70:30 RULE: ALL EYES ON COURT

Colleges Prepare For Rush Of Students, Parents If Court Lifts Stay On Admissions. Principals Optimistic About A Verdict

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Will junior college aspirants flock to colleges on Monday morning or stay glued to their TVs to get news of the Bombay High Court hearing on the controversial 70:30 reservation rule? Will the court uphold or scrap the quota? These were some of the questions that principals were asking themselves on Sunday night in anticipation of the much-awaited hearing.

This year, a government circular called for colleges to reserve 70% of seats for students in their district. Mumbai has the south Mumbai and suburban districts. The circular, based on a 2003 government resolution, came bang in the middle of the admission process and was followed by an HC petition against it. The court then stayed admissions.

Most principals were optimistic that the court would withdraw the 70:30 rule for this year at least and maintain a status quo. Principals hoped that the court would keep students in mind. They also pondered the possibility of having to redo the entire process.

The stay was announced the day the third merit list was put out. If the stay is lifted, principals expect students who made it to the third list but didn’t finalise admissions to rush to colleges. Students yet to get admissions may also visit colleges to see if the the fourth lists are out.

Ruparel College principal Pradeep Kulkarni said he was not expecting a rush till Monday evening. “Once the high court’s verdict is announced, we will have to wait for a government order based on the HC decision and only then can we resume the admission process,’’ said Kulkarni.

Kirti Narain, Jai Hind College principal, said, “I’ve alerted our watchman in case there’s a crowd outside the college on Monday.’’ She said volunteers, including teachers and students, would be on standby to counsel and guide Class X students and parents. “I myself will reach college as early as 8.30 am,’’ she added.

Last week, when the high court announced its stay on admissions, Narain said her team of teachers stood outside college the whole day, consoling parents and sobbing students who had missed making it to the third merit list.

At KC College, Churchgate, there were a number of unhappy students seeking admissions last week. “We had to explain to them that admissions would not take place because of the court stay,’’ said principal Manju Nichani.

Principals said they have become depressed at the sight of bright children in tears over the merit list. “I have seen so many students with high marks and of a high calibre missing out on admissions,’’ said HR College principal Indu Shahani.

At colleges like Mithibai, where admissions are nearly over, and under 10% of the seats are up for grabs, the authorities don’t expect much of a rush. St Xavier’s, which wound up admissions after the second list, will even carry on with its orientation on Monday.

WILL THE PAPER CHASE RESUME? Many junior college aspirants face an anxious day today.

Students from other Class X boards get a raw deal

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: A scrutiny of the state government’s hurriedly announced marks normalisation system, which is being used for the controversy-hit junior college admissions, reveals a glaring drawback.

The GR calls for marks normalisation across all boards, but the education department has released the averages of the top 10 scores for only the SSC, ICSE and CBSE boards. There are no guidelines for how marks should be normalised for students from other boards, many of whom apply to Mumbai’s junior colleges.

The normalisation system was rammed through by the education department the night admissions began on June 27. It sought to put the scores from various boards on an equal platform, so that admissions could be conducted in a fair manner. However,
while the government gave averages to help calculate the normalised scores of SSC, ICSE and CBSE students, it appeared to have completely forgotten that students from other boards also seek admissions.

In the absence of any clear guidelines on what to do if students from other boards—like the Gujarat board, the Kolkata board or the international IGCSE board—apply, most Mumbai colleges are simply going by such students’ overall percentages. So the normalised scores of SSC, ICSE and CBSE students are being compared to the actual percentages of students from other boards. This is akin to comparing apples with oranges, said some Mumbai college principals.

Education secretary Sanjay Kumar agreed that comparing normalised scores to overall percentages was unfair, but said no such case had been brought to his notice.

Schools, colleges join the closed circuit

Joeanna Rebello | TNN

Mumbai: It was 14 years ago when a crime on the premises of St Mary’s School (SSC), Mazgaon, was detected almost as simply as if the culprit himself confessed... well, unknowingly, he did. A 10thgrader had, after school hours, stolen into a classroom that kept the school’s VCR. The boy evacuated the expensive object and retreated cleanly with his prize. What then implicated him and brought him the boot? His fingerprints; he was the only student in school with 11 fingers.

Schools and colleges now can no longer rely on the damning evidence of anatomical oddities nor can they hope a thief will foolishly leave his imprint behind. Theft, unfortunately, is the least of modern education’s worries; the inventory — bullying, molestation, trespassing, vandalism, rioting — gets more violent as classrooms gain in age.

