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GS Paper: GS2-13.Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

  • World University Rankings by Subject 2020

     

     

    Indian higher-education institutes have improved their performance on the global stage, with a greater number getting ranked in the top-100 programs, according to the latest edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject 2020.

    Major findings of the report

    • IIT Bombay (44), IIT Delhi (47), IIT Kharagpur (86), IIT Madras (88) and IIT Kanpur (96) found place in top 100 of this category.
    • In the Natural Sciences category, three Indian institutions made it to the top 200: IIT-Bombay at 108th rank closely followed by the IISc, Bangalore at the 111th position, while IIT-Madras scraped in at the 195th rank.
    • Jawaharlal Nehru University remained the country’s top institution in the Arts and Humanities category, with a global ranking of 162, followed at a distance by Delhi University at 231.
    • Delhi University topped the Social Sciences and Management category, with a global ranking of 160, followed by IIT-Delhi at 183.
    • There are no Indian institutions in the world’s top 200 when it comes to Life Sciences and Medicine.
    • The top institution in the country is the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, which had a global ranking of 231.
    • Other top subjects included physics & astronomy with 18 Indian institutes, biological sciences (16), electrical engineering (15), chemical engineering (14) and mechanical engineering (14).
    • MIT, Stanford University and the University of Cambridge has secured top three positions in the Engineering and Technology category.

  • A disconnected pedagogy

    Context

    The gap between jobs, needs and knowledge, and the absence of role models, could be turning India’s demographic dividend into a nightmare.

    National curriculum and problems with it

    • What is in our national curriculum? It is a fixed set of topics prescribed in all subjects — from physics to geography, and engineering to planning.
      • And it is taught in English at our elite MHRD institutions.
    • Designed by professionals: It has not been designed by politicians but by our elite professors and bureaucrats: It is what they believe the nation really needs to know.
    • Issue of imposition: It is imposed on ordinary students and parents through competitive exams and on colleges and universities through various central regulatory agencies, most egregiously, through the UGC-NET, an objective-type multiple-choice (!) exam that decides who is fit to be a college teacher.

    Issues with the engineering curriculum

    • Doesn’t address the regional needs: We already know that the national engineering curriculum fails miserably in meeting regional needs.
      • No regional variation accounted for: Engineering for Himachal Pradesh needs to be different from that in Maharashtra or Kerala.
    • Not in sync with the demands of the industry: It must address the needs of core industries, local enterprises, the provisioning of basic amenities such as water and energy.
      • None of this is in our national curricula or practised at the IITs.
      • Moreover, there is no mechanism for engineering colleges to work with their communities.

    Issue with the social science curriculum

    • No interdisciplinary courses: Let us look at the UGC-NET curricula, which is largely what is taught in our elite institutions.
      • At the BA level, it is divided into several disciplines — for instance, political science, sociology and economics.
      • This is unfortunate since much of life in India is interdisciplinary.
      • As a result, many activities such as preparing the balance sheet for a farmer, or analysing public transport needs, and development concerns such as drinking water or even city governance, are given a miss.
    • Example of economics curriculum: The UGC-NET curricula in economics has 10 units, the very last unit is Indian Economics. Unit 8 is on Growth and Development Economics, where the student must know Keynes, Marx, Kaldor, and others.
      • There are various mathematical models, for example, the IS-LM macroeconomic model, whose validity in the Indian scenario is questionable.
      • Absence of important sectors: The study of sectors such as small enterprises or basic economic services such as transportation is absent. The District Economic Survey, an important document prepared regularly by every state for each district, is not even mentioned.

    Sociology curriculum and issues involved

    • Absence of certain important items: There is no preamble nor a list of textbooks or case studies.
      • Under “Social Institutions”, we have a list of timeless words such as culture, marriage, family and kinship.
      • Peasant occurs two times, but there is no farmer. Here is a sample question: “Who uses the phrase ‘fetishism of commodities’ while analysing social conditions?” followed by four names.
    • No mention of important data: There is also no mention of important data sets such as the census or developmental programmes including MGNREGA in either curriculum.

