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Is there really an acute shortage of teachers in Indian schools?

May 20, 2022 by economictimes.indiatimes.com Leave a Comment

Synopsis

The education ministry gives a figure of 1.035 million teacher vacancies without explaining how it got that number. Going by the 2019-20 District Information System of Education (DISE) data, the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) in public elementary schools across India was only 25.1.

Sandip Datta

Sandip Datta

Assistant professor, Delhi School of Economics

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon

Professor, education and international development, University College London (UCL), UK

Now that children are being vaccinated and schools are learning to live with Covid , the pressure for hiring more teachers in public schools will grow. This is likely in view of strong teacher unions and the recommendation by the New Education Policy (NEP) to appoint 1 million new teachers at the whopping cost of ₹64,000 crore a year. Before the state governments, blessed by the central education ministry , proceed for such a hiring spree and bust already fragile state budgets, it is prudent to ask whether the NEP has rightly assessed the shortage.

The education ministry gives a figure of 1.035 million teacher vacancies without explaining how it got that number. Going by the 2019-20 District Information System of Education (DISE) data, the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) in public elementary schools across India was only 25.1. Given that the Right to Education (RTE) Act mandates a maximum PTR of 30, nationally, there is no teacher shortage in the sense that if students and teachers could be properly rearranged or deployed, the mandated average could be achieved without hiring any new teachers.

Applying the RTE norms – e.g., at the primary level, two teachers for all schools with ’60 or fewer’ pupils, and one additional teacher for every additional 30 students or a fraction of that – even to existing students and teacher allocations to schools, some schools suffer from teacher shortages, some have just the right number and some have surplus teachers.

When we relocate the surplus teachers from the last category of schools to those suffering from shortage, the net shortage is only 2.5 lakh rather than 10 lakh. In other words, three-fourths of the shortage identified by NEP is not a shortage at all.

Indeed, even the 2.5 lakh shortage figure turns out to be an overstatement once we correct for the padding up of student enrolments in the official data. As per reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Midday Meal Authority (MMA), public schools seriously overstate enrolments to get more state benefits (sweaters, bags and food grain for midday meals). As our April 2021 research (bit.ly/3woltZT) using school-wise data on students and teachers shows, a correction for this overstatement converts the net shortage of 2.5 lakh teachers into a surplus of nearly 1 lakh teachers.

(Only) Three Bags Full…
Over the years, a staggering number of parents have moved their children into low-fee private schools. Between 2010 and 2019, 2.7 crore pupils left public schools for private ones. This mass migration has created an extremely large number of ‘mini’ schools with very low PTR. By 2019, 48% of India’s about 10 lakh public elementary schools were left with only ’60 or fewer’ pupils each. The average number of pupils in these approximately 5 lakh schools was only 31, and they had only 13.3 pupils per teacher.

The RTE Act requires that even tiny schools with ’20 or fewer’ pupils employ two teachers. It also prescribes no minimum size for schools, thus maintaining tiny unviable schools that provide scant socialisation opportunity to children.

Our research shows that maintaining a surplus of teachers and a PTR of 25.1, rather than the permitted maximum of 30, already costs the Indian exchequer nearly ₹29,000 crore a year in excess teacher salaries alone. If new teachers are recruited to fill the claimed 1 million teacher vacancies as per NEP recommendation, the nationwide PTR would fall further to 19.9, and would incur an additional cost of nearly ₹64,000 crore each year (in 2019 nominal terms) in teacher salaries for the following 30 years or more, since policy in India does not allow teachers to be laid off once hired.

Adding this extra cost of fresh recruitment to the existing cost of currently surplus teachers, the total extra cost of the lower PTR of 19.9 turns out to be a gargantuan ₹93,000 crore a year in 2019-20 prices. As many as 70 countries enjoy a lower GDP than this figure.

Just as there is need for the consolidation of tiny agricultural holdings in India (48% of the holdings are smaller than half a hectare with the average size at just 0.23 hectare), there is a need to consolidate tiny public schools. Due to the emptying of public elementary schools, by 2019-20, there were 1.3 lakh ‘tiny’ public schools with only ’20 or fewer’ pupils. These schools had, on average, 12.7 pupils and two teachers per school, and a very low PTR of 6.7. Teacher salary expense per pupil in these schools averages ₹7,312 a month, or ₹87,852 a year, at 2019-20 prices.

