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In this response to commentaries by Ali Sammel, Jhumki Basu and Alberto Rodriguez, I present my perspective on three important issues raised by the commentators. These issues relate to the role of a researcher in her field settings and society, the critique of science and science education as oppressive dominant discourses, and co-opting participants as researchers. I argue that researchers should work actively for progressive change in discursive fields such as educational research, in which they are firmly embedded rather than playing an interventionist role in field settings where their discursive positionality maybe temporary and not that rooted. Regarding the critique of science and science education, my response favors a perspective wherein an understanding of the marginalization and oppression of non-western communities caused by western science and science education is counterbalanced by an appreciation of the ways in which marginalized communities can use science and science education for affecting progressive change. Lastly, I recognize the value of co-opting participants in writing and communication of research. [Abstract presented in both English and Hindi.]

Background: Every year the scientific sessions of Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society (ANCIPS) are marked by presentation of free papers, posters, and award paper sessions, which are usually meant for presentation of new research which is not yet published. Hence, it is expected that these papers will be published in near future so that the scientific literature is distributed and shared with wider audience. Aim: This paper aims to evaluate the abstract to publication rate of papers presented during ANCIPS in the years 2012–2014. Materials and Methods: For this study, all the free papers, posters, and award papers presented during the ANCIPS of 2012–2014 were listed, and electronic searches were carried out to search for published articles. In addition, one of the authors of papers not found in the electronic searches were contacted through E-mail. Results: A total of 1081 papers were presented during the ANCIPS in the 3 year period under study. Of these, 64 were award papers, 622 were free papers, and 395 were posters. Majority (n = 807; 74.6%) of these could be categorized as research data-based presentations; this was followed by case reports/series (203; 18.8%), review of literature (n = 35; 3.3%), and others (n = 36; 3.3%). Overall, only 27% of the papers were published after at least 5 years of the presentation. Of all the award papers, 69.6% of papers were published, whereas only 26.8% of free oral papers and 22.5% of free posters were published. About half (45.6%) of the papers were published in national journals. In terms of indexing, among those which were published, 62.8% were published in Medline-indexed (PubMed-listed) Journals with a mean impact factor of 1. Conclusion: The present study shows that only 27% of the abstracts presented during the ANCIPS are ultimately published as full text articles in the next 5 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a case study conducted at a government (state-run), girls' secondary school in a low-income neighbourhood in New Delhi that was conducted in March, 2012, two years after the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) came into force. The study examined how RTE and its related reforms were being implemented, with the objective of gaining insights into how education objectives and the curriculum were being implemented at the school and how its teachers approached the implementation of the curriculum. Findings of this investigation are presented here in relation to the systemic issues of "teacher professionalism" and "high teacher-pupil ratio". The findings present some insights into the effects of a significantly high teacher-pupil ratio on educational outcomes and on the professionalism of teachers.

"Learning To Live Together" (LTLT) has been proposed as one of the four UN pillars of education. Several Indian educationists including Aurobindo, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, and Tagore have emphasized equivalents like 'education of the heart' and founded schools that have pursued these goals, some for more than a century. This paper explores teachers' perspectives on conflict, satyagraha/dissent, and dialogue and their role in education for LTLT. The paper draws upon a three year-long, multiple-embedded case-study that studied 14 teachers at five Indian schools founded or inspired by the educationists through ethnographic observations and interviews. The paper finds that LTLT should be perceived as a form of active harmony, which includes disagreements, dissent, and conflicts. The findings suggest that teachers differentiated conflicts from violence, perceived disagreements and conflicts as forms of pluralism, and created space for voicing dissent and resolving conflicts. They drew on dialogue, empathetic understanding, democratic decision-making, and social action to leverage dissent as a tool for building an equitable and engaged community.

The study briefly analyzes the ELT situation in India which is replete with challenges emerging from the lack of engagement with the phenomenon of digitality that further shapes the existing nature of learning and the needs of the learner. After locating the position of English Language in the new education policy of India, the paper discusses the General English (GE) courses offered at undergraduate level at the city of Bangalore in India, thereby shedding light on the existing gaps between policy and practice. It is based on this conjecture that the paper suggests the possibility of introducing rhetorical practices in GE courses at undergraduate levels in various institutions in urban India. In order to substantiate this suggestion, the results of a survey conducted with the learners (N=359) of a GE course based on rhetorics at a Southern Indian university is provided. Empirical data along with a brief reflection on the learners' voices are used in the study to examine the efficacy of the structure, administration and evaluation practices of this new course. The study thus opens up possibilities of initiating a discourse around the mode in which English language education and teaching is envisioned, formulated and implemented in undergraduate programs across urban India.

