The Universal language of the world.

Abstract

Linguistically, English is extremely unsuitable for international communication, and the actual wide use of English tends to polarize the world into Internet users and Internet illiterates. Generally speaking, English is the universal language on the Internet, but it has no official status, and it will never have. The reasons for the position of English are the imperialism and economical and political importance of English-speaking countries. The position of English can only be altered by major world-scale political and economical changes, such as increasing importance of the European Union or a coalition between Japan and China. Such powers might wish and be able to promote a language other than English, possibly a constructed language, for international communication.Alternatively, or in addition to this, the technology of machine translation may allow people to use their own language in international communication.

Preface

The original question was "whether or not English should be made the universal language of the internet". The impulse to writing this article was a discussion in the newsgroup sci.lang. As several people remarked, English essentially is the universal language of the Internet. Nevertheless, the question, appropriately interpreted and elaborated, is worth a more delicate treatment.I had previously discussed related themes in my article Internet muuttaa maailman 2 (The Internet changes the world 2, in Finnish). Here I present some of those ideas in English and develop them a bit further.

The current situation

 A great number of people whose native language is none of the variants know English as a foreign language. They typically use a more or less simplified variant, e.g. excluding most of the idioms of British, American, Australian etc English. That national language has spread over the world, and several variants such as American (US) English, Australian English, etc exist. Of course, they make mistakes, and sometimes the "English" used by people as a foreign language on the Internet is almost incomprehensible to anyone else. In addition, people who use English as their native language do not know how to spell difficult words, since they basically know English as a spoken language.In general, the universal language on the Internet is English, or more exactly a vague collection of languages called "English" because their common origin is the national language spoken in England by the English.Thus, roughly speaking, the universal language of the Internet is clumsy, coarse and misspelled "English".

Moreover, a group which is partly international in the sense of not being purely national might use a language other than English, for instance if the group is intended for people in German-speaking countries. There are exceptions, most importantly national newsgroups in such countries where English is not the native language of the majority. Even in such groups English is used, for instance when people from other countries wish to participate. And a few international groups have a theme like discussing a particular language or culture so that it is natural to assume that the participants have a common language other than English.

Why is it so?

  Consequently, the use of English in essentially national contexts tends to grow. Generally speaking, when a languages has got the position of a universal language, the position tends to be affirmed and extended by itself. The maintenance problem is especially important for documents on the World Wide Web - the information system where one crucial feature is the ability to keep things really up to date.Since "everyone" knows and uses English, people are almost forced to learn English and use it, and learn it better.Even if you expect the majority of your readers to understand your native language, you may be tempted to use English when writing e.g. about research work. Usually researchers all over the world know English and use it a lot, and often the relevant terminology is more stable and well-known in English than in your own language. Thus, to maximize the number of interested people that can understand your text, you often select English even if the great majority of your readers have the same native language as you. Alternatively, you might write your texts both in your native language and in English, but this doubles the work needed for writing your document and possibly maintaining it.

The flame control - i.e. control by flaming - has worked to a great extent because people have had relatively compatible status, background, and values of life. The time has come - childhood's end for the Internet - when we will see more and more people and organizations who pay little attention to flames and netiquette.  The increasing amount of spamming is just one indication of this.One thing that causes this happen relatively often that there is no easily accessible and useable list of groups together with their content descriptions, and typically content descriptions do not explicitely state what language(s) should be used in the group.  But these general remarks hardly apply to the status of English. In the news system, the position of English in most international groups is regarded as so obvious that people who post non-English articles to such groups - by accident or by ignorance - typically get flamed quickly. This is the sort of control that newsgroup communities exercise in other matters than language, too. It is often regarded as an example of the "democratic" nature of the news system. However, things are changing fast. By the way, when people post articles to international groups in their own languages, the reason is typically novice users' ignorance of basic facts about the news system. People start posting articles before they have read what is generally written to the group.

The universal language position, once gained, tends to be strong. But how is such a position gained?

Sometimes - especially in the Middle Ages - the imperialism has had a definite cultural and religious nature which may have been more important than brute military and economic force. The position of a universal language has always been gained as a by-product of some sort of imperialism: a nation has conquered a large area and more or less assimilated it into its own culture, including language, thus forming an empire. Usually the language of the conquerer has become the language of the state and the upper class first, then possibly spread over the society, sometimes almost wiping out the original languages of the conquered areas. During the history of mankind, there have been several more or less universal languages or lingua francas, such as Latin (and Greek) in the Roman empire, mediaeval Latin in Western Europe, later French and English. Universality is of course relative; it means universality in the "known world" or "civilized world", or just in a large empire. No language has been really universal (global), but the current position of English comes closest.

