In Delhi schools, 3-language formula may tilt the balance in favour of Sanskrit

delhi Updated: Dec 25, 2016 15:55 IST

Heena Kausar and Soumya Pillai
Hindustan Times

Schools say they can hire a teacher only when the number of students opting for the language justifies the salary of the teaching staff. (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

Sanskrit may end up being the only choice for students in the national capital under the three-language formula, which aims at promoting regional languages.

Currently, most private schools in Delhi offer Sanskrit along with foreign languages. Schools say most students choose a foreign language and Sanskrit remains only an option. But with the three-language formula coming into place, the students will only be left with Sanskrit.

In its governing body meet on Tuesday, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) recommended that all schools follow a “three-language formula”.

Under the National Education Policy, the formula means that students in Hindi-speaking states should learn a modern Indian language (22 languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution) — apart from Hindi and English — and in non-Hindi-speaking states, they should learn Hindi along with the regional language and English.

The formula is applicable till Class 8 but the CBSE has suggested its extension till Class 10. The students will be required to get passing marks in the third language, sources said. The move is, however, yet to get the Human Resource Development ministry’s approval.
“We offer Sanskrit and French. But now most students will study only Sanskrit as the third language. The idea to promote regional language is good but there is no demand for Punjabi, Urdu or any other language in Delhi,” said Jyoti Arora, principal Mount Abu School, explaining why the proposal may end up promoting only Sanskrit.

Most principals agree. They say very few students opt for Urdu and Punjabi — two of the official languages of the Delhi government — and other regional languages. This is why very few schools offer the two languages, they said.
Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar assured on Wednesday that the proposal will not lead to the imposition of one language. “I have not gone through the board’s recommendation in detail but we are not going to impose any language. The three-language formula is being implemented across the country, except in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. We are not changing that,” Javadekar told a news conference.
Schools say they can hire a teacher only when the number of students opting for the language justifies the salary of the teaching staff.
“There are 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. We cannot teach all. The reason why almost all schools will teach Sanskrit is because we have the infrastructure for it. Suppose, I offer a new language, I will have to ensure that there are teachers and supporting infrastructure. What would I do if, some students demand another language,” said principal of a prominent private school in Delhi, requesting anonymity.
Rooma Pathak, the principal of MM Public School, said, “There has to be demand from students for other languages otherwise we cannot offer it. A majority of students opt for Sanskrit because it is closer to our culture. So we offer that.”
But education is not provided on a demand and supply formula, says Atishi Marlena, adviser to Delhi education minister, Manish Sisodia. “Education cannot be given based on what students demand. Many things taught in maths may not be used by students in real life but it is still taught because it helps them develop an analytical mind. Similarly, the aim of teaching regional languages is to make students respect diversity, learn tolerance and how to live in harmony,” Marlena said.

While most private schools say there is no demand for Urdu and Punjabi, in Delhi government schools many opt for the two languages even though all schools don’t offer the language. Sanskrit, Urdu and Punjabi are offered as the third language in the Capital’s government schools.
In 2015-16, 1,94,801 students opted for Sanskrit, 82,341 students opted for Urdu and 28,612 opted for Punjabi in Class 6.

Though Sanskrit is taught in about 98% schools, Punjabi is taught in 24% and Urdu in 25% schools. The student-teacher ratio for these languages shows the number of teachers for Urdu is low.
In the 1,024 government schools, there are 4,296 Sanskrit teachers but only 854 Urdu teachers and 673 Punjabi teachers. There is a vacancy for 221 teachers in Sanskrit, 179 in Urdu, and 351 in Punjabi.
It means, there is about one Sanskrit teacher for 45 students, one Urdu teacher for 96 students and one Punjabi teacher for 42 students. Sources in the education department said the current situation exists due to the neglect of regional languages.

Marlena said that to address the issue, the government has started the process to hire 769 Punjabi teachers and 610 Urdu teachers. “Our aim is to have at least one Punjabi and one Urdu language teacher in each school. Schools first need to provide the option to students,” she said.
The Delhi Minorities Commission in a report in 2015 pointed out the problem of lack of teachers for Urdu and Punjabi.

“It was presented before the commission by many sectors that due to the non-availability of Urdu teachers, students intending to opt for Urdu as a subject are forced to study Sanskrit. We submitted the report and I have heard that the government is hiring Urdu and Punjabi teachers,” the panel chairman Qamar Ahmed said.
Experts in both Urdu and Punjabi languages said that very few schools in the city at present teach these as the third language. The first step after notifying the order should be to strengthen the system and appoint teachers.

