UK schools swap history for blogging, Wikipedia

British children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.

However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.

The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.

The plans have been drawn up by Sir Jim Rose, the former Ofsted chief who was appointed by ministers to overhaul the primary school curriculum, and are due to be published next month.

The papers seen by the Guardian are draft plans for the detailed content of each of six core “learning areas” that Rose is proposing should replace the current 13 standalone subject areas.

The proposals require:

Kids to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain “fluency” in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker besides how to spell.

Children to be able to place historical events within a chronology.

Less emphasis on the use of calculators than in the current curriculum.

An understanding of physical development, health and wellbeing, which would address what Rose calls “deep societal concerns” about children’s health, diet and physical activity, as well as their relationships with family. They will be taught about peer pressure, how to deal with bullying and how to negotiate in relationships. AGENCIES

UK mulls tracking networking sites

London: The government was accused of excessive snooping on Wednesday over proposals to monitor social networking sites as part of an anti-terror strategy.

Networking sites, which are thought to have millions of British members, could be forced to log data on everyone their users make contact with on their sites, according to a report on the government proposals in the Independent.

The moves follow controversial proposals, under EU directives, to store information on phone calls made, emails sent and websites visited in Britain. The information could be added to a planned database to track terror plots.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said the directives did not include the social networking sites, and the government was looking at closing the loophole.

Coaker made the comments earlier this month at a little noticed Commons committee to examine the EU directives which date back to the 2005 London bombings. AFP

Eye can do it!

Eight blind students from Kamla Mehta Dadar Andha Vidyalaya are practising for a rare feat — they want to create the shape of an eye while doing the Rope Mallakhamb

ALPITA MASURKAR

Sight is not an impediment. Be it rope-climbing or studying, I can do it as confidently as any other student,” said 16-year-old Habiba Shaikh, as she hauled herself up on a rope with elan and twisted herself around it. Hanging in mid air, Shaikh formed an arc.

Right after she got into position, eight-year-old Anjali Tapal followed suit. Jumping and grabbing Shaikh’s feet, Tapal tossed her agile body backward for Shaikh to hold on to her feet. And thus, the duo formed an eye.

“By forming an eye, the girls want to spread the message that blindness is not an impediment. They don’t want people to pity them. the girls want to stand on their own feet with dignity,” said organiser Bharat Joshi, who actively works for the blind.

Eight girls from Kamla Mehta Dadar Andha Vidyalaya are busy practising for a rare treat - they want to create awareness about blindness through the art of ‘rope mallakhamb’ or rope climbing. The girls will showcase the feat at an event in Matheran on April 10, 11 and 12.

Neeta Tatke, who has been teaching the feat to the girls, shared her thoughts. “Teaching a visually challenged student is not the same as teaching a visually abled.

“A visually abled student has advantages, like being able to see the height and shape s/he is forming in mid-air. But the girls have gotten past such deterrants.” Tatke is teaching the students under the guidance of Uday Deshpande of Samartha Vidya Mandir.

Deshpande has been teaching the students since the early 1990s. Said Tatke, “During Deshpande’s first session with the girls, he had asked them to run. But the girls did not move. That’s when he realised they had never run before.

“Deshpande started with basic movements before he taught them the more complex art of rope climbing. Every movement on the rope, every bend, has to be correct. The girls are first prepared on the ground before they practise on the ropes.”

The principal of the school, Suparna Ajgaonkar shared similar sentiments, “The biggest achievement has been that the sport has increased the girls’ confidence. Besides performance in Matheran, the girls will also be participating in a seminar on disaster management for school students, including the visually challenged.”

The girls will showcase the feat at an event in Matheran on April 10, 11 and 12.

IIT profs to protest against Centre’s ‘failed promises’

MANOJ R NAIR

It is very rare that teachers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) resort to agitation to air their grievances. But the government’s delay in announcing new pay scales for faculty members has led to simmering discontent among the institution’s teaching staff. While the date and method of agitation has not been decided yet, the general body of IIT Bombay Faculty Forum, an association of teachers is planning to meet soon to discuss the issue.

