Excerpt: “Poor Rich Countries: The Challenges of Development”

A speech by Indian Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram at the Harvard University South Asia Initiative on 18th October, 2007

We have some of the best schools in the world - but they are few - and we have some of the worst schools in the world. The challenges that we face include enrolment in school of all children between the ages of five and ten, retaining them in school for at least five years, appointing a sufficient number of teachers, dealing with teacher absenteeism, and equipping the schools with books and teaching material so that the child experiences the joy of learning. Many schools, including government-run schools, do make the mark, and that is why we turn out every year hundreds of thousands of qualified engineers, doctors, accountants, managers and other professionals. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are not doing enough. Too many children are still out of school, too many drop out before they finish school, too many cannot read or write or do basic maths, and too many are ill-equipped to be employed. At the other end, we produce too few teachers, professors, researchers and scientists. Even in the professions, we have too few doctors, nurses, engineers and judges for a population of over a billion and an economy that is growing at a rapid rate. The reasons are obvious: the early development models that we inherited are simply incompatible with the demands of a globalizing economy. Besides, there is the inherited and widely-held belief that education is, and must be, a not-for-profit activity, despite overwhelming evidence that our reluctance to adopt new models has spawned a huge industry that has fully commercialized education and imparts education without any values.

Education - apart from healthcare - is our most formidable challenge. The failure to rise to this challenge and overcome it will affect precisely those sections of the people who have been victims of neglect for many centuries. These are women, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and many socially backward communities that have remained at the bottom of the pyramid. We now have a policy that promises “education for all”. We have backed the promise by increasing many fold the funds provided by the federal government for building schools, purchasing equipment, appointing teachers and providing a cooked meal for all children in primary and upper primary classes.

To conclude, India is rich because of its natural resources; it is poor because it is unable to exploit those resources efficiently and profitably. India is rich because of its native entrepreneurial talent; it is poor because many policy and procedural hurdles stand in the way of the entrepreneurs. India is rich because of its young population; it is poor because it is unable to deliver quality education to all its children. India is rich because its people set great store by values and moral standards; it is poor because of declining standards in public life. India is rich because its people are hardworking, resilient and pragmatic; it is poor because often commonsense is devoured by ideology.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the story of a poor rich country. While my generation which spearheaded the crossover will do its best, I have faith that the next generation of Indians, and the generation after that, will eliminate the scourge of poverty and make India rich. Then, the poor rich country would have deserved its inheritance.

Book Review

Writings of Teachers
Ideas for the Classroom

Sections from the Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools, Nos. 1 to 9
Publisher: East West Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd

One of the most critical aspects of school education is the teaching-learning process in a classroom. Real learning happens when children find their acquired knowledge meaningful in various real life situations. Hence the book ‘Writings of Teachers - Ideas for the Classroom’ brought out by the teachers of the Krishnamurti Schools with an objective to expose teachers to various dimensions of classroom teaching. The book covers ideas of teaching various disciplines - Art, Humanity and Science. It gives us an insight into teaching specialised and sensitive topics like religion or globalization. The practical tips, such as how to conduct a field study and the chemistry of everyday life, help teachers to create a more hands-on classroom.

Today the school fraternity of India is at the crossroads of change towards a better system of teaching-learning. The book is expected to add a new perspective towards this change.

News Bite

• CBSE to introduce new exam system
• Bihar girl’s inspiring story in NCERT Textbook
• Delhi Govt introduces ‘Chalta Firta’ Schools for children

CBSE to introduce new exam system

The 10th and 12th standard examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will have 20 percent of the questions dedicated to testing the student’s critical thinking skills rather than rote learning. Mr. Ashok Ganguly, CBSE chairperson said there was a paradigm shift in the CBSE from More of The Same (MOTS) system based on repetition and stereotypes to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) with emphasis on interpretation and synthesis of knowledge.

Bihar girl’s inspiring story in NCERT Textbook

A teenage girl’s success story in educating herself against all odds while rearing honeybees for a livelihood has found a place in a school textbook produced by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Anita Kushwaha, 17, has encouraged and inspired thousands of women in rural Bihar to be self-reliant. Anita embarked on the path of self-reliance by collecting Rs.1,500 by giving tuitions to children and purchasing a box containing a queen bee. She is currently studying for her Bachelors in Arts (BA English) degree from MDDM College, Muzaffarpur.

Delhi Govt introduces ‘Chalta Firta’ Schools for children

The Delhi Government has launched a ‘Chalta Firta’ (mobile) schools scheme for children living in depressed areas of the city. Two ‘Chalta Firta’ (mobile) vans are equipped for this purpose with the basic infrastructure of a classroom along with a variety of latest teaching and learning aids like VCDs and learning kits. The objective of this project is to provide educational facilities to students who dropped out of school and those who do not have access to schools.

Teacher’s Bite

Mr. N. Madhusudan,
Principal, Bhavan’s Gandhi Vidyashram, Kodaikanal
Education system in India

Education system in India
The Indian system of education has come under severe scrutiny over the years and we can say that it has passed in various fronts. However, there is a general opinion that system of education promotes only rote- learning Other skills understanding, referencing, questioning, interpretation thinking take a back seat as both the teacher and the taught are in the rat-race to translate the information gained into marks Also our evaluation system measures a very limited range of faculties and has no provision to test other skills. Thus teachers become assembly line employees producing the same talents as engineers or doctors which is in popular demand.
Importance of Teacher Training
The success of any educational process depends on the quality, commitment and expertise of the teachers. So teacher training assumes great significance as it can enhance the teaching quality and thereby improve the level of student achievement.