Pulp and paper mills generate varieties of pollutants depending upon type of the pulping process being used. This paper presents the characteristics of wastewater from South India Paper Mill, Karnataka, India which is using recycled waste paper as a raw material. The raw wastewater consists of 80-90 mg L suspended solid and 1,010-1,015 mg L dissolved solid. However, pH varied from 5.5-6.8. The biochemical oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand ranged from 200-210 and 1,120-1,160 mg L, respectively. Aerobic treatment of raw effluent attribute to significant reduction in suspended solid (range between 25 to 30 mg L) and total dissolved solid (range between 360 to 390 mg L). However, pH, temperature, and electrical conductivity were found superior after treatment. Copper, cadmium, iron, lead, nickel, and zinc were found in less quantity in raw effluent and were almost completely removed after treatment. The dendrogram of the effluent quality parameters clearly indicate that South India Paper Mill does not meet Minimal National Standard set by central Pollution Control Board to discharge in agricultural field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study reported in this paper was to explore and enhance experienced school mathematics teachers' knowledge of students'thinking, as it is manifested in practice. Data were collected from records of classroom observations, interviews with participating teachers, and weekly teacher-researcher meetings organized in the school. In this paper, we discuss the mathematical challenges faced by a primary school teacher as she attempts to unpack the structure of the division algorithm, while teaching in a Grade 4 classroom. Through this case study, we exemplify how a focus on mathematical knowledge for teaching 'in situ' helped in triggering a change in the teacher's well-formed knowledge and beliefs about the teaching and learning of the division algorithm, and related students' capabilities. We argue that in the context of educational reform, an analysis of knowledge demands placed on the teacher helps in understanding and supporting teachers' work.

The case study is a very popular pedagogical tool in management education, especially in international business, marketing and strategy courses. Substantial literature exists about the effectiveness of case studies, but there is a lack of studies on empirical evaluation of their effectiveness in the classroom and subsequent contribution to learning. This study explores how case studies perform in meeting the twin deliverables of providing a theoretical framework and also student engagement. This study evaluates the role of Theoretical Breadth (TB) and Student Engagement (SE) in contributing to learning in a case-based pedagogy. The paper argues that the TB and SE leads to perceptions of learning and influences learning effectiveness. Using data collected from 176 MBA students, the paper conducts a PLS-SEM analysis to investigate these effects. Results indicate that TB and SE are critical course design elements, which influence the overall learning of marketing courses using case methods. Instructors must aim to provide greater TB and better opportunities for SE in order to make marketing courses more fruitful to students.

YouTube now has more searches than Google, indicating that video is a motivating and, potentially, powerful learning tool. This paper investigates how we can embrace video to support improvements in teacher education. It will draw on innovative approaches to teacher education, developed by the Open University UK, in order to explore in more depth the potential of video. It will use case studies from three continents, and draw on research from different sources, in order to highlight the successes and the challenges. Looking across the examples presented, the paper will describe models of teacher learning and video use, and demonstrate that video can add value to teacher development activities provided that appropriate support and mediation, consistent with the pedagogy that is being promoted, is in place. Sustainable Development Goal 4 emphasizes the importance of improving the quality of the experiences that children have in school. This requires new models for teacher education, and has become an urgent issue. Video could be a significant part of the solution.

The growing global demand for tertiary education has led to the increased use of e-learning approaches around the world. Demand has increased most rapidly in low and middle income countries (LMICs), which account for half of the students currently enrolled in higher educational institutions (HEIs). But the implementation of e-learning programmes in resource-constrained settings faces many obstacles. This paper explores some of the key issues involved in implementation of e-learning in HEIs involved in the education of health professionals, given the resource constraints within which many institutions have to function. We present case studies of three such LMIC institutions of varying size and primary purpose. The paper suggests use of appropriate ICT infrastructure, both in terms of hardware and software, combined with effective access and bandwidth management policies is crucial to the successful implementation of e-learning courses on health within HEIs based in LMICs.

Well-being is realised through the interaction of the individual's desires and capacities, and external contexts. Contexts in postcolonial societies diverge from the assumptions of functioning liberal democratic states and capitalist economies often assumed in theories of schooling. Instead, these contexts are characterised by poverty and inequality, cultural diversity, and ongoing projects of state and nation-building. Through case studies of two rural communities in India and South Africa, this paper analyses the role of postcolonial contexts in shaping well-being opportunities through schooling in these contexts. It highlights the contested nature of this relationship in cultural, economic, and political spheres.

