Re: [MTC Global] from BBC

Media houses are business houses. They have not been set up as philanthropic organizations. For them, news is what sales;  they get better scores from audience research. And that attracts advertisers. Media survives on sensationalizing; and probably that's what people prefer. The academic community may not be on the same page. You can experience it if you carefully read Facebook entries, comments at the end of Google News items, especially on political and ''developmental'' agenda. 

A small, though positive, incidence that makes news.

As per newspaper report, one gentleman from the minority community offered Modi Scholarships @Rs.500 to couple of students. It's a flash news with photographs.  

ETMA - an educational trust of academicians - offers scholarships since 2008 to more than 40 brilliant students from poor families till they get a job. ETMA scholars who would have otherwise been lost in labour market have cracked IIT, Engg. Colleges and Universities. Fund for these  scholarships are contributed by directors/professors/teachers of IITs, IIMs, Universities, National Institutions, Schools and their friends. There are other agencies too who help students quietly.  It's not a news as there is no political agenda in it.  

It's difficult situation as every media house has a patch of political colour too depending upon the owner. And, education is the punch bag for every one;  every one is an educationalist because they went to a school. The picture of copying in one of the schools in Bihar went viral. Though, it happens every day in railways - more people entering through windows than doors, it  does not make news. 

On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 1:58 PM, Jagan Mohan Reddy <drjaganmohanreddy@gmail.com> wrote:

I fully agree with the views/ observations of Prof Ganesh.

Objective reporting and analysis has been given a goby longtime and the whole emphasis seems to be hogging the limelight.

Some of us might remember how a national daily went all out to report on hanging of a terrorist while relegating the news of dead body of Late Kalam Saab reaching Rameshwaram on the same day.

Media plays a crucial role in moulding and shaping the public opinion. So there's an increasing responsibility on reporters, editors and even the owners in reporting objectively, with humaneness, the events happening around.

The very reporting can whip up the sentiments and could also soothe the pent up feelings.

Let's hope that wiser sense will prevail upon all the concerned in the times to come.

Dr A Jagan Mohan Reddy

On Sunday 5 June 2016, Ganesh L S <lsg@iitm.ac.in> wrote:

The insensitivity of the media touched a new low by featuring the status of education in Bihar, and especially by focusing on the two youngsters without the due anonymity being given to them.  The media's feature was very, very sad and nauseating too, much more than the status or the lack of it in Bihar.  May we assume then that there is some status left of school education, not just in Bihar, but also in many of our other States?  Please let me share my observation here that the schooling system in Thamizhnaadu has all but collapsed due to a variety of reasons, prominent among them being the Minister-level leadership (or its abuse and/or absence) coupled with bureaucratic ineffectiveness on the one hand and the widespread unmitigated indiscipline and lack of sincerity prevailing within the teaching community; exceptions do exist, fortunately and with blessings.

But, please let us focus on our media for now.  Mr. Stephen Narayanan has made the right points and has raised the right questions.  Extending upon his inputs, shall we all ask, "Who'll bell the media in India?"  Alright, the Reporters may have been overly enthusiastic, but what about the Programme Editors of the channels?  Where, when, how and why did their common sense and goodness/compassion vanish?  This incident is a pointer that Institutions of higher learning in the art, science and craft of media and mass communications, must emphasize, more than ever, the need for their students to become sensitive, compassionate professionals while pursuing their duties of observing, documenting and revealing the truth through their work.

With prayers and hope for increasing humaneness and compassion among all,

L. S. Ganesh,

Professor,

Department of Management Studies,

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MADRAS,

Chennai 600036.

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From: join_mtc@googlegroups.com <join_mtc@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Stephen Narayanan <stepnrn@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 4, 2016 2:40 PM
To: join_mtc@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [MTC Global] from BBC

 

Very Unfortunate that these kids were made a spectacle & their whole career anf future is spoiled in the name of sting just because some channels wanted to earn trp's. No doubt these practice of cheating needs to be stopped but in our country where murderers & criminals are shown on television with their faces covered, these students were uncovered in public. Isn't the College, Vishun Ray responsible for it, the officials and the management in collusion with the parents perhaps of the kids are to blame but the kids have been made scapegoat.

Just imagine, the same is the case with Judiciary, those who are not capable of calculations are occupying the high post of Judge. One such judge fudged maths test and his erroneous calculations helped Ms.Jayalalita of AIADMK to escape the possible jail sentence. Shouldn't these Judges too be defrocked?

