Where motive is profit, education takes a back seat

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2745141.ece
My first (and last) article this year as a Fulbright-Nehru scholar.
More to come in 2012.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all.

Mining in Odissa

Odissa and Konark have always attracted me. The chance to see them both was too much to pass up. It is also one of the first states to respond to the Right to Education Act and publish state rules. I had planned to visit school in the rural area, both government and private, which would enable me to understand the ground realities of RtE more clearly. Unfortunately, nature flooded out my plans. The schools were closed and teachers were off on ancillary tasks, in this instance providing flood relief to their students and their families.

However, there is always something new to learn. And I had the best guide possible in my uncle Mr. K.S.Ramachandran, with his long stint in Odissa. He had arranged for me to visit the iron ore mine and manganese smelting plant in Joda. He also has a wealth of information about the mines and minerals, which he has willingly shared. Look for the pictures on my Facebook.

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JODA IRON ORE MINE OF TATA IRON AND STEEL COMPANY

By

K. S. Ramachandran

Orissa Mining Corporation (1957-1964)

Joint secretary, Ministry of Mines and Metals (1969-1971)

Chairman, Mineral Development (1979-1981)

Chairman and Managing Director, National Aluminium Company, (1981-1983)

Tata iron and Steel Company (TISCO) was set up in Bihar State at Jamshedpur in the early part of the 20^th century. It is now in the jurisdiction of the Jharkhand state. Originally, the plant drew it its iron ore input from the Mayurbhanj district of Orissa. But after independence, when TISCO began expanding it steel production, it had to open new mines in Karnjhar district of Orissa. Joda East was thus opened up in that district in 1957. Iron ore despatches began in 1959 by which time the rail link had been extended from Barajamda Railway station to Banspani, which is about 3 miles from Joda East mine. Banspani railway station has been an iron ore outlet and has been serving an ever-growing mineral traffic since then.

Size Specifications

Originally, the steel plants of India were able to accept only iron ore of the size of 10 mm or more and these were described as lumpy or direct ore. A few years after 1960, they began to use the sizes between 0.15 and 10 mm after they were agglomerated or ‘sintered’ together, by the use of binders. These are called sinters. Recently, they have begun to accept sizes even smaller than 0.15 mm. These materials are ground down to a fine mesh and pellets are made with the help of strong binding agents and fired to harden them initially, before being fed into the blast furnace.

Total Resources / Minimisation of Wastage of Minerals

Joda East mine has an iron ore deposit spread over 6 square kilometres and contains one of the richest deposits in the region. It was originally provided with an ‘ore dressing plant’ capable of delivering 4.2 million tonnes/year (mty) of high grade lumpy ore containing 63-65% iron.  A few years after this ‘direct ore’ supply had started, TISCO had set up a sinter plant and so the sinter feed also began to be despatched from Banspani, thereby minimising the wastage of mined material. Still, substantial heaps of usable materials, which were less than 0.15 mm in size, had to be left at the mine end so far. 

Production Planning

Till recently, the steel plant capacity was 5 mty for which the iron ore feedstock of 8 mty was required. (one tonne of steel requires 1.6 tonnes of iron ore ) It was assembled from direct ore, sintered ore and some marginal purchase of ore from other mine-owners.

In the near future, maybe within a year, the steel plant is being expanded to produce 10 mty. The iron ore supply has accordingly to be raised to 16 mty. The Joda East mine is therefore being expanded to meet this demand. A new additional ore dressing plant with a capacity of 6 mty is under construction at Joda, through a construction contract awarded to Larsen and Toubro. When this becomes operational, then the total supply of direct (lumpy) ore and sinter feed ore will amount to 10 mty. This would leave a gap of 6 mty. For fulfilling this requirement, a new pellet plant of 6 mty is being built at Jamshedpur. A new washing plant is also being added at the mine end to wash and beneficiate (i.e, upgrade) the ultrafine particles, (less than 0.15 mm size) which had so far been thrown away as rejects. The input for the washing plant would be drawn both from ultrafines, being currently generated as well as from all the old dumps. The beneficiated ultrafines will be taken for being agglomerated at the new pellet plant at Jamshedpur.