Channelized job search powered by perceived employability could help graduates to successfully launch a sustainable career and navigate the job market effectively. The paper develops novel ways to improve the job search process by detailing the interlinking mechanism between perceived employability and active job search. The authors also enquired about the intervening role played by preparatory job search and job search learning goal orientation. For this purpose, cross-sectional data of 317 management graduates in India were collected and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was conducted on the data using IBM Amos. The study found that enhanced perceived employability had a major impact on active job search behaviour. It was also found that it is through job search learning goal orientation and preparatory job search behaviour that perceived employability is associated with an active job search. The study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it links the theory of planned job search behaviour to employability research. Practically, it provides guidelines for universities and career counsellors on how to help students with their job searching. This is one of the first studies to look into the sequential mechanism through which employability perceptions impact active job searching.

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system is different from conventional education system. ODL system imparts education through multiple media and techniques to equalize the class room education. Unlike the conventional system, the distant learners (students, adults, employed persons, etc.) may face some problems during their course of study. In this paper authors discuss various problems faced by the ODL learners and propose some good practices to enhance the learner's satisfaction level. The paper further describes the importance of Engineering programmes offered through ODL for working technicians (ITI certificate holders) and working technical supervisors (Engineering Diploma holders). It also talks about the career opportunities and promotion aspects after the completion of their respective programmes.

This paper explores the potential contribution of education to sustainable development. Drawing on recent evidence it argues that education could play a stronger role--a position reinforced by the new sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, securing this contribution will have to be achieved in an era where educational delivery will be increasingly impacted by climate/environment change. The paper explores the relationship between education and sustainable development through an Indian case study. It covers why education is important; impediments that reduce educational impact, and an innovative programme of environmental education that offers insight on ways forward.

The 12th Plan highlighted Equity, Access & Excellence as the tripod of India's education policy. The RTE Act 2009 has ensured a high level of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER). However, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) present a dismal picture of the outcome dimensions of our schooling system. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) therefore, highlights the importance of quality as an important conjoint of universal access, as skill based education will ensure proper employment opportunity. Education is a major enabler for empowerment for all; and in particular for extremely vulnerable sections of the society like STs. The tribal students are handicapped multi-dimensionally, with education as a critical fault line. This paper analyses the policy initiatives to educate and empower them and brings out the bleak picture that bedevil this neglected segment. It contrasts the experience of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in terms of promoting gender parity, vocational training, health alleviation, dignity of the girl child and educational outcomes as compared to their counterparts in government and SC/ST schools. The paper also highlights the unique funding model of KISS and its potential for replication. Inclusive growth and quality can work how in hand. The paper strongly argues for government's handholding through "Skill India" initiative and funding unique initiatives as KISS.

In this paper we frame children as geological agents, very much part of epoch and biospherical processes, enfolded in Earth system changes. We draw on the experiences of Indian childhoods in a context where the land, water, animals, children's bodies and forests are being shaped by a politics of corporate city building. We analyse how children and young people contribute to Earth system changes and consider the everyday, multispecies consequences of living with anthropogenic urbanism. The paper shows how children's bodies are entangled with human and non-human forces; they are geological agents which challenge, negotiate and have cyclical and rhythmic relationships with land and resources. We argue that time, scale and multispecies vulnerabilities are important reference points in our thinking through anthropogenic processes and thus contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the place of children and young people in the new epoch.

Ethical engineering practice is a global issue. However, cultural norms and social realities may result in differences in ethical behavior. A basic instructional challenge is developing the ability of students to understand ethical practice and to facilitate discussion of ethical issues across regional and cultural boundaries. The present project seeks to facilitate discussion and analysis of ethical practices of undergraduate engineering students at our university, Texas Tech, and peers at universities in Ukraine and India, our partnering countries. An undergraduate ethics course for engineering majors and the website https://EthicalEngineer.ttu.edu are currently the primary channels through which this project is being developed and implemented. The paper describes (1) steps in developing the website, which is currently operational, (2) progress developing partnerships and recruiting participants, and (3) results from preliminary tests of machine-assisted methods for analyzing students' submissions to the website. The Ethical Engineer is an emerging web-based innovation for facilitating cross-cultural discourse in engineering ethics.

