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.
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.
The NMMSS has helped to reduce the drop-out rate at the secondary and senior secondary classes, informed Union HRD Minister.
National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme
The Centrally Sponsored Scheme NMMSS was launched in May, 2008.
The objective of the scheme is to award scholarships to meritorious students of economically weaker sections to arrest their drop out at class VIII and encourage them to continue the study at secondary stage.
Under the Scheme one lakh fresh scholarships @ of Rs.12000/- per annum per student are awarded to selected students of class IX every year and their continuation/renewal in classes X to XII for study in a State Government, Government-aided and Local body schools.
The selection of students for award of scholarships under the scheme is made through an examination conducted by the States/UTs Governments.
Progress of the scheme
As on date approx 16.93 lakh scholarships have been sanctioned to the Students across the country.
Heads of all the institutions disclosed that the NMMS Scheme has reduced the drop-out rate at the secondary and senior secondary classes, particularly from Classes VIII to XII.
What is the news: The Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) was recently published.
Performance Analysis
India has climbed eight places to 72nd rank in the GTCI which was topped by Switzerland, the US and Singapore.
Sweden (4th), Denmark (5th), the Netherlands (6th), Finland (7th), Luxembourg (8th), Norway (9th) and Australia (10th) complete the top 10 league table.
In the BRICS grouping, China was ranked 42nd, Russia (48th), South Africa (70th) and Brazil at 80th position.
This year’s GTCI report explores how the development of AI is not only changing the nature of work but also forcing a re-evaluation of workplace practices, corporate structures and innovation ecosystems.
About the GTCI report
It was started in 2013 and is an annual benchmarking report that measures the ability of countries to compete for talent, their ability to grow, attract and retain talent.
Theme for 2020 was ‘Global Talent in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’. It explores how the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only changing the nature of work but also forcing a re-evaluation of workplace practices, corporate structures and innovation ecosystems.
Inequality: The report noted that the gap between high income, talent-rich nations and the rest of the world is widening. More than half of the population in the developing world lack basic digital skills.
About GTCI Report: It is launched by INSEAD, a partner and sponsor of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Davos, Switzerland recently.
INSEAD is one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools with locations all over the world and alliances with top institutions.
The report, which measures countries based on six pillars:
The draft NEP (National Education Policy) document points out that close to five crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and numeracy skills.
Severe learning crisis: The document cites several possible reasons for this crisis.
First reason: Many children enter school before age six.
Lack of options: This is partly due to the lack of affordable and accessible options for pre-schooling.
Therefore, too many children go to Std. I with limited exposure to early childhood education.
Consequences for the poor: Children from poor families have a double disadvantage -lack of healthcare and nutrition and the absence of a supportive learning environment on the other.
Second reason: Lack of developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
The misplaced focus of ICDS: School readiness or early childhood development and education activities have not had a high priority in the ICDS system.
Acting as an extension of pre-school education: Private preschools that have increased access to preschool but are often designed to be a downward extension of schooling.
Thus, they bring in school-like features into the pre-school classroom, rather than developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
Three clear trends in ASER-2019 data
First trend: Scope for expansion of Anganwadi network.
Expansion network: There is considerable scope for expanding Anganwadi outreach for three and four-year-old children.
All-India data from 2018 shows that slightly less than 30 per cent children at age three and 15.6 per cent of children at age four are not enrolled anywhere.
Second trend: Under 6 students in class I.
ASER 2018 data show that 27.6 per cent of all children in Std I are under six.
It is commonly assumed that children enter Standard I at age six and that they proceed year by year from Std I to Std VIII.
The Right to Education Act also refers to free and compulsory education for the age group six to 14.
However, the practice on the ground is quite different.
Third trend: There are important age implications for children’s learning.
Association with learning output: ASER-2019 indicate the higher learning output associated with age in the same class.
In Std. I, the ability to do cognitive activities among seven-eight-year olds can be 20 percentage points higher than their friends who are five years old but in the same class.
In terms of reading levels in Std. I, 37.1 per cent children who are under six can recognise letters whereas 76 per cent of those who are seven or eight can do the same.
Age distribution in Std. I vary considerably between government and private schools.
Private schools in many states have a relatively older age distribution.
