Via Kerim of the anthropology blog Savage Minds, we get two links to interesting graffiti from the ancient world. Here is one:
Suspirium puellarum Celadus thraex
which apparently means "Celadus the Thracier makes the girls moan!"
Kerim's post has links to other interesting things on graffiti. Do read it!
Ranks
Yogesh K Upadhyaya and Arvind Gupta have an article up on Rediff on a new ranking -- this one is by Dataquest -- of engineering colleges. They also discuss the utility of such rankings. Interestingly, IIT-Delhi opted out of this exercise.
Rants
If you want to dig a little deeper into this ranking thingy, do take a look at Rashmi Bansal's recent post on India Today's ranking of colleges in Mumbai. There are also interesting links there in the comments. From one of them I found out why BITS-Pilani opted out of this year's India Today poll.
Today's Econmic Times reports that, as a part of the Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement, India and Singapore "have agreed to ease visa restrictions for professionals in a wide range of areas". This paragraph is interesting (with emphasis added by me):
Under the pact on the unrestricted visa regime , which is to be signed tomorrow, both Singapore and India would recognise the degrees issued by specified universities and technical education boards of each other for the purpose of issuing multi-entry/job or stay visas.
Clearly, either the Singapore government or an organization authorized by it will have to get into the business of rating (let me emphasize rating, not ranking) our institutions. I would say it is a good thing!
In this excellent post, Satya has argued for delinking of the regulatory, funding and accreditation (rating) functions of agencies such as UGC, AICTE, ICMR, etc. In particular, he has argued that the rating function should be 'outsourced' to a few independent agencies such as CRISIL, ICRA, etc. Satya even points to how this 'rating agency' model is already being practiced by the maaritime training institutions in India. Let me just say that I support these reforms.
Update (29 June 2005, evening): Looks like the last word is yet to be spoken; Badri reports that the Tamil Nadu government has decided to appeal the verdict in the Supreme Court. I hope the appeal fails.
Today's Hindu reported:
The Madras High Court on Monday struck down the Government Order abolishing the common entrance examination for professional course admissions in the State, holding that this was not the correct or valid method to give redress to rural students.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Markandey Katju and Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, however, declined to interfere with the improvement examination scheme and said it was only a concession extended by the Government for students to improve their marks.
For the current academic year, the Government shall take into account the aggregate of marks obtained in the CET and the improvement examination as these examinations had already been held. "It would not be proper to cancel the improvement examination this year. But, for the academic year 2006-07 and onwards the improvement test need not be held by the authorities, unless they choose to restore it."
The question refers to engineering education. The Hindu has the answer. Among other things, it cites these numbers, which are truly mind-boggling.
The increase in intake capacity in engineering degree of some of the States from 1990-91 to 2003-04: Andhra Pradesh 8,070 to 66,205; Karnataka 19,452 to 40,920; Kerala 4,512 to 19,868; Madhya Pradesh 2,265 to 15,920; Maharashtra 20,425 to 47,450; Tamil Nadu 12,855 to 79,302; Uttar Pradesh 3,029 to 24,773; West Bengal 2,022 to 13,269; Delhi 1,290 to 3,800; Gujarat 2,780 to 10,325; Haryana 1,085 to 10,105; Jammu and Kashmir 480 to 970; Orissa 1,325 to 10,695; Punjab 1,508 to 10,701; and Rajasthan 1,629 to 10,785.
The total intake in all the States put together went up from 87,221 to 3,83,912
The article goes on to identify several problems that arise due to such a large number of institutions. Finding good teachers, for example. The situation is so dire that there are institutions where graduating students are recruited to teach their juniors! Many colleges' websites do not even bother to list their faculty members' names or qualifications and other credentials (for example, this deemed university; I checked three departments at random, and none of them had a faculty listing).
AICTE, which was "established for proper planning & co-ordinated development of technical education system throughout the country", has National Board of Accreditation meant for certifying that insitutions meet certain minimum standards. If we go by the Hindu article, we are better off with regulations suggested by Satya. These regulations would mandate that institutes (a) disclose to the public all relevant information, and (b) get themselves rated by independent bodies such as CRISIL. We have noted earlier that Pankaj Jalote, professor of computer science at IIT-Kanpur, has also written about the need for such reforms.
