2013 was another uneventful year for Indian education. With the thoroughly disgraced Congress-led UPA-II government fire fighting a spate of corruption scandals, unremitting inflation and devaluation of the rupee, and the opposition BJP blocking legislative business in Parliament, as all political parties gear up for general election 2014, education and welfare of the world’s largest child population — 480 million — was relegated to the back-burner in the recently concluded year. The hope and expectation that the dream team of Dr. Pallam Raju (Union minister), Shashi Tharoor and Jitin Prasada (ministers of state) who took charge in the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry on October 28, 2012, would belatedly usher the much needed reform of Indian education and push pending education legislation, was belied.

As in 2012, last year too ended dismally without any education legislation debated by Parliament. None of the 20 pending education Bills — 11 relating to higher and nine to primary-secondary education — have been passed. Two years on, the National Commission for Higher Education and Research, Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations), National Accreditation Regulatory, Prevention of Malpractices, and Education Tribunals among other reformist legislation are still hanging fire.

The calendar year 2013 began on a bad note with the Union government slashing the school education and literacy allocation of Rs.45,969 crore earmarked in Union Budget 2012-13 by 7 percent i.e, Rs.3,240 crore. Sources in the HRD ministry attribute this cutback to the “economic slowdown and need to control expenditure” even as two surveys — the Annual Status of Education Report 2012 and All India Education Survey — released in January painted a grim picture of plunging learning outcomes and crumbling infrastructure in the school education system.

Imperfect implementation of the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 — the UPA government’s sole education legislation which came into force on April 1, 2010 — was another damper. The three-year time window given to all schools countrywide to improve their infrastructure and teacher-pupil ratios and other norms as detailed in s.19 of the Act and Schedule of the RTE Act, ended on March 31 with 93 percent of primary schools still non-compliant and facing the threat of closure. While the Union government turned down requests from states to extend the three-year deadline, ground reports indicate the RTE Act is still a non-starter as state governments struggle with implementation, funds constraints, teacher shortages and shoddy infrastructure.

In higher education as well there was little cause for celebration. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD rejected the NCHER Bill, 2011 which proposes creation of an overarching National Commission for Higher Education & Research to subsume all other regulatory bodies in tertiary education. The committee recommended continuance of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

Perhaps the highlight in education of 2013 was the out-of-the-blue announcement of the HRD ministry that the Central government proposes to enact an ordinance allowing foreign universities to set up campuses and offer degrees without a local partner. According to a September 10 press note, the ministry is “in the process of finalising the UGC (Establishment and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Educational Instit-utions) Rules under which foreign universities can set up campus (sic) in India and issue foreign degrees”. But given that the note also prescribes several stiff eligibility conditions, the response of foreign institutions, wary of entering India’s over-regulated education system, has been lukewarm.

The foreign varsities ordinance was quickly followed on October 3 by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approving the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme, a Central government-sponsored scheme for upgrading state government universities. Under RUSA, to be implemented during the remaining years of the 12th Plan (2012-17) and 13th Plan (2017-22) periods, 316 public universities and 13,024 colleges in the states will receive unspecified additional funding for infrastructure develop-ment and faculty recruitment.

Perhaps as a consequence of EducationWorld’s persistent advocacy of early childhood education, in September the Union cabinet approved a National Early Childhood Care and Education (NECCE) policy drafted by the Union ministry of women and child development. The policy recommends transformation of all 1.35 million Central government-funded anganwadi centres (AWCs) into AWCs-cum-creches with adequate infrastructure “for ensuring a continuum of ECCE”.

However these three positive initiatives of the Congress-led UPA-II government, taken at the fag end of its second consecutive term in office, have aroused considerable cynicism and are being dismissed as election gimmicks of the beleaguered Congress party fighting a desperate rearguard battle through enactment of populist legislation (the Food Security Act, Land Acquisition Bill etc) to appease an electorate alienated by unremitting inflation and a plethora of corruption scandals which have ruined the party’s image. For India’s children and youth struggling to acquire marketable skills within an archaic and dysfunctional school and higher education system, the two successive five-year terms of the UPA government promised a lot but delivered very little.
Perhaps the silver lining to a dismal final year of the UPA-II government was a flurry of activity in private education and the voluntary (NGO) sectors as edupreneurs and philan-thropists, driven by pressing demand for high-quality school and tertiary education, continued to promote and commission greenfield schools, colleges and universities.