This can happen only if there are periodical workshops or training programmes for teachers. Such programmes should enable teachers to think of new methods of teaching and assessment and evolve appropriate strategies for the classroom. At the same time, great care should be taken when organizing such workshops, to see that this is relevant to the real needs of the classroom, or else they become mere mechanical and futile exercises.

On ASSET
The major setback to our educational system is that we do not have proper assessment strategies. In the absence of skill based aptitude tests, it is assumed that a students have high abilities as they get ‘A’ grade in exams. The students of our school have been taking ASSET for the last three years.

Such standardized tests and the performance analysis are very useful in measuring subject-specific knowledge at school level. They also provide an insight into a child’s progress and identify areas that need improvement. The analysis of student performance provided by ASSET, can come as an eye opener to all the stake holders of a child’s education.

We need to lay more emphasis on learning by doing, learning from observation and pitting the learning to test. Self-learning and independent thinking are to be cultivated. If we can create a love for life-long learning, we can plug the loop-holes in our education system and help students march towards a well grounded success.

‘Passionate’ For Changing Lives

There are a set of students distinctly different from others of their generation. Instead of whiling away their free time, they are passionate about making a difference to the lives of the less privileged. And leading the young brigade is M.R.S.K. Chaitanya, a 12th standard student of Abhyasa International School and winner of UN award for Excellence in Community Service. He has been instrumental in re-enrolling many child laborers from in and around the village, back in school. He has also worked at setting up medical camps and AIDS awareness campaigns. One particular program that he led helped his classmates to counsel senior citizens in the village against addiction towards alcohol and tobacco. He was the only student from his State among 10 students across the world invited to the UN Youth Assembly to receive the award in August 2007.

Humour

Teacher: If 1+1=2 and 2+2=4, what is 4+4?
Student: That’s not fair! You answer the easy ones and leave us with the hard one!

Student Misconception Series
A Regular Column In Deccan Herald, Bangalore

Deccan Herald is a popular paper with a circulation of about 3,00,000 in Karnataka. It comes out every Thursday with a supplement called DH Education for parents, schools and children. Educational Initiatives contributes articles on student misconceptions based on their research study on “Student Learning in Metros”. Each article features one subject misconception along with actual student responses.

The Principal –Through The Eyes of A Student

Dear Principal,
What does a Principal do?

Ask the teachers in your school to pose this question to the students, and enjoy the responses. The students can describe their thoughts in the form of pictures and notes. Visit the classrooms and talk to the students about your work and their pictures. This could be another way for you and the students to get to know each other better. Some of the pictures can be used to make an interesting and meaningful bulletin board. Perhaps you could also create a scrapbook of the pictures to keep in your office for students, staff and visitors to enjoy again and again. Do send us a selection of these responses to bindu@ei-india.com. You may see them in an ASSETScope issue in the future.

With best wishes for a fun journey of self-discovery,
The ASSETScope Team

Advance Registration Offer- 2008

This is an invitation for your school to participate in ASSET - A diagnostic test for students of classes III to X. ASSET helps pin-point students’ strengths and weaknesses and also provides them a benchmark with their peers. Over 2.5 lakh students from over 2000+ schools across India, Middle East, Singapore and Nepal take ASSET every year. With a database of 10 million student responses, ASSET is a unique repository of the state of learning in India today.
The three special features of ASSETwhich schools have appreciated are:
• Nature and quality of its questions
• Quality of its analysis at the student, teacher and school level
• Type of follow-on support available for both teachers and students after the test

ASSET is available for five subjects: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Hindi. The cost is Rs.300 per student for three subjects (English, Mathematics and Science) and Rs.120 per paper for optional subjects (Social Studies, Hindi). To encourage schools to plan for ASSET in advance we have designed the Advance Registration Opportunity 2008(ARO 2008) which has a year long teacher engagement plan in the form of “Teacher Sheets”.

The “Teacher Sheets” are subject-specific aids that directly relate to the concepts being covered in the curriculum. These sheets will be dispatched every month to the school, helping to not only to see patterns of misconceptions but also get specific suggestions for their resolution.

The “Teacher Sheets” are going to be offered FREE of cost to all schools that register with a minimum of 400 students, before April 30th. Schools will be automatically eligible for this offer on payment of 30% of the total fee payable, before April 30th. Teacher sheets will be dispatched to schools in June 2008 after they register with the full amount.

We plan to compile the experience and best practices from schools that implement the suggestions given in each teacher sheet. Sharing this compilation will be very useful for all the partner schools (who register in advance), and will be instrumental in bringing together all the leading schools onto one improvement platform, cutting across geography and Educational boards.

We look forward to your cooperation in this partnership for continous improvement in your esteemed school. If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us at info@ei-india.com.

News Bite

• 11th Five Year Plan to focus on Education
• Energy Clubs at Delhi Schools to promote Energy Conservation
• Building as a Learning Aid
• A Kerala village achieves total Primary education
• Rajasthan Mulls ‘portable’ schools to stem dropouts

11th Five Year Plan to focus on Education

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the Eleventh Five Year Plan would focus on education, particularly vocational and science education, with a five-fold increase in the spending on this sector compared to the Tenth Plan. The Plan allocation for education has been stepped up from 7.7% of gross budgetary support for the Plan, in the Tenth Plan, to over 19% in the Eleventh Plan.