In an earlier post, we looked at the feasibility of a real university (RU -- a research university that offers undergraduate programs in multiple disciplines, including natural and social sciences and liberal arts) funded by the UG students through their fees.
In particular, we saw that the basic functions -- undergraduate education and certain minimum level of research activity -- can indeed be funded with a 'reasonable' UG fees of about Rs. 100,000 (1 lakh) per year per student, provided we accept a student/faculty ratio of 40.
Differential fees
Now, equal-fee-for-equal-education is a worthy goal to pursue, and perhaps it may be achieved in the long run. In the meantime, I believe there are at least three considerations that lead us to think of differential fees for UG education in a RU; these are in addition to the current reality that students studying in different institutions pay different fees (sometimes, unofficially or, as they say, 'under the table') even if they are pursuing the same degree program.
First, education in science and engineering relies heavily on hands-on experimentation using expensive equipment in laboratory courses; research in these subjects also require similarly expensive equipment. On the other hand, departments in social sciences and liberal arts are not so burdened. Under this scenario, a differential fee structure makes sense; for example, science and engineering students may be charged a 'laboratory fee' that the others need not worry about.
Second, UG courses in professional subjects (engineering, medicine, law, and perhaps, management) enjoy a huge demand in our society, while the other subjects face a smaller demand. If we use a kind of 'let's-soak-the-suckers' argument (aka the law of demand and supply), differential 'pricing' of UG education follows as a simple, logical conclusion.
Finally, it makes sense to 'offer' a certain fraction of UG 'seats' to the government, and allow the students who come in through this government quota to pay a smaller fee. This can be done, for example, in return for certain support from the government (land grants, some regular financial support, etc).
I call this the 'modified Karnataka model', since it was applied successfully in this state a long time ago for setting up self-financing colleges. It was so successful, in fact, that it has effectively been replicated in several other states, including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. In the original Karnataka model, the government retains its right to fix fees (making a mockery of the concept of self-financing colleges), and so has enormous capacity to meddle with the financial health of institutions. In the modified model, the government does not have that weapon.
One may ask, legitimately, why the government (and students who enter through that quota) should be given this special treatment. There are at least two reasons, and both give a private sector RU a certain legitimacy and acceptability. First, since the government represents the society at large, the institution gains an important ally. Second, the government may use specific mechanisms, such as affirmative action, to advance certain social goals, the RU gets to share in this larger social purpose, by allying itself with the government.
How exactly a RU may divide its student population into different categories that pay different fees will depend on all three factors (and any others that I have not considered here). It is a practical matter that will have to be resolved when a RU is set up.
Scholarships, loans
Irrespective of how this division is done, I have no doubt that the best way to reduce the financial burden on students (remember, the student still has to take care of 'living' expenses which could add upto 50,000 more per year) is through (partial) scholarships and student loans at interest rates similar to those of housing loans. Otherwise, quality education in a private RU would become unaffordable to poor -- but meritorious -- students.
For scholarships, we can think of the government, industry associations such as CII and FICCI, charitable trusts, and individual philanthropists.
Industries always complain about how our current system does not 'impart' to the students the kind of skills needed in the industry; they further claim that they spend considerable sums of money in training their fresh recruits. Presumably, education in the RUs would be of such high quality that CII, for example, finds it worthwhile to fund scholarships (perhaps with a condition that the students should work for a couple of years in one of the CII members -- something similar to what the Singapore government does).
Government as a source of scholarships at the UG level poses interesting challenges. It requires a change of focus from funding UG education through public sector universities (in which case this largesse is shared by everyone studying there; this is the current system), to one in which the government targets its funding by giving scholarships to students who get to choose where to spend that money. The former is centred around universities and their faculty, while the latter is centred around students. This is similar to a change of focus from running ration shops to giving food coupons (this analogy, however, is not perfect); the former is centred around shops and employees, while the latter is centred around consumers from economically weaker sections.
Rashmi Bansal has a great post about AICTE's efforts at regulating B-schools.
In an earlier post, she points to a report in JAM, the youth magazine she edits, about the claims made by IIPM in full page advertisements in newspapers about how great their B-school is. If you know someone who is considering that school, send him/her this link.
