A Teeny Army of Teachers

Today evening I found myself in Varadero, Cuba. 

Ever since the Covid-19 lockdowns started, I had picked up the habit of walking up and down the terrace after sunset, listening to music, podcasts or, sometimes, just checking the never-ending backlog of messages on social media. Today's special was a podcast -  a remarkable Duolingo episode titled "Una maestra en botas" (A teacher in army boots).

This Spanish-English bilingual podcast was a first-person account of a 73-year-old Afro-Cuban lady named Norma Guillard. Born and brought up in one of the poorest provinces of Cuba she was about 14 when Fidel Castro  took over the country and brought in the revolution. One of his top priorities was to raise the level of education in Cuba

1961 was declared the "Year of Education", and paradoxically, a full school-year was cancelled! Approximately 300,000 school-going teenagers like Norma were asked to volunteer one year for teaching a family in the countryside not only how to read, but also to teach them how to prevent common diseases like TB and Leprosy. In return the government gave them scholarships to pursue higher education.

So an army of teenagers, armed with textbooks, notepads and pencils, went through a brief training course and then out into remote rural areas, to spread education. Not everything, of course, went off as planned: Norma's first host-family was racist - they did not want a black teacher; the second one kept her away because they suspected her of having contracted leprosy.  In the midst of of this came the US "Bay of Pigs" invasion. She was finally able to settle down and teach a family of six how to read.

One of the thoughtful elements of Castro's plan was the rule that the eldest member of each household had to be taught first, so that they could read, understand and sign official papers. Later, this was dovetailed into the national land re-distribution campaign.

Given the background it is hardly surprising that during the current pandemic, Cuba won international praise for sending no less than 28,000 doctors to 59 countries to to help them fight Covid-19!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Duolingo - Episode 51 - "Una maestra en botas" - https://podcast.duolingo.com/episode-51-una-maestra-en-botas-a-teacher-in-army-boots
* Cuban Literacy Campaign - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Literacy_Campaign
* The Worlds Most Ambitious Literacy Campaign - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/latin-lessons-what-can-we-learn-from-the-worldrsquos-most-ambitious-literacy-campaign-2124433.html
* 28,000 docs in 59 countries - https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/governance/kerala-and-cuba-how-left-cousins-won-praise-for-covid-19-fight-70834

Apostille of Fake Degrees

Last week I signed up for a UN assignment in Afghanistan. It was the culmination of a long drawn out selection process - online applications, verification of credentials and interviews. I need to be in Kabul for two months for the independent evaluation of an FAO project.

Having visited, worked and stayed in a few countries over the past 23 years, I thought I was familiar with the formalities involved in international travel. In this case, instructions from FAO were quite clear: "Approach Embassy with all relevant documents - Passport, photographs, degree certificate photocopy and original , signed contract document, MOFA reference number. Ticket is not necessary for visa".  

At the Afghan Embassy visa counter however, the officer flipped through my documents and asked me a question that left me quite stunned. "How do we know", she asked with genuine concern, "That your degree certificates are not fake?"

I tried telling her that, in the first place, I would not be selected by the UN for an assignment if I had fake degrees. I had two Master's degrees - the first from IRMA and the other from Tsukuba University, Japan. Both could easily be verified online on the official alumni pages. Also, I had got the second degree on a full scholarship from the World Bank - a fact that could be easily verified on a Google search since my entire Master's thesis was available online. 

The visa officer was unmoved. "Rules are rules", she insisted, "If your highest degree is from Japan, it has to be endorsed by the Japanese Embassy in India. All Indian degrees have to be verified by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)". She also added helpfully that applicants got it done at Patiala Courts where extra fees was charged for 'fast service'.

One of the lessons I had learnt is that there is no point arguing with with a Visa Officer. I walked out of the Afghan Embassy, crossed the road, and checked at the Embassy of Japan. They did not have any facility for "endorsing" certificates from Japanese universities. All they could do was to check with their registry and give me a letter saying that the university seal was genuine. This process would take at least three working days, and cost Rs. 2300. 

What next? I had no idea that MEA had anything to do with certification of education documents. Outside the Japanese Embassy, I set my files on a concrete blast-barrier and googled "India MEA education certificate endorsement". I got this page and learnt a new word: apostille.

It was a two-step procedure. First, the degree certificate had to be endorsed by a state government authority, and under Step-2 "MEA legalises the documents on the basis of the signature of the designated...authorities. Hence it does not take responsibility of the contents of the documents". MEA charged Rs.50 per document for this service. As expected, there was no mention of the time-frame involved.

