February 29, 2012

"Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation (CCE) does not mean conducting examinations every 15 days": Kapil Sibal

Our stupid educational administration community has been doing just that- conducting comprehensive and continuous evaluation every 15 days. Our poor children have to attend class tests, monthly tests Onam and Christimas exams and final tests. The people who frame curriculum envisages reducing learning burden of children; but what they do is interpreted to overload the school child by the lakhs of educational administration bosses in India.

Kindly read the following article
http://news.icbse.com/core-curriculum-science-mathematics-394



February 27, 2012

No fans in Classrooms; schools harassing children

Open letter to Minister and authorities

My children are studying in ******** School, *********. They report that since last many days there is no electricity in their classrooms. On further enquiry I understood that the school authorities are trying to save electricity charges by cutting off electric supply to lower classrooms. My children reports that they are suffering immense heat due in their classroom due to this. Is this not called child harassment?

Most classes have 60-70 students and there is no adequate ventilation or fans. This is the situation even in private schools collecting fees and donations.

Whom will the poor students complain?? Is there an administration machinery here that will look into the human rights aspects of school students?

Even grown ups these days do not sit in wooden benches in a crowded classroom of 60-70 pupils, suffering heat due to lack of fans, and listen to lectures of teachers from morning till evening every day for a whole year??

Government must intervene and ensure that schools provide adequate number of fans in the classrooms and also use them.

February 24, 2012

External agencies swarm down on Schools to catch children -Children used for business and social brainwashing

In our young days Shastra Sahitya Parishad was active in the Schools with their quizzes and selling their books and magazines. They created a market for their products by getting children involve in the quizzes. They gave away prizes and published the photos of the winners in their magazines. School kids were seen studying their books to win the quizzes. The questions in the quiz programs were based on knowledge and contents present in the Parishad's textbooks; so without reading these books kids cannot win, whatever be their learning from other sources. I had bought a number of Shastra Sahithya Parishad books in those days; the books were actually promoting aethist/ communist ideologies hidden in them.

Now more such agencies are active in our schools with their marketing strategies. The coaching agencies for Engineering and Medicine entrance tests are conducting quiz programs offering 'scholarships' for the winners. In fact most of the students who appear for the scholarship tests get 'scholarships'. Scholarship is for enrolling in their coaching program that costs around Rupees Ten Thousand per student. The students are netted without even they know what is happening. Instead of advertising and waiting for clients the clever business men are invading schools with variety of strategies like this.

An agency called TIME conducts such s 'scholarship exams' at National level Kairali Vijnana Pareeksha, Hindi Bhashan, Science/Maths/English Olympiad, Green Olympiad, Power Quiz conducted by Kerala State Electricity Board etc..etc.. My kids, like hundreds of other kids won the TIME scholarship exam and they telephoned me to reach their office and collect certificate. When I reached their I saw a mother of a kid being canvassed, who have come their for similar purpose, being canvassed by their front office personnel to enrol her kid for the course. The course that costs Rs.11000 will be offered for Rs.9500 to her kid because the kid had won the 'scholarship' -A clever tactic to trap the parents and kids into their coaching scheme. 

The "Power Quizzes" organised by the Officer's Association of the KSEB engages students to learn about KSEB but questions are definitely embedded to promote campaigns the leftist Association are taking up. Though relatively innocuous, such Power Quizzes too intend to influence the parents and society through the kids.

If such tendencies are not curtailed soon the schools will be used by every kind of business, social and religious activities to get children engaged for promoting their ideologies and products.

Should the society allow such business interests to use schools and school kids for promoting their products? Is it ethical to use innocent children to promote ideologies and products, camouflaged as quiz programs, scholarship exams etc.?

February 22, 2012

History textbook of IX Std- substandard work of Kerala State Education Department








"Monuments were built in memory of their kings. They were known as pyramids. Besides these, archaelogists have discovered temples, palace complexes, etc. In the initial stages, dried bricks made of clay were used for the construction of buildings. Later, square blocks of stone began to be used, Gradually, granite began to be used for constructing the tombs, palaces etc."

The writings in this textbook reminds me of the Mohan Lal film in which Mohanlal who is appointed as teacher in a rural school answers to a student who asks him "Sir, what is the English word for  ഉപ്പു മാവ് ?" and the teacher replies "Salt Mango Tree". 