First things first: At Indian Writing, Uma talks about a happy piece of news (she has included this in a post that has some happy news in her personal life as well; bon courage, Uma!):
... a quick link to this happy news: a great piece of legislation to protect women at home. The headline says "wives, sisters and mothers", but fortunately the bill itself covers "women in marriages, in live-in relationships and those living in a shared household related by “consanguinity (blood ties) or adoption": which means that women who are sisters, widows, mothers, single women or living with the abuser, and any other category are all entitled to legal protection under the proposed legislation.
Semi-happy news about a temporary reprieve: Governor Krishna sends the ordinance to ban dance bars back to the Maharashtra government. Kalpana Sharma has commented on it in the Hindu.
Some bad news: If Brinda Karat says bad things about a welfare scheme aimed at the poor, you know it must be really, really, bad. This one is about the food for work programs:
... the shame of it is that the producti-vity levels expected on a food-for-work site are virtually impossible to achieve. To be paid a minimum wage a worker is expected to dig 100 cubic feet that works out to about 4,000 kilograms of mud, often hard rocky soil which requires much more effort and energy.
What is the result?
Invisibilise the second worker, the shadow who lifts the earth carrying 30 to 35 kilos of mud on her head, 150 times a day, sometimes climbing mounds of mud 30 feet high, to dump the load. To reach the productivity standards for a single wage set in different states, actually two workers are required. In many cases a couple works together and it is the woman who does the earth-lifting. Without her work less than half the amount specified would be dug. Yet in all the sites visited, with the exception of Manidhara village, Sadar block, West Midnapore in West Bengal, the woman worker was not paid at all.
Some more bad news embedded in this Indian Express headline: Bombay Univ says mini skirt ban helps stop rape. Harini, Charu and Rashmi have blogged on this one. Rashmi gives further details about what is allowed, and what is not, and she has used a great title for her post: Da VC Code!
The Hindu reported today that the University of Mysore went in for a sort of academic audit, an evaluation of the University by a panel of external experts, constituted by the Vice Chancellor, J. Shashidhar Prasad. The panel members were K. Muniyappa, K.J. Rao, G.K. Karanth and C. Thangamuthu, and it was chaired by M. Anandakrishnan, former Vice Chancellor of Anna University.
Excerpts from the report:
...about 30 per cent of the 39 departments have shown performance levels comparable to 30 top-rated departments in their spheres in the country. However, an equal number suffer weakness, including poor faculty strength and competence, unclear goals, incoherent academic focus, internal contradictions and unviable student enrolment.
The committee of experts noted [questioned?] [the] enthusiasm in the university to start short-term certificate and diploma courses. This, it said, will dissipate manpower, time and energy, and questioned the need for it as university departments should be catering only to PG courses and spending resources on quality research
...30 per cent of the funds are generated internally, and the university is comfortably placed financially. But this is not sufficient if the university is to emerge as an institution of national importance.
In a ToI op-ed from a while ago (November 2003!), Jayant Narlikar urged flexibility in managing the internal affairs of what he called ARI's (Autonomous Research Institutions). He added:
The purpose of providing flexibility and autonomy is to enhance the creativity of the scientists working there. This has also objectively to be gauged. How many ARIs today have external scientific monitoring? One of the few exceptions, is the Inter- University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, which has an external scientific advisory committee visiting every 18 months. Such monitoring should help weed out deadwood and move from unproductive to productive lines.
I am not sure how one "weeds out deadwood" in our system, which has a public sector culture of never firing anyone for non-performance. However, an external audit would certainly help in exerting certain peer pressure. In any case, even if the 'deadwood' cannot be 'weeded out', such an audit provides a method of identifying and rewarding high fliers.
Such an audit can also take an unbiased -- and critical -- look at programs, like the Mysore University's audit committee seems to have done with the diploma programs.
Update (actually, not really!) to this post on poverty in India. Today's ToI had an editorial that started with:
The debate on the extent of poverty in India has become too serious to be left to economists alone. There is a 40% divergence between the poverty estimates of the National Accounts Statistics (NAS) and those of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).
And, guess what? The data that this editorial is talking about were from 1999-2000! Haven't some new data (even those based on surveys and studies that are perhaps not as extensive as the massive NSSO ones) been collected? Is there anything at all that can tell us about the incidence/prevalence of poverty now?
