EDUCATION - 2004 - Indian Social Institute

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practices at the Secretariat in the Players Building is fine, but what is happening in the field offices is very different. Nothing moves without paying money and in such cases one just has to shell out a certain amount to acquire a lower income group certificate without any questions being asked," a senior official remarked. (The Hindu, 29-2004) Poor students get `free education’ in private schools (11) NEW DELHI, Aug.28 : They are among the 7,400 students of economically backward section who have got admitted in a private school with a free education. But, it will not be a free lunch all the way. Unable to help their children in their homework, parents are having to spend money on private tuitions. But, still there is a satisfaction that their children will finally get a good education. “I wanted my children to get quality education which was not possible in government schools. I had too literally plead to people to let my children into their schools,” said a Nangloi resident, Ms Nazma Begum. But still the students can not relax. They need to pay attention to trivial things like presentation of homework and maintaining notebooks that the other students might take for granted. (Statesman, 29-8-2004) 30 th Aug Govt ignored primary education: MPs panel (11) New Delhi: Just a 3.5% decline in the school dropout rate in a decade, a mere 33% recruitment of teachers, 370 Kendriya Vidyalayas functioning without permanent buildings — government's efforts on primary education are nothing more than a lick and a promise. Parliament's standing committee report on human resource development says "primary education has not really been the priority area of the government". Debunking the government's claim that the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has resulted in an "outstanding" decline in the number of out-of-school children from 2.3 crore in April 2003 to 61 lakh in December last year, the committee said it was an “illusion”. "Monitoring of the developments and failures is ensured regularly," the committee has told the government. Lack of teachers and absenteeism are major causes for the high dropout rate, according to the committee report. "Because of this, the dropout rate has come down by just 3.5% during the last decade — from 42.6% in 1991 to 39.1% in 2001." The government's policy to substitute regular trained teachers with under-trained Shiksha Karmis has been criticised by the committee. "Instead of directly attacking the problem of teacher absenteeism, the department (of education) has created a cadre of semi-trained teachers. Sincere steps should be taken to ensure that only fully trained teachers were into teaching process." Noting the abysmal state of adult education, the committee pointed out that only 77% of the allocated funds were used. "An increase of a mere Rs 17 crore from last financial year would not be adequate in the face of the gigantic task before the government," the report said. The committee recommended that children who drop out should be integrated into the continuing education programmes under adult education. (Times of India, 30-8-2004) 1 st September Attorney-general to simplify school admission process (11) New Delhi, Aug. 31: The attorney-general will now have a new task — to devise ways to end the virtual "harassment" of children who want admission in schools. This was directed by the Delhi high court on Tuesday as it continued with its tireless efforts to simplify the admission procedure to pre-nursery classes and thus deal with the practice of interviews of children and their parents. Taking a serious view of the trend, Justice D.K. Jain and Justice S.R. Bhat has sought Attorney- General Milon Banerjee's assistance in deciding whether or not interviewing children and their parents is required for admissions to nursery and pre-primary classes. "Keeping in view the importance of the issue, we think it appropriate to request the attorney-general to assist the court in the matter," the bench said, while issuing a notice to A-G's office. Besides this, the court has also invited individuals, schools or educational institutes to suggest alternate ways for helping in this matter. "All bodies, individuals and schools interested in assisting the court in the matter may file their submissions in the form of affidavits within two weeks," the bench ruled. The court took up the issue after a plea was filed by three parents challenging a single bench judgement which had rejected the plea for banning interviewing of children and their parents. The petitioners' counsel, Mr Ashok Agarwal, had informed the court that several schools have already put up