    Conclusion

    • National curricula divorced from the community: The training at our elite institutions, and consequently, in the national curricula, is not to empower ordinary students to probe their lived reality. Or to contribute professionally and constructively to the development problems around us. Rather, it is to perpetuate a peculiar intellectualism which is divorced from the community in which these institutions are embedded.
    • Need to rethink the one-nation-one curriculum: One-nation-one-curriculum certainly has some advantages in enabling mobility of some jobs, especially in the national bureaucracy and a multinational economy.
      • Cost to the developmental needs: But one-nation-one-curriculum comes at the cost of the developmental needs of the states and the emergence of good jobs there.
    • Turning demographic dividend into a nightmare: The above-stated asymmetry is behind the aspirational dysfunction in higher education. It is this disconnect between jobs, needs and knowledge and the absence of role models, which is slowly turning our demographic dividend into a nightmare on the streets.

     

     

     

  • Teaching the teacher

    Context

    Our teacher education system must be aligned with global standards.

    Learning crisis and teacher vacancies in India

    • Teacher education as a status check on schooling education: Comparable to the role of a thermometer in diagnosing fever, an assessment of the quality of teacher education can be a status check on the schooling system.
      • Teachers remain at the heart of the issue, and translating schooling into learning is a critical challenge.
    • The gravity of learning crisis: The learning crisis is evident in the fact that almost half of the children in grade 5 in rural India cannot solve a simple two-digit subtraction problem,
      • While 67 per cent of children in grade 8 in public schools score less than 50 per cent in competency-based assessments in mathematics.
    • Teacher vacancies: India is dealing with a scenario of significant teacher vacancies, which are to the tune of almost 60-70 per cent in some states.
    • In fact, there are over one lakh single-teacher schools present across the country.
    • Excess teachers produced by TEIs: On the other hand, there are 17,000-odd Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) that are responsible for preparing teachers through programmes such as the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed), and Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed).
      • 19 lakh teachers every year: Taking their sanctioned intake into account, at full operation, these TEIs could generate over 19 lakh freshly trained teachers every year as against the estimated annual requirement of 3 lakh teachers.
      • To put things in perspective, currently, there are about 94 lakh teachers across all schools in India.
      • Every year, the teacher education system could, therefore, be producing one-fifth of the total number of school teachers.

    The quality aspect of the teachers

    • Poor quality teachers: Not only are these TEIs generating a surplus supply of teachers, but they are also producing poor-quality teachers.
    • Pass percentage in eligibility test below 25%: Besides it being reflected in the dismal state of learning across schools, the pass-percentage in central teacher eligibility tests that stipulate eligibility for appointments as teachers has not exceeded 25 per cent in recent years.
      • This begs a pertinent question — how did we get here?

    What are the reasons for such problems?

    • The answers lie in:  The inadequacies of planning, regulation, policy and organisational structures.
    • The role and issues in NCTE: The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) and its four regional committees (north, south, east and west), established by statute, are responsible for teacher education in India.
      • Toothless in terms of powers: The Act assigns disproportionate power to the regional committees which grant programme affiliation while the Council has been rendered toothless.
    • Proliferation of sus-standard TEIs: Perverted incentives, widespread corruption and commercialisation have resulted in a massive proliferation of sub-standard TEIs.
      • In fact, while most of these TEIs are financially unviable, some function out of tiny rooms with duplicate addresses, and a few could even be selling degrees at a fixed price.
      • No system to ensure the entry of meritorious: These institutes function in isolation from the rest of the higher education system, and there is no system to assess and accredit them. Consequently, there is no systemic sieve to ensure the entry of only motivated and meritorious individuals into the teacher education space.
    • Disparity regional spread of TEIs: A more granular look reveals disparities across regions and programmes offered.
      • One-third in UP: Almost one-third of the TEIs are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh.
      • In fact, Ghazipur, a district in UP with a population of around one lakh, has a whopping 300 TEIs.
      • Approximately half of the total TEIs are in the northern region with Rajasthan having the second-largest number of institutes.
    • Poor planning: While there are about 17 recognised teacher education programmes, a majority of TEIs offer only B.Ed and D.El.Ed programmes.
      • This reinforces the point of poor planning as the country is actually facing a shortage of subject teachers in secondary schools and teacher-educators for whom a Master of Education (M.Ed) degree is a requisite (offered in less than 10 per cent of the TEIs).
    • Outdated curriculum: Adding to the mix of challenges is an outdated teacher preparation curriculum framework that was last updated over a decade ago.
    • Regulation by multiple agencies: On the governance front, multiple agencies have oversight on teacher education.

