Teacher Education under Attack

According to the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), there are 11880 recognized Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) in India. NCTE is the nodal agency for recognizing, regulating and monitoring teacher education. It was constituted by an act of Parliament. There are several courses ranging from Diploma in Teacher Education (D.T.Ed) to Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) to Master of Education (M.Ed) to Master of Philosophy in Education (M.Phil) to Doctor of Philosophy in Education (Ph.D) under the ambit of NCTE. Diploma to Doctoral degree in Physical Education are also offered by NCTE recognized TEIs.  There are educational courses for special children offered by the NCTE. Currently there are over 10 lakh students enrolled in several courses offered by the NCTE recognized TEIs in the country.

NCTE is headquartered in New Delhi and its regional centres are in Jaipur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru. In a sudden stroke of pen, NCTE has made the regional centres null and void. From now on, the entire teacher education of India will be governed from the national headquarters. In the age of decentralized governance, NCTE opts for totally centralized governance. What an anti-development attitude of NCTE? There are reasons for making regional centres redundant. Corruption creeping to the grass root governance of NCTE regional centres has compelled the judiciary to direct the NCTE to clean up the system. Taking advantage of the Court directions, NCTE has completely centralized its job.

First of all, NCTE must introspect, why it created regional centres? Is it possible to monitor such a huge number of TEIs from the national capital? If corruption is the core issue then the NCTE headquarter must crack down corrupt elements in its regional centres through flying squads, anti-corruption bureaus and vigilance departments. It is popularly said now, instead of decentralized corruption now there will be a centralized corruption. If government and judiciary are keen on eliminating corruption then nobody can stop it. But the mere lip service on removal of corruption won’t remove corruption in the country especially in the NCTE and TEIs.

Apart from neutralizing regional centres, NCTE has outsourced its work to a private agency called Quality Council of India (QCI) for inspection and ranking TEIs. This will pay way for commercializing teacher education further. Earlier QCI was given the task of monitoring TEI websites for an annual payment of Rs.3000/- Even TEIs don’t spend this amount to create their websites. Just to monitor TEI websites, QCI was paid Rs.3000 by nearly 10000 TEIs. Why to collect Rs.3 crores for monitoring websites?

By pressurizing TEIs to either follow the overnight diktats or getting it shut down, NCTE has been killing the teacher education system very fast. After emboldened by this blackmailing technique, now NCTE has devised devastating rules.

One, TEIs should share the interests from the fixed deposit amount of Rs.15 lakhs with the NCTE. The fixed deposit amount belongs to the TEIs which has been put in the joint account with NCTE, so that the amount is not withdrawn abruptly. This safe route has been taken advantage by the NCTE and threatening to demand its cut from the interest income of fixed deposits of NCTE.

Two, NCTE has made QCI as the inspecting agency. A private agency with no academic expertise to check the quality of teacher education has been given this extraordinary work is really appalling. The inspection fee for each TEI is Rs.1.5 lakh. With nearly 12000 TEIs in the country the inspection fee alone will come Rs.200 crore per annum. What is the government intend to do? By commercializing the teacher education, government is sending wrong signals for the future growth of the country.

India’s steady progress is due to the education sector. Nobody should forget that our difficult education system has produced some wonderful minds for the world. Despite several bottlenecks, Indian education has been providing its service. If the Government wants to make it to the international standards it should help the private sector to offer high quality education at lower costs. A commercialized education setup will completely ruin the country. All the advantages India accumulated all these years with the education will vanish in the air in no time. NCTE must put down its habit of washing away its responsibility and handing over a major area of national development – teacher education to a private enterprise. It is now or never! 

Honorable Supreme Court can Save Jallikattu

I salute the yeoman services rendered by the Honorable Supreme Court of India in safeguarding the constitutional rights of the Indians and principles of India enshrined in the Holy Book of our democracy. I am proud to say that because of the Honorable Supreme Court’s interventions, India is safe, secure and successful today. At the same time, I would like to draw the attention of the Honorable Supreme Court towards an issue which is culturally, socially and economically sensitive to the Tamil community – Jallikattu (Bull Taming).

1.     Only the Tamil community in the world has a day devoted to thank its cattle – Mattu Pongal

2.     The Tamil community has groomed cattle as part of its life

3.     Such a community does not need a certificate from foreign agents and agencies about the care for the cattle

4.     Jalikattu has been happening for the past 3000 years

5.     If Jalikattu is a cruelty to animals then how can the cattle be allowed to be butchered and eaten. Can we ban meat eating?

