Govt mulls Bharatpedia for students & teachers...

New Delhi: The HRD ministry is planning to launch Bharatpedia, a collaborative online encyclopaedia like Wikipedia. Primarily for students and teachers, Bharatpedia will be part of the National Mission in Education through ICT in the 11th Plan. Sources said the name Bharatpedia was coined by HRD officials to evoke instant association.

A senior official said, “Work on Bharatpedia is going on. It will have content for college students as well as others. It can be edited, updated and corrected just like Wikipedia entries. But it is aimed mainly at the teaching community.” It will also have e-books in English for most subjects. “Launching an encyclopaedia is the next step after we started online portal Sakshat,” the official added.

The National Mission in Education, a collaborative effort of the HRD ministry, department of IT and department of telecommunications, aims to establish EduSat teaching hubs in each of the 200 central universities besides having 2,000 broadband internet nodes in each of them. There will also be one satellite interactive terminal to provide network connectivity in 18,000 colleges. The mission also involves digitization of video content of teaching and learning material generated over time. TNN

BIAS ALLEGED

Indian boards ‘downmarket’, IB students reap the benefit

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: There’s a clear bias in schools where international boards operate out of the same building as ICSE or SSC schools. In some cases, school managements give preferential treatment to children from the international boards. Kids from these boards are also conscious of the fact that they are coughing up three times the fee that their counterparts in “downmarket’’ Indian boards pay.

For instance, SSC students at Podar International School, Santa Cruz, have suddenly been told that they cannot be issued books from the school library—they can only read books while sitting in the library. On the other hand, children from the IB school that runs in the same building are allowed to take home library books. This has caused an uproar among parents. The management, however, has completely denied this and said that all children are equally important to them.

However, while the management says that it “believes in the SSC curriculum’’, the parents aren’t convinced. Especially since they received circulars during the admission season earlier this year, giving them the option of joining the ICSE and CBSE schools run by the same management. Incidentally, TOI has information that ICSE and CBSE students were not given similar circulars during admission time, giving them the option of joining the SSC school.

At another upmarket suburban school, Jamnabai Narsee at Vile Parle, where classes for the IB section are conducted on the sixth floor, IB students are allowed to use the lift, along with the staff. The rest of the children simply walk up the stairs, even those with classes on the fifth floor.

“Kids from international boards are acutely aware that they are coughing up a fee of Rs 1 lakh compared to their counterparts from the ICSE section who only pay Rs 35,000,’’ say parents of those studying in Jamnabai. In fact, they often mock ICSE kids for being “nerds’’ who’re studying hard for a high Std X score that’ll help them get into an Indian college whereas the kids in the international board feel that an IGCSE-cum-IB qualification is a ticket to the Big Apple.

Principal Josephine Vaz, however, says she hasn’t come across any instances of snobbishness in the school.

IITs to lower bar for SC/STs even further

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: Directors of the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have decided to lower entry levels for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students even further to cope with the issue of reserved seats falling vacant. On Sunday, the seven heads who met in Kharagpur unanimously agreed to allow a 50% relaxation of scores for SC/ST students, up from the current 40%, for the upcoming Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) in April 2009.

With regard to the JEE-2008 scores, if the last general category student was admitted with an overall score of 172 out of 489, the aggregate cut-off for an SC/ST student was 104 (after a 40% relaxation). If the general category cut-off in 2009 is the same, the bar for SC/ST candidates would be lowered to 86 (50% of 172). Similarly, subject-wise cut-offs would also be relaxed.

This means that with the last general category student scoring 5 in maths, 0 in physics and 3 in chemistry in JEE 2008, an SC/ST student who had scored up to 40% lower—3 in maths, 0 in physics and 1.8 in chemistry—was given a seat in the IITs. Now that relaxation will also be 50%.

MERIT CUT BY 50%
This year, the score of the last general category student to be admitted was 172 (out of 489). The cut-off for an scheduled caste or scheduled tribe student was 104, or 40% lower

Next year, assuming the general category cut-off remains the same, SC/ST students with 86 marks (50% of 172) will make the cut

Also, an SC/ST student with 2.5 marks in maths, 0 in physics and 1.5 in chemistry could squeeze into the prestigious institutes.

‘Lowering standards only way to fill quota’
Mumbai: Directors of the prestigious IITs have decided to further dilute admission norms for SC/ST students. In 2009, if the general category subject cut-offs remain constant, an SC/ST student with 2.5 in maths, 0 in physics and 1.5 in chemistry would squeeze into the hallowed institutes.

