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Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education
Post date
January 1, 2016
Post date
Custom
NewsCards Backgrounder
[pib] New India Literacy Programme for Adult Education

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Government Scheme/Policies

Post date
February 17, 2022
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : New India Literacy Programme

Mains level : Basic literacy and numeracy amongs adults

The Union Government approved a new scheme “New India Literacy Programme (नव भारत
साक्षरता कार्यक्रम) for the period FYs 2022-2027 to cover all the aspects of Adult
Education to align with National Education Policy 2020.

New India Literacy Programme

The scheme will cover non-literates of the age of 15 years and above in all
state/UTs in the country.
The target for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy for FYs 2022-27 is 5 (five) crore
learners @ 1.00 crore per year by using “Online Teaching, Learning and Assessment
System (OTLAS)”.
A learner may register him/herself with essential information like name, date of
birth, gender, Aadhaar number, mobile number etc.
The scheme will be implemented through volunteerism through online mode.
The training, orientation, workshops of volunteers, may be organized through face-
to-face mode.
All material and resources shall be provided digitally for easy access to
registered volunteers.
Objectives of the scheme

The objectives of the scheme is:

To impart foundational literacy and numeracy

To cover other components which are necessary for a citizen of 21st century such as
critical life skills (including financial literacy, digital literacy, commercial
skills, health care and awareness, child care and education, and family welfare)
Vocational skills development (with a view towards obtaining local employment)
Basic education (including preparatory, middle, and secondary stage equivalency)
Continuing education (including engaging holistic adult education courses in arts,
sciences, technology, culture, sports, and recreation etc.)
Salient features of the scheme
School will be Unit for implementation of the scheme
Schools to be used for conducting survey of beneficiaries and Voluntary Teachers
(VTs)
Foundational Literacy and Numeracy will be imparted through Critical Life Skills to
all non-literates in the age group of 15 years and above
Performance Grading Index (PGI) for State/UT at district level
CSR/Philanthropic Support may be received by hosting ICT support, providing
volunteer support
Need for this scheme

As per Census 2011, the absolute number of non-literates of the country in 15 years
and above age group is 25.76 crore (Male 9.08 crore, Female 16.68 crore).
Even after the Saakshar Bharat programme implemented during 2009-10 to 2017-18, it
is estimated that currently around 18.12 crore adults are still non-literate in
India.

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Paray Shikshalaya Initiative

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
February 8, 2022
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Paray Shikshalaya

Mains level : Open schools concept

The West Bengal government has launched ‘Paray Shikshalaya’ Initiative.

Paray Shikshalaya

It is an open-air classroom in the neighborhood programme – for students from class

1 to 7.
The aim of this initiative is to encourage students who dropped out of schools
during the Covid-19 pandemic to continue their education.
Why was this initiative launched?

In view of the rising demand for physical classes, the state government reopened
schools.
Classroom teaching could not be called on due to fear of spikes in covid cases.
Hence, students are being called in batches.
Where were these classes held?

Schools which do not have open-air spaces conducted the classes in neighbourhood
parks and grounds.
Local councilors and MLAs helped set up infrastructure in such parks like putting
up makeshift shades and chairs, besides making mid-day meal arrangements for the
students.
Schools which have open-air spaces held the classes there.
Benches were set up for students and blackboards were placed to provide a real
classroom experience.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Anganwadis should provide early childhood care and education

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Government Scheme/Policies,Health & Education

Post date
January 29, 2022
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : ICDS

Mains level : Paper 2- Early childhood care and education

Context

The National Education Policy, 2020 has rightly highlighted the importance of early
childhood care and education (ECCE), vital for the young child’s early cognitive,
social, and emotional development.

Need for focus on early childhood care and education (ECCE)

The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) finds only 13.6 per cent of children
enrolled in pre-primary schools.
With its overriding focus on health and nutrition, ECCE has hitherto been the
weakest link of the anganwadi system.
Multiple administrative duties have left anganwadi workers with little time for
ECCE.
A child’s early learning begins at birth, initially through stimulation, play,
interactions, non-verbal and verbal communication.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of parental awareness compounded by the daily stresses
of poverty, disadvantaged households are unable to provide an early learning
environment.
The existing system at best serves the age group of 3-6 years, ignoring infants and
toddlers.
Way forward

1] A meaningful ECCE programme in anganwadis

A meaningful ECCE programme in anganwadis is not only a more intelligent and cost-
effective strategy but is also feasible to implement through seven concerted
actions.
1)Activity-based framework which reflect local context: To design and put in place
a meaningful activity-based ECCE framework that recognises the ground realities
with autonomy to reflect the local context and setting.
2) Remove non-ICDS work: Routine tasks of anganwadi workers can be reduced and non-
ICDS work, such as surveys, removed altogether.
3)Extend Anganwadi time: Anganwadi hours can be extended by at least three hours by
providing staff with an increase in their present remuneration, with the additional
time devoted for ECCE.
Karnataka has already taken the lead; its anganwadis work from 9.30 am to 4 pm.
This will have the added benefit of serving as partial daycare, enabling poor
mothers to earn a livelihood.
4) Change in policy mindset: ICDS needs a change in policy mindset, both at central
and state levels, by prioritising and monitoring ECCE.
5) Engagement with parents: Anganwadi workers must be re-oriented to closely engage
with parents, as they play a crucial role in the cognitive development of young
children.
Responsive parenting requires both parents to play an active role in ECCE
activities at home; therefore, anganwadi workers should be asked to consciously
engage with fathers too.
Appropriate messaging and low-cost affordable teaching materials can be designed
and made accessible to parents.
6) Activity-based play material: ICDS must supply age-appropriate activity-based
play material in adequate quantities regularly, and anganwadi workers encouraged to
utilise them in a liberal manner.
7) Invest in research and training: States should invest in research and training
to support early childhood education, and ensure that the ECCE programme is not a
downward extension of school education.
2] Pre-primary sections in government primary schools

Some educationists have suggested that owing to the high workload of anganwadi
workers, ECCE in anganwadis would remain a non-starter.
Therefore, all government primary schools should open pre-primary sections, with
anganwadis limiting themselves to the 0-3 age group.
Challenges: It would require a massive outlay to build over a million classrooms
with a million nursery teachers and helpers — even a conservative estimate would
put the additional annual outlay at over Rs 30,000 crore.
Moreover, with child stunting levels at 35 per cent in India, would children
enrolled in pre-schools would require supplementary nutrition and health
monitoring.
This would overburden the nursery teacher.
Conclusion

Nearly 1.4 million anganwadis of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
across India must provide ECCE for the millions of young children in low-income
households.

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[pib] What is Nai Talim?

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 5, 2022
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Nai Talim

Mains level : Not Much

The Vice President of India has said that the New Education Policy follows the ‘Nai
Talim’ of Mahatma Gandhi by giving importance to the mother tongue as the medium of
instruction at the school level.

What is Nai Talim?

The phrase Nai Talim is a combination of two words- Nai Means ‘New’ and Talim – a
Urdu word-means ‘Education’.
In 1937, Gandhiji introduced the concept of Nai Talim in India. It aimed to achieve
Gram Swaraj (liberation of villages).
In short, Gandhiji dreamed to make all villages independent; and self-reliant.
It is an approach to the total personality development of body, mind and spirit and
was based on four principles namely:
Education or learning in mother tongue along with handicraft work,
Work should be linked with most useful vocational needs of the locality,
Learning should be linked with vocational work, and
Work should be socially useful and productive needed for living.
Gandhiji and Education

Gandhi’s first experiments in education began at the Tolstoy Farm ashram in South
Africa.
It was much later, while living at Sevagram (Wardha) and in the heat of the
Independence struggle, that Gandhi wrote his influential article in Harijan about
education.
In it, he mapped out the basic pedagogy (or teaching) with focus on:
Lifelong character of education,
Social character and
A holistic process
Thus, for Gandhi, education is ‘the moral development of the person’, a process
that is by definition ‘lifelong’.
He believed the importance of role of teacher in the learning process.

Try this PYQ from CSP 2020:

Q. One common agreement between Gandhism and Marxism is

(a) The final goal of a stateless society

(b) Class struggle

(c) Abolition of private property

(d) Economic determinism

Post your answers here:10

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First National Achievement Survey (NAS) held

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
November 13, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : National Achievement Survey (NAS)

Mains level : Not Much

The first National Achievement Survey (NAS) in four years was conducted, in a bid
to assess the competencies of children in Class 3, 5 and 8.

National Achievement Survey (NAS)

NAS is a nationally representative large-scale survey of students’ learning
undertaken by the Ministry of Education.
It is implemented on a sample size aiming to assess students of 3rd, 5th, 8th and
10th
It gives a system level reflection on effectiveness of school education.
The NCERT has developed the Assessment Framework for gauging the competencies
attained by the student’s vis-a-vis learning outcomes.
Features of the Survey

The Survey goes beyond the scorecard and includes the background variables to
correlate student’s performance in different learning outcomes vis-a-vis contextual
variables.
The Survey was conducted in a monitored environment in the sampled schools.
Selection of sampled schools was based on UDISE+ (Unified District Information
System for Education) 2019-20 data.
Significance of NAS

NAS findings would help diagnose learning gaps of students and determine
interventions required in education policies, teaching practices and learning.
Through its diagnostic report cards, NAS findings help in capacity building for
teachers, officials involved in the delivery of education.
This will help to assess the learning interruptions and new learnings during the
COVID pandemic and help to take remedial measures.

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Kasturirangan panel for National Curriculum Framework

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
September 22, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : National Curriculum Framework (NCF)

Mains level : Need for curriculum revamp in India

The Centre has started the process to revise school textbooks by appointing former
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Kasturirangan as the head of
a 12-member steering committee responsible for developing a new National Curriculum
Framework (NCF).

National Curriculum Framework (NCF)

The new NCF is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The committee will be headed by K Kasturirangan, who had also led the NEP 2020
drafting committee.
The national curriculum framework serves as a guideline for syllabus, textbooks,
teaching and learning practices in the country.
India is currently following its fourth national curriculum framework that was
published by the NCERT in 2005.
What was the last NCF?
The last such framework was developed in 2005.
It is meant to be a guiding document for the development of textbooks, syllabi and
teaching practices in schools across the country.
Why revamp NCF?

The subsequent revision of textbooks by the National Council of Educational

Research and Training will draw from the new NCF.
In fact, the steering committee will develop four such frameworks, one each to
guide the curriculum of school education, teacher education, early childhood
education, and adult education.
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[pib] NIPUN Bharat Programme

Governance | : Health & Education

Post date
July 6, 2021
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : NIPUN Bharat

Mains level : Not Much

Union Minister for Education has launched a National Initiative for Proficiency in
Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat).

NIPUN Bharat

This scheme aims for ensuring that every child in the country necessarily attains
foundational literacy.
It has been launched under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra
Shiksha.
It would cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.
The unique feature is that the goals of the Mission are set in the form of Lakshya
Soochi or Targets for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy.
The Lakshyas are based on the learning outcomes developed by the NCERT and
international research and ORF studies.
Envisaged outcomes

Foundational skills enable to keep children in class thereby reducing the dropouts
and improve transition rate from primary to upper primary and secondary stages.
Activity-based learning and a conducive learning environment will improve the
quality of education.
Innovative pedagogies such as toy-based and experiential learning will be used in
classroom transactions thereby making learning a joyful and engaging activity.
Intensive capacity building of teachers
Since almost every child attends early grades, therefore, focus at that stage will
also benefit the socio-economic disadvantageous group thus ensuring access to
equitable and inclusive quality education.
Performance Grading Index 2020 by Education Ministry

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 7, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Performance Grading Index

Mains level : NA

The Education Ministry’s Performance Grading Index for 2019-20 was recently
released.

Performance Grading Index

The PGI is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States
and UTs including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for
improvement.
It monitors the progress that States and UTs have made in school education with
regard to learning outcomes, access and equity, infrastructure and facilities, and
governance and management processes.
Grading will allow all States and UTs to occupy the highest level i.e Grade I, at
the same time which is a sign of a fully developed nation.
Its methodology

This is the third edition of the index and uses 70 indicators to measure progress.
Of these, the 16 indicators related to learning outcomes remain unchanged through
all three editions, as they are based on data from the 2017 National Achievement
Survey, which tested students in Classes 3, 5, 8, and 10.
Highlights of the 2019-20 Report

Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala have all scored higher than 90%.
Gujarat dropped from second to the eighth rank in the index, while MP and
Chhattisgarh are the only States which have seen actual regression in scores over
this period.
Mid Day Meal Scheme

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Government Scheme/Policies

Post date
May 29, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Midday Meal Scheme

Mains level : Food and nutrition security measures

The Centre has decided to give about ₹100 each to children studying in Class 1 to
Class 8 in government schools, who are beneficiaries of the Mid Day Meal scheme.

Mid Day Meal Scheme

The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the
nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide.
It is a wholesome freshly-cooked lunch served to children in government and
government-aided schools in India.
The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and
upper primary classes in government, government-aided, local body and alternate
innovative education centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs.
Serving 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools and Education Guarantee
Scheme centres, it is the largest of its kind in the world.
The programme has undergone many changes since its launch in 1995. The Midday Meal
Scheme is covered by the National Food Security Act, 2013.
The scheme aims to:

avoid classroom hunger

increase school enrolment
increase school attendance
improve socialization among castes
address malnutrition
empower women through employment
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

Q.An objective of the National Food Security Mission is to increase the production
of certain crops through area expansion and productivity enhancement in a
sustainable manner in the identified districts of the country. What are those
crops?

