A Time To Reflect

charukesi September 17th, 2005

IBM to train staff as math, science teachers (for some strange reason filed under ‘money’ in rediff. er, why?)

Concerned over the critical shortage of math and science faculty in the United States, global IT major IBM has announced a programme that encourages employees to take up the teaching profession. The world’s largest Information Technology company said on Friday that it would reimburse participants in its new transition to teaching programme up to $15,000 for tuition and stipends.

IBM sees this this as a natural move for employees who might be interested in this program, given that many of them have math and science backgrounds. I think it is an interesting idea because :

1. the people involved in this program are well qualified and skilled - which is not necessarily true of many teachers in the US (and anywhere else for that matter) who choose teaching as the last resort to earn a living. With sincere aplogies to all good teachers I have known, it is more and more becoming those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.. Will such a program make a difference to the quality of teaching - and learning therefore?

2. these are people who have been on the job for many years and have kept themselves aware (ideally) of what is happening in their field. As opposed to most teachers who seem to live in a time warp of sorts - where the world froze at the time of their last degree.

3. from the perspective of the employees, it is safe to assume that some level of boredom must be creeping in to their jobs - exploring teaching as an option looks to me a great way of getting over ths ennui and using their skills and experience in a very positive manner…

And the short rediff report ends with this - The move comes as technology executives voice concern about the US losing ground to China, India and other countries in math and science education. Uh?

• - Education
• Comments(11)

charukesi September 6th, 2005

Found this piece that Uma has linked to - Andre Beteille in the Telegraph about Intellectual Capital in India that needs to be rebuilt from a different perspective - and quickly - through good quality undergraduate education…

Brought back many memories of my own undergraduate days. The time when I managed to disgrace my family so thoroughly and it seemed then, permanently - by enrolling for a BA in Economics. I still remember the look of utter incredulity on my father’s face when he first heard that - BA? You are going to do a BA? Of course, his spirits soared marginaly when he heard that the BA was in Economics and not shudder, English Literature or shudder shudder, History.

But the question was repeated - with much the same look on his face - over the next few days. BA? And then the look turned to one of weary resignation, bordering on despair. God, I just hope no one asks me about my daughter for the next few years. BA? And he went about mumbling shamefacedly to people who asked about me… And I suppose the sympathetic looks on their faces when they heard the BA story only made it worse for him - this should not have happened to a good man like you. Paavam, his daughter is such a dunce - and he had such hopes for her. BA. Not even BSc. Just imagine that.

(Of course today my father only mentions to everyone that I got a University Rank, and forgets to mention the B word. And also pretends that I had LSE in mind all along when I chose my undergraduate course :))

And coming back to the Intellectual Capital bit, I found myself thinking that in India, as of today, there is no single undergraduate degree that is considered good enough or just enough - to get on with life and make a good living. Not even the coveted engineering or medical degrees. Given that state, of what relevance undergraduate arts and science degrees?

I leave you to mull over that with this nugget from my favorite cartoonist Glasbergen…

Update : I find that both Sunil and Anand have thought-provoking posts today on education and pedagogy. Some more things to mull over…

• Indiawatch , - Education
• Comments(11)

charukesi September 5th, 2005

Happy Monday Morning. Happy - to be back in Bombay, back home, and back at my blog (there, I said it) - and earlier than I had planned…

Also happy to have come across this remarkable initiative in flickr - The Kalleda Rural School Photoblog. This is the photoblog of the kids at Kalleda Rural School in Andhra Pradesh, India. The students take their own photographs documenting their lives and post them on their own flickr accounts. This account is a collection of some of their best photos.

Most of these photographs are simple and tell stories from the lives of these cildren - glimpses that would otherwise never be available to the outsider. I have written to the person behind this suggesting that specific themes could be introduced to the kids so 1. we the outsiders get a better idea of what certain notions - like say freedom or modernity or education mean to the kids there, and 2. the kids themselves think more deeply about them…

Photo-ethnography at its most basic and brilliant best… Please check it out. And if you are on flickr, do leave a few words of encouragement on the pics - the co-ordinator says, Photography is new to the kids, so please post comments and suggestions. Thanks!

