Can we learn our lessons?
The uninspiring picture of our economy is in great part due to sharp 20% plunge of the rupee against the US dollar in a short time. Other nations have not been immune either and the ensuing volatility of global currency markets has brought world trade to its lowest level since peaking in 2007. The slowdown in China could pull it lower, more than the outflow of dollar assets from lesser economies, if and when the US Federal Reserve increases rates. There is a biblical advice to use a period of feast to prepare for a famine. The prosperous 9% growth years post 2005-06 was not adequately leveraged. China was astute enough to plough back proceeds from its prosperity to massive investment in roads, bridges and power plants. We allowed growth to be wasted in electoral posturing, as laws tabled in Parliament, got pushed from session to session, despite their urgency. In this fight of eye-for-an-eye, progress could well go half blind. The outcome of the winter session of Parliament would determine our earnestness to learn lessons to deal with external threats and opportunities.
R Narayanan
Ghaziabad
Raising education standards
Apropos of the editorial “Kota’s cram-schools for IITs aren’t the problem, they are the result” (FE, November 27), while Kota has managed to get constant media attention for many years, the pressure-cooker-like living and studying environment that you wrote about is a reality in various other centres too. Chandigarh, for example, has emerged as a major coaching centre for Punjab CET, Punjab PMT and several national-level entrance examinations.
These are also the examinations where lakhs of students appear for a few thousand seats. And talking about suicides, we, in Punjab, keep reading news about students committing suicide under intense parental, societal and peer pressure from time to time. In fact, in the regional media, there are one or two news items on students committing suicide almost every month. Unfortunately, such news doesn’t quite often reach Delhi, the self-proclaimed centre of national media. Coming to the point you raised, the crux of the problem, indeed, is a publicly-funded and regulated school and college system which has simply failed to deliver the goods. Survey after survey, year after year, proves that a significant percentage of Indian students can’t read basic texts or do simple mathematics while in school. Better teachers and better pedagogy, clearly, are the answer. Now, if we have to strengthen the next-generation, teachers must be selected on their ability to teach, not on the basis of their caste. The answer, clearly, is privatisation of education at all levels, but with proper monitoring.
Naresh Chandra
Ropar, Punjab