6.     India is the world’s top exporter of beef in the world

7.     The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy says that India exported 2.4 million tons of beef in the FY2015

8.     India’s share in the world market of beef exports is 23.5%

9.     Beef exports fetched India $4.8 billion in 2014

10.                        The Council for Leather Exports say that India exported leather goods worth $5.92 billion in the FY2015-16

11.                        Currently the leather industry in India employs 2.5 million persons

12.                        Can we ban the leather industry and exports because it functions by killing the animals?

13.                        Jalikattu is to train quality bulls to breed high quality local breed of cows not to injure the bulls

14.                        I am confident that the Honorable Supreme Court fathom the depth of the cultural, social and economic connections with the Jalikattu

15.                        Jalikattu bulls are essential for the multiplication of local cows

16.                        Local cows are fed on the green grass, hay, straw, oil cakes, cotton seeds while the foreign cows need harmonic injections which are chemicals and destructive in nature

17.                        Local breed cows can withstand our weather conditions whereas the alien species require air-conditioning and chemical inducements

18.                        Nutrition Studies.org informs us that milk from the hybrid variety cows can induce prostate, ovarian cancers, diabetes which is produced through a process in milk called “molecular mimicry”

19.                        Let India not fall prey to the colonizers once again. We must protect our positive local science, technology, farming practices sports, and cattle breeding.

20.                        Colonisers come initially as our traders, saviours, advisors and champions of our well-being and finally end up in enslaving us. Let India not repeat the same which led to its colonization from Portuguese to the Britishers

21.                        515 years of India’s colonization by different nations should give us the adequate knowledge to differentiate between the good and evil

22.                        Let India not surrender to those who masquerade evil as good and good as evil.

23.                        Promote the positive aspects of the Indian culture especially the Jalikattu which is the lifeline of the farming community

24.                        The wisdom of the Honorable Judges of the Supreme Court is solicited to lift the ban on the Jalikattu at the earliest so that a local practice of producing strong bulls, natural cows and healthy people thrive. 

Corrupt & bankrupt Tamil Nadu?

Tamil Nadu was in the forefront of clean politics and development once upon a time. Now the situation is topsy-turvy. Neither politics nor development is clean. Both have become notorious and denting the image of Tamil society. Corruption every where and development losing sight in the industrial sector are the twin assaults on Tamil Nadu.

Nevertheless Tamil Nadu is better in urbanisation and per capita increase in the country. Its health indicators are showing a good progress. Although government hospitals and schools are spruced up there are very few visitors to it. Agony is more in the schools.

Corruption is dancing happily from hospital to the very top of the administration. The worst scenario is the fixed bribe rate for each posting and transfers. Almighty Amma must crack the whip and eradicate the corrupt party men, women and officers. Unless this is done, the state will lose in the national race. If it is done, Almighty Amma will be revered forever.

Times of India writes on 10 March 2015

Rumblings against corruption in the state administration are getting louder after former agriculture minister SS Krishnamurthy's unceremonious exit from the cabinet over the suicide of an agriculture department executive engineer S Muthukumarasamy in Tirunelveli last month. Krishnamurthy's office had allegedly harassed the official to manipulate the selection process for recruitment of drivers in the department. Not able to bear the ordeal, the official jumped before a running train.

Muthukumarasamy's suicide was not a one-off case, said CPM state secretary G Ramakrishnan. "There is corruption in appointments, promotions and transfers, largely at officers' level, in every department. Straightforward officials suffer because of this," said Ramakrishnan. Both AIADMK and DMK governments have nurtured corrupt practices and it has gained alarming proportions in the last 10 years, he said.

Every department has shocking tales to narrate about corruption. A powerful VIP convened regional meetings of aided college principals and secretaries about two years ago to raise money from appointments of assistant professors. One of the college secretaries, who attended one such meeting at Tirunelveli circuit house, said, "The VIP's PA had summoned both principals and secretaries. The meeting started in the night and the VIP called us one by one into his room and said unless we paid money to him, appointments of new assistant professors would not be approved. He demanded Rs 5 lakh per post from minority institutions and Rs 7 lakh per post from non-minority institutions. If we could not collect money from the candidates, he said he himself would identify suitable candidates". Since then, most college managements have been collecting extra money, over and above Rs 5-10 lakh they collect from candidates, for appointing assistant professors.

In the police department, deputy superintendents of police and inspectors pay money to middlemen to secure transfers to preferred locations. "While DSPs pay Rs 4-10 lakh depending on the district and city, inspectors pay Rs 2-3 lakh for transfers," said an official. "A relative of a senior official in Chennai is a prominent collection agent. Anybody who gives money to that agent gets the posting of his choice," the official said.

