7x7 Concise History of Indian Education (1999-2006)
The seven year period (1999-2006) during which EducationWorld has discharged its watchdog role as India’s sole education news and analysis publication, has been perhaps the most eventful ever for Indian academia. For the first time in the half century since independence, public education has begun to move from the outer peripheries towards centre stage. Quite obviously it would be presumptuous to claim most — or any — of the credit for this overdue seismic shift in the national mindset. It’s the outcome of the silent and usually unappreciated efforts of hundreds of voluntary organisations and thousands of individuals who have discerned the vital connection between post-independence India’s failed national development effort and its neglected public education system. Nevertheless during this historic period, this publication has been the only serious chronicler of momentous developments in Indian education. In our seventh anniversary issue we highlight 7x7 landmark legal, technology, new institutions, NGO, education leadership etc events and initiatives which have the potential to transform Indian academia and society and usher in a new era for the contemporary world’s largest child population.
1. Seven milestones in Indian education
86th Amendment and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
November 28, 2001. The Lok Sabha unanimously passed the 93rd (now renumbered to 86th) Amendment to the Constitution which mandates the State to provide "free and compulsory education to all children of the age six to fourteen years". The same day outside Parliament, more than 50,000 parents of out-of-school children and education activists from all parts of India staged a shiksha satyagraha, pledging support to this historic constitutional amendment. Subsequently the BJP-led NDA government, which was voted to power in 1999, rolled out the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All) campaign to fulfill this constitutional obligation to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the six-14 age group. This ambitious programme — detailed in a 659-sheaved document — is being implemented in alliance with 31 state governments and is expected to meet the education needs of 192 million children in 1,100,000 habitations. Its target: all children in school by 2010. Supreme Court frees Indian education October 31, 2002. In a landmark judgement in the TMA Pai & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Ors, the Supreme Court restored the right of private sector unaided professional education colleges to regulate admissions, determine fee structures and fully administer their institutions with minimal interference from government. The apex court not only upheld the right of minorities to "establish and administer educational institutions of their choice", but also expanded this right to all citizens (including non-minorities). This judgement which was diluted by a subsequent SC verdict in the Islamic Academy vs Union of India in August 2003, was again reaffirmed by the apex court in its verdict in P.A Inamdar vs. State of Maharashtra. On August 13, 2005 the Supreme Court reiterated that Central and state governments have no right to appropriate admission quotas at arbitrary tuition fees in private professional colleges they haven’t funded or financed. Saffronisation of school textbooks October 3, 2002. More than two years after the presentation of a new National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE 2000), the National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT) presented the nation with a new set of model social science textbooks for classes VI-IX.This routine curriculum revision exercise generated a storm of protest from opposition parties, historians and academics because the textbooks had been patently rewritten to accommodate the extremist hindutva agenda of the BJP and its far-right affiliates such as the RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. Several well-established historical facts were omitted, reinvented and/ or ‘saffronised’ in the new texts to fit with the ideological predilections of the BJP. Assault on the IIMs/ IITs February 5, 2004. Former physics professor of Allahabad University, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, in his capacity as Union HRD minister issued a terse five-paragraph order directing all six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to slash tuition-cum-residence fees payable by students admitted in the new academic year (2004-05) by 80 percent — from Rs.1.5-1.75 lakh to a uniform Rs.30,000 per year. Earlier Joshi had targeted the country’s seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) ordering them to route all alumni donations through a government constituted Bharatiya Shiksha Khosh trust. Joshi’s interference with IITs and IIMs which have acquired global reputations for the high quality of problem-solving engineers and managers they produce, proved particularly galling for India’s fast-expanding urban middle class and precipitated an electoral backlash against the BJP and NDA.Ouster of Joshi and UPA’s new education agenda May 22, 2004. In the 13th general elections called by the NDA government in April-May 2004, the BJP-led NDA suffered a shock defeat with the imperious Union HRD minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi failing in his bid for re-election from the university town of Allahabad.Following this unexpected electoral rout of the BJP, a Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was sworn in on May 22 in Delhi. In its Common Minimum Programme announced on May 28, the UPA pledged to raise public spending on education to 6 percent of the GDP, impose a cess on all Central taxes to "universalise access to quality basic education" and reverse the creeping communalisation of school syllabuses and texts. 93rd Constitution Amendment December 22, 2005. To nullify the judgement of the Supreme Court in P.A Inamdar vs. State of Maharashtra which reaffirmed that the State cannot impose its quota reservation policies on private unaided colleges, the Union HRD ministry responded with the 104th Constitution Amendment Bill which pointedly overrules this unanimous apex court judgement. Last December, Parliament unanimously approved the Bill which became the Constitution 93rd Amendment Act, 2005 when President Kalam signed it on January 20, 2006. Subsequently a new clause was added to Article 15 of the Constitution permitting the State to decree reservations for any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in all private educational institutions, including schools.OBC reservation diktat April 5, 2006. Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh announced that the 17-party coalition United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre has approved his ministry’s proposal to reserve an additional 27 percent (in addition to the 22.5 percent reserved quota for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) of capacity in Central government promoted universities and education institutions (JNU, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, etc) for OBC (other backward castes) students. While this out-of-the-blue reservation diktat evoked studied criticism from the intelligentsia and media, the student community particularly in north India, responded with nationwide protests and campus rioting. Consequently on May 29, a 13-member Oversight Committee chaired by former Karnataka chief minister Dr. Veerappa Moily was constituted to recommend ways and means to expand institutional capacity of Central government institutions without reducing the merit students quota. The committee is due to submit its final report shortly.
