301.030 : RRG proposals to improve Maths, Law etc. Education (19-Dec-2011) No.023

December 19, 2011

301.030 : RRG proposals to improve Maths, Law etc. Education

https://www.facebook.com/notes/rahul-chimanbhai-mehta-rrg/301030-rrg-proposals-to-improve-maths-law-etc-education/10150425669141922

(for downloading complete PDF , containing 50 chapters on full law-drafts needed to reduce MNC-domination, nepotism in courts, corruption in police/courts/education, improve education, improve Military, reduce cow slaughter, see http://rahulmehta.com/301.htm )

(For index, see notes #301.Index at http://facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150422423416922  )

30.1    RRG proposals, demands and promises to improve education

Following are the key proposed laws and changes in Education that I at RRG propose:

1. Using proposed RTI2, enact Right to Recall District Education Officer, State Education Minister, Central Education Minister and University Vice Chancellor.
2. Using RTI2, enact Saatya System to improve education of Maths, other important subjects
3. Provide law education starting class VI; provide education of tax laws including filling returns
4. Provide universal weapon use education
5. Give subsidies directly to students instead of colleges
6. Providing biligual textbooks for all languages
7. Allowing students to take optional exams in English, if the want

And many more proposals are given at http://rahulmehta.com/improve_education.htm .

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30.2    Right to Recall District Education Officer

The exact draft, which will come into effect when CM signs this law is as follows:

1. The word parent would mean a father and mother with a kid between age 0 to 17 who should also be a registered voter in that district ; Till the list of parent is made, every registered voter between the age of 23 years and 45 years will be deemed parent for the pupose of this GN.
2. (procedure for Collector)  If any citizen of India wishes to become DEO (District Education Officer) , and he appears in person or via a lawyer with affidavit before the DC (or officer he deputes), the DC (or officer he deputes) would accept his application to become DEO after taking filing fee same as deposit amount for MP election.
3. (procedure for Talati  or Talati’s Clerks)  If a parent comes in person to Talati’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for the DEO position, the Talati would enter his approvals in the computer and would him a receipt with his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
4. (procedure for  Talati)  The Talati will put the approvals of the parent on district’s website with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5. (procedure for Talati) If a the parent comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6. (procedure for Collector) On every 5th of month, the Collector or officer he deputes will publish Approval counts for each candidate as on last date of the previous month.
7. (procedure for CM) If a candidate gets approval of over 35% of ALL parents (ALL, not just those who have filed their approval) in a district, and it is 2% more than approval existing DEO has, then CM may appoint him as DEO
8. (procedure for CM , DEO) A person may become DEO with approval of parents, he may become DEO of more than one Districts. He may become DEO of at most 5 districts in the State and at most 20 districts in India. A person cannot be DEO of one District for over 8 years in his life. In case he is DEO of more than one district, he will get salaries , allowances, perks etc for the DEO positions of all those districts.
9. (procedure for CM ) As long as a DEO has approvals of more than 34% parents, CM need not replace him. But if a DEO’s approval goes below 34%, the CM can replace him with the officer of his choice.

Functions of DEO

1. (procedure for DEO) DEO shall administer class1-12 schools and the examination centers in the Districts, as per existing and later amended laws. The DEO shall get funds from PM, CM and District Panchayat Chief as per the laws made by citizens and MPs, MLAs and District Panchayat members.
2. (procedure for DEO) DEO  shall administer education of the following subjects – Maths, Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Hindi, local language, Military History, Law and administrative setup, History of law and administrative setup, Military training and weapon use education. He shall administer the education as per the laws made by MPs, MLAs etc.
3. (procedure for DEO) DEO will continue with education of Sanskrit and Social Sciences. But if over 51% of citizens demand discontinuation of this courses, the DEO may remove them from the compulsory course.
4. (procedure for DEO) DEO may allow any citizen to become “registered private tutor” for a fee of Rs 100.
5. (procedure for DEO) DEO may allow any parent to change his child’s tutor by filing Tutor’s name at the Talati’s office
6. (procedure for DEO) DEO may conduct 1-4 exams in Mathematics every month for class1-12 students. In addition, he will conduct exams ion Sciences, Law and other subjects. The exams may be computerized tests. The list of possible questions for each year/quarter will consists of 10000 to 100000 questions and will be published. The exams may consists of 30-100 questions from that list
7. (procedure for DEO)  DEO may give rewards based on available funds, examination performance to the student and his tutor. The tutor will not receive any other salary from Govt except these payments.

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30.3  How will Right to Recall DEO improve Education?

How would RTR-DEO improve DEO? First, the threat of prompt replacement alone would force him to reduce corruption. But that does not do much. At the end, we want a DEO who is not interested in corruption to begin with, not someone who is reducing corruption because of threat of replacement. How does RTR-DEO in six months provide hundreds of DEOs who are not interested in corruption at all? I will explain the process of how RTR-DEO will accomplish that.

