‘India has to keep its youth in good health to become a developed nation'

COIMBATORE: India needs to keep its youth in good health, C. Rajendran, Commissioner, Customs and Central Excise, Coimbatore, said here on Monday.
Speaking at The Hindu-KG Hospital ‘Special Preventive Health Check-up for Teachers', he said the quality of health of the 64-crore youth was important than their being a majority of the population. “India needs fit, healthy youth to become a developed nation. And it is the only way the country can catch up with China.”
Chinese followed a healthy lifestyle; most of their food items were boiled. Indians, on the other hand, fried most of their items. Their lifestyle had also changed. “Is it development or degradation?”
Mr. Rajendran said it was regrettable that India was high on the list of nations with most diabetic, heart patients, persons with Hepatitis B and other diseases. “This is no way to catch up with China, whose share in world production was far higher than India's,” he said.
Teachers' role in shaping India was important because they could make or destroy a generation. In that context, their health was important. And they could not afford to fail because their failure would mean the failure of a generation.
He also asked the teachers to constantly update their knowledge. Quoting a Tirukkural, he said, “If somebody has knowledge, go beg him or her to learn that.”
G. Bakthavathsalam, Chairman, KG Hospital, asked the teachers not to show their anger on students. Students should not undergo corporal punishment, or any physical or mental stress on account of the teachers.
He asked them to consider teaching as God's calling and said it was no nine-to-five job. Only happy teachers would make good teachers. To be happy they needed to be in good health, he added.
The Hindu-KG Hospital medical camp is open for teachers, including retired, and their family members. Master health check-up is provided at a nominal cost. It is a goodwill gesture from the organisers to the teachers to commemorate Teachers' Day. Those interested could register for the health check-up at the special counter at KG Hospital, Arts College Road, Coimbatore. The offer is valid from September 7 to 14. For further details, contact R. Jeyakumar, General Manager, on 98422-21801 or R. Gandhirajan, PRO, at 98422-66630.

What India, China owe their young

Comparisons of India and China are inevitable, and will keep being made. They are both fast-growing population giants, but with many differences. Comparisons also tend to imply a degree of competition. Competition can be zero-sum, as when one supplier displaces another for a fixed market, or when one buyer locks in a given supply of a natural resource at the expense of another. India and China will both be subject to these kinds of competition. On top of this economic competition, there is political competition, for global power and prestige. This can also be couched in utilitarian terms, of risk reduction or providing a stronger base for access to resources and markets. But emotions and ideologies can also be a major factor in political competition. Territorial disputes are clearly zero-sum, although they become embedded in a larger arena of competition, with egos and image entering the mix.