“Teachers should be trained well and additional teachers should to be hired to promote these languages, otherwise students will only have the option of taking up Sanskrit,” said Firoz Bakht Ahmed, English teacher at Modern School, Barakhamba Road.

V Dayalu, general secretary of Sanskrit Shikshak Sangh Delhi, said it is a two-fold problem. “There is lack of Punjabi and Urdu teachers due to which some students have to take up Sanskrit. But the prime reason for taking Sanskrit is that it is a scoring subject,” he said.

Kanchan Bhupal, governing council member of Punjabi Academy Delhi, said the academy had been receiving complaints that many schools do not offer Punjabi language. “You first need to give students the option. Was there a demand for German and French? But when the schools started offering it, students showed interest,” she said. Bhupal said the government is in the process of hiring Punjabi language teachers.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/three-language-formula-may-force-delhi-schools-to-learn-sanskrit/story-kzagTtcSviSE73rVVMm2VJ.html

CBSE Class 10 exams: High marks bonanza, not test formats, is real issue

columns Updated: Dec 26, 2016 10:17 IST

Shivani Singh
Hindustan Times

The idea of making boards optional was to reduce the obsession with high marks. But most students opted for internal exams because they believed it would make scoring high marks easier. (HT file photo)

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the panel most Delhi schools are affiliated to, has decided to bring back Class 10 board exams. The same board had made the ‘stressful’ exams optional for the Class of 2011 and introduced the continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) system through year-round tests and a grading system.

In its consultations with the stakeholders, the CBSE found that school principals and parents wanted out of the dual-system and asked for the reintroduction of the mandatory board exam for Class 10. The internal assessment is likely to carry 20% weightage along with the board exams for the Class of 2018.

The CCE was started with the aim to shift focus from testing memory alone to judging a range of abilities such as imagination and creativity. Reducing stress was to be the natural fallout. But it ended up suffering from the same structural problems that plagued the previous systems.


The CCE required well-trained teachers who could understand and rate kids continuously on the basis of projects, class tests and extra-curricular activities. This called for a bigger investment in the teaching staff, which very few schools were willing to make. The teachers who were expected to roll out the reform were themselves a product of the old rote system.


Until 2011, a bachelor’s degree in Education alone could land one a teacher’s job. Then the Union human resource ministry introduced the Central Teacher Eligibility Test for BEd before they were hired in central government-run schools. Delhi adopted the same exam for state schools. But the results have been dismal at 7% in 2013 and 13.53% in 2015.

Unless it is from a reputed university, most BEd degrees or diplomas are suspect. In 2012, a Supreme Court-appointed committee headed by the former chief justice of India JS Verma found that of the 291 teacher-training institutes it inspected in Maharashtra, only 34 were fit to continue. That was just one state.


The CCE offered an opportunity to launch a continuous evaluation of the skills of the existing teaching staff in both government and private schools. But authorities seemed content with perfunctory training so they could get the new system started. In an article in HT last week, former NCERT director Krishna Kumar wrote that there was no uniformity in training and how “lack of coordination and clarity on roles and responsibilities expectedly resulted in systemic chaos”.


The idea of making boards optional was to reduce the obsession with high marks. But most students opted for internal exams because they believed it would make scoring high marks easier. Their schools did not disappoint. Last year, almost 12% students who cleared Class 10 under CBSE got a perfect score. The previous year, it was 7%. Some Delhi schools even flaunted 60% of their students in the top bracket of 90% scorers or more.

In 2004-05, in the name of de-stressing, the CBSE shifted its policy from testing what a student does not know to what she actually knows. Long answer type questions were reduced to minimise subjectivity and objective type questions were introduced. As a result, students are scoring 100% even in English and History.

But to clear the Class 12 exam, students must still take the board exam where the pass percentage this year was 83% as compared to Class 10’s 96%. It gets progressively difficult to score as one proceeds to higher standards, but the drop in overall performance in just two years tells that all’s not well.

Even the Class 12 board throws up too many high-scorers. Reality dawns when they compete for few good options for undergraduate courses at Delhi University. For most popular courses in top colleges, cut-offs consistently stay above 95% and the seats fill up fast. Suddenly, nobody is sure how good is good enough.