Energy Clubs at Delhi Schools to promote Energy Conservation

In a bid to create awareness and promote energy conservation and utility of renewable energy among school students, the Delhi Government has launched a programme to form Energy Efficiency Clubs. Initially, 35 schools across the capital have come up with such energy clubs. With the establishment of such energy clubs in the schools, it is hoped that energy saving becomes a lifelong habit.

Building as a Learning Aid

After the success of Taare Zameen Par, which showed how a school’s infrastructure can serve as an effective learning aid, Delhi’s education department is all set to launch a project called BaLA. Building as Learning Aid (BaLA), also an acronym for a girl, is an innovative way of looking at a student’s relation with the school.

The project, to be launched by the Delhi government will focus on using the existing school infrastructure as a part of the learning process and in making education indispensable to everyday life. The project also addresses inclusive education in mainstream schools.

A Kerala village achieves total Primary education

Kerala state’s Nilambur village panchayat has achieved total primary education, possibly a first in India. The drive for universal primary education, named Jyotirgamaya, began two years ago, in Nilambur, a village with a population of 43,000. Everyone in the village is now certified as having passed an examination at a level equivalent to Class IV.

Rajasthan Mulls ‘portable’ schools to stem dropouts

Rajasthan is planning to have ‘portable’ schools. Portable schools can be moved from one place to another. These schools will be similar to normal schools except that if the management does not get enough students, the school will be closed and moved to a place where there are adequate pupils. These portable schools are aimed at bringing back school dropouts to mainstream education.

Teacher’s Bite

Mrs Saroja Ganesh,
Founder-Principal, & Secretary,
Maruthi Vidyalaya, ICSE, Bangalore

Importance of Teacher Training
The only thing that is constant in this world is change. With aggressive globalization and fast changes in all spheres of life, the role of the teacher changes from teaching to facilitating the present generation students to adapt themselves in new situation, thinking creatively and analytically and to applying their knowledge in real life situation.

Though teachers are equipped with a formal teacher training course, there is always a need for them to be made aware of the new trends in education. More over teachers’ in their busy schedule of the preparing for the class, correction work, organizing co-curricular activities the teachers find little time to keep themselves abreast with that latest changes in educational technology and innovation.

It is here that teacher training workshops come to be very useful providing teachers and schools with:
• Faculty improvement training
• Interaction with teachers of different schools
• Sharing problems in classroom teaching
• Sharing anxieties the students face
• Being apprised of innovation methods or a new technology that can be used in the classroom.

Thus a good teacher with a positive attitude towards hard work, willingness to learn and acceptance of change sets an example of being a good student – true to the teaching-learning profession.

On ASSET
This is the second year of our students’ taking up the ASSET test. The wonderful thing we have found is that the questions are based on simple basic concepts learnt by the students in their previous years. But it is the thinking process in recollecting, mixing-matching and applying the previous knowledge to the question in hand that matters. It also provides for quick thinking. It is a real test to judge the analytical and reasoning skills in student. The in-depth diagnostic report on the strong and weak skills has helped our teachers in re-structuring our teaching-learning process.

Breathing Easy?

-An Article In Science Reporter Magazine, January Issue, 2008

The January, 2008 issue of Science Reporter, a monthly magazine
with 42000 subscribers across the country features an article
about student misconceptions on photosynthesis. The article
was entirely based on research study “Student Learning in Metros”.

Humour

Teacher: Why can’t you ever answer any of my questions?
Student: Well if I could there would not be much point in me being her.

ASSET Calendar 2008

Since 2001, more than 1.5 million tests have been taken by students from over 2000+ schools. Analyzing this data enables us to identify patterns in student learning. One of many such interesting patterns relates to misconceptions, where the number of students giving the most common wrong answer far exceeds the number of students giving the correct answer.

ASSET 2008 Calendar is based on the Student Misconceptions Series. The questions selected in the calendar have been selected for their high ratio of “most common wrong answer” to correct answer responses. The objective of the data presented in the calendar is to help recognize the prevalence of misconceptions in learning as an educational challenge.

EI’s Creative Ad Nominated For A Prestigious Award

EI’s recruitment Ad published in ASCENT Times of India, 29th
August 2007, has been nominated for Pinkslip Awards – An award for Creative Excellence in Recruitment Advertising 2008 by Times Ascent.

Improving Relationships Within the School By Ronald S. Barth

If the relationships between the school management and teachers are trusting, generous, helpful, and cooperative, then the relationships between teachers, students and parents are likely to be trusting, generous, helpful, and cooperative.

Points or grievances that are not addressed openly, but only in groups outside the school, need to be brought out in the open and addressed with a view of solving them. The relationship among teachers is one such topic and school improvement is impossible until this is discussed openly.

Barth describes the various forms of relationship among adults within the school, which are:

1. Parallel Play
A tendency to isolate oneself from colleagues who might cause us to examine and improve our practices is an example of parallel play.

2. Adversarial Relationships
Teachers develop extraordinary insights about their practice- about discipline, parental involvement, and staff development etc., over the years. But they tend to become adversaries by not sharing these insights. Competition for resources and recognition are also an example.

3. Congenial Relationships
Congenial relationships are personal and friendly and contribute to a positive working environment. But congeniality at the cost of open dialogue and constructive criticism is superficial. Congeniality is necessary, but not sufficient for improvement in the school.