For centuries, the European powers, followed by the US, carved up the rest of the world for its natural resources to fuel their industrial growth. They also fought with each other, often with horrible consequences. Yet they became, and still are, so much richer than either India or China. The lever of these riches (to use economic historian Joel Mokyr's metaphor) was innovation. In my last column, I made the case that entrepreneurship drives the harnessing of technological progress for economic betterment. This was Joseph Schumpeter's original insight. If innovation and entrepreneurship are key drivers of growth, how do India and China stack up?
On the fundamental measure of ease of doing business, China is not a world leader, ranking only 89th. Yet this is far better than India's rank of 133. Looking at the components of the overall ranking, China does much better on trading across borders, which is no surprise. China is also relatively more business-friendly in ease of closing a business. But it also outperforms India in registering property and enforcing contracts. If entrepreneurship is starting small businesses, but ones that have a formal legal status so that they can expand easily, India puts itself at a huge disadvantage. It will be critical for the current set of reforms on company law, land acquisition and related matters that affect entrepreneurship, to move forward, if India is to remove its handicaps.
India's poor governance is also a matter of concern. There are good reasons for improving governance that have nothing to do with business or material well-being, though ultimately, good governance should help citizens to lead better lives. Measures of governance along several dimensions also exist. Indians enjoy much more political freedom than Chinese. India also does better, or no worse, than China on corruption, rule of law and quality of regulation. While China is ahead of India in 'government effectiveness'. This dimension of governance is subjectively measured, but it includes of the quality of public services, the civil service, policy formulation and implementation, and of the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. India is a messy democracy, but there is no reason it cannot do better on these criterion, especially for those of its citizens (businessmen or not) who are outside the elite. Better public infrastructure and services will also have an impact on the ease of doing business, complementing needed legal and regulatory reforms.
Not everything can be reduced to numbers and rankings. Other areas that are important for innovation include the efficiency of the tax system, specific incentives and legal protections for intellectual property, attitudes towards risk and failure, and capabilities. Capabilities depend on everything from childhood nutrition to higher education—India's failures here go back to poor government effectiveness. India also lags in the quality of its tax system, though this should quickly change for the good, with pending reforms. The reward system for innovation has not yet received enough explicit attention, but India has the potential to outstrip China on this front.
Perhaps the place where India has the greatest opportunity is in its youth. India's youth, beyond the elite, are beginning to have confidence to compete globally. And there will be many more of them than in China. In the US, the baby boomers created social upheaval in the 1960s, but also drove the great wave of innovation in the 1980s and 1990s. The Facebook and Twitter generation is piggybacking on the changes wrought by their parents. The young are naturally more innovative, but they need the environment and infrastructure in which to succeed. They need education, jobs and opportunities to be creative. In 1914, Europe's leaders sent millions of their youth to die needlessly in trenches, and solved nothing. Another World War then had to be fought. Surely, India and China will figure out how to do better. Their leaders owe it to their young people.

The author is professor of economics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Spot the lecturer in this class

Keerat Kaur’s Facebook profile looks like any other 22-year old’s, till you notice that she’s a degree college lecturer. Kaur, who recently completed her mass communications’ course from Symbiosis, Pune, has been teaching at Wilson College’s Bachelor of Mass Media course for the past three months.
She’s just a year or two senior to her students and it’s fun to play ‘spot the professor’ in the classroom while she’s in huddled discussions with her students, often involving them in tasks which include interpreting a variety of paintings, music and short films.
It’s a similar sight sometimes at Juhu beach, where students of Rizvi College of Architecture gather with their lecturer, 29-year old Farzan Khatri. Just 7-8 years older than most of his students, Khatri recently spent an afternoon with them on the beach, helping them practise architecture of a different kind — building sand castles.
Meanwhile, at IIT-Powai’s Industrial Design Centre, Girish Dalvi, 28, teaches typography in Devanagiri script, specialising in the use of the script for the web. His passion: to get students thinking. “In India, for long, teachers were considered Gods, truly righteous, and information purveyors of the highest order. The result was that teachers started trying to form an army of their own clones, through their students. That guru-shishya parampara has come in for a change now,” he says, impassionately.
Meet India’s next breed of teaching talent, who, with the blessings of their grey-haired senior counterparts are bridging the generation gap with students. They’re more easily absorbed in courses that lend itself to creativity. Their big promise: youth, enthusiasm, approachability, and the ability to relate to their students better. The stereotypical image of a teacher as someone who was kind yet stern, a mother/ fatherly figure, is seeing a transition. Today, ‘friendly’ is the new cool.
“Earlier, people would be apprehensive about talking casually with their teachers, now they treat them as friends,” says Sushma Pandit, 34, a primary school teacher at Kapol Vidyanidhi
International School, Kandivli. Having been in the profession for the last ten years, Pandit feels the trend of young teachers is a good one. “Because of them, today, even senior teachers are keeping themselves updated with new ideas. They are open to change and are trying to get more involved,” she says.
It doesn’t mean that young enthusiasm is a substitute for experience. Mary Gonsalves, a counsellor at Maneckji Cooper High School, Juhu, who has been a teacher for the last 35 years, points out: “If you believe in the adage that experience is the best teacher, then these youngsters fall short,” she says, adding that a healthy mix of teachers from different age groups is the best and most needed combination of the hour.
“The younger teachers are more in touch with current trends and culture. At the same time, school children like the older teachers, as they are more understanding and patient.” Professor Sudhakar Solomon Raj of Wilson College, who was responsible for hiring Keerat Kaur, himself began teaching at the young age of 21. “What one looks for in a teacher is passion for the subject and great communication skills. So the inflow of young professors into the educational system is nothing new. It’s always been the case in schools and colleges — there will be some professors who are young and some who are very senior.”
Professor Joseph Campana, who teaches at Xaviers Institute of Communication and American School of Bombay, agrees, and is amused to know that his students think of him as someone who is young though he’s in his early 40s. He laughs, “I don’t think being effective as a teacher has anything to do with age. It is more a function of enthusiasm about your job.There’s a general view that students like teachers who are more technology savvy; but in my experience, there are actually mixed reactions. I’m not on social networking sites like Facebook myself.”

