Kids can’t go to school in pvt vehicles, says state

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Schools in the state can no longer absolve themselves of all responsibility for their school bus system.

The state government-appointed committee on school buses, set up over a year ago, has come out with its final list of guidelines, which could change the haphazard and often hazard-fraught way that this system is currently run.

The committee has now made it mandatory for all schools to set up a transport committee to look into how their students travel to school. Interestingly, it has also made it compulsory for them to travel to school either by school bus or public transport.

“Those who want to walk to school can also do so. But no child will be allowed to come to school in a private vehicle unless temporary exemption is sought by parents,’’ said Indrani Malkani, a member of the committee. The onus of implementing the new guidelines will lie with the schools.

School buses will now have an age limit—eight years for a regular bus and 15 years for a CNG one—and will have to regularly undergo tests and prominently display their maintenance certificates.

It is also mandatory for them to have two fire extinguishers and an exit at the rear right side. All school buses will have to be yellow; if hired from private contractors, they will have to sport a yellow band across the body. School bus drivers will have to have at least five years’ experience.

The guidelines will now be sent to the state transport minister for his final nod.

From waste to biofuel: Bugs the way

Common Bacteria Tweaked To Digest Sugars From Biomass To Churn Out Green Diesel

Washington: Researchers have genetically engineered one of the most common bacteria on the planet — E coli — to digest simple sugars from plant waste and turn it into valuable biofuel.

They said their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of a one-step conversion of a renewable nonfood plant to fuel. The technology could lead to low-cost, low-carbon, highperformance renewable fuels, researcher Stephen del Cardayre said.

“We looked at the ideal feedstock, which is biomass, and then looked at the product we wanted to make, which is diesel, then we engineered this Ecoli to contain the genes that catalyzed all of the chemical reactions required to convert that feedstock into that fuel,” del Cardayre said.

“It’s a one-step process, so there’s no need to have to do two or three buckets of chemistry,” he said. “You put in your feedstock, the bug converts it to fuel, which is an oil that you can just scrape off the top.” Del Cardayre of privately held industrial biotechnology firm LS9 worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The work represents the next step forward in biofuel technology developed by the South San Francisco-based company. Biofuels, made from plants and animal fat, are alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Energy secretary Stephen Chu highlighted the research in remarks to a Capitol Hill forum on clean energy, jobs and security.

“The bacteria we find in our guts, E coli, they’ve taken and reprogrammed (with) simple sugars and made diesel,” Chu said. Chu said he was interested enough in the research to email the article’s authors and ask how soon the fuel might be available. He said they responded, “We’ll know in two years.”

Del Cardayre said his company expects to begin commercial production over the next two years in Brazil, where there is an abundant crop of cheap sugar cane juice that could be converted to diesel. Canada, which has invested heavily in the biofuel industry as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has ordered a study of the environmental impact of making biofuel. REUTERS

IT’S NO ROCKET SCIENCE: After feedstock is put into a bucket, the bug converts it to fuel, which can be just scraped off the top

Grading system in CBSE Class XII?

New Delhi: After the decision to start grading system in Class X board examinations, the government may introduce a similar system in Class XII, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday.

Sibal said the idea has already been mooted and a committee has been set up. It will examine how grading could be introduced at Class XII.“We had a brainstorming session on this,”the minister told reporters here on the sidelines of a meeting on the school education programme. After the committee gives its report, it will go the Central Advisory Board for Education and then to the Council of Boards of School Education in India (CoBSE).

The HRD ministry has already introduced grading system in Class X under the CBSE from this year. The nine-point system starting from A1 (a grade for students who have done exceptionally well in the exam) to E2 (unsatisfactory performance). He said consultations were being held with stakeholders to arrive at a conclusion on introducing the grading system in Class XII. Sibal said that quality should be at the forefront of the education system, and access to quality education must be available for all. He said the nation cannot move forward with good education being limited to the elite class. AGENCIES

Edu right law soon, SSA to be its vehicle Plan Panel Promises Massive Outlay For ItAkshaya Mukul | TNN
New Delhi: The notification on the Right to Education is likely to be issued soon as most of preparatory work that has delayed it is nearly over. Even the Planning Commission has promised a big outlay for RTE that would kick start the historic legislation.

The HRD ministry had sought Rs 40,000 crore for elementary education and expects a substantial hike from last year’s Rs 13,100 crore for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Plan panel sources indicated that HRD is likely to get more than Rs 20,000 crore for SSA. The Finance Commission has already promised more than Rs 20,000 crore for the next 5 years for states.

After framing the model rules for RTE, drawing out the roadmap and process of harmonising RTE with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan that included changing the latter’s norms, the ministry feels that SSA will be the main vehicle to implement RTE.