    Way forward

    • Collect the credible data: Any reform initiative must be built on credible data.
      • No data available: To date, there is no accurate real-time database of the number and details of teacher education institutes, students enrolled and programmes offered.
      • How the data can be helpful? Such data could be used to create a comprehensive plan for the sector, devising the optimal number of TEIs, their regional spread and programme-wise intake.
      • One cannot but underscore the significance of proper planning. The teachers will concur.
    • Develop the system of assessment and accreditation: An accurate system of assessment and accreditation must be developed to ensure high-quality teacher education.
      • The National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC), responsible for quality-standards in higher education, has only covered 30 per cent of all institutes since its establishment back in 1994.
      • Given the extensive landscape of the teacher education sector alone and current capacity constraints, it is necessary that multiple accreditation agencies be empanelled.
      • A common accreditation framework should be designed through a consultative process including all relevant stakeholders to facilitate its wider acceptability.
      • A transparent and credible system of accreditation could form the bedrock for weeding out substandard TEIs and propelling quality improvements in the rest.
    • The curriculum of global quality: Core determinant of quality is the curriculum which must be regularly revamped and revised to ensure that our teacher education system is aligned to global standards.
      • Ideally, given that teacher education requires a good mix of curricular inputs and good-quality pedagogy, experts are rightly advocating for a shift towards integrated four-year subject-specific programmes to be housed in multidisciplinary colleges and universities.
      • In the first phase, these may be initiated in select central and state universities.
      • Potential to outsource teachers: This could also potentially serve as an avenue for India to outsource its surplus high-quality teachers to over 70 countries that face a teacher shortage.
    • Administrative will and execution: Finally, reforms must be driven by administrative will and executed through a well-established governance mechanism, clearly establishing ownership and accountability for set work streams across multiple agencies.
      • The draft National Education Policy presents a ray of hope.
      • Its vision to restore integrity and credibility to the teacher education system needs to be translated into effective action.

    Conclusion

    India is estimated to have the largest workforce within the next decade. This means that a population bulge is on the cusp of entering the higher education ecosystem now. The pressing need of the hour is to focus on providing the best quality teacher education to those who aspire to build the future of this country.

     

  • [pib] Regulating Content of Trans-Fat in Oils and Fats

     

     

    The limit of trans-fats to be not more than 5% is prescribed under Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011 for vanaspati, bakery shortenings, bakery and industrial margarine and interesterified vegetable fats/oils.

    What are Trans Fats?

    • Artificial Trans fats are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid.
    • Since they are easy to use, inexpensive to produce and last a long time, and give foods a desirable taste and texture, they are still widely used despite their harmful effects being well-known.

    Why this move?

    • Studies have recently shown that 60,000 deaths occur every year due to cardiovascular diseases, which in turn are caused due to high consumption of trans fats.
    • Since the impact of trans fats on human health is increasing exponentially, it is very important to create awareness about them.

    Standards for Trans-fats

    • A draft notification to limit trans-fat to be not more than 2% by weight of the total oils/fats present in the processed food products in which edible oils and fats are used as an ingredient on and from 1st January, 2022 was issued on 28.08.2019. 
    • Standards prescribed under various regulations of FSSAI are enforced to check that they comply with the standards laid down under Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and the rules and regulations made thereunder.
    • In cases where the food samples are found to be non-conforming, recourse is taken to penal provisions under Chapter IX of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

  • Tracking the big three

    Context

    The article focuses on the top three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, namely poverty elimination, zero hunger, and good health and well-being by 2030.