Strapped for time, I now headed towards Patiala House Courts Complex, into the den of brokers, middlemen and lawyers dressed in 50 shades of black. In one of the many hole-in-the-wall offices, I presented by predicament to one of the broker-lawyers.  He feigned deep concern, quickly gauged my desperation level, and quoted his fees: Rs. 3000. 

So, for a government service worth Rs.50, I had to shell out Rs. 3000. Within this margin lies the thriving new economy of the apostilles. An education certificate from IRMA, an automomous education institution in Gujarat, is endorsed by a Sub-Divisional Magistrate in another state, Delhi, who proclaims it as genuine. Based on this, MEA legalises it 'without taking any responsibility of the contents of the documents'.

Come to think of it, this is a racket no different from that of the Public Notaries who blindly attest any document with a Government of India seal. The only difference is that you get a fancy sticker with a flurry of seals and signatures behind an education certificate.

Why would any Embassy encourage this kind of daylight robbery? Is this merely the game of passing-the-buck between bureaucrats of different countries?  A friend who has worked in Afghanistan for over a decade said this rule was introduced in 2013 to avoid fake people with fake degrees from getting posh jobs in Afghanistan. It seems there are many such guys already in the country.  Also, it seems Afghan nationals too have been using fake certificates to enter the job market. He also added that brokers charged anything from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000 for a one-day service.

The latter was confirmed by a lawyer at Patiala Courts. There are thousands of Afghans studying in India, and it seems their government does not accept any education certificate from India unless it is attested by by MEA and the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD)! 

No wonder the brokers at Patiala Courts are laughing all the way to the bank.

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REFERENCES & LINKS



* Afghan Embassy - Visa Rules - http://newdelhi.mfa.af/consular-services-4/visa/visa-information-indians/working-entry-visa-wev

* MEA, India - Procedure for Attestation of Education Degrees - https://www.mea.gov.in/apostille.htm

* Apostille Convention - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostille_Convention

All for a Foreign Degree

Over the last fiscal year (2015-16), there has been a sharp increase in the outflow of capital from India. Outward remittances tripled to $4 billion till February 2016.

According to an expert, "Higher limits for outward remittances, stronger domestic economy and also more and more students seeking education abroad could have contributed to the rise in these remittances".

Speculation moved to more solid ground when Amitabh Kant, a senior bureaucrat, tweeted:

Under RBI's Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS) 2015-16 has seen Indians spent $362 million on traveling, $875 million in maintenance of close relatives and $782 million on studies abroad, taking the total spending to $3.02 billion. Gifts amounted to $398.88 million in the period

So where are out students headed? According to the latest UNESCO reports, 300,000 students from India go to study abroad every year. A majority of them (56%) head to USA while UK and Australia attract ~ 15% each. The rest go to places where “education is considerably cheaper and part-time jobs are easier to secure.” This included Canada, Ireland, Scandinavian countries, Germany and Italy.

It seems Indian students have not yet started following the "Look East" policy. USA, Australia and Europe seems to be the first priority for full-fee students with a trickle of mostly scholarship-funded ones going to Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and China.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* (ET - 1Apr16) - Outward remittances triple to $4 billion till February' 16 -  http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-04-01/news/71977532_1_remittances-sujan-hajra-kiran-shetty

* BS - http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/huge-outward-remittances-a-recent-phenomenon-116040400928_1.html

* Mathew, George (FE 21Apr2016) -  - http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/banking-finance/200-increase-in-outward-remittances/239136

* (ET-2015) - http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-08-28/wealth/65969493_1_north-india-credila-students

* ICEF Monitor (2012) - http://monitor.icef.com/2012/11/number-of-indian-students-heading-abroad-up-300-over-past-decade/

* An excellent blogpost on life at NUS Singapore - https://mohitagraw.al/2010/05/08/study-abroad-in-singapore-my-experience-and-advice/

* IIE - Project Atlas (2010) - http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/India/Indias-Students-Overseas#.Vx3UknqDzIU

* MyCollegesAbroad - http://www.mycollegesabroad.com/country/singapore/cost-of-study/

* HotCoursesIndia - http://www.hotcoursesabroad.com/india/why-study-abroad/all-about-studying-abroad/how-many-indian-students-go-abroad-to-study/

* IDP Education - https://www.idp.com/india/studyabroad/whytostudyabroad

An Offer to Work in India

How difficult is it for science & technology to thrive in India?