It is now realized that, in the future, from considerations of conservation of minerals, even low grade iron ore (containing 45 – 58% iron) - which is not even reckoned as ore of iron nowadays -- should be upgraded and made useable in Iron and steel making. TISCO is now conducting research for this purpose. In limited quantities, even the parent rock, Banded Haematite Quartz (BHQ), which contains barely 35% iron, can be used. TISCO plans to use it in carefully controlled doses. The silicon content in the quartzite part of the BHQ serves to balance high alumina iron ores and improves the chemistry of the total charge into the blast furnace.

Mine Operation

At Joda East, the mine benches are of 10 metres height. Blast holes are drilled at intervals of 4 metres and spacing 3 metres between two rows of holes. Everyday’s iron ore requirement is about 30,000 tonnes (roughly 10,000 cubic metres, as 1 cu.m. of ore weighs 5onnes). This will be yielded, if a 100 metre face length is blasted off to a width of 10 metres, the bench height being 10metres. Normally, blasting is done once in 3 days and the output of iron ore for three days’ requirement is blasted on each occasion. In this manner, blasting is done only on 10-12 days per month. This minimises the risk to men and materials, by reducing the number of occasions, when the mining area and the 500 metres around it has to be cleared of men and machinery for conducting the blasting.

The explosive used is ammonium nitrate. It becomes explosive only when it is mixed with certain chemicals. The actual mixing is done only in the borehole itself. The ingredients are individually non-explosive, till they are mixed. Once the mixture is made inside the blasthole, it is detonated from a safe distance. This modern procedure minimises chances of accidents and injuries.

The blasting patterns and explosive charges are carefully calculated and designed to produce rock pieces of maximum 1 metre size along any axis. These rocks are picked up by 5.9 cubic metre shovels. In each pass, a shovel can pick up 15 tonnes of ore. The shovels fill up 50 tonner quarry trucks in three passes. The mine also has some 100 tonner trucks which need 6 to 7 passes of the shovel to fill up. These trucks carry the ore rocks to the crushing plant and back dump the ore into the hopper of the primary crusher there. There are also a few 10 cubic metre frontend-loaders which occasionally substitute for the shovel loaders.

Modern Management System at Mineface

The mine has a very modern control system. Employing this, a supervising engineer could watch the performance of every individual shovel or other machines in real time on the computer screens in his control room. He can even direct which shovel will dig where, in order to maintain the uniformity of the product mix. When drill holes are made, samples are drawn and these are analysed in the lab. The physical and chemical specifications of each section are recorded and a matrix of such data is prepared in advance. The supervising engineer uses this matrix to control the quality of the product in real time. The position of each piece of machinery is indicated by a GPS system. By controlling the number of passes in each section, he is able to achieve a reasonably homogeneous output, not only in respect of the iron content but even the average silica, alumina, etc.

Environmental Concerns

On the periphery of the mining area, fairly wide berms have been laid out to contain the dust pollution. Fruit trees and decorative trees have been planted on them, both for their screening ability and for aesthetic purposes. On roads used by quarry trucks, sprinkler vehicles regularly sprinkle water on dusty days to avoid atmospheric dust pollution.

Ore Dressing Plant

At the ore dressing plant, the large rocks brought from the mineface are subjected to  primary crushing. There is a rotary crusher which reduces the size of the ore to an average of 20 mm. After crushing, the material passes over a set of vibratory screens. These separate it into

a)      Larger than 40 mm size which goes for secondary crushing.

b)      10 to 40 mm size which constitutes direct ore and goes to the Rapid Loading System (RLS) for direct shipment to Jamshedpur.

c)      The fines is size between 0.15 mm to 10 mm are sent to a washing plant where they are washed to remove the superficial dirt. The washed material of this size range is described as “sinter feed”. It is despatched to the sinter plant.

d)     The ultrafines (smaller than 0.15 mm) are treated in a hydrocyclone to separate the heavier iron ore particles from all the other gangue (waste) materials. The washed ultrafines go to the pellet plant.