    India’s record on extreme poverty, hunger and health

    • Decline in extreme poverty: The World Bank’s estimates of extreme poverty- measured as $1.9/per capita/per day at purchasing power parity of 2011- show a secular decline in India from 45.9 per cent to 13.4 per cent between 1993 and 2015.
    • Elimination of extreme poverty 2030: If the overall growth process continues as has been the case since, say, 2000 onwards, India may succeed in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030, if not earlier.
    • Zero hunger by 2030: Given the overflowing stock of food grains with the government, and a National Food Security Act (NFSA) that subsidises grains to the tune of more than 90 per cent of its cost to 67 per cent of the population, there is no reason to believe that India can also not attain the goal of zero hunger before 2030.
    • Health- a real challenge: The real challenge for India, is to achieve the third goal of good health and well-being by 2030. India’s performance in this regard, so far, has not been satisfactory. as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2015-16)-
      • In 2015-16, almost 38.4 per cent of India’s children under the age of five years were stunted.
      • 8 per cent were underweight.
      • 21 per cent suffered from wasting (low weight for height).
      • The situation in some states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh is even worse.
    • Global Hunger Index ranking of India: No wonder, the Global Hunger Index (GHI) ranks India at 102 out of 117 countries in terms of the severity of hunger in 2019.

    What are the various targets set on the nutrition problem?

    • Target on reducing the problems of underweight children: The National Nutrition Strategy, 2017, aims to reduce the prevalence of underweight children (0-3 years) by three percentage points every year by 2022 from NFHS 2015-16 estimates.
      • Why this is an ambitious target? This is an ambitious target given the decadal decline in underweight children from 42.5 per cent in 2005-06 to 35.8 per cent in 2015-16 amounts to less than 1 per cent decline per year.
    • Targets set in National Nutrition Mission: Similar targets have been set by the National Nutrition Mission (renamed as POSHAN Abhiyaan), 2017.
      • To reduce stunting by 2 per cent.
      • Under-nutrition by 2 per cent.
      • Anaemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) by 3 per cent.
      • Low birth weight by 2 per cent.

    Four areas India needs to focus to achieve the set targets

    • India has to focus on four key areas:  If India has to make a significant dent on malnutrition by 2030.
    • First- Mother’s education.
      • Multiplier effect: It is one of the most important factors that have a positive multiplier effect on child care and access to healthcare facilities.
      • Increases awareness: It also increases awareness about the nutrient-rich diet, personal hygiene, etc. This can also help contain the family size in poor, malnourished families.
      • Thus, a high priority to female literacy, in a mission mode through liberal scholarships for the girl child, would go a long way towards tackling this problem.
    • Second- Access to improved sanitation and safe drinking water.
      • The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Jal Jeevan Mission would have positive outcomes in the coming years.
    • Third-shift in dietary pattern
      • Shift from cereals to more nutritious food: There is a need to shift dietary patterns from cereal dominance to the consumption of nutritious foods such as livestock products, fruits and vegetables, pulses, etc.
      • But they are generally costly and their consumption increases only by higher incomes and better education.
      • Diverting the food subsidy to nutritious foods: Diverting a part of the food subsidy on wheat and rice to more nutritious foods can help.
    • Fourth- Adoption of new agricultural technology
      • Adopt bio-fortifying cereals: India must adopt new agricultural technologies of bio-fortifying cereals, such as zinc-rich rice, wheat, iron-rich pearl millet, and so on.
      • The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has to work closely with the Harvest Plus programme of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to make it a win-win situation for curtailing malnutrition in Indian children at a much faster pace — and, at a much lower cost than would be achieved under a business as usual scenario.

    Examples from the world

    • Right public policies make the difference: Global experience shows that with the right public policies focusing on agriculture, improved sanitation, and women’s education, one can have much better health and well-being for its citizens, especially children.
    • China’s example: In China, it was agriculture and economic growth that significantly reduced the rates of stunting and wasting among the population and lifted millions of people out of hunger, poverty and malnutrition.
    • Brazil and Ethiopia example: According to FAO, Brazil and Ethiopia have transformed their food systems: They have targeted their investments in agricultural R&D and social protection programmes to reduce hunger in the country.