2. Seven extraordinary education leaders
Choosing seven leaders from among the estimated 5 million professors, teachers, officials and education entrepreneurs, who have impacted Indian education most in the past seven years since EducationWorld turned the spotlight on the nation’s neglected groves of academe, is a challenging — perhaps controversial — task. While compiling this list of the most influential seven, the prime consideration has been the degree to which they influenced national education policy for the greater good, and/ or exhibited positive role model qualities.
Literacy program inventor
Fakir Chand Kohli. Widely acclaimed as the founding genius of India’s booming IT and ITES (information technology enabled services) industries, and first chief executive of the Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd — India’s largest IT software and ITES company (annual revenue: Rs.11,282 crore; no of employees: 70,000) which has offices in 35 countries around the world, Kohli is also the mastermind who developed TCS’ revolutionary computer-based functional literacy (CBFL) program which has demonstrated the potential to transform contemporary India’s estimated 300 million adult illiterates into readers of daily newspapers within 40 hours of learning time. Developed in 2000 by a high-level team of TCS professionals working under Kohli’s guidance, CBFL is a computer-driven audio-visual pedagogy based on visual recognition of familiar words in the learner’s mother tongue. Successfully tried and tested in several states (Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat) and having already transformed over 56,000 absolute illiterates into functionally literate citizens, a national rollout of CBFL has been stymied by Central government indifference to its mind-boggling potential. With Indian industry failing to respond to Kohli’s call for donation of used personal computers required for the programme, the project was stalled for five years by the refusal of customs authorities to permit the import of computers donated abroad, free of customs duty. In 2004 a government notification granted customs duty exemption for donated second-hand PCs. But refusal by the Central and state governments to assume responsibility for distributing imported PCs nationwide has further stalled this revolutionary adult literacy programme, which needs widespread public support • NCERT saviour
Dr. Krishna Kumar. During the five-year term in office of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government (1999-2004), hindutva rightists made a determined effort to ‘saffronise’ social sciences textbooks commissioned and printed by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT ) — the country’s largest textbooks publisher. Convinced that under previous governments NCERT had been publishing and prescribing ‘pseudo-secularist’ history and social sciences texts to school children, former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi packed research institutes such as the Indian Council of Historical Research and Indian Council of Social Sciences Research with like-minded scholars of dubious antecedents to rewrite Indian history from the hindutva perspective. Following the unexpected ouster of the NDA government in the general election of 2004, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government appointed Krishna Kumar, professor of education at Delhi University, as director of NCERT to repair the damage. In the two years since, Prof. Kumar has played a major role in drafting a new National Curriculum Framework for School Education (2005) and commissioning new social sciences textbooks which have been widely appreciated by liberal academics and intellectuals for their objectivity and balance. A deeply learned and child- friendly academic, Kumar has also been instrumental in giving momentum to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or Education for All initiative, which has been unreservedly adopted by the incumbent Congress-led UPA administration from its predecessor BJP-led NDA government •
Model varsity builder
Dr. Ramdas Pai. Since taking charge of the Manipal Education Group (MEG) and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) following the death of the legendary Dr. T.MA Pai (1889-1979) who pioneered the concept of self-financed, privately promoted institutions of professional education and famously promoted the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal in 1953, Dr. Ramdas Pai has steered the growth and development of MAHE into India’s largest private provider of internationally acceptable medical, engineering and professional (nursing, pharmacy, business management, communications) education. MAHE was certified India’s first multi-disciplinary, multi-campus deemed (private) university in 1993. Over the past half century, the low profile MEG has acquired a global reputation for medical education and at the invitation of the governments of