This is the photograph that led me to this project first…

(The original can be found here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdstone/26457702/)

I checked out the India Rural Development Fund which supports this school project and found out some more… This school started in 1996 currently has a strength of around 530 students, and 10 grades (Kindergarten through Grade 10). It offers high quality education to the children of Kalleda and surrounding villages. The first graduating class (2004) passed with distiction. Atleast 50% of the seats are reserved for girls, and admission to the school is based on a lottery system. Care is taken to ensure all communities are adequately represented based on the local demographics. The children have access to their own computer center and the internet.

Lottery system - does anyone know how this works?

• Children and youth , Technology , - Education
• Comments(17)

charukesi August 23rd, 2005

This is the story of Aruna, a very bright young woman I know. Aruna’s mother - and her mother before her - has been working at my husband’s parents’ place in Kakinada for many years. Aruna’s mother Sai did not want the same life for her daughter; so Aruna went to school while her mother did house work.

After she completed school, my inlaws have been paying for Aruna’s education. Aruna got a BSc degree in Computer Science. And then went on to complete her MCA (Masters in Computer Applications) degree.

Many scholarships along the way. Industrial training in Hyderabad. And a distinction in MCA. My favourite memories of Aruna are of her zipping around town in the bike that my mother-in-law gifted her when she completed her degree.

Aruna has been in Hyderabad for the past few months, applying for jobs and attending interviews. But despite her academic record, she has not been able to find a job. I suspect one of the main reasons is her lack of English skills. At our (my husband and I) insistence, she did enrol in an English speaking course a few years ago. But she was too shy to ever speak to anyone in English outside or in college. And at home - who will she speak to in English? Technically she knows English but that is clearly not enough.

Aruna has dreams of finding a good job for herself and supporting her mother from now on. And her mother back in Kakinada is dreaming of the day her daughter goes to an “office”.

I hope their dreams come true very soon. I hope this young qualified - and very brave - girl does not get disillusioned by the world out there. I hope when the time comes for Aruna to get married, she will be able to find an educated young man who does not see her as a maid’s daughter but as an educated confident young woman. I hope for Sai and Aruna, this is the end of their struggles, and not just the beginning of another kind of struggle. Good luck, Aruna.

• Indiawatch , - Education
• Comments(18)

charukesi August 22nd, 2005

I had put this as an update to my earlier post the MBA game. But then I decided this was too good to be true - it deserves a post all by itself.

MBA after 10th! “Management Studies through Early Intervention for a Borderless Corporate World”.

A New Paradigm in Management Studies, Corporate Institute of Management’s path breaking concept launched in India.

Blah Blah. Full page ad in Mumbai Mirror.

Contact : Corporate Institute of Managament. Blah blah. Goregaon (W), Mumbai - 62

A New Paradigm alright. (Will put up a link when I find it)…

***
And while on this, I was searching in Fabmall for some books and I noticed that Arindam Chaudhuri’s book Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch is to be found under the Humorous Section.

Ahem. No comments - from me. Yours welcome as always.

I am sure Rashmi Bansal agrees with this one…

• - Education , Don't be funny!
• Comments(15)

charukesi August 19th, 2005

If you are an MBA basher, you might find this article from Economic Times interesting - B-Schools mean wrong training only.

The debate on the relevance of business schools refuses to die down. In the past, various academics - including Henry Mintzberg of McGill, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford-GSB and Warren Bennis of University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business - have trained their guns on B-schools and the value of MBAs. So far, Mintzberg has been the strongest critic. His grouse: “An MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways for the wrong reasons.”

I don’t know what ‘wrong training’ here means; I have no doubts about the ‘relevance’ of business schools in sharpening analyical thinking and developing managerial skills in people. However, I agree with the major point of discontent - that top B schools (especially in the West) have given in to the pressures of the ranking game. And as the article puts it, have placed style over substance - in everything from choice of curriculum to teaching professionals. For example, it translates into curriculum changes that emphasise appearance over substance, less time spent on rigorous foundational training, research,” DeAngelo said.