Teachers and parents are the best judge of their wards’ aptitude, interest and capability. It is criminal to induce a false sense of academic accomplishment and expectations by awarding high marks undeservingly. Switching between board exams and internal assessment will not make a difference unless the system gets real.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/high-marks-bonanza-not-test-formats-is-real-issue/story-DKIcr87okg368zXjQS9ntJ.html

NEET: ‘More private matric schools opting for CBSE at Class 12 level’

Matriculation students are also opting for CBSE syllabus at the Class 12 level, which enabled them to clear NEET with ease, the official said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: PTI | Kanyakumari | Updated: December 26, 2016 11:21 am

 

Matriculation students are also opting for CBSE syllabus at the Class 12 level, which enabled them to clear NEET with ease, the official said.
With the Central government making “National Eligibility cum Entrance Test” (for medical seats) compulsory, more private matriculation schools are opting to switch over to CBSE in plus two level, a senior education department official said.

As more such schools are coming up to take it up at plus two level, the CBSE board was also taking steps to improve the standard, streamline and regulate private schools offering CBSE syllabus, the official, who did not wish to be named, said.

Besides matriculation students were also opting for CBSE syllabus in plus two, which enabled them clear NEET with ease. Hence the CBSE board wanted to ensure that private schools maintained high standards at plus two level, he said.
 
In the last few years, especially after introduction of ‘Samacheer Kalvi’, the uniform system of school education in Tamil Nadu, to integrate various school educational systems within the state, the number of schools offering CBSE pattern of education was increasing steadily, he said.

The official said the objective behind introducing Principal eligibility test was only to ensure that private CBSE schools maintained certain standards.

An eligible principal would definitely produce good and efficient students and students would get the higher education they preferred. Only those who cleared PET would be appointed as principals of the CBSE Private schools, he said.

While giving permission for CBSE schools the board would ensure that standards were not diluted by the schools. The government wanted to ensure that procedures and functioning of private CBSE schools did not have any flaw or led to drop in standards, he said.
 

 Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/education/neet-more-private-matric-schools-opting-for-cbse-at-class-12-level/

Grace marks for class XI failures cut to 50% from now

Grace marks for class XI failures cut to 50% from now

Mumbai: TNN





Students who fail in class XI will get only 15 grace marks, instead of 30, from this year. The state education board has decided to halve grace marks for class XI and bring it on a par with class XII (HSC). A circular to this effect was issued by the board on Friday .

 Students can fail in a maximum of three subjects and grace marks in each cannot exceed 10% of total marks in the subject. Chairperson of the board, Gangadhar Mhamane, said for years, junior colleges doled out 30 marks to failing students. “To make the policy uniform, we decided to bring the grace marks down to 15 like it is for class XII. If a student is failing in three subjects for want of 15 marks, they can be divided accordingly . A student cannot fail in more than three subjects to avail grace marks,“ said Mhamane.

For example, if a student has scored 25 in mathematics, he can get 10 grace marks and the remaining five marks can be collectively given in two other subjects.

 Students are unhappy with the move. “Evaluation of papers is very strict in class XI as colleges seek 100% results in HSC...The policy of 30 marks was better,“ said a college student.

Aprincipal said it must be an uniform policy . “If grace marks are reduced, students will strive better,“ said the principal.





 

Source:Dec 25 2016 : The Times of India (NaviMumbai)

From '17, NEET to be held in Marathi, 7 other languages

From '17, NEET to be held in Marathi, 7 other languages

Mumbai: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Medical aspirants can appear for the National Eligibility-cumEntrance Test (NEET) in eight languages including English and Marathi for admissions in 2017.

 The decision was recently taken by the Union health ministry on the directive of the Supreme Court. Even while the CBSE is yet to release an official notice announcing the move, students have welcomed it. About 1,670 medical aspirants took the state's common entrance test (CET) in Marathi this year.

NEET was re-implemented after three years, in 2016 after a SC order revived it. About 7.5 lakh students took the exam in phase-I and phase-II.While state government colleges were exempted from using NEET scores this year, it will be the on ly test conducted for medical admissions for all colleges, including, government, private and deemed in 2017. The court had directed the government to conduct the test in regional languages, as many students take the state-level CET in regional languages, too.

 Following the directive, the Centre has decided to conduct the national test in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, apart from English and Hindi. A parent said that the decision will benefit many students who skipped NEET this year due to the language barrier.