anners inviting applications for admission to pre-primary classes. (Asian Age, 1-9-2004) 2 ND September NCERT fails to meet deadline. (11) Distribution ofpre-2000 history text books still underway New Delhi, Sept. 1: The six-week deadline set by the executive committee of the National Council for Educational Research and Training to make available pre-2000 history text books to all schools following the CBSE syllabus, as part of the government's drive to "detoxify" the history textbooks gets over on Thursday, but the distribution work is still underway. The NCERT has blamed the nationwide truckers strike that was called off on Saturday for the delay. But officials say that they have stepped up distribution work and hope to achieve the target in the next couple of days. The executive committee of NCERT, which met on July 19, had decided not to change the history text books for the current academic session, keeping in view students' interest but "desaffronise" them from the next session. The committee had decided that the books which were replaced by the present text books would be printed in sufficient numbers to enable at least five copies to be sent free to each school under the CBSE syllabus, as reference material. The executive committee had decided to make these books available to teachers as reference material within six weeks. "While the publication work was complete on time the distribution aspect suffered a minor setback due to the nationwide truckers' strike. Despite this crunch, NCERT is hopeful of achieving its target of providing these books to the schools in the next couple of days," officials said. The nationwide distribution status shows that CBSE has been supplied 22,000 copies in English and 1,500 copies in Hindi for Classes 6 to 8 and 8,800 copies in English and 300 copies in Hindi for Classes 10 and 12 till August 31. The directorate of education, Delhi government was supplied the books for Class 11 and 12 on August 26. (Asian Age, 2-9-2004_ 6 TH September CBSE plans grading system up to class VIII - (11) New Delhi: Students up to Class VIII will be spared the percentile race. The CBSE will now be introducing the grading system in Class VI to VIII. Till now, the CBSE had kept grading till Class V, under its continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) system. A nine-point grading system will also be used in Class X in 2006. Speaking to TOI, CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly said: "We are recommending schools to go for the grading system from this academic session only, though perhaps the implementation nationwide may take longer." The introduction of grading in Class VI to VIII is seen as a positive move by many teachers. Ganguly revealed that while no "mark bandwidth" has as yet been issued, "We will ensure that there's flexibility in the issue. What we want is to link it (the grading) to Class IX and X." As a part of this, the 20% internal assessment in Class IX may be evaluated in the five-point grading system, he added. Meanwhile, schools are happy about the decision. Said Bharati Sharma, principal of Amity International: "I think this will help students understand subjects rather than just score in them. Right now, even half a mark creates tremendous pressure on a child." (Time of India, 6-9-2004) Academics angry with PM - (11) New Delhi: Prominent "Left-oriented" academics are not too pleased with PM Manmohan Singh's recent remarks against the role of ideology in education and "fundamentalism of Left or Right." Accusing the PM of "playing into the hands of BJP and RSS", these intellectuals chose the platform provided by Sahamat, a cultural organisation that is part of the Left family, to air their discontent. While historian Man Habib expressed his anger over the PM's remark on ideology in education, economist Prabhat Patnaik accused the government of failing to keep the promises it made to the poor and deprived. Habib said: "By making such remarks, Manmohan Singh has accepted half of RSS's case that previous textbooks were biased. What has Left fundamentalism got to do with books written by Bipan Chandra who extolled Mahatama Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru? If this is the case, Gandhi and Nehru were also Left fundamentalists. Manmohan Singh has to decide or he will be left out alone." Singh had said, "I do not favour fundamentalism of extreme Right or Left," and had stressed on the need to ensure "that education did not become a prisoner of ideology." While battle lines are drawn on the ideological front, the government's
Page 1 and 2: EDUCATION - 2004 Compiled & Edited
Page 3 and 4: GUWAHATI, FEB. 4. The Axom Sarba Si
Page 5 and 6: Anger against profound illiteracy (
Page 7 and 8: The Central officials brought up a
Page 9 and 10: 8 th April 20% reservation likely i
Page 11 and 12: HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi no
Page 13 and 14: Secondary Education, the Union Publ
Page 15 and 16: New Delhi, May 22: The new human re
Page 17 and 18: y his ministry "which puts the stud
Page 19 and 20: NEW DELHI, JUNE 1. The Bharatiya Ja
Page 21 and 22: agree with. "These books were not w
Page 23 and 24: handing over higher education to ma
Page 25 and 26: College, at a press conference here
Page 27 and 28: CABE, somewhat smaller in size had
Page 29 and 30: 'History of India can't be history
Page 31 and 32: Another TN school catches fire, non
Page 33 and 34: anch of a nationalised bank to that
Page 35 and 36: 11. The notices were issued after h
Page 37 and 38: the situation is the same in almost
Page 39 and 40: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has sought corpo
Page 41: transparent manner," the release ad
Page 45 and 46: shades of saffron and ask the autho
Page 47 and 48: function in his hometown of Vadnaga
Page 49 and 50: egarding minority education in the
Page 51 and 52: The evaluators compared learning le
Page 53 and 54: 9 th Nov. India again gets red grad
Page 55 and 56: other Central government institutes
Page 57 and 58: she added. According to sources, ex
Page 59: Bill on panel for minority bodies p

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