Thinking about it, the reason for this is obvious - top business schools vie to attract the best and sharpest brains from all over the world - and what do these brains in turn expect from a business school training? A prestigious and very well paying job. In other words high profile placements. Which in turn boost the rankings of the school… And the ranking game continues.

****
On a related note, I thought of the number of business schools that have mushroomed across our country. Strictly not business schools but engineering colleges and arts colleges offering an MBA degree. In terms of sheer numbers, these ‘MBA institutes’ must rank just after private enginnering colleges and dental colleges. And they thrive on much the same basic need - a lucrative job. Except in this case, an MBA degree is seen as a quick and easy route (as opposed to a rigorous disciplined training - as MBA ideally ought to be) to a well paying job.

And as opposed to the top business schools, the institutes do not palce any premium on work experience or even educational background of the applicant. Given this, what does an individual who shells out a few lakhs for the degree -note, I say degree, not course - get from it? Just that, another degree.

And what does this mean - a future generation of MBAs from local ‘institutes’ without any claim to keen managerial skills or out-of-the-box thinking? Who do not find jobs “suitabe for their dgree? Or lucrative enough for them?

Also read Prof.Madhukar Shukla’s post MBA Education is bad for Society/Business/…. Students?!!! where he bursts the MBA bubble.

• - Education
• Comments(15)

charukesi July 13th, 2005

Update: Came across this very interesting piece on Robert Paterson’s blog. It ends with In short: As connectedness transforms knowledge, our education system is swinging–running–in the other direction. Do read it fully - Robert has linked to the original piece by David Weinberger there on his post.

Found two pieces of writing on the education system - had to share them here. Let the good old debate begin. Again.

Randal Moss from community mobilization writes about the Education Values of a Decaying System. I think we all keyed into fact that the education system is failing to educate itself on the new and useful skills and values of the modern age. Education is not a fad, but the ability to creatively think and analyze information are stalwarts in the real world. Communication is essential, but if you can not generate an original thought or put two clues together the ability to self express becomes moot.

And then Suketu Mehta in the NYTimes (thanks, Sonia for the pointer) on outsourcing fears and our education system.

When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents’ disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent’s freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn’t tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.

Ok, so Johnny Can’t Add But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can. I had written about this in a long-ago post Teaching - content v/s methodology ?

On the one hand, learning by rote and learning seemingly unnecessary things stifles curiousity and leaves the child unprepared for real world problem solving. And on the other, it builds a strong foundation - as Suketu Mehta says and Suresh Venkatsubramanian knows.

R.K.Narayan says this about his own school days - Among fruits, we were familiar with the mango, banana, guava, pomegranate and the grape but not the apple (much less an apple pie). To our eager questioning, the omniscient one, our English teacher would just state, it must be some stuff similar to our idli but prepared with an apple. This information was inadequate and one popped up to ask, but what would it taste like? Sweet or sour? We were left free to guess……. Yet, for all that, Narayan’s writing and creativity are clearly quite intact…

So where is the balance in the education system to be achieved - at what point does become stuff unnecessary and irrelevant? Is algaebra relevant but Shakespeare not? And where does education cease to excite and begin to stifle?

(This post is entirely in the thinking-out-aloud mode)

• - Education
• Comments(24)

charukesi June 26th, 2005

We were driving back from an early morning drive + trek near Pune when I spotted this bunch of happy school goers. Rows of girls followed by rows of boys and then again the girls… All shepherded by a few extremely harassed teachers.

Happy kids in their smart bright blue and khaki school uniforms… straining at the leash to break away from the line…

And then I looked down… A few were wearing shoes, some chappals - while many of them were not wearing anything on their feet…

It had been raining the whole night and the day before - and the roads were muddy and potholey…

Bare feet on dirty roads, originally uploaded by Road Blog.

