to private companies on a long-term lease, based on auction. The organization that comes up with the lowest bid and agrees to maintain the best quality education would be chosen to run each school in each locality.

   We need to introduce a concept of 'education credit'. It is an amount equal to the average cost incurred in teaching a child in the privately run Govt. schools. This education credit is made available to every child. The child can either avail of the education by exchanging this credit in the Govt. owned and private operated school, or cash this portion against the fees and other costs incurred by them in a completely private school. This way, the tax payer does not have to feel miffed that his her money is used only to train OTHER children. Panchayat and municipalities must own and manage the school premises and oversee the operation of the private entities running the school.

3. All education above higher secondary school level should be primarily dealt with by private entities.

   If some state governments wish, they can run colleges, but it should be unnecessary. Students should be offered lenient education loans at very low interest rates.These loans are liable to be paid only after the students finish their education and find a job of their own.

   That is, free education until higher secondary; but paid-for education after that. Those who can't afford to pay for this higher education get low-cost and lenient loans. This kind of comfortable educational loans are made available to students in USA.

4. Alternate education must be promoted

   It appears to me that there is no need to teach anyone for more than 3 hours a day till the secondary school. Therefore, the available education infrastructure can be used more effectively through the shift system. Three normal shifts can be run between 0700-1000, 1100-1400 and 1500-1800 hours. An hour gap in between for the children to leave the school and the next set to walk in. In the late nights - from 1900-2200, the facility can be used to provide education to old and unlettered. Facilities such as the building, furniture, library, computer centre, laboratories and play fields can be used very efficiently in this
   manner.

   Further, individual teachers wanting to run their own curriculum can be entertained to use the nearby school facilities including the building, furniture, library, computer centre and laboratories. Like the 'Gurukula' method, a single teacher can lead a group of about 20 children from 1st to 12th standard. The students can write their 10th and 12th standard examination under the National Institute of Open Schooling. Nothing stops those who graduate through this system from joining the available colleges. Through the 'education credit', each student can pay his teacher. This helps the teacher earn a reasonable income and the student is also guaranteed quality infrastructure.

5. College education through correspondence system to be increased

   In each town, "Tutorial" colleges (as they are called in Chennai) can be set up by individuals who enroll their students in a correspondence course run by authorised universities. [This is applicable only to non-professional courses.] The day-to-day training is provided by these Tutorial colleges. The timings can be flexible, allowing for the students to also find a part-time work during the day.

6. Impediments in the way of setting up for-profit private colleges to be removed

   Today, only a charitable trust can set up educational institutions. Therefore, honest entrepreneurs interested in making profits will not get involved in spending their time and setting up quality educational institutions. The result is that only criminals who plunder money illegally in the name of "charitable trusts" get involved in providing education, and make money through capitation fees. To stop this, the government should allow for for-profit companies to set up educational institutions.

   This move will result in considerable capital flowing into the education sector. These colleges so set up will still come under the purview of the education ministries around the country, and so the government can still regulate the fees charges for providing the education. This is akin to regulating the distribution of power in Mumbai and Delhi. The government regulator only decides the upper limit cost per unit of power. Similar regulation now exists in telecom. Therefore it is perfectly possible to bring about the same in education as well.

   I do not claim that these suggestions, if implemented, will remove all problems we have in our education sector. However I am hopeful that they can alleviate the problem considerably.

   
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