EducationWorld @23

Although disappointment with achievements of this publication, which has been ploughing a lonely furrow for over two decades exceeds contentment, there is cause for some satisfaction. Today, there is substantially greater acceptance within the establishment and society of several causes consistently advocated by EducationWorld, Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

WITH PUBLICATION OF this issue, Education­World — The Human Development Magazine (estb.1999) completes 23 years of continuous, uninterrupted publishing. Given the thousand un­natural shocks that flesh is heir to, and formidable hurdles of public ignorance, institutional indifference and establishment hostility, uninterrupted publication of 276 issues of this pioneer education news magazine posed many a testing challenge. In retrospect even if we haven’t quite fulfilled our goal to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”, we can justifiably claim to have advanced the long neglected subject of qual­ity education for all to at least mid-point of the national development agenda.

Since no public personality or media publication is likely to proclaim the modest achievements of this outlier publication which has been ploughing a lonely furrow for the past two decades, and although disappointment exceeds contentment, there is cause for some satisfaction. Today, there is substantially greater acceptance within the establishment and society of the message consistently proclaimed by EducationWorld that universal quality K-12, if not tertiary education, is the necessary precondi­tion for India to attain middle class nation status and national prosperity. Our message that generation of financial resources is impossible without development of human resources, has struck a resonant chord in mil­lions of hearts across the country, and perhaps within the establishment.

This is evidenced by several causes and policies consis­tently propounded by your editors having — without at­tribution as is customary — been incorporated into public policy. For instance, EW was the first strident voice in post-independence India to highlight the critical impor­tance of professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) for youngest children.

In 2010, we hosted the first ever international ECCE conference in Mumbai followed by annual national ECCE conferences, and began rating and ranking the best pre-primaries in 16 cities countrywide every year. The upshot of our consistent advocacy of foundational ECCE was that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 acknowledges the critical importance of pre-primary education and has formally incorporated it into primary education. The long-standing 10+2 primary-secondary school system has been reconfigured into 5+3+3+4 to mandate compulsory foundational education for all children starting from age three.

A second notable achievement of this publication (to­gether with stable mate ParentsWorld) has been to suc­cessfully impact the importance of well-rounded, holistic, primary-secondary education upon educators (promoters, principals and teachers) to develop the multiple intelli­gences of children. In 2007, EducationWorld ideated and introduced the sui generis annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey.

In sharp contrast with the global practice of assessing schools on the single criterion of learning outcomes, in the annual EWISR, schools are assessed and evaluated under several parameters — teacher welfare and develop­ment, leadership, faculty competence, co-curricular and sports education, curriculum and pedagogy, individual attention to students, special needs education, commu­nity service etc. Over the past 15 years since the annual EWISR was introduced, the number of parameters has in­creased to 14 and include the digital readiness and mental and emotional well-being services provided by schools.

Currently, the annual EWISR, which rates and ranks the country’s most reputed 4,000 primary-secondary schools in four main and 22 sub-categories in 392 cities and towns countrywide, has evolved into the largest and most comprehensive schools ranking survey worldwide. Perhaps more significant, it has impacted the vital im­portance of providing well-rounded, holistic education to children.

Evidence of general acceptance of the imperative to offer holistic education to children to arouse and nurture their multiple intelligences is the nationwide enthusiasm stimulated by publication of the annual EWISR in print and online media. In addition, the annual EWISR Awards Conclave staged in Delhi arouses great enthusiasm within the educators’ community with over 1,400 school leaders thronging the conclave every year (see pg. 92). This is proof that the importance of dispensing holistic — rather than mere academic — education has been internalised by the school leaders and teachers’ communities.

In higher education as well, by persistently commis­sioning ratings and ranking surveys, we have alerted India’s laggard higher education institutions to the widening gap between our best and Western and Chinese universities.

Moreover since 2020, EW has also started publishing league tables ranking the country’s best govern­ment and private arts, science and commerce colleges. This has prompt­ed India’s best colleges and universi­ties to benchmark themselves with top-ranked higher education institu­tions abroad. Also by writing and publishing lead features on excellent privately promoted universities such as Manipal, Amity, Ashoka and O.P. Jindal Global among others, we have taken the wind out of the sails of left intellectuals who hitherto had a free run to rubbish private initiatives in higher education.