4. Collegial Relationships
Collegial relationships are the highest and the most desirable forms of relationships. At this stage, people are connected at a higher level. Teachers passionately discuss and work to improve, building an invigorating culture around them. A sports coach once said, “Getting good players is easy. Getting them to play together is the hard part.” Of the four categories of relationships, collegiality is the hardest to establish, but provides the greatest benefits.

A Collegial School Culture Includes
i. Teachers talking with one another about issues faced in the classrooms
ii. Teachers sharing their knowledge and expertise
iii. Teachers observing one another while engaged in practice
iv. Teachers cheering for one another’s success

What School Leaders can do?
Leadership has been delightfully defined as “the ability to foster consequential relationships.” Researcher Judith Warren Little found that school leaders foster collegiality when they:

• State expectations explicitly. (Eg. “I expect all of us to work together this year…”)
• Model collegiality. (Eg. Visibly join in cheering on others…)
• Reward those who behave as colleagues. (Eg. Recognition, funds to those who collaborate.)
• Protect those who engage in these collegial behaviour.

Empowerment, recognition, satisfaction, and success, come only from being an active participant within a masterful group - a group of colleagues. The relationship among schoolteachers or colleagues, affects the behaviour as well as relationships among the students. For a truly professional practice and a better learning environment, it is important to improve relationship building within the school. It becomes a shared responsibility of all to practice this, but school leaders can initiate and encourage the practice of improving relationships within the school.
Adapted from “Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse” by Ronald S. Barth,
, Educational Leadership

News Bite

• KISS - A boon for Orissa’s tribal kids
• Kerala gives all its schools Internet connections
• Delhi HC asks schools to employee counsellors
• CBSE to follow sporting methods for better teaching
• Common syllabus for Tamil Nadu schools soon

KISS - A boon for Orissa’s tribal kids

With enrollment of more than 5000 tribal children from districts of Orissa, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar, is now poised to enter the record books as Asia’s largest residential tribal school.

The school offers free education from kindergarten to post graduation with facilities that most of the students had not heard of or dreamt about. Besides academic education, the school also provides facilities to play popular sports such as football and cricket.

Kerala gives all its schools Internet connections

Kerala’s Education Minister, M.A. Baby on Sunday inaugurated the first phase of internet broadband connections to 1,200 schools in the state. The initiative is part of the IT@School project launched by the state government in 2003 for imparting IT education to high school children across the state.

“All the 2,800 high schools in Kerala will be connected through broadband internet by June as part of the project,” the minister said while inaugurating the first phase from the State Secretariat.
“We are planning to extend the services to upper primary schools (between 5th-7th classes) as well. In the first phase, we will start with 38 schools in this academic secession,” said Baby.

Delhi HC asks schools to employee counsellors

Concerned about the increasing numbers of students committing suicide, the Delhi High Court asked all senior secondary schools in the capital to have full time counsellors. Acting on a public interest petition, a division bench of Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna ordered all schools to employ counsellors to ensure that stress levels amongst students reduces.

CBSE to follow sporting methods for better teaching

The Central Board of Education is all set to implement an innovative plan to teach students different theoretical concepts. Realising the fact that students get very little time to indulge in physical activities, the board has decided to teach students through various sports activities. A committee has been formed which is working on the final modalities to make the learning more fun through sports activities. Initially, these innovative ways of teaching will be used only up to Class V, but after assessing the results, the concept will be used to teach the students of higher classes.

Common syllabus for Tamil Nadu schools soon

The School Education Minister, Thangam Thennarasu has said the work on implementing a new common syllabus for different streams of school education in the state has been started. “We want no mistakes while shifting to the new syllabus. This has not been attempted by any Board in the country so far. We will be a role model for others”, said Thennarasu.

The new common syllabus will be applicable to all State boards, Oriental, Anglo-Indian and Matriculation stream schools, but not the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools. The School Education Department is also chalking out plans to ensure that all examinations are standardized to maximum marks of 500 irrespective of the stream of study in class X.

Teacher’s Bite

Mr. Ramesh Mudgal
Principal, The Jain International School, Bilaspur

The Education system in India
The education system in India presently is largely examination oriented and not learning oriented. A student’s achievement and ability is judged mostly by the marks he/she gets rather than the real understanding of the topic. There is an alarming level of competition in the society and a child not doing well in studies is made to fell low. The other aspects of learning and achievement like fine arts, music, dance, sports etc. are generally pushed to the background. Despite these dissatisfying factors, it is heartening to note that schools are slowly warming up to the idea of developing thinking skills among students. The National Curriculum Framework implemented in CBSE schools recently has made a conscious effort at creating an environment that enable the nurturing of thinking skills. A lot still needs to be done in order to upgrade our knowledge, skills and attitudes. Not just students, but the entire community should be eager to learn.

Importance of teacher training and development in educating students
Teacher training is an essential factor for development of students. Quite often, the amazing abilities of students are either not recognized or not nurtured because the teacher is not equipped enough to identify the extraordinary and appreciate it. Today, we are in a society where knowledge is expanding in gigantic proportions. Mere knowledge of an academic subject does not make one an effective teacher. It is the flexibility to adapt to new situations, ability to incorporate new theories and principles and the willingness to be a life long learner which determine the true worth of a teacher. Today we do not just focus on the scholastic skills, but also on creating a society of innovators and creative thinkers. Teachers are the torchbearers of this change. Teachers need to be equipped with the right skills and adopt the right attitude to make this transformation happen. This calls for a systematic plan for professional training.