IIT-Guwahati director Gautam Barua told TOI, “The change has been brought about keeping in mind that the intake for SC/ST students will go up over the years.’’ Not only are there more seats for the reserved category candidates because of the eight new IITs, but the 27% OBC rollout, which requires the IITs to keep their general category seats intact, will see the intake for SC/STs go up by over 50% from 2008 to 2010 (see box).

Moreover, the IITs have also informed the HRD ministry that this year’s vacant seats would be carried forward and added to next year’s total seats.

The changes do not end there. Scores will be further lowered by another 50% for reserved category students who will be taken in for the IITs’ yearlong preparatory course (86 would be further lowered to 43). This course trains quota students for a year to equip them to qualify for the IITs. “Lowering academic standards is the only way to fill so many reserved category seats,’’ said a former JEE chairman.

IIT heads have also decided to alter the manner in which students are shortlisted for the IITs. Currently, the lowest 20% students are eliminated and a minimum cut-off score is decided. However, since the last two years, these rock-bottom qualifying marks have rendered the minimum subject-wise scores to be achieved meaningless. “We have decided to change the 80:20 rule. It will be a minor change. But we will now have more rational subject-wise cutoff scores,’’ added Barua.

Lastly, the directors have decided to write to the ministry to permit them to hold JEE-2009 in Singapore too. Currently, the exam is being conducted in 117 cities. For the first time this year, JEE-2008 was conducted in Dubai.

No SC/STs in six new IITs this year

66 Reserved Seats Will Be Filled In 2009

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi/Mumbai: The six new IITs will not have any SC/ST student this year. The 66 vacancies for them (19 for SCs and 47 for STs) will now be filled next year, over and above the prescribed quota. No decision, however, has been taken on the 68 vacant seats in the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad and 14 empty slots in IT-BHU (IT school in the Benaras Hindu University).

Meanwhile, preparatory classes in the old IITs will be larger than previous years. The number of students admitted to the year-long preparatory course is based on the vacancy of reserved category seats in each discipline in each IIT. As three of the total four seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe students in the chemical engineering stream at IIT-Delhi fell vacant, three ST students will be admitted to the preparatory course.

Taking that logic forward, the seven old IITs will admit 163 SC students and 216 ST students to the preparatory course, according to information put out by the joint admission board, and those seats will be considered as filled seats. Dhande and M S Ananth, director of IIT-Madras, hence said, all the reserved seats in the old IITs have been occupied. The preparatory course is a feeder class; it trains quota students for a year to equip them to qualify for the IITs. After a year, these students need to take a test and they are admitted to the IIT only if they clear the test.

But the preparatory course will not run in the new institutions which have 66 vacant seats. Recreating the Nehruvian style of institution building, the IITs have also decided to reach out to Indian researchers and engineers abroad to come back and join the new IITs. “In the 1950s, jobs were offered in canteens and offices. We have a goal of hiring 3,000 teachers over the next three years. We have decided to reach out to 50,000 engineers/researchers all over the world. Even if 500 come, it would be fine,’’ Sanjay Dhande, director of IIT, Kanpur, said after a meeting of the IIT heads here on Wednesday.

He also said it was payback time for the seven old IITs by mentoring the six new ones. Dhande said the vacancies of SC/STs of JEE 2008 in the six new IITs would be made available for the admission exercise of 2009 as a one-time measure.

This year, 3.11 lakh students took the JEE for 6,992 seats in 13 IITs. Of these, 414 seats were reserved for ST candidates, but only 159 were shortlisted. Similarly, only 690 were shortlisted for the 832 SC seats. The OBC figures were 1,099 out of 1,134. The IIT directors also said all attempts are being made to ensure the brand equity of the institutes does not get diluted.

Get CAT scores through SMS, email
Ahmedabad: For any Common Admission Test (CAT) applicant, more than the months of preparation, what seemed longer were the few hours that they had to spend in front of a computer, waiting for scores. But the candidates for CAT 2008 to be conducted by IIMs in November will not have to wait at all as their score will be announced by a beep. For the first time, the IIMs will be making the CAT scores available on SMS and e-mail. The option of seeing the score on the website and receiving a formal letter from the institute still exists, but the SMS and email will help the candidates learn of their scores sooner. The institute will close the selling of application forms on Thursday and the test will be conducted on November 16. The CAT results will be declared on January 9, 2009.