The executive committee of SSA has already made changes in the norms that do not have much financial bearing and do not need cabinet approval. However, major changes like teacher norms will have a substantial financial implication and will, therefore, be taken to the Expenditure Finance Committee and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

The lingering question of Centre-State share for RTE is also likely to be resolved soon. The PM has already held a meeting with HRD minister Kapil Sibal, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia in this connection.

Sources said while states have been demanding a 90:10 spending pattern between the Centre and States, HRD would like it to be 75:25. “The SSA funding pattern is 55:45 but RTE cannot follow the same pattern. States do not have the money,” the sources said.

As for the change in SSA norms, it has been decided that all existing Education Guarantee Scheme centres that have been functioning for two years will be upgraded to regular schools.

Provision has also been made in SSA norms that upto 0.5% of a district’s outlay may be utilised for community mobilisation but it should be within the overall management cost of 6%. Change has also been made in case of provision for disabled children from the existing Rs 1,200 per child annually to Rs 3,000. Also, money for civil works can be utilised for library purpose and the fund for a school can be used for buying play material.

COLD START
Centre-state share for RTE remains a lingering question but is likely to be resolved soon. PM is in talks with Pranab Mukherjee States want a 90:10 spending pattern between Centre and states; HRD ministry wants it to be 75:25

Students protest against high fees in professional edu

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Hundreds of students from all across the state on Thursday protested against the hike in fees in professional education outside the Bandra office of the Shikshan Shulka Samiti, Maharastra’s fee determining body.

“Fees in professional streams of education have been rising each year, forcing parents to take loans. In most states of India, fees are not revised annually, but after three years. That is unfortunately not the case in Maharashtra,’’ said Vivek Korde, president of Forum Against Commercialization of Education (FACE). Several parents and students, whohad travelled from Nashik, complained about the manner in which annual tuition fees at the Sandip Institute of Technology and Research Center had spiralled by 100% from Rs 36,000 to Rs 72,000.

“The parents’ association of this Nashik-based college had earlier written to the Samiti, but to no avail. In fact, the parents had pointed out that the college claimed it spent Rs 30 lakh in a year on advertising and has mentioned that as an expense the students must bear,’’ secretary of FACE Milind Wagh pointed out.

Parents alleged that some of them were unable to put together the required finances all of a sudden when the fees were declared, but the college threatened students and said they would not be able to attend classes unless they paid the fees. FACE has demanded that the difference between the ad hoc fees and final fees be “reasonable and not more than 10%, apart from the fact that the fee proposal of all colleges be put up on their respective websites’’.

For Shinde, failure was a stepping stone to success

Prafulla Marpakwar | TNN

Mumbai: Students who are depressed can follow this friendly piece of advice from union energy minister Sushilkumar Shinde. “Suicide is not the answer, build up your will power. Even if you fail in one examination, that’s not the end of the road, as you have another chance to appear in the same test. One day, you will definitely achieve your goal,’’ Shinde said.

Seventy-year-old Shinde’s childhood was marked by struggle. His parents were very poor, as a result, he was unable to pay his fees. His teachers came to his rescue.

“My parents were very poor. They would to tell me to give up education and get a daily wage job, but I insisted on studying in school. My teachers were very cooperative,’’ Shinde said.

Despite his financial situation, Shinde somehow managed to appear for the SSC examination in 1961. On the day of the result, Shinde was declared ‘fail.’ He did not give up hope and appeared for the same examination in the following academic year, but again, he was declared unsuccessful. “Then I had twooptions, either to give up education or make a third attempt. I chose the latter option with great determination. I passed the matriculation examination in the third attempt,’’ Shinde said.

Even after clearing the SSC examination, it was not smooth sailing for Shinde. “Getting admission in college was a difficult task because of my financial condition. But again my teachers helped me,’’ Shinde said.

Shinde not only graduated in arts, but later, also cleared his law examination. For a while, he practised in a Mumbai court and then joined the police force as a sub-inspector. “It was during this time that I got interested in politics. I quit the PSI job and joined politics,’’ Shinde said.

Even though he is a Dalit, Shinde was rarely elected to the state legislative assembly from a reserved constituency. He was first elected to the assembly in 1974 in a by-election and in the same year, inducted into the cabinet. In his political career spanning well over four-anda-half decades, Shinde held key positions, including chief minister of Maharashtra and governor of Andhra Pradesh.

Shinde is never embarrassed by his poor academic performance. “It’s a fact that my academic career was really dismal, but I don’t feel the need to hide this. I advise students not to be disheartened by failure in an examination. If you have will power, success is in store for you. Of course, there may be some delay,’’ Shinde said.