There are about 700 DEOs in India. All 700 are intelligent, capable and efficient. And out of them about say about 10-15 are not interested in corruption. That asset is what we already have. Now my RTR-DEO procedure has one clause --- that if an officer is appointed as DEO by CM, he can be DEO of only one district ; but if citizens have made him DEO, he can be DEO of up to 5 districts in State and up to 10 districts in India. And he would get salaries of all those districts i.e. if a person is DEO of 4 districts and has been appointed by citizens, then his salary will be 4 times. This is cheaper as only salary becomes 4 times, medical benefits, other benefits and many lifelong benefits do not become 4 times. And a later modification makes this feature of “horizontal promotion” or “horizontal expansion” more radical --- the salary will become (N * Log2N) times where N is number of Districts he obtains via citizens’ approvals. Further, a person will be entitled to hold several positions across departments i.e. he may be DEO of 10 districts and also become District Health Officer of 10 districts with some limits. In addition, there is provision for vertical rise i.e. if he serves as District Prosecutors of several Districts, his chances of becoming State Prosecutors of one and more States increases.

So out of existing 700 DEOs, say 5-15 are non-corrupt. Once RTR-DEO comes, they will see an opportunity to do well as well as expand horizontally as well as vertically. The will start introducing positive changes in the schools in their districts. They will stop middle officers from taking bribes, they will ensure that contractors are putting furniture like blackboard, chairs etc in schools. They will ensure that teachers do attend schools etc. And when they do so, they will no longer give hafta to CMs. Now lets say in all cases CMs transfer them. Then out of 7-15 such cases, in at least 2-5 cases, the parents in order to save their kids’ education will bring that officer back using RTR-DEO.

So that would improve education in 2-5 districts out of 700 districts of India. What about the rest? Well, say you are living in district-A. Now say that DEO of A is corrupt and inefficient. Say there are 5 near by districts B, C D, E and X.  Say district X alone has good DEO. Then citizens of district-A now have a choice – they can expel DEO of their district and give double charge of DEO of X. This very choice and power, that “citizens can now expel me using RTR and  bring DEO of X  in my place” will create a threat in the minds of DEO of A, B, C, D and E. So either they will all improve within 2-3 months, or citizens will expel them using RTR and replace him with DEO of X. And within 8-10 months, all 700 DEOs will improve or face expulsion.

And within 10-20 months, the officers with “get rich quick” and “hell with citizens” mentality from will start leaving administration, and will no longer join administration. So those who want to serve will have now more room and less corrupt people who will interfere..

The existing Govt procedures have a flaw that salary etc of an honest person does not double if he does twice the work, a phenomenon common in business. This de-motivates honest people from joining Govt. The RTR procedures I have proposed enable officers to hold multiple chairs and gain more salaries. This will increase the inflow of honest as well as enterprising persons into Govt.

I have proposed RTR over not just District Education Officers, but also over District Health Officer, District Police Chief, District Supply Officer (in charge of rationing) etc. I have proposed RTR over some 30-50 District level positions including district judges. So there are about 700 districts and so RTR will apply on about 30000 officers, judges. The day RTR comes, some 15000 will improve within 24 hours. And when mere 2-5 officers get expelled in India in district in first month, the remaining 15000 across India will also improve. IOW, RTR will not require citizens to expel even 50 out of 30000 officers. Expulsion of just 2-3 officers will serve as enough warning for the rest. So RTR will not create any instability at all.

Same way, I have proposed RTR State Govt level positions and Central Govt positions such as CM, PM, Ministers, HCjs, SCjs etc. In some cases, they will continue. In some cases they will get expelled and replaced by better persons in their level or lower levels.

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30.4    Enacting procedures to expel teaching staff

1. DEO will initially appoint Principals in schools run by the Municipal Corporation. The teachers will be selected with a 3 year contract open competitive exams. There will be transfer every year. Transfers will be via random matching only.
2. Jury procedure for/against a school teacher : If there is a complain against a school teacher, and prima-facie doubt is established, a Jury of 10 citizens will be summoned. If over 7 Jurors decide that the teacher is misfit to serve the students, the teachers will be transferred to a different school. After 3 such transfers, he will be expelled.

The procedure of replacement of District Education Officer will alone go long way to improve education, and so will procedure to expel the teachers.

