Education in India

Tamil Nadu Govt introduces Bill to Prohibit Private Players in Legal Education

A new bill - the Tamil Nadu Establishment of Private Law Colleges (Prohibition) Act, 2014 (full text) - was introduced in the Assembly by the Tamil Nadu Government on July 30th. The objects and reasons for the bill are described by the government as follows (the emphasis on the key words below is mine):

The Government have taken a policy decision to establish adequate number of Government Law Colleges in the State in a phased manner, to impart legal education at affordable cost. The past experience reveals that private trusts/societies are not able to provide legal education at affordable cost to the economically and socially weaker sections and also not able to continue to run the law colleges successfully. The Government have, therefore, decided to prohibit the establishment of law colleges by the private persons in the State by undertaking legislation.

This raises some questions:

• Is this bill arising out of ideological considerations (i.e. private provision is not good), or, is it arising in response to concerns felt/expressed by the public that they do not want private players to set up and run educational institutions? Or a very complex combination of both?
• Does the government have the right to control citizens' access to education by determining what is the 'adequate' amount of supply and restricting supply beyond that? What if citizens' perception of 'adequate' is far higher than the government's?
• Can the government insist that education must be provided to the public at a price not more than a certain price deemed by the government as 'affordable' to the public, irrespective of the costs incurred by the education provider?
• What kind of criteria should the government use to determine if an educational institution is being run 'successfully' or not? Shouldn't the government make public such criteria/standards, so that educational institutions know the standards that they are expected to live up to?
• Can the government 'prohibit' private parties from establishing educational institutions by law even if the private parties are willing to abide by all the rules and regulations imposed by the government on existing institutions, either government or private?
• Isn't the proposal for this Act by the Tamil Nadu government an admission of their inability to properly regulate private Law Colleges that are not run 'successfully'? Are they throwing out the baby with the bathwater because of their inability to separate the private Law colleges that are run well from those that aren't run well, and deal with each appropriately?

It seems inevitable that this bill will end up in Court.

Why do we have a learning crisis in our schools? What can be done?

Vimala Ramachandran of NUEPA gave an interesting talk* on why we have a learning crisis in our schools and what can be done. She also spoke on a range of topics including how Poland implemented education reform successfully (of which I knew nothing till now and want to find out  more), whether PPPs can help, the need for political support for education reform in India and on the mother tongue as the medium of instruction.

You can listen to the audio recording or download the audio.

 

or watch it on Youtube (courtesy D Murali).

Here is a summary of her talk (paraphrasing her words).

 What is the learning crisis in our schools?

• Children aren’t able to read and comprehend. They have very little understanding of basic math and science concepts too.
• Children memorise and reproduce but do not internalize or understand what they have learnt. They are not able to apply basic concepts to day to day tasks, whether at school or at home.
• The biggest tragedy of all – children do not develop fluency in any language, be it their mother tongue, medium of instruction or English
• Employers complain about skill shortages, poor quality of workers and low productivity due to poor schooling.
• There is something very seriously wrong in education. We have not done things right, not just in government schools, but in private schools too.

Why are children having a problem learning?

• Pupil teacher ratio can be as high as 1:60 when it shouldn't be more than 1:30
• Teaching time is an issue. Teachers may come to school, but not teach. Middle class parents deal with this by teaching their kids themselves at home. But what can parents from poor, semi-literate communities do? Whatever inequality they come with into the school system, the inequality only increases.
• Rote learning is an issue. Teachers are expected to finish the syllabus in a short time and so they force children to resort to rote learning.
• RTE's No Detention policy is being interpreted as No Assessment policy upto class VIII.
• Teachers are overloaded with inane administrative tasks. Even with something like CCE, they spend their time filling forms rather than teaching or evaluating children.
• Testing and Assessments only test the memory of the child. What gets tested is what gets learnt and how it gets tested determines how it is learnt. Teaching to the test is common.
• Assessment systems are becoming corrupt. When assessments are based on internal assessments, teachers inflate the marks for all children.

Importance of teachers.