Oh, the children did not seem to mind it in the least - they were one large boisterous bunch. But here is my question…

Should schools in rural (or obviously poorer) areas insist on a school uniform for their students?
Does it serve any purpose - or is it one more case of blind follow-the-letter but-not-attempt-to-even-understand-the-spirit rules that infest our country?
Is the money that a school uniform takes better spent on footwear, books and bags for the children? Considering that this money is spent by parents who are already struggling to send their children to school, sometimes against all odds…

Update : Patrix has this post today on A Uniform School Code, in which he also links to a column by Raghavendra Rathore on rediff in praise of uniform design

• Children and youth , Society & Development , - Education
• Comments(13)

charukesi June 7th, 2005

Sunil’s post the scavenger’s son and the comments on the post relating to the role of education in ’social upliftment’ triggered memories of a few young people I have met… I had written about them earlier - here it is…

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I recently met a few young girls during the course of some research in South India. It was a small town, two hours by bus from Madurai, a temple town deep South.

One of them came up to me after the group discussion and asked if I had an MBA degree. Her story amazed me….. From a family of six members, she had nurtured ambitions of doing an MBA one day. Her role model was a distant relative working in Madurai in a local company, highly respected for his wisdom and social work.

She was then in the final year of her BBA (Bachelor in Business Administration) degree. She spoke to me about the struggle she had to undergo to convince her conservative and uneducated parents to allow her to study further after finishing school. That was not the only issue; she had to travel to Madurai for this since the town did not have a college with this kind of facility. Of course, the option of staying in a hostel was unthinkable, the girl says, I did not even dare to suggest it…. Letting me study in Madurai and with boys is itself a big step for them….

So she takes a bus and travels two hours each way for this degree…. And she aims to study for an MBA.

To look at her, one would not have thought this girl had any fight in her. She was dressed in a simple salwar-kameez, with plaited hair and a round bindi. And her English was far from perfect. I know my English is not good, but I am learning, she says. It is very important because people think I am not good enough because my English is not good….. What kind of people are these, I wondered , who judged this girl on her English language skills and refused to see the sharp mind and the fire within ?

She was a bit self conscious but not at all diffident or apologetic about it. On the contrary, she was very articulate and confident. And she saw a bright future for herself…..

I wish her all the luck she needs to fulfill her dreams…..

Yet another girl I met was doing her M.A. in Tamil. I visited her home to interview her and was struck by tininess of the room which she and her parents and a sister and a brother occupied. This room and a kitchen even smaller, was home to them. Her father was a carpenter and her mother stitched blouses and other small things for neighbours in order to supplement the family income.

I was curious to understand her choice of Tamil as a subject for her M.A. and asked her if that would be of any help to her in securing a job. Much to my amazement and embarrassment, she reeled off a list of professions open to her on finishing her degree.

And not only conventional ones like teaching but areas like tourism and library management, which I, in my superior ignorance, had not imagined she would even know of. She had researched her prospects thoroughly and was very lucid about the life she saw for herself five years later….

They were clearer and surer about their future than I was at that time….

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And another post following this - Their future looks bright

But if as Dilip says in his comment on Sunil’s blog, Societal attitudes are resistant to the best efforts at education, what is the solution? What is the process for educating a whole society that believes that each individual has a place (based on his birth?) and is ‘destined’ to stay there…

• Children and youth , Society & Development , - Education
• Comments(5)

charukesi June 7th, 2005

More Nursery School Children Going Online .

Before they can even read, almost one in four children in nursery school is learning a skill that even some adults have yet to master: using the Internet. Some 23 percent of children in nursery school — kids age 3, 4 or 5 — have gone online, according to the Education Department. By kindergarten, 32 percent have used the Internet, typically under adult supervision.

On the one hand, children are curious - about the world, about everything… and on the other, surfing the internet is largely intuitive… especially for this generation of children born into technology… A world moving towards a constructivist approach to learning - where the learner constructs knowledge according to his or her own understanding of the concept - construction moves the focus of learning from the teacher to the taught.

In India, infothelas and NIIT’s hole in the wall experiment…

• Children and youth , Technology , - Education
• Comments(2)