Primary school to be extended up to Std V

Hemali Chhapia TNN

Mumbai: For a long time, schools stuffed our children with more than they could digest. Suddenly, there is a feeling that chapters from history and maps of the world were introduced a year too early for generations of kids.

The Union human resources development ministry has now decided to take a massive correctional step. Indian schools will extend the primary class to include standard V. And elementary schooling will stretch for an additional year, instead of closing at class VII. This translates to more than just an internal rejig within the two school units—primary and secondary. For one, social studies will now be introduced in class VI. Ditto with science and environmental sciences.

“School subjects have evolved through their own complicated histories. However,educationists the world over believe that learning in the first five years of schooling should be integrated without subject-specific compartmentalization, and teaching children to study concepts at earlier ages in an attempt to prepare them to ‘compete’ in the world is counterproductive,” said a note from the HRD ministry.

Education ministers have been asked to shift from a seven (4+3) to an eight year (5+3) elementary education cycle by the next academic year. “It is important to provide agerelevant curricula and learning systems to our children,” said ministry officials.

LEARNING THEIR LESSONS

• Elementary education cycle will shift from 4+3 to 5+3 from next year

• Social studies will now be introduced at standard VI, as also the subjects of science and environmental sciences

• State governments will add class VIII to their elementary schools, allowing students to avail of free education for one more year

‘Govt is dumbing down edu’
Mumbai:Several states have entry-age school admissions in class I at age 5, rather than age 6. “Children in these states thus face the double burden of ‘heavy’ curriculum on account of early entry into the schooling system, as well as introduction of upper primary subjects at class V itself,” said a note from the Union HRD ministry.

The ministry feels it has an implication on the learning quality; and the faulty architecture often sees a high failure rate, adding to the pile of students who drop out.

Most teachers felt that the government was dumbing down education in the guise of easing pressure. “We introduce social studies at the third standard. And in the current method, the system is running smoothly. Children need to have their bearings in place—they need to know the north from the south and the local history,” said a principal of a private Mumbai school.

For a lot of state government schools, an additional class in the elementary cycle will mean expanding their overall infrastructure. Just as in Maharashtra, state governments have invested heavily on elementary schools (currently till class VII); there are not as many public schools at the secondary level, forcing many children to join private institutes.

“Close to 90% of the madhyamik schools are in the private sector. Bringing class VIII to the elementary system will mean not just adding classrooms, but recruiting teachers and providing mid-day meals,” said V Radha, state acting school education secretary.

10 planets discovered outside solar system

Space Bodies Detected When They Passed In Front Of Their Stars

London: An international team, including scientists from the University of Oxford, has discovered 10 new planets. Amongst them is one orbiting a star perhaps only a few tens of million years old, twin Neptunesized planets, and a rare Saturn-like world, a release by the University of Oxford said on Wednesday.

The planets were detected using the CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transits) space telescope, operated by the French space agency CNES. It discovers planets outside our solar system — exoplanets — when they ‘transit’, that is pass in front of their stars.

Out of the 10 new exoplanets (CoRoT-16b through to 24b and c) seven are hot Jupiters some of which are unusually dense and/or on unusually elongated orbits, and one is in orbit around an unusually young star. The announcement also includes a planet slightly smaller than Saturn, and two Neptunesized planets orbiting the same star.

Suzanne Aigrain of Oxford University’s department of physics, lead UK scientist for CoRoT, said: “CoRoT-18b is special because its star might be quite young. Finding planets around young stars is particularly interesting because planets evolve very fast initially, before settling into a much steadier pattern of evolution”.

She added: “If we want to understand the conditions in which planets form, we need to catch them within the first few hundred million years. “After that, the memory of the initial conditions is essentially lost. In the case of CoRoT-18, different ways of determining the age give different results, but it's possible that the star might be only a few tens of millions of years old.

If this is confirmed, then we could learn a lot about the formation and early evolution of hot gas giant planets by comparing the size of CoRoT-18b to the predictions of theoretical models.” PTI

CELESTIAL TRANSIT

Graft in conflict zone

Red zone schools teach how to mint money

Show Ways Of Fudging Attendance To Swindle Govt Funds

Supriya Sharma TNN

Dantewada (Chhattisgarh): ‘Phoolon se nit hasna seekho, bhawaron se nit gaana ... Learn to smile from the flowers, and sing from the bees).’ The cheerful lines of a popular Hindi rhyme are seen on a bright wall poster inside the bleak confines of a village school in Dantewada. But the lines are wasted. There is not a soul in sight, except a thin wiry man who introduces himself as Roshan Kumar Kharashu, shikshakarmi, grade 2, the teacher in charge of Gufadi primary school. “This is mahua season. The children are skipping school to help their parents pick flowers,” Kharushu says. But a look at the attendance register shows all of them are marked present. Kharashu squirms, and moments later, like a child who has thought up an answer, says, “What can I do if people dont send their children to school? If I stop marking them present, they will close down the school and I will lose my job.”

