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.

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