(a) Rice and wheat only

(b) Rice, wheat, and pulses only

(c) Rice, wheat, pulses, and oilseeds only

(d) Rice, wheat, pulses, oilseeds, and vegetables

What is the new move?

The money, ₹1200 crore in total, will be given to 11.8 crore children through
direct benefit transfer as a one-time payment.
The money comes from the cooking cost component of the scheme, it said.
This decision will help safeguard the nutritional levels of children and aid in
protecting their immunity during challenging pandemic times.
E9 Initiative for Digital Learning

International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings

and agreements involving India
Post date
April 7, 2021
Post date
Live Mint
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : E9 Initiative

Mains level : Digital learning coalitions

Nine countries including India, China and Brazil will explore the possibility of
co-creating and scaling up digital learning to achieve the UN sustainable goal on
quality education under the E9 initiative.

The E9 is the first of its kind global collaboration for digital learning. Note the
participating countries.
E9 Initiative

It is the first of a three-phased process to co-create an initiative on digital

learning and skills, targeting marginalised children and youth, especially girls.
The initiative aims to accelerate recovery and advance the Sustainable Development
Goal 4 agenda by driving rapid change in education systems.
It is spearheaded by the UN, the E9 countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
It will have the opportunity to benefit from this global initiative and accelerate
progress on digital learning, according to UNESCO.
Various functions

The initiative will discuss the co-creation of the Digital Learning initiative by
the nine countries.
This Consultation will highlight progress, share lessons and explore opportunities
for collaboration and scale-up to expand digital learning and skills.
In addition, a Marketplace segment, for public-private partnership will focus on
promising local and global solutions and opportunities for digital learning to
strengthen local ecosystems.
Time to undo the RTE bias against private non-minority institutions

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education,Parliament & State Legislatures

Post date
April 3, 2021
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Article 21A and Right to educations Act

Mains level : Paper 2- Time to remove the exemption granted to minority

institutions from RTE

The article highlights the issues with the exemption of aided and non-aided
minority institutions from the Right to Education Act.
Is RTE enforceable against individuals?

Most fundamental rights are enforceable against the state, not against private
individuals.
Certain rights, however, are horizontally enforceable too, that is, they can be
enforced against individuals.
The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act or RTE falls in the latter category.
The right to education was initially mentioned in Article 45 as a part of the
Directive Principles.
Evolution of Article 21A

The Supreme Court in 1992 held in Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka that the right
to education was a part of the right to life recognised in Article 21.
The next year, the court in Unnikrishnan JP v. State of Andhra Pradesh held that
the state was duty-bound to provide education to children up to the age of 14
within its economic capacity.
The court also acknowledged that private educational institutions, including
minority institutions, would have to play a role alongside government schools.
The right to education was finally given the status of a fundamental right by the
86th constitutional amendment in the year 2002 by the addition of Article 21A in
the Constitution.
The Supreme Court held in P. A. Inamdar case that there shall be no reservation in
private institutions and that minority and non-minority institutions would not be
treated differently.
Impact of 93rd amendment
In 2005, the Constitution was amended by the 93rd amendment to include Clause(5) to
Article 15 which dealt with the fundamental right against discrimination.
The clause permitted the state to provide for advancement of “backward” classes by
ensuring their admission in institutions, including private institutions.
The clause, however, excluded both aided and unaided minority educational
institutions thus overruling the Supreme Court’s judgment in P.A. Inamdar case.
Discrimination in RTE

When the RTE Act was subsequently enacted in 2009, it did not directly discriminate
between students studying in minority and non-minority institutions.
Subsequently, the provision of 25 per cent reservation in private institutions was
however challenged in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of
India where the court upheld the validity of the legislation exempting only unaided
minority schools from its purview.
In response to the judgment, the RTE Act was amended in 2012 to mention that its
provisions were subject to Articles 29 and 30 which protect the administrative
rights of minority educational institutions.
So, the onus on private unaided schools was much higher than that on government
schools, while even aided minority schools were exempt.
But the constitutional provision enabling the RTE Act, that is, Article 21, does
not make any discrimination between minority and non-minority institutions.
Issues

The above provisions of RTE made it violative of Article 14 and also economically
unviable for many private schools.
Not only has RTE unreasonably differentiated between minority and non-minority
schools without any explicable basis, there is also no rational nexus between the
object of universal education sought to be achieved by this act and the step of
excluding minority schools from its purview.
Given the doctrine of harmonious construction of fundamental rights, it is unclear
why the court granted complete immunity to minority institutions when several
provisions of RTE would not interfere with their administrative rights.
RTE has provisions such as prevention of physical/mental cruelty towards students
as well as quality checks on pedagogical and teacher standards which children
studying in minority institutions should not be deprived of and to that extent be
discriminated against.
Way forward

The Kerala High Court held in Sobha George v. State of Kerala that Section 16 of
RTE, which forbids non-promotion till the completion of elementary education, will
be applicable to minority schools as well.
The bench said that the courts must examine whether provisions such as Section 16
of RTE are statutory rights or fundamental rights expressed in a statutory form.
If the latter, then the Pramati case judgement will not be fully available to
minority institutions.
The Supreme Court should take inspiration from the prudent decision delivered by
the Kerala High Court and overrule its own judgment delivered in the Pramati
Educational Society.
Consider the question “What are the issues with the exemption of aided and non-
aided minority institution from the RTE Act.”
Conclusion

RTE as legislation may be well-intentioned, but the time has come to relook at the
discriminatory nature of RTE against private non-minority institutions, and to that
extent, undo the damage done by 93rd Amendment and the subsequent SC judgments.
What is Happiness Curriculum?

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
March 31, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Happiness Curriculum

Mains level : Education reforms

The Delhi Deputy CM has said that during the pandemic, the Happiness Curriculum
immensely helped them to apply life skills to deal with stressful situations.

Try this question:

Q.What is Happiness Curriculum? Discuss the scope of introducing happiness

curriculum supplementary to the regular curriculum across the country.
What is Delhi’s ‘happiness curriculum’?

The curriculum calls for schools in India to promote development in cognition,

language, literacy, numeracy and the arts along with addressing the well-being and
happiness of students.
It further says that future citizens need to be “mindful, aware, awakened,
empathetic, firmly rooted in their identity…” based on the premise that education
has a larger purpose, which cannot be in isolation from the “dire needs” of today’s
society.
For the evaluation, no examinations are conducted, neither will marks be awarded.
The assessment under this curriculum is qualitative, focusing on the “process
rather than the outcome” and noting that each student’s journey is unique and
different.
Objectives of the curriculum

The objectives of this curriculum include:

developing self-awareness and mindfulness,

inculcating skills of critical thinking and inquiry,
enabling learners to communicate effectively and
helping learners to apply life skills to deal with stressful and conflicting
situations around them
Learning outcomes of this curriculum

The learning outcomes of this curriculum are spread across four categories:

becoming mindful and attentive (developing increased levels of self-awareness,

developing active listening, remaining in the present);
developing critical thinking and reflection (developing strong abilities to reflect
on one’s own thoughts and behaviours, thinking beyond stereotypes and assumptions);
developing social-emotional skills (demonstrating empathy, coping with anxiety and
stress, developing better communication skills) and
developing a confident and pleasant personality (developing a balanced outlook on
daily life reflecting self-confidence, becoming responsible and reflecting
awareness towards cleanliness, health and hygiene).
How is the curriculum implemented?

The curriculum is designed for students of classes nursery through the eighth
standard.
Group 1 consists of students in nursery and KG, who have bi-weekly classes (45
minutes each for one session, which is supervised by a teacher) involving
mindfulness activities and exercise.
Children between classes 1-2 attend classes on weekdays, which involves mindfulness
activities and exercises along with taking up reflective questions.
The second group comprises students from classes 3-5 and the third group is
comprised of students from classes 6-8 who apart from the aforementioned
activities, take part in self-expression and reflect on their behavioural changes.
Sharpening educational divide

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
February 13, 2021
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : RTE, New Education Policy

Mains level : Paper 2- Impact of pandemic on education of the poor

The article highlights the issue of the decrease in allocation for education and
two ways in which the government seeks to plug this gap.
Decrease in allocation to education: Two paradoxical axes

The government allocated Rs 6,000 crore less on education in Budget 2021 as

compared to last year.
It’s strange that this year’s budget makes no reference to the pandemic and the
multiple challenges it has thrown up for the poor.
Parents who depend on the lowest rung of free government schools are the ones who
need maximum state support.
More recently, the state’s position with regard to the provision of education in
general and budgetary allocations to education in particular hinges on two
paradoxical axes.
1) Supporting community volunteer

On one axis, is its appreciation of the commitment and passion of the community
volunteers to reach out to children who may not be learning for multiple reasons.
Acknowledging the contribution of such people, the NEP proposes ideas of “peer-
tutoring and trained volunteers” to support teachers to impart foundational
literacy and numeracy skills to children in need of such skills.
While such efforts need to be applauded, they cannot be regarded as substitutes of
the formal state apparatus.
Such a view also de-legitimises the teaching profession-associated qualifications
and the training mandated by the state for people to become teachers.
Salaries and working conditions of the local community, most of whom are unemployed
youth and women, are often compromised.
This is exploitation and needless to say, it also impacts the quality of education
for the poor.
2) Public-Private partnership and issues with it

On the second axis, is the position advocating partnerships between public and
private bodies.
Not that the involvement of private individuals/organisations/schools in education
is anything new in India.
However, in the past, private schools catered to the relatively better-off but now
the poor are being targeted for profit.
This narrative is based on two sources: Poor learning outcomes of children,
particularly those studying in government schools as reported by large scale
assessment surveys, and large-scale absenteeism/dereliction of duty on the part of
government school teachers.
Reasons for these are attributed to government school teachers having no
accountability.
NEP 2020 also states that the non-governmental philanthropic organisations will be
supported to build schools and alternative models of education will be encouraged
by making their requirements for schools as mandated in the RTE less restrictive.
This is clearly problematic but convenient as the justification underlying this
position is that one needs to shift focus from inputs to outputs.
This also indicate that schools can do with lesser financial resources, and
compromised inputs may not necessarily lead to compromised outputs.
The nature of the partnership between public and private has also changed from the
private supporting the public to private jostling for space with the public, even
replacing them.
It’s a win-win situation for both — the state gets to spend less and private
players make profit.
Consider the question “Examine the impact of a covid pandemic on the education of
the poor. Suggest the measure need to be taken by the government to mitigate the
impact.”
Conclusion

While money may not ensure quality education, lack of adequate resources will only
deepen the social divide between people.
School Bag Policy, 2020

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 5, 2021
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Not Much

Mains level : School Bag Policy, 2020

The Directorate of Education has issued a circular asking school to follow the new
‘School Bag Policy, 2020’ released by the National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT).

Q.What are the features of the School Bag Policy, 2020? Discuss how heavy school
bags are a serious threat to the health and learning capability of students.
School Bag Policy, 2020

According to the circular, schoolteachers should inform the students in advance

about the books and notebooks to be brought to school on a particular day.
They frequently need to check their bags to ensure that they are not carrying
unnecessary material.
It adds that the teachers should take the responsibility of checking the weight of
school bags of the students every three months on a day selected for the whole
class.
It also holds that any information about heavy bags should be communicated to the
parents.
The circular also says that it is the duty and the responsibility of the school
management to provide quality potable water in sufficient quantity.
It adds that files and thin/light exercise books should be preferred to thick/heavy
ones.
Prescribed weights

The weight of the school bags, as per the policy, should be

6 to 2.2 kg for students of Classes I and II
7 to 2.5 kg for Classes III, IV and V
2 to 3 kg for Classes VI and VII
5 to 4 kg for Class VIII
5 to 4.5 kg for Classes IX and X
5 to 5 kg for Classes XI and XII
Why heavy school bags are a curse?

Heavy school bags are a serious threat to the health and well-being of students.
A heavy backpack can pull on the neck muscles contributing to headache, shoulder
pain, lower back pain and neck and arm pain.
Not just this, carrying backpacks over one shoulder is a wrong practice as it makes
muscles strain.
The spine leans to the opposite side, stressing the middle back, ribs, and lower
back more on one side than the other and this muscle imbalance can cause muscle
strain, muscle spasm, and back pain.
Heavy school bags are also one of the major reasons for cervical and lumbar pains.
The posture of the body also gets affected to a great extent which in the long term
develops imbalances in the body and affects the health of the nervous system.
Debate over Coding for Kids

Science Tech Art Culture | Mains Paper 3: Awareness In The Fields Of It, Space,
Computers, Robotics, Nano-Technology, Bio-Technology, Pharma Sector & Health
Science
Post date
December 8, 2020
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Not Much

Mains level : Coding in school curriculum

Various edutech startups have been in the news for the past several months over the
debate on the right age for children to start learning to code.

Q.The National Education Policy, 2020 proposal for “coding activities” reads like
Macaulay’s minute for English education in the early 19th century. Examine.
What is Coding?

