Edu bill: A few more hurdles to overcome

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: After a three-year wait, the Union cabinet has finally cleared the Right to Education Bill, a revolutionary piece of legislation that aims to change the face of education in India. But whether the Bill will be passed in parliament before the elections is a million dollar question. If it is not passed, it will lapse and the next government will have to re-introduce the Bill from scratch.

While the next Lok Sabha session will be in December, it will probably be a very short session.“The government will have to be really pro-active if it wants to pass the Bill in the December session,’’ says Vinod Raina, one of the architects of the Bill.

If the Bill is not passed in the December session, and the
elections are held around May, the government will get another shot at passing the Bill if there’s another Lok Sabha session. But if elections are held earlier, the Bill will lapse. This will be the case even if the UPA government wins elections.

There is, however, an alternative. Though ‘Money Bills’ such as this one are normally introduced in the Lok Sabha, if a way was found to introduce this Bill in Rajya Sabha instead, it will not lapse and can be carried forward by the next government.

The Right to Education Bill is revolutionary in several respects. It aims to set minimum standards for both public and private schools so that the quality of education improves throughout the country and current inequities are levelled. The pupil-teacher ratio prescribed by the Bill is 40:1.

A controversial clause in the Bill makes it compulsory for all private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for poor children from the neighbourhood. This includes elite ICSE and IB schools.

In a bid to drastically improve the quality of education, the Bill has outlawed non-formal education. Non-formal schools across the country will have three years to upgrade themselves to formal schools, which provide the minimum standards prescribed by the Bill.

The Bill has also done away with the contract system of appointing teachers. Currently, schools can appoint teachers on a contract basis and pay them a paltry sum of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month. Often, they’re not qualified. According to the Bill, all teachers, both in private and government schools, will be appointed on a permanent basis and given full salary as long as they are qualified.

When the Bill was drafted in August 2005, the government canned it on the grounds that it was too expensive at Rs 3,21,000 crore. The Bill was virtually buried for two years. In between, a mid-census correction reduced the child population by six million, so budgets were halved from Rs 3,21,000 crore to Rs 1,51,000 crore. So a team of educationists, two of whom were involved in the drafting of the Bill, wrote a letter to the prime minister appraising him of the situation.

The PM met them in August 2007 and a new draft of the Bill was created in February 2008. The Bill was tossed between several ministries, including law and finance, before it finally reached the cabinet in August.

They help kids battle brain tumour

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: A happy family portrait that livened up the cover of the prestigious international medical journal Lancet Oncology in October was the artwork of a 12-yearold child Ajit Kholam from the city. Look beyond the colourful paintings and you will discover a silent force which has been helping kids like Ajit who are suffering from brain tumour in braving the odds.

The motivation comes from a support group that works under the aegis of the Brain Tumour Foundation (BTF) at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel which has been bringing together hundreds of patients, drawing out their strengths and financing their treatment. The BTF had been propagating the message of optimism and positivism during the Brain Tumour Awareness Week that ended on Saturday.

On Sunday, the foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients. For some like Mumbra resident Irfan Khatri (22) who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Std XI, the BTF has made survival possible. “The foundation has completely financed my radiation therapy which would have otherwise been difficult,’’ he says. The painting sessions take his mind of the illness and make it easier for him to cope.

Working behind the scenes is Dr Rakesh Jalali of Tata who says, “The purpose of BTF is to ensure that no patient who has brain tumour goes without treatment only because he can’t afford it.’’ According to him, the hospital receives nearly 700 new cases of brain tumour, every year. In India, the incidence of brain tumour is 3-4 per 100,000 persons every year.

Survivors like designer Diya Mohanty have been volunteering for the cause. “We are like a family of patients and I draw strength from the little children who soldier on,’’ she says.

Giovanni D’souza is optimistic as he shows off a scar on his head that he got from brain surgery. “If you had seen me two months ago, I wasn’t like this. I was devastated when doctors told me about my brain tumour and kept wondering why it had struck me,’’ says D’souza, a model by profession, who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Milan. He had to be operated upon overnight and says the “sympathy’’ offered by visitors made him wallow in self-pity for days. However, he got a boost of positivism in Tata.

The BTF crossed another milestone recently, with preliminary findings of ongoing research by Dr Jalali, showing that surgery and radiation therapy used to treat breast cancer among patients did not affect their intellectual ability, an area that has been a major concern till now.

LETTING THEIR IMAGINATION RUN WILD: Brain Tumour Foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely on Sunday. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients.

Street children line up to take the best course

Ranjani Rajendra I TNN

Mumbai: Long queues snaked through the Don Bosco School grounds at Matunga as hundreds of children, unmindful of the scorching heat, patiently waited their turn as the lines wound closer to the stalls. No, this was not a scene from a regular school fete. In progress was a career mela for street children and marginalised children, offering them a host of options to keep them off the street and help them build a stable future.