Today's young politicians inspire Bollywood stars

NEW DELHI: Call it a reflection of changing times or a desire to be real, young Indian leaders like Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot and Priyanka Gandhi are defining the image of on-screen politicians in Bollywood.

Till recently, politicians had been portrayed as old, potbellied and often sleazy. That has now changed.

Abhishek Bachchan, who played a young politician in R Balakrishnan's 'Paa' says he modelled his look on young leaders like Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora.

"I modelled my look after Sachine Pilot and Milind Deora in the film. There were no special effects taken for my look in the movie because we wanted to keep the character as normal as possible," Bachchan had said about his role.

The actor will be playing a young leader once again in Ashutosh Gowarikar's 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se', where he portray's the role of communist activist Surya Sen, who was hanged by the British. Based on Manini Chatterjee's 'Do And Die', the film tells the story of 1930 Chittagong uprising.

Similarly, 24-year-old Deepika Padukone, who is famous for her glamourous roles, has opted for cotton sarees and a no make-up look to play Sen's comrade Kalpana Datta.

Katrina Kaif, in the latest Prakash Jha hit 'Raajneeti' picked up pointers for her character from Priyanka Gandhi. Kaif said she watched Priyanka's election videos to get her body language and look right.

"Priyanka is a young, strong, independent and modern leader with the right blend of values. Though my character is not based on her, I watched her campaign videos to observe her body language and how she campaigns and interacts with the crowd," Kaif said.
Earlier, reports had said Katrina's character in 'Raajneeti' was modelled on Sonia Gandhi and that had landed the film in trouble with the censors. But Katrina's admission that Priyanka was her inspiration, quelled the controversy.

Jha, who mixed epic Mahabharata and 'The Godfather' to make his blockbuster, said his film was a reflection of the changing face of Indian politics.

"The Gandhi-topi and dhoti-kurta wearing politician is a thing of past. Today politicians are young have studied in foreign universities. They are from the urban milieu," Jha said.

Other Bollywood hits focusing on the youth politics in India are Mani Ratnam's 'Yuva', Varma's 'Sarkar' and 'Sarkar Raj', Anurag Kashyap's 'Gulal', Madhur Bhandarkar's 'Satta', Tigmanshu Dhulia's 'Haasil' and Gulzar's 1975 classic 'Aandhi' and 'Maachis'. 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Todays-young-politicians-inspire-Bollywood-stars/articleshow/6498137.cms 

Youth must set goals for future, says Abid Hussain

Visakhapatnam, Sept. 6: Addressing the first batch of diploma holders (Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering) from the Indian Maritime University (IMU), Visakhapatnam, Dr Abid Hussain, noted economist and former Indian Ambassador to the US and chancellor of the Indian Maritime University urged youngsters to set early goals in a fast changing global environment.

Mr Hussain said, “The youth of India have a major role to play in nation building what with the country facing many challenges.”

He added, “Present generation must strive for excellence in whatever they do and cannot afford to have a lackadaisical attitude either towards their responsibilities or their ambitions.”

Mr Hussain later awarded the certificates to the four diploma holders who passed out. The director of IMU, Mr S.C. Mishra, Visakhapatnam Port Trust chairman Mr Ajey Kallam, and IMU vice-chancellor Dr T. Vijayan and Hindustan Shipyard Limited chairman and managing director Mr Naresh Kumar were present.