Computers have their own language called programming language which tells them what
to do.
Coding is the process of using a programming language to get a computer to behave
how you want it to.
In a broader sense, it is the process of designing and building an executable
computer program to accomplish a specific computing result or to perform a specific
task.
In today’s digital age, most toddlers in their diapers, learn to swipe and click
before they can speak apparently or walk. What an irony!
Coding for children

In the age of digital revolution, India was able to produce a huge army of coders
and programmers —essentially people who could create computer software.
As computing devices have taken over every aspect of life, the need for good
programmers and coders has been increasing relentlessly.
This led to a trend to teach coding and programming to young students since their
school ages.
In recent years, platforms and companies have started to claim that kids as young
as those in elementary school must begin to learn to code.
Proponents for coding

Leaders of technology companies around the world have pushed for coding to be
included as a subject in middle or higher secondary school for students who may be
interested to learn.
In 2018, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wrote in a blog post that everyone could
benefit from learning the basics of computer science.
The idea was to make coding as simple and accessible as the new age “mother tongue”
for young children.
Why should children learn to code?

Coding is a basic literacy in the digital age, and it is important for kids to
understand and be able to work with and understand the technology around them.
It fosters creativity. By experimenting, children learn and strengthen their
creativity. It enhances their problem-solving capability.
It helps children to be able to visualize abstract concepts, lets them apply math
to real-world situations, and makes math fun and creative. Coding is present in
many of today’s STEM programs.
Children who learn to code understand how to plan and organize thoughts. This can
lead to better writing skills that can be built upon as coding skills develop over
time.
Criticisms of early age coding

A metaphor that is often used is that children are being made to ride a bicycle
before they have even learnt to walk.
There’s a reason why in mathematics addition is taught first, then subtraction,
then multiplication, and then division.
It is necessary to learn several elements of mathematics and logical thinking
before one can code.
Annual State of Education Report (ASER) Wave 1, 2020

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
October 29, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : ASER

Mains level : State of school education in India

The ASER Wave 1 Survey was recently released since the COVID-19 crisis interrupted
this years’ trajectory.

Practice question for mains:

Q.Discuss the efficacy of the One-Nation- One-Board System and its limitations.
About ASER Survey

This is an annual survey (published by education non-profit Pratham ) that aims to

provide reliable estimates of children’s enrolment and basic learning levels for
each district and state in India.
ASER has been conducted every year since 2005 in all rural districts of India. It
is the largest citizen-led survey in India.
It is also the only annual source of information on children’s learning outcomes
available in India.
How is the survey conducted?

ASER tools and procedures are designed by ASER Centre, the research and assessment
arm of Pratham.
The survey itself is coordinated by ASER Centre and facilitated by the Pratham
network. It is conducted by close to 30,000 volunteers from partner organisations
in each district.
All kinds of institutions partner with ASER: colleges, universities, NGOs, youth
groups, women’s organisations, self-help groups and others.
The ASER model has been adapted for use in several countries around the world:
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Pakistan, Mali and Senegal.
Assessment parameters

Unlike most other large-scale learning assessments, ASER is a household-based

rather than school-based survey.
This design enables all children to be included – those who have never been to
school or have dropped out, as well as those who are in government schools, private
schools, religious schools or anywhere else.
In each rural district, 30 villages are sampled. In each village, 20 randomly
selected households are surveyed.
Information on schooling status is collected for all children living in sampled
households who are in the age group 3-16.
Children in the age group 5-16 are tested in basic reading and basic arithmetic.
The same test is administered to all children.
The highest level of reading tested corresponds to what is expected in Std 2; in
2012 this test was administered in 16 regional languages.
In recent years, this has included household size, parental education, and some
information on household assets.
Key Findings

1.Enrollments:

5.5% of rural children are not currently enrolled for the 2020school year, up from
4% in 2018.
This difference is the sharpest among the youngest children (6 to 10) where 5.3% of
rural children had not yet enrolled in school in 2020, in comparison to just 1.8%
in 2018.
Due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic, families are waiting for the
physical opening of schools to enrol their youngest children, with about 10% of
six-year-olds not in school.
Among 15-16 year-olds, however, enrollment levels are slightly higher than in 2018.
The proportion of boys enrolled in government schools has risen from 62.8% in 2018
to 66.4% in 2020, while for girls, that number has gone up from 70% to 73% in the
corresponding period.
Patterns show a slight shift toward government schools, with private schools seeing
a drop in enrolment in all age groups.
The Centre has now permitted States to start reopening schools if they can follow
Covid-19 safety protocols but the majority of the country’s 25 crore students are
still at home.
2.Availability of Smartphones:

Among enrolled children, 61.8% live in families that own at least one smartphone
which was merely 36.5% in 2018.
About 11% of families bought a new phone after the lockdown, of which 80% were
smartphones.
WhatsApp is by far the most popular mode of transmitting learning materialsto
students, with 75% of students receiving input via this app.
3.Availability of Learning Material:

Overall more than 80% of children said they had textbooks for their current grade.
This proportion was higher among students enrolled in government schools (84.1%)
than in private ones (72.2%).
In Bihar, less than 8% got such materials from their schools, along with 20% in
West Bengal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
More than 80% of rural children in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Gujarat
received such input.
4.Learning Activities:

Most children (70.2%) did some form of a learning activity through material shared
by tutors or family members themselves, with or without regular input.
11% had access to live online classes, and 21% had videos or recorded classes, with
much higher levels in private schools.
About 60% studied from their textbooks and 20% watched classes broadcast on TV.
Suggestions

Fluid Situation: When schools reopen, it will be important to continue to monitor

who goes back to school as well as to understand whether there is learning lossas
compared to previous years.
Building on and Strengthening Family Support: Parents’ increasing levels of
education can be integrated into planning for learning improvement, as advocated by
National Education Policy, 2020. Reaching parents at the right level is essential
to understand how they can help their children and older siblings also play an
important role.
Hybrid Learning: As children do a variety of different activities at home,
effective ways of hybrid learning need to be developed which combine traditional
teaching-learning with newer ways of “reaching-learning”.
Assessment of Digital Modes and Content: In order to improve digital content and
delivery for the future, an in-depth assessment of what works, how well it works,
who it reaches, and who it excludes is needed.
Mediating the Digital Divide: Children from families who had low education and also
did not have resources like smartphones had less access to learning opportunities.
However, even among such households, there is evidence of effort with family
members trying to help and schools trying to reach them. These children will need
even more help than others when schools reopen.
Way Forward

Covid-19 has left the nation with deep economic distress and uncertainty over
school-reopenings and thrown open new challenges in every sector.
The nationally representative sample highlighted the role played by the families
where everyone in the family supported children regardless of their education
levels.
This strength needs to be leveraged by reaching out to more students and reducing
the distance between schools and homes.
[pib] STARS Project

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
October 15, 2020
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level : STARS Project

Mains level : Not Much

The Union Cabinet has approved the sum of Rs. 5718 crore for the World Bank aided
project STARS.

Try this MCQ:

Q. The STARS Project recently seen in news is an initiative of:

World Bank/ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation / UNECOSOC/ UNICEF

STARS Project

‘STARS’ is an acronym for Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States

(STARS).
The STARS project will be implemented through the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the
flagship central scheme.
The six states include- Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Odisha and Rajasthan.
It will help improve learning assessment systems, strengthen classroom instruction
and remediation, facilitate school-to-work transition, and strengthen governance
and decentralized management,
Some 250 million students (between the age of 6 and 17) in 1.5 million schools and
over 10 million teachers will benefit from the STARS program.
STARS will support India’s renewed focus on addressing the ‘learning outcome’
challenge and help students better prepare for the jobs of the future – through a
series of reform initiatives.
Major components of the STARS

1) At the national level, the project envisages the following interventions

which will benefit all states and UTs:

To strengthen MOE’s national data systems to capture robust and authentic data on
retention, transition and completion rates of students.
To support MOE in improving states PGI scores by incentivizing states governance
reform agenda through SIG (State Incentive Grants).
To support the strengthening of learning assessment systems.
To support MOE’s efforts to establish a National Assessment Center (PARAKH).
2) At the State level, the project envisages:

Strengthening Early Childhood Education and Foundational Learning

Improving Learning Assessment Systems
Strengthening classroom instruction and remediation through teacher development and
school leadership
Governance and Decentralized Management for Improved Service Delivery.
Strengthening Vocational education in schools through mainstreaming, career
guidance and counselling, internships and coverage of out of school children
[pib] Eklavya Model Residential Schools

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
August 29, 2020
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level : Eklavya Model Residential Schools

Mains level : Tribal education

An Eklavya Model Residential School (EMRS) teacher was selected for National Award
to Teachers 2020.

Note the specific features of EMRS. Each year in the CSP, there is a question
related to tribes/tribal development.
Eklavya Model Residential Schools

EMRS started in the year 1997-98 to impart quality education to ST children in

remote areas in order to enable them to avail of opportunities in high and
professional education courses and get employment in various sectors.
Across the country, as per census 2011 figures, there are 564 such sub-districts
out of which there is an EMRS in 102 sub-districts.
As per revised 2018 scheme, every block with more than 50% ST population and at
least 20,000 tribal persons, will have an EMRS by the year 2022.
These schools will be on par with Navodaya Vidyalayas and will have special
facilities for preserving local art and culture besides providing training in
sports and skill development.
Features of EMRS

Admission to these schools will be through selection/competition with suitable

provision for preference to children belonging to Primitive Tribal Groups, first-
generation students, etc.
Sufficient land would be given by the State Government for the school, playgrounds,
hostels, residential quarters, etc., free of cost.
The number of seats for boys and girls will be equal.
In these schools, education will be entirely free.
Namath Basai Programme

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
August 21, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Namath Basai Programme

Mains level : Tribal education

Namath Basai, the State government’s unique programme of teaching tribal children
in their mother tongue, has become a runaway hit in Kerala’s tribal districts.

Try this MCQ:

Q. The Namath Basai Programme recently seen in news is related to:

Tribal Education/ Women SHGs/ Forest Produce/ Tribal Health

Namath Basai Programme

The NBP is implemented by the Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK).

It has succeeded in retaining hundreds of tribal children in their online classes
by making them feel at home with the language of instruction.
The SSK has distributed some 50 laptops exclusively for Namath Basai. Pre-recorded
classes are offered through a YouTube channel.
Debate around ‘One-Nation- One-Curriculum’

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
July 18, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : NA

Mains level : Uniform curriculum in schools across India

The Supreme Court has refused to entertain a plea for a uniform and common
curriculum for school students between aged six and 14 across the country rather
than have diverse ones such as the CBSE, the ICSE and State Board.

Practice question for mains:

Q.Discuss the efficacy of the One-Nation- One-Board System and its limitations.
Background

Schools in India are mainly columned primarily into 4 boards of education, namely
CBSE, ICSE and IB (International Baccalaureate).
In total, there are 41 boards of education throughout India.
These different boards of education have different syllabuses, which creates a
knowledge gap among school students.
To curate this gap, syllabuses of every board for the Indian schools are being
brought at par.
What was the plea before the Supreme Court?

The petition asked considering the setting up of a National Education

Council/Commission and following a “one-nation-one-board” system in which the ICSE
is merged with the CBSE.
It urged a standard textbook with chapters on fundamental rights, duties, directive
principles and the golden goals set out in the Preamble.
It asked to make the study compulsory for all the children aged 6-14 years
throughout the territory of India.
Why did the court refuse?

Uniform curriculum was a “matter of policy” and the judiciary could not “command”
the government said the Supreme Court bench.
Pros of common curriculum

The Article 21A of the Constitution has the RTE (Right to Education) Act says that
every child in the age of 4 to 16 should be given free and compulsory education.
To keep a check on that, a common syllabus throughout the country is required. This
will help all the students to be on par with education.
With a common syllabus throughout the country, no student will lag behind in
education and hence, this will help them prepare better for competitive
examinations or admission tests beyond school level for the outside world.
Politics, in some cases, influence the education system which is very unfair for
the students. Some state boards prefer the admission of students from their own
region and willingly keep the seats of colleges and universities occupied for
students passing their 12th standard from their state boards.
A common syllabus would also mean that there would be no discrimination regarding
quality education on the basis of caste, creed, social, religious beliefs or
economic backgrounds.
It will provide an unbiased ground of learning and development of the young ones,
which may turn out to be very beneficial in future.
At present, some of the state boards are not updating their syllabus frequently as
per the changes in society. This loophole will be eliminated with the introduction
of the uniform syllabus in India.
Limitations

Students may miss learning things specific to their region and their culture. This
can be a threat to diversity.
Current school students might get affected or stressed out on a sudden change of
syllabus.
An abrupt change in the syllabus may hamper the stability of a student with the
academics which will not be a good turn.
A new set of the syllabus will bring in more workload on teachers and parents too.
Conclusion

Uniform education system having common syllabus and common curriculum would achieve
the code of a common culture, removal of disparity and depletion of discriminatory
values in human relations.
It would enhance virtues and improve the quality of life, elevate the thoughts,
which advance the constitutional philosophy of equal society.
Though the government has been trying to put up with equality in education, the
barriers have been inevitable to date.
A common syllabus seems to be a wise option, but it is yet to be implemented over
the entire country.
With inputs from:

https://www.groupdiscussionideas.com/common-syllabus-throughout-indian-schools-
pros-cons/
[pib] NISHTHA Programme

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
July 17, 2020
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : NISHTHA programme

Mains level : Various digital initiatives by HRD ministry

The first on-line NISHTHA programme for 1200 Key Resources Persons in Andhra
Pradesh was launched by Union HRD Ministry.

There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names such as YUKTI, DISHA, SWAYAM
etc. Their core purpose is similar with slight differences. Pen them down on a
separate sheet under the title various digital HRD initiatives.

Add one more to this list.