Corruption has pervaded all levels of the state administration that people now take it for granted, said MG Devasahayam, a retired bureaucrat. "It has destroyed the basic fabric of the administration, because people get into a position by bribing and also stay there by bribing. There is money in appointments, postings, transfers and stopping transfers. Only the level varies depending on the capacity of politicians to demand and officials to pay. When an official pays money to get a post, his or her effort is focused only on collecting several times more of that from the public," said Devasahayam.

Everyone seems to be benefitting from corruption in Tamil Nadu, said a retired director general of police. "Since those sitting at the top take money, people below also have a field day," he said. Ramakrishnan said CPM would hold a series of agitations to put an end to corruption in government administration.

Five days of Karunanidhi's family singing

Five days of extravaganza to celebrate the classical Tamil is not wrong. But to use the public money and time to sing Karunanidhi and his family tunes only in these five days was wrong. None can deny the worthy contributions of Kalaignar. The world likes him as a script writer, dialogue writer, Tamil scholar, clever politician. But his performance as an administrator is abysmally dismal. Almost all the government departments are going negative. Especially the electricity situation in Tamil Nadu is worse. Giving everything free but taking away the self respect of people amounts to the worst indicator of DMK government. Who knows the final days of Karunanidhi's government.

While condemning Karunanidhi's worst performance as C.M, I strongly support the recognition of Indian languages in the official proceedings. It is a sad state of affairs that the Indian language speakers are looked down. A language should not be a barrier for the performance of people's representatives or for that matter any common man.

The Times of India writes on 29 June 2010,

If the Tamil Nadu government wishes to spend Rs 300 crore on a five-day bash in Coimbatore to promote Tamil, that is its prerogative. But chief minister M Karunanidhi has gone much further, sowing the seeds of divisive identity politics. He has demanded that jobs be reserved for Tamil speakers, and that Tamil be made the language of the Madras high court as well as an official language of the Union government. Given our diverse linguistic identities, reviving the old language debate is totally unnecessary. According to Article 348 of the Constitution, the language to be used for the conduct of affairs in the Supreme Court and the high courts is English. This is because the cases that come up for hearing before these courts may involve litigants from across the country. If Tamil were to be made the language of the Madras high court it would be a serious impediment to non-Tamil litigants. Similarly, job reservation for Tamil speakers opens a can of worms, as other states can make similar demands. Another constitutional guarantee, allowing Indians to live and seek work anywhere in India, would go out of the window.

Tamil is already one of the scheduled languages under the 8th Schedule to the Constitution. To suggest that it be made an official language of the Union government is simply unreasonable. Tamil just doesn't have the same universality as English ^ the language predominantly used by the Union government. In the interest of the state as well as the country, the DMK should not walk the path of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Kalaignar Course in Madras University

Sycophants are crossing all limits to appease their leaders. Tamil Nadu which is well-known for the sycophancy is always in news for high pitch sycophancy. It is the state where followers fire walk, commit suicides, fast unto death and many other tamashas to catch the attention of their leaders. DMK supremo Karunanidhi who is known for encouraging these sycophants in an indirect manner initiated naming of streets in the alive person's names. One can find Kalaignar Karunanidhi nagar in Chennai, Tiruchirapali and other towns. It is insane to name a place after an alive person. Generally in memory of the dead person's name streets, buses, programmes are named. But for DMK glorifying the alive leader is the favourite past time. The latest one is chilling.

The Times of India writes (15 October 2009)


A proposal by the University of Madras to offer a Master of Arts degree in ‘Kalaignar Thought’, as mooted by new vice-chancellor G
Thiruvasagam, has sparked a debate on whether a state university can start a course based on the ideals and philosophy of a serving chief minister. ( Watch Video )

While there have been instances of theses and dissertations being done by research scholars on the work of chief ministers in the past, academicians do not recall any specialised course based on a living leader’s thoughts. Academicians are cautious about the idea, but made it clear that such courses could not be started solely on the basis of the V-C’s views; rather, it could be offered only if it was cleared by the academic council and other university bodies.

‘‘Any new course is welcome, but I don’t think such courses are essential,’’ said Prof P K Ponnusamy, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Madras as well as the Madurai Kamarajar University. He also pointed out that students should also evince interest in these courses. ‘‘We have to wait and see how many students join the course.’’

V-Cs could not make any independent decision, and the planned courses should be cleared by the syndicate, senate and academic council, Prof Ponnusamy said. He added that politics and academics had become inseparable in recent times and it was ‘‘inevitable’’ that such courses would come into being.