Junior Digest

A parliamentary panel on Thursday responded to a query from Singh who had sought to know if his taking up the job will invite disqualification as an MP under a law that prohibits lawmakers from holding positions with monetary benefits.

“We have cleared it. Manmohan Singh’s job as a teacher will not attract the provisions of office of profit,” said BJP MP Satya Pal Singh, the panel’s chief.

The panel had asked the human resource development (HRD) and law ministries to respond to Singh’s query. After it got written responses, the committee on office of profit met on Thursday to take a decision.

Sources said that since Singh will only draw a daily allowance of Rs 5000 and not a fixed salary, it will not be in conflict with the office of profit law. The Constitution prohibits legislators or parliamentarians from holding positions with monetary or other benefits.

Singh, a Rajya Sabha member from Assam, was Prime Minister for ten years till Narendra Modi succeeded him in 2014.

In March 2006, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi resigned as Rae Bareli MP after a controversy erupted over her heading the National Advisory Council simultaneously. She then returned to Parliament in May 2006.

Singh had acquired his Masters degree from Panjab University in 1954 and joined the institution as a senior lecturer in 1957 and went on to become a professor in 1963.

In April, the university announced that Singh will head its Jawaharlal Nehru Chair, which was vacant for a long period. Singh is likely to accept the offer.

The Centre will make a slew of provisions for Divyang students in the upcoming education policy and has already asked schools to provide adequate facilities to them, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday.

“We will make a lot of provisions for Divyang students across the country in our upcoming new education policy. We have asked the management of schools to provide ramps in buildings, make available separate toilets for them or modify/upgrade the existing toilets and facilitate their easy movement on the premises,” he said.

Javadekar was talking to reporters on the sidelines of an event where he met and interacted with over 100 visually impaired girls at a Mumbai school.

He said interaction with Divyang students was part of BJP’s decision to celebrate September 17, the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as Sewa Diwas.

“Our MPs, MLAs and other leaders decided to celebrate our Prime Minister’s birthday as Sewa Diwas. Therefore, we decided to reach out to Dalits and those oppressed and underprivileged,” he said. Javadekar was impressed with the training facilities available for students at the 116-year-old Kamla Mehta School for the Blind in Dadar.

Lauding the efforts and aspirations of the girls and their teachers, the minister said, “What we all need is just commitment and zeal to move ahead in our life. These girls are a source of energy and inspiration.”

Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice Rajkumar Badole, BJP MP from Beed Preetam Munde and officers from the office of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities were present on the occasion. Javadekar also briefly highlighted what the NDA government was doing for the uplift of Divyangs (persons with disabilities).

“Our government has undertaken ‘Sugamya Bharat’ initiative to achieve universal accessibility (of infrastructure) for Divyangs. “The government is providing needful support by appointing teachers for Divyang students. And now the need of the hour is to go for mapping of such students, bring them to schools and impart them with necessary skill sets.”

Concerned that students continue to stoop under the weight of heavy school bags, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday asked affiliated schools to enforce additional measures to lighten students’ burden.

In the footsteps of the Maharashtra government — which enforced a new school bag policy last year limiting the weight of the bag to 10% the weight of the child — the CBSE in April issued an advisory that affiliated schools, too, must make bags lighter. The board has suggested ways in which schools, teachers and parents can achieve this, based on their feedback.

One of the major suggestions is that schools should ask students to stick to the timetable and make them aware about the effects of fatigue caused owing to heavy bags on their daily performance in class. “Young children whose spine is at a crucial stage of growth are most susceptible to back, muscle, shoulder pain and in extreme cases the distortion of spinal cord… the impact may well be irreversible,” read the circular issued by KK Choudhary, director, academic, research and training.

Among a slew of suggestions such as random checks, parental supervision while students pack bags and pairing students to share textbooks, the board stated that Class 1 and Class 2 should not be assigned homework or carry school bags and light weight textbooks should be prescribed.

Education officials in Mumbai observed that CBSE and ICSE school bags are heavier than the Maharashtra state board because they have multiple textbooks for each subject. “Students cannot rely only on the NCERT books in higher classes, reference books are needed to solve questionnaires because they are asked questions from different books in the exam,” said Kalpana Kumar, principal, St Joseph’s School, Panvel.

Recognising that this practice increases the bag weight, the CBSE suggested, “Schools should not prescribe too many additional and supplementary textbooks that are at times voluminous, costly and designed in a pedagogically unsound manner.”

It asked schools to set aside a few hours in the timetable for students to complete their homework and assignments, but schools called it an “impractical” move. “We cannot afford to make separate provisions for homework completion for each subject during school hours,” said Ganesh Parmeswaran, principal, Bal Bharti Public School, Navi Mumbai, adding that measures taken by schools to reduce the weight of the bags are not working.

“Many schools tried to rejig their timetable and allot double periods. We even gave parents freedom to take any step they want to lighten the bags, but it hasn’t helped much. Often teachers insist on bringing more books or tuition books are stowed away in the bag and this increases weight,” said Parameswaran.

Directives of the CBSE:

What schools can do:

Exhort students to abide by the timetable and to repack their bags daily to avoid carrying unnecessary articles and books.

Check school bags randomly to ensure students aren’t carrying heavy bags

Relate the adverse effects of fatigue caused due to heavy bags through special assemblies.