Rapid Loading System at Railhead

A Rapid Loading System (RLS) has been set up at the railway siding of the company at Banspani railway station. It can load a full rake ( i.e. a freight train with 55 wagons of 58 tonnes capacity each) in 90 minutes. The wagons move slowly under the outlets of the RLS and the hoppers discharge through bottom openings into the wagons. A weight-feeder measures the discharged material as flows out and ensures that each wagon receives exactly 58 tonnes. This system minimizes the loading time, so as to enable the RLS to receive and load the maximum number of rakes per day. 9 or 10 whole rakes have to be despatched every day.

Conservation of Water

TISCO has set up a rain harvesting system, so that it could draw its water for the washing plant etc. mostly from its own water tank, thereby minimizing the water drawal from the local river. In this way, the lower riparian rights of downstream villagers are affected to a marginal extent only. Even the use of the water in the washing plant is economised in the best possible way by recirculation, settling tanks, etc.

Personnel Management System

TISCO has set up a management system which keeps a daily watch over the performance of each member of its personnel, under a large number of prescribed heads of activity. This affords every employee an opportunity to make up for inadequate achievement on any day or days, by exerting a little extra in the subsequent periods.

Social Consciousness

The company has also been a leader in social consciousness. An excellent hospital has been built up at Joda. There are several schools, a good residential colony, roads, water supply, etc. During our visit, there was an unprecedented heavy flood in the valley. The company offered substantial relief to flood-affected population.

The Basis of RtE: Pedagogy for Inclusion

My doctoral students are often tired of hearing me say two things: 1) The more you read on your topic, the less you will seem to understand the issues, and 2) It takes a long time to finalise research questions. They will be pleased that I have been experiencing the same frustrations going through the same process, giving myself enough time to understand what the real and immediate issues are with RtE, and the programmes that impact long-term changes in teacher. So here is my research study in it latest avatar.

Pedagogy for Inclusion - Philosophies and Practices of Teachers and Teacher Educators

Success in education is defined as not only affordable access to opportunities but as the learning that happens in classrooms. This is dependent primarily on effective teachers who in turn are impacted by their experience in the teaching education programme. However, the connections between knowledge acquired in the teacher education programmes and teacher performance in the classroom have been largely unexplored. Though government policy in the last decade through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right to Education Act (2010) has made inclusion an important part of its agenda, the focus has been on systems of education rather than the act of teaching and learning. Thus, the effort of creating a pedagogy of inclusion that is relevant to India is marked by a lack of literature on the topics essential for an understanding of the issues.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to identify the knowledge base that supports teachers’ pedagogic decisions regarding inclusive education, describe how teachers practice the principles of inclusion, and detail ways in which their teacher education programme has prepared them to address issues of diversity. This study will also describe teacher educators’ perceptions and knowledge of, and pedagogic practices related to, inclusive education.

Research Questions

1.     How do primary school teachers’ define inclusive education?
2.     What knowledge base supports primary school teachers’ pedagogic decisions regarding inclusive education?
3.     What pedagogic practices characterise primary school teachers’ design and implementation of inclusive education?
4.     What connections do primary school teachers make between theory and practice of inclusion?  
5.     How do teacher educators define inclusive education?
6.     What knowledge base supports teacher educators’ pedagogic decisions regarding inclusive education?
7.     What pedagogic practices characterise teacher educators’ design and implementation of inclusive education?

Sample

Teachers

§  The list of graduates of B.El.Ed. programme who are presently teaching Grades 1-3 in MCD/NDMC and private schools in Delhi will be formulated.
§  The final marks of these graduates will be obtained from the B.El.Ed. programmes to identify the top 10% of each graduating class.
§  Teacher educators in each college who are knowledgeable about their graduates, and principals of schools in which the teachers work will rate the above sample on their perception of a) overall teacher performance, b) popularity of teacher among students, and c) teacher’s effectiveness in connecting with students.
§  Triangulating all data above, one teacher from each programme will be invited to participate in the study, for a total of eight, including both MCD/NDMC and private schools in Delhi.

Teacher educators

§  Each of the 8 teachers will identify a teacher educator who was most influential, for a total of eight.