School science textbooks are an amalgamation of concepts collected from different fields of Science like Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The actual number of concepts in the different domains of science are enormous. Educationists have to make a decision of choosing some concept that they think are necessary for students to know at a certain age. Moreover, these concepts have to be arranged in a certain order of arrangement from first chapter to the last in a textbook. The aim of this paper is to question the ontological basis of filtering concepts from the larger world of science to placing them in a school science textbook. Through two informal studies presented in this paper, the author has tried to demonstrate that different groups of people can form concept maps of a topic that are very different in structure compared to what is given in NCERT textbook. If there are multiple ways of arranging the same set of concepts, then how do educationist validate one set of arrangement of topics against the other? The result of study puts light on the fact that currently there are no criteria available for judging the ontological validity of concepts that are present in existing textbooks in school science curriculum. The selection of topics is dependent upon limited individual knowledge base of the expert who is writing the chapter. The article briefly provides a framework by which ontology of a subject can be developed collaboratively by a community of teachers and subject matter experts. This ontology can be used as a valid guide for choosing and arranging topics in a school level science textbook.

Although it is a core component of a language user's overall linguistic competence, vocabulary has traditionally not received the kind of attention it deserved, being usually lumped with other kinds of competence till 1980s and 1990s when researchers started focusing on it with great interest. The present paper discusses what the notion of lexical competence entails, and also attempts to look at how vocabulary researchers have conceptualized its dimensions, especially the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. The paper also discusses the different ways in which these dimensions of lexical competence can possibly be measured, drawing data from an ongoing cross-sectional study on lexical competence in Assam University.

This paper reports on aspects of a recent project carried out for the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, which was designed to feed into the process of updating and expanding India's apprenticeship system. The apprenticeship system in India is extremely small for the country's population, even taking into account the high proportion of jobs that are in the informal economy, and is subject to very rigid regulation. Expansion of the system has been seen as vital in order to improve the supply of skills to the rapidly expanding economy, and also to address issues of disparity in labour market participation and equity for certain groups in Indian society. The paper firstly explains how findings about apprenticeship systems from ten other countries, together with analysis of the Indian situation, were used to present options for consideration by the Indian government. It then analyses these options for their social justice and equity implications.

Analysing teaching-practice offers an opportunity to answer questions like what is critical to making a pedagogy democratic, what are the factors that support a teacher to be critical in her teaching? Or what restricts the teacher in being critical in her work? This paper seeks to address some of these questions by presenting the findings of an investigation into the practice of teachers who are committed to the idea of critical pedagogy. The scope of the study is limited to understanding the critical aspects that are related to the teacher's work within the classroom. The paper analyses the theoretical arguments that are relevant to critical pedagogy in relation to teachers' practices as they emerged during the study. The study, conducted in the South Indian state of Kerala, reveals that teacher subjectivity and schooling situations interact in a dialectical fashion to shape the nature of classroom teaching. The political subjectivity of the teachers, shaped by their close interaction with the Kerala Science Literature Movement (KSSP) makes their pedagogy critical in nature. On the other hand, the standardized curriculum and mechanically disciplined school environment continuously challenge the teachers' efforts at being critical in their work.

Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in a variety of different cases, but their role in understanding the multilingual requirements of users of learning portals is of an outstanding significance. As the adaptation of existing portals in multilingual environments is a cost- and time-consuming aspect of the development of a portal, the outcomes of learning analytics may provide the requirements on which further multilingual services of a portal will be built, ensuring their efficiency. This paper aims to identify and interpret the behavior of users from developing countries in a multilingual learning portal using the log files of the portal by applying the methodology defined in a previous work by Stoitsis et al. [2] The paper also aims to identify the aspects that should be studied by future related works by focusing on specific regions and countries that exhibit special interest for further adaptation of the portal to additional multilingual environments.

This article analyses the levels of students' satisfaction and how institution provides infrastructure facilities in the field of higher education. Infrastructure is the fastest growing segment of the higher education scenario. Universities play a very vital role in a country in terms of their potential. It contributes to employment and growth. The basic objective of this paper is to look for students' satisfaction in Sri Venkateswara University. After a careful study of academic standards in higher education, an attempt is made to assess the student satisfaction in different categories of university colleges with regard to infrastructure facilities such as class room and lab facilities, amenities in the hostel, library, sports facilities etc., a framework was developed to examine the satisfaction issues surrounding university. The framework looks at the important interlinks among demographic characteristics, behavior characteristics, infrastructural facilities and overall customer satisfaction. Students first form expectations of service performance prior to purchasing or use. The customer then compares the perceived performance to prior expectations. Customer satisfaction is seen as the outcome of this comparison. The study area for this study was Sri Venkateswara University, Andhra Pradesh. The sample respondents were administered questionnaires randomly. The results of the study show that: appropriate statistical analyses such as factor analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regressions, multivariate analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of covariance were used to fulfill the respective objectives of the study. This study also tries to highlight the importance of students' satisfaction assurance of service providers and using quality equipment in education. This paper can be useful to the planners and marketers in formulating strategies to maintain or enhance their competitiveness when compared with other universities.