So, to catch a culprit — student, teacher, peon or intruder — or to thwart his/her very crime, academies in the city are on the hotline to surveillance experts, calling for the latest in CCTV security that can cost between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 7 lakh. Some of the schools that have footed the bills are Holy Family High School (Andheri), Bombay Scottish, Cathedral and John Connon, Jamnabai Narsee (Juhu) and Podar International School. Colleges like Burhani and Wilson, too, have joined the closed circuit.

But it is only in the last few years that Mumbai schools have begun toeing a line that, 11 years ago, delineated the margins of acceptable behaviour in a Nagpur school. The Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School there hooked up 185 cameras as early as 1997.

St Mary’s High School (ICSE) has fitted its campus with a battery of 28 Sony cameras, placed strategically across the school at points of high student density (the grounds, halls, canteen and corridors). “I first saw electronic surveillance of this kind in a school in Gujarat, where cameras were also installed in classrooms,’’ school principal Fr Evarist Newnes said. On the wall in the principal’s office, two Videocon LCD screens deliver the images captured by the cameras’ unblinking eyes. Occasionally, a curious face looks right back but not for long. Everyone knows Big Principal’s watching.

“We appraised the staff and students about the system before we installed it. We informed the parents via a circular; their response suggested they were happy with the extra vigilance. This is a large campus, after all, and we can’t always keep watch on every part,’’ Newnes said.

At St Mary’s (ICSE), the four different models of cameras hope to rein in indiscipline and bullying and keep the grounds free of the rare drug addict who vaults over the boundary wall from the railway tracks. But, more often, the cameras collar the scallywags who give the guard the wink. And the boys are naturally expressing rage against the machine. “We throw sand and water at it after school,’’ a sixth-grader said emotionally. The boy believes that surveillance ends with school hours and crimes committed after the principal retires are ignored. An eighth-grader suggests darkly that the older boys have plotted to damage the devices.

The decision to heighten security often has been prompted by past mistakes. Three years ago, when Cathedral and John Connon at Fort was tallying the pros and cons of digital surveillance, the management was pushed to conviction by the reminder of an incident that had occurred a few years earlier in school. “Exam papers had leaked out and we found the maintenance staff was responsible,’’ superintendent of accounts and administration Gehna Malkani said. “We installed the cameras mainly to keep an eye on housekeeping but the fringe benefit was improved student behaviour. We have been able to identify habitual troublemakers who now keep their antics low.’’ At Cathedral, the accountant’s and cashier’s offices and the room where question papers are photocopied and stored have joined the legion of usual monitored spots like entry gates, corridors, canteens, grounds and halls.

So far, however, cameras have been pardoned from most classrooms where pranks can be pulled with unstinted devilry. St Soldier Public School, Bhayandar, is one of the exceptions, where cameras keeping tabs on classes IX and X got a teacher dismissed a few months ago for laxity.

Student counsellor and psychologist Rajan Bhosle supports the trend. “The pros outnumber the cons by far,’’ he said. “Cases of child abuse are rampant, with children as young as first-, second- and third-graders being molested by the faculty or non-teaching staff. So it’s important to keep a close watch on what’s happening. Cameras can also show early signs of fire or other accidents,’’ he added. Bhosle feels it would do well to observe classroom goings-on along with corridor traffic. “Teachers need to be watched as well. Most may not be adequately trained in handling children with care and resort to old-fashioned methods of correction. Let us at least observe our teachers, if we cannt train them, so they too shoulder the onus of good behaviour.’’

But opposite opinion contends that an atmosphere fostering high ideals and ethics would be more conducive to rectitude than forcing model behaviour through scrutiny.

THE COLLEGE SCENE
Muslim co-ed college Burhani mounted eight cameras on its campus this January to keep holy its code of conduct (opposite sexes cannot walk corridors arm-locked and cellphones are banned). “Our girls come from conservative Muslim families, who need to be convinced their children are in an inviolate atmosphere,’’ vice-principal Mrs Waris explained. “We are able to maintain such an atmosphere through the vigilance of CCTV,’’ Waris said.

Wilson College’s cameras watch out for intruders. The college is still smarting from the controversy foisted on it two years ago by the National Students’ Union of India; its goons entered the college and publicly humiliated professor Vilas Athavale for alleged misconduct with a girl student. “We put up the cameras last year to keep the college safe from outside miscreants,’’ registrar Pradeep Abhyankar said. “We’ve also doubled the number of our security guards from two to four. Our motive is simply to keep the staff and students safe.’’