Data Collection

§  Teachers: Observation (3-5 days each); Interviews (pre-observation and post-observation)
§  Teacher educators: Interviews; Documents (e.g. course syllabi, assignment and task descriptions and instructions); Artifacts (e.g. student work samples, student test papers)

Different Folks, Diff’rent Strokes: Teach for India and Teach for America

Teach for India (TFI) (http://www.teachforindia.org) is inspired by Teach for American (TFA) (http://www.teachforamerica.org). Both of them provide an opportunity for academically proficient young people to serve as teachers for two years in hard-to-staff schools in India and the U.S. respectively. However, I see two major differences between TFI and TFA.

First is the niche that the TFI Fellows/TFA corps members fill. India needs teachers; there is a desperate shortage of teachers for all grades, especially in low-end private schools and government schools. Teachers in the latter are notorious for their absences from school and being disengaged from students and classrooms. With TFI teachers in such schools, for those two years at least students will hopefully have a teacher who is present, perhaps cares, and may even provide cognitive input. There is no such shortage that TFA makes up for in the U.S. The hard-to-fill spots in the US are mainly in math and the sciences, and most of TFA corps members (12%) are not in these areas. However, they may work in inner-city schools, where teachers are always hard to get, though this is not true this year when qualified teachers have been a surplus. In fact, in these years of cutbacks, some school districts have let go qualified teachers and engaged TFA interns, which cuts the cost of staff and but clearly does not respect professionalism.
Secondly, education and schools in India need support and broad-based understanding from all sections of society. With such a high illiteracy rate (67%), it is important for society as a whole to support the cause of education. While respect for teachers and investment in education has waned in the U.S. in the past decade, advocacy for education as a cause far outstrips the level of dialogue and funding in India. The vaunted aim of TFI is that “In the long-run, Teach For India will build a powerful and ever-growing leadership force of alumni who, informed by their experiences and insights, will work from inside and outside the educational system to effect fundamental, long-term changes necessary to ultimately realize educational opportunity for all.” Building such a cadre of allies that TFI alumni present is essential in India. No so much in the U.S.
One of the major criticisms of TFA has been its lack of transparence. It has been sparing with its data, and selective about what it has released in its 20 years of existence. It is hoped that TFI will be more accessible and transparent so that its successes may be lauded (backed by hard data), its service more accountable to the public, and its struggles informed by better advice. In 2010, its second year, TFI placed 316 Fellows in 95 schools in 3 cities. I wonder how many of them have come back for their second year.
One aspect of TFI causes me concern: It is unfortunate that in describing Who We Are Looking For (http://www.teachforindia.org/who-we-are-looking-for.php), there is not one word about the qualities and soft skills that are essential for a good teacher, about how to relate to and how to value students they will be teaching. The two years TFI Fellows spend in the classrooms seem to be immaterial, unimportant, more like a training ground for leadership and less about reaching students in the classrooms. Perhaps in the interview, TFI will focus on teachers that students need rather than leaders who will forge ahead in their careers after their stint with TFI?

Neenga Engiyo Poittenga Saar …

Art is supposed to cut across cultural connotations and references. This blog has tons of the second and as for the first concept…. So if you don’t want to look up references, or don’t have referents to Tamil cinema, stop reading. However, if you would just like to hear from me … Ensoy!

The ace cinematographer, Madhu Ambat, who has also worked with my sister on her two films and is a friend of the family, received his third (!) national award. His wife Lata kindly invited me and my niece Dhrishya to the function. So I got out my best clothes and my make-up kit out, and it was worth it. This year, the awards were dominated by South Indian film industry, which gave me a lot of pleasure. Pre-event time was spent trying to identify celebrities and artistes.  There were quite a few who were dressed to kill. With a couple of them, Dhrishya was quite ready to take cotton pads to remove about 5 layers.

We sat in the row in front of K. Balachander’s family, and I muscled in on his wife and had a long chat with her. It was lovely to meet someone who lives down the lane from us and whom I had never met before. She was gracious and very pleasant. Not so incidentally, I have grown up on his movies and admire him a lot. Noolveli, Bama Vijayam, Arangetram  – I wonder if anyone has done an indepth analysis of his female characters. Worth a thesis, I would say. Perhaps my next research piece. It will be an excellent excuse to watch my old favorites over again.

