[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
www/education edu-cases-india.html edu-contents...
From: |
Dora Scilipoti |
Subject: |
www/education edu-cases-india.html edu-contents... |
Date: |
Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:13:41 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Dora Scilipoti <dora> 11/07/21 12:13:41
Modified files:
education : edu-cases-india.html edu-contents.html
education.html
Added files:
education : edu-system-india.html
Log message:
Adding article 'The Education System in India' and links to it on other
pages
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/education/edu-cases-india.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.3&r2=1.4
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/education/edu-contents.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.3&r2=1.4
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/education/education.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.27&r2=1.28
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/education/edu-system-india.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1
Patches:
Index: edu-cases-india.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/education/edu-cases-india.html,v
retrieving revision 1.3
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -b -r1.3 -r1.4
--- edu-cases-india.html 16 Jul 2011 12:15:06 -0000 1.3
+++ edu-cases-india.html 21 Jul 2011 12:13:19 -0000 1.4
@@ -28,12 +28,22 @@
<a href="/education/education.html">Education</a>→
<a href="/education/edu-cases.html">Case Studies</a>→ India</p>
-<p>Below are listed some of the educational institutions in India who
-are using Free Software.</p>
+
+<p>An <a href="/education/edu-system-india.html">article</a> by Indian
+scientist Dr. V. Sasi Kumar which explains in detail how the education
+system is structured in India, with significant notes on its development
+throughout history. The article also covers the case of Kerala, the
+state in India which successfully implemented Free Software in thousands
+of schools thanks to the government's project
+<a href="https://www.itschool.gov.in/">address@hidden</a>.</p>
<p>Some notions on the
<a href= "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_India">education
-system of India</a> can be found in Wikipedia.</p>
+system of India</a> can also be found in Wikipedia.</p>
+
+<p>Below are listed some of the educational institutions in India who
+are using Free Software.</p>
+
<!-- Add new entries of educational institutions in this
country in
alphabetical order by the name of the institution -->
@@ -49,8 +59,9 @@
Secondary School Irimpanam (VHSS Irimpanam)</a>
<p>One of the several thousand schools that are using exclusively Free
-Software as the result of a project carried out by the government in
-the state of Kerala.</p>
+Software as the result of a
+<a href= "https://www.itschool.gov.in/">project</a>
+carried out by the government in the state of Kerala.</p>
<a href=" /education/edu-cases.html">Back to Case Studies</a>
@@ -86,7 +97,7 @@
<p>Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2011/07/16 12:15:06 $
+$Date: 2011/07/21 12:13:19 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
Index: edu-contents.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/education/edu-contents.html,v
retrieving revision 1.3
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -b -r1.3 -r1.4
--- edu-contents.html 16 Jul 2011 12:15:09 -0000 1.3
+++ edu-contents.html 21 Jul 2011 12:13:19 -0000 1.4
@@ -88,6 +88,9 @@
<ul>
<li><a href="/education/edu-why.html">Reasons Why</a>
educational
institutions should use and teach exclusively Free Software.</li>
+
+ <li><a href="/education/edu-system-india.html">The Education System in
+India</a>.</li>
</ul>
<!-- If needed, change the copyright block at the bottom. In general,
@@ -123,7 +126,7 @@
<p>Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2011/07/16 12:15:09 $
+$Date: 2011/07/21 12:13:19 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
Index: education.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/education/education.html,v
retrieving revision 1.27
retrieving revision 1.28
diff -u -b -r1.27 -r1.28
--- education.html 16 Jul 2011 12:15:00 -0000 1.27
+++ education.html 21 Jul 2011 12:13:19 -0000 1.28
@@ -96,10 +96,13 @@
<p>Learn about the <a href="/education/edu-why.html">Reasons Why</a>
educational institutions should use and teach exclusively Free Software.</p>
-<p>An article by Richard Stallman on the subject:
+<p>An article by Richard Stallman:
<a href="/philosophy/schools.html">Why Schools Should Exclusively Use
Free Software</a></p>
+<p>An article by Dr. V. Sasi Kumar on the
+<a href="/education/edu-system-india.html">education system in India.</a></p>
+
</div>
</div>
@@ -137,7 +140,7 @@
<p>Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2011/07/16 12:15:00 $
+$Date: 2011/07/21 12:13:19 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
Index: edu-system-india.html
===================================================================
RCS file: edu-system-india.html
diff -N edu-system-india.html
--- /dev/null 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ edu-system-india.html 21 Jul 2011 12:13:19 -0000 1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,400 @@
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.57 -->
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<title>The Education System in India - GNU Project - Free Software
+Foundation</title>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+
+<div id="education-content">