Writing on the Blackboard
This nationwide problem requires GoI’s intervention to incentivise the states to undertake necessary school consolidation (merging nearby public schools). For instance, no central resources should be provided for hiring new teachers in at least the 13 major states in which there is a net surplus of teachers, till they consolidate pupils into larger schools and transfer surplus teachers to nearby public schools that may have a teacher deficit.

Instead of appointing yet more teachers in emptying mini-fied schools, let us have fewer higher-quality schools that are pedagogically and economically viable, with direct benefit transfer (DBT) funding for transport to ensure that access is not jeopardised in the pursuit of quality.

( Originally published on May 19, 2022 )
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com .)
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Filed Under: Opinion nep, new education policy, comptroller and auditor general, central education ministry, rte act, covid, comptroller and auditor..., indian school of business, Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, motel 6 27th ave and indian school, indian school road, indian school, Indian School Certificate Examination, Red Cloud Indian School, Indian School Certificate Examinations, Indian School Certificate, Teacher Training School

Cyber clubs formed in villages in central region to thwart online offences

May 17, 2022 by www.thehindu.com Leave a Comment

Amid growing instances of cyber crimes, police in the central zone have gone an awareness drive by creating cyber clubs at the village-level to drive home the modus operandi of offenders using the online mode to target and cheat gullible people and the ways to thwart such crimes by remaining vigilant.

Around 7,000 cyber clubs have so far been constituted at mother villages all over the central zone consisting of Tiruchi, Pudukottai, Karur, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai districts.

Each cyber club, which functions on virtual platform, comprises about five to 10 members that includes computer literate youth and a jurisdictional policeman. The clubs are connected with the cyber crime unit of the respective district police. Telegram groups have been created at the village level to share awareness videos on cyber crimes and the frequent alerts received from the Cyber Crime Wing of the Tamil Nadu Police. The cyber clubs at the village-level have been constituted over a period of time with periodical interactions being done with the members by a senior police officer in the rank of an Additional Superintendent of Police in the districts, said Inspector General of Police, Central Zone, V. Balakrishnan.

The need for cyber clubs was felt in the wake of several types of cyber crimes getting reported with the offenders operating from distant locations using the online platform to target gullible people to siphon off their money and sensitise people to the modus operandi adopted by the criminals, Mr. Balakrishnan said. Many instances of pensioners getting tricked by the cyber criminals to siphon off their money from their account had been reported.

Police sources say cyber criminals resort to different methods to cheat people that includes One Time Password (OTP) fraud wherein the offenders try to obtain the OTP from the victim impersonating as a bank staff for authenticating a transaction on behalf of the victim and take away the money from their account. Other dubious methods include Phishing, Vishing and online job racketeering have also been the modus operandi of cyber criminals, the sources said.

In addition to forming cyber clubs at the village-level, law enforcers have also created such clubs in several schools and colleges in the central zone to create awareness in the young minds. The clubs have been formed with the objective that prevention of such crimes was the best option by sensitising the people, Mr. Balakrishnan said.

The sources said in one such instance of online job offer fraud reported in Tiruchi district, the complainant was lured by the accused who gave a false promise of offering a job in a fraudulent company. The complainant had paid money to the tune of ₹29.54 lakh in various instalments via G-Pay and bank only to get cheated by the accused.

However, the police were able to crack the case by tracing the origin of the IP address and fixing the accused who hailed from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The accused was found to be involved in many such online frauds. A police team went to Andhra Pradesh and arrested him.

In another instance reported in Perambalur district pertaining to SMS fraud, a 44-year-old woman of Veppanthattai received an SMS in her mobile phone luring her of an offer of ₹5 lakh loan with 1 % interest rate and was cheated. The accused in this case was traced to Delhi and arrested through verification of call detail records and tower location, the sources further said.

