Page 22 - EducationWorld March 2022

Education News

any of us.” THEY SAID IT
Moreover, writing in The Times of India (February 10),
Rukmini Banerji, CEO of the Pratham Education Foun- “The English language continued to remain
dation which publishes the annual ASER surveys wrote: dominating (sic) in our country because
“The immediate goals for primary schools are very clear.
Getting youngest children ‘ready for schooling and learn- we were colonised. Parents fear that if their
ing’ and helping older children to ‘catch up’ should be the children will not learn English, they won’t
only two priorities for education in Bengal in 2022.” have a future. Once we give them better
Compelled to react, the West Bengal school education options in regional languages, this hesitancy
department announced that a bridge course of 100 days will go away.”
will be introduced from the very first day for students of Dinesh Prasad Saklani, newly appointed director of
all classes to fill learning gaps of the pandemic. the National Council of Educational Research and
However, with the state’s TMC government having Training (Hindustan Times, February 17)
shirked its legal and constitutional obligation to provide
free and compulsory education to all children for almost “We are seeing how the digital divide is
two years, West Bengal’s academia and bhadralok (re-
fined middle class) remain sceptical about the implemen- rapidly shrinking in India. Innovation is
tation of the bridge course across 92,000 government ensuring inclusion for us. I am seeing
schools in Bengal. Now all eyes are on the state’s budget, that power in the digital university which
to be tabled on March 8, in the hope that substantially can completely eliminate the problem of
greater provision will be made for West Bengal’s cruelly shortage of seats that we experience in our
short-changed children. country.”
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) Prime minister Narendra Modi on the provisions made
in Budget 2022-23 for the education sector (The
TAMIL NADU Economic Times, February 21)
Learning enthusiasm “(The hijab) does not interfere with

fter a gap of nearly two years, 3,000 aided and education, holding a job, voting, participating
12,000 unaided private schools across Tamil in public life, or achieving anything in life. To,
ANadu reopened nursery classes on February 16, therefore, use it as a pretext for disqualifying
following an official order of the DMK-led state gov- someone from teaching or going to college is
ernment permiting nursery classes, kindergarten, and a travesty.”
playschools statewide to restart. This order has brought Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on the hijab
much needed relief to pre-primary schools, which had (headscarves) controversy raging in Karnataka (Indian
a tough time getting enrolments in the past academic Express, February 23)
year.
The prolonged closure of all schools and higher
education institutions across the country since March “A radical liberalisation of medical education
2020 to safeguard children and youth from the Covid-19 in India is the only option. The problem of
pandemic, prompted an almost 70 percent drop in ‘bad’ commercialisation can only be solved
admissions in Tamil Nadu’s early childhood education by more liberalisation. All other solutions are
institutions. akin to putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.”
According to a survey Pranay Kotasthane, deputy director of Takshashila
conducted by the Tamil Institution (Times of India, February 27)
Nadu Nursery Primary
Matriculation Higher “We have survived two world wars, three
Secondary and CBSE
Schools Association, in the famines, the Holocaust, Babyn Yar, the
academic year 2020-21, Great Purge, the Chornobyl explosion, the
pre-primary admissions occupation of Crimea, and the war in the east
aggregated 6.3 lakh plus of our state. They wanted to destroy us so
1.2 lakh poor household many times, but they couldn't.”
children admitted under Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky, president, Ukraine
s.12 (1) (c) of the Right John Arokia Prabhu (The Kyiv Independent, March 3)

22 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2022