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30.5    Saatya System for Maths Education

1. Questions, Exams and Rewards
2. The system will have a list of thousands of Maths questions for each of the 12 standards. Questions will be multiple choice. The list will be published and will be in public domain. 
3. Depending on the availability of resources, the District Education Officer will setup 1-4 exams per month for each students
4. Each exam will have 30-120 questions randomly chosen from the list for that quarter. Duration would be 1-3 minutes per question. Each exam will have 500-1000-more students
5. There would be monthly cash rewards for students/teachers based on the performance in the exams. These cash rewards will be the ONLY funding that Maths teachers and schools will get from the state. There will no salary for the Maths teacher.
6. The rewards can be as follows: Say Rs. 10 for each student and his teacher who gets (Average - 10%) and Rs. 20 each student and his teacher who gets more marks than (Average + 10%). Also, each parent gets additional 25% of what the student gets. In addition, for students after class V, additional 25% of what the student got goes to his teachers of past 2 years. The exact amount of the reward will depend on the money allocated to DEO that year.
7. Administration of  Exams    
8. The testing centers would be operated by District Education Officer.
9.  The DEO will arrange for the buildings, desks, computer terminals, servers, printing reports, allocating rewards etc. for the testing centers using the taxes he collects. DEO would appoint clerks, supervisor, assistants etc. to run test center. The citizens may expel an employee using Jury Trial.
10. DEO, or his clerks, using random choice, will instruct a student to go to a testing center near his school/home. For each month, the testing center can be different. Each student will get a different desk in test. This reduces the chances of cheating.  
11. The server computer, upon the instruction of the supervisor, will randomly choose 60 questions from a list of 1000s public domain questions.  
12. Each student will get the same 30-60 questions in different random order. Thus two students sitting next to each other will be getting questions in a different order. The server will not allow the student to change the answer to a question after he has answered it. The server will allow at most 5 minutes per question. This will make the exam cheat proof.
13. The DEO will pay the rewards for all the tests of that month before 10th of next month.
14. Testing cost will be below Rs 5 per test, not counting the land cost.
15. Dispensing Rewards for Maths Exams
16. If over 95% students answered a question or if less than 5% students answered a question, the DEO  will not count that question at all.  
17. The DEO will decide number of tests to be conducted for each subject for a given class. For example, lets say that DEO decides that every month, there will be 2 Maths test, 1 Physics tests, 1 Chemistry tests, 1 Biology test, 2 Law tests  etc.
18.  The software will issue the points right after the exam.  
19. Selection of Maths teacher in Saatya System
20. In the system I described, any person can register himself as a Maths teacher.  
21.  The parent of the child will decide which Maths teacher’s class his child will attend. The parents can change the teacher any month.

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30.6    Saatya System for other Subjects

The system I described can be used for many subjects such as

• Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology etc)
• English vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction, translating sentences from English to another language and vice versa.  (not English Literature)
• Hindi (vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction, sentence translation, not literature)
• Other  languages (vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction, sentence translation, not literature)
• Military History, Technology History, History of Laws and Administrative Setups
• Geography, map-making and surveying practical at Local/District levels

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30.7    Providing Law education

1. some 15-20 students will be asked to attend complete session of a few cases in a courtroom.
2. once the case is over, they would be asked to discuss and write their opinions covering the following issues (analysis). was the punishment (or acquittal)  fair? was form of punishment (prison, fine etc.) fair? what exact laws were applicable in this case? are these laws fair? what were the evidences? were these evidences fair? Etc etc
3. discuss and write about following (synthesis). what should have been the laws, if the laws were unfair? is the text of the law simple enough to understand? can you provide simpler text? what should have been the punishment in your opinion? could anything have been done to stop that crime? is there anything that would have made the trial faster? simpler? Etc etc  
4. Each case would invoke new issues. Much of the plan would be left to the teacher/students. The students would be supervised by a teacher for 1-2 hr. a week. It would be more interesting if schools can ask retired judges or a retired/practicing lawyers or a technical expert in the field of the case to occasionally participate in the discussion.
5. The students would be asked to take cases in the subordinate as well as higher courts.
6. The cases would be chosen at random.  
7.  The texts will also have information on actual things (corruption, nepotism, atrocities etc) that do happen in administration and courts
8. Providing information on tax laws from class-VI to Third Year of College. The course would include filing and checking tax returns, maintaining books for 6-10 years, facing mock scrutinizes and also mock tax trials.
9. DEO will also initiate course to teach tax-laws to students from class-VI or whenever parents decide. The course will include filling actual tax returns and facing mock scrutinies.

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30.8    Providing weapon use education

I at RRG propose that Military training to all adults, children above 16 should be given. This is necessary to have a country where every citizen is armed to protect the country from criminals as well as foreign invaders.

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30.9    Providing English Education

RRG proposes to provide English education to all citizens from age of 5 years to 80 years. All textbooks from class-I to colleges will be made bilingual i.e. odd numbered pages will be English translation of the even numbered pages in the local language. This will apply for all subjects, Maths, Sciences, Law etc. The students will be free to write exams of these subjects in local languages and in addition can also write second optional exam of these subjects in English. The score of second exams will not carry any weight.