Education

This article fills a notable gap in existing research on outcome-based education (OBE) in India. It reports findings from a multi-sited field-based investigation of OBE across five relatively highly ranked institutions in India. Building on actor–network theory the article argues that attempting to study OBE opens up a range of concerns such as disciplinary dispositions, teacher training, methodological limitations of OBE, concerns of labour, management and the problem of designating the scalar boundaries of OBE. The article argues that OBE allows problematizing the distinction between skill and knowledge and the hierarchy that exists between them. It argues that OBE need not be construed as a degradation of higher education into trade schools, rather this moment provides us an opportunity to rethink the relationship between vocational, technical, and general education. This assumes significance in the current context as the new clientele of higher education do not have the luxury nor often the aspiration for further education but want to use undergraduate education as a take-off to build meaningful careers outside the academia.

The renowned seismologists C.P. Rajendran and Kusala Rajendran offer a riveting story of the Indian earthquakes, their science, history and impact. Like all other natural phenomena, earthquakes are part of life-sustaining forces-- the creators of the mountains, valleys and springs or even deserts on Earth-- a theatre where the show never ends.

The book takes the readers to some exciting parts of India to show how earthquakes change the topography where a sea existed not far in the past-- now a salt marsh, affecting the social life, trade and livelihood. The book discusses the likelihood of the next big earthquake in the Himalayas against the backdrop of the devastating earlier ones revealed by archaeology, history and geology. It probes the causes and aftermath of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and gives a glimpse of the past.

The high-impact earthquakes will happen, but they need not always end up as human catastrophes. The authors have spent much of their professional lives studying the earthquakes in India and abroad. They tell us from their vast experience how to negotiate the impacts of earthquakes and related hazards by following science-based strategies.

The paper is a comprehensive policy review with a focus on secondary school education in India. The study provides the status of provisioning of vocational education at the school level, the success models in Indian states implementing this provision, the history and summaries of various policy trajectories culminating with the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development. The paper then highlights a comparative analysis of vocational education systems in South Asian countries, global trends, best practices, successful models from industrialised nations and concludes by offering suggestive models based on best practices in the specific context of India.

A shift towards outcome-based education (OBE) is visible in an emerging set of educational policy and regulatory documents and higher education institutions across the country. The article argues for OBE to be approached through the lens of ‘travelling theory’ to foreground the process of translation across various scales, from the transfer of policy knowledge to negotiations in the classroom. By doing so, the article highlights the process of translation which remains at the core of OBE, as it tends to mobilize both managerial and behaviourist approaches along with a constructivist and constructionist approach. The popularity and acceptance of OBE and the disagreements surrounding it are made possible due to this Janus-faced nature of OBE. It argues for acknowledging the mobilization of multiple, contradictory and divergent epistemological approaches as integral to the process of translation of OBE.

So far research on school choice sets (decision about choosing a school from an available set of schools) has primarily regarded parents as key actors. This article emphasises that children are important actors as they inform parental decisions to co-produce certain choice sets. This paper suggest that factors like heterogeneities in social class, differential levels of religious discrimination/exclusion in schools and a need to protect their faith through education and the complex overlap between these were crucial in shaping choices. 

This chapter is part of the book Towards Inclusive Societies: Psychological and Sociological Perspectives. The volume focuses on the importance of building inclusive societies and communities for global human welfare within psychological, social, political, and cultural realms. It discusses the engagement of psychology and other social science disciplines on the need for building both cultural sensitivity and interdisciplinary dialogue. 

In many parts of the world, there is uncertainty about the diminishing quality of higher education systems. Concurrent crises have negatively impacted the well-charted policy trajectories in education (i.e., what is being taught), learning (i.e., what is being learned and how), and knowledge (i.e., what ought to be taught). Existing policy interventions primarily focus on formal spaces of learning, despite the growing recognition of informal learning, and long-standing commitments to lifelong learning. While school, vocational, and higher education are addressed under SDG4, the new realities of impending, multiple emergencies demand a reimagination of what it means to learn in an unpredictable environment. There is a need to build robust equitable infrastructures that can sustain the global mobility of learners across sectors as well as pedagogic tools and processes to interrogate and share diverse sustainable approaches being practised across the G20 nations. This Policy Brief calls for sustained effort to expand spaces, tools and methods of learning and put forward a blueprint for learning for/towards sustainable development as a key policy directive across all SDGs.

Populism typically encompassed disciplines of political sciences and democracies. The inroads made by populism into other domains of knowledge brings to the center the social dimensions of New Populism as integral parts of curricula, pedagogy, and research in all disciplines. Drawing from Dawkins proposition of Meme as a cultural replicator, the paper explores the social processes where memes undergo variations and mutations as they diffuse through different human hosts in social networks. The interconnection of meme, social networks, power structures, and societal outcomes redefines the scope of education and research across domains.

The notion that girls very early in school decide to pursue STEM careers is not true for many in India. This research study across science institutions and universities in the country reveal that the choice to pursue STEM career in India by girls has been influenced by family, school teachers and the immediate social network. However, once having made the choice, women take the lead responsibility of building their careers, where they become key negotiators at home and the organisation as they straddle their multiple responsibilities.

India has witnessed a steady rise in the number of women scientists and engineers in the last two decades. At the same time, the country has experienced the transition from the joint family to a nuclear family system. This has brought with it unique challenges for the women professionals as they negotiate their roles in families with successful careers. While documenting and analysing the changing patterns of the work–life balance of women scientists and engineers, the article highlights the critical role that the scientific institutions can play as enablers in this process

The surge of sexual abuse disclosures by women during the #MeToo movement raised awareness about an important social issue that has garnered much attention. However, apart from the changes the movement initiated, the issue of why women chose to disclose in the context of the movement has not been extensively examined. Why women disclose such a sensitive topic in the public domain, often via social media, within the Indian cultural context, where matters such as sexual abuse are considered taboo, warrants further examination. This article explores the reasons for disclosure among Indian women participating in the #MeToo movement, through qualitative research, using the interpretative phenomenological approach. The emergent themes include reactions to the injustice, expectations of validation and closure, addressing stigma, initiation of dialogue and social change, as well as expression of solidarity, as the purpose for which disclosures were undertaken.

International Women’s Day is about questioning and protesting the in-built hierarchies and injustice. However, we end up celebrating these inequalities in our celebrations.

Through a network of institutions, the enterprise of postcolonial public education was shaped in the mid-20th century and was deeply entrenched in the politics of class, caste, and gender

The article examines the role of the education system in introducing children to a sedentary lifestyle and building tolerance for it among them. It also explores some ideas to remedy the situation and make health a greater priority in the education system.

Televisions, smart phones, internet, social media are all horribly addictive and the Covid pandemic has doubled the online presence of children. The WHO says, ‘Digital disorders are hugely under-recognised in India’. According to Rajesh Sagar of AIIMS Delhi, ‘It is fast emerging as India’s newest lifestyle disease’. Digital games, advertisements and reality shows are dangerous for a growing mind. The Government of India has banned online games like PUBG, Blue Whale, sites like Tik Tok. The government of Karnataka has even banned online classes for children up to class five. This book is an attempt to flag the dangers and provide some suggestions on how to combat digital dependence.