• Teachers matter the most. A good teacher without a school building is better than buildings without a teacher.
• Teacher quality is not about qualifications, but the ability to connect with children
• States are reducing the percentage score to pass in the RTE mandated Teacher Eligibility Test to enable more teachers to pass. In Bihar, in 1990, Laloo Yadav as Chief Minister decided that 12th class Pass is not required to be a teacher. He reduced it to not just 10th class Pass, but 10th class Fail! So from 1990-1996, a whole bunch of primary school teachers in Bihar who had themselves not finished class 10 were recruited to teach! The political compulsion of a govt job seems to be more important than ensuring that a teacher who is hired is of a good quality.

Lessons from Poland

• Poland had many of the problems we have today, with their Soviet-era inefficient schooling system. But from 1999-2006, they initiated reforms and turned the system around. What did they do?
• They made sure teachers had much more autonomy and freedom in the school. The teachers and schools were told they had to bring children up to a particular level by Class 8. The syllabus was decided by the government in terms of what would be the minimum learning requirement. From Classes 1-8, the basic requirement in Sci/Math/Lang or reading was strictly followed. Children were tested at the end of class 8. Teachers had a lot of freedom and autonomy to do what they wanted and how they wanted to do it. Teachers instead of following orders from above actually had to innovate and figure out how best to teach their children. Each school was actually a practicing laboratory.
• They put in place qualification requirements for teachers and these qualifications were linked to a promotion path and the government provided continuing education opportunities.
• They gave generous retirement packages for many of those teachers who weren't competent enough.
• Poland had a dynamic education minister and a dynamic prime minister at that time. They felt that the single most important wealth that the country had was the people and they had to reform the education system. Only with political will, things get done.

What should be done to change things in India?

• Move from just inputs, infrastructure and paper qualifications to actual functioning of the school system.

• Change the way the education system is monitored. Look at what and how much children are learning, what and how teachers are teaching. Do they have the requisite facilities, knowledge and equipment to teach.

• Reform teacher education. NCTE opened up teacher training institutions in 2004 resulting in a 500% increase in the number of Teacher Training Colleges. Everyone knows that people at NCTE made a lot of money by giving away licences to one-room teacher training colleges. Odisha alone has escaped the curse of mushrooming teacher training colleges because the Chief Minister said he did not want any low quality teacher training colleges. In the name of reform, accreditation, and quality assurance, we have done exactly the opposite. We must shut down all the teacher training colleges of poor quality  and set up good quality teacher training colleges in parallel.

• Introduce centralised assessments. In India the education community is very allergic to centralised assessments. The aim of centralised assessments are not assessment of the children, it is to assess the quality of the school or the average levels of learning of children. Most countries around the world have used a combination of tremendous school autonomy, where teachers can do what they want, how they want and combine it with some kind of centralised testing which becomes a quality benchmark.

  I don’t know what that centralised quality test in India should be. The jury is still out on what we should do and how we should do it. But the fact remains that we have to start moving towards measuring outcomes.

• Decentralise in-service teacher training. 90% of teacher training programmes are extremely poor.

  At a summer training programme at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Education, IASE, in one of the better south Indian states, teachers were supposedly being trained on the National Curriculum Framework. They were taking turns to read out something from a paper. On enquiring, I was told each teacher was given four pages of the National Curriculum Framework to translate and read out. “It is an equitable distribution of honorarium,” the Principal told me!

  Budgets are better spent by giving it to the school so that the school decides what kind of training they want for the teachers and make the principal responsible for that. As long as we don’t value and trust the knowledge that is there at the grassroots level, we will not be able to make much change. We as a country are so suspicious of teachers and the lower bureaucracy that we don’t want to give them any independence.

• The only way to bring about change is by altering the rules and the behavior of the personnel who are in the system. With all due respect to teachers - I have worked with teachers for the past 25 years and deeply respect them - we have to have a system of humane as well as strict monitoring. The two have to go together. We need a mechanism to test what children are learning, how much they are learning and whether the learning is taking place across all children or not.

Vimala Ramachandran also responded to questions from the audience with her views on a range of topics.

On the need for political support for reform

• Without political support it is impossible to bring about complete systemic reform of the education system. Civil servants have power only upto a point. Many civil servants have tried, but ultimately many of these things are larger political decisions.

• The corporate and media communities in India must raise public opinion on the need for reform. My experience, and that of many who used to play an activist role in writing in the media about the problems about education, now find the media door shut. The media is full of sensationalism now. Both the corporate sector and the business community are most affected by the poor quality of people. These communities must do much more to raise awareness.