In the pages following Summiya Yasmeen summarises the highs and lows of Indian education in the recently concluded year.
ASER shock

January 17. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012 — a nationwide survey measuring learning outcomes in (mainly government) rural primaries (classes I-VIII) annually — was released by Union HRD minister M.M. Pallam Raju. Conceptualised and brilliantly executed by the Mumbai-based education NGO Pratham, ASER 2012 is the outcome of 30,000 volun-teers fanning out to 16,000 villages in 567 of India’s 640 districts, and actually testing the (vernacular) language and maths skills of 600,000 sample children.

Damningly, ASER 2012 reveals that in most of the 28 states and seven territories of the Indian Union, learning outcomes of primary school children are three years behind the expected level. In 2010, 46.3 percent of class V students in the country couldn’t read and comprehend class II textbooks. Two years on, 53.2 percent can’t. Likewise, the percentage of class III students who can’t grasp class I textbooks has increased from 54.4 percent in 2010 to 61.3 percent. In numeracy as well, learning outcomes of primary children are plunging. In 2010, 29.1 percent of class V children couldn’t solve two-digit subtraction problems. This has leapfrogged to 46.5 percent in 2012. (see Education News, EW February 2013)

All India Education Survey

January 23. A provisional 8th All India Education Survey (AIES-8) — a census of all recognised schools in the country — was released by the Delhi-based National Council of Educational Res-earch & Training (NCERT). According to the survey, the number of schools countrywide has grown by 27 percent from 1.04 million in 2002 to 1.30 million in 2009. Student enrollment has increased by 13.67 percent and on September 30, 2009 almost 230 million (228,994,454) students were enrolled in recognised schools across the country.

A comprehensive school data coll-ection exercise which includes details such as physical and ancillary facilities, teacher qualifications, availability of ICT equipment and internet, provisions for physically challenged children, etc, AIES-8 paints a grim picture of the school education system in India. The survey reveals that only 20 percent of schools offer children safe drinking water, 30 percent are bereft of usable lavatories and half don’t have playgrounds. AIES-8 confirms that the pervasive lack of lavatories is a prime factor behind 42.25 percent of girl children dropping out before entering secondary school. (Education News, EW February)

Karnataka private varsities bonanza

February 15. The Karnataka legislative assembly passed four Bills — Vydehi University Bill 2013, Garden City University Bill 2013, JSS Science and Technology University Bill 2013 and Srinivasa University Bill, 2013 — greenlighting the establishment of four new private varsities in the state. Earlier, the assembly had passed a spate of Bills establishing 13 private universities including the Manipal, Adichunch-anagiri, Dayanand Sagar, Vellore Technical, M.S. Ramaiah, PES, and KLE Technological universities. With the green signal given to 17 new instit-utions, the total number of private universities, including the already functioning Azim Premji and Alliance universities in the state will rise to 19, making Karnataka second-ranked in the number of private varsities (Rajasthan hosts 33) countrywide. (Education News, EW March)

RTE Act not applicable to preschools

February 19. A Delhi high court bench comprising Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain ruled that the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and subsequent notifications issued by the Union HRD ministry and department of education of the Delhi state government are not applicable to regulations gover-ning admissions in unaided private preschools or nurseries. According to the judgement, except for reserving 25 percent capacity in class I and subseq-uently all the way upto class VIII for children from poor households in the neighbourhoods of private unaided schools, the RTE Act does not mandate any other reservation of capacity for weaker sections and disadvantaged groups. (Education News, EW March) 

Union Budget neglects education again

February 28. Union finance minister P. Chidambaram presented the Union Budget 2013-14 to Parliament. In his 95-minute budget presentation speech, Chidambaram decreed nominal (unadjusted for inflation) allocations for the education sector. “I propose to allocate Rs.65,867 crore to the ministry of human resource development, which is an increase of 17 percent over the RE (revised expenditure) of the previous year. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (primary education for all) and Right to Education Act are firmly in place. I propose to provide Rs.27,258 crore for SSA in 2013-14,” said Chidambaram.

In a pre-election year Budget, the finance minister also provided token increments for early childhood nutrition and care (ICDS, Rs.17,700 crore), the mid-day meals scheme (Rs.13,215 crore), secondary (Rs.3,984 crore), higher (Rs.26,750 crore) and medical education (Rs.4,727 crore), and continued with the past practice of making Rs.100 crore grants to selected institutions of tertiary education.