NISHTHA Programme

NISHTHA is an acronym for National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’
Holistic Advancement.
It is the largest teachers’ training programme of its kind in the world.
The basic objective of this massive training programme ‘NISHTHA’ is to motivate and
equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students.
The initiative is first of its kind wherein standardized training modules are
developed at national level for all States and UTs.
The States and UTs can also contextualize the training modules and use their own
material and resource persons also, keeping in view the core topics and expected
outcomes of NISHTHA.
Progress till date

Around 23,000 Key Resource Persons and 17.5 lakh teachers and school heads have
been covered under this NISHTHA face to face mode till date.
It has been customized for online mode to be conducted through DIKSHA and NISHTHA
portals by the NCERT.
What is the STARS Project?

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 30, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : STARS Project

Mains level : Read the attached story

The World Bank has approved a $500 million Strengthening Teaching-Learning and
Results for States Program (STARS) to improve the quality and governance of school
education in six Indian states.

Try this question:

Q. The STARS Project recently seen in news is an initiative of:

World Bank/ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation / UNECOSOC/ UNICEF

STARS Project

The STARS project will be implemented through the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the
flagship central scheme.
The six states include- Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Odisha and Rajasthan.
It will help improve learning assessment systems, strengthen classroom instruction
and remediation, facilitate school-to-work transition, and strengthen governance
and decentralized management,
Some 250 million students (between the age of 6 and 17) in 1.5 million schools and
over 10 million teachers will benefit from the STARS program.
STARS will support India’s renewed focus on addressing the ‘learning outcome’
challenge and help students better prepare for the jobs of the future – through a
series of reform initiatives.
Reform initiatives under STARS

Focusing more directly on the delivery of education services at the state, district
and sub-district levels by providing customized local-level solutions towards
school improvement.
Addressing demands from stakeholders, especially parents, for greater
accountability and inclusion by producing better data to assess the quality of
learning.
Equipping teachers to manage this transformation by recognizing that teachers are
central to achieving better learning outcomes. The program will support
individualized, needs-based training for teachers that will give them an
opportunity to have a say in shaping training programs and making them relevant to
their teaching needs.
Investing more in developing India’s human capital needs by strengthening
foundational learning for children in classes 1 to 3 and preparing them with the
cognitive, socio-behavioural and language skills to meet future labour market
needs.
Issues with the project

First, it fails to address the basic capacity issues: major vacancies across the
education system from District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs),
district and block education offices, to teachers in schools, remain unaddressed.
Without capable and motivated faculty, teacher education and training cannot be
expected to improve.
Second, the Bank ignores that decentralizing decision-making requires the
devolution of funds and real decision-making power.
Greater decentralisation can allow accountability to flow to the people rather than
to supervising officers.
It requires not just investment in the capacity of the front-line bureaucracy but
also in increasing their discretionary powers while fostering social
accountability.
Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2020

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 27, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Not Much

Mains level : Impact of coronovirus outbreak on Education system

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities in education systems across the
world a/c to the latest GEM report.

Practice question for mains:

Q.Discuss the impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on India’s education sector.

About the report

Originally the EFA Global Monitoring Report, it has been renamed as the Global
Education Monitoring Report.
It is developed by an independent team and published by UNESCO aimed to sustain
commitment towards Education for All.
The ‘UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), based in Montreal provides data for the
report on students, teachers, school performance, adult literacy and education
expenditure.
Highlights of the 2020 report

The report noted that efforts to maintain learning continuity during the pandemic
may have actually worsened exclusion trends.
During the height of school closures in April 2020, almost 91% of students around
the world were out of school.
About 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries have not supported learners at
risk of exclusion during this crisis, such as the poor, linguistic minorities and
learners with disabilities.
1. Risks of school closure

School closures also interrupted support mechanisms from which many disadvantaged
learners benefit.
For poor students who depend on school for free meals or even free sanitary
napkins, closures has been a major blow.
Cancellation of examinations in many countries, including India, may result in
scoring dependence on teachers’ judgements of students, which could be affected by
stereotypes of certain types of students.
2. Substitutes were imperfect

Education systems responded with distance learning solutions, all of which offered
less or more imperfect substitutes for classroom instruction said the report.
Many poorer countries opted for radio and television lessons, while some upper-
middle-income countries adopted for online learning platforms for primary and
secondary education.
India has used a mix of all three systems for educational continuity.
3. The digital divide has resurfaced yet again

Even as governments increasingly rely on technology, the digital divide lays bare
the limitations of this approach.
Not all students and teachers have access to an adequate internet connection,
equipment, skills and working conditions to take advantage of available platforms.
Online education must supplement, not replace, physical sites of learning

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
May 27, 2020
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : MOOCs

Mains level : Paper 2- Is online learning a substitute for the traditional

educational institutions?

Left with no choice, many education institutions turned to online mode. But could
that be a new normal? This article analyses the indispensable role of online
education. However, online education cannot be a substitute for traditional
education institutes. WHY? Read the article to know about the vital role of
traditional educational institutions…
Online education (OE): Supplement not the substitute

The incredible synergy unleashed by information and communications technology (ICT)

is the best thing to have happened to education since the printing press.
Indeed, higher education today is unthinkable without some form of the computer and
some mode of digitised data transmission.
OE can use content and methods that are hard to include in the normal curriculum.
OE can put pressure on lazy or incompetent teachers.
OE can provide hands-on experience in many technical fields where simulations are
possible.
And OE can, of course, be a powerful accessory for affluent students able to afford
expensive aids.
As products of this revolution, online methods of teaching and learning deserve our
highest praise — but only when cast in their proper role.
This proper role is to supplement, support and amplify the techniques of face-to-
face education.
The moment they are proposed as a substitute for the physical sites of learning we
have long known — brick-and-cement schools, colleges, and universities — online
modes must be resolutely resisted.
So, what are the vested interests involved?

Resistance to OE is often dismissed as the self-serving response of vested

interests, notably obstructive, technophobic teachers unwilling to upgrade their
skills.
But these are not the only vested interests involved.
Authoritarian administrators are attracted by the centralised control and scaling-
at-will that OE offers.
Educational entrepreneurs have been trying to harvest the billions promised by
massive open online courses (MOOCs) — think of Udacity, Coursera, or EdX.
Pundits are now predicting post-pandemic tie-ups between ICT giants like Google and
Amazon and premium education brands like Harvard and Oxford that will launch a new
era of vertically-integrated hybrid OE platforms.
Is OE a viable alternative to traditional educational institutions (TEI) for the
typical Indian student?

No one with access to an elite TEI chooses OE.

Instead, we know that OE always loses in best-to-best comparisons.
Favourable impressions about OE are created mostly by comparing the best of OE with
average or worse TEIs.
But is it true that the best OE is better than the average college or university?

OE claims that neither the campus nor face-to-face interaction are integral to
education.
Since the comparative evaluation of virtual versus face-to-face pedagogic
interaction needs more space, the campus question is considered here.
How does the typical student’s home compare with a typical TEI campus?
Census 2011 tells us that 71 per cent of households with three or more members have
dwellings with two rooms or less.
According to National Sample Survey data for 2017-18, only 42 per cent of urban and
15 per cent of rural households had internet access.
Only 34 per cent of urban and 11 per cent of rural persons had used the internet in
the past 30 days.
It is true that many TEIs (both public and private) have substandard
infrastructure.
But these data suggest that the majority (roughly two-thirds) of students are
likely to be worse off at home compared to any campus.
The impact of smartphone capabilities and stability of net connectivity on OE
pedagogy also needs to be examined.
Importance of college as a social space

It is as a social rather than physical space that the college or university campus
plays a critical role.
Public educational institutions play a vital role as exemplary sites of social
inclusion and relative equality.
In Indian conditions, this role is arguably even more important than the scholastic
role.
The public educational institution is still the only space where people of all
genders, classes, castes, and communities can meet without one group being forced
to bow to others.
Whatever its impact on academics, this is critical learning for life.
Women students, in particular, will be much worse off if confined to their homes by
OE.
Consider the question- “Covid-19 pandemic forced many educational institute to
explore the online more of education. And this also brought to the fore the
potential of the online mode of education. In light of this, examine the issues
with substituting the online mode of education for the traditional educational
mode.”
Conclusion

Though an indispensable supplement for traditional education, there are certain

aspects of education and a social life that online learning cannot substitute. So,
the government should not divert its attention from the traditional educational
institution and look at online education as its substitute.
[pib] VidyaDaan 2.0 Programme for e-learning content contributions

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
April 23, 2020
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : VidyaDaan initiative

Mains level : Various e-learning initiaitves

The Union HRD Ministry has e-launched VidyaDaan 2.0 program for inviting e-learning
content contributions.

There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names such as YUKTI, DISHA, SWAYAM
etc. Their core purpose is similar with slight differences. Pen them down on a
separate sheet under the title various digital HRD initiatives.

Add one more to this list.

VidyaDaan

‘Vidya Daan’ is a digital program to enable contributions to improve teaching &

learning.
It encourages the sharing of high quality, curated, relevant & curriculum-linked
digital content.
This program attempts to synergize countrywide developments in the field of
education by providing schools all over India, from the Metro cities to the
smallest villages with good quality e-content.
How does it work?

VidyaDaan has a content contribution tool that provides a structured interface for
the contributors to register and contribute different types of content (such as,
explanation videos, presentations, competency-based items, quizzes etc.), for any
grade (from grade 1 to 12), for any subject as specified by the states/UTs.
About phase 2.0

The programme has been re-launched due to the increasing requirement for e-learning
content for students especially in the backdrop of the situation arising out of
COVID- 19.
Delhi’s ‘Happiness Class’

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
February 24, 2020
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Happiness Curriculum

Mains level : Happiness Curriculum and its significance

On the upcoming visit to India, US President Trump will visit a Delhi government
school, where they will attend a happiness curriculum class.

What is Delhi’s ‘happiness curriculum’?

The curriculum calls for schools in India to promote development in cognition,

language, literacy, numeracy and the arts along with addressing the well-being and
happiness of students.
It further says that future citizens need to be “mindful, aware, awakened,
empathetic, firmly rooted in their identity…” based on the premise that education
has a larger purpose, which cannot be in isolation from the “dire needs” of today’s
society.
For the evaluation, no examinations are conducted, neither will marks be awarded.
The assessment under this curriculum is qualitative, focusing on the “process
rather than the outcome” and noting that each student’s journey is unique and
different.
Objectives of the curriculum

The objectives of this curriculum include:

developing self-awareness and mindfulness,

inculcating skills of critical thinking and inquiry,
enabling learners to communicate effectively and
helping learners to apply life skills to deal with stressful and conflicting
situations around them
Learning outcomes of this curriculum

The learning outcomes of this curriculum are spread across four categories:

becoming mindful and attentive (developing increased levels of self-awareness,

developing active listening, remaining in the present);
developing critical thinking and reflection (developing strong abilities to reflect
on one’s own thoughts and behaviours, thinking beyond stereotypes and assumptions);
developing social-emotional skills (demonstrating empathy, coping with anxiety and
stress, developing better communication skills) and
developing a confident and pleasant personality (developing a balanced outlook on
daily life reflecting self-confidence, becoming responsible and reflecting
awareness towards cleanliness, health and hygiene).
How is the curriculum implemented?

The curriculum is designed for students of classes nursery through the eighth
standard.
Group 1 consists of students in nursery and KG, who have bi-weekly classes (45
minutes each for one session, which is supervised by a teacher) involving
mindfulness activities and exercise.
Children between classes 1-2 attend classes on weekdays, which involves mindfulness
activities and exercises along with taking up reflective questions.
The second group comprises students from classes 3-5 and the third group is
comprised of students from classes 6-8 who apart from the aforementioned
activities, take part in self-expression and reflect on their behavioural changes.
[pib] National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS)

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Government Scheme/Policies

Post date
February 7, 2020
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : NMMSS

Mains level : Policy measures to curb school dropouts

The NMMSS has helped to reduce the drop-out rate at the secondary and senior
secondary classes, informed Union HRD Minister.

National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme

The Centrally Sponsored Scheme NMMSS was launched in May, 2008.

The objective of the scheme is to award scholarships to meritorious students of
economically weaker sections to arrest their drop out at class VIII and encourage
them to continue the study at secondary stage.
Under the Scheme one lakh fresh scholarships @ of Rs.12000/- per annum per student
are awarded to selected students of class IX every year and their
continuation/renewal in classes X to XII for study in a State Government,
Government-aided and Local body schools.
The selection of students for award of scholarships under the scheme is made
through an examination conducted by the States/UTs Governments.
Progress of the scheme

As on date approx 16.93 lakh scholarships have been sanctioned to the Students
across the country.
Heads of all the institutions disclosed that the NMMS Scheme has reduced the drop-
out rate at the secondary and senior secondary classes, particularly from Classes
VIII to XII.
[op-ed of the day] Time to prioritise education and health

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 30, 2020
Post date
Custom
Context

The policy currently being pursued is intended primarily to incentivise potential

investors while social objectives and help in indigenisation are being jettisoned.

Call for more liberalisation and its possible impacts

What reforms are asked for?