    Conclusion

    Despite India’s improvement in child nutrition rates since 2005-06, it is way behind the progress experienced by China and many other countries. According to the Global Nutrition Report, 2016, at the present rates of decline, India will achieve the current stunting rates of China by 2055. India can certainly do better, but only if it focuses on this issue.

  • State lethargy amidst cough syrup poisoning

    Context

    A few days ago, 12 children died in Udhampur district of Jammu due to poisoned cough syrup (Coldbest-PC).

    Fourth mass glycol poisoning

    • What was the cause of the poisoning? A team of doctors at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, attributed the deaths to the presence of diethylene glycol in the cough syrup.
    • What is Diethylene glycol? It is an anti-freezing agent that causes acute renal failure in the human body followed by paralysis, breathing difficulties and ultimately death.
    • This is the fourth mass glycol poisoning event in India that has been caused due to a pharmaceutical drug.

    Measures required and example from the US

    • Preventing further deaths: The immediate concern for doctors, pharmacists and the drug regulators should be to prevent any more deaths.
      • The only way to do so is to account for each and every bottle of the poisoned syrup that has ever been sold in the Indian market and stop patients from consuming this drug any further.
    • The US example in such case: United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), in 1937, when the United States faced a similar situation with glycol poisoning.
      • Tracking down every bottle: Entire field force of inspectors and chemists were assigned to the task of tracking down every single bottle of the drug.
      • Even if a patient claimed to have thrown out the bottle, the investigators scoured the street until they found the discarded bottle.
      • This effort was accompanied by a publicity blitz over radio and television.
    • What is being done in India? We do not see such public health measures being undertaken here.
      • Seriousness not communicated to the pubic: Authorities are simply not communicating the seriousness of the issue to the general public.
      • A general statement: At most, the authorities in Himachal Pradesh (H.P.), who are responsible for oversight of the manufacturer of this syrup, have made general statements that they have ordered the withdrawal of the drug from all the other States where it was marketed.
      • Lack of transparency: There is no transparency in the recall process and information about recalls and batch numbers is not being communicated through authoritative channels.
      • No public announcement by the DCGI: There is no public announcement by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), which is responsible for overall regulation of the entire Indian market.
      • The suspect product, although manufactured in H.P., has been sold across the country.
      • The website of the DCGI, which is supposed to communicate drug alerts and product recalls, has no mention of Coldbest-PC as being dangerous as of this writing.

    Need for the recall policy

    • No rules or binding guidelines on recall: One of the key reasons why the DCGI and state drug authorities have been so sloppy is because unlike other countries, India has not notified any binding guidelines or rules on recalling dangerous drugs from the market.
    • Warnings to the DGCI on lack of framework: The 59th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health as well as the World Health Organization (in its national regulatory assessment) had warned the DCGI on the lack of a national recall framework in India.
      • A set of recall guidelines was drafted in 2012 but never notified into law.

    Conclusion

    The drug regulator needs to take the urgent steps to avoid the repeat of such tragedies in the future and formulate a policy on the drug recall at the earliest.

  • One country, two viruses

    Context

    China’s handling of coronavirus, in contrast to SARS, has been effective, should be a template for others.

    Why lockdown of Wuhan is a big deal?

    • A move without precedent: China’s lockdown of roughly 60 million people in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province for more than a month now is without precedent in the history of public health.
    • Best way to stop the virus from spreading: The best way to stop a virus from spreading from person to person, is to give it no place to spread to.
      • This is achieved by isolating those who are infected and quarantining those who might be infected.
    • Cordon sanitaire: In China, though, the control has moved beyond traditional quarantine to a cordon sanitaire-an exclusion zone people cannot travel into or get out of.
      • In most countries, this simply would not work for a period this long and a population that large.
    • Inconceivable move in other places: Wuhan is a city of 11 million people, slightly larger than Chennai or Bengaluru. It would be inconceivable to think of cutting off transportation in and out of these cities or asking people to stay at home for even a day, let alone a month.
      • No political control nor administrative mechanism: Like India, most countries in the world have neither the political control to impose their will on people this way nor the administrative mechanism to enforce this degree of control.

