Changes, with a capital “C” for education in India

The new minister for Human Resource, Mr. Kapil Sibal, was appointed on May 22, 2009. He is the driving force behind several radical changes being proposed to the education system all over India.

As I have said in all of my previous posts, we need radical changes to our education system, in order to halt the onwards-march of the drones, we call our educated youth! In reference to our ‘youth,’ we are referring to the small percentage of Indian children who actually receive some sort of formal education, from an academic institution.

Currently, the Human Resources Department Ministry, has tied up with the Law Ministry, and are jointly pushing their bill proposing radical new changes. There are two main new changes that the Law/HRD Ministries are proposing:

1) Mandate schools to admit at least 25% of all admissions, from the local neighborhood. The geocentric zones defining ‘local neighbourhood’ are defined as follows; for primary classes falls within a 1 Km zone, and after grade 5, a 3 Km zone.

“According to the first proposal, schools all over India, aided or un-aided, will have to admit at least 25 percent students from the ‘neighbourhood’, which is defined as per age: within 1 km for primary classes and 3 km after Class V.” – Source: Indian Express; Radical proposals in new education bill.

If this can be successfully accomplished, it will allow local students to study at local schools, and will eliminate the need for students to travel distances of more than 2 kilometers just to get to school. The only limiting factor is the amount of seats available at these schools.

2) Establishing a norm, or standard curriculum for all schools across India. These standards must be met within 5 years, if the school are to survive the “accreditation process” that ensues after the 5 year time-frame. This leads to a standardized curriculum eliminating discrepancies, where students give ICSE, and CBSE exams, and achieve a solid grouping or scores, instead of scores being scattered across the ‘possible points’ graph. This also serves to abolish social divisions, where the middle class, lower class, and upper class, can take any standardized exam they wish (ICSE, CBSE, SSC, and the IB/IGCSE).

“The other big proposal in the bill is establishing a norm or a standard for schools….this bill lays down a standard for schools that the state must meet in five years and will remove traditional or informal schools from the ambit of what would be recognised as schools.” – Source: Indian Express; Radical proposals in new education bill.

This bill, if enacted, will dictate radical changes on education in India, by giving every child the right to an education, by abolishing all the standards needed for admission into state schools. This will also abolish demographic censoring, and give all the youth a fair shot at gaining admissions to the schools they want, and deserve.

Currently, students have to take exams in order to be shortlisted for administration. The final hurdle that seal the deal for any short-listed potential future student, is the ability to produce a birth certificate. If an individual can pass the “aptitude/admissions” test, and can produce a birth certificate, the student is admitted to the institution. This is a problem, because rural kids haven’t ever received formal educations, and while they might be able to pass the admissions test, they are unable to produce a birth certificate, as they were not born in state hospitals. The were most likely born in their own house.

I considered these bills to be the “equal opportunity” bills that the United States debated over 30 years ago.

Teach India cannot work with a stagnant board; it has to work in an environment surrounded by change, if it is to change anything.

I will let you know more, as I discover it.

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