Page 20 - EducationWorld Oct 2021
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Education News
world, is floundering in shallows and misery in its cen- THEY SAID IT IN SEPTEMBER
tenary year.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) “The new National Education Policy is
expected to revolutionize the educational
KARNATAKA sector in India and lay the path for the next
Learning loss nonchalance 25 years as per the Vision 2047 of prime
minister Shri Narendra Modi. He stressed
n september 6, government and private schools in that education has to make each one of us
Karnataka (pop. 68.4 million) reopened for on- more responsible and become global citizen.”
Ocampus, in-person teaching-learning for classes Dharmendra Pradhan, union education minister (NDTV,
VI-VIII children after 18 months of Covid disruption. September 5)
Two weeks earlier, schools had reopened for classes
IX-XII students on August 23. Therefore, all middle- “At AICTE, I have been able to completely
secondary students statewide are back in class and eliminate corruption and transform the body
learning normatively, subject to prescribed Covid-19
protocols. However, the BJP-led state government is from being a mere regulator to becoming a
still dithering on the issue of getting pre-primary and facilitator.”
primary children back into classrooms. World over — Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, AICTE (All India Council for
especially in developed OECD countries — schools have Technical Education) chairman, on the ongoing
reopened in reverse order because youngest children are reforms in engineering education (India Today,
September 20)
least vulnerable to Covid-19 infection.
Be that as it may, the reopening of in-person classes
hasn’t come a day too soon because on that very day, “I am not a big fan of the Modi government
the globally-respected Pratham Education Foundation and the Hindu nationalism business. But on
(estb.1994), which has been publishing its authoritative Afghanistan in particular, and on the foreign
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) based on policy crisis and the immediate effect on
field tests to measure national security, I tend to speak with the
learning outcomes same voice. At the end of the day, I believe
of primary school that domestic politics should stop at the
children in India since
2005, released the water’s edge, and we should all think of our
ASER 2020 Karna- national interest first.”
taka Rural report. The Shashi Tharoor, MP, on Taliban’s return to Afghanistan
report confirms that (The Federal, September 23)
children in the 6-14 age
group have suffered “Who is defending Earth today? It’s so often
huge loss of learning just the poorest and most vulnerable people
during the 60-week who have this incredible apparatus of state
lockdown of schools for power ranged against them.”
fear of the pandemic. Rishikesh B.S.
ASER 2020 Karna- Amitav Ghosh, well-known author, on the climate crisis
taka Rural reports that 56.8 percent of class I students (Mint, October 9)
surveyed could not recognise/read Kannada language
alphabets (cf. 40 percent in 2018); only 34 percent “It violates the principle of academic
of class V students could read a class II text (cf. 46 autonomy. It is the university’s business
percent) and a mere 56.5 percent of class VII students to decide what it wishes to teach, not the
could read a class II textbook paragraph with fluency business of the government of the day... It
and comprehension. Bad as that is, the decline in arith- violates the democratic principle of freedom
metic learning levels is worse. An estimated 42 percent of expression.”
of class I students could not recognise numbers from Yogendra Yadav, former president of Swaraj India, on
one to nine (cf. 30 percent in 2018). Only 17.3 percent Kannur University dropping lessons on the works of
of class III students were able to do subtraction sums hindutva icons V.D. Sarvakar and M.S. Gowalkar from
(cf. 26.3 percent) and only 38.9 percent of class VIII the syllabus (The Hindu, October 1)
students can do simple division sums.
20 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2021