  We have reached a crisis point. In many parts of the country if you want to set up a factory, it is difficult to find skilled people. You have to import them from other parts of the country. Even when you import them, the quality is poor and they need to be trained.

  Neither the media nor the larger business community seem to doing anything. People like me going and talking to the education minister will really not help. It is only when there is a crescendo which comes from the media and the business community, will they start listening. At the moment the vested interest in not fixing it is very high. Rent seeking is very widespread in the education sector.

On the role of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)

• PPP as a model could be good. But I am yet to come across good PPP models which work over a period of time. PPPs over 1-2 years don’t work. In education, you have to stay for at least 10-15 years to see the results. Both sides have to stay committed. Corporate bodies change their priorities and Governments also renege on their commitments. There have been 2-3 big PPP models in North India where corporate houses have adopted 1000 govt schools and tried to work with them. But none of them want to stay for more than 4-5 years. 

On restoring professionalism to the teaching profession

• In many ways India and the U.S. are alike in many ways. In both countries the teaching profession has been badly demoralized. The professionalism of the teaching profession has to be restored. Govt teachers aren’t paid poorly. They are much higher than private teachers’ salaries. After the 6^th pay commission, a young new teacher in UP or Rajasthan takes home 25000 rupees in the first job. A retiring teacher is taking home close to 80,000 to 100,000 rupees. So it isn’t as if they are being paid poorly.

  We should create small professional circles of teachers so that the teachers’ professional identity is reinforced. We need to celebrate their professional identity. What happens when we give awards? We aren’t giving awards for the professional capability of the teacher. We are giving awards to those who are networked. We need to change the way we are treating our teachers. 

On the good things happening in education in India

• Although a lot of interesting initiatives are happening in different aspects of education in India, but when it comes to school education reform to overhaul the system, I don’t think we have done much in India so far. This is the main reason why there is a learning crisis. This crisis isn’t going to go away by doing small things. That is why I was talking about Poland. 

  Despite the system, there are thousands of teachers who are doing a spectacular job despite low pay, bad management etc.. They don’t look for recognition beyond what they get from their children. They are happiest when their children do well. That is the ultimate recognition for them.

On the perception that private schools are better than government schools

• Rama Baru had done a study. She says the benchmark of quality is always the government. Wherever the govt school quality is very bad, the private school is just one notch above. Govt institutions do set the standards. They can set both low standards and high standards. The average private schools that poor, lower middle class send their children are not significantly better than the govt schools. It is the dysfunctionality of the govt schools that actually drives people out. 

• I don’t think cream of the society is going to private schools. People who have money are going to private schools. People who don’t have money are going to govt schools. Amongst those going to govt schools, there will be lots of cream. The only thing is we aren’t teaching them well. We aren’t investing in them. If we can teach children sincerely and give them opportunities, I am quite sure a lot of cream will come out of the govt schools too. 

On the mother tongue being the medium of instruction

• Education in the mother tongue is the way to go. That is very important. But the reason why parents are pulling their children out of govt schools is due to the non-availability of English medium education in government schools. 

  You know what Jammu & Kashmir has done? By an Act of govt they have converted all govt schools to English medium schools and the teachers don’t have the capacity to teach in English. We do these kinds of silly things. "Ok, people, you want English medium? From tomorrow all schools will be English medium."

 

Aside: N. Murali (Co-Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited, owners of The Hindu) is part of the committee that organised this talk. Apparently he was one of the students of Kuruvila Jacob, the erstwhile headmaster of Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School in Chennai, in whose memory this talk was organised. While delivering the vote of thanks at the end of the talk, Murali thanked the media for being present and exhorted them to report the enlightening and provocative talk and raise the level of consciousness to drive home the crisis that's staring us in the face. 

Here're the reports by The Hindu, The New Indian Express, and The Times of India on this talk. You can decide for yourself if Murali's exhortation had any effect!

 

* This talk by Vimala Ramachandran was the fifth Kuruvila Jacob Memorial Oration organised under the auspices of the Kuruvila Jacob Initiative for Promoting Excellence in Science Education, Chennai.

3 things India should do to improve learning outcomes in schools by 2025

Shekhar Shah, the moderator of the panel 'Action Plan 2025: Rethinking Policy' at the recently held 2013 School Choice National Conference in Delhi asked the three panelists what they thought were the three most important things India should do to improve learning outcomes by 2025. Here's what each of them had to say.