 

Young ’uns rule the roost

Genesia Alves 

They used to say ‘youth is king’ but youth today is also entrepreneur, inventor, conqueror, innovator, super-achiever. Like software and technology that evolve in ever-steeper, ever-quicker ‘generations’, young people unencumbered by experience and high on the potential of ‘here and now’ everyday re-shape, re-program and rewrite the world we live in and the future that awaits us.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook made him at 26, the youngest billionaire in the world.

While cementing the validity of online social networking, generating new terminology and evolving the way ‘society’ functions for its 400 million members. Around the world, from surgeons to sports heroes, musicians to mountaineers, the blossoming begins in their teens and the peaks begin to be conquered in their early twenties. Here in India, IIT, our receptacle of genius, is already home to a very, very young professor, Tathagat Tulsi, 22 while Sahal Kaushik, at 14, the youngest to have ever cleared IIT’s Joint Entrance Exam, just won a gold at the 21st International Biology Olympiad in Korea.

As you struggle to keep up with the brash, brilliant bunch, take comfort from this: after years of struggling with her population, bright, bushy-tailed India is getting ready to reap the rewards of the ‘demographic dividend’ – a prosperity forecast based on a very happy ratio of a young population with a controlled fertility rate. In plain-speak – by 2020, the average Indian will be in his or her twenties, productive, healthy, with a great career ahead of him or her and fewer dependents to weigh him down. As they go from cradle to crest, on World Youth Day, it’s comforting to know the future has taken itself into its own capable hands and is doing very, very well.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloids/young-%E2%80%99uns-rule-roost-910

A neglected lot?

A teacher, working as she is against pressures from multiple fronts, can make or break a child. Yet, why is teacher training such a low priority?

As Veena waits outside her son's school gate, she witnesses widespread disenchantment with teachers. “My son does not know his tables and he's in the fourth. Why can't his teacher insist that he learns them?” “Mala's teacher corrects very unfairly. She cuts marks for small mistakes.” “Dev was scolded by his teacher, who everyone says is mean. The poor kid is feeling so bad.”

Being a high-school teacher of 15 years, Veena maintains a stoic silence. She knows the stresses and struggles her job entails. Bombarded by pressure on all fronts — from unreasonably high parental expectations to student misbehaviour, from the management exhorting teachers to achieve 100 per cent results in board exams to students griping about marks — the travails of a teacher's job makes her sigh. And, the most hurtful part is that her efforts are not recognised, let alone lauded, by anyone.

Status in society

Krishna Kumar, the former director of NCERT, aptly writes, “In our society, education is not regarded as a serious profession. Teaching, which comprises the heart of education, has a poor status, especially if you teach children as opposed to youth… But it is not just the teacher of young children who has low professional status; those who train teachers fare no better. Indeed, teacher training can be accurately described as the centre of India's educational depression.”

Right after completing her B.Ed., Veena remembers her trepidation as she faced her first batch of 60 adolescents. Unlike a medical degree, which requires students to intern under an experienced doctor for a year, Veena was simply thrust into a classroom and expected to perform right from day one. Without any mentoring or guidance from more experienced colleagues, Veena learnt the ropes on the job. The short-term workshops offered by various consultants and experts at the end of every academic year at her school provided only stray tidbits of advice; even today, after 15 years of teaching, when Veena feels unsure of a student, she has to steer her own boat. Her B.Ed. did not prepare her sufficiently on how to motivate failing students, deal with inattention and open defiance, cater to children with learning difficulties, address parental anxieties or create a classroom of lifelong readers. Given the inadequacy of her training, Veena does her best to deliver effective lessons.

As children traverse the academic ladder from kindergarten to college, all parents hope that their wards are blessed with good teachers. While we look back on our own student days, most of us have memories of good and poor teachers. But the outstanding teacher who inspired passion and creativity and instilled trust and confidence was usually the exception. While we intuitively accept that a teacher can indeed “make or break” a child, why then do we invest so little in creating excellent teachers? Why are teachers in India not accorded the status that the profession rightly deserves? Instead of engaging in unproductive teacher bashing, which does not serve anyone's interests, least of all our children, we need to upgrade teacher education programmes and elevate the status of teachers so that more children fall under the magnetic spell of master teachers. On par with IITs and IIMs, teacher training in India needs to be rejuvenated by oases of excellence that attract bright and talented youth to be champion teachers.