 

Source: Dec 24 2016 : The Times of India (NaviMumbai)

Next yr, appear for NEET in 8 languages

Next yr, appear for NEET in 8 languages

Mumbai: TNN





Medical aspirants can appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in eight languages, including English and Marathi, for admission in the coming year. The decision was recently taken by the Union health ministry on the directive of the Supreme Court. Though the CBSE is yet to release an official notice announcing the move, students have welcomed it.About 1,670 medical aspirants took the state's common entrance test (CET) in Marathi this year. A similar number of students will benefit in the state once NEET is conducted in Marathi.

 NEET was re-implemented after three years in 2016 after an SC order revived it. About 7.5 lakh students took the exam in phase-I and phase-II. While state government colleges were exempted from using NEET scores this year, it will be the only test conducted for medical admissions for all colleges, including, government, private and deemed in 2017.





Source: Dec 24 2016 : The Times of India (NaviMumbai)

Post title

Study: States hardly invest in improving education quality

New Delhi:  TIMES NEWS NETWORK





`Just 1% Of Funds Spent On Training Teachers'

 

For all the talk on education quality and improving learning outcomes, little is actually being done to achieve either. The Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and Child Rights and You (CRY) studied state budgets for education in 10 general-category states and found that allocations for measures, even statutory provisions for ensuring quality -teacher training, monitoring, community mobilisation and training -are close to negligible in education budgets. In fact, share of any of these categories rarely rises beyond 1% in the education or Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) budget in any state.

 

“There is much discussion on quality but governments are not investing in the systems responsible for improving quality ,“ said Subrat Das of CBGA. The share of teachertraining in the education budget doesn't rise above 1% in any of the 10 states included in the analysis except Bihar, where it was 1.6% in 2015-16 (budget estimate). Inspection and monitoring are similarly neglected with their share crossing 1% in only Tamil Nadu and Odisha, both 1.2%. The study considered all 12 years of schooling. While there is huge variation across states, perstudent expenditure is less than that of relatively successful centrally-funded systems ­ the Kendriya and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (KVs and JNVs) -nearly everywhere.

 More than 98% schools in the 10 states have formed school management committees (SMCs). Mandated by the Right to Education Act 2009, these are composed mainly of parents and communitymembers. In addition to monitoring the functioning of schools, the RTE also requires them to formulate school development plans and clear school budgets. But, again, states have spent very little on training them. The share of training SMCs and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) in the SSA budget was less than 1% in all 10 states in 2014-15. Teachers' salaries do claim the largest chunk of the budget in all 10 states. Their share ranges from 51.6% in Bihar to 80.4% in Rajasthan. But, as Protiva Kundu from CBGA said, “The myth that teachers' salaries take away all the funds for education is not true.“ State governments, especially UP and Maharashtra, spend significant amounts on non-government schools ­ as grants-in-aid and compensation for children enrolled in the 25% quota for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Disadvantaged Groups (DG).

Education as a sector is under-funded, believe the organisations that authored the report. The per-student expenditure in public education in practically every general-category state is below that of KVs and JNVs.

 
Source:Dec 23 2016 : The Times of India (NaviMumbai)

RELIEF FOR STUDENTS - SSC exam timetable changed to give break between papers

Mumbai: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





In a relief to students, the state government has changed the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam timetable so as to give them a break between three papers -science II, historycivics and geography-economics -that were scheduled from March 20 to 22.

 According to the new timetable, which was issued by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), the science II paper will now be held on March 20, history-civics on March 22 and geography-economics on March 25. The change in timetable means that the papers scheduled after geography-economics will now be pushed ahead and hence, the exam, which was to conclude on March 29, will go on till April 1.

The MSBSHSE after announcing the timetable on October 29 had given 15 days for feedback. During this period, several teachers' groups, local leaders and students raised concerns over the three papers, which were scheduled one after the other, without any break. They demanded at least a day's gap between the three papers.

“Considering the feedback, we decided to change the timetable. Class XII time table remains unchanged,“ said Krishnakumar Patil, secretary of the state board. The exam begins on March 7.

Teachers have welcomed the change in timetable.“Three papers in a row would have been stressful for students. They must be given a day to revise and refresh their minds. It is, in fact, a practice that the board follows every year,“ said Anil Bornare, secretary of the junior college teachers' association.

Source: Dec 23 2016 : The Times of India (NaviMumbai)