Whether you call the US influence imperialism or neo-imperialism is a matter of opinion, but it certainly has similar effects on maintaining and expanding the use of English as classical imperialism. Later, some English colonies in a relatively small part of America rebelled, formed the United States of America, and expanded a lot. They formed a federal state where a variant of the English language was one of the few really uniting factors. And that federal state became, as we all know, wealthy and important. It also exercised traditional imperialism, but more importantly it gained a very important role in world economy and politics. This probably sounds like political criticism, but it is intended to be descriptive only. Personally, I do not regard imperialism as an incarnation of the Evil; it has had both positive and negative effects, and in many cases imperialism has been a necessary step from chaos to civilization.As regards to the English language, it would have remained as a national language of the English, had it not happened so that the English first conquered the rest of the British Isles, then many other parts of the world.
Effects of the importance of the Internet and English
This implies that it becomes more and more important to know how to use Internet services and, as a part of this, to read and write English. Of course, the majority of mankind cannot use the Internet nowadays or in the near future, since they live in countries which lack the necessary economical and technological infrastructure. But the Internet causes polarization in developed countries, too: people are divided into Internet users and Internet illiterates, and as the use of the Internet grows and often replaces traditional methods of communication, the illiterates may find themselves in an awkward position.The importance of the Internet grows rapidly in all fields of human life, including not only research and education but also marketing and trade as well as entertainment and hobbies.

Incorrect English causes a few flames much more probably than encouragement and friendly advice. Older people are usually not accustomed to live in a world of continuous and rapid change, and they may not realize the importance of the Internet or the easiness of learning to use it. In general, it is easy to learn to use Internet services. The worst problems of Internet illiteracy are, in addition to lack of economical resources of course, wrong attitudes. But although Internet services themselves are, generally speaking, easy to learn and use, you will find yourself isolated on the Internet if you are not familiar with English.Learning to use a new Internet service or user interface may take a few hours, a few days, or even weeks, but it takes years to learn a language so that you can use it in a fluent and self-confident manner. Of course, when you know some English, you can learn more just by using it on the Internet, but at least currently the general tendency among Internet users is to discourage people in their problems with the English language.  This means that knowledge or lack of knowledge of English is one of the most severe factors that cause polarization.

 There are countries where English is the native language of the majority, there are countries where English is a widely known second language, and there are countries where English has no special position.And the more languages you have to learn well, the less time and energy you will have for learning other things.  These differences add to the above-mentioned polarization.  In different countries and cultures, English has different positions.Specifically, it is difficult for people in previous colonies of other countries than Great Britain (e.g. France, Spain, the Netherlands) to adapt to the necessity of learning English. Locally, it may be necessary to learn the language of the previous colonial power since it is often an official language and the common language of educated people; globally, English is necessary for living on the Internet.

More education means salary discrimination at work

AHMEDABAD: The more educated a woman, the higher the salary discrimination she faces at work, says a recent study by a faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

So women with basic education like advanced certificates or diplomas earn 10% less than equally qualified men, but the wage gap shoots up to over 40% in cases where women have master's degrees. While women with no formal education earn more than their male counterparts, with an increase in educational qualification, the situation reverses.

For instance, with no formal education, the average annual income of women surveyed is Rs 1.41 lakh while for men it is 1.26 lakh, indicating women are 11.99% ahead. The main reason for this is that in India, there is a general perception that a woman's primary responsibility is unpaid care work, like looking after children and family, and this perception channels them into similar work areas in the labour market, where they are paid handsomely for it.

 "This type of discrimination is also called pre-market (past or indirect) discrimination, because it occurs before the individual seeks employment," says the survey titled 'Gender Pay Gap in the Formal Sector: 2006-2013' by Professor Biju Varkkey, faculty of Personnel and Industrial Relations Area and Rupa Korde, faculty, Economics Area, Foundation for Liberal and Management Education, Pune. However, when it's two highly educated candidates, male and female, competing for a job, the study reveals that in most cases, employers favour men over women

 Explaining the disparity in incomes, the study says that women either decide not to take jobs which require extensive on-the job training or exit the job early in life for various reasons (like marriage or motherhood) which lower their earnings. So women with master's degrees earn an annual average income of Rs 2.70 lakh while men make Rs 4.56 lakh, a 40.76% jump on the former. Women often take breaks in their careers, or opt for part-time jobs when they are required to take care of their children. When these women return to the labour market for full-time jobs they are often offered lower wages than their male counterparts. "Even those women who do not have children are not given any preference because they are categorized as potential mothers," says the study.