    Human cost and ethic of the lockdown

    • The human cost: The human cost of such a strategy is immense.
      • Feeling of being unable to escape: The fear induced by being unable to escape from a place where a new virus is circulating is immense.
      • The worries and stresses of everyday life multiply one hundred-fold when everything from shopping for food to occupying children stuck at home becomes a challenge.
      • The slightest cough, cold or fever can trigger panic.
    • Ethics involved in the move: The ethics of the cordon sanitaire in Wuhan, as well as the quarantining by Japanese authorities of the cruise ship Diamond Princess, will be debated for years after this particular outbreak is over.
    • Slowing the spread: But whatever its human and financial cost, China’s actions in the first month of the outbreak helped to slow the spread of the virus within the country as well as internationally.

    How China’s response this time is different from the SARS

    • On December 31, the Chinese government informed the WHO, and the world, of the existence of a form of pneumonia of unknown cause
      • It also told the people of Wuhan to wear masks if they had symptoms and seek medical attention.
    • Virus identification: For the world, the big breakthrough from China came on January 7, when researchers in Wuhan identified the virus as a new coronavirus.
    • Sharing of the genetic sequence of the virus: Two days later, China shared its genetic sequence with the world.
      • How genetic sequence helped? The sharing of the genetic sequence allowed labs all over the world to develop testing kits to detect the disease.
      • It also put countries on the alert for travellers with the disease, without which the new coronavirus would have spread much quicker and farther than it has so far.
    • China’s response to SARS: The Chinese response to SARS in 2003, in contrast to this, was a cover-up.
      • The disease circulated for nearly three months, enabled by government secrecy and censorship.
      • Spread of disease without warning: When travellers from China brought the disease first to Hong Kong and from there to other cities across the globe, there was no warning.
      • It was only after the disease spread in Hong Kong, that scientists and public health experts began to decipher this new virus.
      • Lessons learned: China, fortunately, learned the lessons for SARS and put together systems to identify and respond to this new disease quickly.

    What India can learn from China

    • Infrastructure with speed: Public health officials all over the world, including in India, should study the speed with which China put together an infrastructure to deal with this new disease.
      • Modern, well-equipped hospitals dedicated to coronavirus patients were constructed in weeks.
    • Centralised information and logistic system: Centralised information and logistics systems and systems to ensure coordination between multiple levels of government -from the central government to provincial and municipal governments, were put into place.
      • All the systems seem to have worked reasonably smoothly, given the chaotic and complex atmosphere of a disease outbreak.
    • Unique approach: The way China has tackled this disease has been an “all of government, all of the society approach”, in the words of Bruce Aylward, the leader of the WHO team that recently spent two weeks in the country.
      • It was, as he described it, “a very old-fashioned approach”, but one that had “prevented at least tens of thousands, but probably hundreds of thousands of cases.”

    Conclusion

    • In all probability, it is only a matter of time before India sees new cases. The Indian health system, as in China, is multi-layered. Some states like Kerala have strong public health infrastructure and a strong response capability. Many other states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar do not have strong public health systems. They will find it difficult to respond and will learn that diseases, like the revolution, can be brutal.

  • Youth can be a clear advantage for India

    Context

    The demographic dividend is close to five-decade-long demographic opportunities that can be leveraged only with suitable policies and programmes

     The youngest population in the world

    • Median age at 28 years: By 2022, the median age in India will be 28 years.
      • In comparison, it will be 37 in China and the United States.
      • 45 in western Europe, and 49 in Japan.
    • The demographic dividend
      • The working-age population more than non-working: India’s working-age population has numerically outstripped its non-working age population.
      • An extraordinary opportunity: A demographic dividend, said to have commenced around 2004-05, is available for close to five decades.