While the protest options that are being discussed include wearing black badges or mass casual leave, more drastic plans include a refusal to mentor the new IITs that have been set up recently. IIT-Bombay is mentoring the new institutes at Gandhinagar and Indore, including selecting the faculty for the new centres and also providing teachers there till a full fledged teaching infrastructure is set up there.

Usually, new payscales for IIT teaching staff are introduced along with the revised salaries for central government employees. This time, however, while the Sixth Pay Commission for other government employees was announced in September 2008, the faculty members at IIT are still waiting for pay hikes that are due from 2006.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had appointed a pay review committee headed by Professor Govardhan Mehta, chairman of National Academic Acredition Council to make recommendations for revised pay scales, among other things, for IIT teachers.

The committee submitted its report on February 6. While the report’s contents were not revealed, the government appointed another committee on February 24 to examine the findings of the Mehta report. There has been no development in the issue since then.

Not making the grade...

FINE PRINT

Education is not yet a fundamental right in India. Governments’ failure to push through this single obvious point exposes the extent to which politics compromised the nation’s educational goals

TEAM TOI

Controversy is the constant companion of education ministers. If it was saffronisation of textbooks and headon-collision with IIMs during the NDA regime, UPA’s Arjun Singh has been top of the charts for nearly five years. Be it OBC reservation in admission to state-run higher educational institutions or autonomy of IIMs/IITs, Singh has earned his share of bad name.

Often the real picture is missed in the rhetoric. During Murli Manohar Joshi’s stint as HRD minister, the biggest achievement was the 86th constitutional amendment making free and compulsory education to children of age 6 to 14 a fundamental right. Though Joshi spent more time packing institutions with his own men, he should also be credited for putting Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan on track. It is also not that he did not have a case while taking on IIMs on fee hike issue.

Arjun Singh, an old HRD hand, had his task cut out. Desaffronise textbooks and institutions and make a mark. He started immediately and even revived bodies like Central Advisory Board of Education, discontinued during NDA regime. A new national curriculum framework was adopted, textbooks were changed, without creating much rancour. Even political adversaries admit the books are forward-looking.

But after the Supreme Court did away with reservation in private professional institutions in Inamdar case in 2005, Singh came up with the idea of not only restoring reservation in private institutions but also reserving seats for OBCs in government as well as private institutions. While constitutional amendment for reservation was smooth, enabling the legislation met with stiff resistance. Finally, Supreme Court upheld it last year.

To be fair, many of Singh’s positive decisions got lost in the raging fire on reservation. Higher education has never seen the kind of expansion as it witnessed under him. Part of the credit goes to PM’s emphasis on higher education and liberal funding. From Indian Institute of Scientific Education and Research, many more IITs, IIMs, IIITs and SPAs, Singh ensured that institutes of excellence spread throughout the country. To bolster the university system, every state is being given a central university. Apart from that, 14 national universities are also planned. However, the manner in which UGC has been granting deemed university status to private institutions is being questioned.

Under Singh, SSA has progressed with an emphasis on quality. Even independent audit of elementary education shows that both SSA and Mid-Day Meal schemes are successes with enrolment rate going up across class and gender.

However, Singh did not show the same enthusiasm for pushing the Right to Education Bill. First few years of UPA regime were wasted in various committees and yet no common ground could be found on the landmark legislation. First the Planning Commission and finance ministry objected to a law that would cost the exchequer a lot. It resulted in the HRD ministry revisiting estimates and finally a figure of Rs 12,000 crore/year was calculated as cost to provide free education. But four years were lost. At the fag end of UPA regime, the bill was introduced in December.

In all this, secondary education is the sick child that Singh never attended to. The plan to have an SSA-like programme for secondary schools is still being put together and model schools are still a distant dream.