ASSET
Educational Initiatives, since its inception, has been doing a wonderful job in scholastic testing of Indian school students. As one goes through the questions, it becomes clear that a lot of research goes into the making of Questions Papers. The questions assess the enduring understanding of concepts and not just the memory. The questions present a healthy challenge to students to go beyond structures and think. They provide a reliable indicator of students’ thinking skills.

The analysis which ASSET provides after the test is a remarkable one. It is thorough, systematic and complete. The comparison of individual and school with the national average gives a clear perspective to schools and students as to where they stand with respect to achievement level. It also helps in setting up a target for improvement. To sum up it may be said that, EI is doing a wonderful job of profiling student learning.

India Slips Down The Education Ladder

India has slipped five ranks since last year to 105 on global education parameters leading to fears that the country would miss most of the millennium development goals for its children, according to a report by UN education watchdog UNESCO. UNESCO’s Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said despite remarkable strides towards the UN’s Education for All by 2015 programme, huge gender disparity remains a problem for India. “Girls account for 66 per cent of out-of-the-school children in the region, the highest share worldwide,” he said at UNESCO’s regional conference on literacy in Delhi.

Matsuura also pointed out that a large number of children leave school without basic literacy and numeric skills because of poor quality of education in most schools.

The report shows that India’s gross enrollment ratio is about 95 percent, but the overall dropout rate is as high as 14.4 percent for Class I. At present, one-third of the world’s illiterates are in India.

The report shows that India has improved on most education and child health indicators but other countries have done much better.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com

Humour

Student:Teacher, would you punish me for something I did not do?
Teacher: Of course not.
Student: Good, because I did not do my homework.

Delhi Public School, Bangalore East

Delhi Public School, Bangalore East celebrated their first Open house programme for their UKG students inviting the parents to a grand function. It was one of the first programmes of the school as the school has started this academic year. An ASSET representative in Bangalore, Ms. Deepali Sinha, was invited as the chief guest of the programme by Mrs. Manila Carvalho, Principal of the School.

Why Be A Teacher?

If you believe it is important to help children and young
men and women acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions
essential to productive and satisfying lives,
then consider being a teacher.
If you burst with passion for your subject and want to
share that passion with others,
then consider being a teacher.
If you are committed to your own lifelong learning, to
an ongoing study of the art and science of your craft,
then consider being a teacher.
If you appreciate a calling in which each year offers a fresh
start, new beginnings and the opportunity to impact lives
in a positive way,
then consider being a teacher.
you truly enjoy kids, if you are able to see the best in each
of them, if you are willing to persist when confronted
by their recalcitrance or indifference,
then consider being a teacher.
If you feel joy in seeing students learn to believe in
themselves because you helped them achieve what
they felt was beyond their grasp,
then consider being a teacher.
If, like Henry Adams, you understand that, as a teacher,
you can affect eternity because it is impossible to tell
where your influence stops,
then consider being a teacher.
If you recognize that giving of yourself to others and
developing others can be one of the most significant and
fulfilling ways in which to live your life,
then consider being a teacher.
Source: www.sarasota.k12.fl.u

What Works in Education: Lessons According to McKinsey

Every country tries to put down the best plans and policies to improve the standard of education. But we find that there are variations in the education standard between countries. The findings of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have shown that the countries performing the best in Education continue to perform well: Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. McKinsey, an organisation, made some policy recommendations, based on the findings of PISA. They tried to find out the common factors between the successful countries. According to McKinsey, schools need to do three things: get the best teachers; get the best out of the teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind. These don’t sound like the most ‘innovative’ ideas but if taken seriously they would change education radically.

Hiring the best teachers is the first step. One South Korean official says, “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Studies have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to the best teachers, they end up in the top 10% of student performers. In Finland, all new teachers must have a master’s degree. South Korea recruits teachers from the top 5% of graduates and primary school teachers have to pass a four-year undergraduate degree from one of the dozen universities and getting admission there requires top grades.

Teacher training is also a crucial factor determining the quality of education. Singapore provides teachers with 100 hours of training a year and appoints senior teachers to oversee professional development in each school. In Japan and Finland, groups of teachers visit each others’ classrooms and plan lessons together. In Finland, they get an afternoon off each week for this. In Boston schedules are arranged so that those who teach the same subject have free classes together for common planning. This helps spread good ideas around.

The other common thing between top performing countries is the intervention they provide for students who lag behind or start failing. Finland has more special-education teachers devoted to laggards than anyone else - as many as one teacher in seven in some schools. Singapore provides extra classes for the bottom 20% of students and teachers are expected to stay behind – often for hours - after school to help students.

None of this is rocket science. Yet it goes against some of the unspoken assumptions of education policy. Scratch a teacher or an administrator (or a parent), and you often hear that it is impossible to get the best teachers without paying big salaries. But McKinsey’s conclusions seem more optimistic and are based on research findings: getting good teachers depends on how you select and train them; teaching can become a career choice for top graduates without paying a fortune; and that, with the right policies, schools and pupils are not doomed to lag behind.

Adapted from www.economist.com

News Bite

• Cartoons to enliven school texts in Rajasthan
• Use of cell phones to be prohibited in Karnataka schools
• A cutting-edge expo on Science and Technology
• UNICEF launches mobile schools in Madhya Pradesh
• Dhoni on radio to promote education in Jharkhand

Cartoons to enliven school texts in Rajasthan

Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters will enliven the text books of Class I children in Rajasthan from the next academic session to help get the children more interested in studies. The Rajya Pustak Mandal has decided to print cartoons on the cover pages and make the books more colourful. “Kids love cartoons the most. We want them to learn and enjoy at the same time,” Vasudev Devnani, State Minister for Education, said.

Use of cell phones to be prohibited in Karnataka schools

In a significant move to discourage children from using mobile phones, the Karnataka Government made an announcement introducing a ban on the use of mobile phones in schools by children below 16 years of age, due to health concerns. Not only are mobile phones banned in schools but the shops dealing with mobile phones will also be issued strict instructions to avoid selling them to children below 16 years of age.

A cutting-edge expo on Science and Technology

The Science Express, a unique train exhibition specially designed to arouse the curiosity of youth in the field of science and technology, will travel 15,000 kilometres within 210 days and stop at 57 cities throughout India. The exhibits, including more than 300 large-format images, over 150 video clips as well as a chemistry lab, will be showcased in the train’s 14 coaches. The Science Express is a joint Indo-German venture, providing a fascinating expedition into the mysteries of our world - groundbreaking discoveries, emerging issues of cutting-edge science and future-oriented technologies.

UNICEF launches mobile schools in Madhya Pradesh

UNICEF launched 22 mobile primary schools for children of migrant workers of Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. The primary aim of such mobile schools is to encourage to children who normally drop out when their parents leave home in search of work in other states, to attend and acquire knowledge. The mobile schools will have all the basic requirements of a normal school and will be housed in tents.

Dhoni on radio to promote education in Jharkhand

Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will create an awareness about the importance of education in Jharkhand through a radio advertisement. In the advertisement recorded in Hindi, Dhoni says: ‘Children aged between six and 14 must be sent to school. By being educated they can earn global fame for Jharkhand.’ Human Resource Development Minister Bandhu Tirkey said: ‘We hope that Dhoni’s voice will create an impact on parents and children. And the parents will send their children to school.’.

Teacher’s Bite

Mrs. Sonali Sinha,
Principal, Delhi Public School, Eldeco, Lucknow

The Education system in India
The resounding success of Indian students competing at International levels proves the soundness of the Education system in India. However, some critiques opine that it has no connection with reality, is rote-based, is textbook centric and not flexible enough to cater to the diverse needs of students. Despite the truth of these views, the sound principles of our primary Indian Boards of Education, the CBSE and the ICSE, is clearly evident. These boards are weaning the students away from rote learning and creating a system of stress-free education. They have introduced vocational training to prepare the students for life after school. “Learning by Doing”, marked by a sense of inquiry and ignition driving one onto the path of knowledge, has become the hallmark of the new system. But for this it also tries to create a journey of happiness and joy.

I am confident that we at DPS will make this happen.

Importance of teacher training and development in educating students
A teacher needs to be empowered. Every school should develop an in–house training program for its teachers. A teacher development program can be multi layered encompassing workshops / training sessions and exchange programmes; with an in built option that gives the teacher the flexibility to choose an area of his / her interest and need. A teacher should always remain in the learning mode. Continuous learning and keeping in touch with developments in the field and even in the outside world help a teacher to grow. It is great teachers who make a good school therefore teacher’s development becomes absolutely crucial.

ASSET
Asset has a two dimensional advantage for the school. It helps the school benchmark itself against a national average. It also provides a detailed feedback highlighting strengths / weaknesses of every student and hence the school can focus on these key areas for future improvement.

Cat DNA decoded

A new technology from Japan, developed by Hitachi Inc. called the “Brain-Machine An Abyssinian cat from Missouri, named Cinnamon, has just made scientific history. Researchers have largely decoded her DNA, a step that may aid the search for treatments for both feline and human diseases.

The report adds cats to the roughly two dozen mammals whose DNA has been unravelled, a list that includes dogs, chimps, rats, mice, cows and of course, people. Why add cats? They get more than 200 diseases that resemble human illnesses, and knowing the details of their genetic makeup should help in the search for vaccines and treatments, researchers say.

Scientists are looking forward to the complete version, which will be useful for making detailed comparisons to the DNA of other animals.

Source: www.tribuneindia.com

Humour

Teacher: Can you tell me something important that didn’t exist 100 years ago?
Student: Me!

Quote

“Education is the most powerful weapon which can use to change the world”

Akanksha Looking for Educational Entrepreneurs!

Akanksha is an organization working with low-income children and communities of Mumbai and Pune through non-formal centres and programmes since 1991. According to Akanksha, their programmes impact the life of the children and help them to learn values and also to live by themselves. Children who have been through the Akanksha programme are employed in various professional fields and are serving society.

Akanksha is now planning to expand this program across India. For this, they are inviting “passionate and skilled Education Entrepreneurs”, who can reach out to over 1000 children each in the course of three years and also help to build a workforce dedicated to alleviating educational inequity in India. Akanksha will provide all its resources, extensive training and support the person to independently set up and launch operations. The National team will look after the continued support and training of its entrepreneurs around the country covering all aspects of implementation, administration and management through training, coaching and observations.

They are looking for people who possess the following qualities:
• Passion for education
• Love of teaching
• Ability to build, manage and support teams
• Organization and planning skills

Interested? If so, please visit www.akanksha.org or contact Vandana in Akanksha at vgoyal80@gmail.com or +91 9833228551

Kerala Village Panchayat Frames its Own English Curriculum

Struggling to retain students in the face of competition from private schools, a village panchayat in Kerala has introduced English right from Class 1 in state-run schools, using its own syllabus and study material.

While other schools, run by the state government or aided by it, teach English only from Class 3
onwards, about 600 children in the nine schools under the Padne village panchayat in Kasaragod district now have English lessons two years ahead, thanks to the ‘Sweet English’ project. In Kerala, private schools attract students, despite exorbitant fees, essentially because of the English medium.

Under the now two-week-old project called ‘Sweet English’, the panchayat has provided free study material to the children and handbooks to teachers. ‘And this innovative education drive costs the panchayat only Rs.40,000,’ noted Manoj N, Panchayat Secretary.

“The classes will familiarise children with the English Alphabet, through expressive phrases and picture cards, and are expected to provide a good language base before the children are formally introduced to English from Class 3, as per the state government syllabus, ” he explained.

“There was already a proposal from the Kerala Curriculum Framework to introduce English from Class 1. And a revision of textbooks is also on the cards next year. But we are doing it ahead of others on the insistent demands of the parent-teachers associations, to start teaching English right from Class 1,” said Santhosh A.V., a teacher at Udinur Central Upper Primary School in the Panchayat.

Adapted from www.insidekerala.com

What really motivates students?

Students who are engaged in their work are energized by four goals - success, curiosity, originality, and satisfying relationships. How do we cultivate these drives in the classroom?

Goals and Needs: The SCORE
A model based on a research study conducted by the authors showed that most people are
motivated by the following factors:
* Success (the need for mastery)
* Curiosity (the need for understanding)
* Originality (the need for self-expression)
* Relationships (the need for involvement with others)
* Energy (classroom conditions at the right level for students)

Convincing Kids They Can Succeed
Before we can use success to motivate our students to produce high-quality work, we must meet
three conditions:
1. We must clearly articulate the criteria for success and provide clear, immediate, and
constructive feedback.
2. We must show students that the skills they need to be successful are within their grasp, by
clearly and systematically modeling these skills.
3. We must help them see success as a valuable aspect of their personalities.

Arousing Curiosity
How can we ensure that our curriculum arouses intense curiosity? By making sure it features two
defining characteristics: the information about a topic is fragmentary or contradictory, and the topic relates to students’ personal lives.

The authors cite examples to stimulate students’ curiosity by using a strategy called “mystery.” We confront the class with a problem - for example, “What killed off the dinosaurs?” - and with the actual clues that scientists or historians have used to try to answer that question and others. Students then work together in groups, retracing the steps scientists took in weighing the available evidence to arrive at an explanation.

As for topics that relate to students’ lives, the connection here cannot be superficial; it must involve an issue or idea that is both manageable and unresolved.

Encouraging Originality
* Connect creative projects to students’ personal ideas and concerns
* Expand what counts as an audience.
* Consider giving students more choice. The medium of expression, for example, is often as
important to an artist as the expression itself. (Art, creative writing, collage, music)
* Use the “abstracting” strategy to help students fully understand a genre and to maintain high
standards.

Fostering Peer Relations
Students want and need work that will enhance their relationships with people they care about.
Student work can be complementary for e.g. if one student’s job is to learn about tortoises, another’s should be to learn about snakes, and a third student could research on lizards. After they do their research, they could jointly develop a poster comparing and contrasting these three reptile types.

Orchestrating Classroom Performance
Teachers, the first thing we should try to “score” is our own performance. Different people value the four goals we have discussed to different degrees in different situations. Which ones are particularly important to you? How does this preference affect the way you run your classroom? By observing and understanding how classroom conditions can create or repress student engagement, we can gradually move toward a more successful, curious, creative, and reciprocal school system.

Adapted from “What do students want (and what really motivates them)?” by Richard Strong, Harvey F. Silver and Amy Robinson, Educational Leadership

News Bite

• Mid-day meal for class VI-VIII kids
• Orissa students use pocket money to build Gandhi Statue
• HC appoints 18 lawyers to check school amenities in Delhi
• For a healthier tomorrow
• Students’ brush with world record

Mid-day meal for class VI-VIII kids

Seven lakh students of class VI-VIII in 36 blocks of Haryana will get mid-day meals in school The education minister said the scheme covered 15 lakh students from class I-V. An annual expenditure of about Rs 100 crore would be incurred for the scheme, compared to the earlier a sum of Rs 73 crore. The step would prove to be a boon for poor children, who would get hygienic food, and help in improving attendance in schools.

Orissa students use pocket money to build Gandhi Statue

All the students of a school in an Orissa village collected a part of their pocket money, for the past four years to build a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in front of their school. The unveiling of the statue on Gandhi’s birth anniversary on Oct 2 was like dream come true for the students of the Government Upper Primary school in Haldipali village, about 370 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar. For the past four years, they had been collecting one rupee each from every student at the beginning of the month to help build the statue.

HC appoints 18 lawyers to check school amenities in Delhi

In a bid to measure the standard of teaching and status of basic facilities in the MCD-run schools of the capital, the High court has appointed 18 volunteers who will keep an eye on the status of education imparted in these schools.

Meanwhile, in order to facilitate smooth functioning of volunteers, the Court has also strongly warned the schools officials not to interfere with the tasks of the volunteers while they discharge their duties.