    The two caveats

    • The demographic dividend is an extraordinary opportunity. There are, however, two caveats.
    • First: Dividend available in different states at different times.
      • India’s population heterogeneity ensures that the window of demographic dividend becomes available at different times in different States.
      • Example of Kerala vs. Bihar: While Kerala’s population is already ageing, in Bihar the working-age cohort is predicted to continue increasing till 2051.
      • Decline in 11 major states by 2031: By 2031, the overall size of our vast working-age population would have declined in 11 of the 22 major States.
    • Second: Many factors that matter for harnessing the dividend
      • Factors that matter: Harnessing the demographic dividend will depend upon the-
      • Employability of the working-age population.
      • Health.
      • Education.
      • Vocational training and skill.
      • Besides appropriate land and labour policies, as well as good governance.
      • Demography is not destiny: India will gain from its demographic opportunity only if policies and programmes are aligned to this demographic shift. Demography is not destiny.

    Need for skills

    • Need for the additional jobs: The Economic Survey 2019 calls for additional jobs to keep pace with the projected annual increases in the working-age population.
    • Lack of education and skills: UNICEF 2019 reports that at least 47% of Indian youth are not on track to have the education and skills necessary for employment in 2030.
      • Possibility of demographic disaster: The projected demographic dividend would turn into a demographic disaster if an unskilled, under-utilised, and frustrated young population undermines social harmony and economic growth.
    • Poor learning outcomes: While over 95% of India’s children attend primary school, the National Family Health Surveys (completed up to 2015-16) confirm that poor infrastructure in government schools, malnutrition, and scarcity of trained teachers have ensured poor learning outcomes.

    What needs to be done?

    • Adopt a uniform school system: A coordinated incentive structure prompting States to adopt a broadly uniform public school system focusing on equity and quality will yield a knowledge society faster than privatising school education can accomplish.
    • Ensure training in line with the market demand: Most districts now have excellent broadband connectivity-
      • Let geography not trump demography: Irrespective of a rural or urban setting, the public school system must ensure that every child completes high school education, and is pushed into appropriate skilling, training and vocational education in line with market demand.
    • Invest and modernise: Modernise school curricula, systematically invest in teacher training so that they grow in their jobs to assume leadership roles while moving beyond the tyranny of the syllabus.
    • Use of technology: Deploy new technology to accelerate the pace of building human capital by putting in place virtual classrooms together with massive open online courses (MOOCS) to help prepare this huge workforce for next-generation jobs.
      • Investing in open digital universities would further help yield a higher educated workforce.

    Focus on women

    • Translating literacy into skill: Growing female literacy is not translating into relevant and marketable skills.
      • A comprehensive approach is needed to improve their prospects vis-à-vis gainful employment.
      • Need of the flexible policies: Flexible entry and exit policies for women into virtual classrooms, and into modules for open digital training, and vocational education would help them access contemporary vocations.
    • The need for equal pay: Equal pay for women will make it worth their while to stay longer in the workforce.
    • The deferred bonus: Economist Yogendra Alagh has written that the significance of this “deferred bonus” (women entering the workforce), could be higher than the immediate benefits of the dividend from shifts in population age structure.

    Health care

    • In India, population health is caught between the rising demand for health services and competition for scarce resources.
    • Impact of economy on rural health: The National Sample Survey Office data on health (75th round, 2018), shows that a deep-rooted downturn in the rural economy is making quality health-care unaffordable.
      • People are availing of private hospitals less than they used to, and are moving towards public health systems.
      • Diverting public investment from However, central budget 2020-21 lays emphasis on private provisioning of health care which will necessarily divert public investment away from public health infrastructure.
    • The Ayushman Bharat Yojana: It links demand to tertiary in-patient care.
      • This promotes earnings of under-utilised private hospitals, instead of modernising and up-grading public health systems in each district.
    • We need to assign 70% of health sector budgets to integrate and strengthen primary and integrated public health-care services and systems up to district hospital levels.
      • Include out-patient department and diagnostic services in every health insurance model adopted, and-
      • Implement in ‘mission mode’ the Report of the High-Level Group, 2019, submitted to the XV Finance Commission.
    • The elderly population in India is projected to double from 8.6% in 2011 to 16% in 2040.
      • This will sharply reduce the per capita availability of hospital beds in India across all major States unless investments in health systems address these infirmities.

    Conclusion

    The policies that we adopt and their effective implementation will ensure that our demographic dividend, a time-limited opportunity, becomes a boon for India.

