Thanks for the cover story on the International Baccalaureate, Geneva (EW June). I agree with your conclusion that the IB is perhaps the world’s most progressive and enlightened examinations board. While its mission of creating responsible global citizens is commendable, I wonder if the IB curriculum focuses on teaching children about their own national histories and culture. The danger with international curriculums is that children will be deprived of learning about their own unique heritage.

However, there are many good practices which Indian boards such as CBSE and CISCE can learn from the IB. I was particularly impressed by the effort they put in developing and constantly revising the curriculum. In India, curriculums are poorly designed and seldom updated. 

Murali Krishna
Coimbatore 

 

JNU’s dim future

Your special report on Jawaharlal Nehru University was hard-hitting (EW June). There’s little doubt that this once prestigious institution has been ruined by its faculty/students’ persistent allegiance to bygone Left and socialist ideologies. Skewed admission reservation policies which over-favour caste over merit have further dumbed down standards. 

But while the new vice chancellor’s efforts “to clean the Augean stables” are welcome, I am not entirely convinced about the motivations of the BJP/NDA government. BJP and RSS spokespersons are unfairly targeting JNU faculty/students as anti-national. They may be caught in an ideological time warp but that isn’t anti-national. The real agenda of BJP/RSS is to help its militant student wing ABVP wrest control of the JNU students union. Unfortunately, either way the future of JNU isn’t bright.

Harish Chandra
Delhi

 

Exclusion plea

Re the EW India Private Higher Education Rankings 2017-18 (EW May) in which you have ranked the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Bangalore. 

Please note that we are not a private institution. Moreover we would like to make it explicitly clear that we don’t want to participate in this ranking. Neither do we participate in the HRD ministry’s NIRF rankings on account of our student strength being less than 1,000. 

S.R. Sridhar
Registrar, IIIT-Bangalore 

 

Hazardous burden

The new academic year has just begun. Through your popular publication, I appeal to all school managements to reduce the load of children’s school bags.

Heavy school bags are hazardous to the health of children and many of them suffer back pain. According to health experts, if children lug bags weighing more than 12 kg, there are high chances they will develop back pain, stress and spine-related ailments. The physical and emotional cost of heavy school bags is enormous. 

Jubel D’Cruz
Mumbai

 

Defamatory ranking

In the EW India Preschool Rankings 2016 published in your December (2016) issue, you have deliberately published defamatory material concerning us with the intention to harm our reputation which has directly lowered our credit in the estimation of others. On page 62 of the magazine, you have ranked the Kookaburra preschool #9 under the headline ‘Mumbai’s top-ranked proprietary preschools’ knowing full well there was no survey or any questionnaire filled by us and/or sent to you for our participation in the survey. In that context, you have made a false representation about us in your magazine.

In the circumstances, we call upon you to pay damages amounting up to Rs.5 crore and to refrain from making any further publications regarding us of any nature what-soever in your magazine in the future. We are a highly reputed institution in Mumbai and have a rich clientele. The material published in your magazine is false and has harmed our reputation causing us agony and mental stress.

Umang D. Mehta
Director, Kookaburra Education Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai

 

Please read pages 42-43 of the EducationWorld December 2016 issue carefully in which our survey methodology is detailed. We believe the EW India Preschool Rankings 2016 survey for which 7,898 sample respondents were interviewed and requested to rate pre-primaries on ten parameters of education excellence, was conducted in consonance with well-established institutional evaluation practices worldwide — Editor