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A Universe in South Central

May 19, 2022 by www.vulture.com Leave a Comment

An installation view of the Lauren Halsey exhibit at David Kordansky Gallery in New York. Photo: Andy Romer, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

Stepping into Lauren Halsey’s New York solo debut is like entering a bedazzled ark. David Kordansky’s Chelsea gallery is packed with boxy installations on the floor and collaged panels that look like giant mood boards. There are abstract barges chockablock with stuff: images clipped from magazines, books, and the internet and objects that have been gathered from Halsey’s hometown neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. It’s a democratizing art spoken in a vernacular tongue of love and obsession, a spaceship filled with relics from the past that is hurtling toward a joyous future.

Now 35 years old, Halsey originally harbored dreams of being a professional basketball player. When she wasn’t recruited, she studied architecture instead, then earned art degrees from CalArts and Yale. She was a standout resident of the Studio Museum in Harlem from 2014 to 2015 before returning to the South Central neighborhood that has served as both her medium and muse. In 2018, she created The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project, featuring a walk-in cube made of plywood and gypsum, inscribed on the inside and out with storefront logos, graffiti tags, and portraits of residents as if to suggest South Central is as worthy of reverence as the civilization of ancient Egypt.

Supply-chain issues postponed eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I), a rooftop commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was to channel the museum’s “unparalleled Egyptian Art collections through the lens of Afrofuturism,” according to Met director Max Hollein. It’s scheduled to touch down there next spring. The systole of the pandemic presented other opportunities, however. She started an organization, Summaeverythang , that distributes organic produce to residents of Watts and South Central, where fresh food can have a tough time reaching. Halsey told the Los Angeles Times she is “super-committed to the idea of having a community center in my neighborhood that would support all sorts of intelligence for free at a very high level.”

Community is literally at the center of Halsey’s new show. The installation My Hope is an oasis-metropolis of signs for local businesses (including “Waz Up! Sportswear” and “Vanessa’s Positive Energy”), shops, and other institutions (Summaeverythang makes an appearance), black-and-white and color cutout photos, a Black Nefertiti, plastic palm trees, a gold pyramid, Day-Glo muscle cars driving along a boulevard, and so much more. Halsey reverses polarities, bringing the street into the gallery.

Halsey’s art can sometimes seem like a collage exploded into piecemeal assemblages. Her sculptural forms teem with imagery from Black culture, while her acrylic and wood constructions are covered in slogans. A white carbuncle shape, a malformed heart with various chambers, cantilevers from the wall — officially untitled, though Halsey calls it a “funkmound.” It’s like a dancing planet with Black Kewpies, paper flowers, a yellow toy school bus, and an actual mini-waterfall falling behind a picture of a Black model basking in this grotto of imagined life. There are two huge collaged wall-pieces jam-packed with faces and hand-painted signs, including one that says “Florence,” a reference to the intersection where the Rodney King protests broke out in April 1992. Elsewhere, there are assemblages sporting durag packages, figurines, signs for Black churches, barbershops, beauty salons, and rainbow-colored synthetic hair. The show is like a magnificent flyover of a landscape teeming with life and activity. Here, I see the aesthetic faith of an artist who won’t be stopped from trying anything in her grand vision.

Halsey’s three-dimensional rhapsodizing is reminiscent of what David Hammons has called “Negritude architecture”: “Nothing fits, but everything works,” he says. “It doesn’t have that neatness to it, the way white people put things together.” Halsey’s art imposes the power of its own form on you; you feel the presence of an artistic light apart. There is also a sense that Halsey, along with an increasing number of Black artists, is rejecting the circumscribed ways much Black art is codified today. Endless didactic museum labels, reviews, and essays reduce this art to being about suffering and pain and victimhood. Black art is, of course, about those subjects, too, but Halsey’s work, with its abundance and overflow and chika-chika visual beat, shows that it is about so much more and that our limiting discourse perpetuates stereotypes that curtail deeper conversations about the mysteries, perversities, and other uncontrollable qualities of art.

In Halsey, I glean an artist on the verge of letting her work erupt into sprawling, interconnected installations, giant Gesamtkunstwerks in the vein of Gaudi. I see an artist-genie summoning a modern Afrofuturist city, a great geography of the living and the dead, a place of pain and pleasure. This transcends old narratives of mourning and the accursed. Halsey is in the hope business. She talks about “not diluting or flattening subject and content.” She wants her art to be a “container for all these really beautiful moments,” “a portrait that comes from everyone from all angles,” “the complete experience of Blackness.” She gives us a universe already contained in South Central.