When Dhanush went up to receive his award, the Chennai contingent whistled, the only time it happened; Dhrishya got a mighty kick out of that. And I could smell Saranya’s mallipoo (jasmine) all the way across the aisle. Hmmmm …

The downside of it all were the emcees, Mahi Gill and Rajat Kapoor. They were bad, to put it mildly. They did nothing when there was a lag of about 10 minutes before the function officially began. Mahi Gill’s pronunciation was god-awful. She absolutely murdered Thenmerku Paruvakaatru, not that we expected anything else. But surely a certain amount of professionalism and respect for fellow artistes is not an unreasonable expectation? To top it all, Mahi Gill has the temerity to get free publicity by listing her recent and upcoming films in her introduction. Crass commercialism.

A strange experience – As we were leaving, we saw an awardee. Given my beautiful manners (ahem!), I congratulated him but confessed I hadn’t yet seen his film since I lived in the US and had not had time to. He shared that it was his first film; he came into acting at a late stage in life; and he wasn’t sure if he would continue to act. Then he insisted on giving me his phone number and asked me to call him with my comments. I don’t know if he was looking for affirmation as an actor, which was strange since he had just been recognized on a national platform. Or whether he thought I was a celebrity and was trying to establish connections. Or whether he was just trying to come on to me. Or if he was drunk, perhaps with happiness. I am going to give him the benefit of doubt and attribute his attempt to building a fan base. Definitely an amusing end to an entertaining evening.  

Right to Education Act and Private Schools in India

This is purely background for those who are not familiar with the education scene in India. Skip it if you live here. You could, of course, read it to know what my take is J

Right to Education Act
In the two decades since endorsing World Declaration on the Education for All at Jomtien in 1990 and committing to it at the Dakar summit in 2000, the India government has made modest efforts to universalize elementary education. India passed the Right to Education Act in August 2009, guaranteeing education to all children ages 6 to 14. In what has been characterized as the largest unintended national school voucher program, among other provisions, the Act mandates that all private schools, to the extent of 25% of their enrolment, enroll students from EWSD sections of society in the neighborhood by simple random selection, beginning in 2011 at the entry level of Grade 1. The government will reimburse the private schools equal to the government’s official per child spending or by the school’s fee scale, whichever is less. Finally, schools are prohibited from demanding a capitation fee, and from interviewing prospective students and parents as part of the admission process.

Private Schools in India
Historically, with public education not meeting the needs in terms of both access and quality, fee-driven private English-medium institutions have stepped into the breach, accounting for about 20 to 40% - of the school students in metropolitan areas and about 20% in rural areas.  Traditionally, private schools in India have primarily catered to the middle- and upper-classes of society, whose students are typically academically high-achieving and socially sophisticated with teachers from the same socio-economic class who share cultural values, academic expectations and social aspirations. None of these advantages are enjoyed by EWSD students who, in the context of these schools, are held to be either non-existent or ineducable.

Implications of RtE for Private Schools
Involving private schools in the delivery of education for all addresses issues of both access to and quality of education. However, critics challenge this provision on several points. The first is the government’s assumption that it can pass on the onus of public education to private institutions. The government rests its claim on the fact that since it grants land rights to schools in prime locations, often in the city centre, it can assert certain rights in exchange.
A question of more immediate relevance to school-based educators is the assimilation of EWSD students into the culture of schools that cater to a different social and economic class of students. RtE specifically states that EWSD children “will be treated on par with all the other children in the school,” making it imperative for several psycho-social and pedagogic issues to be addressed in order to integrate students from low-income families. In the current exam-driven, competitive ethos that characterize most private schools in India, EWSD students are likely to be first- or second-generation learners, probably lacking academic support from their families, and may remain low performing. They may suffer by comparison in social markers such as dress and possessions that could set them apart. For instance, one of the most successful programs in raising attendance is the mid-day meal scheme in which EWSD students are provided a meal organized by the school. Apart from the practical difficulty of incorporating it into the infrastructure of the school, such a program will highlight the distinction between students in terms of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ just as free lunch vouchers do in U.S. schools. Practices and expectations like these could acutely affect the self-esteem of underprivileged students. Many private schools may not be inclined or equipped to respond to such specific needs.

