Page 22 - EducationWorld August 2022

Education News

while it has been decimated across in the city and certified by G uinness
the country, the opposition Congress Book of W orld R ec ords as the world’s
party is still a force to reckon with in largest single-city primary-secondary
Karnataka. The BJP government’s (aggregate enrolment: 58,000) and
NEP 2020 position papers which routinely ranked UP’s #1 co-ed day
confirm its hindutva agenda could school — have a modest 500,000 chil-
boomerang. dren on their muster rolls.
Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) Nor are other monitors of the ne-
glected education system of the coun-
UTTAR PRADESH try’s most populous state impressed.
No great shakes Niti Aayog, the Union government’s
think tank which replaced the Nehru-
vian Soviet-inspired Planning Com-
N JULY 24, RESIDENTS OF Luc- mission in 2015, ranks Uttar Pradesh
know (pop.3.8 million), the #19 among India’s 28 states on its
Oadministrative capital of the SDG Index of Quality Education with
Hindi heartland, BJP-ruled state of a score of 21 f. the national average of
c
Uttar Pradesh, woke up to bold face 29. Worse, the Delhi-based Observer
newspaper headlines and screaming Research Foundation ranks it #19
television news anchors proclaiming among major states in its PIE (per-
that seven out of 18 students who at- formance infrastructure & equity) In-
tained the top score of 99.75 percent dex 2020-21, just ahead of last-ranked
in the recently-completed class XII Bihar. began in April, our school hasn’t re-
ISC exam of the Delhi-based Coun- The low-ranking routinely award- ceived new textbooks for the academ-
cil for Indian School Certificate Ex- ed to UP in all national surveys is the ic year 2022-23, despite the school
aminations (CISCE) board, are from outcome of the state’s dismal data on having been shut down for 80 weeks
schools in the state. several parameters of public educa- because of the Covid pandemic. This
Informed academics in Lucknow tion management. For instance, in the apart, the state government believes
University, the state’s premier var- state’s 169,000 government and aided that teachers are multipurpose em-
sity (estb.1920) which was awarded schools, the teacher-pupil ratio is 1:39 ployees who can be tasked with all
the highest A++ grading (cumulative as against the 1:25 recommended by sorts of jobs. We are routinely as-
grade point average of 3.55 out of a the RTE Act, 2009; UP hosts the larg- signed local government administra-
maximum 4) of the Bengaluru-based est number of single teacher schools tive jobs in the village, leaving us little
National Assessment and Accredita- (22,223) and an estimated 25 percent time to teach,” says ijay Sonk e r, a
V
tion Council (NAAC) on July 26 to of the state’s 670,000 government teacher at a government high school
become the first university in UP to school teachers are absent from work in Sitapur.
p
be awarded this status, are less im- every day. owever P rof . Tri t a Triv e di,
pressed. Although Uttar Pradesh has a long Hwho heads the education faculty
According to them, given the huge history of education neglect -- espe- at Lucknow University, believes that
population of UP (215 million) — “if cially of foundational primary edu- as indicated by students from UP top-
Uttar Pradesh was a nation instead of cation under Congress governments ping the ISC exam, there is a “positive
a state, it would be fifth most populous which ruled the state for over half a shift,” in education statewide. “This
country in the world” — seven stu- century after independence — educa- is a period of transition for educa-
dents topping a national exam is noth- tionists in Lucknow believe that the tion in Uttar Pradesh. Within gov-
ing to write home about. Secondly, of situation has worsened since the in- ernment and the academy there is
UP’s total number of 243,000 pri- cumbent BJP government led by saf- greater awareness of the importance
mary-secondary schools, a mere 436 fron clad monk Yogi Adityanath was of vocational education and training
are affiliated with the upscale CISCE swept to power in Lucknow in the for employment, learning of English,
examination board which prescribes legislative election of 2017. The con- soft skills and rising awareness of the
stringent infrastructure, teacher-pu- sensus is that BJP governments at the importance of integrating technology
pil ratio and other qualitative norms Centre and states are more interested into the education system at all levels.
as preconditions of affiliation. All in rewriting history from the hindutva This is bound to raise teaching-learn-
told, UP’s CISCE-affiliated schools perspective than in normative educa- ing standards in the near future,” says
— headed by the Lucknow-based City tion. Trivedi.
Montessori School with 17 campuses “Although the new academic year Such optimism is good news. Be-

22 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2022