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Oakland City Council election: All five races called

November 13, 2020 by www.sfchronicle.com Leave a Comment

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Incumbents Rebecca Kaplan, Noel Gallo and Dan Kalb and challenger Carroll Fife claimed victory as all five Oakland City Council races were settled. Newcomer Treva Reid won her father’s seat for District Seven. Barbara Parker won re-election as city attorney.

Twenty people ran in the November election for the Oakland City Council, including four incumbents who faced off against progressives calling for more housing, solutions to homelessness and a defunding of the police department.

Both the City Council and City Attorney’s races use ranked-choice voting. If a candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, that candidate wins. If not, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and voters who selected that candidate have their votes counted for their next choice — a cycle that repeats until a candidate gets a majority.

At-large council seat

Rebecca Kaplan declared victory Monday afternoon after receiving a call from challenger Derreck Johnson conceding the race.

“This victory shows that Oakland is not for sale,” Kaplan told The Chronicle. “Billionaire bullies and their $500,000 in expenditures against me were no match for Oakland voters and the trust placed in me by the community. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the important issues facing our city.”

Kaplan received 52.55% of the vote and Johnson had 47.45% of the vote.

Johnson confirmed that he called Kaplan Monday morning to congratulate her.

“Great race, great experience,” Johnson told The Chronicle in a text message. “I’m still going to do the work. I’m not going anywhere.”

Kaplan was the first openly lesbian City Council member when she won in 2008, and has support from activists, clergy and labor groups. In June, Kaplan was the swing vote to pass the city budget with a more modest $14.3 million police cut, a move that angered her base.

Johnson is a gay Black man who is the former owner of Home of Chicken and Waffles, a restaurant in Jack London Square.

Johnson, who was supported by Mayor Libby Schaaf, came under fire during the campaign after the Oaklandside revealed he lost ownership of the restaurant in 2017 due to bankruptcy — but continued to present himself as the restaurant’s owner.

Nancy Sidebotham also ran for the at-large seat. Sidebotham has run six other times for city office, without success. Sidebotham has not conceded. She has 7.53% of the vote.

District One

Steph Dominguez Walton conceded effectively making incumbent Dan Kalb the winner of the race. Kalb had 54.31% of the votes on Monday showing an advantage over Walton and another challenger in the seat for parts of North Oakland.

Walton thanked her supporters and staff in a statement to The Chronicle. She had 30.79% of the vote.

“While we came up short, we succeeded in reaching thousands of people in the district whose voices have gone unheard,” Walton said. “A campaign is long and hard. My staff worked tirelessly on my behalf, which meant the world to me. I was humbled by the support of so many volunteers.”

She said that she hasn’t yet decided what her step steps will be, but is “determined to work as hard as I can to make Oakland a place where everyone can prosper.”

Kalb also thanked his supporters and his two challengers.

“I appreciate very much both the other candidates who ran and all the commitment that they have shown to Oakland and the residents of Oakland,” Kalb told The Chronicle. “I want to express my appreciation to the voters of District One. We have a lot of challenges and I’m already back at work, I never left work to tell you the truth. The next very next day after the election I was doing the work, no rest for the weary.

Kalb assumed office in 2013 and was elected to president pro tempore of the council by his colleagues in 2019. Kalb pushed this year to strengthen the Oakland Police Commission.

His challengers included Tri Ngo, an engineer born in a Vietnamese refugee camp, whose campaign focused on the building of affordable housing and defunding the police. Steph Dominguez Walton also ran for District One. A longtime organizer, Dominguez Walton is an activist, volunteer, businesswoman and TV and radio broadcaster. Ngo also conceded the race.

District Three

Carroll Fife declared victory Monday in one of the most hotly contested City Council races after The Chronicle reported that the incumbent was conceding the race.

As of Monday, Fife had received 50.09% of the vote.

Fife is a community activist who gained international recognition for her role in Moms 4 Housing, a collective that began when homeless mothers took over a speculator-owned house on Magnolia Street.