Following EW’s continuous advocacy of private initiatives in education, several state governments have enacted special legislation to facilitate the promotion of private universities across the country. This has totally transformed the higher education landscape in India and has substantially reduced the annual outflow of school-leavers and un­dergraduates to universities abroad which costs the Indian economy $10 billion (Rs.82,321 crore) annually.

But although over the past 23 years since the first issue of Educa­tionWorld was somewhat hesitantly and experimentally launched with the ambitious goal of transform­ing the national mind-set to accord highest priority to developing the country’s abundant and high-poten­tial human resource and provide a productivity leap to Indian industry, agriculture and the economy, it’s also important to acknowledge that our failures outnumber successes.

Firstly, despite continuous advocacy and exhortation, we have failed to persuade Central and state governments to raise their combined annual expenditure for education to 6 percent of GDP, as recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1967 and promised in the election manifestos of every major political party. Every year in our analysis of the Union budget, we have published detailed schema suggesting ways and means for the Central government to mobilise Rs.7-8 lakh crore — by reducing wasteful establishment expenditure, slashing non-merit gov­ernment subsidies, targeted social welfare spending and fire-sales of bleeding public sector enterprises — for investment in public education and healthcare. Although this calcu­lus has been printed and published, and also forwarded to eminent economists, it has not received any traction.

Unfortunately, indifference to the critical importance of provid­ing high-quality preschool to Ph D education to India’s children and youth is deep and wide within the establishment and society. Regretta­bly, post-independence India’s great estates — Parliament, the executive, judiciary, academia, industry, middle class and media — have failed and neglected the education sector. The first step towards transformation of the national mind-set in favour of developing the country’s abundant and high potential human resource is to informally audit the record of the great estates of the Republic in reaching the fundamental right of good quality education to the world’s largest child and youth population.

Parliament & legislatures neg­ligence. Although Article 45 of the Constitution of India enacted in 1950 directed that the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children in the 0-14 age group nationwide, it was only in 2002 that the Constitution was amended by hon’ble members of Parliament to transform this ‘directive principle’ into a fundamental right. Even so the obligation of the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the 0-14 age group was restricted to children in the 6-14 age group.

Moreover to limit the expendi­ture of the State — bankrupted by inorganic socialist ideology and reckless nationalisation of banks and businesses and uncontrolled establishment expenditure — part of the obligation of providing bottom-of-pyramid children free and com­pulsory elementary (classes I-VIII) education was offloaded to private schools.

With provision of quality public education a low priority of almost all political parties with perhaps the exception of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has formed govern­ments in Delhi and Punjab states, the target of increasing annual expenditure (Centre plus states) for public education to 6 percent of GDP set in 1967 has remained a distant dream for over 60 years. As a result, government schools attended by 130 million children countrywide, have acquired a notorious reputation for crumbling buildings, dilapidated classrooms, unusable toilets, chronic teacher truancy, multigrade teaching and rock-bottom learning outcomes.

Unsurprisingly, they are shunned by the middle class and an estimated 120 million children are enrolled in 450,000 private schools, including 400,000 affordable budget private schools countrywide with an enrol­ment of 60 million children, damn­ing evidence that even low-income families prefer fees-levying private schools to free-of-charge government primary-secondaries.

Executive/government mis­management. Parliament and state legislative assemblies’ under-pro­vision for education and slap-dash, ill-considered legislation is com­pounded by open, continuous and widely tolerated mismanagement of public education institutions by the Central and state governments. Instead of focusing official attention on contemporising and upgrad­ing government schools, the neta-babu brotherhood is overly focused on dragging down the country’s 450,000 private schools to the status of dysfunctional government schools.