What sort of English writing is this? The paragraph starts with "Monuments were built in memory of their Kings" (Whose Kings?) Before giving description of the pyramids, the author is jumping around talking about the building material used. He uses plenty of etc.etc. to conceal his ignorance. What is the significance of square blocks of stone? The ideas are not coherent. A good high school student who wins an Essay writing competition even at the District level, writes better than this.The textbook writer seems to be in a hurry to present his ideas in his own poor English and go away. The educational administrators of the textbook department have not got these textbooks verified by experts to bring contents of high quality to students. 

This is only a small portion I have taken as an example. The whole textbook is rubbish. The textbook writer is not fit for this job. At least he could copy the contents from Wikipedia; this would be far better.


Their should be a quality control mechanism to at least have a review of the contents before it is sent to print. The teachers and educational administrators are drawing hefty salaries with all sorts of perks (it would be at least 5-10 times what their counterparts get in the private and self financing institutions) but they are producing such shabby, substandard works.

Certain guidelines need to be issued to ensure that good quality textbooks are produced for the children in Kerala

February 13, 2012

Children love working

It is a conservative belief that childhood is the age for studying and studying alone. It is also believed by conservatives that the prime duty of children is to study and score high marks. It is also superstitiously believed that engaging children in work is child harassment.


Children are mentally tortured by this excessive, often crazy, insistence on acquisition of textbook knowledge. Parents and teachers pound on them and pester them all the time to learn textbooks. Children need to play, talk, laugh. They have also self esteem and pride and love to earn money. They will happily help parents if they could get opportunity.

February 08, 2012

Kerala has launched a massive in-service teacher education program



The following article appeared in Mathrubhumi daily today. It says that  all government /aided school teachers will receive 50 day training program. So much so good. Teacher Education In India blogsite appreciates the initiative of Sri. M.Sivasankar IAS, Secretary, General Education Department in launching such a program.

February 07, 2012

Involve Professionals in Curriculum making and Textbook preparation

School curriculum and textbook making should not be a domain reserved for teachers. I say this because I find the quality of curriculum and textbooks far below average at present and the teachers who made them have done a substandard job.


Professional like Engineers, Doctors, Agriculturalists, Psychologists, Managers with MBA degrees (If possible top successful managers should be requested to participate) and even from dance/drama should be included in curriculum preparation and writing of textbooks. Teachers have limited experiences in any field and their skills, experience and knowledge are not sufficient to write school textbooks.


Treating school curriculum as a small thing is not good for the society.

February 05, 2012

B.Ed college Principal's salary Rs. 15000 teacher salary Rs.12000

B.Ed colleges are money making shops. Universities are doing that. Calicut University, Kerala University and M.G University are great institutions of exploitation of B.Ed teachers. They run scores of B.Ed colleges but pay little to teachers.

Even after many years and decades of teaching / administrative experience the salaries of the faculty members and the principals do not increase. They do not get promotion ever. They are slaves of institutions run by "Great" Universities. Universities have become shameless in exploitation..

SSA textbooks are not meeting the desired curriculum needs

എസ് എസ് എ അഥവാ സര്‍വ ശിക്ഷ അഭിയാന്‍ എന്ന പേരില്‍ ചില ബുജികള്‍ (ബുദ്ധി ജീവികള്‍) അവതരിപ്പിച്ച കരിക്യുലം സര്‍വരെയും ശിക്ഷിക്കുന്ന അഭിയാന്‍ ആണ് എന്ന് പറയാതെ വയ്യ.

-ടെക്സ്റ്റ്‌ ബുക്കുകള്‍ (ന്യൂസ്‌ പേപ്പര്‍ ഇതിലും എത്രയോ ഭേദം)

Shabby Text books -created by the God Gurus of the God's on Land


Kerala is self proclaimed 'God's own land' but the way officials and teachers do their work here is not that 'godly'. The textbooks of Kerala State syllabus are printed on newsprint quality paper; printed in black and white; diagrams are not clear and texts are not legible.

Sex education in schools -improper curriculum

My daughter who studies in a mixed school with majority of students who are girls tells my wife that biology teacher is not taking the chapter on reproduction properly. The teacher just read out a few sentences from the text book and skipped the chapter. She is embarrassed to teach about male and female sex organs and reproductive mechanisms in the classroom when boys are present. 


A teacher even jokingly (or seriously(?)!) asked the student to draw underwears to the diagrams of nude male and female figures in the textbooks showing their sex organs and the girls did exactly that...