She challenged incumbent Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, whose son was shot and killed in March 2019. The councilwoman is an advocate against gun violence and started the city’s Department of Violence Prevention in 2017. McElhaney won just over 30% of the vote.

Also running in District Three were Seneca Scott, a former union leader; Meron Semedar, a community organizer; Faye Taylor, a dockworker; and Alexus Taylor.

District Five

Councilman Noel Gallo, the incumbent, won his seat with just over 50% of the vote. Gallo chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee and pressed for more enforcement on homeless encampments and illegal dumping. Gallo also organizes weekend neighborhood cleanups.

Richard Santos Raya, who ran Centro Legal de la Raza’s Youth Law Academy, campaigned on defunding the police and creating equitable opportunities for employment won 31.01%.

Santos Raya said he was disappointed with the outcome, but doesn’t plan to concede until the votes are all vounted.

“The feeling that I have now is just gratitiude and pride with a twinge of disappointment,” Santos Raya said. “When Alameda calls it, then I will call it. I just want to hang in there until the last gasp.”

Zoe Lopez-Meraz, a high school STEM mentor in the Fruitvale BART plaza, won 18%. Lopez-Meraz supported prioritizing affordable housing.

District Seven

Five candidates ran for Councilman Larry Reid’s seat in District Seven. Reid did not run for re-election and his daughter, Treva Reid, a public affairs representative for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., won his seat after Tuesday’s returns showed her with over 60% of the vote.

“My heart is certainly just overwhelmed,” Treva Reid said. “This has been an incredible journey. I’m going to… deliver for East Oakland to ensure that we have even more equitably what we deserve and what we’ve demanded for our community.”

“I thank my father for leading (us) well… I hope to do more, accomplish more for our community and for our city,” she added.

Reid’s campaign focused on ending gun violence and redeveloping the Coliseum area to retain businesses.

Robert “Bob” Jackson, a pastor at Acts Full Gospel Church, had 39.76% of the vote. Jackson told The Chronicle he has not conceded yet.

Other candidates included Aaron Clay, a board member of the East Oakland nonprofit Youth UpRising; Marcie Hodge, a former member of the Peralta Community College Board of Trustees; and Marchon Tatmon, a financial adviser.

City attorney’s office

Barbara Parker won with over 80% of the vote as the city’s top legal authority.

Parker has been in charge of the city attorney’s office since 2011. Most recently, she joined with the city of Portland to sue the Trump administration over the use of federal agents at protests.

Parker was challenged by Elias Ferran, a former staffer from her office, who worked there for 12 years.

Ferran posted a concession on Facebook on Wednesday and thanked his supporters.

“While this was not the outcome we had hoped for, I am proud of the campaign we ran, one that was rooted in Oakland values: social justice, equity and diversity,” he wrote.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @SarRavani

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Over 4,000 students appear for Class 10, 12 CBSE exams in Dakshina Kannada

April 27, 2022 by www.thehindu.com Leave a Comment

Most of the 3,716 Class 10 students turned up for the Secondary School Examination of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which commenced in 21 examination centres in Dakshina Kannada on April 27.

The students appeared for the English paper. They were asked to appear for the examination in the dress code prescribed by their respective schools. Among the examination centres are Kendriya Vidyalaya No.1 at Panambur, Lourdes Central School, Amrita Vidyalayam at Bolur and The Yenepoya School.

An official said CBSE schools have been told to follow the directions of the Karnataka Government regarding the dress code. Kendriya Vidyalayas have allowed Muslim girls to wear hijab and Sikhs to wear turbans since 2012.

Accordingly, students were seen entering examination centres in the uniform prescribed by the school.

Students of private schools where hijab is part of the uniform were allowed to appear for the exam wearing hijab.

As per directions of the Karnataka Government, all examination centres have ensured social distancing among students. Students are being allowed into the examination hall after thermal scanning and only if they wearing a face mask, the official added.

A total of 296 Class 12 students are appearing for the Senior School Certificate Examination at two examination centres in Dakshina Kannada district. The exams will commence with the biotechnology and five other subjects on April 28. The exams will conclude on June 15.

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