THE TIMES OF INDIA, BENGALURUMONDAY, JANUARY 26, 201510

Education isfourth pillar ofdevelopment

Smart Citiesare the wayahead for us

By Anil Menon

mart City has emerged asa buzzword in India eversince Prime MinisterNarendra Modi outlinedhis vision for creating ahundred Smart Cities.Aside from the hypearound the term, it raises

some pertinent questions such as: Whatdoes it really mean to be a Smart City?Why should Indians care about thesmartness of their city? Indian citiesare unique in that they confront thechallenges of not only the 20th and 21stcenturies but also some remnants fromthe 19th century. While cities like Ben-galuru are participants in global inno-vation and increasingly compete withSilicon Valley to further enhance in-novation, they also need to tackle im-portant issues such as providing basicsanitation, public transport, clean wa-ter and effective waste management.So, the traditional approach of manag-ing and maintaining cities must change– both in mindset and in the way we ad-minister them.

Between 2014 and 2050, India will add404 million people to its cities, accord-ing to the United Nations -- that’s theequivalent of one Sao Paolo or two Sin-gapores a year for the next 36 years. It’simpossible for any country to create thislevel of scale and provide the attendanturban services like education, health-care, security, and government servic-es without being smart with limited re-sources. To do that, we need better un-derstanding and planning of the cur-rent level of deployed resources and thegaps in the deployment versus the re-quired level of resources. This can beonly be done by

running rigorous data analyses on cur-rent investments to identify ways of im-proving resource utilization. This iswhy Open Data and Analytics becomethe fundamental pillar for any SmartCity. While there may be many dimen-sions to a Smart City, at a simple andgestalt level, it refers to a meticulouslyplanned city that relies on InformationTechnology as an enabler to solve manyof its problems – from the use of sen-sors to smart grids and data analyticsthat allow city infrastructure and serv-ices to meet city problems and citizendemands efficiently and reliably. Manyare sceptical about this concept takingoff given that basic amenities and in-frastructure like water supply, sanita-tion, sewage, waste disposal and trafficmanagement continue to be a huge chal-lenges. However, this scepticism miss-es the point.

While there is a tendency to focusthe entire discussion around technol-ogy like sensors, cameras, and software,these are important only because theyallow for faster and better use of datato manage scarce resources and improveexecution. What was once a visionarynotion is now the new normal – Infor-mation and Communications Technol-ogy is as essential as the three utilities:water, telco and electricity. Technologyinfrastructure has to be built keepingin mind the holistic services-orientedapproach to revitalize an existing cityor designing a green field city.

The India scenario: Turning challengesinto opportunities Window of opportunities – Make in India

In a decade, over 50 billion deviceswill be connected through machine-to-machine communication and The In-ternet of Everything (IoE) will be a $1.5trillion-a-year business globally. Therewill be another $2 trillion annually innew services and within this market,the global urban services segment is es-timated to be around $2 trillion in rev-

enues and savings over the next decade.I believe that the Make in India initia-tive and the Smart Cities initiativeshould be converged with cities be-coming living labs for hardware, soft-ware and urban services developed andmade in the country, thereby creatinga base for exports.

Consider street lighting, which to-day accounts for 1.5% of total electric-ity consumption in India, according toMcKinsey. Cities that use networkedmotion-detection lights can save 70–80per cent of electricity and costs, ac-cording to an independent, global trialof LED technology. Smart streetlight-ing initiatives can also reduce crime byseven percent because of better visi-bility and more content citizenry, ac-cording to Cisco’s estimates.

Another example is buildings. To-day, buildings in India account for near-ly 40% of total energy consumption,which will reach 50% by 2030. McKin-sey estimated in India that 700 millionto 900 million square metres of new res-idential and commercial space wouldneed to be built every year from 2010 to2020. Just imagine the increase in en-ergy consumption unless buildings out-fitted with intelligent sensors and net-worked management systems collectand analyze energy-use data.

In India alone, traffic congestioncosts $10 billion a year in wasted timeand fuel. Drivers looking for a park-ing space cause 30 percent of urbancongestion, not to mention pollution.Imagine if Indian cities embedded net-worked sensors into parking spacesthat relay to drivers real-time infor-mation about — and directions to —available spots. Think about how wecould reduce congestion, pollution, and

fuel consump-

tion as well as generate more revenuefor cities through dynamic parking feesfor peak times.