The licence-permit-quota regimen of the neta-babu brotherhood which almost destroyed Indian industry un­til the liberalisation and deregulation initiative of 1991, has migrated to the education sector. As a result admis­sions, tuition fees and administra­tion of private schools and higher education institutions is closely regu­lated by government, especially state governments. Promotion of private greenfield schools requires dozens of government clearances with bribes payable at every stage of approval, and state governments routinely en­act legislation to ‘regulate’ the fees of private schools which are subject to regular ‘inspection’ by venal school inspectors.

Judicial confusion & contra­diction. Despite the mandate of the Constitution to the State to provide good quality free-of-charge education to all child citizens, post-independence India’s judiciary — globally infamous for its sloth and time agnosticism — hasn’t exhibited notable judicial activism to trans­form this constitutional mandate into a fundamental right. And while it has done precious little to ensure that government provides acceptable quality of education to children from socio-economically disadvantaged households across the country, it has remained steadfast in its belief that all private education providers should necessarily be philanthro­pists and that “commercialisation of education” — but not of food, shel­ter, healthcare — is reprehensible.

For over 30 critical years in the history of independent India, the Supreme Court, packed with judges committed to socialist ideology in the 1970s, condoned government harassment and persecution of pri­vate school promoters and manage­ments, thereby denying millions of citizens the fundamental right to establish and administer education institutions of their choice.

With licence-permit-quota and bureaucratic corruption becoming pervasive, and legislation to cap the fees of privately-promoted schools to appease middle class households routinely validated by the apex and high courts, tens of thousands of education entrepreneurs (aka edu­preneurs) have been dissuaded from promoting education institutions providing globally benchmarked (therefore expensive) school and collegiate education. As a result, even as learning outcomes in government schools and higher education institu­tions went from bad to worse, quality standards in private schools suffered erosion.

Fortunately, even if belatedly, a decade after the historic deregulation of industry in 1991, a new generation of judges of the Supreme Court saw the light. In a landmark judgement in TMA Pai Foundation vs. Union of India & Ors (2002), an 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court ruled that all citizens have a fundamental right to engage in the “vocation” of education with the right to determine admissions on merit and levy “reasonable” fees to earn surpluses for re-investment in education. However, the impact of this landmark judgement was diluted two years later in the Islamic Academy Case (2005), in which a five-judge bench of the apex court directed appointment of committees chaired by retired Supreme Court or high court judges to adjudicate if admission processes of private col­leges are indeed fair, based on merit, and whether tuition fees levied are reasonable.

With the Supreme Court not hav­ing asserted the supremacy of the TMA Pai judgement of the full bench over the ruling of the five-judge bench in the Islamic Academy case, private education institutions are continuously harassed by litigation. Simultaneously with most state gov­ernments having enacted legislation capping private school fees, private school promoters and principals often spend more time in courts than in classrooms. In sum, difficulties of establishing and managing private schools have multiplied. Meanwhile, the large and multiplying number of private coaching schools, which levy high fees to drill and skill chil­dren and teens to succeed in public entrance exams, has failed to attract judicial (or government) disapproval.

Corporate disinterest & dis­connect. A curious anomaly of the “socialist pattern of society” of post-independence India is the disinterest and indifference of India Inc to de­veloping the country’s abundant and high-potential human resource. This industry myopia has heavily disap­pointed your correspondent who in a previous avatar as founder-editor of Business India and BusinessWorld — India’s pioneer business maga­zines — strenuously campaigned with a substantial measure of success to free Indian industry from the shackles of pervasive licence-permit-quota raj imposed upon India Inc and private sector enterprise.

In the circumstances, it’s been particularly disappointing that leaders of India Inc whom the said pioneer publications also freed from the low ceiling on managerial remu­neration, have shown no interest in co-operating with EducationWorld in our 23-years campaign to place education, aka human resource de­velopment, at the top of the national development agenda. On the con­trary for mysterious reasons, several captains of Indian industry who were rescued from cowering obscurity by BI and BW and transformed into national heroes, have exhibited irra­tional prejudice and hostility towards this nation-building publication.