Amit Kaushik (Ab Initio Consulting)

1. Define the national vision for education for the next 20 years. That is something that is seriously lacking at this point of time. The last National Policy in Education was introduced by the Govt in 1986 and subsequently amended in 1992. It's over 21 years now since then. For a nation that talks about its under-25 population and leveraging the demographic dividend, not having in place a vision for what the education system should be in the next 5, 10, 20 years is a serious gap.

2. Set up an Educational Regulatory Authority which regulates how both public and private schools function and has responsibility for policy and implementation.

   It would have to be at the state level, but you will need to have a national body as well. Just like you have the NCPCR (National Commission for Protection of Child Rights) and the SCPCRs in the states, you will need to have a similar model. The biggest concerns with encouraging private investment in schools is that it would become exploitative and parents and teachers would be exploited. A regulatory commision in place would take care of some of these aspects.

3. Encourage private investments for profit in the education space. There is no getting away from this. Sooner or later we will have to bite the bullet and the sooner we bite it the better for all of us.

 

Ramya Venkataraman (Leader of Education Practice at McKinsey & Company)

1. Launch a standard national student learning outcome assessment which is run by a third party, with low stakes for students, and meant for feedback for the students.

2. Launch a large number of different kinds of Public Private Partnerships including using govt infrastructure, including subsidising affordable private schools and making them viable, including supporting aided schools, including private expertise for the govt systems. Potentially at the Centre, have a couple of templates for these which allows states to get jump started on this. For e.g. the Mumbai Schools Public Private Partnership took 10 years to come to fruition. It could happen in a year if there is a template that people are comfortable with.

   To a question from the moderator on who should be doing this,

   Ramya responded saying, Firstly, it's not so much about a lot of experimentation. There are 3-4 models that are more or less now emerging. It is about going deeper on these models and probably some experimentation within that, in terms of with fees vs without fees, teacher salaries at par with Govt and not at par etc..

   Ramya said she would answer the how more than the who. The standard national assessment would be an important way to measure many of these experiements to see which direction these are headed in. Who should do it - my sense to be very practical is that it will end up being the education department of every state more than a central entity. The central entity can do the collection of the research, but the education departments of the states will implement it.

3. Encourage ongoing inservice teacher development through certain initiatives like need for ongoing professional certification with a range of alternative options around that.

 

Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (University of California at San Diego)

1. You can't ignore the govt system. That is still 60-70% of particularly primary enrollment. As Lant Pritchett famously said, most of these things are not stuck at the policy level. It is all about implementation. To me, in the public system it is Governance, Governance, Governance. It is not rocket science.

   There was a nationally representative panel study of teacher absence in 2003 and 2010. The only thing that matters in reducing teacher absence is not fancy buildings or increase in salaries etc.., but just good old monitoring. For e.g., did a superior officer visit your school in the past three months? The average DEO tenure in India is less than one year. 20% of DEO positions are vacant. When you have that kind of governance vacuum it doesn't matter what you are doing.

   As Lant Pritchett famously said, our neighbour may be a failing state, but we are a flailing state, where there is no connection between the head and the roots. The head can make the most beautifully crafted policy sitting in the Planning Commission. There's no connection between that and what's actually happening. So in the public system, its Governance, Governance, Governance.

2. On the private side, you will really need a larger framework for leveraging non-state actors for improving a whole range of things. Lant Pritchett in his paper using first principles of fiscal federalism, clearly delineates what types of functions should sit at what levels of government and which are the things and functions that might best be done by private entities.

3. We desperately need more research. The rhetoric to substance ratio is unbelievable. People say we need to make decisions now and can't wait for research. This is what we have done for 60 years and that has not solved our mess. So I would rather kind of hold off before making big decisions till we understand things. RTE is a classic example of something which is extremely well intentioned, but based on research, you realise most of these things are not where the action is in terms of outcomes. So whether it is private schooling or technology, we need research.

   Everybody is throwing technology at the problems. What it takes is an enormous amount of clarity of thought on how you are going to deploy the technology in the classroom and what is the binding constraint to status quo.

