Category: January 2024

The margins of the society: a spotlight

Anjali Noronha January is the month we celebrate Republic Day. January is also the month of the birthdays of two iconic women teachers – Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheik, who dedicated their lives to educate women, girls, and boys of the deprived communities. As we acknowledge and celebrate these two occasions, let us take a moment to reflect how far we have come as a country in terms of educating the less privileged among us. At the time of independence, the education of girls, especially girls from the deprived classes and castes, was not accepted as the norm. Beginning with only 9% literate women in 1947, female literacy rates have grown to 77% in 2023. There remains a gender gap though with male literacy at 84.7%. However, the gross enrollment ratio (GER) of girls has overtaken that of boys in elementary and secondary education in all categories – average, SC, and ST – by 2011-12 and remains so till date. The dropout rates, however, increase substantially with the level of education, from about 1% in primary education to about 15% in secondary education, with girls having a slightly higher dropout rate at higher levels. This decreases their access to higher education. While the scheduled caste indicators are around the overall average rates, the scheduled tribes are much worse in all indicators, except gender parity. Their enrollment rates in secondary, higher secondary, and higher education are 10-15% lower than the overall and SC rates. Similarly, their dropout rates are 3 to 7% higher than the overall rates and 2 to 5% higher than the scheduled castes. This means that fewer boys and girls of the scheduled tribe communities reach secondary and higher education and therefore are unable to access better economic opportunities. Unlike the publication of category-wise GER till 2018 by UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education), there was no separate data published for Muslims as a group until 2018. Post 2018, some data on Muslim enrollment as a percentage of overall enrollment has been published. It shows that both Muslim girls and boys are participating in education at all levels at the percentage of their population. We, don’t, however, know whether all their children are in schools. The de-notified tribes – the Pardhis, Banjaras, Gadialohar, Kanjars, Bahelias – are the most deprived sections of the society and their participation as a separate category has not been tracked. They are mostly nomadic and their livelihoods rendered illegal due to various Forest Acts since the British

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Understanding metrics

Narendran V
Metrics are a part of our everyday life. Whether it is to buy one kilogram of potatoes, or walk two kilometres to our destination, or fill a one litre of water, we have to use units of measurement. But do we ever tell our students how or why these standard units of measurement came about?

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The underdog’s tale

Chintan Girish Modi
A little boy trying to make his place in an unfamiliar setting, fighting bullies, and trying to catch up — this is 9 year-old Gopi’s. This tale of an outsider has a lesson or two for readers.

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ChatGPT in schools

Neerja Singh
It has been a while since technology has made inroads into education now. But never has it made the kind of noise that the use of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT is making. Should schools open their doors to AI?

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Climate change, storytelling, and the subversive power of imagination

Deborah Dutta
Climate crisis is almost upon us and yet all that we are still doing is talking and not really taking any action. Why? Because the human brain is built to experience the present and react to the immediate. We still don’t see climate crisis as imminent and therefore are unable to take collective action. We need to train our brains to imagine our crises-ridden future so that it can goad us into action today.

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Creating a multi-intelligent curriculum

Sanjhee Gianchandani
A majority of our classrooms are designed for the linguistic-verbal and logical-mathematical intelligences. As teachers, it is our responsibility to nurture and help the other intelligences flourish too. There is no need to design multiple lesson plans to cater to the multiple intelligences. With a little bit of imagination, a teacher can include simple activities to her already existing lesson plan or just take the time to identify and highlight regular classroom activities that promote the different intelligences.

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Angela Ruiz Robles: e-book pioneer

Mamata Pandya
Print is making way for electronic devices and we are now reading e-books instead of books. Michael Hart is credited with the invention of the e-book, but did you know that the original pioneer of the idea was a woman? Angela Ruiz Robles, a Spanish teacher and inventor, designed the Mechanical Encyclopedia, a precursor to the e-book.

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Cave dwellers

Geetha Iyer
When we think of natural habitats, it is the forest, the land, or the water body that comes to mind, but there are animals that have made caves their home too.

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Life lessons from a game of sport

Anuradha C
Extra-curricular activities are done if there is time for them outside the regular curricular activities. In many schools, sport is still an extra-curricular activity. While math and science can teach us to add, multiply, and question, sport can teach us life lessons.

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