Vasundhara Vyas Mehta

Math and English on the STREET

The students of this school may up and move anytime, but the teacher will stay

Pronoti Datta | TNN

Ramesh Joshi hasn’t watched a film in over a year. On the rare occasion he’s free, the 18-year-old Virar resident permits himself to glimpse movie clips on the internet or listen to some bhangra. The rest of the day goes in long journeys on the train, attending Siddharth College, coaching teenagers as part of Akanksha’s social leadership programme and teaching street kids. “I like to be busy all the time,’’ he explains with a gravity that matches his prematurely grey hair. “An empty mind is the devil’s workshop.’’

Joshi’s missionary zeal to educate underprivileged kids led to Ashayein, a year-old project that involves teaching street children at Churchgate and Worli. The initiative is part of Youth Ventures, a programme that mentors 27 social entrepreneurs by giving them fellowships of Rs 10,000 to act on causes dear to them. Does his absence of a social life bother him? “When I serve people, I get a different kind of energy,’’ he says with a self-effacing quality that’s uncommon for someone his age.

It was only natural that Joshi chose to work with street kids. As a supervisor of a construction site at Cuffe Parade, his father helped poor children in the area get into schools. The student decided to take up where his father had left off and began to scout around for kids to teach. He zeroed in on a group of children who live across Fashion Street near Churchgate and a bunch that calls the area behind Worli’s Adarsh Nagar slums home. (The Worli branch is run by Joshi’s friend Tauqeer Sheikh.)

Thrice a week, Joshi, four volunteers and eight to 12 children occupy a quiet corner of the street to study. The pupils are between the ages of six and 14 and while most of them attend school, there are a few who are too poor to afford formal education. “We teach them whatever they feel like learning that day,’’ says Joshi. While the volunteers communicate with the children in Hindi, they teach them both Hindi and English as well as math.

Most of the kids’ parents have been supportive as they want better futures for their offspring. However, Joshi has had to field abuse from parents who consider education an indulgence and would rather their kids lend a hand at home. The social worker’s efforts have paid off. Just over two weeks into Ashayein, Joshi was given a pleasant surprise by one of his students, Sachin, who perfectly recited the English alphabet and showed off handwriting that was remarkably beautiful for an untutored kid. In “two-three weeks I made such a difference’’, Joshi muses. “If I continue like this the children will bloom.’’

However, given the nomadic lives of pavement dwellers, Joshi is afraid that he might one day find that his students have upped and left or been evicted. “I hope I continue with the same kids,’’ he says. “I only pray they let me make a difference in their lives.’’ The children have, in turn, made a profound impact on Joshi. “I’m more confident than before,’’ he points out. Ashayein has been one step forward in a series of efforts at overcoming his inhibitions. He spent six years training in naval exercises with the Sea Cadet Corp at Colaba. Two years ago, he joined Akanksha’s social leadership programme as a trainer educating teenagers about relevant issues such as the environment and child sexual abuse. He might wear his modesty like a badge, but there’s no mistaking Joshi’s supreme self-assurance.

The metamorphosis Joshi is experiencing is an indication that Youth Ventures has been a success, according to its director Vipin T. The aim of the programme is not “the impact the participants have on society but the transformative experience.’’ The 27 changemakers, he hopes, will engender a community of people who will alter the perception of social work, which continues to be regarded as the purview of people in “torn kurtas’’, to something that is “an integral part of life’’.

(This is part of an Independence Day series on youngsters who have chosen to light a candle rather than curse the darkness)

FROM SIR, WITH LOVE: A stone’s throw from Churchgate Station, a pavement turns into a patshala

Education as fundamental right soon?

Cabinet Takes Up Bill Promising Free Edu In 6-14 Age Group Today

Akshaya Mukul & Mahendra Kumar Singh | TNN

New Delhi: After a wait for four years, and after a lot of dithering and resistance from finance and law ministries, the Union Cabinet on Friday will finally take up for consideration the Right to Education Bill, promising free and compulsory education to children in the age group of 6-14, by making it a fundamental right.

The proposed enabling legislation, first mooted by the Kothari Commission in 1964 and passionately argued for by former education minister M C Chagla later, would come before the cabinet six years after the 86th Constitutional Amendment making free and compulsory education a fundamental right. Earlier it was part of Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution. The proposed bill is expected to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament and is unlikely to meet any resistance since both NDA and Left have been demanding this legislation. The Constitutional amendment was done during the NDA regime but it would be notified only after the enabling bill becomes a law.

The right to education will cost the exchequer Rs 12,000 crore a year, and even unaided schools would not be outside its ambit since 25% of seats would have to be reserved by them for poor children in the neighbourhood. The Centre would reimburse the cost to these schools. The legislation has host of features that stresses not only on reaching out to every child in the 6- 14 age group but also on quality and accountability of the state and education system.