   For instance, are you going to be using technology to
   • circumvent gaps in teachers' knowledge?
   • have more individualised curriculum?
   • shorten the feedback loop for the student?
   • encourage student effort by providing instant motivation?

   All this requires careful thinking and this is not something administrators have the bandwidth for. These are research functions and we have to invest over the long term in understanding these things. Otherwise you are just flailing around with a bunch of small scale pilots without systematcially pulling together learning in a way that can inform what we can do in terms of policy.

Education in India Podcast with Subir Shukla of IGNUS-ERG

In the first episode of the Education in India podcast, Subir Shukla, Principal Co-ordinator at IGNUS-ERG, talks about a wide range of topics relating to education in India. Subir has worked for over 25 years in school education in India in the areas of quality improvement, curriculum and textbook development and teacher training, amongst many other things. 

• Listen to the audio podcast (~77 minutes), or
• Download the podcast (~18MB; MP3) and listen to it at your convenience.

To download the podcast, right-click on the download link and select "Save Link/Target As".

I will also try to transcribe the audio and link to the text when it is available. You can read the full transcript of the interview.

This chat with Subir covers some of the important projects and programmes in education in India over the past 20-30 years. The topics covered in this podcast are outlined below. The time location of each broad topic within the audio podcast is mentioned below, for those who may want to jump to a specific point in the podcast.

• 00:00:40 - Subir tells us a bit about his background and the work he has done in education. 

• 00:01:30 - Why and how he chose to work in the area of education?
  • His days at Eklavya, an outfit set up by Kishore Bharti and the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme.
  • His time at the National Book Trust, setting up the National Centre for Children's Literature.

• 00:08:10 - His time as the Chief Consultant to the Govt of India on Quality Improvement and Teacher Training under the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP).
  • The thinking behind starting the DPEP in 1994 and the goals of the DPEP.
  • The survey of learning levels in India by the NCERT in 1994.
  • How the survey showed that learning levels were very low in Kerala in 1994, even lower than Bihar and how this led Kerala to drastically change their philosophy, systems and processes of teaching and learning, which is one of the reasons why the learning levels in Kerala are high today. 
  • The achievement of the DPEP.

• 00:22:15 - The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).
  • The thinking behind launching SSA, after the DPEP.

• 00:24:28 - Teacher Training
  • What is good teaching?
  • His role in developing ADEPTS - Advancement of Educational Performance through Teacher Support - Teacher performance standards for the MHRD in 2006-07.
  • The role of the Centre and the States in teacher training.

• 00:28:12 - How the philosophy of teaching and learning has changed in India over the years
  • Three broad stages: content-driven, objectives-driven, and process-driven teaching and learning.
  • How and when the shift from content-driven, to objectives-driven, and then to process-driven teaching and learning occured in India.
  • Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL).
  • Continuos and Comprehensive Evaluation - CCE.
  • The thinking behind removing detention of students under the RTE Act.

• 00:47:06 - The National Curricular Framework 2005 (NCF)
  • The thinking behind creating the National Curricular Framework in 2005.
  • The use of NCF by the States as a framework.
  • Why the States don't want to use NCERT's textbooks.

• 00:54:31 - Age-appropriate curricula vs overambitious curricula
  • Why children are often being compelled to learn things they can't really understand at their age.

• 00:57:26 - National level surveys of learning levels in India
  • NCERT's surveys of learning and achievement levels.

• 00:58:35 - The value of Pratham's Annual Survey of Education Reports (ASER)
  • Why the ASER reports have limited value.
  • Two negative effects of the ASER reports.

•  01:04:20 - Teacher Accountability
  • Teachers themselves should be enabled to monitor the learning levels in their classes.
  • Why are only teachers being held accountable, but no one else higher up in the education system?
  • The need for top-down accountability rather than bottom-up accountability.

• 01:08:35 - The relevance of PISA tests in India
  • Why PISA tests may not be relevant for India at this time.
  • The lack of a national vision in India for what kind of quality we want in our secondary school students, and what they ought to know by the time they leave school.
  • The need to develop a vision for secondary school students and put it out in the public domain for debate - IGNUS-ERG is working on this.

Primary school teachers in Tamil Nadu promote education in government schools

"People pay taxes of many kinds to the Tamil Nadu Government and should therefore enthusiastically admit their children in government schools and benefit from the free education provided in the government schools," says the Tamil Nadu Primary Teachers Association (TNPTA).