YOU’RE BEING WATCHED: Twenty-eight CCTVs maintain a strict vigil on the St Mary’s School campus in Mazgaon

‘Don’t weed out kids, work them in’

The much-acclaimed film Taare Zameen Par explored with deep sensitivity how a dyslexic child can shine in school if he receives the proper support, and how the same child can lose his way if there is no understanding of his special need. The film’s writer and creative-director, Amole Gupte, tells Malini Sen that every child is truly special

How would you define inclusive education?
An Inclusive education, to me, is one that does not practice selective exclusion— weeding out children on the basis of unreasonable milestones. This key principle drives me in my daily life. I work with various children’s organisations and schools, and I am shocked by the way the education system systematically and selectively denies children with special needs access to the classroom. What people forget is that the speed of the herd is not determined by the fastest but the slowest in the pack.

What do you feel is the biggest barrier to inclusion?
The existing system is the biggest barrier. Urban India’s priorities have changed—there is more space to park cars than for children to play. You feed the child popcorn and coke and then say s/he is hyperactive. A child has no lawyer or voting rights and we, as adults, are deciding what is right or wrong with him/her. Even our vision of education has narrowed down to brand names and high scores. What happened to the concept of the good old neighbourhood school?

What was the inspiration behind Taare Zameen Par?
Deepa Bhatia, my better half, and I have always shared a strong connection with children. I was a mentor to the neighbourhood kids and then a nanny to my friends’ children. We wanted to make a film on childhood from the child’s point of view, with a focus on our education system, which forces every child to conform. Also, we wanted the film to reflect adult views on children. Everyone in the film, from the parents to teachers, had a take on the little boy. The art teacher, Nikumbh Sir, who recognises the talent of the boy, is named after my art teacher in school. The film also celebrates my teachers in school who left a positive impression on me. I wanted to show how a good teacher can transform a child’s life.

Were you surprised by the huge response that the film received from so many sections?
The film was designed to trigger the emotional response that it did. I have been a student and lover of cinema since 1981 and had worked on this project from 1999. The universal theme of the film connected with each and every member in the audience. The film was not only about dyslexia. I used it as a bridge to reflect on other issues such as the problems in our education system and how we fail to understand a child’s mind. I remember getting a call from a rickshaw-driver in Uttar Pradesh saying “Sir, after seeing the film, I realised I have misjudged my child.”

If you could change one thing about the education system, what would it be?
A total overhaul of the curriculum. I would like to see a more holistic curriculum, where the focus is on knowledge not scores. Besides, I would like to replace rote learning with subjective knowledge that would benefit a child much more.

MAKE ROOM FOR CHILDREN

Children With Learning Problems Are Carelessly Labelled ‘Lazy’ And ‘Dumb’. The System Gives Them Short Shrift. It’s Time Things Changed

Malini Sen | TNN

Aranya is eight and in her drawings, elephants can fly. She enjoys art and has a vivid imagination, but when it comes to her studies, she struggles with writing and concentration. Aranya is suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a neuro-behavioural developmental disorder. The condition manifests itself during childhood and is characterised by a persistent pattern of inattention, forgetfulness, poor impulse control and distraction.

Often children like Aranya are labelled ‘lazy’ or ‘dumb’ although they are neither. “My daughter is very creative. She loves painting animals and working with clay. All she needs is a little more time to grasp her lessons. It is unfortunate that in the pursuit of high scores the power of the imagination is under-estimated,” says Aranya’s mother.

Every child is unique and has his/her own needs. While some need more help to learn and take longer, in the end, they can all learn. “No two children learn the same way. A child has to discover how s/he learns best. There are three ways in which we learn and remember things – by seeing, hearing or doing,” says Geet Oberoi, founder-president, Orkids, The Multidisciplinary Clinic.

Children with special educational needs (SEN) find learning more difficult than the majority of children their age. Although the reasons could be diverse, what is most important is that nearly all these children can reach their full potential with additional support and understanding.

No Charity, Please
Inclusive education means every child irrespective of gender, religion, socio-economic background or needs has the right to attend a mainstream school. Though the government claims to ensure education for every child, schools still lack an inclusive environment where students with different learning needs are made to feel welcome.