Malaysia and Nepal, has established state-of-the-art medical colleges-cum-teaching hospitals in these countries. Today MEG comprises 55 institutions of education with an aggregate enrollment of 86,000 students instructed by a 1,500-strong faculty in India. A firm believer in continuously ploughing back revenue into institutional development, during the past seven years MEG has promoted several world class institutions in India and abroad. Among them: Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Nepal (capital cost: Rs.195 crore); Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (Rs.42 crore); Sikkim-Manipal Institute of Technology (Rs.70 crore) and Melakka-Manipal Medical College, Malaysia (Rs.54 crore). Moreover during the past quarter century since Dr. Pai inherited stewardship of MEG, the small town of Manipal (pop. 40,000) has transformed into a model university town. Infrastructure investments made in Manipal — and its environs — during the past seven years include the Library Block, MAHE (Rs.46 crore); Chandra-shekar Hostel (Rs.23 crore); Dr. TMA Pai Convention Centre, Mangalore (Rs.33 crore); Innovation Centre, MAHE (Rs. 20 crore) and Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Attavar (Rs.12 crore) • Disabled children’s champion
D r. Mithu Alur. An alumnus of the London School of Economics with a Ph D awarded by London University, Alur who founded the Spastics Society of India in 1972 and National Resource Centre for Inclusion (NRCI), a state-of-the-art school-cum-research centre in Mumbai in 1999, is the celebrated champion of people — especially children — with disabilities. Apart from promoting SSI and NRCI which provide education to 2,500 physically and mentally challenged children, Alur has staged two global North-South conferences on inclusive education (i.e on ways and means to include challenged children into mainstream education) in Mumbai (2001) and Kochi (2003). According to Alur, currently there are 36 million children in India who are denied education because of their disabilities. However as a result of her tireless efforts, the Union government has accepted the inclusion of challenged children into mainstream schools as a cardinal principle of its education policy •
CRY change agent
I ngrid Srinath. An economics and statistics alumna of Elphinstone College, Mumbai with an MBA from Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, Srinath was a senior executive in some of the country’s top advertising agencies including Lintas and Trikaya Grey (1986-1998), prior to signing up with CRY as its director of resource mobilisation. In 2004 she was promoted to the office of chief executive of CRY (Child Rights & You), an NGO with an annual disbursement budget of over Rs.13 crore, five offices countrywide and 170 full-time employees. CRY (formerly Child Relief & You) is one of the largest child welfare non government organisations in India. A fund-raiser extraordinaire who combines passion with a penchant for reeling out bone-chilling child deprivation statistics, Srinath has been instrumental in transforming the organisation into a children’s rights NGO. "In over 2,500 poor and marginalised communities in 21 states, CRY has inspired the incredible change that is possible when children, parents and local governments join together to ensure children’s rights," says Srinath. Currently CRY provides financial and non-financial support to 157 voluntary organisations across the country and has impacted the lives of over 1.4 million children •
Pratham pioneer
Madhav Chavan. A chemistry alumnus of Ohio State University, USA and former reader in physical chemistry at Mumbai University, Chavan experienced a Pauline conversion to the cause of primary education in 1994 and promoted the Mumbai Pratham Initiative, an NGO committed to universalising and upgrading elementary education in India. Since then, Pratham has emerged as the largest and most influential education NGO countrywide with an annual budget of Rs.36 crore. Operating in 18 states, it has helped 500,000 children become literate through its three-week reading and basic maths programme. Also active in teacher training, curriculum development and education research, Pratham recently (January) published a first-of-its-kind Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2005. After a learning assessment survey conducted by 20,000 ASER volunteers in 485 of the country’s 600 districts, ASER 2005 revealed that the quality of primary education dispensed in rural India is so poor that almost half the students in class VII are unable to exhibit the learning and comprehension they should have attained in class II (see cover story EW March 2006). Meanwhile Pratham is mobilising a huge army of research volunteers to compile the data required to write ASER 2006. A fund-raiser extraordinaire, Chavan is also an influential member of the National Advisory Council, hitherto chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi •
Slum children’s champion S hukla Bose. Once the most highly remunerated woman chief executive in India as chairperson of Resort Condominiums India Pvt. Ltd (RCI) — the company which introduced the concept of time share holidays in India — Bose suddenly quit the corporate world "to do something more meaningful" in the mid 1990s. Still maintaining her links with Christel De Haan the US-based founder-promoter of RCI (USA), she conceptualised India’s first Christel House English medium school in Bangalore for the Christel Foundation in 2000. Three years later she fell out with De Haan on the issue of greater autonomy for Christel House, and promoted the Parikrma Humanity Foundation (PHF) in 2003. Since then PHF runs four primary-cum-secondary co-ed free schools for slum children with an aggregate enrollment of 730 students. The distinguishing characteristic of PHF schools is that they follow the curriculum of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) which has licensed over 1,605 of India’s top-rung private English medium schools. As such the Parikrma schools provide globally benchmarked English medium instruction to their students. This is a sharp departure from established practice in India where the children of the poor at the base of the socio-economic pyramid, are provided vernacular medium education in deference to the sentiments of state governments. Assuming full responsibility for students, PHF schools (funded by public and corporate donations) provide nutritious snacks, a mid-day meal and healthcare and parental guidance services. "In PHF we are confident that we can equip the children of the poorest of the poor with the education and life skills required to succeed in the global marketplace," says Bose • 3. Seven new genre 5-star schools
In the 1990s, on the threshold of the new millennium, in anticipation of year-on-year 6-7 percent annual rates of economic growth following economic liberalisation and deregulation which would release the purchasing power of India’s new middle class, several education entrepreneurs almost simultaneously promoted a new genre of capital-intensive international schools which have become the latest status symbols of India’s upwardly mobile middle class. Providing leisure-resort style, landscaped, fully-wired campuses bristling with hi-tech equipment and teaching aids, en suite residential accommodation, expat headmasters, affiliation with the best international examination boards and charging mind-boggling annual tuition fees ranging from Rs.1-6 lakh, new genre international schools have eclipsed the country’s once venerated British-inspired public i.e private schools such as Doon, Mayo, Bishop Cotton, St. Joseph etc. EducationWorld has diligently chronicled their birth and growth. The magnificent seven:
Jain International Residential School, Bangalore
S prawled over 150 acres of landscaped gardens and constructed at an estimated cost of Rs.100 crore, JIRS is an oasis in the desert of the arid Kanakpura taluk, 40 km from Bangalore. Since it admitted its first batch of 270 students in 1999, this fully residential co-ed CBSE-affiliated school which provides its 800 students extravagant state-of-the-art academic infrastructure, plush dormitories and sports facilities, has become a model for other five-star schools. Promoted by Bangalore-based former Reliance textiles salesman turned edupreneur Chenraj Jain, chairman of the Sri Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain group of 20 institutions, JIRS is affiliated with the Delhi-based CBSE and offers its 800 boarders residential suites with four students to a room, attached bathrooms with 24 hour hot water supply and a range of sports facilities unimaginable to a 1980s or even 90s generation parent. They include badminton, tennis, basketball courts, cricket field with a turf wicket, indoor athletic track, horse riding, swimming pool, golf course, gym, sauna and jacuzzi. (tuition fee: Rs.2.5-3.65 lakh per year) The International School, Bangalore (TISB) The jewel in the crown of the National Public Schools group of six education institutions and spread over 125 acres in suburban Bangalore, TISB which admitted its first batch of 210 students on June 4, 2000 currently has an aggregate enrollment of 744 students tutored by 124 faculty from four countries. While this International Baccalaureate Organisation (Geneva) and Cambridge International Examinations (UK) affiliated day-cum-boarding school offers the usual package of five-star academic, residential and more than generous sports facilities, it’s distinguishing characteristic is that it brings to the organisational culture the same degree of academic rigour and outcomes-oriented learning approach that has made NPS schools famous in south India. Personally supervised and mentored by Dr. Gopalkrishna, founder of the NPS schools, TISB is perhaps post-liberalisation India’s first genuinely international school which provides its privileged students the academic foundation and tuition required by the best universities abroad. In the past two years its students have impressed admission directors at Oxford, Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon, University of Texas and Princeton. (Tuition fee: Rs.3-6 lakh per year)