Way forward
Understanding the children: Understanding the challenges that children face when they are young is critical if we want to solve these problems early in children’s life.
Providing for developmentally appropriate skill: Instead of focusing on the pre-school years as the downward extension of school years there is a need for providing developmentally appropriate skill in these years.
Pedagogy: On the pedagogy side reworking of curriculum and activity is urgently needed for entire age band of four to eight.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2019 (rural) was recently released by NGO Pratham.
Highlights of the report
Only 16% of children in Class 1 in 26 surveyed rural districts can read text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognise letters.
Only 41% of these children could recognise two digit numbers.
Private schools ahead
Of six-year olds in Class 1, 41.5% of those in private schools could read words in comparison to only 19% from government schools.
Similarly, 28% of those in government schools could do simple addition as against 47% in private schools.
This gap is further exacerbated by a gender divide: only 39% of girls aged 6-8 are enrolled in private schools in comparison to almost 48% of boys.
The report also found that a classroom could include students from a range of age-groups, skewing towards younger children in government schools.
Determinants of learning outcomes
The ASER report shows that a large number of factors determine the quality of education received at this stage, including the child’s home background, especially the mother’s education level; the type of school, whether anganwadis, government schools or private pre-schools; and the child’s age in Class 1.
More than a quarter of Class 1 students in government schools are only 4 or 5 years old, younger than the recommended age.
The ASER data shows that these younger children struggle more than others in all skills.
Permitting underage children into primary grades puts them at a learning disadvantage which is difficult to overcome,” said the report.
Role of Mothers
Among the key findings of ASER 2019 is that the mother’s education often determines the kind of pre-schooling or schooling that the child gets.
The report says that among children in the early years (ages 0-8), those with mothers who had completed eight or fewer years of schooling are more likely to be attending anganwadis or government pre-primary classes.
With 75% women in the productive age group not in the workforce, they can be better engaged in their children’s development, learning and school readiness.
Key suggestions made by the report
ASER found that the solution is not to spend longer hours teaching children the 3Rs.
Counter-intuitively, the report argues that a focus on cognitive skills rather than subject learning in the early years can make a big difference to basic literacy and numeracy abilities.
The survey shows that among Class 1 children who could correctly do none or only one of the tasks requiring cognitive skills, about 14% could read words, while 19% could do single digit addition.
However, of those children who could correctly do all three cognitive tasks, 52% could read words, and 63% could solve the addition problem.
Focus on productive learning
ASER data shows that children’s performance on tasks requiring cognitive skills is strongly related to their ability to do early language and numeracy tasks,” says the report.
This suggests that focussing on play-based activities that build memory; reasoning and problem-solving abilities are more productive than an early focus on content knowledge.
Global research shows that 90% of brain growth occurs by age 5, meaning that the quality of early childhood education has a crucial impact on the development and long-term schooling of a child.
The Rajasthan government has started using satellite communication technology in a big way to enhance the learning outcome in educational institutions and generate awareness about social welfare schemes while giving priority to the five aspirational districts selected by NITI Aayog in the State.
SATCOM
Rajasthan has taken an initiative to provide the facility of receive only terminals (ROT) and satellite interactive terminals (SIT) for getting the services of subject experts in the government schools and colleges and propagate various schemes in the remote areas with no Internet connectivity.
What are ROT and SIT?
Satellite Interactive Terminal (SIT) is one of the six selected user networks used by CEC-UGC.
It is operating independently with their user terminals anywhere in the main land of India.
It has one main teaching end along with remote SITs and ROTs.
At present, there are over hundred SITs and ROTs under CEC EDUSAT network, installed at various colleges, and Universities across the country.
Back2Basics
EDUSAT
EDUSAT is the first Indian Satellite built exclusively for serving the educational sector. It was launched in September 2004 by the ISRO.
The satellite based distance education system enables virtual classrooms at rural and remote locations across the country.
Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC) has started two-way audio-video communication through EDUSAT network from 5th September 2005.
ISRO set up a nationwide multi-user educational network in its EDUSAT national Ku – band.
The promise of criminal law as an instrument of safety is matched only by its power to destroy. It is arguably the most direct expression of the relationship between a state and its citizens.
