Page 20 - EducationWorld October 2020

Education News

Hindi chauvinism, and a majoritarian hindutva ideology THEY SAID IT IN SEPTEMBER
without a credible economic development agenda.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) “Government intervention should be
minimum in the new education policy. The
TAMIL NADU more teachers and students are associated
Quota politics with the policy, the better will be its
functionality and its results.”
new bill providing a 7.5 percent quota within Prime minister Narendra Modi addressing the
the existing reservation totaling 69 percent of Governors’ Conference on National Education Policy
A all seats in Tamil Nadu’s 50 medical colleges (September 8)
was passed by the state’s legislative assembly on Sep-
tember 15 for students graduating from state govern- “The report fails to take into account the
ment schools who have also passed NEET (National impact of poor-quality higher education
Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test). In 2013, the Central on rural youth who, in many ways, are
government mandated NEET as the sole examination manifesting signs of alienation from their
for admission into all medical colleges nationwide. Top roots, are disaffected and amenable to being
scorers in descending order in NEET get the choice of recruited into violent anti-social activities.”
their medical colleges subject to 85 percent of seats in
medical colleges being allotted to students domiciled in A.R. Vasavi, social anthropologist, on NEP 2020
every state. ignoring the crisis in education among the
marginalised majority in rural India (Indian Express,
However, the prime motivation of the new Bill is that September 15)
too few school-leavers from government schools affili-
ated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Educa-
tion (TNBSE) are scoring sufficiently high marks in “IT (information technology) has been
NEET to be admitted into the state’s 50 medical colleges presented as a harbinger of a revolution in
under the 85 percent domicile quota. Most seats are be- education for more than three decades now.
ing bagged by private school-leavers. However all reliable studies seem to indicate
The new quota Bill is the outcome of the recom- that ICT in the classroom helps in already
mendation of a committee headed by P. Kalaiyarasan, well-functioning systems, and either has
former judge of the Madras high court. The committee no benefits or negative impact in poorly
proposed reserva- performing systems. That does indicate much
tion between 7.5-10
percent for class XII hope from IT in our education system.”
students graduating Rohit Dhankar, professor, Azim Premji Unversity,
from schools affili- Bangalore on why e-learning in India won’t improve
bad education (The Hindu, September 23)
ated with TNBSE.
This Bill has been
unanimously passed “The government intends to invite the top
by the state’s legisla- 100 foreign universities to set up campuses
tive assembly follow- in India. This will promote competition and
ing loud protests that consolidation in higher education, as we
state government saw with Indian industry after the economic
school students are liberalization of 1991.”
under-represented Rajendra Srivastava, dean of the Indian School of
in Tamil Nadu’s 50 Edappadi K. Palaniswami Business, on NEP 2020’s recommendations for
medical colleges in- internationalisation of higher education (Mint,
cluding 14 private medical colleges, because the TNBSE September 24)
curriculum didn’t prepare them sufficiently to be highly
ranked in NEET. The mismatch between the TNBSE “A family business in cinema is not
curriculum and NEET was dramatically highlighted in necessarily creative. It is generally about
2017 when a girl student who topped the annual TNBSE
school-leaving exam committed suicide for failing prolonging your family fortune.”
to qualify under NEET. On March 21, chief minister Naseeruddin Shah, Bollywood actor, on ‘family
Edappadi K. Palaniswami announced reservation of business’ (Forbes India, September 25)

20 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2020