Don’t assign homework to students of classes 1 and 2 and ask them not bring their school bag.

Keep a separate provision in the timetable for students to complete their homework or assignments during school hours.

On days having sports period, allow students to wear sports uniform for the entire day so they don’t carry it separately.

Prescribe light-weight textbooks and don’t assign too many additional books.

What teachers can do:

Don’t penalise students for not carrying textbooks or workbooks. The fear may compel most of them to bring all the books adding to their burden.

Allow pairs of students to share textbooks so that one will bring half of the books required for the day and another student will bring remaining.

What parents can do:

Buy lighter backpacks with two taut straps. Raise health concerns over heavy bags in the parents teachers meetings

Regularly clean their bags and supervise packing. Instruct students to avoid hanging the bag on their shoulders with only one strap.

Based on The Hindustan Times article.

The PM said one of his schoolteachers continues to write to him every month. “His age in over 90. Still, he sends handwritten letters every month. Whatever books he has read, he writes about them and he quotes from those books.”

Modi told his audience that the teacher also “gives opinion on what I have done during the month, whether it was right or wrong.”

“As if he is still teaching me in the classroom. He is still continuing a somewhat correspondence course with me. I am still impressed to see his neat handwriting even at the age of 90. Whenever I see such good handwriting, I feel very happy.”

The PM quipped that his own handwriting his very good.

He asked the listeners to post their experience with teachers on the Narendra Modi app along with photographs. “Looking at the contribution of teachers from the eyes of a student is a valuable experience,” Modi added while talking about the upcoming Teacher’s Day on September 5.

The story of Mumbai’s Malvika Raj Joshi, who shown that “merit” has more weightage than “marks”, is about self-belief and a mother’s conviction to break stereotypes.

Seventeen-year-old Malvika doesn’t have a Class 10 or 12 certificate but has made it to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), thanks to her computer programming talent.

She has got a scholarship from MIT and she is pursuing a bachelor of science degree after getting a seat for being a three-time medal winner (two silver and a bronze) at International Olympiad of Informatics or commonly known as Programming Olympiad.

The MIT accepts students who are medal winners at various Olympiads (maths, physics or computer) and it was Malvika’s medals that ensured that she could fulfil her aspirations of pursuing research work in her favourite subject – computer science.

“When I started unschooling, that was 4 years back, I explored many different subjects. Programming was one of them. I found programming interesting and I used to give more time to it than to other subjects, so, I started liking it at that time,” she says in an email interaction from Boston.

Malvika found it difficult to get admission in elite Indian institutes like the Indian Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), where one needs to clear the Class 12 board exams.

The only institute that allowed her to enroll was Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) where she got into an MSc level course as her knowledge was on par with BSc standard.

“There is absolutely no question that Malvika’s admission to MIT is based on her superlative achievements at IOI. It is a credit to MIT’s flexibility that they can offer admission to a student who demonstrates excellent intellectual potential despite having no formal high school credentials,” CMI’s Madhavan Mukund says.

Madhavan, who is also national coordinator of Indian Computing Olympiad, made it clear that Malvika is not a product of the system but despite it.

“This is possible only for a student whose academic achievements are outstanding, which is the case with Malvika’s performance at IOI,” he says.

Malvika’s fascinating story started four years ago when her mother Supriya took an unbelievably tough decision. She was in Class 7 at Dadar Parsee Youth Assembly School in Mumbai and doing exceedingly well in academics when her mother decided to pull her out of school. She has a younger daughter, Radha.

“We are a middle-class family. Malvika was doing well in school but somehow I felt that my children need to be happy. Happiness is more important than conventional knowledge,” Supriya told PTI.

“I was working with an NGO that takes care of cancer patients. I would see students who are in 8th or 9th standard being affected by cancer. It affected me deeply and I decided that my daughters need to be happy.”

The decision no way was an easy one. “In India, people are still not very aware of the term “homeschooled” or “unschooled” as it is commonly referred.”

It also took some time to convince Malvika’s father, an engineer who runs his own business.

“My husband Raj wasn’t convinced initially as it was a risky proposition. The kids won’t have a 10th or 12th standard certificate and there was bound to be fear. I quit my NGO job and designed an academic curriculum for Malvika. I created a simulation (classroom like situation) at home. The confidence I had as a mother was that I am capable of imparting knowledge to my daughter.”

But it worked.

“Suddenly I saw that my daughter was so happy. She was learning more than ever – from the time she woke up to the time she was off to sleep. Knowledge became a passion,” the proud mother recalls.

For three consecutive years, she was among the top four students who represented India at the Programming Olympiad. Madhavan, who prepared Malvika for all three Olympiads, spoke about her brilliance.

“During the past three years, she spent extensive periods at CMI acquiring the background in mathematics and algorithm that she needed to excel at Informatics Olympiad. As part of this training for IOI, she had to fill in unexpected gaps in her education arising from the fact that she had not been formally enrolled in school,” he said.

“For instance, she had never studied matrices. She was never intimidated even when faced with a mountain of things to learn and went about achieving her goals very methodically.”

When Supriya was asked if more parents want to know about her daughter, she says, “They are all interested in knowing how to get into MIT. I just tell them that we never aimed for her admission in MIT. I tell parents to understand what their children like.”