But No....Channels don't have the guts to take on the Judiciary....and topper Judges from such backward states along with their caste certificate benefits get elevated as Judges to be a parasite on the government and public.

Stephen Narayanan

Mob.:-9868386192

On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 4:57 PM, Fostiima Director <director@fostiima.org> wrote:

Its our systems, evaluations, goals which are unclear, and kids get the absolutely wrong signals.

Its OUR fault, Govt and Society

=========================================================================================

Why cracking down on cheating in India's Bihar state is tough

Soutik Biswas  Delhi correspondent

age caption

On Friday, 14 students in eastern India's Bihar who topped school examinations will face three teachers in an office in the state capital, Patna, to be retested.

The examiners will be checking the handwriting of the students and will be asking questions to find out whether they cheated in their examinations.

The decision to arrange this unprecedented retest was taken after a local TV channel broadcast footage showing two of the top-scoring students struggling to answer basic questions posed by the reporters.

Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shresth topped the school-leaving class 12 examination, in which more than a million students took part. On paper, they are the cream of the crop.

Blacklisted

But Ms Rai, who scored top in the humanities stream, told the channel that political science "was all about cooking", while Mr Shresth, who can first for science, named aluminium as the most reactive element in the periodic table, when it is in a less active group.

Interestingly, both the toppers come from the same school in the state's Vaishali district. More interestingly, authorities had blacklisted the college for encouraging cheating last year. The principal of the college, who has been under a cloud, continues in his job.

Remember these pictures from last year? Brave - and desperate - parents, relatives and friends of students are seen climbing school walls in Bihar to pass on answers to the students inside.

"When you go elsewhere, no one will believe your degrees. If you can't clear exams, why don't you just fail them and retake them till you pass?" a frustrated Bihar leader, Laloo Prasad Yadav, had said at the time.

Image copyrightAFPImage captionBrave relatives could be seen scaling the wallsImage copyrightAFPImage captionMore than a million students took the school exams in Bihar

Bihar suffers from an epidemic of cheating, but these pictures went viral and embarrassed the government. So the authorities put up CCTV cameras, deployed 70,000 officials and policemen and imposed a fine of 10,000 rupees ($148; £103) on students caught cheating during this year's school examinations.

The upshot: more than half of the 1.4 million students who took the Bihar Board Examinations - or the class 10 test - this year failed. Last year 75% of them had cleared the exam. A Bihar minister admitted that this year's exam results showed the "actual merit of students".

Cheating in school exams has been going on in Bihar for as long as one can remember. A mafia, comprising teachers and school authorities, connives with parents of students who bribe them to rig entire answer sheets.

Failed tests

Sometimes teachers will complete exam papers for their students, while the students sit at home. Another example: a colleague, who studied in Bihar, told me that when she went to school more than a decade ago, teachers would often write answers on the blackboard during exams.

These days, an official in Bihar tells me, a rigged first division score answer paper can set back parents by 40,000-50,000 rupees ($594-$743; £411-£514), while ensuring that you get the highest score in a state can cost 100,000 rupees.

Something is clearly rotten when it comes to education in Bihar, one of India's poorest states.

Education is a way out of poverty for the poor and promises upward mobility to the middle class, which is bristling with ambition. So enrolment has risen sharply and a growing number of students are appearing for exams - 1.34 million students took the class 10 exams in 2014, up from half a million students in 2004, for example.

But once the authorities cracked down on cheating this year, the pass rate declined sharply. More than 70% of the examinees passed the class 10 exam in 2014 and 2015. This year, barely 50% passed. In the class 12 school-leaving board exam this year - which Ms Rai and Mr Shresth topped - 56% and 67% of the students passed in humanities and science, as against 86% and 89% last year.

What could be the reason? Reading levels have improved, but clearly the quality of teaching is appalling. Absenteeism among teachers is very high. A sting by a local channel on school teachers in the state last year was revealing. One teacher spelt Shakespeare as Shakspear. The maths teacher spelt his subject Mathmates, and looked puzzled when asked about Pythagoras.

"Our teachers hardly come to teach us," is a common refrain among students in Bihar.

What will happen on Friday when the students are tested? If they are caught out, what will the authorities do? How many students can you penalise when you really don't know how many have cheated? Or, as IndiaExplained tweeted, in jest, will parents have to climb the walls again?

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Prof. Marmar Mukhopadhyay

Chairman, ETMA Council.

"Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, 

for the vanities of the education of our times are tremendous"

-Swami Vivekananda

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