In a press release, Abdul Majeed, an office bearer of the Association said, "Parents must come forward to admit their children in government schools offering free education. All these schools have excellent teachers. In addition to providing free education to all students, the Tamil Nadu State Government also provides 4 pairs of free uniforms every year, a nutritious meal with an egg and a banana every day, free text books and notebooks, a free cycle and also a free laptop computer. Parents must make full use of all these benefits available to them."

To drive this message home to parents, 100,000 leaflets emphasising the necessity and the benefits of admitting children in government schools are being distributed to the public by the Tamil Nadu Primary Teachers Association.

This is the gist of a report that appeared in the Tamil daily newspaper Dinamalar (Nov 23, 2012). None of the English media seem to have carried this news.

The way the statements have been phrased by the TNPTA suggests that the government school teachers know something that the rest of the public are unaware of. But the actions of the government school teachers speak much louder than their words and the people are only too well aware of the implications.

Over 73% of these very same government school teachers in Tamil Nadu have chosen to send their own children to private schools and not the 'excellent' government schools that they themselves teach in. This data has been painstakingly collected by Mr. T.K. Chandrasekaran by filing RTI applications with the District Education Officers in each of the districts in Tamil Nadu.

The initiative by the teachers to promote education in government schools is probably arising out of a fear of losing their jobs if the exodus to private schools continues unabated*. The teachers need to ask themselves why parents are shunning the free education in government schools despite the attendant benefits of free uniforms, free books, notebooks, a free cycle, a free laptop etc.. When people perceive that the quality of education is poor, all the other freebies are irrelevant.

But the teachers know this only too well. By choosing to pay out of their pocket and educate their own children in private schools, the teachers are clearly acting in their self-interest. Nothing wrong with that - in fact, they are doing the right thing by their children. There is no way they can prevent the rest of the people from acting in their own self-interest - the teachers are fighting a losing battle.

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* The 2011 ASER Report provides data on the trend of increasing enrollment in private schools in rural Tamil Nadu.The corresponding figures for urban Tamil Nadu are likely to be much higher.

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.

The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012 - full text of the draft

The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) has come up with a draft legislation for prohibiting unfair practices in schools.

A copy of the full text of the draft of  The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012 can be downloaded here (~15MB pdf).

I quickly scanned through it and at first glance, the bill seems to be excessively harsh and severe on the schools, although there are some very good clauses too, which could bring about much needed transparency in the functioning of schools.

The proposed draft legislation was to be presented before the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting on November 1st, but Business Standard reports that the CABE Committee meeting for November 1st was postponed due to the change of guard at the Ministry of HRD.

According to a report in Law et al, even before the Government officially published the draft of the bill,  the Independent School Federation of India (IFSI) filed a petition in the Delhi High Court on this and the Court has already issued orders on the petition.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to publish on its website the proposed “Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012" framed by it.

A bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher was today hearing a petition by Independent School Federation of India (ISFI) seeking direction to CABE to give appropriate hearing to all before finalizing penal provisions in the proposed Bill.

ISFI also sought direction to Ministry of Human Resource & Development (HRD) to give appropriate representation to the managements of private schools in the composition of CABE to give their suggestions.

In its petition ISFI has alleged that although CABE gave lip-representation to academicians but no representation is given to private management.

The proposed legislation would be presented before the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting on November 1.

Delhi High Court case details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 6857/2012

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL FEDERATION OF INDIA & ANR  Vs.   THE UNION OF INDIA & ANR
Advocate: SK Chauhan

The orders passed by Justice Rajiv Shakdher have not yet been uploaded on the Delhi High Court website, at the time of writing this post. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for November 5th.

Schools seem to fear that the Government will ride roughshold over their concerns and drive the bill through Parliament without giving them a fair hearing. Hence the pre-emptive petition by ISFI in the Delhi High Court. Though the ISFI has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the schools, correspondents and principals of all private, aided and unaided ought to go through the draft bill and consider the legal and practical implications of the bill, if it becomes law in the proposed form. Various associations of schools across the country would do well to print and mail a copy of the draft bill to each and every school correspondent/principal to ensure they are aware of the bill and can provide their feedback.

There needs to be widespread public debate on the draft bill with the views of schools, teachers, parents and the policy establishment taken into account to improve the draft legislation, before it becomes law.

