Ancient Greeks were in awe of numerals. Pythagoras was mortally petrified that his discovery of square-roots would invoke the wrath of powers on high. Being a math radical is easier now. Ask KV Kamath, CEO of ICICI Bank. At a CII-CFO summit, he wondered what was so sacred about a 12-year school education span starting at age 5. Why not have two years of schooling, starting at age 8-10? The idea, he explained, was to minimise school dropouts, hovering in a 60-70% range at the moment, and extend education?s reach to everyone. As for curriculum details, Kamath advocated teaching only those subjects that retain relevance today. Asked Kamath, himself an engineer, ?What is the use of trigonometry?? It had proven itself utterly useless in his long career as a banker. Unlike addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Students may be delighted at this, but how would educationists react to such blasphemy?
Knotty, knotty
The FM has been pushing for consolidation among public sector banks. However, the ministry would like decisions on this to be left to the banks themselves, given their varied needs and concerns. The ministry wants to play the neutral ?priest?, ever ready to solemnise the unions. But the banks still seem to be waiting for approval from the government. ?Please remember,? a bank boss quipped the other day, ?we are owned by the government. So, until they tell us, how can we decide to merge? We will await their decision, naturally.? Perhaps the priest needs to play a more proactive role in having knots tied.