But what constitutes outstanding teaching? To most of us, excellent teaching is an elusive quality that a teacher does or doesn't possess. Like great works of art, its characteristics cannot be pinned down. However, a recent study by educationist Doug Lemov suggests that inspiring teaching is a craft that can be mastered by acquiring and honing skills. While Lemov accedes that great teaching is an art, he emphasises that every artist has to first learn and master the tools of the craft before producing masterpieces. Can ordinary teachers then be trained to perform better and achieve extraordinary results? Lemov suggests they can. He tracked teachers who had succeeded in producing high-achieving students despite having the odds of poverty, truancy and broken homes stacked against their students. These teachers were the outliers who defied predictions and produced high-performers. Right from the moment they entered class to their leave-taking, Lemov noted what these teachers did differently. Rather than spinning lofty educational theories, Lemov offers “concrete, specific, actionable” techniques that any teacher can adopt to refine her teaching style.

In a technique called No Opt Out, a teacher returns to a student who fails to answer a question the first time. For example, Ms. Jamal asks, “What is a prime number, Jaya?” The child falters, “Miss, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9…” “Those are odd numbers Jaya. Samir, tell Jaya why 9 is not a prime number?” “Because it has 3 as a factor.” The teacher then persists, “Now, Jaya, can you tell me what a prime number is?” By not accepting that a child cannot answer a question, the teacher subtly conveys that everyone can succeed. While Jaya gets it right on the third try, Ms. Jamal has communicated that all children in her class are capable of learning. This also gives Jaya the confidence to persist despite getting an answer wrong. No child in Ms. Jamal's class can get away with a “Don't know.”

Outstanding teachers also set high expectations for students by not accepting anything but an answer that is 100 per cent accurate. They insist that children respond in complete sentences and stretch them by asking questions even after an answer is given. So when Mr. Jacob asks the class, “What is a peninsula?” and Arati responds by saying ‘India', he says, “That's an example. Give me a definition.” When Arati ventures, “A piece of land that projects into water,” he persists, “Can you expand on that definition? How is it different from an island?” The child says, “Connected to the mainland,” and the teacher continues, “Good. Now tell me what a peninsula is in a complete sentence.” After Arati gives the correct answer, he further challenges the class, “What is the difference between a peninsula and a gulf?”

Crucial component

Planning is an integral component of remarkable teaching. Visionary teachers spell out measurable teaching goals before drawing up lesson plans. Great teachers also pay attention to details. Activities like distributing papers, collecting homework etc. are practised and perfected to a high degree of efficiency so that only around 10 seconds of precious class time are wasted. Likewise, they use positive framing to instill discipline, usually preempting misbehaviour.

Lemov's claim that the craft of teaching can be mastered echoes the findings of a report published by McKinsey and Company in 2007. While India was not a part of the study, the findings suggest how we might overhaul teacher education. McKinsey analysed school systems in 25 countries including top performers on international assessments like Belgium, Finland, Netherlands and Singapore. While countries differed greatly on dimensions of culture, politics and school systems, high-performing nations have three common features.

Talented graduates with strong communication and interpersonal skills and a deep-seated desire to teach are selected for competitive teacher education programmes. Furthermore, even on the job, teachers are provided with intensive training and support. During the formative years of their careers, young teachers are mentored by more experienced colleagues. Finally, children with difficulties receive intervention so that they can catch up on lagging skills.

As we pay tribute to educators across the country on Teacher's Day, we may consider investing more heavily in teacher training and mentoring programmes. Historian and educator Henry Adams succinctly captures the enormous scope and potential of this age-old profession: "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

The director is Director, PRAYATNA, Centre for Educational Assessment and Intervention. E-mail: arunasankara@gmail.com