new education trend -- more business less values and education

I started sending my daughter to play school in June 2007. School was reputed and they had good (not extra ordinary) facilities. The fee I was told to pay was INR 23,000 per anum. I felt bit uneasy but then I had no other option because most of the (so called) good schools had their fee in same range. The same school has recently announced the admission for next year (June 2008) batches and last week when I went to school to pick my daughter I was shocked to see on notice board that they have revised their fee from next year. Now parents need to pay INR 33,000 per anum for Play Group, nursery and KG. The fee was hiked more than 40%. I thought to change school for my daughter next year onward but then bouncer came that all of the schools (of same level and facilities) have revised their fee to INR 33,000 per anum. Means it was a collective decision and they may have some association to decide these things. I felt education is now purely a (fast growing) business in India.

At home I sat and did some calculation. Took out the school calendar and found that school only operates for around 200 days per year. Playgroup has just 2 hours timing so you will now pay INR 33,000/400 per hour and that comes INR 82.5 per hour. I completed my Bachelor of Technology from a reputed institute. I was there for 4 years and we had hectic schedule for classes. I paid around INR 9,000 for four years. This is 9 year back story. I am not sure how much my Alma meter charges now for four year B Tech courses. Even if they charge in tune of INR 50,000 per year, that is justified because that includes rich library and book bank setup with lots of lab instruments(hardware and software) and 7 hour per day classes. The school where my daughter goes just has PlayGroup to KG. It is running in a 2 flats setup in Aundh. They have limited set of kids playing facilities. They have around 6 teachers and 4 admin staff. They have some maids (around 8). They have around 50 students. Thus cumulative sum of fee is INR 1150000 per anum. For 3 hour school they won’t be paying a high some to their school staffs. I feel the management makes good some of money. This was all about the initial stage of education. Now I will let you know another story. Someone told me this story. Few months back, one of his college friends (in US) contacted him on chat and requested him to go in person to one of the reputed engineering institute in his city for collecting the admission forms (paid seat) for his sister who was not from that place. He told that he had visited the website of institute and the last date is in next week and it seems the paid seat fee is just around INR 1, 00000 and he can bear the expense. When that person went to institute and enquired, he came to know that for getting a paid seat admission, the candidate needs to pay extra INR 3,00000 (under the table) to the institute management apart from the usual fee (specified on the website and forms).

In India, education is converting rapidly as an industry. Institute has goals to create more profit (sometime white and sometime black) than to provide quality education and create role models for society. Most confusing part is that government is not giving any attention towards this. It is just interested in providing reservations in government/private institutes and taking back the autonomies of some institutes and universities. Government schools at different levels are dying. Either there is no teacher or if the teachers are there they don’t get salaries properly or they are not good enough.

A VIP cricketer and a (by default VIP) politician

Last month we traveled to our native. We took a flight to Delhi from Pune and then went to Patna and took a cab to reach Muzaffarpur. I was happy to see good quality road between Patna to Muzaffarpur. At Pune airport, while standing in security check queue, I observed the CISF officer (security in charge) invited someone who was standing behind me to get his security check done first and that gentleman politely refused and told him that he will come in queue. I was surprised. I was sure that person standing behind me is VIP and thought to find out who this gentleman is. I turned back and I saw he was Sunil Gavaskar. I talked with him a little while we were in queue. I felt happy that he didn’t exploit his VIP status.

While coming back, at Delhi airport, the GoIndiGo flight was late and my 3 year old daughter had lost her patience and started creating problems for me and my wife. We were waiting and then a long queue got formed to board the flight where a final security check was getting done. The queue was moving too slow and my daughter's was almost uncontrollable. All the passengers were getting frustrated and somehow they were waiting for their turn. All of the sudden we observed one airline official with one CISF personnel came with *someone* and bypassed the queue to board the flight. The gentleman was again a VIP. He was a MP from Maharashtra. I started feeling so bad and angry for the entire system. The passengers with small kids and family are suffering but Mr. VIP doesn’t have any problem in taking privilege of his status although he also knew that he has to fly in same plane so boarding first doesn’t make any difference.

I do know that all cricketers might not be like Mr. Gavaskar and also all politicians might not be like Mr. VIP but at least that day I felt like politicians are the most morally uncultured class in this country.

Remembring Sunil Joshi....

Thus the One Day series is over and Australia won it 4-2 and they really deserved it. Yesterday was Kartik’s (Murali) day. He bowled superbly and then batted sensibly to fetch runs from the track where Australian pacers were bowling superbly. Murali Kartik’s performance revived the memories of Sunil Joshi against South Africa (http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/indvaus/engine/match/66242.html). Sunil Joshi was also a left arm orthodox bowler. That was his day but unfortunately in next match, the South Africans took so many runs against his bowling that he could never come out of that psychological pressure. Hope history won’t repeat for Murali Kartik and he will be bowling at his best in coming future. In yesterday match, clearly the pitch was for bowlers. The pacers got the movement in the air and also the spinners had adequate help coming from the track. I believe Australia would not have even scored 160 if the India pacers would have bowled properly. They lacked accuracy and with the helping wickets they were getting all swings converted in wide. On other side, Australian bowlers read the track properly and bowled in right areas to expose the depth of India batting. Coming back to entire series, one thing which MS Dhoni and Indian management could not read was that the Australian bowling attack was almost ineffective against the Indian tail enders. They really didn’t have any plan to get out Harbhajan, Zaheer and Co. Have they (Indian Team Management) known that in 6th game at Nagpur, Uthappa and Dhoni would have charged Australian attack a couple of over early clearly thinking that the players like Zaheer, Harbhajan, Kartik can fetch runs in death overs against Australian attack. Look for the all One Day matches in these series and you will find that Australia always struggled to get out Indian tail Enders. In fact in every match Indian tail Enders had scored consistently. This is a fact which can give some advantage for Indian camp for the test series (in Australia) where usually the tail Enders also gets chance to bat for long.

This One Day series can see the demise of a talented pacer like S Sreesanth. He unnecessarily got himself involved in all useless controversies which affected his state of mind and that negative effect was seen in his bowling. He could never concentrate. Actually Australian team was successful in getting this bowler disturbed himself his rhythm and they did that in a much planned way. I remember an article written by Ponting in TOI during the final phase of 20-20 world cup even before the Australian arrived to India for the One Day cricket series. In his column he targeted Sreesanth and wrote his bowling figures are far better than the quality of his bowling. As I read the column I understood that the right hand Australian batsmen are getting difficulty in playing Sreesath. In fact that was seen in earlier 20-20 match. Ponting understood that this single guy can make difference and so he started targeting him. They used to target Sachin earlier when they thought Sachin plays like a match winner but now as they know that Sachin is not in same touch they pointed out Sreesatnth. Sreesanth had bowled some inspiring spells in earlier test matches where India won against West Indies and England. Ponting felt this guy can make the difference so he and his company started targeting him to disturb his state of mind. In the same way like they do with Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff knowing that these guys can change the result of ashes series. Dhoni, Sreesanth and Indian cricket management would have understood this tactic much earlier and would have avoided all on and off the field talking tactics. Hope Sreesanth will be back in the same rhythm to bowl well spells in incoming test series in Australia. Else it will be a victory for Ponting and Co in the mind game.