To ensure the law gets effectively implemented, the bill has provisions prohibiting teachers from undertaking tuitions as well as not letting them being used for non-educational purposes. The bill provides for school management committee in all government and aided schools. It would monitor and oversee the working of the school, manage its assets and ensure quality. There is also a provision that teacher vacancy should never exceed 10% of the strength. To monitor the law implementation, the bill proposes a National Commission for Elementary Education.

TIMES VIEW
This is a cause very dear to us. On July 6, we launched the Teach India campaign to make our little contribution towards education for all. Now the government is set to give the movement a huge boost by making education a fundamental right. A lot of time has been lost—for 44 years we’ve toyed with the idea but just not moved ahead. There is no time to lose. It’s an idea whose time has come.

1st time, 2nd round of IIT admissions

Govt Asks Institutes To Lower Cut-Off Marks To Fill Vacant Quota Seats

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: In the history of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), never has there been a second round of admissions. This year, though, all vacant seats at the 13 IIT campuses, as also at IT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad, will be filled after a second admission list is put out soon.

After a campaign by TOI, officials from the Union HRD ministry met the IIT chiefs in Delhi on Tuesday and asked them to fill up the vacant seats.However, what comes as a shock is that the HRD ministry is not interested in dereserving the vacant seats that were meant for SC, ST and OBC candidates. Instead, the ministry wants the premier engineering schools to dilute merit and further bring down the cut-offs to admit reserved category students. After Tuesday’s meeting, IIT-Delhi director Surendra Prasad said, “We will be taking additional students.’’ The IIT Joint Admission Board has called for an urgent meeting next week to discuss the modalities of filling up the seats that have gone abegging. Director of IIT-Madras M S Ananth pointed out that it would be criminal to take in students by further lowering the cut-offs (see box). “These students will suffer, and so will their self-confidence,’’ he told TOI.

While the last general category student secured admission scored 180, the last SC/ST candidate got 104.

More students will also be accommodated in the preparatory course, which is like a feeder class that trains SC/ST students for a year to equip them to qualify for the IITs. Students need to take a test at the end of the year-long tutorial. If they qualify, the IIT gates are opened to them. For the preparatory course, each IIT relaxes the lowest SC/ST cut-offs by 55%.

With that figure being 104 for both reserved categories this year, the preparatory course cut-off turned out to be 57 out of a total of 489. This cut-off will dip further if additional students have to be admitted.

Times View
We had argued last week that the 430-odd IIT seats that were going vacant because the reserved quotas (OBC/SC/ST) couldn’t be filled should be thrown open to general category candidates in a second round of admissions. Unfortunately, the government seems to have accepted part of our argument—that letting so many seats go unfilled is a waste of resource—and has twisted it into something that threatens to dilute academic standards. Remember that the cut-off for SC/ST students was a much lower 104 marks (out of 489 marks) compared to 180 for general category students. Even then, there weren’t enough students from the OBC/SC/ST categories to fill the entire reserved quota of 2,380 seats (out of a total of 6,992). Allowing general category students to fill up the unutilised quota would’ve resulted in bringing down their cut-off from 180 to say 170, which would still have been way above the 104 cut-off for SC/ST. Instead, the cut-offs for the reserved categories are now likely to be lowered still further. Apart from the impact it could have on IIT standards, past experience shows that a lot of academically weaker students find it difficult to keep up with the rest, and are later forced to drop out. That does not serve the purpose of helping disadvantaged sections of society.


New IITs to also start preparatory courses
Mumbai: With IITs forced to go in for a second round of admissions to fill their seats, IIT-Delhi director Surendra Prasad said preparatory courses would begin at the six new IITs too from this year. While this will put an additional burden on the institutes born overnight, it will prevent a repeat of the ‘vacant seat’ scenario next year as those candidates will be eligible for admission then.

The older IITs managed to fill some SC/ST seats with students who were admitted to the preparatory course in 2007, but there were no such admissions at the new IITs.

This year’s sorry situation is the result of the government commissioning six new IITs—in the process increasing the pool of seats by 720—which led to the increase in quota seats (for which there were simply not enough eligible applicants). Despite the cut-off percentage being lowered in the name of affirmative action, enough reserved category students did not made the grade.

This year, 3.11 lakh students took the Joint Entrance Exam for the 6,992 seats in 13 IITs, the Benaras Hindu University (Information Technology school) and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. Of these, 414 seats had been reserved for ST candidates, but only 159 students were shortlisted. Similarly, only 690 were shortlisted for the 832 SC seats. The OBC figures were 1,099 out of 1,134.