+<h2>The Education System in India</h2>
+
+<!-- begin edu navigation bar -->
+<ul id="edu-navigation">
+ <li><a href="edu-contents.html">Education Contents</a></li>
+ <li><a href="edu-cases.html">Case Studies</a></li>
+ <li><a href="edu-resources.html">Educational Resources</a></li>
+ <li><a href="edu-projects.html">Education Projects</a></li>
+ <li><a href="edu-faq.html">FAQ</a></li>
+ <li><a href="edu-team.html">The Team</a></li>
+</ul>
+<!-- end edu navigation bar -->
+
+</div> <!-- id="edu-content" -->
+
+<p class="edu-breadcrumb">
+<a href="/education/education.html">Education</a> → In Depth</p>
+
+<p>by <strong>Dr. V. Sasi Kumar</strong><a href="#sasi">(1)</a></p>
+
+<h3>In the Beginning</h3>
+
+<p>In ancient times, India had the Gurukula system of education in which
+anyone who wished to study went to a teacher's (Guru) house and
+requested to be taught. If accepted as a student by the guru, he would
+then stay at the guru's place and help in all activities at home. This
+not only created a strong tie between the teacher and the student, but
+also taught the student everything about running a house. The guru
+taught everything the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the holy
+scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as
+long as she wished or until the guru felt that he had taught everything
+he could teach. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life,
+and not confined to memorizing some information.</p>
+
+<p>The modern school system was brought to India, including the English
+language, originally by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. The
+curriculum was confined to “modern” subjects such as science
+and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were
+considered unnecessary. Teaching was confined to classrooms and the link
+with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between the
+teacher and the student.</p>
+
+<p>The Uttar Pradesh (a state in India) Board of High School and
+Intermediate Education was the first Board set up in India in the year
+1921 with jurisdiction over Rajputana, Central India and Gwalior. In
+1929, the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Rajputana,
+was established. Later, boards were established in some of the states.
+But eventually, in 1952, the constitution of the board was amended and
+it was renamed Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). All schools
+in Delhi and some other regions came under the Board. It was the
+function of the Board to decide on things like curriculum, textbooks and
+examination system for all schools affiliated to it. Today there are
+thousands of schools affiliated to the Board, both within India and in
+many other countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.</p>
+
+<p>Universal and compulsory education for all children in the age group
+of 6-14 was a cherished dream of the new government of the Republic of
+India. This is evident from the fact that it is incorporated as a
+directive policy in article 45 of the constitution. But this objective
+remains far away even more than half a century later. However, in the
+recent past, the government appears to have taken a serious note of this
+lapse and has made primary education a Fundamental Right of every Indian
+citizen. The pressures of economic growth and the acute scarcity of
+skilled and trained manpower must certainly have played a role to make
+the government take such a step. The expenditure by the Government of
+India on school education in recent years comes to around 3% of the GDP,
+which is recognized to be very low.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>“In recent times, several major announcements were
+made for developing the poor state of affairs in education sector in
+India, the most notable ones being the National Common Minimum Programme
+(NCMP) of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The
+announcements are; (a) To progressively increase expenditure on
+education to around 6 percent of GDP. (b) To support this increase in
+expenditure on education, and to increase the quality of education,
+there would be an imposition of an education cess over all central
+government taxes. (c) To ensure that no one is denied of education due
+to economic backwardness and poverty. (d) To make right to education a
+fundamental right for all children in the age group 6â14 years. (e) To
+universalize education through its flagship programmes such as Sarva
+Siksha Abhiyan and Mid Day Meal.”
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_india">Wikipedia:
+Education in India</a>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>The School System</h3>
+
+<p>India is divided into 28 states and 7 so-called “Union
+Territories”. The states have their own elected governments while
+the Union Territories are ruled directly by the Government of India,
+with the President of India appointing an administrator for each Union
+Territory. As per the constitution of India, school education was
+originally a state subject —that is, the states had complete
+authority on deciding policies and implementing them. The role of the
+Government of India (GoI) was limited to coordination and deciding on
+the standards of higher education. This was changed with a
+constitutional amendment in 1976 so that education now comes in the
+so-called <em>concurrent list</em>. That is, school education policies
+and programmes are suggested at the national level by the GoI though the
+state governments have a lot of freedom in implementing programmes.