     

     

     

  • Delhi’s ‘Happiness Class’

    On the upcoming visit to India, US President Trump will visit a Delhi government school, where they will attend a happiness curriculum class.

    What is Delhi’s ‘happiness curriculum’?

    • The curriculum calls for schools in India to promote development in cognition, language, literacy, numeracy and the arts along with addressing the well-being and happiness of students.
    • It further says that future citizens need to be “mindful, aware, awakened, empathetic, firmly rooted in their identity…” based on the premise that education has a larger purpose, which cannot be in isolation from the “dire needs” of today’s society.
    • For the evaluation, no examinations are conducted, neither will marks be awarded.
    • The assessment under this curriculum is qualitative, focusing on the “process rather than the outcome” and noting that each student’s journey is unique and different.

    Objectives of the curriculum

    The objectives of this curriculum include:

    • developing self-awareness and mindfulness,
    • inculcating skills of critical thinking and inquiry,
    • enabling learners to communicate effectively and
    • helping learners to apply life skills to deal with stressful and conflicting situations around them

    Learning outcomes of this curriculum

    The learning outcomes of this curriculum are spread across four categories:

    • becoming mindful and attentive (developing increased levels of self-awareness, developing active listening, remaining in the present);
    • developing critical thinking and reflection (developing strong abilities to reflect on one’s own thoughts and behaviours, thinking beyond stereotypes and assumptions);
    • developing social-emotional skills (demonstrating empathy, coping with anxiety and stress, developing better communication skills) and
    • developing a confident and pleasant personality (developing a balanced outlook on daily life reflecting self-confidence, becoming responsible and reflecting awareness towards cleanliness, health and hygiene).

    How is the curriculum implemented?

    • The curriculum is designed for students of classes nursery through the eighth standard.
    • Group 1 consists of students in nursery and KG, who have bi-weekly classes (45 minutes each for one session, which is supervised by a teacher) involving mindfulness activities and exercise.
    • Children between classes 1-2 attend classes on weekdays, which involves mindfulness activities and exercises along with taking up reflective questions.
    • The second group comprises students from classes 3-5 and the third group is comprised of students from classes 6-8 who apart from the aforementioned activities, take part in self-expression and reflect on their behavioural changes.

  • Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI) 2019

     

     

    India has jumped five ranks in the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI) 2019.

    About WEFFI

    • The report is published by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The report and index were commissioned by the Yidan Prize Foundation.
    • The index ranks countries based on their abilities to equip students with skill-based education.
    • The report analyses the education system from the perspective of skill-based education “in areas such as critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, collaboration, creativity and entrepreneurship, as well as digital and technical skills.”

    Global scenario

    • Among the world’s largest economies, the US, UK, France and Russia all fell back in the index, while China, India and Indonesia took steps forward.
    • Finland was at the apex of the index, with strengths across each category followed by Sweden.

    India’s performance

    • India ranked 35th on the overall index in 2019 with a total score of 53, based on three categories – policy environment, teaching environment and overall socio-economic environment.
    • India scored 56.3 in policy environment falling from a 61.5 score in 2018.
    • India’s score of 52.2 in the teaching environment category and 50.1 in the socio-economic environment category increased significantly from 32.2 and 33.3 in 2018 respectively.
    • Earlier, India ranked 40th with an overall score of 41.2 across categories in 2018.

    What made India progress?

    • The report attributed India’s growth to the new education policy introduced by the government.
    • India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the Union Budget 2020, had highlighted a
    • The New Education Policy announced in this year budget under ‘Aspirational India’ will focus on “greater inflow of finance to attract talented teachers, innovate and build better labs.
    • The policy will focus further on skill-based education.

    Various shortcomings highlighted

    • The 2018 WEFFI report had highlighted the shortcomings in India’s education system emphasizing upon its inability to utilise the opportunity of internationalizing its higher education system.
    • A decentralized education system is another shortcoming of India’s education policy according to the 2019 report.
    • Well-intentioned policy goals relating to future skills development often do not get filtered downward, a hazard in economies such as the US and India that have large, decentralized education systems, the report said.