Oberoi, however, cautions that though inclusive education is the new mantra, it is not a given that all children with special needs would benefit from it. Instead, she says, “We need to focus on a child’s specific needs and then analyse how a mainstream classroom can benefit the child in his/her learning process.”

According to Satish Kapoor, founder-director, Brotherhood, “Inclusion is an extremely complex process as traditional ways of thinking and organising education are challenged at the deepest level. It denotes more than the physical placement of a child. It is the provision of educational services to all students in such a manner that all of them, with and without disability, belong, and are considered equal members of the classroom. Besides, society has an equally important role to play in achieving inclusion.”

Many schools follow an integrated approach rather than an inclusive one, which means that they have SEN departments within the school to assess children and accordingly provide extra learning support.

The Exclusion Factor
The two major barriers that prevent children with special educational needs from being part of the majority are accountability and awareness. But, as Oberoi points out, “At present, it isn’t even clear which ministry is responsible for special educational needs — the ministry of human resources development or the ministry of social justice and empowerment.”

Besides, unlike a physical disability, a learning difficulty is a ‘hidden disability’ and is not covered by any disability legislations. “Learning difficulty (or disability) does not fall under the purview of either the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act, the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) Act or the National Trust Act. However after being assessed, children with special needs can avail of provisions introduced by boards like the National Institute of Open Schooling and CBSE and also the NCERT. This dichotomy adds to the confusion and policymakers need to take this into consideration,” adds Oberoi.

Aranya’s mother feels that in order to achieve inclusion, ‘rights’ rather than ‘charity’ should be at the centre of the inclusion philosophy. “Every child has a right to education. As a parent, I should not feel defensive. No one is doing me a favour, it is my child’s right,” she says.

Schools who turn away SEN students usually throw up their hands and say they just don’t have the resources—not enough skilled teachers or infrastructure.

Anupriya Chadha, senior consultant (inclusive education), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), feels that a beginning has been made with the SSA programme which has created awareness at the grassroots level. “As of June 2008, we have identified around 2.37 lakh children with learning difficulties. The challenge now is to provide the right support to these children.’’

However, as Ashok Ganguly, head of CBSE and Council of Board for School Education (Cobse),
points out, simply providing provisions and assistance is not enough. “We need to sensitise teachers and other support staff so that students with special needs face no barriers to learning,’’ he says.

Child as Change-maker
Attitudinal barriers begin to be constructed in the minds of children at a young and impressionable age. Therefore, to bring about change, Kapoor believes that it is vital to work with children, who can be the real change-makers. Brotherhood was a partner on a project titled ‘Teen Peers Educators Programme on Disability’. The project was implemented in five mainstream schools in Delhi and its key observation was that classroom peers are an important resource to achieve inclusion.

Another common perception is that including children with special needs will lower a school’s academic standards. On the contrary, asserts Ganguly: “Any innovation in the classroom would only benefit all learners.”

LEARNING DIFFICULTIES...

DYSPRAXIA
Difficulty with co-ordination
Definition: Impairment of the development of motor co-ordination that interferes with academic performance and daily activities Warning signs: Un-coordinated movement, sensitive to high levels of noise, delayed language development, limited concentration, sleep disorder Strategies: A holistic approach – a blend of therapies, dietary interventions for positive gain in daily routine

VISUAL AND AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDERS
Definition: Visual and auditory processing refers to recognising and interpreting information taken in through the senses of sight and sound Warning signs: Difficulty with visual processing affects how visual information is interpreted or processed by the brain and can cause spatial confusion. Difficulty with auditory processing affects the way the brain interprets what one hears and can interfere with speech and language Strategies: Effective intervention is one that utilises the child’s strengths. For example, if a child has difficulty with visual processing, the teacher can read aloud while writing on the board. Similarly, if a child has difficulty with auditory processing, the teacher can supplement oral instructions with written or visual cues. Also, try to minimise distractions, simplify verbal directions and build auditory processing skills through rhyming games

DYSCALCULIA
Difficulty with maths
Definition: Affects mathematical calculations Warning signs: Poor mental maths ability, trouble with sequencing, remembering facts and formulae, inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, fear of financial planning, poor sense of direction and athletic coordination Strategies: Encourage visualising maths problems through pictures, charts and graphs. Use music to help memorise. Provide examples to relate to real-life situations
DYSGRAPHIA
Difficulty with writing
Definition: Difficulty in expressing thoughts in writing and graphing. Generally refers to poor handwriting Warning signs: Strong verbal but poor writing skills, talking to self while writing, slow and laboured writing, misinterpretation of questions Strategies: Encourage them to outline their thoughts and dictate their ideas into a tape recorder and then listen and write down later, a computer to help with writing skills, allow more time for written tasks, use of visual aids