G.D. Goenka World School, Gurgaon Situated in the picturesque foothills of the Aravalli Hills of Gurgaon on the periphery of Delhi, G.D. Goenka World School epitomises the extravagance and opulence of the post-1999 genre five-star schools. Promoted at an estimated cost of Rs.100 crore-plus in 2001 by A.K. Goenka, it’s a self-contained campus town spread across 60 acres offering students every imaginable facility — books and stationery store, tailor’s shop, gift shop, hair and body care salon, a mini-supermart, banking and foreign exchange counters, a 17 acre, five hole trainer golf course, ergonomically designed furniture, ‘lux level’ lighting in classrooms, access control, CCTV surveillance, cable TV, 100 percent power backup, and broadband connectivity. There’s even an open-air theatre that airs popular movies. The school offers the IB diploma and IGCSE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations to its 324 students. (Tuition fee: Rs.5-14 lakh per year)
Pathways World School, Delhi Located on an elevated, wooded site in the Aravalli Hills, 25 km from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Pathways World School could be mistaken for a hill resort. Constructed with an artificial lake as its epicentre over 30 acres of prime real estate within motoring distance of the national capital at an estimated cost of Rs.80 crore, it’s a close runner-up to the neighbouring G.D. Goenka, as the most capital-intensive school constructed in the national capital region. Designed and conceptualised by national and international experts, and run by a cadre of multinational teachers since April 2003 when the school admitted its first batch of 40 students, Pathways offers the flexibility of day, weekly, fortnightly or term boarding to kindergarten-class XII students. Sports facilities include an olympic-size football field, a 400-metre athletics track, horse riding, a 25-metre swimming pool, a hockey field and golfing putt, squash, tennis and basketball courts. The school offers the IB and IGCSE curriculums to its 540 students. Comments principal Lalage E. Prabhu: "Usually schools construct buildings and then somehow try to squeeze in the curriculum. We worked the other way round to first design a 21st century curriculum and then built a school which could contain our ideals." (Tuition fee: Rs.90,000-5 lakh per year)
Indus International School, Bangalore
When the Indus International School admitted its first batch of students in 2003, it became the third international school to be promoted in Bangalore’s IT corridor in less than two years. Given that its predecessor — the neighbouring TISB — had in a short span earned itself a reputation as provider of quality international education, IIS’ management led by Lt. Gen Arjun Ray of Operation Sadbhavana fame, launched an unprecedented marketing blitzkrieg to woo prospective students and faculty. Constructed at an estimated cost of Rs.40 crore and spread across 40 acres, this IBO and IGCSE affiliated school boasts 557 students from seven nationalities tutored by 70 highly qualified teachers. Sports facilities include a swimming pool, a 400 metre eight-lane cinder track and field stadium and a golf driving range. A sophisticated IT infrastructure integrates offline and online learning, and provides access to information through a well-stocked learning resource centre (library). The school’s USP (unique selling proposition) according to Gen. Ray, is its focus on developing students’ leadership skills. "Our objective is to develop and nurture leaders this country needs for the future and no pain nor expense has been spared to ensure a comprehensively enabling environment towards that end," says Ray. (Tuition fee: Rs.2.65-4.65 lakh per year)
Ecole Mondiale World School, Mumbai
Promoted in 2004 by businessmen Pradeep Sadia and V.D. Goenka on a two-acre site in the upscale suburb of Juhu with an estimated investment of Rs.100 crore, Ecole Mondiale World School (EMWS) is land-starved Mumbai’s only five-star international school. Apart from state-of-the-art classrooms, science and computer laboratories, music and dance studios, this IBO (Geneva) and Cambridge International Examinations affiliated Kg-class XII school boasts a multi-purpose sports court, swimming pool and playing field. It’s one of the few schools in the country and the only one in Mumbai to offer the complete range of International Baccalaureate curriculums — primary years, middle years and the Plus Two diploma. A non-residential day school, it boasts a large waiting list of children of Mumbai’s rich and famous clamouring for admission, notwithstanding its tuition fees of Rs.4.9-6.90 lakh per year.