+Policies are announced at the national level periodically. The Central
+Advisory Board of Education (CABE), set up in 1935, continues to play a
+lead role in the evolution and monitoring of educational policies and
+programmes.</p>
+
+<p>There is a national organization that plays a key role in developing
+policies and programmes, called the National Council for Educational
+Research and Training (NCERT) that prepares a National Curriculum
+Framework. Each state has its counterpart called the State Council for
+Educational Research and Training (SCERT). These are the bodies that
+essentially propose educational strategies, curricula, pedagogical
+schemes and evaluation methodologies to the states' departments of
+education. The SCERTs generally follow guidelines established by the
+NCERT. But the states have considerable freedom in implementing the
+education system.</p>
+
+<p>The National Policy on Education, 1986 and the Programme of Action
+(POA) 1992 envisaged free and compulsory education of satisfactory
+quality for all children below 14 years before the 21st Century. The
+government committed to earmark 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
+for education, half of which would be spent on primary education. The
+expenditure on Education as a percentage of GDP also rose from 0.7 per
+cent in 1951-52 to about 3.6 per cent in 1997-98.</p>
+
+<p>The school system in India has four levels: lower primary (age 6 to
+10), upper primary (11 and 12), high (13 to 15) and higher secondary (17
+and 18). The lower primary school is divided into five
“standards”,
+upper primary school into two, high school into three and higher
+secondary into two. Students have to learn a common curriculum largely
+(except for regional changes in mother tongue) till the end of high
+school. There is some amount of specialization possible at the higher
+secondary level. Students throughout the country have to learn three
+languages (namely, English, Hindi and their mother tongue) except in
+regions where Hindi is the mother tongue and in some streams as
+discussed below.</p>
+
+<p>There are mainly three streams in school education in India. Two of
+these are coordinated at the national level, of which one is under the
+Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and was originally meant for
+children of central government employees who are periodically
+transferred and may have to move to any place in the country. A number
+of “central schools” (named Kendriya Vidyalayas) have been
+established for the purpose in all main urban areas in the country, and
+they follow a common schedule so that a student going from one school to
+another on a particular day will hardly see any difference in what is
+being taught. One subject (Social Studies, consisting of History,
+Geography and Civics) is always taught in Hindi, and other subjects in
+English, in these schools. Kendriya Vidyalayas admit other children also
+if seats are available. All of them follow textbooks written and
+published by the NCERT. In addition to these government-run schools, a
+number of private schools in the country follow the CBSE syllabus though
+they may use different text books and follow different teaching
+schedules. They have a certain amount of freedom in what they teach in
+lower classes. The CBSE also has 141 affiliated schools in 21 other
+countries mainly catering to the needs of the Indian population there.</p>
+
+<p>The second central scheme is the Indian Certificate of Secondary
+Education (ICSE). It seems that this was started as a replacement for
+the Cambridge School Certificate. The idea was mooted in a conference
+held in 1952 under the Chairmanship of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then
+Minister for Education. The main purpose of the conference was to
+consider the replacement of the overseas Cambridge School Certificate
+Examination by an All India Examination. In October 1956 at the meeting
+of the Inter-State Board for Anglo-Indian Education, a proposal was
+adopted for the setting up of an Indian Council to administer the
+University of Cambridge, Local Examinations Syndicate's Examination in
+India and to advise the Syndicate on the best way to adapt its
+examination to the needs of the country. The inaugural meeting of the
+Council was held on 3rd November, 1958. In December 1967, the Council
+was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
+The Council was listed in the Delhi School Education Act 1973, as a body
+conducting public examinations. Now a large number of schools across the
+country are affiliated to this Council. All these are private schools
+and generally cater to children from wealthy families.</p>
+
+<p>Both the CBSE and the ICSE council conduct their own examinations in
+schools across the country that are affiliated to them at the end of 10
+years of schooling (after high school) and again at the end of 12 years
+(after higher secondary). Admission to the 11th class is normally based
+on the performance in this all-India examination. Since this puts a lot
+of pressure on the child to perform well, there have been suggestions to
+remove the examination at the end of 10 years.</p>
+
+<h3>Exclusive Schools</h3>
+
+<p>In addition to the above, there are a relatively small number of
+schools that follow foreign curricula such as the so-called Senior
+Cambridge, though this was largely superseded by the ICSE stream
+elsewhere. Some of these schools also offer the students the opportunity
+to sit for the ICSE examinations. These are usually very expensive
+residential schools where some of the Indians working abroad send their
+children. They normally have fabulous infrastructure, low student-teacher
+ratio and very few students. Many of them have teachers from abroad.