You want to believe the man. He is just 27, and must have been really desperate for a job inDantewada, leaving behind the safety of his village, in the plains of Durg, close to Raipur. But then facts do not support him. No school was closed down in Dantewada. Even when violence rocked the place, and the civil administration withdrew from many interior places, 264 village schools did not close but shifted, close to the highways. The displacement has led to permanent upheaval in the lives of children, forcing them to travel long distances. But it has only made it easier for the education bureaucracy to make money. Narayanaswamy, an activist with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, who has lived in Dantewada for five years, says the uprooting of schools from their original locations has made school wardens less accountable. “There’s a constant flux of children, who drop in and out of school, but the funds remain steady,” he says.

Every child is entitled to Rs 450 to Rs 950 as stipend, apart from books, uniforms, and three meals a day. No wonder there is an incentive to mark those absent as present. Even imaginative rules meant to ease the school crisis have only aided corruption. For instance, officials at the block level were empowered to sanction new schools and appoint teachers if enough children lacked access to an existing one.

In Manjhipara, last October, six men gather 228 children from interior villages that had no schools, or at least they claim they did. All were appointed as teachers, one was made warden, and the group was assigned a building to operate as a residential school. In March, when this correspondent visited the school, not more than 100 kids were present. Warden Man Singh Nayak conceded not more than 140 kids had attended classes that month. “They run away in the middle of the night,” he said. Why don’t they go looking for them? “It’s not safe to go to those villages,” says Roshan Yadav, a teacher. But what changed in just six months? Had they not gone to the same villages in October to bring the kids to school? There was no answer for this, or the more basic question: why were all 228 children still on the rolls?
(The series is concluded)

PLAYING WITH THEIR FATE

Lunar Eclipse

CELESTIAL WONDER: The century’s longest and darkest total lunar eclipse saw the moon immersing deep inside the umbral (darker) shadow of the Earth. The next such eclipse will take place in 2141

Where Schools House Dreams

To bridge the gap between mainstream schools and the poor, NGOs find a way out

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pooja Vashisht wants to become a teacher. The 12-year-old lives with her parents who are dhobis in a small shanty in Ahmedabad. Reena Nayka, a dwarf, in Gujarat’s Navsari, is today her family’s breadwinner. She’s come a long way from almost starving. Rajnikant Patel, now may be mentally challenged but he’s an award-winning weightlifter. In Surat, a paanwalla’s daughter Tanvi Joshi, who lost her left leg to polio, is pursuing MBBS at Baroda Medical College.

Making it possible for each one of them to stand on their feet and live their dream are hundreds of NGOs across the country who set up, fund and help educate the ignored and the marginalized, bringing hope and changing lives.

It’s clichéd to say that it took India more than 60 years to make education a basic right. Despite that, formal education is structured such that it remains inaccessible to staggeringly large sections. The poor, the disabled, those living in remote areas, even the city poor, have little, if any, access to education.

Yet, to educate India is its favourite cause, a national priority. There was barely a whimper when the government introduced a 2% education cess a few years ago; the idea of education captures every citizen’s imagination. Not leaving it to governments, thousands of NGOs, religious organizations and of late, companies, have made every effort to make access to education, and providing it, a reality.

Take 1956-born Kanu Tailor, who lost both legs to polio when he was 11 months old. “At school, my classmates would laugh at me,” Tailor says. “But that only firmed my resolve to pursue my goal of empowering the disabled.” In college, he met other disabled who narrated their tales of suffering, from callousness of the able-bodied to the state government’s apathy.

Tailor set up the Disable Welfare Trust of India in 1991 to provide free education and training for disabled from poor families. Samaritans donated generously. In 1997, he set up a school in 10 rooms allotted by Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC). The school had 118 poor disabled children the first month itself. By 2005, there were 400, but Tailor dreamt of a barrier-free school. In 2006, SMC allotted him land. His higher secondary school, built at a whopping cost of Rs 15 crore has 415 children.

Enabled by the school, polio-affected students chase their dreams. If daughter of diamond-polisher Shilpa Ambalia is studying homeopathy with one leg disabled, Deepak Vyas says he dared to dream of becoming a dentist only because of “Kanu sir”.

“There are 50 million disabled persons in India and only 1% of disabled children complete schooling,” says Tailor, who also helps students find jobs. Further, the trust has industrial training, a computer centre, employment guidance and a marriage bureau. In addition, it says it puts between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 in fixed deposits for all students every year.

It’s going this extra mile to help beyond schooling that makes a crucial difference. Mumbai-based Parivartan, founded in 1997 by Shakil Ahmed, focuses on kids below age six. The idea is to ensure that underprivileged children in the sprawling slum of Antop Hill, home to migrants mostly from UP and Bihar, get admission in government schools. Community workers monitor the progress and ensure that parents don’t withdraw the kids from school. But before the balwadis for the below-6 were set up, Parivartan’s victory came when it ensured that the high-crime area got its own municipality school.

Interestingly, once a school is set up, it helps the marginalized in myriad ways. Reena Nayka of village Dhorikui in Gujarat’s Dangs district was considered a burden by her family. Born a dwarf, the family believed she had no future. But eight years ago, Nayak sought work at Mamta Mandir, a facility for hearing and speech-impaired and mentally challenged children, in the hope of getting two meals a day. At Mamta Mandir, she did more than get two meals.

She studied up to Class XII and now teaches children to make toys. She is also her family’s breadwinner. Over the last 40 years, Manav Kalyan Trust which runs Mamta Mandir has transformed the lives of many physically and mentally challenged children abandoned by families. Founded in 1971 by Mahesh Kothari, a disciple of Vinoba Bhave, it’s home to 572 children and young adults and provides education upto class X. It also trains the handicapped. “They train in printing, weaving, learn woodwork and even diamond polishing. They earn while learning,” says Nilesh Shah, a trustee. In his bid to help, a leading Mumbai-based diamond merchant set up a special polishing cell where 40 disabled work.

Help comes also from the classroom. Started as part of course curriculum, a voluntary education programme at IIM-Ahmedabad took a shape of its own. Today, students run Prayaas, where they teach and pay tuition fees for 30 slum kids. Most of the funds, says IIM-A student Abhishek Ranjan come from alumni. Many sponsor a child or more for a year.

Reports by Mohammed Wajihuddin in Mumbai, Dayananda Yumlembam in Ahmedabad, Himansshu Bhatt in Navsari, Melvyn Thomas in Surat

WHERE THERE’S A WILL: Students make diyas at the Disable Welfare Trust (above), a Prayaas session in Ahmedabad (left)

At school, my classmates would laugh at me. But that only firmed my resolve to pursue my goal of empowering the disabled
Kanu Tailor |
DISABLE WELFARE
TRUST, SURAT

It will be a coppery red moon tonight

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The city will witness the darkest lunar eclipse in 40 years on Wednesday. But the major attraction will be the colour of the moon which will turn coppery red.

During the eclipse, the sun, moon and earth will align and the moon will pass through the earth’s shadow, which is also called Umbra.

“I don’t want to miss the event as it comes once in four to five decades. If I get a clear sky it will be the most joyous moment of my life,” said a stargazer Shiva Mane from Kalyan. Some of the enthusiasts in Navi Mumbai, Chembur and Sion will be going to secluded places around the city. These places are called sky stations. From here, the sky looks clear and better.

Nehru planetarium programme coordinator, Suhas B Naik-Satam, said the eclipse, which will be visible across India, will begin at 11.53 pm on June 15 and end at 3.32 am on June 16.

If the skies are clear, the planetarium will arrange for telescopes so that the general public can watch the spectacular event. Naik-Satam said that the last time such an eclipse took place was on August 6, 1971.

School’s deal with coaching class alleged

STD XI ADMISSIONS

Shibu Thomas TNN

Mumbai: A Pune parent has moved the Bombay high court alleging that his son’s school has handed over admissions for an entire division for standard XI to a private coaching class. A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Ranjana Desai on Friday in an interim order restrained the Vikhe Patil Memorial School in Pune from finalizing the list of admissions for the division.

The court has issued notices to the school and the private coaching class FIT-JEE. The school has also been asked to submit the marks obtained by students who are proposed to be admitted to Standard XI for the current academic year.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Sandeep Joshi, whose son Shubhankar, a student of the

school, passed his standard X exams from the school this year. According to Joshi's lawyers the school has two divisions with a capacity of 40 each for standard XI. While one division was filled up with students on the basis of merit, the petition alleged that the second division was given to the coaching class and admissions to it were through an examination conducted by the private institute.

“The school has practically sold one class consisting of 40 students of standard XI to the private coaching class,” claimed the petitioner. The petition urged the court to direct the school to give admissions to both the divisions on merit and not on the basis of a “private arrangement’’ between the school and the coaching class. Joshi has asked for a stay on the final list of admissions for standard XI.