Reforms such as labour market liberalisation and removal of constraints on the
acquisition of land for industrial purposes are demanded.
What could be their possible impacts?
The negative impact such reform measures are likely to have on the incomes, living
conditions and the economic security of the workers and the agricultural class.
Counterproductive labour policy: The policy of freedom of hiring and firing of
labour will be counterproductive as it would squeeze demand further in a situation
of huge demand deficit.
Social sector and demand

Neglect of human infrastructure: While talks of economic revival focus on

infrastructure there is little talk of investment in human infrastructure,
particularly in education and
Conditional expenditure: On the contrary, the expenditure in social sectors is made
conditional upon a higher rate of growth.
The flawed premise of long term impact: Most mainstream economists believe that
public expenditure in social sectors can only have a long- term impact on growth.
Which is not entirely correct.
The benefit of investment in human infrastructure:
Increases demand in short-run: Investment in social sectors results in creating
demand in the short run by way of opening avenues for large-scale employment.
Competitiveness and sustainability: It imparts competitiveness and sustainability
to the Indian economy in the medium and long run.
Example of RTE, teacher employment and demand creation
The recruitment of 5.7 million additional teachers over a period of, say, five
years, can create huge scale demand.
And, this is only one factor essential for universalising quality school education.
There is also a large gap between the requirement of infrastructure in the schools
and that available and built recently.
The gap between requirement and availability: According to government data, only
12.5% of the schools covered by the RTE Act were compliant with RTE norms.
Meeting these norms has the potential of creating employment on a large scale.
Importance of health and education
Education has a crucial role to play for an individual in gaining employment and
retaining employability.
Conclusion

The gestation period of projects in social sectors is not as long as it is made out
to be. It is, therefore, time for reprioritising education and health in the scheme
of development strategy and the allocation of budgetary resources.

[op-ed snap] Not ready for school

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 15, 2020
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Not much.

Mains level : Paper 2-National Education Policy and ASER 2019 report , emphasis on
the preschool education and issues associated with it.

Context
The draft NEP (National Education Policy) document points out that close to five
crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and
numeracy skills.

Severe learning crisis: The document cites several possible reasons for this
crisis.

First reason: Many children enter school before age six.

Lack of options: This is partly due to the lack of affordable and accessible
options for pre-schooling.
Therefore, too many children go to Std. I with limited exposure to early childhood
education.
Consequences for the poor: Children from poor families have a double disadvantage -
lack of healthcare and nutrition and the absence of a supportive learning
environment on the other.
Second reason: Lack of developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
The misplaced focus of ICDS: School readiness or early childhood development and
education activities have not had a high priority in the ICDS system.
Acting as an extension of pre-school education: Private preschools that have
increased access to preschool but are often designed to be a downward extension of
schooling.
Thus, they bring in school-like features into the pre-school classroom, rather than
developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
Three clear trends in ASER-2019 data

First trend: Scope for expansion of Anganwadi network.

Expansion network: There is considerable scope for expanding Anganwadi outreach for
three and four-year-old children.
All-India data from 2018 shows that slightly less than 30 per cent children at age
three and 15.6 per cent of children at age four are not enrolled anywhere.
Second trend: Under 6 students in class I.
ASER 2018 data show that 27.6 per cent of all children in Std I are under six.
It is commonly assumed that children enter Standard I at age six and that they
proceed year by year from Std I to Std VIII.
The Right to Education Act also refers to free and compulsory education for the age
group six to 14.
However, the practice on the ground is quite different.
Third trend: There are important age implications for children’s learning.
Association with learning output: ASER-2019 indicate the higher learning output
associated with age in the same class.
In Std. I, the ability to do cognitive activities among seven-eight-year olds can
be 20 percentage points higher than their friends who are five years old but in the
same class.
In terms of reading levels in Std. I, 37.1 per cent children who are under six can
recognise letters whereas 76 per cent of those who are seven or eight can do the
same.
Age distribution in Std. I vary considerably between government and private
schools.
Private schools in many states have a relatively older age distribution.
Way forward

Understanding the children: Understanding the challenges that children face when
they are young is critical if we want to solve these problems early in children’s
life.
Providing for developmentally appropriate skill: Instead of focusing on the pre-
school years as the downward extension of school years there is a need for
providing developmentally appropriate skill in these years.
Pedagogy: On the pedagogy side reworking of curriculum and activity is urgently
needed for entire age band of four to eight.
Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2019

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 15, 2020
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : ASER

Mains level : Highlights of ASER 2019

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2019 (rural) was recently released by
NGO Pratham.

Highlights of the report

Only 16% of children in Class 1 in 26 surveyed rural districts can read text at the
prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognise letters.
Only 41% of these children could recognise two digit numbers.
Private schools ahead

Of six-year olds in Class 1, 41.5% of those in private schools could read words in
comparison to only 19% from government schools.
Similarly, 28% of those in government schools could do simple addition as against
47% in private schools.
This gap is further exacerbated by a gender divide: only 39% of girls aged 6-8 are
enrolled in private schools in comparison to almost 48% of boys.
The report also found that a classroom could include students from a range of age-
groups, skewing towards younger children in government schools.
Determinants of learning outcomes

The ASER report shows that a large number of factors determine the quality of
education received at this stage, including the child’s home background, especially
the mother’s education level; the type of school, whether anganwadis, government
schools or private pre-schools; and the child’s age in Class 1.
More than a quarter of Class 1 students in government schools are only 4 or 5 years
old, younger than the recommended age.
The ASER data shows that these younger children struggle more than others in all
skills.
Permitting underage children into primary grades puts them at a learning
disadvantage which is difficult to overcome,” said the report.
Role of Mothers

Among the key findings of ASER 2019 is that the mother’s education often determines
the kind of pre-schooling or schooling that the child gets.
The report says that among children in the early years (ages 0-8), those with
mothers who had completed eight or fewer years of schooling are more likely to be
attending anganwadis or government pre-primary classes.
With 75% women in the productive age group not in the workforce, they can be better
engaged in their children’s development, learning and school readiness.
Key suggestions made by the report

ASER found that the solution is not to spend longer hours teaching children the
3Rs.
Counter-intuitively, the report argues that a focus on cognitive skills rather than
subject learning in the early years can make a big difference to basic literacy and
numeracy abilities.
The survey shows that among Class 1 children who could correctly do none or only
one of the tasks requiring cognitive skills, about 14% could read words, while 19%
could do single digit addition.
However, of those children who could correctly do all three cognitive tasks, 52%
could read words, and 63% could solve the addition problem.
Focus on productive learning

ASER data shows that children’s performance on tasks requiring cognitive skills is
strongly related to their ability to do early language and numeracy tasks,” says
the report.
This suggests that focussing on play-based activities that build memory; reasoning
and problem-solving abilities are more productive than an early focus on content
knowledge.
Global research shows that 90% of brain growth occurs by age 5, meaning that the
quality of early childhood education has a crucial impact on the development and
long-term schooling of a child.
Mission Shat Pratishat

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
December 23, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Mission Shat Pratishat

Mains level : Ensuring quality education in govt. run schools

The Punjab Education Department recently launched Mission Shat Pratishat to achieve
100 per cent result in classes 5, 8, 10, and 12 of government schools.

Mission Shat Pratishat

The Mission was launched in September 2019 by the Punjab education department.
It aimed to improve the results of the government schools in terms of pass
percentage in the 10th and 12th board examinations.
Particulars of the mission

WhatsApp groups of teachers, students, and parents by different subject teachers

have been formed to ensure proper coordination as well as sharing of good
practices.
The teachers and students are being sensitized about the structure of the question
papers through Edusat (Education Satellite).
Model question papers have been prepared for every subject and students are being
made to solve them.
The government school teachers have voluntarily been taking extra classes not only
during working days but also on Sundays and holidays.
Issues

There are hundreds of government schools, mostly primary and middle, that do not
have enough teaching staff.
[oped of the day] In our own words
Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education
Post date
November 22, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : 3 language formula

Mains level : Role of mother tongue

Context

India is a linguistic treasure-trove. India is widely acknowledged for its

extraordinary linguistic and cultural diversity.

Diversity in India

More than 19,500 languages and dialects are spoken in India as mother tongues,
according to the Language Census.
There are 121 languages which are spoken by 10,000 or more people in the country.
Challenges to languages

196 languages in India are classified as endangered.

We are not doing enough to preserve our rich native languages.
Governments need to be doubly careful while adopting policies regarding the medium
of instruction, particularly at the primary and secondary school levels.
The mother tongue lays a strong foundation for the expression of creativity.
Language

It is a tool for intellectual and emotional expression.

It is a vehicle of intergenerational transmission of culture, scientific knowledge,
and a worldview.
It is the vital, unseen thread that links the past with the present.
It evolves with human evolution and is nourished by constant use.
Our languages permeate every facet of our day-to-day life and form the very basis
of our civilisation.
They are the lifeblood of our identity, both individual and collective.
They play a significant role in creating and strengthening bonds among people.
Language evolves

Languages are never static. They evolve and adapt to the socio-economic milieu.
They grow, shrink, transform, merge and die.
The great Indian poet, Acharya Dandi, had said that if the light of language does
not exist, we will be groping in a dark world.
When a language declines, it takes with it an entire knowledge system and a unique
perspective of viewing the universe.
The traditional livelihood patterns disappear along with our special skills, arts,
crafts, cuisine, and trade.
Language preservation and development

Making the mother tongue as the medium of instruction in our schools at the primary
level.
A number of studies conducted all over the world have established that teaching the
mother tongue at the initial stages of education gives an impetus to the growth of
mind and thought.
It makes children more creative and logical.
Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day,
said: “For UNESCO, every mother tongue deserves to be known, recognised and given
greater prominence in all spheres of public life.”
Mother tongues do not necessarily have national-language status, official-language
status, or status as the language of instruction.
English

There is a misconception that only English education offers opportunities to grow

in the modern world.
There are only a handful of English-speaking countries like Australia, Britain,
Canada, the US, etc.
Countries like China, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, etc did very well
without English education.
Knowing English is useful, like knowing other international languages.
This can’t be extended to make a case for supplanting the mother tongue with
English.
It can be learned easily at an appropriate stage after a strong foundation is laid
in the mother tongue.
Way ahead

Make mother tongue as the medium of instruction at the primary level.

Take all steps to make it the language of administration, banking, and judicial
proceedings.
Remove the existing linguistic barriers to realize the goal of inclusive
governance.
Wherever there is a government-public interface, it should be in the language
people understand.
In 1999, UNESCO adopted a resolution on multilingual education and suggested the
use of at least three languages in education: The mother language(s), a regional or
national language and an international language.
The crucial role of the mother language is a source of knowledge and innovation.
The “command of a mother tongue facilitates general learning and learning of other
languages”.
Steps in the direction

The new draft National Education Policy puts forth a number of suggestions for
supporting education in home languages and mother tongues, tribal as well as sign
languages.
The United Nations has proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous
Languages to preserve, revitalise and promote indigenous languages.
People can start using their native languages at home, in the community, in
meetings, and in administration.
We must accord a sense of dignity and pride to those who speak, write and
communicate in these languages.
We must encourage Indian language publications, journals and children’s books.
Dialects and folk literature must be given adequate focus.
Language promotion should be an integral part of good governance. Swami Vivekananda
once said that language is the chief means and index of a nation’s progress.
In the Rajya Sabha, a provision has been made for its members to express themselves
in any of the 22 scheduled languages.
The Supreme Court has recently decided to make available its judgments in six
Indian languages, to start with.
The finance ministry has decided to conduct the examinations for employment in
Regional Rural Banks in 13 regional languages, in addition to English and Hindi.
The Railways and Postal departments started conducting their exams in the states’
official languages.
Back2Basics

[oped of the day] Education, ours and theirs

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education
Post date
November 16, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Nothing much

Mains level : Nationalisation of Education

Context

Union Home Minister at a recent seminar in Banaras Hindu University on the 5th-
century emperor, Skandagupta, declared: “Putting together our history, embellishing
it and rewriting it is the responsibility of the country, its people and
historians”. It suggests that there are different ways to write the history of
India and that professional historians had not done their job properly so far.