Economic rationale and technolog-ical ability now also exists for smallerand satellite cities to pool their resourcesand integrate their managementprocesses. In the process, many of thesesatellite townships can compete withthose in developed countries in termsof physical and technology infrastruc-tures. For example, a smaller city thatis part of a regional cluster could offerremote management services like in-frastructure monitoring to other citiesand may eventually become a centre ofexcellence in this particular domain.So, cities can concentrate on some partsof the overall Smart Cities services andsolutions industry and build an eco-nomic engine around them.

Smart Governance and StandardsOur cities must embrace technologiesthat will help local governments andcivic bodies secure revenues, explore in-vestment partnerships, make organiza-tional changes that eliminate overlap-ping roles and manage expenses. Glob-al cities like Paris or Barcelona have may-ors who are qualified and competent tolead and manage civic activities. ManyIndian cities, however, do not have may-ors, and in the few where they are pres-ent, they do not have the administrativeauthority to run a city. An Indian citylacks executive focus.

The ongoing Delhi-Mumbai Infra-structure Corridor (DMIC) initiative,where the government has sought to de-velop seven smart cities across six states,is making progress because it is operat-ed like an enterprise where the projectis being overseen by a CEO.

Smart cities must also establish rad-ically new standards to ensure the ef-fective use of technology to deliver serv-ices and manage complex civic problems.

By Dilip Ranjekar

t was in 2009, while being apart of an Education ThinkTank conference organizedby a premier educational in-stitution in the US where Irealized that barring a hand-ful of nations such as Fin-land and Sweden, the world

at large is struggling with the issueof how to achieve quality in schooleducation. There were representa-tives from about 70 countries andmost were lamenting about the poorquality of education in their coun-tries. Despite massive campaignssuch as ‘No Child Left Behind’ led byPresident Obama and other privateinitiatives such as Teach for Ameri-ca, the quality of school education isa struggle even in a developed nationlike the US.

For over three decades, successivegovernments in India have project-ed three pillars of our development– electricity, roads and water (bijli,sadak and paani). The political mas-ters must accept Education as thefourth pillar which has the power tochange our status from a developingnation to a developed nation.

To be fair to India’s political mas-ters, there has been a significantprogress in access and enrolmentduring the past one-and-a-halfdecade. Triggered by the 86th amend-ment to the Constitution, the NDAgovernment in 2001 made a bold de-cision to launch the Sarva ShikshaAbhiyan (Education for All) – put-ting several infrastructure, innova-tion, incentive and teacher educa-

tion programmes under one um-brella than programmes being iden-tified by multiple donors (WorldBank, DFID).

This led to unprecedented in-crease in the availability of schools,classrooms and teachers. Over 98percent of our villages have a pri-mary school within 1km and a high-er primary school within 3kms. TheSSA brought in the concept of com-pulsory teacher development forevery teacher and provided budgetsfor it. Several innovations were at-tempted and some quality initiativessuch as Nali Kali and Activity BasedLearning were supported by gov-ernment resources.

Brand public schooling has sufferedIndia’s school education system isamong the largest in the world thatdeals with 1.4 million schools, over25 million children, 7 million teach-ers and about 1.5 million educationfunctionaries supporting the schoolsfrom outside. Several researches andeducational studies have repeatedlypointed to the poor quality of edu-cation in our schools.

The ASER report has consistent-ly brought home the abysmal per-formance of our children in simpleabilities of reading, writing andarithmetic. This has culminated inpeople losing the confidence in thepublic school system and brand ‘Pub-lic School’ has taken a major beat-ing. During the past 15 years, the shiftfrom public schools to private hasbeen almost fifteen percentage points.And the tragedy is – contrary to pub-lic perception, -- the quality of edu-cation in private schools is worsethan in public schools.

Even education functionaries whorun and support public schools sendtheir children to private schools, ful-ly knowing that government schoolshave better infrastructure, more qual-ified teachers, higher teachersalaries, elaborate academic supportsystem and, above all, free educationfor all children.

