Look, Too Many Hands
When economists turn administrators, or hope to become one, they start to think with their hands both of them. Their response to problems is nearly always on the lines of: "on the one hand... and then on the other..." The majority of experts in our Planning Commission are economists, making it the largest employer of the Indian Economic [...]
Dilemmas of equality in education
Kerala, almost alone among Indian States, has pursued a consistent and in many ways successful higher education policy. It educates 18 per cent of its young people, double the national average, and has universal literacy. It is worth looking at what might be called “the Kerala model” in this sector to see if it has relevance to the rest of [...]
Ashit Baran Aich: Learning from afar
ANY discussion on the scope and possibility of distance education is bound to be countered by the purist who believes in the infallibility of the conventional system of learning. While the anxiety to ensure purity in matters academic is entirely justified, any over-emphasis is likely to hinder the fulfilment of the proclaimed objectives of [...]
Krishna Kumar: Empowerment by verbal chicanery
Competing for praise and popularity is as common between Ministries as are turf wars. When officers from different Ministries get the rare opportunity to meet and discuss matters of shared concern, they behave like alert soldiers who are expected to fight for every inch of territory. I had an exposure to this phenomenon while working for a [...]
Sanjiv Kaura: Language Without Barriers
"We must at present do our best to form...a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect." With these words, spoken in 1835, Lord Macaulay crystallised an imperial approach to the English language that, unfortunately, continues to work to its detriment today. The old resentments about [...]
Arvind Singhal: The four A’s of education
It is very heartening to see that education has finally started to attract the attention it has always deserved but was given an inexplicable short shrift especially in the last 20 years or so. While India talked about financial and other reforms, the education sector actually saw even more regressive policy steps and more stifling of efforts to [...]
Erosion of federal space in education
A spate of reforms in the field of education, some of them already implemented and some awaiting implementation, have brought the subject of education into the focus of public debate. These include the abolition of examinations at the Class X level, the unification of syllabi of higher secondary courses and the introduction of a national common [...]
Vision 2010: a dangerous myopia
With the accession of Rajiv Gandhi to power, a vision began to germinate. That vision was that of an India that would be vibrant with the entrepreneurial energy of the few, and the rest of the population serving those few with their labour. The argument was that despite more than 40 years of independence, with slogans of a ‘socialistic [...]
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak: Education in the Union budget
One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget [...]
Aditi Phadnis: The cautious radical
A chargesheet by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a clutch of professors from Delhi University and the Jawaharlal Nehru University last month said they had abused their position as public servants to get clearance from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for an engineering college in Rajasthan. In the past, [...]