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.

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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

Periscope 7 - 50 new DTH channels for Higher Ed, Open Schooling, New Education Commission, Higher Ed GER, Expenditure on IITs

• "Starting nearly 50 DTH channels for Higher Education in the Country within the XI Plan period has occupied a high place under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) at present. MHRD’s request to ISRO for providing 2 transponders has been noted by ISRO and sent to the INSAT Coordination Committee. NMEICT has an allocation of Rs. 120 crore for the DTH channels to begin with." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 3397 Answered on 14.12.2011

Since the Minister's reply says it will be done within the XI plan period, the channels should be in place before the end of 2012. Sounds unrealistic. The NMEICT, in its mission document, had listed as one of its 48 ambitious objectives, 

34. Content delivery through EduSAT and narrowcasting of TV signals. Providing 1000 DTH (Direct to Home) channels on 40 transponders [to be availed through the Department. of Space] so that a separate DTH channel is available for every subject for every class in various languages to the extent possible.

• Data on enrollment and expenditure in National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS): Enrollments are much lower than I thought.  NIOS also enrolls students in 15 overseas centres of NIOS in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Nepal. Source: Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 381 Answered on 21.12.2011

Year	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12 (Upto Oct 31st)
Total Learners Enrolled	4,38,906	4,93,091	3,66,539
Learners from minority communities enrolled	88,983	92,185	62,696
% of minority community enrolled	20%	19%	17%
	Rs. in Crores	Rs. in Crores	Rs. in Crores
Budget: Plan Funds from Govt of India	15.00	11.25	15.00
Budget: Income Generated by NIOS	89.35	99.07	40.83
Expenditure: Plan Funds from Govt of India	11.61	8.19	6.02
Expenditure: Income Generated by NIOS	69.75	71.98	37.15

A recent report on the Development of the State Open Schools in India by T. Rajagopalan, erstwhile Education Correspondent of The Hindu, concludes that it is well nigh impossible to achieve the goal of Education for All through the formal education system alone or even the National Open School system alone. Rajagopalan says although the State Open Schools have an important role to play, the policy establishment pays only lip service to expanding educational opportunities and seems least interested in consolidating and strengthening the open school system in the states.

• New Education Commission: "In pursuance of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 15th August, 2011, Government has decided to set up an Education Commission to make recommendations for improvement at all levels of education. The Constitution and Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission is being finalized by the Government after wide consultations." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4492 Answered on 21.12.2011. Other than the news reports based on the PM's August 15th speech, I could find no other mention on any of the Government-related web sites on the setting up of the new education commission, but apparently they're working on it.

• Data on government expenditure on education as % of total government expenditure and also breakdown by segment within education. Note: This is NOT expenditure on education as a percent of GDP Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4500 Answered on 21.12.2011
  

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
% of total budget allocated to MHRD	5.16%	4.36%	4.50%

Sector	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Elementary Education	56.32%	48.75%	50.23%
Secondary Education	14.45%	15.57%	13.71%
Adult Education	1.17%	1.02%	2.61%
Higher Education (Including Technical & Other)	28.05%	34.66%	33.45%
Total	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%

• "The average annual expenditure per student in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is Rs. 2.82 lakhs, the tuition fees uniformly payable for under-graduate programmes by each student is Rs. 25,000 per semester.

The Council of the IITs, in its 43rd meeting held on 14th September, 2011, accepted ‘in principle’ the report of Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee on the road map for enhancing the autonomy of the IIT system which has recommended, inter-alia, that while the students' scholarships, capital and infrastructure expenditure may continue to be met fully by the Government, the IITs may meet, on their own, the operational expenditure. Thus, while the capital costs may be taken care of by the Government, the student of under graduate programme may pay enhanced fee towards the recurring cost of education on getting employed, which is justifiable on the grounds of earning potential of an IIT graduate. An empowered Task Force has been constituted for implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. " Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4520 Answered on 21.12.2011

It is unclear from the statement if the annual expenditure of Rs. 2.82 lakhs includes both capital and operational expense per student or only operational expense per student. If the latter, the gulf between annual expenditure per student (Rs. 2.82 lakhs) and tuition fees paid per year (Rs. 50,000) by each student is substantial. If annual operational costs have to be recovered by the IITs through fees alone, the fees will have to rise by over 500%!

