July
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in:80/xmlui/handle/2259/805
2012: Vol 1(2): 55-120
2024-03-28T10:00:06Z
-
1. Editorial
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in:80/xmlui/handle/2259/838
1. Editorial
Chatterjee, Debashis
The ethos of our current education system has let loose two social forces: eager acquisition and narrow competition. These forces are creating more consumers and fewer contributors in the education space. Economic prosperity means nothing unless it creates equal and rightful opportunities for one and all. This can only happen if we become sensitive to and subsequently address issues pertaining to discrimination, social or economic. We will fail in our duties if we cannot uphold our unity, being one of the most diverse countries in the world, through realization of a higher purpose of being. Education can open our eyes to such a realization.
IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review 1(2) vii © 2012 Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
2012-07-01T00:00:00Z
-
2. Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: A Role for Corporate India in Rural Primary Education
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in:80/xmlui/handle/2259/837
2. Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: A Role for Corporate India in Rural Primary Education
Abhoy K. Ojha; Dwarkaprasad Chakravarty
With the bulk of India’s population residing in rural areas, access to quality primary education in non-urban areas is vital to unlock the country’s vast economic potential. Good primary education is likely to provide a solid foundation to the rural poor for acquiring higher education, professional skills and employment, thereby reducing poverty for them and enabling sustained economic growth for the country. Government schools, which comprise the majority of schools in rural India, have been unable to address the challenge due to inferior facilities, ineffective teaching and mismanagement. As a result, rural parents, who can afford to do so, are increasingly enrolling their children in private schools that have been opportunistically set up in relatively affluent rural areas. While such schools demonstrate better results than government schools,
they are far from adequate in terms of quality and accessibility. We believe that there is a need to meet the twin challenges of quality and accessibility with more innovative methods which involve more than the traditional providers of education. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming more central to the societal expectations from commercial organizations, with the possibility that spending a certain percentage of corporate income on societal welfare is likely to have legislative sanction. However, with a few exceptions, CSR in India seems to lack focus and ownership towards socioeconomic development initiatives such as rural education. We argue that more corporations should focus their CSR initiatives towards addressing the challenges of primary education in rural India. There is a critical need for good educational institutions, which have thus far confined themselves to urban areas, to establish primary schools in rural areas. However,
several other challenges need to be addressed in order to facilitate the entry of such institutions into rural areas as well as to enable students to enrol and continue in schools. We believe that a consortium of educational institutions, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and other affiliated organizations lead by the CSR wing of a prominent private sector organization working in partnership with government institutions may be able to address these requirements. We argue that a collaborative partnership that has commonality of purpose, well-defined accountabilities and outcome-based performance measures has the potential to yield an order of magnitude improvement in rural primary education.
IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review 1(2) 55–63 © 2012 Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
2012-07-01T00:00:00Z
-
3. Strategic Opportunities for Quality in Higher Education in India
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in:80/xmlui/handle/2259/832
3. Strategic Opportunities for Quality in Higher Education in India
Krishna K. Ladha
This article’s main concern is with the quality of education. It offers two games that highlight the proactive role the government could play for quality in higher education. It is a role that is different from what the government seems to be doing now. In the first game, the government plays against a university. If the government were stern, the university would credibly commit to delivering quality education. At equilibrium, the government trusts the university, and the latter reciprocates the trust by offering quality education. In the second game, two universities (it could be many more) are trapped in a Prisoner’s dilemma (PD) game in which cooperation means offering quality education. The outcome of the PD game is bad for the universities; they want an external agency (possibly the government) to enforce cooperation. With enforcement, both universities provide quality education. The commitment of the government to enforce suitable laws, however, is doubtful in the modern world of give and take; the government is better off finding the universities in
violation but not enforcing the law. With the universities anticipating that the government would not enforce the law, the universities are unlikely to cooperate. What can be done? Probably some day the electorate will demand quality education with great vigour. The government may then dissociate itself from the temptation of give and take, and install a Standing Education Commission, with powers matching those of the Election Commission of India. It will then be the task of this commission to implement laws that induce quality education. The article thus provides a theoretical justification for the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendation for the installation of ‘Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE)’.
IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review 1(2) 65–74 © 2012 Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
2012-07-01T00:00:00Z
-
4. Mentoring India’s Youth
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in:80/xmlui/handle/2259/830
4. Mentoring India’s Youth
Arundhuti Gupta; M.V. Rajeev Gowda
India has seen substantial improvement in access to education nationwide, but there are concerns about the quality of education and consequently, the employability of school and college graduates. Large numbers of India’s youth also face the problem of inequality of opportunity. Families and communities that do not have ‘cultural capital’ (years of schooling, access to resources and information networks) find it a challenge to nurture talent in their children. In this article we discuss one intervention—mentoring—that has the potential to address these two challenges simultaneously. This article reports on an experimental year-long mentoring programme for 20 destitute girls, living in a government institution in south India. Participant experience shows that there is little knowledge of the formal mentoring function in India, and a sense of fear associated with adult–youth relationships. In the mentoring programme, these notions were dispelled as the relationships developed. Mentees recorded a change of attitude in learning English. The life skill exercises helped mentees plan for their future, and in some cases thwart early-marriage pressures. Mentoring functions like providing emotional regulation and collaborative skill-building were demonstrated in mentors helping mentees overcome fear in public speaking, examinations, speech defects, etc. Mentees recorded a change in their identity—they saw themselves as more capable. The relationship offered avenues for authentic companionship and several mentees saw their mentors as role models. These results show potential for formal youth mentoring programmes to have considerable positive impact on India’s youth and enable them to become capable, confident and empowered.
IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review 1(2) 75–84 © 2012 Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
2012-07-01T00:00:00Z