Revision as of 13:19, 9 November 2016

Some facts: Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Jun 21 2015

History

The Times of India, Jun 21 2015

Akshaya Mukul

In the January of 1986, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi called an unusual meeting in his office. HRD minister P V Narasimha Rao was asked to come with his officials. “As expected Rao was nervous and irritated. He was among the seniormost in the cabinet and could not fathom why Gandhi would ike to meet his officials also,“ he remembers.

Two minutes into the meet ng, it was known to all that Gandhi was worried about the flak his new education policy was getting. “He made it clear hat there should be a definite outcome of the new policy and the document should not gather dust. Various sugges ions were made. But he had already made up his mind and asked us to think of problems outside Delhi. Seeds of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya were sown in that meeting,“ he says, adding that so enthused was Rao and officials that in no time NVs were conceived and operationalized.

“Rajiv wanted to integrate Bharat with India and had children such as Raju and Brijesh in mind,“ he says.

After 29 years, 589 operational schools and thousands of NVS alumni in the private sector and government, the model of state-funded residential schools focused on rural India ­ 70% reservation is for students belonging to rural areas in the district -is being celebrated. “What worked for NVS is its strategy to stay focused on rural India. Few attempts were made to dilute its vision. Within few years we knew rural India has more talent whose imagination needs to be fired,“ says an NVS principal from Haryana.

According to him what also helped is the policy of teaching in the mother tongue till class VIII and subsequently in either English or Hindi. Science and mathematics is taught in English. “In class VI, when they join, I have seen troubled students with their own idea of school. Seeing others speak in your language breaks the first barrier. It is unbelievable that few of my students are now teaching English in universities,“ he says.

In case of IITs, NVS officials say, “When the format of IIT entrance changed we realized our students will need some help. Dakshna Foundation came in to help without any financial liability to us.Since 2007 our students are coached by them. Few who can afford go to other coaching institutions.“

So far, Dakshana has coached 1700 NVS students out of which 620 have made it to the IITs. This year alone, 230 will be joining IITs not to mention many more who would be getting into NITs and other institutions.

JNVs andJEE (Main)

2016: 95% success rate

The Times of India, May 04 2016

Navodaya kids record 95% success rate in JEE (Main)

Akshaya Mukul

Out of 251 students of Class XII who appeared for JEE (Main) in 2015-16, 238 qualified, ensuring admission in the National Institutes of Technology -a success rate of 94.8%, compared to the national average of 16.7%.

All those who have cleared JEE (Main), will now appear in JEE (Advanced) for admission into IITs.

This is not all. Out of 79 students who took a year's break and appeared for JEE (Main), 78 have qualified for admission to NITs. Sharmila Pai, chief operating officer of Dakshana Foundation, says the success of JNV students is a “testimony to the fact that when the best intentions come together great things are sure to happen“. She says students sacrifice two years of their life by living far away from their families and focu sing on JEE alone. Pai said the results were a reward for their hard work and would motivate them further to succeed at JEE (Advanced).

Set up for rural children, there are 598 residential JNVs all over India. The government proposes to set up 62 more such schools. All 238 successful students were coached by Dakshana Foundation of Pune in five centres of excellence as part of an arrangement with JNVs. Of these, the centre at Bangalore Urban reported a success rate of 100% as 50 of 50 students qualified.

Last year, 380 out of 425 JNV students who appeared for JEE (Main) qualified, recording a success rate of 89.4%. Fifty students had registered for JEE (Main) from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (Bangalore Urban), including those who were shifted for intense coaching after Class X.All of them qualified. From JNV (Bangalore Urban), Praveen Kumar was the highest scorer with 248. Kumar completed his Class X at JNV (Gaya) in Bihar after which he moved to Bengaluru.

From JNV (Bundi), another centre of excellence, 49 of 52 qualified. Mayank Chittor was the highest scorer, again tallying 248. He was in JNV (Khairabad) in Kota, till Class X.

In JNV (Lucknow), also a centre of excellence, 39 of 40 qualified while from JNV (Pune), 49 of 50 cleared the JEE (Main). Anand Kumar Varma who scored 260 went to JNV (Bhabua) in Kaimur district of Bihar. In JNV Rangareddy in Andhra, 51 of 59 students who appeared qualified.