However despite raising the educa-tion budget by 17 percent (over the reduced revised expenditure), the Centre’s allocation of Rs.65,867 crore aggregates to a mere 0.7 percent of GDP projected at Rs.106.39 lakh crore — an annual per capita allocation of a mere Rs.1,444 for the 550 million children and youth countrywide. (Special report, EW April)

UGC’s accreditation notification

March 4. The University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a notification making accreditation mandatory for all higher education institutions on pain of derecognition. According to the notification, all higher ed institutions countrywide should be accredited by UGC after graduating two batches or six years, whichever is earlier, with the onus upon institutions to apply for accreditation within six months from March 4. The accreditation will be valid for five years and it is mandatory for each accredited institution to apply for re-accreditation six months before expiry of the five-year period.

The notification is issued against the backdrop of the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) Bill hanging fire for the past two years. This delay prompted the Union HRD ministry to make accreditation mand-atory through an executive order. The notification provides stringent penal-ties including derecognition of defaulting institutions under the UGC Act, 1956. (Education Notes, EW April)

RTE Act deadline ends

March 31. Today the three-year time window given to schools to improve their infrastructure, and other norms as detailed in s.19 and Schedule of the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 which became operational on April 1, 2010, slammed shut. With effect from April 1, schools which haven’t upgraded their teacher-pupil ratios, buildings, toilets, drinking water facilities and playgro-unds etc “shall” be derecognised and forcibly shut down by the competent authority (municipal and/or state government) under the provisions of s.19.

Even as the Union government turned down requests from state governments to extend the deadline, HRD minister M.M. Pallam Raju was evasive about the fate of schools which have failed to meet the RTE Act’s specifications, observing that they should ensure RTE implementation within the “shortest possible time”. (Cover story, EW May)

Annamalai University nationalised

April 14. The J. Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu tabled the Annamalai University Bill, 2013, which proposes to nationalise the crisis-ridden 84-year-old Annamalai University (AU), Chidambaram — arguably India’s most famous teacher certification university for liberally dispensing distance learning B.Ed degrees — in the state legislative assembly. The Bill seeks to repeal the Annamalai University Act, 1928 under which descendants of founder Rajah Annamalai Chettiar were entitled to the post of pro-chancellor in perpe-tuity. Under the new Annamalai University Bill, 2013, the state’s higher education minister will serve as AU pro-chancellor ex officio and will manage the university and all its properties, and the governor/chancellor will appoint the vice chancellor.

The Bill was subsequently passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly on May 17, and the takeover of the university by the state government was widely welcomed by AU faculty and staff. (Education News, EW May)

Cabinet clears National Policy for Children

April 18. The Union cabinet approved the National Policy for Children, 2012, which recognises child survival, health, nutrition, education, development and protection as undeniable rights of every child.

The Union cabinet approved the National Policy for Children, 2012, which recognises child survival, health, nutrition, education, development and protection as undeniable rights of every child.

The policy drafted by the Union ministry for women and child develop-ment lays down the guiding principles that must be respected by national, state and local governments in their actions and initiatives affecting children, to ensure the right of every child to life, survival, development, education, protection and participation, and equal rights for all children without discrimi-nation.

A national plan of action is to be developed to give effect to the policy and a National Coordination and Action Group constituted to monitor implementation.

Parliamentary panel favours UGC & AICTE

May 3. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD recommended a new lease of life for the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), rejecting the Union gover-nment’s proposed NCHER Bill, 2011 which recommends the creation of an overarching National Commission for Higher Education & Research (NCHER) to subsume all other regulatory bodies in tertiary education. “The committee has strongly recommended for conti-nuance of the existence of these vital bodies (UGC and AICTE) for effective regulation of higher and technical education,” said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD. (Education Notes, EW June)

UPA-II Report to the People

May 22. The Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA-II) government at the Centre celebrated compl-etion of four years of its second consecutive term in office with the release of a Report to the People (RtP).

According to the report, there is near universal enrollment in primary education and a steady increase in the number of years of schooling of the child population. Although three years after it became law, the RTE Act, 2009 is floundering in shallows and misery, the RtP hails it and the mid-day meals scheme as great successes. The report claims 2,441 primary schools and 2,453 upper primary school buildings with 190,000 classrooms, 8,887 drinking fountains and 269,000 toilets were constructed with an aggregate outlay of Rs.23,836 crore in 2012-13.