Everytime I see a news article or TV reporter gushing about the achievements of a scientist or entrepreneur of Indian origin, I am reminded of Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. In 2009, soon after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Prof. Ramakrishnan declared, "Nobody has approached me about an offer to work in India. However, I can categorically state that if they did so, I would refuse immediately.”!

What explains this vehemance, this deep disenchantment?

Perhaps a part of the answer lies in the way we build and run our public-funded scientific institutions. Some of them are run like personal fiefdoms with no succession plan in sight ("after me the deluge!"), and in many others dedicated individuals find themselves embroiled in a constant battle with ted-tape.  

A couple of years ago, the official press release on the prestigious Marconi Prize  awarded to Prof. Paulraj, actually stated that he was driven out of India because "bureaucratic battles began to take their toll"... This was one scientist who returned to India, in 1986 from Stanford-U, and set up two institutions - CAIR and CDAC - before being hounded out. So he just went back to USA and went on to create the MIMO standard which is at the heart of 4G mobile technology we all use today.

Our short-sightedness was also highlighted recently in a widely circulated blogpost by Dheeraj Sanghi. Having been a member of numerous selection committee's, he describes how "Participating in...committee meetings can be very depressing as they expose this myth about India being the largest producer of scientific manpower."

Add to this the daily tussle we witness between the IITs/IIMs and the hon'ble Cabinet Minister for Human Resources Development, and the disheartening picture is all too complete.


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LINKS / REFERENCES

* (12 May 2015) - Dheeraj Sanghi - The Quality of Faculty -- http://dsanghi.blogspot.in/2015/05/the-quality-of-faculty.html

* (Firstpost, 2014): R. Jagannnathan - http://www.firstpost.com/india/nadella-as-microsoft-ceo-a-slap-in-the-face-for-indian-system-1374951.html
- We need to ask ourselves: why does our system kill future heroes, while the US helps raise even ordinary Indians to iconic levels
- The short point: our system is designed to keep people out, not get them in. The true value of an IIT or IIM is not the intellectual capital they produce, but their filtering expertise

* (Hindu, 2009) - Nobel Laureate bemused by deluge of goodwill -- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/nobel-laureate-bemused-by-deluge-of-goodwill/article33379.ece

Education & Employment: The Missing Link

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Public spaces in Kerala are usually dominated by advertisements for jewellery, textiles or real-estate. Under the canopy of these billboards promising the most exclusive ornaments, garments and villas, a new type of poster has been appearing on walls and bus-stands. These are put out by private educational institutions to publicize their success in helping students clear the board-examinations.

Looking at these posters you marvel at the the amount of money people are willing to invest in their children's education, and, at the same time, despair at the futility of their efforts. The serious inadequacies in the Indian education system were highlighted by the Prime Minister himself, way back in 2007 - "(only) Around 10% of our students of the relevant age group is enrolled in any institute of higher education, as compared to 50% in most developed countries...less then 50% of high-school students continue into higher education in any form. Almost two-thirds of our universities and 90% of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters. And, most important, there is a nagging fear that university curriculum is not synchronized with employment needs".

Has anything been done to remove the mismatch between the curriculum and employment needs? Have the teachers stopped advocating rote memorization and the obsession with exam success? 

According to an Oxford academic, many Indians have discovered education at the precise moment at which formal schooling has ceased to be a passport to success. Weaknesses of the education system in India have been identified in numerous studies -   lack of continuous assessment; teachers and students tend to focus on examinations and curricular review tends to be slow. These weaknesses have already translated into serious bottlenecks for the economy - there is already a serious shortage of suitably trained civil engineers; India now relies on tens of thousands of Chinese guest workers to expand its energy infrastructure and the shortage of software professionals is expected to be 3,500,000 by 2020!

Given the number of education institutions that are owned or controlled directly by the politicians, one wonders why they have not yet spotted an opportunity in changing the focus of education from exams to employment. 

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REFERENCES:

* Karl, David J. (2011). EDUCATION IN URGENT NEED FOR OVERHAUL. Hindu BusinessLine16 May 2011.
* Suroor, Hasan (2011). 'EDUCATION IS A NECESSARY BUT NOT A SUFFICIENT BASIS FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY: Interview with Craig Jeffrey, and Oxford academic. Hindu BusinessLine  May 2011

* Kapur, Vikram (2011): A TRAVESTY OF EDUCATION, The Hindu, 25 June 2011 URL - http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article2134209.ece