Sharad Pawar International School, Pune
Sprawled over 100 acres of picturesque green hills and dale near Pune’s Lohegaon airport, the spanking new state-of-the-art Sharad Pawar International School (SPIS) is India’s latest five-star school and northern Maharashtra’s first. On June 26 this year, this IBO and IGCSE affiliated school admitted its first batch of 350 Kg-class IX and class XI students. Although named after Maharashtra’s most durable politician and incumbent Union minister of agriculture, this day-cum-boarding co-ed school has been constructed at an estimated cost of Rs.40 crore by the Navi Mumbai-based D.Y. Patil Group, which has fostered over 100 education institutions across Maharashtra. SPIS has come as a blessing to parents — mostly wealthy sugarcane and grape farmers — in the Pune-Nasik-Sangli belt who had to earlier pack their children off to far locations for upscale school education. (Tuition fee: Rs.56,550-5.85 lakh per year)
4. Seven new higher education institutions
Despite the steady migration into the education sector of the licence-
permit-quota virus which debilitated Indian industry for almost half a century prior to the watershed economic liberalisation and deregulation initiative of July 1991, during the past seven years determined individuals, edupreneurs and philanthropists were able not only to establish several dozen new genre international primary-cum-secondary schools, but also numerous globally benchmarked institutions of higher education. The star seven:
Indian School of Business
A concerted effort of heavyweight private sector Indian industry (Reliance, Tata, Birla, Godrej, HDFC etc) promoted in collaboration with the US-based Wharton and Kellogg B-schools at a massive project cost of over Rs.250 crore, ISB admitted its first batch of postgrad students in 2001. An American style full-fee levying institution (annual tuition: Rs.13.5 lakh) unlike the six Central government promoted Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), ISB’s compressed and intensive one-year diploma programme has given the IIMs a run for their money despite its high price tag, with the start-up pay of its graduates topping IIM graduates in recent years."With our current strength of 418 students, we are one of the largest B-schools in Asia. We will be increasing the student numbers to about 560-600 within a year’s time, which will make us the fifth largest B-school among the top-rated 100 B-schools worldwide," says Dr. Rammohan Rao, dean of ISB •
IIT-Bombay’s Shailesh J.Mehta School of Management
Promoted in 1995 to cater to the growing number of IIT graduates signing up for business management programmes, this unique B-school situated on the 500-acre campus of the blue-chip Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (estb. 1958), was re-christened as per its present name in the millennium year (2000), following a generous donation of Rs. 9 crore by its eponymous US-based alumnus. Every year SJMSM admits 50 top-grade, mainly engineering graduates from across the country into its two year degree programme. Thus far this B-school has contributed over 500 highly-skilled engineer-managers to the national talent pool. The school also has a strong research programme leading to a Ph D in management. "The past seven years have been a rewarding period for SJMSM during which our graduates have made an excellent impression on Indian industry. Within the next seven years we intend to increase our total annual intake to 100 students per year for our two year degree programme and for new specialised degrees we have planned, and establish SJMSM as one of the top B-schools for engineer-managers in Asia," says Prof. N.L.Sarda, head of SJMSM •
NUJS, Kolkata and NJA, Bhopal
West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (estb.1999) and National Judicial Academy, Bhopal (2002). These path-breaking legal education institutions were conceptualised and brought to fruition by the extraordinary legal academic and visionary Dr. N. R. Madhava Menon who also engineered the pioneer National Law School University of India, Bangalore (estb.1986). Together these three globally benchmarked institutions have revolutionised legal education and have given India’s legal system, notorious for delayed justice and archaic procedures, a new lease of life. Following the new curriculum devised by Dr. Menon for NLS, Bangalore, the West Bengal NUJS offers an integrated five year BA.LLB (Hons) and two year LLM degree programmes to 125 students every year. Currently 472 students instructed by a faculty of 25 are reading law on its five acre campus at Salt Lake City, Kolkata. The National Judicial Academy, Bhopal is an in-service legal education initiative of the Supreme Court of India. Its objective is to provide training and continuous education to the lower judiciary and judicial officers of the state governments as well as provide guidance to the judicial academies of state governments. Set in a scenic campus spread over 60 acres affording panoramic vistas of lakes and forest reserves, NJA, Bhopal which is also a centre of judicial research with linkages to the best legal academies worldwide, could well devise the solutions required to break the legal logjam and inequities which characterise India’s floundering legal system •
Amity University
Founded in 1995 by Dr. Ashok Chauhan, the most high-profile businessman in continental Europe (1980-1990), Amity University with its main campus in Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi, is ranked India’s No. 1 private university by the Times of India group’s supplement Education Times. Although following Chauhan’s abrupt departure from Germany (where he has reportedly left behind a mountain of debt) to Delhi in the 1990s, Amity University is already mired in controversy, there’s no denying that with its 40-plus undergraduate study programmes and aggregate enrollment of 35,000 students, this intensively advertised varsity has established a good reputation within India’s expanding middle class •