It is a fact that my academic career was really dismal, but I don’t feel the need to hide this. I advise students not to be disheartened by failure in an examination. If you have the will, success is in store for you
Sushilkumar Shinde | UNION
ENERGY MINISTER

Adding Value To Education

India should celebrate the low-cost private school revolution that is underway

James Tooley

Something extraordinary is happening in education across rural India – that’s the conclusion that stands out in Pratham’s ASER 2009 report launched recently. The extraordinary concerns private education: Pratham devotes two special sections to private schools, which shows it recognises their importance.But it’s even more significant than highlighted. True, it points to enrolment of 6-14 year old rural children in private education being stable at around 22 per cent – that’s more than one in five children who go to private school. In some states it’s much higher – Haryana has 41 per cent and Uttar Pradesh has 36 per cent private school enrolment. In those states, two in five children go to private school. And this is about rural India; it is much higher in urban areas.

It’s true too that Pratham agrees children do much better in private than government schools – although it doesn’t seem particularly excited about it. Take ‘reading in children’s own mother tongue’. Here, the percentage of children in government schools who can read at least a class I text is 43.6. But in private schools it is 52.2 per cent. That’s an 8.6 percentage point difference, or a huge 20 per cent advantage to private schools. Fair enough, Pratham cautions us to hold on: it might be the brighter children who go to private schools, or the ones with more educated or wealthier parents. So the report’s writers adjust the results to take this into account.

Doing so, they find the private school advantage decreases: down from 8.6 percentage points to 2.9 – that is, they write, “a measly 5%” advantage. Perhaps it is only small. But remember, this is the children’s mother tongue. Most government schools teach in the mother tongue, whereas private schools are often English medium. You’d think that for all the criticisms levelled against Englishmedium private schools that they’re damaging young children’s prospects of learning, that at least government schools would do better in the mother tongue? Not a bit. Private schools are doing better in the area where everyone says government schools should have the advantage.

But what about English? This year, Pratham tested for English ability. Here the results are quite outstanding – and incidentally answer those critics who say rural private schools are English medium in name only, fooling poor parents who can’t really tell what they’re teaching. In government schools, the percentage of children who can at least read simple words in English is 26.5, compared to 44.2 per cent in private schools – a 17.7 percentage point difference, or a massive 67 per cent advantage. After statistically controlling for important variables, the difference falls, but only to 10.8 percentage points, still a huge 41 per cent advantage.

So private schools are serving a significant proportion of rural children, and are outperforming government schools. But here, Pratham misses a trick. Perhaps it’s because we always think of private education as being elitist, that we don’t then ask the next obvious question: what about cost? And here, the true remarkableness of this private education revolution is revealed. For private schools in general in the villages are not the expensive ones we’re used to, but are low-cost, budget schools, affordable to many even on minimum wage incomes. My team looked at rural private schools a couple of years ago, in rural Mahbubnagar, one of the poorest districts in rural Andhra Pradesh. We found a roughly similar proportion of children enrolled in private schools in that district as Pratham found for the (rural) state – we found 26.0 per cent, it found 29.2 per cent. But we also looked at fees: these were, for class IV, about Rs 100 per month in the recognised private schools, and Rs 70 per month in the unrecognised. That’s up to Rs 1,200 per year, incredibly little. And these low-cost private schools are exactly the type of school that will make up the majority of Pratham’s nationwide sample.

So the trick Pratham misses is about value for money. Even looking at the costs in the classroom alone, we found salaries in government schools are about seven times higher than private unrecognised schools, and about three and a half times higher than the private recognised schools. And that’s ignoring all the other funding that comes from the state for all those people serving the education department, and it’s forgetting contributions from central government too.

In other words, the revolution revealed by Pratham taking place in rural India today features private schools serving a significant minority of children, outperforming government schools, at a fraction of the cost. Now, surely that’s something we should be celebrating?

The central government’s flagship programme is Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, designed to increase access to, and raise the standards, in elementary schools across India. It alone brings in Rs 1,700 per child per annum – over and above what states already pay for government education. Now here’s a thought: if all that money had gone on education vouchers, that alone would pay the fees for every child in India to attend a low-cost private school and leave something to spare for books. Wouldn’t that have been a very simple, but rather effective, way of raising the quality of education in India today?

The writer is professor of education policy, Newcastle University, UK.

Lighting up her life

Schoolkids from J&K visit INS Vikrant

Shreya Bhandary | TNN

Mumbai: The Indian Army began a programme named ‘Op Sadbhavana’ and brought 34 school students from Poonch district on a tour to the city. The Maratha-Lai regiment has taken the responsibility of taking the kids around Mumbai and Pune over the next eight days. On Friday, these kids were shown around the famous INS Vikrant and INS Mumbai.

“We want these children to know that they are safe and can trust the civil services,’’ said Captain Manohar Nambiar.