Times View

The biggest disappointment has been the failure to ensure free compulsory education as a fundamental right. In the seven years since the Constitution was amended, the Bill is yet to be passed, although the issue seems to be close to everyone’s hearts. Expansion of institutes like IITs/IIMs and a new pay structure for teachers are a required boost. That said, unbridled growth of deemed universities is a cause of concern. UGC’s tough regulations are too little, too late. A holistic approach , an integrated blueprint is the need of the hour to ensure education for all at the primary level and accessibility to higher education.

RADIO ACTIVE

IIT-Bombay students launch their own community radio. Will bak-bak get intellectual now?

MUMBAI MIRROR BUREAU

Last night at 10 pm, students of IIT-Bombay opened up a new avenue to gain some freedom of expression for themselves. They joined the elite club of universities around the world, like MIT, Harvard, etc, who have their own student-run community radio. Hey radio jockeys, you have intellectual bak-bak to compete with now.

The pilot show kicked off last night, with an introduction, a book review, a travelogue, a hasya kavi sammelan and a programme on trivia – teasers of what to expect ahead. This web-based radio is run completely by the student body of IIT, its target audience being everyone who lives on the IIT campus.

“Students have been thinking of setting up a radio station for two years now,” says Sajid Shariff, one of the enthusiasts in the project. “But getting air space is a problem, so we decided to go in for web-based radio. Basically we want to articulate our thoughts, initiate debates and form a point of contact for the entire IIT community. And the cost of running a web-based radio is minimal.”

Of course, ‘freedom of expression’ comes with restrictions here, unlike in universities like MIT and Harvard where the freedom is a free-forall. There, professors are often, to use student terminology, ‘roasted’ on radio. There’s even an incident, famous in the student world, where students of a famous university targeted an Apple honcho on radio when he came on campus to give away prizes, after being in the news for going hunting and hurting animals. The ‘chief guest’ was hauled over the coals on radio.

“Obviously, we have to be more restrained and politically correct here, for our culture is different,” says Sajid. “We don’t want to have to shut down soon after launching! It took a lot to get permission to start it in the first place.”

So, the content will be perfectly ‘decent’, no, not even targeting IIT’s famous ‘dance club’ which is normally the target of many politically incorrect jokes among students. There will be travelogues narrated by students, panel debates on the burning topics of the day, interviews, plays. And yes, a fair amount of original music by IITians – some original compositions, some cover versions sung by IITians in different albums.

“Our USP is that the radio is open to all 10,000-odd residents on campus, including the 5000-strong student body,” says Sajid. “In fact, right now, we don’t have a fixed agenda. We’ve kept the plan fluid, so that we can shape it as we go along, with feedback from the community.

But what they aim to do is make the radio a mandatory part of life in IIT. “We want to make it a ‘need’ in IIT, where one must switch it on as a must, every day. We want to run all important announcements through the radio, have interesting serialised radio plays, basically concentrate all the action here,” says Sajid.

To begin with, the radio will run three days a week – Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – 10 pm onwards. The radio is available at http://gymkhana.iitb.ac.in/~cultural/radio/. Later, as and when more people come forward with content, the days and the talk time will be increased.

Students want to articulate their thoughts, initiate debates and form a point of contact for the entire IIT community through the radio

School is choosing elite over poor, say parents

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: It’s a case of the slumdog versus the millionaire, say parents of Andheri’s Seth Madhavdas Amarsee High School, who staged a protest against the school management on Tuesday.

The school—an aided SSC institution that had more than 4,000 students in the Gujarati, English and Marathimedium sections—has shut down KG to Std VI in the Gujarati section and has stopped admissions to junior KG in the English medium over the past few years. The management has started an ICSE school on the same premises.

While parents protest against the fact that affordable education for poor students is giving way to a school for the elite, the management claims it was forced to shut down the Gujarati medium sections as they had no takers.

“Four years ago, the management shut down junior and senior KG for the Gujarati section. Two years ago, they stopped Stds I to IV in Gujarati. Last year, they discontinued junior KG for English medium students and they plan to do away with senior KG (English) this year,’’ said Arvind Falsamkar, a parent.