Sangh – History

Sangh Parivar has shown interest in the teaching of history. This is not only
because it contributes to defining the national identity, but also because the
Parivar believes the version of the past portrayed by secularists does not reflect
reality.
In 2014, the RSS formed a committee, the Bharatiya Shiksha Niti Aayog, to
“Indianise” the education system. It was headed by Dinanath Batra, who had
specialized in rewriting Indian history according to the canons of Hindu
nationalism.
In 2010, he had filed a civil suit to ban Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus, which he felt
gave Hinduism a bad image.
Batra also pressured the University of Delhi to remove from its syllabus an essay
by A K Ramanujan — Three Hundred Ramayanas — that contradicted the Hindu
nationalist idea that there was a single version of the epic.
Leading Hindu nationalist historian, Y Sudershan Rao was appointed in 2014 to head
the Indian Council of Historical Research.
Contentious ideas

In the book, The Enemies of Indianisation: The Children of Marx, Macaulay, and
Madrasa, he listed 41 major flaws. These reflect the historic leanings of the Hindu
nationalists.
Aryans – the idea that the Aryans came from another part of the world in ancient
times because the Hindus could only be sons of the soil.
Ancient India – all the glories attributed to ancient India in its epic poems are
an accurate reflection of historical reality
Muslim invaders – the Muslim invasions opened the darkest chapter in Indian
history, starting with the destruction of Nalanda University in the 12th century up
until the end of the Mughal empire.
Freedom struggle – the standard account of the freedom movement ascribes too much
importance to Gandhi and Nehru to the detriment of Hindu nationalist heroes.
These flaws have been attributed to the secularist or Westernised nature of history
textbook authors.
History – mythology

Some Sangh thinkers also view history and mythology as being the same thing.
They believe that historiographic research should focus on identifying the
locations where the “events” described in the epics took place.
This mixing up of history and mythology has become common since 2014.
The textbooks put out by the NCERT which can be used in schools affiliated with the
CBSE have been extensively rewritten.
According to The Indian Express, between 2014 and 2018 1,334 changes were made to
182 textbooks put out by the NCERT between 2005 and 2009.
At the state level

The scale on which Hindu nationalists are rewriting history can be most clearly
gauged at the state government level.
Rajasthan – revision of the history curriculum and changing of narratives formed an
integral part of policy at the highest levels of government.
The focus of teaching was to be on imparting nationalism and textbooks “would
remove the chapters on the greatness of Akbar and include the heroics of Maharana
Pratap”.
This led to a process of regionalizing the history of the nation, wherein Pratap
would become the central protagonist of the Medieval period.
The Battle of Haldighati fought between Pratap and Akbar was altered to portray a
victory for Pratap.
Nationalism became the cornerstone of the new Rajasthan history textbooks. This was
depicted through a hagiographical account of Hindu rulers, which focused on their
early lives, territorial exploits, and differences in personal demeanor from their
Muslim enemies.
Freedom struggle

Besides, these textbooks revisited the prioritization of individuals associated

with the freedom struggle.
The first prime minister of the nation, Jawaharlal Nehru, has been omitted from the
class 8 textbook, while B R Ambedkar is classified as a ‘Hindu social reformer’ to
sanitize his fight against caste.
The textbooks argue that Ambedkar’s efforts were similar to those of Dayanand
Saraswati, Mahatma Gandhi and RSS founder K B Hedgewar.
Ambedkar’s more radical contributions such as the Mahad Satyagraha, or his
conversion to Buddhism are omitted altogether.
The most celebrated “freedom fighter” is Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of
the Hindutva ideology. He figures in every history textbook from class 8 to 12 as
someone “whose contribution to the cause of independence cannot be described in
words”.
Conclusion

For the BJP, the teaching of history is linked to the prioritization of certain
communities and individuals in order to foster a particular spirit of nationalism
among school students.
In the states, the party has been most effective in transmitting its version of
Indian history to the next generation of learners.
[pib] School Education Quality Index (SEQI)

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
October 1, 2019
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : SEQI

Mains level : Promoting quality education in India

The first edition of SEQI was recently released by NITI Aayog, in the presence of
NITI Aayog.
School Education Quality Index

SEQI was developed by NITI Aayog to evaluate the performance of States and UTs in
the school education sector.
It is developed through a collaborative process, including key stakeholders such as
Ministry of HRD, the World Bank and sector experts.
The index aims to bring an ‘outcomes’ focus to education policy by providing States
and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake
requisite course corrections or policy interventions.
In line with NITI Aayog’s mandate to foster the spirit of competitive and
cooperative federalism, SEQI strives to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and
best practices across States and UTs.
Key indicators

The index consists of 30 critical indicators that assess the delivery of quality
education. These indicators are categorized as below:
Category 1: Outcomes

Domain 1: Learning outcomes

Domain 2: Access outcomes
Domain 3: Infrastructure and facilities for outcomes
Domain 4: Equity outcomes
Category 2: Governance processes aiding outcomes

States performance

States and UTs are ranked on their overall performance in the reference year 2016-
17, as well as on their annual incremental performance between the reference year
and base year (2015-16).
The rankings present incredible insights on the status of school education across
States/UTs and their relative progress over time.
[pib] Integrated online junction for School Education: ‘Shagun’

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
August 29, 2019
Post date
Custom
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Shagun Portal

Mains level : Various digital initiatives in HRD sector

Union HRD Ministry has launched one of world’s largest Integrated Online Junction
for – School Education ‘Shagun’.
It also announced the setting up of the Integrated National School Education
Treasury (INSET).
Shagun

School Education Shagun is an over-arching initiative to improve school education

system by creating a junction for all online portals and websites relating to
various activities of the Department of School Education and Literacy.
The word Shagun is coined from two different words- ‘Shala’ meaning Schools and
‘Gunvatta’ meaning Quality.
This online junction of different websites and portals into a single platform is
aimed enhance the accessibility of information relating to schools and to ensure a
holistic approach to transform education sector.
Integrated National School Education Treasury (INSET)

INSET envisages a fully integrated, instantly accessible and seamless information

network for all parameters relating to the students, teachers, and schools in the
country.
The main focus will be on the following areas:
Reinforcing and cleaning the data of the Integrated Online Junction through
feedback from Stakeholders
Ensuring full inter-operability among the websites, portals and applications which
are already hosted in the junction
Creating high quality e-contents, including quizzes and puzzles to enhance learning
and also for teachers in aiding classroom transactions
Using AI and deep machine learning in a variety of ways to enhance the quality of
school education including for designing evidence based inventions.
[op-ed snap] Over to the teacher

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
August 16, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Nothing much

Mains level : Primary education - quality : A case study

CONTEXT

The quality of education in India has been a persistent concern.

Data

ASER report has been that a large number of children in the country cannot read
fluently or do basic arithmetic even after attending secondary school.
Other studies have raised questions about teaching methods in Indian schools.
Case study: Odisha

Odisha government tried to address this problem by doubling the teaching time of
three subjects — English, Mathematics, and Science — in all government schools in
the state.
These subjects get 90 minutes of teaching time every day while other subjects will
continue to get 45 minutes.
Benefits

First-generation learners – The ASER surveys have shown that a large percentage of
children in the country’s primary schools are first-generation learners.
Illiterate background of children – School environment and the role of the teacher
is crucial in providing support to children from non-literate homes and
communities.
Diverts focus from completing the syllabus – If pedagogy is aimed at completing the
syllabus, there is scarcely any scope for addressing the needs of students who are
falling behind.
This shortcoming can be overcome if students spend more time with English,
Mathematics and Science teachers and get time to clear their fundamentals.
Problem

Issue of mother tongue – For a child, acquiring foundational skills in a language

that is not her mother tongue is a complex matter.
Overburdened – Doubling the teaching time could tax the attention span of students,
and may end up doing more harm than good.
Science and Mathematics education has been dogged by rote learning.
Way ahead

Teachers could utilize the extra teaching time to stimulate students to discover
the laws of nature and Mathematics.
Teachers will have to be provided the autonomy to venture beyond bookish
explanations.
Explained: Three Language Formula

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 10, 2019
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Three Language Formula

Mains level : Features of New Education Policy

Background

The union government released a draft NPE, a report prepared by a committee headed
by space scientist K. Kasturirangan.
Its reference to mandatory teaching of Hindi in non-Hindi speaking States set off a
political storm in Tamil Nadu, which is traditionally opposed to the compulsory
study of Hindi.
The govt. sought to neutralize the hostile reaction by dropping the controversial
reference to Hindi.
Backdrop to the Hindi imposition row

The State has been traditionally opposed to any attempt to introduce Hindi as a
compulsory language of learning or administration.
The origin of the linguistic row, however, goes back to the debate on official
language.
In the Constituent Assembly, Hindi was voted as the official language by a single
vote. However, it added that English would continue to be used as an associate
official language for 15 years.
The Official Languages Act came into effect on the expiry of this 15-year period in
1965.
This was the background in which the anti-Hindi agitation took place.
However, as early as in 1959 Nehru had given an assurance in Parliament that
English would continue to be in use as long as non-Hindi speaking people wanted it.
The Three Language Formula

It is commonly understood that the three languages referred to are Hindi, English
and the regional language of the respective States.
Though the teaching of Hindi across the country was part of a long-standing system,
it was crystallized into a policy in an official document only in the NEP, 1968.
This document said regional languages were already in use as the medium of
education in the primary and secondary stages.
At the secondary stage, State governments should adopt and vigorously implement the
three-language formula.
It included the study of a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern
languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking States.
For non-Hindi speaking States

In such States Hindi should be studied along with the regional language and
English.
It added: Suitable courses in Hindi and/or English should also be available in
universities and colleges with a view to improving the proficiency of students in
these languages up to the university standards.
To Promote Hindi

The NPE 1968 said every effort should be made to promote the language and that in
developing Hindi as the link language.
Article 351 of the Constitution provides for Hindi as a medium of expression for
all the elements of the composite culture of India.
The establishment, in non-Hindi States, of colleges and other institutions of
higher education which use Hindi, as the medium of education should be encouraged.
Incidentally, the NPE 1986 made no change in the 1968 policy on the three-language
formula and the promotion of Hindi and repeated it verbatim.
Tamil Nadu’s stand on this

Tamil Nadu has been traditionally opposed to any attempt to introduce Hindi as a
compulsory language of learning or administration.
The origin of the linguistic row, however, goes back to the debate on official
language.
TN leaders does not oppose the voluntary learning of Hindi and cite the unhindered
work of the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, established in Chennai by Mahatma
Gandhi in 1918.
Also, there is no bar on private schools, most of them affiliated to the CBSE
offering Hindi.
The State has been following the two-language formula for many decades, under which
only English and one regional language are compulsory in schools.
English, the only link

An important aspect of the opposition to Hindi imposition is that many in Tamil

Nadu see it as a fight to retain English.
English is seen as a bulwark against Hindi as well as the language of empowerment
and knowledge.
There is an entrenched belief that the continued attempts to impose Hindi are
essentially driven by those who want to eliminate English as the country’s link
language.
Draft NEP proposes formal education from age of three

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 10, 2019
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Anganwadis

Mains level : Features of New Education Policy

Draft NEP on early childhood education

All Indian children could soon enter the formal education system at the age of
three, with the draft National Education Policy (NEP) projecting an expansion of
the RTE Act.
It aims to cover the three years of preschool before Class 1.
It wants early childhood education to be overseen and regulated by the Ministry of
HRD as part of the school system.
This will be in addition to the private pre-schools and anganwadis that currently
cater to the 3-to-6 years age group.
The draft Policy suggests a new integrated curricular framework for 3 to 8-year
olds with a flexible system based on play, activity and discovery, and beginning
exposure to three languages from age 3 onwards.
Upheaval of Anganwadi System

The NEP could result in an upheaval in the anganwadi system which has been overseen
by the Ministry of WCD for more than four decades.
Additional costs will come in the form of teacher recruitment and training,
infrastructure and learning materials, as well as nutritional aspects (including
the proposal to provide breakfast to young children).
The draft Policy praises the contribution of anganwadis to improving health and
nutrition, but notes that their record in education is not so strong.
Flaws in Anganwadis

They are currently quite deficient in supplies and infrastructure for education.
As a result, they tend to contain more children in the 2-4 year age range and fewer
in the educationally critical 4-6 year age range.
They also have few teachers trained in or specially dedicated to early childhood
education.
Anganwadis can do better

The new framework would be implemented by training and strengthening anganwadi

capabilities and linking them to a local primary school, co-locating anganwadis and
pre-schools with primary schools, or building stand-alone pre-schools also linked
to a local primary school.
[op-ed snap] Crisis defused: on Hindi imposition

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
June 4, 2019
Post date
The Hindu
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Nothing Much

Mains level : Mother tongue and english proficiency are better appraoch than 3
language formula.

CONTEXT

The Centre has moved quickly to defuse a potentially volatile controversy over the
charge of Hindi imposition.

Background
Opposition from Tamil Nadu

The reference in the newly unveiled draft National Education Policy to mandatory
teaching of Hindi in all States was withdrawn following an outcry from political
leaders in Tamil Nadu, a State that is quite sensitive to any hint of ‘Hindi
imposition’ by the Centre.

Flexibility in the choice of language – The modified draft under the heading
‘Flexibility in the choice of languages’, has omitted references to the language
that students may choose.

Issue of three language formula –

However, the broader recommendation regarding the implementation of a three-

language formula remains, something Tamil Nadu, which will not budge from its two-
language formula, is averse to.
The gist of the original sentence in the draft NEP was that students could change
one of the three languages of study in Grade 6, provided that in Hindi-speaking
States they continued to study Hindi, English and one other Indian language of
their choice, and those in non-Hindi-speaking States would study their regional
language, besides Hindi and English.
The revised draft merely says students may change one or more of their three
languages in Grade 6 or 7, “so long as they still demonstrate proficiency in three
languages (one language at the literature level) in their modular Board
examinations some time during secondary school”.
It may not amount to a complete reversal , but is still important in terms of
conciliatory messaging.
Broader Issue

Official Language – Ever since the Constitution adopted Hindi as the official
language, with English also as an official language for 15 years initially, there
has been considerable tension between those who favour the indefinite usage of
English and those who want to phase it out and give Hindi primacy.

The imposition of Hindi – In Tamil Nadu, it is seen as a creeping imposition of

Hindi in subtle and not-so-subtle forms.

English as an associate language – The tension has been managed based on the
statesmanship behind Jawaharlal Nehru’s assurance in 1959 that English would be an
associate language as long as there are States that desire it.

Language a recurrent issue – One would have thought that with the ascent of
coalition politics the instinct to stoke differences based on language would die
out. Unfortunately, it keeps coming up, especially in the form of imposing the
three-language formula on States.

Conclusion

Language is primarily a utilitarian tool. While acquisition of additional tools can

indeed be beneficial, compulsory learning should be limited to one’s mother tongue
and English as the language that provides access to global knowledge and as a link
language within India. It is time attempts to force Indians proficient in their
mother tongue and English to acquire proficiency in a third are given up.