Some Critical to Quality IssuesAt a broader level, the critical issueshave been: (a) Lack of political will – as evi-denced through inadequate budgetsand unwillingness to eliminate po-litical interference in issues suchas teacher appointment and trans-fers etc.(b) Lack of accountability among theeducation functionaries. Illustra-tively, if fifty percent children fail inthe tenth standard board examina-tion each year, nobody is accountableother than the children themselves.The accountability is missing due toseveral reasons such as absence ofperformance culture, lack of risk-re-ward system and uncertain tenures (c) Absence of perspective on edu-cation at all levels: A very large ma-jority of education functionaries,teacher educators and teachers donot possess in-depth knowledge ofthe National Policy for Educationand the National CurriculumFramework.(d) Dysfunctional institutions sup-porting the school education -- elab-orate institutional frameworks suchas the NCERT, NCTE, SCERT, DIET,Block and Cluster-level resource cen-tres were created under the Nation-al Policy for Education, a vast ma-jority of them suffer from both quan-tity and quality of people(e) Absence of schools of educationthat develop competent educationprofessionals to manage the large ed-ucational system that we have. Inmost developed nations, almost allgood universities have a school of ed-ucation within them. For a nation of

1.25 billion people, we have practi-cally no schools of education. Weneed hundreds of such institutions.

Key actions in educationPublic education in India today mustbe seen in the context of the com-mitments that we, as a nation, madetowards the education of our chil-dren through our Constitution.

1. We must begin to see teaching asa very highly-regarded professionconsidering that a teacher is a leaderof change. The reality is that teach-ers as a group are in some measurepolitically empowered but, both as agroup and as individuals, profes-sionally disempowered. Most teach-ers see themselves as accountable totheir ‘superiors’ and not to their stu-dents. Addressing teachers’ profes-sional identity, their need for knowl-edge and skills and their empower-ment as a community is critical.2. As people responsible for achiev-ing the goals of education policy, thedecision-makers and administratorsin the education system need to besignificantly better prepared andcompetent to deal with the diverseand complex issues of school educa-tion in India.3. Providing early childhood educa-tion has not been made mandatoryand is excluded from the ambit of theright to education making it a most-ly unregulated area.4. Curriculum, classroom environ-ment and pedagogical processes areprimarily based on rote-learning anddo not enable conceptual under-standing, creativity or collaborativelearning. In their current form, ex-aminations do not assess the achieve-ment of curricular goals and most-ly promote a process of mechanical,rote-based learning in the classroom.Examinations are also a source ofacute stress and fear among childrenand their families.5. Our public education system hashistorically suffered from inadequateresource allocation towards fulfill-

ing the vision set out in the preamble of theConstitution.

Priorities for actionWhile all areas of education (e.g. infra-structure and resources) are very impor-tant, it is imperative to prioritize criticalareas that have a strong impact on overalleducation quality. Teacher education, edu-cation leadership and management and ear-ly childhood education are important pri-ority areas that need focussed action.

1. Teacher education: Teachers are at theheart of our education system. The success

of any effort to im-prove the quality ofeducation is centrally

dependent upon the teacher. Quality issuesin education are crucially linked to quali-ty issues in teacher education (pre-serviceand in-service).2. Education leadership & management:Leaders and administrators are mainly re-sponsible for creating an enabling envi-ronment for the school and the teacher toperform effectively. There is a complete lackof pre-service professional education as wellas an effective in service development sup-port for these positions.

3. Early childhood education: Several re-search studies on early childhood haveshown that early childhood is the time whenchildren need to be exposed to a stimulat-ing, literacy-rich environment to enhancetheir learning capabilities. Children whoexperience schooling for the first time atthe age of six years are clearly at a disad-vantage.

Integrity of ImplementationOur education system will be able to deliv-er good education when all strands (teachereducation, curriculum, school processes,etc.) reflect the aims of education as artic-ulated in our national policy documents andare based on the values of the Constitution.

This connect is articulated in policy butvery often forgotten in the nuts and bolts ofimplementation.

Most education policy documents arewell-thought out and well-intentioned. Theissue often lies with actual actions that en-sure implementation on the ground. Par-tial implementation or implementation thatdoes not reflect the spirit of the policy de-feats the entire purpose of it.

(The writer is CEO, Azim Premji Foundation)

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EDUCATION

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