However, Dr Leena Dalal, president of the Andheri education trust that runs the school said, “We had to do away with these sections as there was no demand for them,’’ she said. “We started an ICSE section because we felt the need to offer an ICSE education.’’

Falsamkar, however, said, “After the primary section was shut, many kids were shifted to other Gujarati schools.’’ Dalal denied knowledge of this, and cited an education department provision whereby 20 students were required to run a division.

Falsamkar added that poor students sought admission to the SSC section of the school and they could not afford to study in the ICSE school.

The school has shut a few classes in the Gujarati section and has started an ICSE institution there.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference…

original post at - http://themagictree.in/TMTBLOG/

Assuming that you would have read Sonia’s blog, I wouldn’t get into the ‘how it all began’ story. Rather I would like to share the ‘what we do’ story. And before I get to that let me just go back to my childhood and share some thoughts!

I studied in a convent - St. John the Baptist - Thane. There was this song we performed in a group somewhere [don't remember exactly where] - anyways, the song - ‘We are the World’ by ‘Michael Jackson’. It was the first English song that I had heard or sung and for no particular reason that I could understand at that age; I just fell in love with the song.

As a child I hadn’t grasped the complete meaning of the song and thought that it was just a church song sung by children, something about charity and all. Many years later did I truly understand the depth of the lyrics. Yes, it’s a beautiful and inspiring song! For those who haven’t heard the song, please go to YouTube and search ‘we are the world’. The point is - the thought of ‘making the world a better place’ was seeded within me at a very young age.

Music and song writing attracted me at a very early stage. I still sometimes go back to my age-old 200 page notebook, which has my very initial song compositions and poems written in break period for my favourite Teachers. Year after year I kept admiring different class teachers - the way they would talk, present themselves, encourage us, and guide us.

I was extremely happy with the way things were going until I hit engineering! It was at this stage that I realized the importance of practical education! Almost zero exposure to application based learning during schooling had its toll on engineering. The perception of what Mechanical engineering is was in contrast to what it actually was. I went into a phase of pointing out problems in the educational system but not thinking of doing something to solve them.

As any other youth I fell in love with movies. The ones which ended with a meaningful thought or social message touched me more - be it Raj Kapoor’s ‘Shree 420′ or Aamir Khan’s ‘Taare Zameen Par’. Movies like Ashutosh Govarikar’s ‘Swades’, Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra’s ‘Rang De Basanti’ - did have lot of influence on my thoughts.

It was only later in my final year of engineering, that I realized ‘To bring about a change, you have to be that change!’

The Magic Tree is that change; a positive change in the field of education. We take children beyond the classroom and textbook. Seeing children make or break stuff, using our kits gives me extreme joy. It lets me know that these children now have the skill of converting theory into lively applications. Whether they make or break the kit, either ways they know how not to fail!

‘I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s precisely why I succeed’ - Michael Jordan

The Magic Tree provides means for practical, application based learning. It produces educational kits and games that we would have loved to have in our school days. It allows the child to experience the feel of being an inventor or a discoverer. It boosts their curiosity, their nature to learn through asking questions and not by being fed with answers. It helps children to explore their potential and unlock their genius.

While researching, unlearning and then re-learning and training myself not to teach but to be able to make students to think, I have come across the likes of Don Herbert, Robert Krampf, Arvind Gupta, Steve Spangler and many more. Had it not been for the internet, I would have known all this at the age of 50, what I know at the age of 25! I look forward to the day when all human knowledge will be accessible by everyone at the speed of thought! Undoubtedly that will be the most important, exciting and dangerous phase of human civilization!

I wish someone had started The Magic Tree a hundred years ago, and that there would be hundreds of them by now in every part of the world.

The Magic Tree that gives, unconditionally,

The Magic Tree that provides knowledge and information, eternally.

Now in its second year of business I can proudly say,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference…