Special Focus: Why My Domestic Help Would Rather Send Her Kid To A Private School Than Public School?

My domestic help Ruksana has a seven-year-old daughter and a four year-old son. She enrolled them in a private school in the neighbourhood instead of the government primary school. Reason: No proper food, education and facilities. 

At the government school she could benefit from the Right to Education (RTE) Act which guarantees eight years of free, quality education to all children aged six to fourteen years. Instead, she shells out nearly Rs 800 a month for fees plus a good chunk on miscellaneous – books, uniforms, school activities, etc.

'Policy Paralysis In AICTE, Model Curriculam Is In Limbo'

By Dr. Shelly Ahmed (Star Guest Writer)

The policy paralysis at the top of the All India Council for Technical Education is manifested in different ways at all levels.

The present pitiable position of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) of is its own making. The AICTE, pre-Independent India’s recommendatory body, was in its 42nd year — in 1987 — vested with statutory powers through an Act of Parliament. The parliamentary wisdom hoped that the AICTE would discharge its statutory role of maintaining the standards and coordinated development of technical education in the country. 

Teacher's Day: Noble Profession Or Sorriest Of Trades?

By M H Ahssan / INN Bureau

It is not by simply increasing the number of schools and colleges that education can be promoted. Teachers form the pivot of the education system all over the world. From time immemorial, they have been engaged in a war on ignorance, prejudice and greed. They are the exemplars and role models in a society torn asunder by factions and superstition.

They are the ones who inspire youth to achieve and rise to higher levels of thinking. It is fitting and proper that September 5 (Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s birthday) every year is observed as Teachers’ Day.

Poor Schools For India’s Poor?

As enrolments in schools rise, it is time for India to invest in quality public education. My work requires me to interact with some of the most dispossessed and impoverished communities in the country, and I consistently find that even as poor households battle hunger, debt, unemployment and social humiliation, most still send their children to school. They do this at enormous personal cost, and with great hope for what the schools have to offer. Rich or poor, most Indian parents now aspire to educate their children. An encouraging 96 percent of children aged 6-14 years are enrolled in schools today.

 But sadly, schools betray these aspirations, as the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012 suggests. The report gathers compelling and disturbing evidence of abysmal learning outcomes in a majority of schools across India. More than half the children in Class V cannot read a Class II textbook, and three-quarters of children in Class III cannot read a Class I textbook.

 The wake-up call, which emerges from ASER 2012, is that the levels of reading and arithmetic in our schools are not only poor but also declining in many states. The situation is one of a “deepening crisis” in education, as Madhav Chavan, the author of the report notes. Only three states — Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala — have high learning levels on the ASER scale. Except Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, where levels are low but not falling, other big states contribute heavily to the overall declining learning levels.

 The Right to Education Act (RTE) initially eliminated all forms of student evaluation, and laid down — for good reasons — that children will not be held back for poor performance. But this well-intentioned provision may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, because it further reduced the accountability of the system for scholastic performance. Fortunately, this is now remedied because continuous and comprehensive evaluation is now a part of the law.

 What RTE promises is a publicly funded school in the neighbourhood of every child in the country. But as the ASER survey reminds us, the biggest challenge to the public education system is not only to expand the reach of government schools, but to improve their quality. RTE tends to equate quality education with the qualifications of teachers. It mandates formal training for every teacher, assuming that this will improve the quality of education. It fails to acknowledge that teachers will teach well in environments where they are valued, supported with imaginative teaching materials, their skills continuously upgraded, and robust systems of monitoring and accountability established.

Scholastic outcomes are poorer in government schools, compared to private ones. But as Chavan admits, “Private school education is not great and the socio-economic educational background of children’s families, parental aspirations and additional support for learning contribute majorly to their better performance. Yet, the fact remains that the learning gap between government and private school students is widening. This widening gap may make the private schools look better, but in an absolute sense it is important to note that as of 2012 less than 40 percent of Class V children in private schools could solve problems in division.”

 Parents are despairing of the public school system, and opt for lower-end private schools. The report estimates that 35 percent of children enrolled in schools study in private institutions. If the current trend sustains, more than half our children would be paying for their education by 2020.

 The solution is not to accept privatisation of education. Children studying in government schools will be the poorest, and if the quality of education continues to decline, it will confine the poor to the boundaries of socio-economic barriers established by their birth. The country needs to invest significantly more in government schools, in the salaries, and training of government teachers. India needs to show that it believes in securing equal chances for all children, regardless of the accident of where they are born. This is possible only with a dynamic and effective public school system.

Poor Schools For India’s Poor?

As enrolments in schools rise, it is time for India to invest in quality public education.

My work requires me to interact with some of the most dispossessed and impoverished communities in the country, and I consistently find that even as poor households battle hunger, debt, unemployment and social humiliation, most still send their children to school. They do this at enormous personal cost, and with great hope for what the schools have to offer. Rich or poor, most Indian parents now aspire to educate their children. An encouraging 96 percent of children aged 6-14 years are enrolled in schools today.

 But sadly, schools betray these aspirations, as the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012 suggests. The report gathers compelling and disturbing evidence of abysmal learning outcomes in a majority of schools across India. More than half the children in Class V cannot read a Class II textbook, and three-quarters of children in Class III cannot read a Class I textbook.

 The wake-up call, which emerges from ASER 2012, is that the levels of reading and arithmetic in our schools are not only poor but also declining in many states. The situation is one of a “deepening crisis” in education, as Madhav Chavan, the author of the report notes. Only three states — Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala — have high learning levels on the ASER scale. Except Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, where levels are low but not falling, other big states contribute heavily to the overall declining learning levels.

 The Right to Education Act (RTE) initially eliminated all forms of student evaluation, and laid down — for good reasons — that children will not be held back for poor performance. But this well-intentioned provision may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, because it further reduced the accountability of the system for scholastic performance. Fortunately, this is now remedied because continuous and comprehensive evaluation is now a part of the law.

 What RTE promises is a publicly funded school in the neighbourhood of every child in the country. But as the ASER survey reminds us, the biggest challenge to the public education system is not only to expand the reach of government schools, but to improve their quality. RTE tends to equate quality education with the qualifications of teachers. It mandates formal training for every teacher, assuming that this will improve the quality of education. It fails to acknowledge that teachers will teach well in environments where they are valued, supported with imaginative teaching materials, their skills continuously upgraded, and robust systems of monitoring and accountability established.

 Scholastic outcomes are poorer in government schools, compared to private ones. But as Chavan admits, “Private school education is not great and the socio-economic educational background of children’s families, parental aspirations and additional support for learning contribute majorly to their better performance. Yet, the fact remains that the learning gap between government and private school students is widening. This widening gap may make the private schools look better, but in an absolute sense it is important to note that as of 2012 less than 40 percent of Class V children in private schools could solve problems in division.”

 Parents are despairing of the public school system, and opt for lower-end private schools. The report estimates that 35 percent of children enrolled in schools study in private institutions. If the current trend sustains, more than half our children would be paying for their education by 2020.

 The solution is not to accept privatisation of education. Children studying in government schools will be the poorest, and if the quality of education continues to decline, it will confine the poor to the boundaries of socio-economic barriers established by their birth. The country needs to invest significantly more in government schools, in the salaries, and training of government teachers. India needs to show that it believes in securing equal chances for all children, regardless of the accident of where they are born. This is possible only with a dynamic and effective public school system.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

Dear Dr Manmohan Singh,

I write this letter on behalf of all those students who are being cheated each day, their dreams shattered, their aspirations curtailed their careers and lives ruined. On behalf of all those parents, who have invested all their savings, mortgaged homes, sold properties to ensure best possible education for their children? I write on behalf of the aspiring youth, the demographic dividend of India. 

“I am what I am because of education” you had said. You have often thanked your family that ensured right education for you, right up to college . Like most of us, you were born into a family of modest means, in a far away village of Gah (now in Pakistan), a village with no electricity, school, hospital or drinking water, you believed that your education would take you far. You invested in yourself and the system enabled your dreams to come true. 

Imagine Mr Prime Minister – the college you had attended, which promised a Master's degree, was fake? Imagine, it was one of those degree/diploma mills that came into being to exploit vulnerable students. Sir, if that was the case, your successes at the Cambridge, the Oxford, the UN etc., would have been a pipe dream. 

YOU WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA. 

And we would have never known about you. Sir, in the days when you studied, there was an honest system that protected you. Not any more.

Sir, today, fake degrees are up for sale, openly and publicly.  Students, gullible, vulnerable and ignorant are losing on their careers, their lives. Just from one institute alone -students have been protesting – in Indore, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and closer home at Gurgaon.  Students are left to approach courts, because the governance failed them. A country which protects a Rs.1000 financial investment vide a legal document called Prospectus and a regulator like SEBI, is unable to protect a student who invested Rs. 5 to 25 lakhs and spent two to five years of their life.

We have cheats and fraudsters having a free run – fully confident of the inability of the administration.  Question them and they openly call UGC and AICTE as full of bribe seeking corrupt officials, and refuse to seek any recognition. The fact that you were also the UGC chairman in 1991 when they chose not to seek recognition speaks out. The entire education system has been condemned to ignominy. The few honest officers at UGC and AICTE are left to defend themselves, as the leadership dithers, yet again.

Sir, what have you given back to the education system that made you? What have you done to protect that vulnerable student, the parent?  What have you done to ensure that dreams and aspirations of millions of young India are not ruined by a few rampaging institutes?  Many of your parliamentary colleagues with heavy investments in education prefer and ensure a status quo. 

The result - fake, unrecognised, profiteering, greedy institutes thrive, in every nook and corner of India.  

We have a judicial system that lacks empathy to larger issues and drags cases for years together. An administration that is more efficient when acting against student interests. Look at the adeptness with which DOT implemented a court order that we have only heard but not seen. Sir, we have a system that wears and tires us out, challenges our stamina, mocks us and laughs at us.

Isn’t it time for the administration to act? File FIRs in different police stations against institutions that cheat, that promise grossly illegal degrees? Let loose the law enforcement, arrest them, file multiple cases in each place where they have any base. Ensure judicial expediency to avoid delays, from giving contradicting judgments. I know that education is a state subject, but can you have some firmness at least in the congress ruled states?  Can you make life difficult for all those who ruin the careers and lives of students? 

Sir, the student community is looking to you. They are being bullied, harassed, ruined. They are fighting those that are powerful, rich, and with establishment on their side. You have achieved all your dreams because you believed in education. If you cannot ensure honest education to the young aspiring India, it is time you give up that responsibility to someone who understands what education means to this generation.

Sir, stand up for the aspiring youth of India, or give up and walk away. 

Jai Hind!

M H Ahssan
Editor in Chief
India News Network

RAISING THE QUALITY BAR IN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM

By Dr.Shelly Ahmed (Guest Writer)

We need more quality in the already existing institutions, not more institutions. The base of higher education has expanded enormously in India since Independence. Yet we are far behind the United States and China in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in this sector. In 1950, India had 700 colleges and 16 universities.

These numbers have now leaped to 33,000 colleges and 700 universities in 2011, if the statistics by University Grants Commission’s publication Higher Education at a Glance—2012 is to be believed. The Report on “Restructuring and Rejuvenation of Higher Education” by noted educationist Prof Yashpal suggests that there is a need to establish another 1,500 universities in the country to achieve the target of 30% GER (i.e., enrolment of 30 per cent of students who have finished twelve years of education in undergraduate courses.)

Why Do Indians Do 'The Ostrich' When It Comes To Sex-Ed?

By now, many of you would have seen the trending video created by East India Comedy – a satirical spoof highlighting the disconnect between sex education in Indian schools and its students, who are growing in a rapidly evolving world in which both information and misinformation are readily available. 

Legal Education: Many Challenges Ahead

INN analyses the state of legal education in India and the road ahead to bring law schools in line with changing needs.

India has the largest legal profession in the world (1.3 million attorneys). The corporate legal market in India is worth a billion dollars, half of which is shared by foreign law firms. The top 100 Indian companies spent approximately 600 million dollars last year as legal fees. Our legal market is growing very fast and we urgently need competent law graduates. The establishment of national law universities in India has changed the face of legal education in the country. 

These universities attract the best brains of the country. We have few islands of excellence. The students of these law schools have done exceedingly well in the international moot court competitions which shows legal education in India is reaching a golden age. Law has again become the most sought after course. 
    
What should one really expect from a legal professional in today's globalized world? It is generally said that today’s law student should have at least the following skills: ability of intensive research; analytical ability; ability of client counselling; advocacy skill; documentation and conveyancing skill; negotiation skill; court craftsmanship, and procedural skill and a skill for human relations. 
    
We need to integrate these skills into our legal education. Our students must possess wide range of "competencies" beyond a simple mastery of law and legal doctrines. Are our Law Schools, particularly the Law Departments of traditional universities and the 950 law colleges of the country, successful in imparting these desired skills in their students is the greatest challenge? Few so-called national law schools or islands of excellence cannot bring about a radical change and therefore we need to improve our law colleges. 
    
Our teaching methods have to change to adjust to the new and fast-changing world, otherwise our students will never acquire muchneeded skills. Many a time, learning is a very boring experience at law schools. We must incorporate humor to make the learning exercise more fun and thereby trick the students into learning more. Use of software applications, late evening classes, innovative credit system, offering of courses in music, painting, biotechnology, foreign languages, sports etc. will not only lead to true integration of knowledge but also help in retaining interest of highly talented students. 
    
Just as businesses and law firms can no longer take a strictly local or even regional perspective in terms of competition, neither can law schools. The legal education of today requires emphasis on trans-national fields, such as public international law, regional law, international trade and finance, environmental and climate change law, new transnational fields such as Internet law, procurement, and transitional justice, international criminal law and law and development are to be included. 
    
We also need to create a proper and authentic rating system for law schools and bring in accreditation standards comparable to United States, bring changes in financing of legal education as the cost of legal education in the elite national law schools is very high, take immediate measures to attract and retain talented faculty and offer them salary and perks at par with IITs, invest in curriculum development to make it comparable with the leading law schools of the West, bring changes in the examination system to test knowledge rather than memory, and we must take steps to enhance research at law schools as most of the law schools continue to be UG centric. 
    
Finally, legal education should now become "justice education" and while to meet the challenges of market and new world order, the focus today is more to the corporate sector, our law schools should not be completely hijacked by the corporates. We have a duty to produce good and competent trial lawyers, social litigation advocates and properly trained judges. 
    
The creation of new breed of lawyer depends itself on the creation of a new teacher. All curricular revision ought to be guided by one basic criterion viz. whether current doctrine and practice in particular areas of law serve to promote basic democratic values and 
needs of time. 
    
An additional focus of our strategy should be to make our programs more attractive to foreign students to meet and increase the demand for a globalized Law education. We must start general nine-months specialized LL.M. programs. To meet the market demand and to differentiate our offerings from those of other top law schools, we should also develop an Executive LL.M. Program for students who wish to seek an Anglo-American training in law and business while continuing their work commitments as seniors or executives in their firms and companies. 

‍‍‍Teachers Are 'Real Architect' Of Children’s Future

On the special occasions like Teacher’s Day we say all sorts of noble words about the vocation of teaching, and some teachers are awarded by the State, the fact is that as a society we are not very serious about the role of teachers as the messengers of emancipatory education.

To begin with, let us dare to be “impractical” and imagine what the vocation of teaching ought to be. Well, we might find amid ourselves a spectrum of “knowledgeable” people — experts and specialists. 

But then, a teacher is not just a subject expert. She teaches not merely quantum physics or medieval history; she does something more. She walks with her students as a co-traveller; she touches their souls; and as a catalyst, she helps the young learner to understand his/her uniqueness and innate possibilities. She is not a machine that merely repeats the dictates of the official curriculum; nor is she an agent of surveillance — disciplining, punishing, hierarchising and normalising her students through the ritualisation of examinations and grading. 

Instead, she is creative and reflexive; and it is through the nuanced art of relatedness that she activates the learner’s faith that he is unique, he need not be like someone else, he must look at the process of his inner flowering, and the artificially constructed binary of “success” and “failure” must be abandoned.

There is another important thing a teacher ought to take care of. She must realise that there are limits to teaching and sermonising; and she is not supposed to fill the mind of the learner with a heavy baggage of bookish knowledge. 

Instead, her primary task is to help the learner to sharpen the power of observation, the ability to think and reflect, the aesthetic sensibility, and above all, the spiritual urge to experience the glimpses of the Infinite. In other words, once these faculties are developed, one becomes a life-long learner — beyond degrees and diplomas. 

In fact, teaching as an act of communion, and studentship as a project of the integral development of the physical, vital, intellectual and psychic states of being, can create the ground for emancipatory education. And emancipatory education is not a mere act of “skill learning”; nor is it pure intellectualism with academic specialisation.

On the other hand, on September 5, the Teachers Day is celebrated to honour the memory of India's first Vice President and to commemorate the importance of teachers in our lives. It is supposed to be a special day for the appreciation of teachers who are the real fountain head of a strong nation.

Indian culture had always treated them as most important pillars. Even Lord Krishna, Rama or any kings during medieval period who ruled the country had taken lessons under a Guru and this speaks a lot about the importance of a teacher.

The teachers have a very difficult task and play the role of torchbearers, work with dedication even in adverse conditions to make the young generation prosper in all respects. It is time for the political executive and the teachers to have a serious introspection about the role of teachers then and now and see what kind of reforms needed to be brought in the system to ensure that the core values of education and the healthy relationship between the teachers and the taught is restored.

As a matter of fact, emancipatory education is the willingness to live meaningfully, creatively and gracefully. It is the ability to identify and debunk diverse ideologies and practices of domination and seduction — say, the cult of narcissistic personalities that reduces democracy to a ritualistic act of “electing” one’s masters, the doctrine of militaristic nationalism that manufactures the mass psychology of fear and hatred, or the neoliberal idea that to be “smart” is to be a hyper-competitive consumer driven by the promises of instant gratification through the ceaseless consumption of all sorts of material and symbolic goods. 

And a teacher ought to be seen as the carrier of this sort of emancipatory education that inspires the young learner to question sexism, racism, casteism, ecologically destructive developmentalism, hollow consumerism, and the life-killing practice of “productivity” that transforms potentially creative beings into mere “resources”, or spiritually impoverished and alienated robotic performers.

Yet, the irony is that we do not desire to create an environment that promotes emancipatory education, and nurtures the true spirit of the vocation of teaching. Look at the state of an average school in the country. 

With rote learning, poor teacher-taught ratio, pathetic infrastructure, chaotic classrooms and demotivated teachers, it is not possible to expect even the slightest trace of intellectually stimulating and ethically churning education. It is sad that ours is a society that refuses to acknowledge the worth of good schoolteachers.

Moreover, because of nepotism, corruption and trivialisation of BEd degrees, there is massive devaluation of the vocation. 

Likewise, while the triumphant political class has caused severe damage to some of our leading public universities, and fancy institutes of technology and management see education primarily as a training for supplying the workforce for the techno-corporate empire, teachers are becoming mere “service providers” or docile conformists. Here is a society hypnotised by the power of bureaucracy, the assertion of techno-managers and the glitz of celebrities. Not surprisingly then, it fails to realise that a society that has lost its teachers is dead.

However, those who love the vocation of teaching and continue to see its immense possibilities should not give up. 

After all, ours is also a society that saw the likes of Gijubhai Badheka, Rabindranath Tagore and Jiddu Krishnamurti who inspired us, and made us believe that a teacher, far from being a cog in the bureaucratic machine, carries the lamp of truth, and walks with her students as wanderers and seekers to make sense of the world they live in, and free it from what belittles man. We must celebrate this pedagogy of hope.

Teachers Day should not end with some celebrations. Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan saw education as the most important tool to metamorphose our society into an inclusive one. The question now is whether our present education system is inclusive. Are teachers playing the role of Shilpis (sculptors) and making children strong enough mentally to face any situation in life?

The role of a teacher is multifarious one. "Teaching is an ongoing process, which like mercury never settles at a particular place but keeps flowing with everlasting grandeur." They should be sharp, enlightened, updated, innovative, perseverant and ever ready to learn new things and unlearn old ones so that they produce the best of human resources, who are not only employable but should have enough resilience to absorb highs and lows of life. Does such a situation prevail in our country? 

Under Gurukul system, the Gurus (teachers) used to lay emphasis on practical education, developing observation skills of a student and above all there used to be a system of questioning, discussion and debate. A week student was always attached to a bright student so that the bright student would help the weak student.

But now it is other way round. The weak students are segregated from so-called cream and made to sit in a separate section which leads to negative impact on them as they are stamped as weak students. All this is part of commercialisation of education.

The system of listening to what teacher says, copy what is written on black board, learn by rote the so-called important questions is resulting in a situation where students are committing suicide if one gets 85 per cent marks instead of 90 per cent.

There are also cases where students are committing suicide, thinking that they may not get good marks. The political executive of the country and the teachers should ponder over such issues and bring major reforms to restore the values of education and importance of teacher that was seen in the olden times. The governments too should free the teachers from doing other works like door-to-door enumeration work or drafting them for election related work. #KhabarLive #hydnews

India's Education Sector: Moving Toward a Digital Future

The typical Indian classroom was once characterized by students sitting through hour-long teacher monologues. Now, technology is making life easier for both students and educators. Schools are increasingly adopting digital teaching solutions to engage with a generation of pupils well-versed with the likes of PlayStations and iPads, and trying to make the classroom environment more inclusive and participatory.

Take Smartclass from Educomp Solutions, one of the first Indian companies in this space. Smartclass is essentially a digital content library of curriculum-mapped, multimedia-rich, 3D content. It also enables teachers to quickly assess how much of a particular lesson students have been able to assimilate during the class. Once a topic is covered, the teacher gives the class a set of questions on a large screen. Each student then answers via a personal answering device or the smart assessment system. The teacher gets the scores right away and based on that, she repeats parts of the lesson that the students don't appear to have grasped.

"Technology makes the teaching-learning process very easy and interesting," says Harish Arora, a chemistry teacher at the Bal Bharti Public School in New Delhi who has been using Smartclass since 2004. "For instance, [earlier] it would easily take me one full lecture to just draw an electromagnetic cell on the blackboard. Though I could explain the cell structure, there was no way I could have managed to show them how it really functions. This is where technology comes to our aid -- now I can show the students a 3D model of the cell and how it functions. Instead of wasting precious time drawing the diagram on the blackboard, I can invest it in building the conceptual clarity of my students."

According to Abhinav Dhar, director for K-12 at Educomp Solutions, more than 12,000 schools across 560 districts in India have adopted Smartclass. More importantly, the number is growing at almost 20 schools a day. On average, in each of these schools eight classrooms are using Smartclass.

"When we launched Smartclass in 2004 as the first-ever digital classroom program, it was an uphill task convincing schools to adopt it," Dhar notes. "These schools had not witnessed any change in a century.... It is a completely different scenario now. Private schools across India today see [technology] as an imperative. A digital classroom is set to become the bare-minimum teaching accessory in schools, just like a blackboard is today."

Dhar recalls that one major roadblock for Educomp's proposition in the early days was on the price front. At US$4,000 (at the exchange rate of Rs. 50 to a U.S. dollar) per classroom, schools found the product very expensive. To get over this hurdle, Educomp quickly decided to make the initial investment and gave the schools an option to pay over a period of three to five years. The strategy worked. Enthused by the market response, in January Educomp launched an upgraded version -- the Smartclass Class
Transformation System -- with more features, including simulations, mind maps, worksheets, web links, a diagram maker, graphic organizers and assessment tools.

HUGE POTENTIAL
According to the "Indian Education Sector Outlook -- Insights on Schooling Segment," a report released by New Delhi--based research and consultancy firm Technopak Advisors in May, the total number of schools in India stands at 1.3 million. Of these, private schools account for 20%. Educomp's Dhar points out that only around 10% of the private schools have tapped the potential of multimedia classroom teaching whereas in government schools, it has barely made any inroads.

"The current market size for digitized school products in private schools is around US$500 million," says Enayet Kabir, associate director for education at Technopak. "This is expected to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 20% to reach the over US$2 billion mark by 2020. However, the market potential then might get as big as S$4 billion [i.e. if the total population of private schools that could adopt multimedia actually adopt it.] Apart from this, the current market size for ICT [information and communications technology] in government schools is US$750 million. We expect this to grow five times by 2020 due to the current low level of penetration in government schools."

Kabir lists Educomp Solutions, Everonn Education, NIIT, Core Education & Technologies, IL&FS and Compucom as dominant players in this sector. New entrants include HCL Infosystems, Learn Next, Tata Interactive Systems, Mexus Education, S. Chand Harcourt (India) and iDiscoveri Education. Except for S. Chand Harcourt, which is a joint venture between S. Chand and US-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, all the others are Indian firms.

A recent trend is that schools in tier two and tier three cities are increasingly adopting the latest technology. Rajesh Shethia, head of sales and marketing at TataInteractive Systems, which launched Tata ClassEdge in early 2011 and has partnered up with more than 900 schools, says that "more than half of the demand for digital classrooms is from tier two and tier three cities." According to Shethia, schools in these smaller cities realize that it is difficult for their students to get as much exposure as students from tier one cities. "[So] they proactively subscribe to solutions such as ours, which richly benefit both teachers and students by simplifying the syllabus....

Even parents want the best for their wards and are not averse to paying a little extra. They see value in these initiatives by schools to modernize the way teaching is imparted today." Making some back-of-the-envelope calculations Shethia adds: "If we consider the top 100,000 private schools in India as the captive market, the potential is approximately two million classrooms of which currently just about 80,000 have been digitized."
Srikanth B. Iyer, COO of Pearson Education Services, also sees tremendous potential in the smaller cities. Pearson provides end-to-end education solutions in the K-12 segment. Its multimedia tool, DigitALly, has been adopted in more than 3,000 private schools across India since 2004. "DigitALly installations have been growing at three times the market for the past two years," Iyer says. "Currently, more than 60% of our customers are from tier two and tier three towns, such as Barpeta (in the state of Assam), Sohagpur (in Madhya Pradesh) and Balia (in Uttar Pradesh)."

In order to make its offering attractive to the schools, Pearson has devised a monthly payment model under which a school pays around US$2 per student per month. "As the price point is affordable, schools across all locations and fee structures find it viable to opt for our solution," Iyer notes. "We focus on tier two and tier three towns and cities where penetration is relatively low and desire for adoption of technology is high." HCL's Digischool program, which launched about 18 months ago, has also made a strong beginning, with a client base of more than 2,500 schools.

PARTNERING WITH STATE GOVERNMENTS
Meanwhile, state governments are also giving a boost to the adoption of technology in schools. Edureach, a divison of Educomp, has partnered with 16 state governments and more than 30 education departments and boards in the country, covering over 36,000 government schools and reaching out to more than 10.60 million students.

"Edureach leads the market with 27% of the total schools where ICT projects have been implemented," says Soumya Kanti, president of Edureach. "We are looking [to add] 3,000 more schools this fiscal year and 20,000 to 25,000 additional schools in the next five years." As of now, Edureach has created digital learning content in more than 14 regional languages for these projects.

In the northern state of Haryana, CORE Education and Technologies is implementing a US$59 million ICT project that aims to benefit 5 million students across 2,622 schools. Five of these schools will be developed as "Smart" schools. CORE is also implementing ICT projects in the states of Gujarat, Meghalaya, Punjab, Maharashtra and Nagaland. The scope of work in these projects ranges from implementation of computer-aided learning in schools, installing bio-metric devices to monitor attendance of teachers, and setting up computer hardware, software and other allied accessories and equipments.

"The task has not been an easy one," admits Anshul Sonak, president of CORE. "There are several logistical issues. Delivery of equipment to rural areas is a big challenge in itself.... There is lack of basic infrastructure -- either there are no classrooms or there are ones with no windows.... Some schools don't even have toilets. Moreover, the power availability in these areas is often poor and we have had to deploy generator sets in many schools."

But despite the challenges, educationists are optimistic. Rahul De, professor of quantitative methods and information systems area at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore (IIM-B) believes that "ICT can have a huge impact on our education system." He points out that ICT can result in increasing the reach [of education] and in keeping the costs low. "With increasing penetration of mobile phones and Internet kiosks, the potential is indeed immense," he adds.

A study conducted by De in 2009 on the economic impact of free and open source software (FOSS) in India found that it resulted in significant cost savings. "FOSS can play a huge role in education," De notes. "In the state of Kerala, it has already had a huge impact in both saving costs and providing state-of-the-art access computing to students in government schools. FOSS has a huge number of packages for school students, many of which can be ported to local languages and used in schools. It is also helping disabled students in a big way, by enabling them to access digital resources using audio-visual aids."
Edureach's Kanti adds that a study by the Centre for Multi-Disciplinary Development Research in Dharwad in Karnataka in 2006 revealed significant improvement in student enrolment and attendance, as well as a reduction of student dropouts due to ICT interventions. "Yet another study conducted by the Xavier Institute of
Management in Bhubaneswar in 2007 revealed that computer-aided education has improved the performance of children in subjects such as English, mathematics and science, which are taught through computers using multimedia-based educational content."

ALL IN A TAB
In line with this increasing interest in technology for school education, there has been a rush of education-focused tablet computers in the market. The most high-profile of these has been Aakash, which was launched by Kapil Sibal, union minister for human resource development, in October 2011. The Aakash project is part of the ministry's National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NME-ICT). It aims to eliminate digital illiteracy by distributing the Aakash tablets to students across India at subsidized rates. While the project itself has become mired in delays and controversy, it has generated a lot of awareness and interest among students around the educational tablet.

Meanwhile, DataWind, the Canada-based firm that partnered with the union government for the Aakash project, has also launched UbiSlate7, the commercial version ofAakash. "The opportunity for low-cost tablets in India is huge. In the next two years, it will exceed the size of the computer market in India i.e. 10 million units per year," says Suneet Singh Tuli, president and CEO of DataWind.

In April, technology firm HCL Infosystems launched the MyEdu Tab, which is priced at around US$230 for the K-12 version. The device comes preloaded with educational applications and also books from the National Council of Educational Research and Training, a government organization. Anand Ekambaram, senior vice-president and head of learning at HCL Infosystems, is in the process of partnering with more than 30 educational institutes across India for MyEdu Tab. "MyEdu Tab has content offline and can be accessed over the cloud. It allows students to learn at their own pace," Ekambaram notes. "With a topic revision application and a self-assessment engine, students can evaluate their skills and knowledge on their own. Teachers can upload content, which can be accessed by students and parents for tasks such as homework and progress reports on their respective devices. The parent can monitor the progress of his or her child through the cloud-based ecosystem."

Earlier this year, Micromax, a leading Indian handset manufacturer, also launched an edutainment device called Funbook. Micromax has also partnered with Pearson and Everonn to make available relevant content for students. Susha John, director and CEO at Everonn, was upbeat at the launch. "Digital learning facilitated through tablets will revolutionize the educational space," John said. "Everonn has invested in developing content and services targeted toward tablet audiences. To start with, we will offer our school curriculum-learning modules ... and at home live tuition products on the Funbook. Students can now have access to good teachers, educational content and a great learning experience anytime, anywhere."

At Pearson, Max Gabriel, senior vice-president and chief technology officer, is "focusing on K-12 content in English to begin with. We are sitting on a huge repository of existing content. Adding the right level of interactivity and richer experience will be our priority." Meanwhile, Educomp is gearing up to launch content that is device agnostic and can be run on any tablet.

But even as schools in India are going through this transformation powered by technology, one key question is how big a role technology will play in the education sector.

In an earlier interview S. Sadagopan, founder-director at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, pointed out that there are four parts to learning -- lectures, library, laboratory and life -- noting that, "Technology plays a critical role in all these." Kabir of Technopak adds another perspective. "Despite numerous studies on the impact of ICT in education, the outcomes remain difficult to measure and open to much debate. It needs to be understood that technology is only an enabler and a force multiplier and cannot be treated as a panacea. We believe that impressive gains in teaching-learning outcomes are possible only through an integrated approach rather than a piecemeal intervention."

Don Huesman, managing director of Wharton's innovation group, recommends caution in considering potential investments in educational technologies. "These are very exciting times for online and distance education technologies, but there are risks facing parents, educators and policy makers in evaluating the opportunities these new technologies, and their proponents, represent."

Huesman points to the recent growth in high-quality, free, online educational courseware offered on websites like the Khan Academy and the Math Forum, as well as the work of the Open Learning Initiative in developing intelligent cognitive tutors and learning analytics. "But such technologies, available from a global network of resources, only provide value when understood, chosen and integrated into a local educational community," he says. As an illustration, Huesman offers the example of cyber kiosks, provided in recent years by foundations at no cost to rural communities in India, exacerbating the "gender divide" in many traditional communities in which young women congregating at public cyber cafes, also frequented by young men, would be considered taboo. "Interventions by governments and NGOs must be inclusive of local community concerns and aware of local political complications," Huesman notes.

The MBA Degree: Is It Really Worth For Career Prospect?

By John A. Byrne (Guest Writer)

Year after year, it’s the question asked by hundreds of thousands of people around the world: Is the MBA degree worth it?

Does it really make sense to quit a job you already have, interrupt your life for two years and assume a debt burden that can often exceed six figures for the MBA?

Many strongly believe it’s only worth the time and expense if you can get into a Top 10 business school. Others see much value in a far broader range of MBA programs. And a fairly good percentage have crunched the numbers to conclude they’re better off staying put and climbing upward in the companies that already employ them.

Bonded Labours: Born To Be Bonded?

Dearth of work is forcing lakhs of families to seasonally migrate to other states in search of their livelihood. Here their children are forced to work as bonded labourers in the brick kilns, depriving them of their childhood, while the administration turns a blind eye.

Poverty entails sacrifice. When resource availability is scarce, one has to sacrifice for others. Poor migrant labourers from the remote villages of Odisha face this predicament daily.

Kamalini Bangula, 18 dropped out of school just after she passed class 5. Marginal farmers Tapi and Tulusa Bangula, parents of Kamalini and two more children, could hardly provide two square meals to the whole family, forcing them to migrate out of the state to Hyderabad, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam and other places to work in brick kilns. Ten years back, when the family first migrated, Kamalini had no choice but to stay with her family to help with brick making. Her sacrifice however did not go in vain. Now she is paying for her younger sibling’s education, who study in class ten and three, out of her income. When the family moves out, these children would stay with their uncle (elder brother of Tapi) to continuing schooling. “Let my sister’s dream of becoming a teacher come true!” says Kamalini wishing all the success to her younger sister. This time they have taken 35,000 rupees from a middleman to work in a brick kiln in the Cuttack district of Odisha.

Hundreds of thousands of families from drought prone western part of the state seasonally migrate to other states in search of work, through a well entrenched and exploitative middlemen system, characterised by hefty advance payment and tacit bondage of labour. Dearth of work in villages forces them out. Child labour is implicit in brick kiln industries where most of these families work. This is how Urban India, that demands more bricks for its real estate boom, thrives at the cost of poor children from rural areas. Laws to ban child labour in hazardous industries and to ensure primary education to children between 6-14 years have hardly produced the desired impact. Child labour continues unabated. 

A study by International Labour Organisation (ILO) conducted with Aide Et Action India (AEAI) in 2011-12 in Balangir, Nuapada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha, finds that as many as 11 percent of the total migrants are children in the age group of 6-14, whose education has been guaranteed by the Right to Education Law, 2009. Estimates from various sources put the number of migrant workers at around 2.5 to 3 hundred thousand from the western Odisha districts alone, about 85 percent of whom migrate to other states (Source: ILO study, 2011-12). So the number of children in this age group could well be between 25,000 to 30,000. Has the state done enough to protect their right to education?

Initiatives have been taken jointly by the government and the civil societies to work out two models for the education of migrant children. One is to open seasonal hostels in the villages to house the children of migrating families when their parents are away and the other is to run work-site schools in the host states and teach children in their native language. The latter entails a strong inter-state arrangement where Odia teachers and text books are to be sent to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the states with the maximum influx of migrant Odia labourers. Although last year was a disaster for the state in opening such hostels, for the year 2012-13 it has allocated funds for retaining 5389 students. 

During my recent tour of the villages in Belpada block of Balangir district, I found some of the hostels doing reasonably well. But in many cases the hostels have simply not come though and several children have migrated from their villages. While in some cases they were opened quite late after several families had already migrated. Babejori village of Gudhighat panchayat under Muribahal block is a case in point. November to January is the peak season of migration. Hostels should have opened by the first week of November to retain children of migrant workers.

On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh, which has taken a giant leap in providing education to the migrant children, claims that it taught 6453 Odia migrant children in the year 2011-12. However due to a lack of proper coordination between the education departments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the children could not get adequate Odia text books, although Odia teachers were made available. Sridhar Mether of Aide Et Action India, the NGO that partnered with the AP government in teaching migrant children says “We need to have different type of curriculum, which is more activity based, to keep the children involved.” 

The training of the migrant teachers and the quality of education remain a grey area. A willing Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Mass Education Department of Government of Odisha Ms Usha Padhee says “I understand that current inter-state arrangement to provide education to the Odia migrant children in other states is adhoc. We have made arrangements this time for timely delivery of text books in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and other states. They are our children. We are seriously pondering on having long term plans to ensure basic education of migrant children.”

Performance of the much hyped Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREGA) in these districts, aimed to check distress migration, can well be an example of how a well designed law can get off-track when it is implemented, if the politicians and bureaucrats lack the will. During the current financial year (April 2012 to January 2013), in Balangir district an average of 28 days of work has been provided to 61,500 families, which is one fourth of the total families having Job Cards in the district. In Nuapada district, 30 days of work has been provided to 27,600 families, which is one fourth of the total Job card holders. In financial terms, the families have got about 3600 rupees as wages under MGNREGA. The government expects to check the migration of these families by providing them with such paltry wages and that too with exorbitant delay in payment. 

On the other hand middlemen offer a sum of 35,000 rupees at a time to a single family before migration. Recently the state government has decided to provide 150 days of work under MGNREGA against the minimum limit of 100 days in these two districts. One wonders what difference it would make to the schemes performance. “Till the basic issues of providing employment in time of need and timely payment remain unaddressed, only increasing the number of days will not curb distressed migration” opines Rajkishor Mishra, the Odisha Advisor to Right to Food Commission of Supreme Court.

Brick kilns in the country are one of the biggest employers of child labour apart from cotton geneing, carpet industries, jari work, diamond polishing etc. Even though they are being educated, the children continue to work in the kilns at night. The labour department officials in AP remain tight-lipped on the issue of child labour in brick kilns. Umi Daniel, who has done pioneering work on the education of migrant children, says “One way to prevent child labour is to check the children at the source area. Strict enforcement of the anti-child labour laws in the worksites is a must to stop the menace.”

Children’s Day – Living the dreams of Nehru

By Jayashakar VS

Globally, countries celebrate Children’s Day on different days. On 14 December, 1954, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to recommend that all countries institute a Universal Children's Day, to be observed as a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children. It recommended that the Day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world.

The Assembly suggested to governments that the Day be observed on the date and in the way which each considers appropriate. The UN Universal Children’s Day is celebrated every year on the 20 November. The date 20 November marks the day on which the General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

Children’s Day in India
India celebrates Children’s Day on November 14 to commemorate the birth anniversary of its first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Most of us have only a superficial understanding of the significance of the day: Nehru loved children and hence this day was chosen to commemorate his love for children ever since his death in 1963. But for chacha Nehru (Uncle Nehru), as he was fondly called by the children, his passion for them and their welfare spanned his entire lifetime. As the first Prime Minister of India, he has done extraordinary things and introduced many successful schemes for the welfare, education and development of children and young people. A peek into his exceptional dedication and love towards children on this day will go a long way in not only appreciating the rationale behind having the children’s day on his birthday, but also inspiring enough to imbibe his dedication to child welfare.

Education and nutrition for all children
An avid advocate of education in India particularly to children and youth, Jawaharlal Nehru firmly believed that India’s future relied entirely on providing basic education to children and higher education for the youth. He set forth on his mission. In his early five year plans, he outlined a commitment to ensure free and compulsory primary education to all children in the country. To achieve this, Nehru visualised mass village enrolment programmes, implemented them and administered the construction of thousands of schools. For the youth, Nehru set up adult education centres, vocational and technical schools, especially in the rural areas to equip them to face the future. And to cater to the demands of quality higher education, Nehru established many institutions of higher learning, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The Prime Minister also gave equal importance to child nutrition and health and launched many initiatives like providing of free milk and meals to the children in the schools.

Special focus on the girl child
At a time when caste and gender discrimination was rampant and which actually proved to be a hindrance in educating the girl children, Nehru introduced many changes to the existing Hindu Law to criminalise the caste discrimination and give more legal rights and social freedom to the girl child and women. And to provide social equality across the nation, the reservation system for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes was introduced that opened up reserved seats in government services and educational institutions. In his own government, Nehru gave opportunities to minorities.

How the Day is celebrated?
November 14 is marked with fun and innovative celebrations across all schools and educational institutions in the country. Debates, painting and essay competitions, tours and excursions to places of national interests, cultural shows by children of all ages are conducted in the respective school premises. Many activities that could inculcate the sense of togetherness among children are organised. Mass rallies for and by the children are also arranged. Children hold placards, and messages that highlight the difficulties of the underprivileged children and the urgent need to address child welfare issues that continue to affect them despite laws and restrictions in place.

Apart from big celebrations in schools and among children during the Children’s Day on November 14 every year, the UN Universal Children’s Day on November 20 is also celebrated with equal fervour. On this day, under the auspices of the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and UNICEF, all schools in the country conduct informative classes for their children about the UN Convention on Child Rights, and hold debates and essay writing and drawing competitions on the subject.

Uphold the real spirit of Children’s Day
Children’s Day celebration is not only for the children of this country. As a parent, each one of us has a responsibility in shaping the future of our children and other children around us. The key is to make your child understand the importance and significance of the Children’s Day, to encourage them to participate in the celebrations and nurture the concept of love, kindness and sharing.

On Children’s Day, you could take your child to the nearby orphanage or to a nearby slum and if possible sponsor for a child’s education. Donate liberally to the cause of children’s education and nutrition. Take active part in spreading the awareness about child’s rights and their education. You could make your children help the cause of providing nutrition for those deprived children working and living in deplorable conditions. Make your own child understand and appreciate the joy of giving and sharing. By doing this, you will make a little contribution to the dreams of a man whose love for children and their welfare surpassed boundaries and brought joy to millions of children.

Basically, Children’s Day is to celebrate ‘childhood.’ And childhood is not those few years after birth or till one attain adulthood. Childhood is a kind of healthy revelation, a way of life! And it should be kept alive till one’s lifetime. Do not let the ‘child’ in you to die! The spirit of childhood is marked by the zeal to learn, to keep oneself open to new concepts and ideas and more importantly the sense of unconditional and universal love, sans race, colour, gender, societal status, and ego. Let us celebrate Children’s Day to let the future generation have its say. On this day and every day, let us take an oath and work towards keeping alive the dreams and actions of a man, a leader, who did everything during his lifetime to see the children of India healthier, educated and smart enough to lead this country into the future.

Indian Students Are Not As Poorly Educated As You Think—They’re Even Worse

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

Humanities student Ruby Rai scored a commendable 444 marks out of 500—a 90% score—topping this year’s Class 12 exams conducted by the education board of the northern Indian state of Bihar.

As it usually happens with such academic toppers, the media promptly arrived at her residence in Bihar’s Hajipur district last week.

By Trying To Silence Campus Activism, Education Policy Report Is Ignoring Voices Of India's Students

By KAVITA KRISHNAN | INNLIVE

The world over, student movements have been instrumental in bringing about social change.

Like the Birla-Ambani report, 2000, from Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s days, like thereport of a World Bank task force on Higher Education in Developing Countries (of which Manmohan Singh was a member) and like the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations of 2006, the TSR Subramanian panel’s report on the new education policy takes up several pages to recommend the restriction of campus activism.

Higher education: Panel blasts HRD for the rot

By Shalini Verma

It Hauls Up Ministry For Mindless Expansion; Wants An End To Deemed Varsities

The Union HRD ministry may have downgraded the status of the 27-member Yash Pal Committee to an advisory body, but the panel has lashed out at the ministry on more than a dozen fronts in its final report.

It has slammed the ministry for its “nervous and hurried response in starting new central universities’’, permitting “chaotic expansion in higher education’’, allowing undergraduate education to rot and swallowing autonomy through “intrusive bureaucracy and mindless regulation’’.

The report has attacked the private and public higher education space of the country, which neither “excites students’’ nor “equips graduates for the real world’’. Naturally then, the scathing report has not enthused the HRD ministry, and in turn, it has asked committee members to “generate public opinion by holding discussions on reforming higher education across the country’’. Early last month, the committee was informed that the ministry had whittled down its position to an advisory body, but members stuck to their recommendations and the original terms of reference. The 27-member panel was constituted in February last year and has drawn up 14 recommendations in critical areas. When the octogenarian educationist personally handed over a copy of the report to HRD minister Arjun Singh, sources said, he was told that the election code of conduct had set in and he could take his report and hold discussions on it across the country.

A copy of the final report with this paper vilifies all regulatory inspectors and notes that poor reforms have been the main culprit of several wrong goings in higher education. While traditional universities, the panel notes did not “create public confidence’’, private institutes have been reduced to “commercial entities of very low quality’’. Expansion in higher education, the report says, has not looked at the “impoverished undergraduate education’’ that caters to 6 million students who pass through a system which has “not renewed itself and has not provided opportunities to students’’.

This is what the Yash Pal committee had to tell the ministry for the latest kids on the block — 15 central universities: “The fear of loss of agency of the university and the pressures of the ever-expanding demand for quality education have been met with a nervous and hurried response. Creation of a few institutions of excellence and some central universities, without addressing the issue of deprivation that the state-funded universities are suffering from, would only sharpen the existing inequalities. Mere numerical expansion, without an understanding of the symptoms of poor education would also not help.’’

What makes the panel report all the more controversial is its recommendation of not just doing away with deemed universities, but also downing shutters of existing low-grade ones. “Practice of according status of deemed university be stopped forthwith. It would be mandatory for all existing deemed universities to submit to the new accreditation norms within three years failing which the status of university should be withdrawn,’’ the report states.

World Population Day 2009 - Fight Poverty, Educate Girls

By M H Ahssan

On 11 July 2009, people around the world will be observing the 20th World Population Day in different ways. This year's theme is chance to build awareness of the importance of educating girls to a wide range of development issues, including poverty, human rights and gender equality.

There are many ways to promote this theme:

- Consider inviting local celebrities to help spread the message.
- Organize events to generate widespread attention about the importance of girls' education.
- Spark discussion with seminars, conferences and debates. Host essay and poster contests.
- Work with community groups to create plays and soap operas.

Encourage women and girls to speak or write about the impact of education in their own life. The messages can come to life when different people from different circumstances share their own experiences and knowledge.

Investing in Women is a Smart Choice
No one knows yet what the full scale of this global economic crisis will look like. We do know that women and children in developing countries will bear the brunt of the impact. What started as a financial crisis in rich countries is now deepening into a global economic crisis that is hitting developing countries hard. It is already affecting progress toward reducing poverty.

Policy responses that build on women's roles as economic agents can do a lot to mitigate the effects of the crisis on development, especially because women, more than men, invest their earnings in the health and education of their children. Investments in public health, education, child care and other social services help mitigate the impact of the crisis on the entire family and raise productivity for a healthier economy.

Protect the gains achieved
Investments in education and health for women and girls have been linked to increases in productivity, agricultural yields, and national income — all of which contribute to the achievement of the MDGs. Investments by governments worldwide have raised school enrolment rates, narrowed the gender gap in education, brought life-saving drugs to people living with AIDS, expanded HIV prevention, delivered bed nets to prevent malaria, and improved child health through immunization.

Today, as we commemorate World Population Day, the global financial and economic crisis threatens to reverse hard-won gains in education and health in developing countries. Among those hardest hit are women and girls. This is why the theme of this year’s World Population Day focuses on investing in women. Even before the crisis, women and girls represented the majority of the world’s poor. Now they are falling deeper into poverty and face increased health risks, especially if they are pregnant.

Today, complications of pregnancy and childbirth are leading killers of women in the developing world. And maternal mortality represents the largest health inequity in the world. This health gap will only deepen unless we increase social investments, maintain health gains and expand efforts to save more women’s lives.

In countries and communities where women have access to reproductive health services—such as family planning, skilled attendance at birth and emergency obstetric and neonatal care—survival rates are high and maternal and newborn deaths are rare.

Access to reproductive health, in particular family planning and maternal health services, helps women and girls avoid unwanted or early pregnancy, unsafe abortions, as well as pregnancy‐related disabilities. This means that women stay healthier, are more productive, and have more opportunities for education, training and employment, which, in turn, benefits entire families, communities and nations.

And investments in reproductive health are cost-effective. An investment in contraceptive services can be recouped four times over—and sometimes dramatically more over the long-term—by reducing the need for public spending on health, education and other social services.
It is estimated that family planning alone could reduce the number of maternal deaths by as much as 40 per cent.

Our world today is too complex and interconnected to see problems in isolation of each other. When a mother dies, when an orphan child does not get the food or education he needs, when a young girl grows into a life without opportunities, the consequences extend beyond the existence of these individuals. They diminish the society as a whole and lessen chances for peace, prosperity and stability.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, remains committed to supporting countries to advance women’s empowerment, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health.

Today, on World Population Day, I call on all leaders to make the health and rights of women a political and development priority. Investing in women and girls will set the stage not only for economic recovery, but also for long-term economic growth that reduces inequity and poverty. There is no smarter investment in troubled times.

Missing: A 'healthy' debate

By M H Ahssan

If public health systems are failing on account of certain causes, the solution should lie in fixing them. However, it appears instead that the state seems to be looking for an escape route from the problems of its own inefficiencies.

When I first heard of the recently launched Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) - a health insurance scheme to provide cover to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families - my first reaction was to feel happy that there is such a scheme. RSBY is an idea that has its origins in the Ministry of Labour, and is designed as yet another way to provide social security to people below the poverty line. Under the scheme, BPL families (up to a total of 5 members per family), will get insurance cover of up to Rs.30,000 per person per year.

It is well recorded that in India, those people who are economically below the poverty line or are at the margins need just one prolonged illness or hospitalisation to be pushed to the verge of bankruptcy. But a little more thinking about RSBY and our health sector, made me ask some questions: Why do we need an insurance scheme for BPL families?

Is it because we do not have adequate government medical facilities or trained doctors that people can access? Or is it because many government-run health care centres simply do not run the way they are supposed to? Or, could it be that, people have so little faith in our public health facilities that they simply do not go there even though they might become bankrupt paying for private health care? Or is it because there is an explicit policy statement in which we have said that we must encourage private provision of health care, because we have come to the conclusion that government facilities are beyond redemption?

Our opinions on the role of RSBY will vary, depending on the answers and explanations to these and other similar questions. In any event, the scheme is symptomatic of a larger problem. The health ministry has failed to deliver essential health care services to the population through the government health care system, and to overcome this failure, a different ministry wants to provide insurance to a section of the population so that they can access private health care.

How fruitful will the Ministry of Labour's labours on this front be? That remains to be seen. But one thing is clear - for the first time, the government has signalled to a large percentage of the population (over 20 percent) that they should access health care offered by private providers and that the government would be willing to work with insurance companies to finance this arrangement. Already, around 85 million people are covered under schemes such as Employees State Insurance Corporation, Central Government Health Scheme, etc. That number is a relatively small fraction of the total population. With RSBY, the push towards privately provided care will receive a much bigger boost.

Vouchers for private education
There are parallels to this in other sectors, notably education. RSBY is like saying that all children of BPL families will get an education voucher that will pay school fees (up to a certain limit) for children who wish to go to private schools. Education vouchers allow children to choose the private school they wish to go to depending on their perception of quality of the school, and any other relevant factors. The government gives a voucher to the child which she can present in the private school as her fees. The school then exchanges that voucher with the government for cash.

The argument goes that the schools will have to be perceived as "good" if more children have to enrol. This fosters competition amongst schools, where non-performing schools will lose in enrolment and the "good" schools will increase. So there is fillip for private providers of education services, and there is direct competition between government and private providers of education.

People vote with their feet. The hollowing out of government schools in urban areas, and increasingly in semi-urban areas and rural areas is a good example of this. If people believe that private schools provide better education, then they will be willing to pay for them and attend them. In many urban areas, children who go to government schools often have little choice, for they belong to the poorest of families, and in several instances, their parents have had very little education.

It is interesting to note that while we, as a nation, seem to be less than receptive to education vouchers as a policy intervention but in stark contrast are embracing health insurance as an option. Arguing that education and health care are two different kinds of public services would be missing the forest for the trees. The broad questions in this comparison are still relevant.

Without debate
Interestingly enough, the 2004 General Election manifestos of the Congress and the BJP both explicitly state that they will start an insurance-based health security scheme if elected. The Common Minimum Programme makes a similar statement. It would seem logical that before making an important choice like this one, it would be necessary to evaluate various existing and possible new approaches to addressing the problem from the point of view of effectiveness and costs, and then make an informed policy choice.

Our health care sector is at a stage of evolution where we can still make better choices - how much private provision would we like vis-a-vis government provision of health care services? In simpler words, what percentage of people would we like to depend on government hospitals as compared to private hospitals for treatment? This is a question we ought to ask now, given the relatively small scale of organised private health care. If the government actively promotes private provision of health care now (through programmes such as RSBY), then in two or three decades from now, it would be too late to ask how much private healthcare should our country have.

This is by no means an ideological stance, supporting government efforts and criticising the private sector. Rather, it is about short-term benefits and losses, and the likely long term impact. This debate is about asking these important pragmatic questions early enough, so that the choices and their implications are fully understood.

In the short term, the BPL families who benefit from RSBY will greatly appreciate the programme, despite the scheme's imperfections and shortcomings. It does in fact make better health care more accessible for those who might otherwise have had to spend significant amounts of money despite being unable to afford it. In the short term, given that our demographics are slanted towards a younger population, the insurance premiums that the government will need to pay will also be relatively low. As our population ages, the cost of such payments to insurance companies will naturally increase.

Under these circumstances of massive structural changes sweeping the sector, it would be pertinent to examine the kind of debates taking place. There are two kinds of conversations that dominate the discourse. One set of people are deeply concerned about the implementation of various government health schemes such as the Janani Suraksha Yojana (that attempts to promote institutional deliveries), or such other important programmatic interventions that will have a direct bearing on health outcomes. There is another set of people who are talking about health financing, and what options exist to make the necessary finance available to the health sector - be it government funding, raising private resources, insurance mechanisms, etc.

The National Health Policy 2002, talks about a number of things, but falls short of articulating a national vision for the structure of our health care system 10 years from now.

The Report of the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health submitted in 2005 has some very high quality papers. This Commission chaired jointly by the Health Minister and the Finance Minister identifies some important issues facing the health care sector. In a candid assessment of the health care sector in India, the report says: "The principal challenge for India is the building of a sustainable health system. Selective and fragmented strategies and lack of resources have made the health care system unaccountable, disconnected to public health goals, inadequately equipped to address people's growing expectations". The reasons for failure can be attributed to three broad factors: poor governance and the dysfunctional role of the State; lack of a strategic vision; and weak management."

It would seem that if the health sector is failing on account of these three causes, the solution should lie in fixing them. However, it appears instead that the state seems to be looking for an escape route from the problems of its own inefficiencies by conceding a bigger role for the private sector.

In discussing the role of the private sector in health care delivery, the report goes on to say: "... the trade-offs in terms of welfare implications however cannot be ignored. It will raise the overall cost of health care in the country and generate pressures for increased budgetary allocations for government hospitals to stay competitive."

And then the same report while discussing the 'way forward' goes on to recommend that in order to improve the quality of health care, the country should "Gradually shift the role of the State from being a provider to a purchaser of care."

This stance raises some elementary questions: what is the likely impact on equity, cost and quality of services as a result of this shift in the medium to long run? What are the projections of the costs 10-20 years down the line? How sensitive are these numbers to any changes in demographics, or a mid-course change in policy? These questions have not been discussed in depth in policy circles, let alone in public debates across the country.

If there is one question that we need to ask now, it is this: have we as a nation reflected on the policy choices that we are faced with now? If we are unable to answer this question with enough conviction, we may end up losing another generation to poor quality health care for the majority of the people in the country. Is that something that we can afford?