Three Overwhelming Issues
A year after the act was promulgated, only five states have defined rules and procedures for administering and monitoring the provisions of the act. Thus, compliance with the 25% admission provision is yet to be widely implemented. Further, many of the provisions of the Act have been challenged legally, and courts around the country are hearing related cases.
In my conversations and readings so far, three issues appear to be most worrisome to educators. The primary concern is financial, relating to compensation and reimbursement to schools.  School fees in high-end private schools range from Rs. 15,000 to 25,0000 a year while the reimbursement offered per pupil ranges from Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 13,000. Schools are concerned about how they can make up the short-fall. To make matters worse, I was told that actual per-pupil-spending is about Rs 25,000 and the government is scaling that down with deductions for capital costs and teacher salaries.
Secondly, without rules to guide their planning in all but five states, rumours have fed schools fears of what may be bogeymen as regards the admission process. For instance, school administrators cite the ability of education officers whose duty it may be to identify and apportion EWSD students for admission to be misused by forcing schools to admit students to all grades, not only the entry level grade as defined by the Act.
The final issue relates to a more philosophical question of whether private institutions should share the responsibility of educating all students. This is the crux of the argument in funding for public (government) schools being diverted to charter schools or voucher programs in the US, though in the reverse. One educator I talked to was very clear that if students could not pay fees, they should not expect to avail of the advantages of a fee-paying institution. Her argument was that EWSD students should gradually progress over a generation or two gaining excellence in a regional-medium government school before acceding to the greater demands of English-medium private schools. Is this a minority opinion or an honest rendition of a widely-held view?

Settling down, starting to think

This is going to be a log, not an interesting analysis of anything. So don't read on unless you want to touch base with me, or you miss me so much you have to know every detail of what I have been up to.

This first week has been a time of getting settled, getting over jetlag, trying to find a sleeping pattern that works for me, and forcing myself to get some exercise. The last has resulted in 45 minute-walks for the last three days, which I hope to keep up. Catching up with family and friends. Celebrating Murali's 50th birthday with multiple cakes and lots of live music. And I am revelling in being waited on hand and foot by Ram the cook and driven around by Inder the chauffeur. (I refuse to drive myself in India.)

It was also fun to meet a group of Fulbright teachers who were returning to the US after a 5 week tour of India. A teacher from S. Carolina did say that she had never heard "Georgia" pronounced quite so regally! So my first week of Indian English has not left a mark (yet).

The first of my two writing projects should be getting off the ground as of now, with Dr. Shailendra Gupta. While we respect the historical description of Indian society, and the legal and political influences that have shaped its educational practices, we believe it is not all that teachers need to know, or is relevant to their students' lives. If we are serious about innovation in teacher education, it is time to think about the various strands that make up the society teachers function in and that shape their students.  It is called diversity in educational literature in the US, and I need to find how it is described and designed in India.  

As for my Fulbright-Nehru research study on the Right to Education, I have to keep reminding myself that I am not focusing on the processes and procedures in making the 25% provision a reality. My focus is teachers in high-end schools in the private sector, their attitudes to and views on EWSD students, and what teachers need to do and learn about to effectively teach them.  If the teachers are not willing to admit the EWSD students into their schools and classrooms, chances of their finding ways around this provision are highly likely. If teachers are not prepared to serve the students, the purpose of the Act cannot be achieved. Rigorous conversations with my resident intellectual resources of Usha and Murali, a law researcher and a high court judge respectively, are highlighting the gaping holes in my knowledge about people in poverty in India.  (I need to be careful about grafting my knowledge of the subject in the US context onto the Indian context.) My interactions with experts such as Ms. Sharada Nayak and Dr. Sarada Balagopal over the next couple of weeks should get me started on compiling  a reading list and a list of questions. In the meantime, newspapers are providing me with background information. Any suggestions anyone?