Why don't we have timely data on such an important question/problem? Can someone who is in the know of things (like how these things are done, how often, etc) enlighten the rest of us?
Update to these two posts: Today's Hindu reported:
The Madras High Court has reserved orders on a batch of writ petitions challenging the Tamil Nadu Government's new admission policy for professional courses, but not without reiterating more than once that it would strike down the Government Order.
"This GO is clearly illegal, that is the end of the matter."
Sharing the State's concern over the hardships faced by students from rural areas, as enumerated in the June 9 GO, the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Markandey Katju and Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, said: "We will strike down the order and say that the Government could get in touch with the Centre to amend the statutory provisions mandating common entrance test in States having more than one examining boards."
Update to this post: Governor S. M. Krishna has dissed the Maharashtra government by sending back the ordinance banning ladies dance bars. He has, quite sensibly, suggested that the government get legislative sanction for its move to ban such bars -- particularly since the Legislature Assembly is to meet again in under three weeks.
After making these posts, I waited, and waited, and waited; and, Girish Karnad kept him occupied and uptight for weeks. The wait is over, at last! Sandeep is now able to have some real fun. Thanks to him, we get this link, which is a part of an absolutely wonderful collection of old internet -- probably newsgroup -- humour.
In the same collection, I found this one called Real Science, which is a collection of things that school and college students apparently wrote in term papers. Here is a sample:
"The body consists of three parts- the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls, of which there are five - a, e, i, o, and u."
If you like somewhat raunchier stuff, there is plenty of it in that collection, including this.
While we are talking about humour and jokes, I might as well point you to the first one in this samurai sword humour collection.
If you are into science fiction, this should interest you.
[Via Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber] : Cory Doctorow, 'coeditor' of the extremely popular weblog Boing Boing, has put up his recent sci-fi book 'Someone comes to town, someone leaves town' on its website for free download, licensed under terms set out by Creative Commons.
Have fun!
The Hindu reported two days ago:
English must be taught from first standard, and parents of children going to government schools in the urban areas do not agree with the Kannada Sahitya Parishat's view that it should be taught only from third standard, the Federation of Educationists and Social Organisations has said.
Starting English from the first standard is a very sensible thing to do. The report cites some research findings:
Quoting Noam Chomsky, Nataraj Huliyar of Gramarajya Vedike said children at the age of five are capable of learning three to four languages. Studies by Romain, Dryden and Genet Vos have recently proved that children exposed to more languages show better ability in learning various subjects. "With this advantage, students in private schools who start learning English at three are proficient by the time they reach fourth standard. Whereas government school children learn English only when they are in fifth standard, and they lose out on seven years, Mr. Nataraj said.
I too have read about these findings in one of those 'how to raise children' type books we received as a gift when our son was born. It clearly said children can learn several languages without any problem, as long as the persons speaking to the child consistently stick to their respective languages.
We have seen it with our child, as well as with the children in our neighbourhood (we live inside the IISc campus, and our environment is quite cosmopolitan): the language spoken at home, the common language among the children (English) and the language of the baby sitter (usually, Kannada, but sometimes, Hindi or Tamil) are often not the same, and by the age of three or four, children pick up these three languages effortlessly. [It still leaves the rather open question of whether they are able to build on their facility with languages to read and write and become proficient in them. This question is usually resolved by the parents in favour of just those languages that their children 'need'].
Moreover, children who are transplanted in another society (like when a faculty member and his/her family spend a sabbatical year in, say, Germany) at a young age -- say, between three and seven -- have no difficulty at all in picking up that new language. Again, I have seen it with our colleagues' children who have gone through this experience.
So, all this presupposes that the language teacher is good. This is where I believe there is serious difficulty, particularly when it comes to government schools. Teaching English through the local language (like my own teachers did in my Tamil medium schools in Chennai) just will not do. Therefore, IMHO, the people who made these sensible demands to the Karnataka government should also demand that good language teachers are recruited.
When politicians oppose early exposure to other languages -- and English, in particular -- we attribute it to chauvinism, and say 'well, you can't expect them to know/say/do any better'. Now, what is it about the intellectual/artist types in our Sahitya Akademies and Parishats (not just in Karnataka, but elsewhere, too) that makes them do the same thing, which then allows the politicians to claim a certain intellectual legitimacy to their chauvinistic stand?