The all-India survey is based on 21,552 respondents over a period of 7.5 years. A report based on the survey has been prepared by Paycheck India, a research initiative of IIM-A, and supported by non-profit organization Wage Indicator Foundation and University of Amsterdam.

 Australia

There has been criticism that the HECS-HELP scheme creates an incentive for people to leave the country after graduation, because those who do not file an Australian tax return do not make any repayments. Tertiary student places in Australia are usually funded through the HECS-HELP scheme. This funding is in the form of loans that are not normal debts.The scheme is available to citizens and permanent humanitarian visa holders. Means-tested scholarships for living expenses are also available. Special assistance is available to indigenous students. They are repaid over time via a supplementary tax, using a sliding scale based on taxable income. As a consequence, loan repayments are only made when the former student has income to support the repayments. The debt does not attract normal interest, but grows with CPI inflation. Discounts are available for early repayment.

United Kingdom

 Student loans in the United Kingdom

If the borrower's income is below a certain threshold (£15,000 per tax year for 2011/2012, £21,000 per tax year for 2012/2013), no repayments are required, though interest continues to accumulate. Student loans in the United Kingdom are primarily provided by the state-owned Student Loans Company. Interest begins to accumulate on each loan payment as soon as the student receives it, but repayment is not required until the start of the next tax year after the student completes (or abandons) their education.Since 1998, repayments have been collected by HMRC via the tax system, and are calculated based on the borrower's current level of income.
Depending on when the loan was taken out and which part of the UK the borrower is from, they may also be cancelled after a certain period of time usually after 30 years, or when the borrower reaches a certain age. Loans are cancelled if the borrower dies or becomes permanently unable to work.

United States

 Student loans in the United States

Interest does not accrue on subsidized loans while the students are in school. Student loans may be offered as part of a total financial aid package that may also include grants, scholarships, and/or work study opportunities. In the United States, there are two types of student loans: federal loans sponsored by the federal government and private student loans, which broadly includes state-affiliated nonprofits and institutional loans provided by schools. The overwhelming majority of student loans are federal loans. Federal loans can be "subsidized" or "unsubsidized".
The guaranteed lending program was eliminated in 2010 because of a widespread perception that the government guarantees boosted student lending companies' profits but did not benefit students by reducing student loan costs. Prior to 2010, federal loans were also divided between direct loans (which are originated and funded by the federal government) and guaranteed loans, originated and held by private lenders but guaranteed by the government.
Federal Student loans are generally less expensive than private student loans. However, the federal student lending program still generates billions of dollars in profit for the government each year, because the interest payments exceed the government's own borrowing costs, loan losses, and administrative costs. Losses on student loans are extremely low, even when students default, in part because these loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy unless repaying the loan would create an "undue hardship" for the student borrower and his or her dependents. In 2005, the bankruptcy laws were changed so that private educational loans also could not be readily discharged. Supporters of this change claimed that it would reduce student loan interest rates.

Income-Based Repayment

The guaranteed lending program was eliminated in 2010 because of a widespread perception that the government guarantees boosted student lending companies' profits but did not benefit students by reducing student loan costs.The Income-Based Repayment plan is an alternative to paying back student loans, which allow the borrower to pay back the loan based on how much he/she makes, and not based how much money is actually owed.However, income based repayment does not apply to private loans.
This period is 10 years if the student borrower works in the public sector (government or a nonprofit) and 25 years if the student works at a for-profit. Debt forgiveness is treated as taxable income, but can be excluded as taxable under certain circumstances, like bankruptcy and insolvency. IBR plans generally cap loan payments at 10 percent of the student borrower's income. Interest accrues and the balance continues to build. However, after a certain number of years, the balance of the loan is forgiven. And, if IBR programs are optional, only students who expect to have low wages will opt into the program. Historically, a number of IBR programs have collapsed because of these problems.Scholars have criticized IBR plans on the grounds that they create moral hazard and suffer from adverse selection. That is, IBR may encourage student borrowers who could have obtained high-wage jobs to take low wage jobs with good benefits and minimal work hours to reduce their loan payments, thereby driving up the cost of the IBR program.

Qualification

Most college students in the United States qualify for federal student loans. Students can borrow the same amount of money, at the same price, regardless of their own income or their parents' income, regardless of their expected future income, and regardless of their credit history. Only students who have defaulted on federal student loans or have been convicted of drug offenses are excluded.
The amount students can borrow each year depends on their education level (undergraduate or graduate), and their status as dependent or independent. Undergraduates may receive lower interest rates than graduate students, but graduate students can typically borrow more per year.
Several scholars have advocated eliminating the borrowing limit on federal loans and enabling students to borrow according to their needs (tuition plus living expenses) and thereby eliminating high-cost private loans. Private lenders may use different underwriting criteria, including income level, parents' income level, and other financial considerations. Students will generally only borrow from private lenders when they exhaust the maximum borrowing limit under federal loans.