Amid the debate on the archaic sedition law that should have no place in democratic India, President Pranab Mukherjee said that the IPC, 1860 requires a thorough revision to meet the needs of the 21st century. Click here to know everything about sedition law
History:
The code was drafted in 1860 on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in 1834 under the Government of India Act 1833 under the Chairmanship of Thomas Babington MacaulayAnswer in comments.>
It came into force in British India(but not princely states) during the early British Raj period in 1862
After the partition of the British Indian Empire, the Indian Penal Code was inherited by its successor states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, where it continues independently as the Pakistan Penal Code and later in B’desh also
Jammu and Kashmir does not follow IPC but has enacted a separate code known as Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) which is based on IPC
Some notable points:
The IPC replaced Mohammedan Criminal Law, which had a very close relationship with Islam. Thus, the IPC laid the foundation of secularism
It was widely appreciated as a state-of-the-art code and was, indeed, the first codification of criminal law in the British Empire
Today, it is the longest serving criminal code in the common-law world
Today, most of the commonwealth follows the IPC
Law Commission on IPC:
42nd Report (1971)– Law Commission of India for the first time had recommended the repeal of Section 309 (criminalization of suicide)
172nd Report (2000)– Recommended deletion of Section 377 (criminalization of unnatural sexual offences)
210th Report (2008)– Recommended Humanization and Decriminalization of Attempt to Suicide under Section 309
Past attempts at amendment:
Even though the IPC has been haphazardly amended more than 75 times, no comprehensive revision has been undertaken in spite of the 42nd report of the Law Commission in 1971 recommending it
Also the amendment bills of 1971 and 1978 lapsed due to the dissolution of the Lok Sabha
As a result, largely the courts have had to undertake this task, with unsatisfactory outcomes at times
Most amendments have been ad hoc and reactive, in response to immediate circumstances like the 2013 amendment after the Delhi gangrape case
Why amend IPC?
The philosophical stance and fundamental principles of Macaulay’s code were the product of imperialist policy <designed to meet colonial needs to subjugation and exploitation of India and Indians, sedition law for instance>
Some of the concepts underlying the code are either problematic or have become obsolete
there are many new offences, which have to be properly defined and incorporated in the code
Macaulay had himself favoured regular revision of the code whenever gaps or ambiguities were found or experienced
In 1860, the IPC was certainly ahead of the times but has been unable to keep pace since then
Specific cases or problems:
Sedition law, inserted in 1898: It is legitimate to ask whether we need a law on sedition that we ourselves condemned during the Raj. Learn more about sedition law here
Section 295A, The offence of blasphemy: It should have no place in a liberal democracy
Criminal conspiracy: It can be invoked merely when two people agree to commit an offence without any overt act following the agreement. It was added in 1913 by the colonial masters to deal with political conspiracies. Kehar Singh etc were convicted and sentenced to death under the offence of conspiracy ,, though none of them participated in the actual crime or were present at the scene of the crime.
Section 149, Unlawful assembly: The principle of constructive liability under this law is pushed to unduly harsh lengths. Mere membership of the assembly without any participation in the actual crime is sufficient for punishment. Several persons have been sentenced to death and hanged though they were not even present near the scene of the actual crime.
The distinction between “culpable homicide” and “murder” is criticised as the “weakest part of the code”, as the definitions are obscure
Sexual offences under the code reveal patriarchal values and Victorian morality.
Section 377: Unnatural sexual offences (LGBT right). Want to know about argument of Delhi high court in decriminalizing homosexuality, click here to read about Naz Foundation case
Source-dailymail
But why supreme court, parliament itself should repeal the law
Contrarian view point of Justice Hegde
We should not repeal something just because it’s 150 years old.
On Sedition: He favours the sedition law as some restrictions are needed to stop people from abusing and talking against the country. “I believe in sedition law. I am a patriot. Any patriot cannot go on abusing the country. There are certain parameters.” He points to distinction b/w criticizing the person (prime minister), policies, system v/s abusing the state
On IPC: We can not just scrap Indian Penal Code because somebody is involved in a crime (and wants it to be scrapped)
We can not just ape west. Ground realities in India and west are very different and they demand different levels of freedom of expression and religious freedom.