Moreover under its national mission on education through information and communication technology 400 univer-sities and 117 colleges have been connected through 89 virtual labs, and six new medical colleges modelled on AIIMS, Delhi and sited in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh, admitted 300 students. Moreover 26 new medical colleges were sanctioned. (Education News, EW June)

Non-IIT engineering colleges’ rankings

June 7. BITS, Pilani was voted India’s #1 engineering college in the inaugural EducationWorld-C fore Top 100 Engineering Colleges Rankings 2013 which excluded Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) from the rating and rankings exercise. The International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad and College of Engineering, Anna University, Guindy were ranked #2 and #3 respectively. The survey conducted by the Delhi-based market research firm C fore polled 1,126 faculty and 1,211 final year students countrywide, asking them to rate engineering colleges on seven parameters.

Simultaneously, in the Education-World-C fore Top 30 Medical Colleges Rankings 2013, AIIMS, Delhi followed by Christian Medical College, Vellore and Armed Forces Medical College, Pune were ranked India’s Top 3 medical colleges. To compile the all-India med-ical colleges league table, C fore resear-chers interviewed 217 faculty and 253 final year students of 95 medical colleges countrywide. (Cover Story & Special Report, EW June)

Indo-US higher education agreements

June 25. Several important agreements to enhance cooperation in higher education were signed during the second Indo-US Higher Education Dialogue held in New Delhi. At the dialogue co-chaired by Union HRD minister, Dr. Pallam Raju, and US secretary of state John Kerry, four agreements of great potential were signed between IIT-Delhi and University of Nebraska on joint development of cyber systems; IIT-Bombay and edX on introducing massive open online courses in India; All India Council for Technical Education and the American Association of Community Colleges for cooperation in promotion of community colleges in India, and between the ITM group of institutions, and Montgomery College, Maryland on cooperation in creating capacity in business manage-ment education. (Education News, EW July)

India’s Top 50 non-IIM   B-schools

July 7. The Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; XLRI, Jamshedpur; S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai head the inaugural EducationWorld-C fore India B-schools Rankings 2013, which exclude the elite IIMs. The league table of India’s Top 50 non-IIM B-schools was compiled by market research firm C fore which interviewed 532 faculty members and 518 final year students of a mix of business management education institutions countrywide.

Published on the same day (July 7), the EW India Professional Colleges Rankings 2013 rated and ranked the country’s top professional colleges through a perceptual survey which polled 1,513 industry professionals, 815 faculty members and 726 students from over 500 professional education institutions across the country. The National Law School of India University, Bangalore; Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development, Delhi; NIFT, New Delhi; Mudra Institute of Mass Communication, Ahmedabad and DSK Supinfocom, Pune were ranked India’s #1 law, hotel management, fashion design, mass communication and animation colleges respectively. (Cover Story & Special Report, EW July).

Delhi U introduces four-year undergrad degree

July 24. Delhi University (DU) intro-duced a new four-year baccalaureate (Hons) degree programme to replace the three-year BA/B.Sc (General/ Hons) programme, in its 77 affiliated colleges. Earlier DU’s academic and executive councils had passed resolutions to transform DU into India’s first varsity to introduce four-year US-style undergrad degree programmes. Under the new structure, an 11-subjects ‘foundation course’ in English, Hindi, maths, science, commerce, history, political science, psychology and geography is mandatory for arts, science and commerce students. The new structure offers associate baccal-aureate (two years), baccalaureate (three years), and baccalaureate with Hons. (four years) certification.

The handiwork of the varsity’s high-profile vice chancellor Dinesh Singh, the introduction of the four-year degree curriculum is heavily opposed by the Delhi University Teachers’ Association.

EW India School Rankings 2013

September 7. Vasant Valley, Delhi (co-ed), the Valley School, Bangalore (day-cum-boarding), Modern High School, Kolkata (all-girls) and Campion School, Mumbai (all-boys) were ranked India’s most admired day schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013. Rishi Valley School, Chittoor (co-ed), Welham Girls, Dehradun (all-girls), and The Doon School, Dehradun (all-boys) were ranked #1 in the traditional/legacy boarding schools category. Dhirubhai Ambani International, Mumbai (day), Indus International, Bangalore (day-cum-boarding) and Kodaikanal International School (fully residential) were voted #1 in the international schools category.