For a healthier tomorrow

Did you know that 31 diseases can be prevented by eating healthy, staying active and avoiding tobacco and alcohol? There is a growing concern over the health of children, owing to reduced physical activity, imbalanced diets, and increased inactivity due to hours spent in front of the television or computers.

As a result, schools are now committing to a curriculum that would empower kids to make the right choices to help them lead an active lifestyle. According to CBSE, the board is working on ‘health and wellness clubs’ in schools with an emphasis on increasing the physical activity among students.

Students’ brush with world record

With an eye to creating a world record, over 145,000 students from more than 350 schools brushed their teeth simultaneously in 23 cities across the country in an initiative to promote good habits for oral health. “Up to 90 percent people in our country have some or the other oral problem. Most of us do not even brush our teeth properly and visiting the dentist for regular check-ups is a far cry.” said, Ashok Dhoble, Secretary General of the Indian Dental Association.

Teacher’s Bite

Mrs. B. Gayethri Devi,
Principal, Little Flower Public School, Bangalore

The Education system in India

The Education system in India is definitely a mixed bag – while it still retains methods of “Spoon – feeding”, “cramming” and is bent on making children “book worms”; it is also in the process of adopting innovations in education such as individuality, self – worth, capacity, all round development .

However, in most places in India, sad to say, the older methods still rule the roost, leading to very high stress levels in children – childhood is definitely lost! Increased class strength, huge syllabus, the present examination system and evaluation are the potholes. Innovative teaching techniques are available mostly in high-end schools.

Positive changes that are being implemented are regular assessment instead of exams in primary classes and cancellation of ranking system. But we have a long way to go in improving education, especially rural education. Education is the right of every child and it must be delivered in the right and best possible manner.

Importance of teacher training and development in educating students
Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him fishing and you feed him for life. That
should be the attitude towards teaching in the present day scenario.

The benchmark for a teacher should be teaching degree, no doubt. However, gone are the
days when the teacher taught, students listened and prepared for examinations. Today the
teacher is a facilitator, friend and guide. Focus should be on moulding the student in tune with
the times, in both subject knowledge and life experience.

Within these parameters, a teacher-training degree and hands-on experience coupled with innovative implementation of ideas should be the basis for good teaching practices

ASSET
Our association with ASSET has been a long one, as we have been conducting this examination in my school for a number of years.

The question papers challenges the intelligence of the students keeping in mind their age and knowledge. The questions framed are probing and analytical at the same time. They encourage the examinees to put on their thinking caps and these questions are within ability levels of the students, This test nurtures curiosity and innovatively tests the children while preparing them for future exams.

Mind Control: Forget the Remote

A new technology from Japan, developed by Hitachi Inc. called the “Brain-Machine
Interface”, converts brain waves into electronic signals, and allows the user to control
mechanisms. A key advantage to Hitachi’s technology is that sensors do not have to physically
enter the brain. The user attaches the cap to his head, and does simple mental commands. Optical fibers connected the cap to a mapping device, is linked to the mechanism to be operated. Activity in the brain’s frontal cortex, which handles problem solving, puts the mechanism in motion.

Hitachi’s scientists are set to develop a brain-TV remote controller, letting users turn on or off a TV and switch channels by just thinking. The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards, and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs.
Source: ACE Monthly Journal, Issue 1, 2007

Humour

Teacher: I asked you to draw a cow eating some grass but you’ve only drawn the cow ?
Student: Yes, the cow ate all the grass !

Quote

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
-Clay P. Bedford

School Education in India more expensive than University: UNESCO

Families in India have to spend more on primary school education for their children, making the
fundamental right to basic education for the Indian poor a distant dream, according to a recent
UNESCO report.

In contrast, university education, which typically helps the better off students, remains subsidised and costs just the half of primary school spending.

“Households pay for more than one-quarter, 28 percent, of the costs to send their children to primary and secondary school. These fees pose a very real barrier for the children of poor families,” the report ‘Global Education Digest 2007′, released by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), said.

“Yet at the same time, households assume just 14 percent of the costs for university education, which typically benefits better off students,” it added.

Mapping latest education statistics from primary to tertiary levels in more than 200 countries, the reports focuses on the financing of education and provides a series of indicators to compare spending patterns across countries and levels of education.

The report stressed the need to monitor the balance between public and private expenditure.

“Systems that are overly reliant on private contributions, especially at the primary level of education, raise the risk of excluding students from poorer families,” it warns.

Noting that in small number of countries the main flow of funding for primary and secondary education comes directly from governments to public institutions, the report says there are exceptions such as India where “a substantial share” of the public education budget is channelled to private institutions.

“In India, it is the result of a system by which the government contracts with private schools to help meet demand for the schools, which far exceed that of available public systems,” it said

As for distribution of educational resources in the country, the UNESCO report said the distribution of funds was “extremely uneven” among the school-age populations.

“In India this is largely because of low participation rates at the higher levels of education. Majority of children do have access to low cost primary education but are largely excluded from higher levels of education where greater resources per student are invested,”it said.

“Equity issues are clearly at play given this uneven distribution of resources,” it adds.

In the global scenario, the US emerged as the single greatest investor in education with its public education budget is close to the combined budget of all governments in the six regions: the Arab States, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa spend only 2.4 percent of the worlds public education resources. Yet about 15 percent of the school-age population lives in these countries, according to the report.
Source: Economicstimes.indiatimes.com