For instance, Ratan Tata whose candidacy for chairmanship of Tata Sons was decisively endorsed by BusinessWorld, refused advertising support to EW when it was struggling; N.R. Narayana Murthy withdrew support for the annual Infosys-EW Young Achievers Award (annual expenditure: Rs.4 lakh) pleading “not enough bang for the buck”. Likewise, when N. Chandrasekaran was appointed chairman of TCS in 2017, he abruptly terminated the annual TCS-EducationWorld Teachers Awards (instituted by TCS founder-CEO F.C. Kohli) which felicitated outstanding government and budget private school teachers countrywide.

These instances of irrational hos­tility towards the country’s pioneer and #1 education news publication are not restricted to tunnel-vision techies. Repeated entreaties to the heads of FICCI, Assocham, CII for interviews on education policy and management issues remain unan­swered. Ditto invitations to them to grace the annual EWISR Awards — which felicitate leaders of the country’s Top 4,000 schools listed in the EducationWorld India School Rankings — have never received response.

Socialites appointed public rela­tions czarinas block all access to cor­porate leaders heading these indus­try lobbies infamous for pandering to every government in power. It’s mind-boggling that the captains of India Inc fail to grasp the elementary proposition that if EW succeeds in its mission to accelerate upgradation of the country’s abundant human resource, India Inc will be the biggest gainer by way of higher productiv­ity and improved profitability. It’s a reflection of the quality of leadership of India Inc that they haven’t yet un­derstood that if EW succeeds, India Inc succeeds.

Dog-in-manger godi media. To intensify public pressure on the Central and state governments to increase their budgetary allocation for education and human resource development, educating the public about the cost-benefits of providing high-quality education for children and youth, is a precondition. There­fore, your editors have continu­ously solicited the collaboration and cooperation of media corporates, television channels, media houses and newspapers by offering free-of-charge content, language translation rights and often made requests for publicity to our numerous path-breaking features and news reports. Alas to little avail.

Preoccupied with reporting po­litical and sports news, mainstream media has little space for education news and initiatives. Offers have also been made to vernacular language newspaper publishers to translate EducationWorld and the affiliated ParentsWorld into native languages, without any response. Hyper-com­petition, unwarranted insecurity and indifference to QEFA (quality education for all) within mainstream media leaders has inflicted grave injury to the world’s largest child and youth population.

Middle class indifference. Edu­cation and nurturance of children and youth in bottom-of-pyramid households is a necessary precondi­tion of national development. This majority within generation next must be transformed into skilled and high productivity blue and white collar workers and managers required by industry, business and government. Yet the country’s middle class which sign up their children for relatively superior private schools and higher education is utterly indifferent to sliding standards in public educa­tion.

A high-potential project ‘Million Memorial Libraries’ which proposed the philanthropic establishment of low-cost (Rs.5 lakh) libraries in gov­ernment and/or NGO schools drew no response at all despite your editor establishing a model Malati & Vinoo Thakore Memorial Library in the Parikrma School, Sahakara Nagar, Bengaluru. Moreover, the Children First Party of India (regstd.2013) which solicited membership sub­scription (Rs.100 per year) drew negligible response.

Indifference towards education and human resource development by the establishment, the country’s great estates and middle class lends credence to communist/socialist dogma that in democratic societies the bourgeoise has a vested interest in illiteracy and poverty to ensure availability of a vast pool of cheap labour engaged in informal low paid employment. Yet however convenient this situation may be for the ruling and middle classes, it’s self-evident that an ill-educated nation can never become internationally respected and competitive, let alone be acknowl­edged as a global super-power.

Therefore, a mind-set sea change is required in all sections of society in favour of truly — instead of ritually — educating India’s children through provision of globally benchmarked high-quality K-12 and higher educa­tion. Indeed, this is the precondition of sustained national development.

On the 23rd anniversary of Edu­cationWorld, we invite leaders in all great estates of the Republic to make common cause with us and explore ways and means to raise teaching-learning standards to best global norms. A coordinated and orches­trated national effort to educate and skill the world’s largest child and youth population is imperative to make India — which less than two centuries ago contributed 20 percent of global output and wealth — great again.

Also read: Union Budget 2024-25 – Soaring Ambition Neglected Foundation