A total of 5,779 fees-paying parents, teachers, principals and educationists across the country were interviewed by field researchers of the market research company C fore, to rate and rank 593 of the country’s most well-known day, 75 boarding and 57 international primary-secondary schools. (Cover story, EW September) 
    
Foreign varsities get green light

September 10. The Union HRD ministry released a press note permitting foreign universities to set up campuses, operate independently and offer degrees in India. According to the press note, the ministry is “in the process of finalising the UGC (Establishment and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Educational Institutions) Rules under which foreign universities can set up campus (sic) in India and issue foreign degrees”. The press note mandates that campuses established by foreign educational institutions (FEIs) in India must be owned by not-for-profit, charitable companies registered under s. 25 of the Companies Act, 1956.

Secondly, the press note mandates that interested FEIs need to be ranked among the world’s Top 400 by the London-based international rating agency Quacquarelli Symonds, Times Higher Education magazine or in the Academic Ranking of World Univer-sities of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Moreover, the press release details several other conditions relating to the quality of study programmes offered in FEI campuses in India, corpus quantum and prescribes stiff penalties for “FEPs (foreign education providers) who contravene any provision of these Rules or UGC Act”. (Cover story, EW October)

National ECCE policy

September 20. The Union cabinet approved a draft National Early Child-hood Care and Education (NECCE) policy of the Union ministry of women and child development (WCD). Stating that the “cardinal principles” on which the policy draft is based are “universal access, equity and quality in ECCE,” the policy recommends transformation of all 1.35 million Central government anganwadi centres (AWCs) — maternal and child nutrition centres — into AWCs-cum-creches “with adequate infrastructure and resources for ensuring a continuum of ECCE in a life-cycle approach and child related outcomes,” a long-standing demand of EducationWorld.

Subsequently WCD sent state governments a circular prescribing minimum floor space area (35 sq. metres per classroom with 30 sq. metres of outdoor space), teacher-pupil ratio (1:20), teacher qualifications and primary medium of instruction applicable to all (i.e, private) preschools. (Education News, EW October)

RUSA go-ahead

October 3. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), a Central government-spon-sored scheme for upgrading the higher education system in India’s 29 states and seven Union territories. Under RUSA, to be implemented in the remainder of the 12th Plan (2012-17) and 13th Plan (2017-22) periods, 316 public universities and 13,024 colleges in the states will receive additional funding for infrastructure development and faculty recruitment.

During the remainder of the 12th Plan period, the financial outlay for RUSA is budgeted at Rs.22,855 crore, of which the Central government’s share will be Rs.16,227 crore. In addition, the allocation of Rs.1,800 crore for  upgradation of polytechnics will also be subsumed in RUSA, raising the Centre’s total investment during the next four years to Rs.18,027 crore. The funding pattern for RUSA will be in the Centre-state proportion of 65:35 and 90:10 for the north-eastern states, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. (Education News, EW November)

EW India Preschool Rankings 2013

December 5. The Magic Years, Vasant Vihar (Delhi); Head Start Montessori, Koramangala (Bangalore); Indus Early Learning Centre, Jubilee Hills (Hyderabad); Podar Jumbo Kids, Bandra (Mumbai); Mongrace Mont-essori House, Short Street (Kolkata); Vruksha Montessori, Alwarpet (Chen-nai); Leapbridge International Presc-hool, Kalyani Nagar (Pune); EuroKids, Satellite (Ahmedabad); Pallavan, Sohna Road (Gurgaon), and Windows Play Group & Nursery School, Sector 50 (Noida), were adjudged the most admired preschools in India.

The EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2013 rated and ranked 175 selected preschools in ten cities — where awareness of the vital importance of foundational early childhood care and education is highest. To conduct the survey, over 200 field researchers of the Delhi-based market research agency C fore quizzed 2,705 respondents inclu-ding parents (with at least one child in preschool), teachers and principals, asking them to rate 175 preschools on ten parameters of education excellence. (Cover story, EW December)

50 new education channels

December 19. An agreement was signed by Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar and HRD secretary Ashok Thakur, under which the Union HRD ministry and public broadcaster Prasar Bharati will start 50 educational channels by May 1 next year. As per terms of the agreement, while the public broadcaster will provide expertise to broadcast the channels on a DTH platform, the ministry will focus on providing content.

The channels will broadcast structured programmes — the content will originate from institutions such as IITs, IGNOU, State Open Universities, Central Universities, and NITs. The channels will broadcast curriculum based content in almost all subjects being taught in universities and colleges. Under the project the number of channels will be gradually increased to 1,000.