Page 20 - Education World July 2020

Education News

sober image, D i di (‘sister’) Banerjee is recovering lost THEY SAID IT IN JUNE
ground.
In the by-polls for three legislative assembly seats (Ka- “On one hand, a porous lockdown makes sure
liaganj, Kharagpur Sadar and Karimpur) held on Novem- that the virus will still exist and as you said, it
ber 25 last year, the BJP was trounced. is still waiting to hit you when you will unlock.
Suddenly, Banerjee’s chances of a third term as chief So you have not solved that problem. But you
minister are looking brighter. have definitely decimated the economy. You
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
flattened the wrong curve. It is not the infec-
TAMIL NADU tion curve, it is the GDP curve.”
Grim future Rajeev Bajaj, CEO of Bajaj Auto Ltd, in a conversation
with Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi (June 4)

HE MADRAS HIGH COURT HAS PASSED STRICTURES AGAINST “Migrants from the villages might get bet-
the AIADMK-led state government for restrain- ter wages in the city, but their living and
Ting private schools and colleges from collecting health conditions, particularly of women and
tuition fees from parents, as this has led to non-pay- children are abysmal. Can we do something
ment of salaries to teachers and non-teaching staff. A about all this? Plenty… We need to trash the
government order issued on April 20 under the Disaster superstitions and shibboleths of 30 years of
Management Act, 2005, had directed private school and market theology. And build the kind of state
college managements not to compel students/parents to the Constitution of India mandates, where
pay fees for the forthcoming academic year 2020-21 or there is, for all citizens, “Justice, social, eco-
to collect dues for the lockdown period, which began in
mid-March and has been extended to July 31. nomic and political”.”
Admitting a writ petition filed by the Tamil Nadu P. Sainath, founder-editor of People’s Archive for Rural
Association of Private Schools on June 30, Justice R. India, on the ‘Migrant mess and the moral economy
of the elite’ (India Today, June 8)
Mahadevan wondered how unaided institutions pro-
hibited from collecting fees even as most of them are “To increase capacity to meet the needs of our
conducting online classes, can be expected to pay sala-
ries to teachers and staff. Adjourning the hearing to July population, we need to inaugurate one new
6, the court directed the petitioner associations to file university a day, every single day, for the next
a detailed report suggesting ways and means by which 20 years – such is the insurmountable scale
schools can collect fees without interrupting children’s of the problem.”
education. The April 20 government order has adversely Kapil Viswanathan & Vijay Govindrajan, in ‘Three
impacted an estimated 18,000 private unaided schools pathways for us to achieve the Indian dream’ (Mint,
(including nursery and primary schools) across the June 18)
state, which are experiencing great financial stress in
meeting the salaries of 300,000 teachers and 200,000 “A deadly combination of social distancing
support staff. mandates, area-wise lockdowns and high
During the hearing, advocate-general Vijay Na- stress due to job losses are recipe for a coming
rayan informed the court that the state government in disaster... post Covid-19 suicide epidemic.”
the meanwhile had expeditiously cleared payment of Stephen David, well-known journalist, on how social
a sum of Rs.248.79 crore owing to private schools as isolation is a silent killer (Deccan Herald, June 20)
reimbursement for admitting poor children in their
neighbourhoods under s.12 (1) (c) “States should be wary of school shutdowns.
of the Right of Children to Free & Not only do they have little effect, but they
Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, lead to massive future costs in lost learning
2009. He suggested this amount and lower long-term productivity and in-
could be utilised to pay the pend- come. A World Bank study estimates that the
ing salaries of teachers and staff. global lost income from school closures could
“The amount of Rs.248.79
crore belatedly disbursed by the amount to a global loss of $13 trillion.”
government is insufficient to pay Bibek Debroy, chairman PM’s Economic Advisory
Martin Kennedy teachers and staff statewide. The Council & Bjorn Lomborg, president, Copenhagen
Consensus (Times of India, June 23)
amount pending under the RTE

20 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2020