Karnataka limits weight of schoolbags

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
May 8, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Not Much

Mains level : Read the attached story

The Karnataka government has ordered all schools in the state to ensure that the
weight of a child’s schoolbag does not exceed 10 per cent of the weight of the
child.
The order prescribed that school bags of children in Classes 1-2 cannot weigh more
than 2 kg, bags of children in Classes 3-5 should weigh than 2-3 kg, and so on.
Limiting weight of schoolbags

The weight of a child’s school bag has been a contested issue for long, and
especially so in recent months.
Last year, the Union Ministry of HRD directed all states and UTs to “formulate
guidelines to regulate the teaching of subjects and weight of school bags in
accordance with the Government of India instructions”.
According to the central government’s advice, weights of school bags in Classes 1-
2, 3-5, 6-7, 8-9, and 10 should not be more than 1.5 kg, 2-3 kg, 4 kg, 4.5 kg, and
5 kg respectively.
The Ministry also said that students should not be forced to carry study materials
other than the prescribed textbooks to school, as per the day’s timetable.
Following the Centre’s directive, several state governments issued directions to
schools to comply.
Why such move?

Most advanced countries have done away with the need for children to carry bags to
school, replacing heavy books and notebooks with electronic aids such as tablet
computers, and providing books at school itself.
The HRD Ministry’s 2018 directive was in line with its efforts over the past
several years to reduce the weight of schoolbags.
The CBSE too, had a few years ago, nudged schools to find a way to ensure children
did not have to carry heavy bags to school.
Child welfare NGOs have long warned that heavier-than-necessary schoolbags could
induce premature back- and spine-related problems in schoolchildren.
CBSE has been engaged with the issue for over 15 years now, and several studies
have attested to the health problems associated with heavy school bags.
[op-ed snap] Exam and Peace

Polity | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
February 14, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4Students

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice| Issues relating to development and management of

Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Basic knowledge of Education system in India.

Mains level: The news-card analyses the issues with the education system in India,
in a brief manner.

Context

As the board examinations approach, the dialectic of “success” and “failure” will
begin to haunt young learners and their anxiety-ridden parents.
About

The pattern of education we have normalised is inherently pathological.

The creation of a violent/hierarchical/schooled consciousness seems to be its
latent function.
Even though an empathic look at the educational ideals of Rabindranath Tagore, Sri
Aurobindo and J Krishnamurti would suggest that there is no dearth of critical and
creative thinking on liberating pedagogy.
However, we dislike experimentation and new possibilities, and make a superficial
distinction between “pragmatism” and “idealism”.
Glorifying the success stories, stigma of “failure”

People have become used to the routinisation of the practice of glorifying the
“success stories” of the “toppers”.
And at the same time, inviting the psychiatrists on television channels to reflect
on the “suicide narratives” of those who could not bear the stigma of “failure”.
Meanwhile, everything would function as usual

the practice of “black education” would flourish in coaching centres,

the publishers of “guide books” would make a lot of money, and
school principals heavily burdened with the “ranking” of their schools would alert
insecure parents of “problematic” children that in the age of inflated “cut off
points” for admission in “branded” colleges, the future is bleak without 99 per
cent marks in some subjects.
Why is it so?

There are three reasons:

Here is a system that closes the mind of the young learner, and abhors the
desirability of making meaningful choices relating to academic quest and vocation.
How are choices possible if schools have already hierarchised knowledge traditions
i.e. Science or economics for the “intelligent” ones, and humanities for the
“leftovers”.
Or does the child ever get the space to contemplate on her own inclinations and
aptitudes at a time when peer pressure negates self-reflection and generates a
crowd mentality.
Or when struggling parents have already decided that she has to pass through the
most travelled “Aakash/Fitjee/IIT” highway, and all other paths are “risky” and
“impractical”.
Strange classification of academic disciplines

Moreover, we have promoted a strange classification of academic disciplines.

It is impossible for one to opt for, say, Physics, History and Music.
It is taken for granted that if you have interest in literature, you cannot be
equally inclined towards statistics.
In other words, we decide the fate of our children so early.
It is not surprisingly then, schooling prepares the ground for an alienated
existence.
2. Here is a system obsessed with the quantification of knowledge and evaluation.

With the burden of information, examinations as ceremonies of power, and a reckless

process of measuring even one’s “happiness” and “moral quotient”, schools have
robbed the practice of education of the ecstasy of social awakening, scientific
reasoning and poetic imagination.
Children as “exam warriors”

A careful look at weekly tests, classroom transactions and summer projects would
suggest that the system asks a young child to become as an “exam-warrior”.
It is devoid of joy and humour, and creative play and aesthetic celebration.
While the “successful warriors” join the IITs and colleges like LSR, Presidency and
Stephen’s, those who are not so lucky would be compelled to realise that it is
painful to be young, wounded and stigmatised.
There is no peace in this system, even if schools hire counsellors, invite
motivational speakers, and ask children to read self-help books in their “relaxed”
times.
3. “Success” is equated with a purely instrumental orientation to life

“Success” is equated with a purely instrumental orientation to life, and the

virtues of the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” are celebrated with all
sorts of media simulations.
Education becomes merely a “performance”, a packaged good for sale.
A teacher becomes merely a “subject expert” or a “skill-provider”.
There is no sunset that Jidu Krishnamurti wanted children to look at; and there is
no union of the “physical, vital, mental and psychic” that Sri Aurobindo imagined.
What prevails is only a standardised scale of measurement intoxicated with the urge
to eliminate innumerable young minds and throw them into the dustbin of a
“meritocratic” universe.
And our exam-centric education sanctifies it.
Conclusion

As adults, teachers and policy-makers have betrayed the children of this nation.
It is time to rectify the Education system of India so that the country can reap
the full potential of its demographic dividend.
Indian students to participate in PISA 2021

Polity | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 30, 2019
Post date
Business Stan

Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Governance | Issues relating to development & management of Social

Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: PISA, OCED

Mains level: Competency of Indian Education System in the World.

News

The HRD Ministry has signed a pact with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) for the participation of students from Central government
schools in PISA-2021.
With the signing of the pact, Indian students aged 15 will be able to take the
Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA, which is conducted every
three years.
PISA 2021
It will be a competency-based test, which evaluates the learning level of 15YO
students in reading, mathematics and science.
The outcomes of the test will be used to do more teacher training programmes and
curricular reforms.
The questions in the test will be contextualized according to the Indian setting to
help students understand them better.
Schools run by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS)
and schools in the UTs of Chandigarh will participate.
The CBSE and NCERT will be part of the process and activities leading to the actual
test.
For detailed news (covered on 8th Sept, 2018), navigate to:

[op-ed snap] Schools without a difference

Polity | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 25, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice| Issues relating to development and management of

Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Nothing as such.

Mains level: The news-card analyses the relevance of Navodaya Vidyalayas in the
light of recent reports about suicides in NVs, in a brief manner.

Context

The recent reports about suicides in Navodaya Vidyalayas demonstrate that they no
longer exemplify the search for an alternative that the government once envisaged
and has lost its purpose.
Background

Boarding schools are part of India’s modern history.

When the central government launched the Navodaya Vidyalayas (NVs) in the mid-
1980s, they were presented as a major innovation in social policy in that they were
intended to serve rural children.
Three decades on, the NV innovation has fully merged into the mainstream, coping
with its familiar problems rather than exemplifying an alternative.
NV idea preceded the National Policy on Education (1986)

Although the NV plan was part of the National Policy on Education (1986), its idea
preceded the policy.
Rajiv Gandhi had mentioned it in his first address to the nation as prime minister.
His desire to set up a residential school in every district was apparently inspired
by his own experience as a child at Doon School.
Many people expected that NVs will emulate Doon’s example of high academic
standards along with space for creative exploration.
Enrolment was based on an entrance test

Enrolment to NV’s Grade 6 was based on an entrance test, with 80 per cent
reservation for children belonging to villages located in a district.
Not everyone was convinced that enrolment through a selection test was a good idea.
NCERT conveyed its doubts about the reliability and validity of a selection
procedure dependent on a test among 11-year olds.
The government went ahead and started setting up NVs across the country.
Soon after the scheme was launched, coaching centres sprang up in every district to
help children succeed in the NV enrollment test.
How NVs were different from other schools?

Each school was allotted sizeable land in the countryside.

Generous funding and impressive infrastructure, including on-campus housing for
teachers and not just children, distinguished NVs from other state-run residential
schools, such as the boarding schools in tribal areas.
NVs were promoted as “pace-setting” schools, implying that they would serve as a
model for other schools in the district.
Their facilities and funds were way ahead and they were not governed by the state
directorate.
The contrast was also sharp in teachers’ emoluments.
From the central government’s perspective, NVs offered a congenial institutional
ethos where policies could be showcased.
The implementation of the three-language formula in NVs included exchanging the
entire Grade 9 cohort across linguistic regions for the entire session.
Dilemma the NVs faced after a few years of its inception

Should they serve as models of child-centred education in rural areas or prepare

village children for national-level contests for seats in prestigious institutions
of medicine and engineering?
Proposals to provide coaching to the senior secondary level students were mooted.
NGOs like Dakshana were given permission to select children with the best potential
and coach them.
Grilling the selected round the year without break bore fruit, exacerbating the
familiar stress of exams on children and teachers.
The Dakshana website proudly claims that many of its students have cracked the JEE
Advanced to secure admissions into IITs.
It is hard to explain to the users of this discourse that there may be more to
life than cracking the JEE.
NVs had emulated the urban public school model

There was little concern to develop a new vision for rural children.
Instead, the dominant ideology prevailing among administrators and teachers was
that they should work for the standard routes towards upward mobility.
Success in examinations, that too with high marks, had dogged the NV experiment
from the beginning.
Like their counterpart, the Kendriya Vidyalayas, NVs dared not ignore the
mainstream trends of India’s education.
Principals and teachers were supposed to dedicate themselves to pushing all the
children to work hard for marks.
Recent Suicides in NVs

The one-size fits-all template of secondary education in India has exacerbated the
pressures that adolescents routinely face and feel, leading many to feel lonely,
depressive and suicidal.
Suicides before and after higher secondary exams are reported every year across
India.
In the NV case, nearly half of the reported 49 cases over the last five years are
from marginalised groups.
As usual, the administration places the blame on teachers who are themselves
overburdened.
The absence of trained counsellors adds to the problem.
The NV administration has asked teachers to notice symptoms of depression among
students.
Such steps might offer some help, but they will not mitigate the larger tragedy of
a scheme that forgot its mission and took the beaten track.
Conclusion

The NV story reminds us how inimical the systemic ethos is to any genuine
innovation.
Most schools justify putting children under pressure by referring to parental
pressures.
This argument does not account for suicides at NVs.
Their original mandate had little to do with competitive success.
They were expected to provide a humanistic alternative to the moribund,
bureaucratised culture of common government schools.
NVs had the potential to present a creative alternative to the mindlessly
competitive atmosphere of English-medium urban public schools.
However, the bureaucracy that runs them had little imagination or vision to define
their pace-setting role in an original, creative manner.
[op-ed snap] ASER data shows early education is crucial, one-size-fits-all policy
doesn’t work

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 23, 2019
Post date
The Indian Express
Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice| Issues relating to development and management of

Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Basic knowledge of the ASER 2018 assessment.

Mains level: The news-card analyses the recently released ASER 2018 data which
shows how crucial is early education for the children of the country, in a brief
manner.

Context

The recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2018 showed how
crucial is early education for the children of the country.
Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education (ECE) is included in the Sustainable Development Goals

(SDGs) for 2030 that were approved by India among many countries around the globe.
SDG Target 4.2 states that by 2030 countries should “ensure that all girls and boys
have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education
so that they are ready for primary education”.This global goal emerged thanks to
extensive international research in disciplines as varied as neuroscience,
psychology and economics, which show that early childhood (defined internationally
as the age group of 0-8 years) is a critical period.
During this time, the foundations of life-long learning are built, with 90 per cent
of all brain development taking place by age six.
Early Childhood Care and Education in India

In India, the importance of early care and stimulation has been recognised in the
National Policy on Early Childhood Care and Education (2013).
The policy aims to provide “developmentally appropriate preschool education for
three to six-year-olds with a more structured and planned school readiness
component for five to six-year-olds.”
The recently created Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan scheme has also brought renewed focus
and attention on ECE through the Integrated Scheme on School Education that aims to
treat school education “holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class
12”.
Main avenues for accessing early childhood education in India

There are currently two main avenues for accessing early childhood education in
India.

Anganwadi centres: The most widespread comprises the 1.3 million anganwadi centres
run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development across the country under the
Integrated Child Development (ICDS) Scheme.
Private sector: The other is the burgeoning private sector, with more than 40 per
cent of privately managed primary schools reportedly offering pre-primary LKG and
UKG classes as well.
Some states in India offer a third possibility as well, in the form of preschool
classes integrated within government primary schools, for example in Assam and
Jammu & Kashmir.
RTE Act and ASER assessment

According to the RTE Act, enrolment in formal schools should begin at age six, with
ECE exposure recommended for children between age three and six.
However, 26 of India’s 35 states and union territories allow children to enter
Class 1 at age five.
National trends from the recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER
2018) indicate that enrolment patterns broadly meet these policy prescriptions.
At age three, two-thirds of children were enrolled in some form of preschool; while
seven out of every 10 were enrolled in primary school at age six.
However, fairly large proportions of children are already in primary grades even at
age three and four; and many are still in preschool at age seven and even eight.
Major variations across the country

As with many estimates at the all-India level, these national trends hide major
variations, both across the country as well as at different ages.
For example, at age three, national policy recommends that children should be in an
ECE programme.
Gujarat comes close to meeting the norm, with well over 90 per cent children in
some form of preschool, the majority in ICDS Anganwadis.
In contrast, in Uttar Pradesh, almost two thirds are not attending anywhere.
At age four, almost a quarter of all four-year-olds in Rajasthan are already in
primary school, with almost equal proportions in government and private schools.
But in Assam, about seven out of 10 children are attending an anganwadi.
At age five, nationally, about a third of all children are already in primary
school.
But in UP, close to two in every 10 children are not enrolled anywhere; and, in
Rajasthan over 60 per cent children are in primary school.
At age six, although all children are expected to be in primary school, over 40 per
cent of all six-year-olds in both Telangana and Assam continue in some form of pre-
primary class.
These varied pathways in the early years have major consequences for what children
experience and learn along the way.
ASER 2018 data

ASER 2018 data shows that nationally, more than a quarter of children entering
primary school are five years old or younger.
From the perspective of the primary school, children in Class 1 are far from
homogenous in terms of age.
Less than 40 per cent are at the mandated age of six years and a third are seven or
older.
Implications

These age-grade distributions have implications for teaching and learning.