Pioneered by Don Bosco, the mela saw companies like Mahindra and Mahindra, Lamprell, Otis, Union Bank and Ahar (the restaurant association) step forward to offer career guidance and training courses to the children. As the children pored over forms, counsellors explained what each option entailed and the course of action to be taken. “Most of these children didn’t look beyond masonry, welding and carpentry.This capacity building exercise will offer an opportunity for children from this segment of society to explore diverse career options, foster independent decision-making with regard to career choices and enable them to become financially independent as they move to the world of work in future,” said Father Barnabe D’Souza, director, Don Bosco Shelter, Mumbai.

While some children had come merely to have fun at the mela that also had cultural programmes, most seemed serious about making use of the opportunity. “I want to become a cricketer or join a musical band. I never knew what would be the best way for me to realise my dreams. But the didi at the stall explained what I should do if I wanted to be successful,” said 14-year-old Rahul Shirkar, who plays the drums along with his father at weddings.

Similarly, 18-year-old Rupesh Londe who wants to get into hotel management was guided by Ahar. His father has a menial job with the BMC, and Rupesh is determined to do something different, like a computer course. Others like Mohammed Gouspeer and Bashir Hakim who are interested in the technical aspects of the industry have been recruited by Lamprell, an offshoring company, to be trained in welding and then be sent to Dubai as company employees.

In a new venture, Don Bosco in association with the Union Bank and FINO (Financial Information Network and Operations Limited) provided the children with a chip photo card. With this card they can deposit the savings from their daily wages in the bank. The card will also serve as an ID to get a driver’s license or a ration card.Said Sanjay Kuberkar,Chief Operating Officer, of FINO. “We expect through this scheme to work out a feasible solution that will empower street children by enabling them to open regular accounts with banks and save their earnings.”

“According to our research, we found that 90% of the children we had helped with jobs ended up back on the streets. The reason being they didn’t possess the necessary skills to retain the jobs. Hence we decided that we needed to attend to the root of the problem itself,” said Fr Barnabe.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE: Candidates apply for training courses and jobs at the street mela organised by Don Bosco School, Matunga on Friday.

They splash colours on bleak backgrounds

Sibi Arasu I TNN

They add a smidgen of colour to bleak cityscapes. For over seven years now, Himanshu S, an artist and teacher at the Rachna Sansad College Of Fine Art, and his friends have been going around Mumbai conducting art workshops and interactive sessions for those who don’t get a chance to express their opinions and can’t afford a fancy summer workshop to fine-tune their painting skills and art aesthetic. From a half-day painting session at a remand home in Matunga to a month-long workshop with the people of Koliwada in Dharavi, they’ve done, and continue to do, it all.

Himanshu, who is one of the core members of the group of avant-garde artists and painters who call themselves the Common Room Collective, says their art deals more with the people and less with art galleries. “For me, painting and ‘proper art’ are secondary; the work that I do with people has greater meaning and more priority in my life,’’ he says. “It’s more about the process of doing than the final product itself.’’

The workshops do not follow any set pattern and the collective tries to keep them as unstructured as possible. “When we go to a place, we don’t go with a pre-determined idea of all the things that we want to do; we do have a rough idea but we take it as it comes. I usually ask the kids to paint whatever they want to and then go on to do other things after that,’’ says Himanshu.

A few months ago, The Collective took part in the Urban Typhoon workshop in Koliwada, Dharavi, where they conducted a month-long workshop for the kids in the area. During the course of this, they painted on the roads, the walls, and any space that they could find in the slum. This was conducted simultaneously along with other ‘serious’ studies to figure out a wholly inclusive redevelopment plan for the area. One of the ideas that Himanshu proposed to the kids was to paint their dream home, and he says some of the ideas the kids came up with were mindblowing. “I know their sketches are not going to be taken into account in any slum redevelopment plan, but I really think authorities and city planners should just glance through them at least—after all, the houses are going to be built for them,’’ he says.

The children and even the adults who take part in the workshops conducted by Himanshu and the collective find it a unique experience. Little attention is paid to the final product; the process is what matters. As the workshops progress, the lines between those conducting the workshop and those attending get blurred, with everyone becoming an artist and painter and creator of masterpieces.

Himanshu reiterates his workshops will always be more about ‘how’ rather than ‘what’ art is produced. At the same time, he feels he cannot do with painting, as “the inherent honesty of the drawn line makes it the best vehicle for the voice of dissent’’.

With further events with people of different communities and groups across the city lined up, Himanshu is a quite busy for a self-styled “aimless wanderer’’. He is helping organise another month-long workshop at Koliwada where his group plans, along with the kids of course, to paint the walls of the houses in the area. A gallery exhibition of some of his earlier works is also on the menu. However, he doesn’t give this too much importance. “As long as I want to paint, I’d like to be doing the other things that I do,’’ he says.

sibi.arasu@timesgroup.com

LITTLE ARTIST: At the Dharavi workshop, children painted on the roads, walls and any space that they could fin.