DYSLEXIA
Difficulty with reading
Definition: An inherited condition that makes it difficult to read, write and spell despite average attention Warning signs: Delayed speech, confusion over left and right, mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words (hekalopter for helicopter), struggle with rhymes, difficulty in writing, become visibly tired after reading for only a short time, misspell words, illegible handwriting Strategies: Training in phonological awareness (sound-letter association) is the main component of remediation for children with dyslexia

90% is not good enough any longer

10,000 In Elite Club In City, More Than Top Colleges Can Take In

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: If students with scores to be proud of are now reduced to hunting for seats in second-rung colleges, it’s because a whopping 20,000 and more children across the three main boards—SSC, CBSE and ICSE—are flaunting scorecards that translate into 90% or more marks. Of them, over 10,000 are said to be in Mumbai alone, a number that far exceeds what the top colleges can accommodate.

Data collected from the state board reveals that there are 4,083 students from the city who have scored more than 90% this year. The corresponding state-wide figure stands at 13,679. If 1.63% of Mumbai’s Class X students scored over 90%, one in every five students (20%) from the CBSE board crossed that magic figure. Of the 3,345 CBSE students who took the Class X exam this year, 650 have scored 90%-plus. The ICSE board refused to part with such information.

Moreover, the state’s marks normalisation formula—which aims to put students of all boards on par—has inflated the marks of thousands of others who scored between 85% and 89%, thus expanding the population of the elite 90 percentile club.

So, if there are 1,021 CBSE students who scored between 80% and 89%, sources in the state board say there are 4,000 to 4,500 students from Mumbai who have scored between 85% and 89%.

Last year, D G Ruparel College was the only institution to close its admission counters over 90% after the final list. This year, H R College of Commerce and Economics, K C College and Jai Hind College, which closed admissions below 80% last year, have filled up over 85% of their seats with 90 percentile-plus students. That by itself indicates the large pool of top scorers that the city has this year.

Principal of H R College Indu Shahani pointed out, “While drawing up the third list, I noticed that we had over 100 students who had scored between 92.23 percentile and 92.26 percentile.’’ While her second admission list closed at the 90.56 percentile, the third list closed admissions at the 90.27 percentile.

SCORE-CHERS
In Maharashtra 20,000 | 90%-plus scorers across SSC, CBSE, ICSE boards In Mumbai the figure is over 10,000 4,083 students from SSC board got over 90% So did 650 CBSE students | Another 4,000 SSC students crossed the 90% mark after ‘normalisation’ of scores | Almost 800 CBSE students benefitted from ‘normalisation’ *The ICSE board did not give the pertinent figures Distinction losing value like dollar

Mumbai: The problem of plenty in Class X results this year has left the ‘pedestrian’ first-class and distinction-holders high and dry.

Devaluation of the distinction, it seems, has been worse than the dollar depreciation. In fact, in 1975, the bar for distinction was raised from 70% to 75% in the state after it was felt that 70% had become commonplace. That was the first year that the state also shifted its matriculation exam from class XI to class X.

Since then the number of distinction-holders have gone up year on year; this year, SSC board chairperson Vijaysheela Sardesai pointed out that the population of distinction-holders has gone up by 4% this year as compared to 2007. Basanti Roy, secretary of the state board’s Mumbai division, said that if one were to plot the city results over the years, an improvement at all levels is evident.

“The borderline cases have fallen from 30% to 15%. A population of students who used to score 60% today manages to get about 70% to 75%, thanks to the internal assessment, objective pattern of the paper as also an increased awareness of competition in which students prepare for Class X exams from Class IX itself,’’ observed Roy. “If 33 schools had 0% pass percentage in 2006, just 10 schools in the Mumbai region had 0% pass percentage this year. Similarly, if 192 schools had 100% success rate in 2006, the number has gone up to 700 institutions this year.’’

Betterment of scores has been seen across boards. The CBSE board has 2,061 distinction-holders of the total 3,345 students who took Class X this year. The case is the same with the ICSE board. A few years ago, several colleges used to give an addition of 5% to ICSE students because their curriculum was considered difficult and their evaluation pattern tough.