A four- or five-year-old child is simply not developmentally ready to handle Class
1 curriculum.
From the point of view of a teacher, moreover, teaching the same content to a class
with wide variation in students’ age is not a trivial challenge.
The requirement that teachers complete the curriculum for a given grade in a given
year and that the children master the content being taught does huge disservice to
both.
Outcome in terms of learning: ASER assessment

In the elementary school sector, ASER has demonstrated for more than a decade that
getting all children into school is undoubtedly a major achievement but it does not
by itself ensure that children are able to learn at the expected level.
ASER data shows that gaps between what children can do and what is expected of them
emerge very early in children’s school trajectories and widen as they move through
the system.
A quick look at the Class 1 language textbook in any state provides a good
indication of what children are expected to do during their very first year in
school.
But ASER 2018 data shows that even several months into Class 1, nationally more
than 40 per cent of children are unable to recognise letters of the alphabet, let
alone read words or connected text.
Way Forward

As implementation of the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan rolls out across the country, ASER
data on young children suggests that a “one size fits all” solution is unlikely to
be successful.
Experts are of the view that while helping children get a head start in the early
years is important, it is critical to ensure that all stakeholders (parents,
teachers, policymakers and textbook developers) understand that the key words are
“quality” and “developmentally appropriate”.
The continuum envisaged for the early years curriculum should start from and build
on what children bring with them when they enter preschool and school. So that they
are able to grow and thrive.
[op-ed snap] Limits of class

Governance | : Health & Education

Post date
January 19, 2019
Post date
Custom
Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice| Issues relating to development and management of

Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources..

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Basic knowledge of the RTE Amendment Bill.

Mains level: The news-card analyses the issues and challenges in the recently
passed RTE amendment bill, in a brief manner.

Context

The RTE Amendment Bill, recently passed in Rajya Sabha, has again triggered the
periodic debate between anti-detentionists (votaries of No-Detention Policy) and
detentionists.
The amendment allows states to decide whether to withdraw automatic promotion at
the end of 5th and 8th grades, which is the point of contention.
Arguments of Detentionists and Anti-detentionists

(a) Detentionists

Detentionists argue that if children know that they will automatically pass, they
don’t study, thus learning achievements come down.
Since Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) is not implemented seriously,
if no-detention is practised then certificate of elementary education will certify
no learning.
(b) Anti-detentionists

Anti-detentionists argue that fear of failure causes stress and trauma and failure
demotivates and pushes children out of system.
That stigma of failure mainly harms Dalit and tribal children.
They also argue that detention will weaken many other provisions of RTE, like
admission in age-appropriate class.
According to them, “failing children does not make them learn” and that no-
detention is claimed to produce improved learning achievements.
Why Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) cannot be implemented?

The shortage of teachers and lack of training are cited as the main reasons for
failure of the implementation of CCE.
Though these claims are true, a fundamental contradiction in the RTE is ignored in
this debate.
Unless that contradiction is removed, the CCE cannot be implemented in its true
spirit.
The case of term “Class” in RTE

“Class” is a very important term in the RTE. The norms for teachers, teacher-pupil
ratio, infrastructure and elementary education, are all defined in terms of class.
“Elementary education,” according to the RTE means the education from first class
to eighth class.
Regarding the admission of a child above six years, the act demands that “he or she
shall be admitted in a class appropriate to his or her age”.
The act is aware that such a child may not be at par with other children in the
class, implying that class is associated with some standards of learning.
The act itself is “to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of
the age of six to fourteen years”.
Reading this together with the definition of elementary education will give the
duration of “class” as one year.
From these and other references to “class” in the act, it can be conclusively
established that:

Duration of study in a class is one year.

A class has its specific curriculum in which learning expectations increase as the
order of class increases.
That the school is organised class-wise.
Promotion to the next class is not a matter of age

Though the RTE does not say anything about textbooks, we do know that they are
written class-wise.
Therefore, promotion to the next class is not a matter of age, but of learning
achievements; implying that the very concept of class as used in RTE contains the
idea of detention, if need be.
With this definition of class and elementary education, the ideas of no-detention
and admission in age-appropriate class completely de-emphasise learning
expectations.
All that remains is eight years in the school, that too if the child is admitted in
class one.
Contradictions in “no-detention” policy

For the child admitted in “a class appropriate to age”, all that remains is
attaining the age of 14 years. This happens because “no-detention” is introduced in
a school system defined in terms of class.
CCE demands that assessment should be continuous and it should feedback into
pedagogy to help the child learn better.
CCE is not for promotion or its denial

With age-appropriate admission and no-detention, children in any given class are
bound to be at different levels of achievement.
If the CCE is to help every child learn, then it cannot be based on the same tasks
and assessment criteria for the whole class. But that is precisely the demand of
class-wise teaching.
CCE on the other hand, demands individual attention in assessment and pedagogy.
Therefore, the class-wise structure of curriculum and school on one hand, and CCE
on the other, pull the system in opposite directions.
Two ways to resolve this contradiction

(a) Accept the true definition of class or grade

That implies, to complete a defined curriculum in one year, and detention on

unsatisfactory completion. This is what the government has done.

While this is retrograde and hardly improves learning, it resolves the

contradiction in the teachers’ minds, and allows them to practice the age old
authoritarian rigid system in its true glory.
(b) Working out the implications of a pedagogically sound CCE

The other way is to carefully work out the implications of a pedagogically sound
CCE and take on the arduous task to reform the system to implement it.

That would require:

defining elementary education in terms of learning standards;

organising curriculum as a free-paced learning path, and not boxed into classes;
organising schools as ungraded heterogeneous learning groups, composed of children
at various levels; and
introduce the ideas of self-learning and peer group learning, a necessity to manage
a heterogeneous learning group.
Conclusion

All this will require systemic reforms and to prepare teachers for this change
through massive and serious in-service professional development.
Although this is the difficult path, but it does not contain internal
contradictions, and may solve the problem of low quality.
[op-ed snap]Learning little

Polity | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 18, 2019
Post date
The Hindu
Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Governance | Issues relating to development and management of Social

Sector/Services relating to Health,Education, Human Resources.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Basic knowledge about the findings of ASER.

Mains level: The news-card analyses the findings of ASER and what could be the way
forward, in a brief manner.

Context

The latest ASER assessment of how children are faring in schools in rural areas
indicates there has been no dramatic improvement in learning outcomes.
It has observed that the reading and arithmetic abilities in rural schools are
shockingly dismal.
Findings of the Annual Status of Education Report

According to the Annual Status of Education Report, Rural (2018), the picture that
has emerged is one of a moribund system of early schooling in many States, with no
remarkable progress from the base year of 2008.
Except for a small section at the top of the class, the majority of students have
been let down.
The survey for 2018 had a reach of 5.4 lakh students in 596 rural districts.
The administrators must be alerted by the fact that while 53.1% of students in
Class 5 in rural government schools could in 2008 read a text meant for Class 2,
the corresponding figure for 2018 stood at 44.2%.
For comparison, private schools scored 67.9% and 65.1% for the same test in those
years.
Arithmetic ability showed a similar trend of under-performance, although there has
been a slight uptick since 2016: an improvement of about 1.5 percentage points in
government schools and 1.8 percentage points in private institutions, among Class 5
students.
Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Haryana did better on the arithmetic question
with over 50% students clearing it, compared to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan and even Karnataka, which scored below 20%.
A significant percentage of students were not even able to recognise letters
appropriate for their class, highlighting a severe barrier to learning.
What needs to be done?

Setting up a Review mechanism:Now that the ASER measure is available for 10 years,
the Centre should institute a review mechanism involving all States for both
government and private institutions, covering elementary education and middle
school.
A public consultation on activity-based learning outcomes, deficits in early
childhood education, and innovations in better performing States can help.
At present, children start learning in a variety of environments: from poorly
equipped anganwadi centres to private nurseries. Therefore, any policy framework
should also consider this aspect
Right to Education Act

The enactment of the Right to Education Act was followed by a welcome rise in
enrolment, which now touches 96% as per ASER data.
Empowering as it is, the law needs a supportive framework to cater to learners from
different backgrounds who often cannot rely on parental support or coaching.
There is concern that curricular expectations on literacy and numeracy have become
too ambitious, requiring reform.
Way Forward
The solutions may lie in multiple approaches.
The need is to look at innovation in schools and incentivising good outcomes.
What ASER says about quality of learning in India

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 17, 2019
Post date
Live Mint

Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Governance | Issues relating to development & management of Social

Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Annual Status of Education Report

Mains level: State of Indian education system and measures required for
improvisation

News

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018 published by education non-profit
Pratham shows the prevalence of learning deficit and the poverty of basic reading
and arithmetic skills among students in Indian schools.
What does the ASER 2018 report say?

The report shows that Indian students, especially those in elementary school
(Classes I-VIII), are not learning enough.
To cite a metric, only half (50.3%) of all students in Class V can read texts meant
for Class II students.
There seems to have been some improvement in learning levels, especially among
students of Class III and Class V, in 2018 compared with those of the previous five
years.
However, the improvement is not visible at a higher level, for example among
students of Class VIII.
The latest report collected data from 596 districts by surveying 546,527 students
from 354,944 homes.
Is this learning deficit prevalent only in government schools?

The deficit is across government and private schools.

Traditionally, students in private schools have fared better than their government
school counterparts, but that’s a relative situation.
For example, while 40% of Class VIII students in government schools can do simple
division, the figure is 54.2% in private schools.
But this success rate is three percentage points below that of 2012 and the same as
in 2014.
Private school students are believed to have better family background, both in
economic and education front.
Why is learning level in schools important?

The quality of the learning level bears directly on India’s future workforce, its
competitiveness and the economy.
India’s demographic dividend depends on the learning level of students.
Are learning levels improving in government schools?

There is gradual improvement in some segments and in some states.

The reading ability among Class V students in Kerala jumped 10 percentage points in
2018 from that in 2016.
In Himachal Pradesh, the growth is nearly 8 percentage points and in Chhattisgarh
and Odisha it is around 7 percentage points between 2016 and 2018.
Still, data from states such as Jharkhand, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan and
Tamil Nadu shows a marginal dip in the same criterion for the same cohort.
Do private schools have more students?

The situation has been almost static in the last five years.
While 30.9% of students in the 6-14 age group were in private schools in 2018, the
figure was 30.6% in 2016 and 30.8% in 2014.
This is less than a percentage point growth since 2014.
70 point Performance Index to assess states on schooling system

Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

Post date
January 7, 2019
Post date
The Economic Times
Note4students

Mains Paper 2: Governance | Issues relating to development & management of Social

Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: 70 Point Grading Index

Mains level: Schooling Reforms

News

A 70 Point Grading Index for assessing schooling systems across states, four year
integrated BEd to train teachers for Std. 1 to 10 and the Digital Board are three
of the key missions that the government will drive to implementation before it
enters the next general election cycle.
70 point Performance Grading Index (PGI)

The government will use a 70 point Performance Grading Index (PGI) to assess areas
of deficiency in each state’s school education system.
The 70 indicators will grade state schooling systems on areas like number of
existing teacher vacancies, number of direct entry recruitments especially at
leadership positions, school infrastructure etc.
The Index will assess states on a 1,000 point grading system with 10-20 points per
parameter- is aimed at helping states understand where they may be lagging behind.
It will thus prioritize areas for intervention to ensure that the school education
system is robust at every level.
The NITI Aayog which was earlier developing its own School Education Quality Index,
will be using 33 of the 70 criteria under the PGI for their own assessments.
Why such move?

The move is in keeping with the government’s overall thrust on quality improvement,
teacher training and learning outputs.
Enhanced training of Teachers

The HRD ministry is also readying plans to launch a four year integrated Bachleors
in Education (Bed) course next year.
This will be an integrated course to prepare teachers holistically for teaching
from Class 1 to Class 10 level.
This course will have a strong focus on internship and be launched with teacher
training institutes under Central Universities and state universities besides
private institutes that opt to go for it.
The idea is as much to create a pool of well equipped teachers for the schooling
system as to create a parity between teachers of all grades.
The course structure will ensure modern pedagogical tools, e-learning material and
global best practices.
Other measures

NCERT is helping the HRD ministry set up a Central institute of Assessment to

strengthen Continuous and Comprehensive Education/.
It will handhold states in ensuring customized teacher training and work on
pedagogical improvements.
The Mission to equip every school with a Digital Board is also on full throttle to
reach e learning material in various languages to schools.