+There are also other exclusive schools such as the Doon School in
+Dehradun that take in a small number of students and charge exorbitant
+fees.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from all of these, there are a handful of schools around the
+country, such as the Rishi Valley school in Andhra Pradesh, that try to
+break away from the normal education system that promotes rote learning
+and implement innovative systems such as the Montessori method. Most
+such schools are expensive, have high teacher-student ratios and provide
+a learning environment in which each child can learn at his/her own pace.
+It would be interesting and instructive to do a study on what impact the
+kind of school has had on the life of their alumni.</p>
+
+<h3>State Schools</h3>
+
+<p>Each state in the country has its own Department of Education that
+runs its own school system with its own textbooks and evaluation system.
+As mentioned earlier, the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation method are
+largely decided by the SCERT in the state, following the national
+guidelines prescribed by the NCERT.</p>
+
+<p>Each state has three kinds of schools that follow the state
+curriculum. The government runs its own schools in land and buildings
+owned by the government and paying the staff from its own resources.
+These are generally known as <em>government schools</em>. The fees are
+quite low in such schools. Then there are privately owned schools with
+their own land and buildings. Here the fees are high and the teachers
+are paid by the management. Such schools mostly cater to the urban
+middle class families. The third kind consists of schools that are
+provided grant-in-aid by the government, though the school was started
+by a private agency in their own land and buildings. The grant-in-aid is
+meant to help reduce the fees and make it possible for poor families to
+send their children. In some states like Kerala, these schools are very
+similar to government schools since the teachers are paid by the
+government and the fees are the same as in government schools.</p>
+
+<h3>The Case of Kerala</h3>
+
+<p>The state of Kerala, a small state in the South Western coast of
+India, has been different from the rest of the country in many ways for
+the last few decades. It has, for instance, the highest literacy rate
+among all states, and was declared the first fully literate state about
+a decade back. Life expectancy, both male and female, is very high,
+close to that of the developed world. Other parameters such as fertility
+rate, infant and child mortality are among the best in the country, if
+not the best. The total fertility rate has been below the replacement
+rate of 2.1 for the last two decades. Probably as a side-effect of
+economic and social development, suicide rates and alcoholism are also
+very high. Government policies also have been very different from the
+rest of the country, leading to the development model followed in Kerala,
+with high expenditure in education and welfare, coming to be known as
+the “Kerala Model“ among economists.</p>
+
+<p>Kerala has also always shown interest in trying out ways of improving
+its school education system. Every time the NCERT came up with new ideas,
+it was Kerala that tried it out first. The state experimented with the
+District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) with gusto, though there was
+opposition to it from various quarters, and even took it beyond primary
+classes. The state was the first in the country to move from the
+traditional behaviorist way of teaching to a social constructivist
+paradigm. It was mentioned in the National Curriculum Framework of NCERT
+in the year 2000, and Kerala started trying it out the next year. The
+transaction in the classroom and the evaluation methodology were changed.
+Instead of direct questions that could be answered only through
+memorizing the lessons, indirect questions and open ended questions were
+included so that the student needed to think before answering, and the
+answers could be subjective to some extent. This meant that the students
+had to digest what they studied and had to be able to use their
+knowledge in a specific situation to answer the questions. At the same
+time, the new method took away a lot of pressure and the children began
+to find examinations interesting and enjoyable instead of being
+stressful. A Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation (CCE) system was
+introduced along with this, which took into consideration the overall
+personality of the student and reduced the dependence on a single final
+examination for deciding promotion to the next class. At present, the
+CBSE also has implemented CCE, but in a more flexible manner.</p>
+
+<p>Kerala was also the first state in the country to introduce
+Information Technology as a subject of study at the High School level.