 

• "Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of students enrolled in higher education as a percentage of the population in the age group of 18-23 years in 2009-10(Provisional) is 15.0 (All Categories), 11.1 (Scheduled Caste) and 10.3 (Scheduled Tribe)." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4593 Answered on 21.12.2011

Statewise 2009-10 Provisional GER data was also provided - Delhi (47.9) is the highest followed by Uttarakhand (36.0), Puducherry (29.1), Goa (28.3), Chandigarh (28.0). The GER for larger states Himchal Pradesh (23.9), Maharashtra (21.4), Chattisgarh (20.0), Tamil Nadu (19.0), Karnataka (18.1), Andhra Pradesh (16.9), Madhya Pradesh (14.9), West Bengal (11.9) and Uttar Pradesh (10.9) is lower. 

Periscope 6 - MHRD on PISA Results, Inequity in education, Finland's schools

• The education establishment reacts to the PISA results for Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. [Indian Express]
  

  Rattled over the dismal performance of Indian schools on a reputed international ranking system, the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has asked the National Council of Education Research & Training (NCERT) to probe reasons for this poor show and submit a report to Minister Kapil Sibal.
  There was a random selection of schools from the two states for PISA with a large number of government and rural area schools in the sample size, sources said. This was also a factor to be considered in view of the nature of PISA questions, officials pointed out.
  

  The MHRD officials (in a Freudian slip?) suggest that the results are bad because a large number of government and rural schools were included in the sample! The Indian Express reporter smartly checked with Dr. Ratna Dhamija, the PISA Co-ordinator at ACER India, the organisation that conducted the test, and she busted that theory.

  “It is important for you to know that the schools who participated in the PISA 2009+ were randomly selected by the PISA consortium and were selected from all eligible educational institutions of the two states where 15-year-old students were studying,” said Dr Ratna Dhamija, manager India, Australian Council for Educational Research (India) that helped in conducting PISA for India, in an emailed response to this newspaper.

• Lant Pritchett analyses the PISA results in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh and says "They confirm the worst of what anyone has been saying about the levels of learning in India elementary education."

• Teach for India Fellow, Rahul Panda bemoans our tolerance and forbearance with the poor quality of elementary education

How has the free, compulsory and nearly meaningless (if not entirely useless) education provided in government schools failed to stir the collective conscience? Perhaps because the establishment has done just about enough to string people along. The midday meal scheme is, to put it mildly, a devious masterstroke. For (the government may argue) what use is teaching a kid who doesn’t even get two square meals a day? Fair point, I concede. But a counter to that would be: what use is feeding a kid once a day without teaching him anything and eventually leaving him to fend for himself with little education and no skills to find meaningful employment? A classic case of feed a fish or teach to fish. In the case of government schools however, even the quality of the fish is suspect.  .....

Why does this not  fail to incite the youth’s ire? It is because educational inequity has always been a subliminal issue. And that could be attributed to the fact that its effect cannot be readily quantified.  .....

The scale of the problem of educational inequity in the country is too immense to wrap one’s wits around. To say the least, and at the risk of sounding tedious, it’s a no brainer that it has now become imperative for the country’s top bananas (if I may be allowed that expression) to come forth to try and solve it. We need more people teaching in classrooms than the ill-informed yet enthusiastic crowd that spilled onto the streets during the anti-graft campaign. And even then we’d fall short by a huge margin

The country's top bananas are unlikely to react unless the educational inequality is made a burning political issue. They know there is no simple solution, but don't want to grapple with the problem head on and take tough decisions. So they have resorted to stringing people along by passing flawed legislation like the Right to Education Act, to give people the feeling that they are doing something that nobody had done for 60 years to address the growing inequality of opportunity in education in India.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta put it bluntly by saying,

Nobody in the political system realises that the historical window of opportunity for putting in lasting changes is very small. In our case, it is 10 to 15 years given our demography. If we don’t lay the foundation for wealth and prosperity in the next 15 years, then the India story is gone forever. You will then grow old, before you grow rich.

• Coincidentally, an article in The Atlantic looks at why Finland's schools are successful and points to their focus on addressing inequity.

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

There is an interesting quote in The Atlantic story attributed to Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?. In response to the question he encounters in America - How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers, he says

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."