Among those who took a year's break, Nitesh scored 259. He was from JNV (Alwar).

Government spends

The Times of India, Jun 21 2015

Rema Nagarajan

Govt spends 85K on each Vidyalaya student annually

The excellent results of Navodaya Schools and the remarkable performance of their students in competitive examinations are proof of the government's ability to run good schools and provide quality education when it puts its mind, and more importantly , its money into it. Consider the budget allocated for the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti in 2015-16, Rs 1905 crores to run 589 schools with over 2 lakh students.The per capita spending on a student annually works out to be roughly Rs 85,000. Similarly the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan which runs 1,099 schools with over 11.7 lakh children studying in them got a budget allocation of Rs 3,190 crore. That works out to roughly Rs 27,150 spending per student.

Students studying in Navodaya and KV put together are less than 1% of total number of students studying in regular government schools, over 14.7 crore. Now consider the entire budget allocation for 12.2 crore students studying in government-run elementary schools (Class I-VIII) in 2013 -just Rs 37,150 crore. This works out to just over Rs 3,000 per student for the whole year. A similar calculation for students studying in government-run secondary and higher secondary schools (Class IX-XII) shows that the allocation amounts to less than Rs 4,000 per student annually .

However, the Centre bears only one fourth of the total government spending on education whereas the rest of the amount comes from the state governments. Hence, the total public expenditure on each student in a govern ment school could range from Rs 12,000 per student at the elementary level to Rs 16,000 at the secondary and higher secondary level.

If we compare the annual allocation for regular government school students with that for Novodaya or KV students, the allocation for each Navodaya student is five to seven times and for a KV student it is almost double. Of course, in the case of Navodaya schools, the expenditure is higher also because they are residential schools unlike KV schools.

India's total public expenditure as a percentage of the GDP is about 3.5%, well short of the 6% recommended by the Kothari Education Commission in 1966 and reiterated by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee in 2006. In most developed countries including the UK, Norway and Netherlands public spending on education amounts to about 6% of their GDP .

“Navodaya or Kendriya Vidyalaya schools are just for a select few. We should be demanding similar kind of investment in other government schools too rather than feel smug about what Navodaya schools are able to achieve. Navodaya schools show what opportunities can do for children, even from deprived background.If they are given conducive circumstances, their lives could change. If a few hundred government-run schools are doing so well, why aren't all government schools doing so? That is because there is differential resource allocation,“ explained Poonam Batra of the Central Institute of Education, Delhi University .

Instead of advocating for greater resource allocation, there is a strong lobby saying that government schools are dysfunctional and seeking privatisation of school education.

2016

73.9% get into IIT/ JEE

The Times of India, Jun 14 2016

Akshaya Mukul

JNVs shine, 233 of 315 kids get into IITs

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya students continued with their successful run in JEEs. Of the 315 JNV students who appeared for JEE (advanced), 233 have qualified for admission into IITs. Though the success rate of 73.9% is less than the 95% success rate achieved at JEE (main) stage, it is better than what many coaching institutes can boast of. Girls have performed well, with 12 out of 19 who appeared passing the exam.

Of the 315 who appeared, 238 prepared for JEE for two years after class X, while 77 students had taken a year off after class XII. Of the regular 238 students who appeared, 172 have cleared the test. Sixty-one of 77 JNV students who took a year's break have also made it, taking the total to 233.

Students prepared as part of Navodaya Dakshana JEE Scholarship pro gramme at five JNVs: JNV Bangalore Urban, JNV Bundi, JNV Lucknow, JNV Pune and JNV Rangareddy .JNV students from all over India are brought to these institutions after class X.

Mohnish Pabrai, founder, Dakshana Foundation gave the credit to his team and coaching partners.“We remain focused on expanding the program to attain our goal of 2020 in 2020 i.e. sending 2020 Dakshana Scholars to the IITs in the year 2020,“ he said.

Mayank Chittora from Kota was the best performer with an all India rank of 952. He went to JNV Bundi. Pranav Kumar Anupam from Bihar's Madhepura has an all India rank of 968.Anupam ranked 125 in the OBC list. Samprit Shekhar Jambhulkar from Maharashtra, who is visually impaired, secured an AIR of 15,495. He came first in the sub-category of SCs with physical disability .