+It was started in class 8 with the textbook introducing Microsoft
+Windows and Microsoft Office. But within one year the government was
+forced to include Free Software also in the curriculum by protests from
+Free Software enthusiasts and a favorable stance taken by a school
+teachers association that had the majority of government teachers as its
+members. Eventually, from the year 2007, only GNU/Linux was taught in
+the schools, and all computers in schools had only GNU/Linux installed.
+At that time, perhaps even today, this was the largest installation of
+GNU/Linux in schools, and made headlines even in other countries. Every
+year, from 2007 onwards, about 500,000 children pass out of the schools
+learning the concepts behind Free Software and the GNU/Linux operating
+system and applications. The state is now moving towards IT Enabled
+Education. Eventually, IT will not be taught as a separate subject.
+Instead, all subjects will be taught with the help of IT so that the
+children will, on the one hand, learn IT skills and, on the other, make
+use of educational applications (such as those mentioned below) and
+resources in the Internet (such as textual material from sites like
+Wikipedia, images, animations and videos) to study their subjects and to
+do exercises. Teachers and students have already started using
+applications such as <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/project/drgeo/">
+Dr. Geo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoGebra">
+GeoGebra</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KTechLab">
+KtechLab</a> for studying geometry and electronics. Applications like
+<a href="http://directory.fsf.org/project/sunclock/">
+Sunclock</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalzium">
+Kalzium</a> and <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/project/sunclock/">
+Ghemical</a> are also popular among teachers and students.</p>
+
+<p>The initiative taken by Kerala is now influencing other states and
+even the policies of the Government of India. States like Karnataka and
+Gujarat are now planning to introduce Free Software in their schools,
+and some other states like Maharashtra are examining the option. The new
+education policy of the Government of India speaks about constructivism,
+IT enabled education, Free Software and sharing educational resources.
+Once a few of the larger states successfully migrate to Free Software,
+it is hoped that the entire country would follow suit in a relatively
+short time. When that happens, India could have the largest user base of
+GNU/Linux and Free Software in general.</p>
+
+<h4>References</h4>
+
+<p>http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html<br
/>
+http://varnam.org/blog/2007/08/the_story_behind_macaulays_edu<br />
+http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Board_of_Secondary_Education</p>
+
+<hr />
+<a id="sasi"></a><a href="http://swatantryam.blogspot.com/">V. Sasi Kumar</a>
is a doctor
+in physics and a member of the FSF India Board of Directors. He advocates
+for Free Software and freedom of knowledge.
+
+<!-- If needed, change the copyright block at the bottom. In general,
+ all pages on the GNU web server should have the section about
+ verbatim copying. Please do NOT remove this without talking
+ with the webmasters first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the document
+ and that it is like this: "2001, 2002", not this: "2001-2002". -->
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+
+<div id="footer">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:address@hidden"><address@hidden></a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.<br />
+Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to
+<a href="mailto:address@hidden"><address@hidden></a>.</p>
+
+<p>Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+
+<p>Copyright © 2011 Dr. V. Sasi Kumar.</p>
+
+<p><!--TRANSLATORS: Please note that the license here is CC-BY-SA -->
+This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2011/07/21 12:13:19 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="translations">
+<h4>Translations of this page</h4>
+
+<!-- Please keep this list alphabetical by language code.
+ Comment what the language is for each type, i.e. de is German.
+ Write the language name in its own language (Deutsch) in the text.
+ If you add a new language here, please
+ advise address@hidden and add it to
+ - /home/www/html/server/standards/README.translations.html
+ - one of the lists under the section "Translations Underway"
+ - if there is a translation team, you also have to add an alias
+ to mail.gnu.org:/com/mailer/aliases
+ Please also check you have the language code right; see:
+ http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php
+ If the 2-letter ISO 639-1 code is not available,
+ use the 3-letter ISO 639-2.
+ Please use W3C normative character entities.
+
+ See also '(web-trans)Capitalization':
+
http://gnu.org/software/trans-coord/manual/web-trans/html_node/Capitalization.html
+ -->
+
+<ul class="translations-list">
+<!-- English -->
+<li><a href="/education/edu-system-india.html">English</a> [en]</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
[Prev in Thread] |
Current Thread |
[Next in Thread] |
- www/education edu-cases-india.html edu-contents...,
Dora Scilipoti <=