This school uses the newspaper for a blackboard

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Students at Vidya Niketan in Dombivli are turning the pages of newspapers to improve their scores.

When the authorities found that students had their noses buried so firmly in t h e i r b o o k s that they had little time to follow the news, the school introduced an examination paper called Common Knowledge for Stds V to VIII. Children are quizzed on current affairs, ranging from the Dalit killings in Khairlanji to the percentile fiasco that hit junior college admissions this year.

The first common knowledge exam was administered earlier this month, along with the other terminal exam papers. The results were more than a trifle amusing. While one student said that the Indo-US nuclear deal was inked so that India could protect America, another claimed that Chhagan Bhujbal belonged to the BJP, not the NCP. Many were not aware of Khairlanji to begin with, and others confused it with the Delhi Arushi Talwar murder case. Some found it hard to distinguish between the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena. And still others thought that the MNS was a national party.

“We don’t want children to treat textbooks like the Bhagvad Gita. We want them to look beyond their texts so that they’re aware of the world around them,’’ said Vivek Pandit, founder-president of the trust that runs Vidya Ram Niketan. Common Knowledge papers will be marked like any other subject and these marks will be counted in the student’s final tally. “That’s the only way they will take it seriously,’’ said Pandit, who is disturbed by the general lack of awareness in the classroom.

Although balancing the regular load with daily news updates on riots, floods and sports is proving rather tough for students, the new subject has been mostly wellreceived. “I’ve started reading the papers everyday. And I watch a lot of news channels too,’’ said Rahul Marathe, an enthusiastic 13-year-old who feels his general knowledge has benefited. “The questions are really different from the ones generally asked in examinations.’’

Uday Desai, the parent of a Std VIII student, says it is a good initiative on part of the school. “It will force students to keep abreast of current affairs,’’ he says. “This will certainly help them later on in life.’’

anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com

Robotic suit can turn you into superman

Developed By Japanese Scientists, Exoskeleton Increases Body Strength Of Wearer Tenfold

London: Stopping a moving aircraft with one hand didn’t take much of an effort for Superman, and now, you too can possess such superhumanly strength, all thanks to a robotic suit that can multiply its wearer’s body strength tenfold.

Earlier this month, the world’s first fully functioning robotic exoskeleton was launched in Japan. Called the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) system, the exoskeleton will provide the wearer with previously unthinkable abilities and strength. Developed by a Japanese company called Cyberdyne, HAL was moves only when you want it to move.

It makes use of sensors applied to the skin that detect the feeble electrical currents sent by the brain through the nervous system when it commands a particular activity. The sensors are connected to a computer that interprets the signal and then sends its own command to electric leg and arm braces. When detected, the appropriate electrical nerve signal, HAL moves a split-second before the leg muscle itself. The upper-body component of the exoskeleton improves the arm strength. The suit is calibrated to the user’s natural strength, so that weaker users can easily make use of the technology.

Teaming up with companies in Japan and Holland to lease the technology, Cyberdyne is planning to rent out up to 500 lower-body versions of HAL a year, at a cost of about £1,300 per month. Meant as a rehabilitation tool, HAL will bring mobility and strength to elderly and physically handicapped people. The technology could also have industrial and military applications. “Automobiles have been around for a century, but HAL is just beginning,” Times Online quoted Cyberdyne chief executive Yoshi-yuki Sankai, as saying. He added: “Unlike cars, HAL wasn’t developed in a one-sided fashion, but by incorporating the views of many people, including end-users.”

Cyberdyne isn’t the only company seduced by the idea of enhancing man’s physical capabilities. The US army is in the early stages of testing an aluminium exoskeleton made by a company called Sarcos, owned by Raytheon, a defence contractor. It aims to improve soldiers’ strength and a prototype was demonstrated earlier this year, although unlike the full HAL suit, which weighs 51lb, the military version is 150lb, limiting body movement and battery life. ANI

HERCULEAN STRENGTH: Meant as a rehabilitation tool, Hybrid Assistive Limb (left) will bring mobility and strength to elderly and physically handicapped

Tata’s $50m gift to Cornell to aid Indian admissions

New York: Industrialist Ratan Tata has gifted $50 million to his alma mater, Cornell University in New York, to help it admit brilliant Indian students and support joint research projects with Indian universities.

The gift from Tata Trusts, a group of philanthropic organizations run by Ratan Tata, will allow Cornell to establish and expand partnerships with Indian scientists that build on its strength in applied agriculture research. Tata had graduated from Cornell in 1959.

The endowment will also be used to set up a scholarship fund to bring more Indian students, who may be discouraged by Cornell’s price tag, to the university.

The endowment consists of $25 million to establish the Tata-Cornell initiative in agriculture and nutrition and $25 million for the Tata scholarship fund to help Cornell attract the best and brightest Indian talents. Cornell president David Skorton announced the gift during his state of the university address on Friday, calling it “one of the most generous endowments ever received from an international benefactor by an American university’’. AGENCIES