Indian Institute of Management-Indore Spread over a 193-acre campus on the outskirts of Indore (pop. 1.6 million), one of the fastest industrialising cities of India, this relatively new Central government sponsored IIM (estb.1996) has quickly established a reputation for delivering business management education rated on a par with India’s other five globally respected IIMs. Starting with a small batch of only 37 students in its inaugural year, this institute promoted at a cost of Rs.45 crore, gathered momentum by the turn of the century and currently has over 300 students enrolled in its flagship two-year postgraduate diploma programme. Ten years on, with its graduates being readily accepted by Indian industry at impressive average starting salaries of Rs.8.5 lakh per year, the IIM-I management has set itself ambitious targets. "Now that our gestation period is over and our graduates are widely accepted as equal to those of the other IIMs, within the next two years IIM-I will become a major, globally benchmarked B-school whose graduates will be acceptable — and successful — the world over. Moreover during this period our capacity will increase from the current enrollment of 300 to 480. To the latter figure add 54 percent as per the expansion recommended by the Moily Commission to carve out a 27 percent quota for OBC (other backward castes) students. For expansion of capacity we have budgeted an expenditure of Rs.170 crore," says Dr. Prithvi Yadav chairman of the institute’s PDP study programme •
Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai Promoted by management guru Prof. Bala V. Balachandran of the Kellogg Business School of Northwestern University, Chicago, Chennai’s first internationally benchmarked B-school admitted its first batch of 130 students in 2004. Since then Glim, which offers an ISB (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad)-style intensive 12 month postgraduate diploma programme in business management (price: Rs.3.08 lakh), has established a sound reputation as one of the country’s top dozen B-schools.The promotion of Glim whose first two batches of students have won encomiums from Indian industry, has filled a glaring lacuna in Chennai which boasts an IIT and several top-ranked engineering colleges, but hitherto lacked a high profile B-school. Currently sited within the city, Glim will move to its new 20-acre campus which is being readied on Chennai’s upscale East Coast Road, next year •
IIT-Kharagpur’s Vin Gupta School of Management Promoted in 1993 following a donation of $ 2 million by US-based IIT-Kg alumnus Vinod Gupta, promoter-chairman of InfoUSA Inc, a direct mail database company (annual sales $ 300 million) and a "generous" grant from the Union government, during the past seven years in particular this in-house B-school of IIT-Kg has established itself as a premier business school for engineering and science stream managers. Currently VGSOM has over 400 students including 240 enrolled in its flagship two year MBA programme. And with the school enaged in an ambitious programme of expansion of capacity, the number is expected to rise to 750 by 2010. With the IT and engineering sectors experiencing high rates of annual growth and a rapidly multiplying number of engineers taking to the entrepreneurial path, VGSOM is likely to play a major role in transforming scientists and engi-neers into well-finished business leaders and managers •
5. Seven legal milestones in education
November 2001. A Parliamentary Bill mandating the State to provide compulsory education to all children aged between six-14 unanimously approved by Parliament. After receiving presidential assent, the Bill translated into the Constitution (Eighty Sixth Amendment) Act, 2002. Subsequently the Union government formalised its Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education For All) programme with this new constitutional mandate. The objective of SSA is to enroll all children in the age group six-14 in school by the year 2010, and retain them therein until class VIII. October 2002. In T.M.A Pai Foundation vs. State of Karnataka & Ors (2002 8 SCC 481) a majority judgement of an 11-strong bench of the Supreme Court confirmed the fundamental right of linguistic and religious minorities to "establish and administer education institutions of their choice" and also extended this right to the majority Hindu community. In its majority judgement the apex court construed the word ‘administer’ widely and permitted all unaided, i.e financially independent, professional education (medical, engineering, business management etc) colleges, to conduct their own merit-based admission tests and determine their own "reasonable" tuition fees. With this ruling the Supreme Court freed privately promoted professional education institutions from the rigid control of the state governments, which following the apex court’s ruling in Unni Krishnan’s Case (1993) had strictly regulated the admission and tuition fees chargeable by them. August 2003. In a judgement to "clarify" the Supreme Court’s verdict in the T.M.A Pai Foundation Case in Islamic Academy vs Union of India (2003 6 SCC 697), a five- judge bench of the apex court diluted the freedoms conferred upon private unaided professional colleges to prescribe their own admission processes and tuition fee structures. The court mandated setting up admission and fee regulation committees headed by retired judges in each state for these purposes.April 2004. In an unprecedented judgement delivered in Modern School vs. Union of India (2004 (5) SCC 583), the Supreme Court ruled that state governments are constitutionally empowered to regulate the tuition fees of private, unaided (financially independent) schools. Although not exercised thus far, this residuary power vested in government has the potential to wreck India’s globally respected private school system.February 2005. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court forced closure of 97 self-financing private universities registered in Chattisgarh, declaring the state law which had allowed 112 private varsities to spring up in the newly demarcated state (November 2000), ultra vires. According to the Supreme Court order in Prof. Yashpal & Anr vs State of Chattisgarh & Ors, ss. 5 and 6 of the Chattisgarh Private Sector Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act 2002, enacted by the Congress government led by chief minister Ajit Jogi (voted out of office in 2004) which empowered the state government to register and establish universities through a mere gazette notification and to set up campuses anywhere in the country with prior (discretionary) approval, were unconstitutional.This verdict hit several high profile varsities including Amity, Rai and Kalinga, endangering the future of 30,000 students, 1,000 faculty and a network of ancillary study centres and mini-campuses of private universities established as far afield as Haryana, Delhi and Punjab. August 2005. In P.A. Inamdar vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors (Appeal (Civil) 5041 of 2005) a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld its own judgement in the T.M.A Pai Foundation Case and reaffirmed the fundamental right of all citizens to ‘administer’ education institutions promoted by them. The court reiterated that private, unaided professional colleges are entitled to prescribe their own admission tests and procedures (subject to their being transparent and merit-based) and to determine the tuition fees payable subject to their being reasonable. The regulatory committees headed by retired judges mandated by the apex court in the Islamic Academy Case were retained for appellate purposes. December 2005. Parliament unanimously approved the Constitution (Ninety Third) Amendment Act, 2005. By this amendment Parliament specifically overruled the Supreme Court’s judgement in P.A.Inamdar vs. State of Maharashtra which reaffirmed the right of private professional colleges to self-administer themselves. Following this constitutional amendment, a new clause (5) was added to Article 15 of the Constitution nullifying the ratio decidendi of P.A. Inamdar’s Case and permitting the State to mandate reservations for socially or educationally backward classes and scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in all private educational institutions other than minority institutions.6. Seven wonder education products
With India’s information technology (IT) industry having taken off in a big way and recording spectacular growth in the new millennium, the fast-track growth of this essentially knowledge industry spun off numerous technologies and products which have the potential to revolutionise teaching-learning pedagogies and realise the United Nations millennium development goal of education for all by year 2015. Seven technologies and wonder products of the past seven years:
K-Yan
D esigned and developed by IL&FS-ETS (Education and Training Services) — the education division of the infrastructure construction behemoth IL&FS (Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services) in collaboration with IIT-Bombay’s Industrial Design Centre, the K-Yan compact media centre is an integrated multiple technologies device combining the features of a computer and screen projector. It facilitates the projection and magnification of computer images on a screen or classroom wall. As such it enables schools, colleges, training centres, rural communities etc to introduce new multi-media learning methodologies in classrooms and community centres. Powered by Intel® Pentium® 4, 1.8 GHz CPU with 512 MB DDR SD memory, the K-Yan Compact Media Centre combines the functions of a multimedia computer, large format television, DVD/ VCD/ CD player and offers CD writer, LCD projector, internet surfing, video conferencing and audio visual system in a compact single unit (weight 7 kg) with large data storage facility (120 GB). Its built-in projection system can magnify computer terminal images to the size of 300 inches. The result is a compl-etely integrated, easy-to-use compact sized product which is a very useful teaching aid. Price: Rs.1.5 lakh •
Lyceum – ERP software Developed by Bangalore-based education software provider PACSOFT (Panorama Across Creative Solutions on Futuristic Technologies) Pvt Ltd, Lyceum 2.0 — a modular school management software package — was launched in 2003. Developed with Microsoft DOT NET (.NET) technology, this composite enterprise resource planning (ERP) software package comprises 12 modules: marks card, information management, admission system, fees module, question paper, payroll system, student monitoring, teacher monitoring, financial accounting, time table, library management and inventory system. Each module computerises and automates one administrative function thereby consi-derably reducing the administrative workload of institutional managements. Each module is priced at Rs.25,000 and the full ERP package is available for Rs.3 lakh."Teachers spend nearly 25-30 percent of their available time in discharging routine administrative tasks such as attendance calculation, totalling marks, writing progress reports, etc. Lyceum was developed to standardise and automate these routine administrative processes to free teachers to do their real job — teaching," says Ali Sait, the promoter-chief executive of PACSOFT which supplies its modules and/ or full package to 180 schools countrywide •
For more go to 7th Anniversary Cover Story (II)
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