Student Retention is a function of a number of factors, the most important among them being--the academic response mechanism of an institution, effectiveness in handling administrative queries, counseling at learner support centres, effectiveness in handling practical session and so on. The current paper is an attempt to study the effectiveness of student support services in an era of globalization in distance education institutions, with special reference to IGNOU Regional Centre, Mumbai. It is strongly felt that the results of this study will have a strong bearing on the way support services at conducted at Distance Education institutions. Mathematical complexity has been purposively avoided to make the contents of this paper intelligible to a wider audience. (Contains 10 tables and 3 charts.)

Teachers' work in India is impacted by the ongoing restructuring of school education that incorporates simultaneous attempts at reform and regulation. Child-friendly assessment policy instituted by the local bureaucracy leads to intensification of teachers' administrative roles, drawing their attention away from critical pedagogic ones. Limitations in policy interpretation are found to be in response to the official discourse of efficiency that manifests in performative measures of accountability inconsistent with the intended reforms. In this ethnographic case study in an urban middle school for poor, teachers' attempts to comply with instruments of accountability while adapting to changing pedagogic relations with their students and achieve coherence in their identities are examined. The paper draws attention to the contrasts between models of good teaching held by teachers, vis-à-vis the official discourse. It argues for a reworking of the existing model of accountability towards incorporating a cultural-political conception of pedagogy.

This review paper synthesizes peer-reviewed empirical research published between 2010 and 2021 about wildland fire communication practices. Our goal was to systematically review and provide an overview of how wildland fire communication has been empirically studied, and theoretical and methodological underpinnings and representativeness of this work. We found that researchers employ diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, yet most work originates from the western United States or Australia. Studies were published in diverse disciplinary journals, most frequently looked at residents as study subjects, and many sought to understand the effectiveness of communication. There is a need to build theoretical and methodological consistency in wildland fire communication research.

Human Rights Education (HRE) is critical to human development and societal transformation. In India, although HRE emerged in the 1980s, its incorporation in higher education has not yet reached its full potential. Using the state of Tamil Nadu as our case study, this paper evaluates the integration of courses on human rights in universities and colleges, using a descriptive qualitative approach to analyse the nature and content of such courses, their compliance with India's apex institutional directives, and the challenges faced. The researchers conclude that there is a disconnect between the vision of policy makers and actual implementation of HRE in practice. It is suggested that wider holistic application of HRE in higher education is needed, so that learning becomes a transformative force, empowering the young to develop attitudes of solidarity, tolerance, and respect for social justice.

In recent years, international development organisations have responded to concerns about the growth of private schooling in the global south by calling on governments to commit to quality public provision and effective regulation of the private sector. This paper draws on the case of India's experience with the Right to Education Act to consider the challenges that nations face in attempting to regulate private sector participation in education. Using the concept of 'modes of ordering' from Science and Technology Studies, we explore how attempts to impose this rights-based, government-centred order have fared against resistance from the market-based order of the private sector. As more countries express a commitment to a rights-based order, the Indian case study and the concept of 'modes of ordering' could help in anticipating and countering the challenges they might face.

Multilingual pedagogies draw on learners' prior language knowledge and can offer considerable advantages in learning the target language. Yet language instruction, particularly in foreign language learning contexts, does not often capitalise on the multilingual assets of learners. The goal of this study is to understand what determines the implementation of multilingual pedagogies in two institutes of German as Foreign Language, one in the US and one in India. In this comparative case study, ecological perspectives are adopted to examine what factors impede or foster the use of multilingual pedagogies in adult foreign language instruction in both schools. Data collection methods involved open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews with teachers and an analysis of context-specific documents. Findings revealed that there were encouraging, constraining and contingent factors across both schools. While some factors were common to both schools, and there were other context-specific factors that determined the adoption of multilingual teaching. The results of the study also reflect larger issues such as a gap between theory and practice and a lack of teacher collaboration. The paper concludes with some suggestions on how such issues might be addressed.