Page 39 - EducationWorld November 2020

ANNIVERSARY ESSAY

Huge contribution to

Development Journalism

A.S. SEETHARAMU

Y ASSOCIATION WITH EDUCATIONWORLD Several causes — ECCE, vocational
which celebrates its 21st anniversary this
month, precedes the birth of this news mag- and special needs education, teacher
Mazine which has positively impacted Indian education and learning outcomes in
education across the spectrum, and has aroused national
awareness about the critical importance of human capi- the broadest sense — championed by
tal development. In 1999 when I was professor of educa- EducationWorld are included in NEP 2020
tion at the Institute for Social & Economic Change (ISEC,
estb.1972), I met Dilip Thakore, then editor of a magazine
named School, a publication with modest ambitions but percent of India’s in-school children, they also benchmark
even more modest resources that featured a cover story on themselves with best institutions and practices worldwide.
ISEC. I was impressed to learn that he was the founding- Thus private sector education institutions play the vitally
editor of Business India and Businessworld — India’s first important role of improving overall teaching-learning stan-
two business magazines — and I was delighted to learn that dards and raising the floor of Indian education.
he intended to replicate his experience of liberalising and However the outreach of EW to education practitioners,
deregulating Indian education as he had done for industry government and the intelligentsia is far from adequate not-
and business. A year later when he promoted Education- withstanding the initiatives, effort and investment of time
World I readily provided advice on education issues to the and other resources made by this publication. This can be
new publication. attributed to the nonchalant mindset of stakeholders in
Since then I have been an adviser and consultant to EW education smug with existential contentment, disinterest
providing statistical data on a variety of diverse subjects in public issues and replete with self-oriented worldview.
and education issues. Over the years my admiration for this I believe the EW management needs to adopt aggressive
rigorously written and edited magazine based on hard data marketing strategies to reach teachers associations, institu-
and evidence that provides a wealth of insights in support tional administrators and institutions of legal, medical, civil
of its causes and arguments, has grown. service and management education who could serve as use-
My relationship with EducationWorld has persisted for ful platforms to disseminate the message of this mission-
over two decades because throughout my academic career driven publication.
I had advocated ‘quality with equity’ in school, higher and nother especially praiseworthy initiative of Education-
professional education through my writings, public lectures AWorld is the presentation of an alternative human capi-
and teaching. I believed — and continue to believe — that tal development budget concurrently with the Union Bud-
universalisation of ECCE (early childhood care and edu- get every year. This alternative budget began as an exercise
cation) and vocational education for skills development, to provide a financial roadmap to the Union government to
inclusion of children with special needs, professional de- mobilise revenue for building essential lib-lab-lav (library,
velopment of teachers and creating linkages between edu- laboratory and lavatory) infrastructure in the country’s
cation institutions and rural and industrial development 1.20 million under-served government schools. With this
programmes, are the prerequisites of a successful national author providing research data indicating the total number
development effort. These causes have been dedicatedly of government schools deficient in this vital infrastructure,
championed by EducationWorld for 21 years, with consid- unprecedentedly EW has been suggesting ways and means
erable success. to fund a national education rejuvenation programme.
In the circumstances it’s heartening to note that ECCE, In the latest alternative budget presented by Educa-
vocational and special needs education, intent to upgrade tionWorld, ways and means of raising an additional Rs.8
teacher education and professional development, and need lakh crore for one-time investment in preschool and K-12
to focus on learning outcomes in the broadest sense, are education is presented (see www.educationworld.in). It’s
given high priority in the National Education Policy (NEP) a pity that there’s been no official or academic response to
2020. the several alternative human capital development budgets.
Another worthy cause that has been fearlessly embraced Be that as it may, it’s undeniable that during the course
by EducationWorld is to accord privately promoted educa- of 21 years of uninterrupted publishing, EW has made a
tion institutions from preschool to universities, their place huge contribution to development journalism. It now needs
in the sun and to free them of red tape and vexatious regula- to expand its reach and valuable message to accord prime
tion by Central and state government bureaucracies. This importance to developing the country’s abundant human
was an overdue and important initiative because contrary capital.
to popular belief propagated by Left academics and arm- (Dr. A.S. Seetharamu is former professor of education, Institute of Social &
chair critics, private schools not only teach and mentor 47.5 Economic change, Bengaluru)

NOVEMBER 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 39