Repayment

They have also suggested that the program should be run at cost, or below cost, because of the benefits an educated workforce provides to society--lower burdens on public services, lower health costs, higher wages and tax revenues, lower unemployment. The federal student loan program currently runs a multibillion dollar "negative subsidy", or profit, for the federal government. Some scholars have suggested that federal student loan interest rates should be tailored to particular courses of study and reflect the riskiness of those different courses of study. Federal student loan interest rates are established by Congress and listed in § 20 U.S.C. § 1087E(b). Because the interest rates are established by Congress, interest rates are a political decision.
The Master Promissory Note is an agreement between the lender and the borrower that promises to repay the loan.  It is a binding legal contract. The student may have multiple options for extending the repayment period, although an extension of the loan term will likely reduce the monthly payment, it will also increase the amount of total interest paid on the principle balance during the life of the loan. Extension options include extended payment periods offered by the original lender and federal loan consolidation. There are also other extension options including income sensitive repayment plans and hardship deferments. Extensions and consolidation will also add to the principal, many times unpaid interest and penalties become capitalized.Repayment typically begins anywhere from six to twelve months after a student leaves school, regardless of whether or not they complete their degree program.

Concept Of Joyful Learning.

 

LEAF Society is having 30 Joyful learning centers across Namakkal district covering rural children from  Namakkal, Rasipuram and Senthamangalam blocks and tribal  children from Kolli Hills region. LEAF Society strongly believes that, children could be used as the effective change agents, if their leanings and environments are fine tuned effectively.We are keeping these Joyful learning centers as a base for all our project interventions like promotion of safe sanitation and drinking water practices or increasing negotiating skills of rural & tribal com munities using RTI act.  We have more than 450 children from three blocks.  Children from these centers are the key for us and through them; we are trying to bring the desired change among communities.
They learn new – life skill oriented things with fun, joy and happiness. These centers are colorful with plays, games, songs, and sports.These joyful learning centers are not tuition centers replicating what is being done at schools rather are centers filled with Joy for children.  Everyday children meet at the village to share & learn about General Knowledge, Thirukkural, Yoga, child rights, personal hygiene, waste management, Right to Information, kitchen garden, etc. Variety of things and learning’s and responsibilities make children happy and the attendance is normally full in these centers .

Even the attendance in schools & enrollment has also gone up, due to intervention of our centers. Our centers have brought various changes in communities and especially among our center children, the awareness level on personal hygiene, safe drinking water practices, sanitation practices, on their Rights, protection have increased to greater extent.   
 We have also witnessed a change in the perspectives of the parents those who are part of the Parent Teachers’ Association and other groups in the villages. These parents use to share with the local teaches on the changes, that is being brought by evening joyful centers to their children and in turn the changes that their children bringing to their homes. . It’s a visible change that these children are even demanding their parents to follow the same practices, which they are following like, washing hand before meal, maintaining cleanliness at their houses, safe sanitation practices, dental cleanliness, etc.The project has greater scope in reaching many families through their children and our discussions; cross learning’s, sharing, exposure visits, etc has wider impact among families, especially those who belongs to marginal & vulnerable communities. Since, most the children are in their adolescent age – 13- 16, all our learning will be carried forward o their youth & adult life in the villages. This will make them, better citizens of our country. They highly appreciate the kitchen garden, small doctors committees & Child Parliaments at their villages.

They are well aware of the difference between good touch & bad touch and they are aware of various methods to protect them from physical & emotional abuses. Learning about Children’s Rights will give them a new perspective in looking at their schools, families & communities, even some of the teachers in the villages, appreciate us, especially the way, we have been dealing with child rights & positive discipline techniques, Our children have always are the friendly students in the schools and they take plenty of responsibilities in schools and will be a example for other students as well. Joyful learning center children will also be equipped to protect themselves from various abuses, especially, sexual abuses.Your support for the evening joyful centers and training to teachers will have additional value to our activities and we will have the opportunity to train our teachers & children in UNCRC, Rights, protection, Child Parliament, etc and this will have far reaching consequences among children, communities &  families in 20 villages. 

 There are 20 Child Parliaments are active in villages and these parliaments monitor various committees on  Child Rights, Child Protection, Personal Hygiene, safe drinking water & sanitation practice committees, kitchen garden,  time management committee, etc. These centers provides  space for Children take up their own issues, deliberate on them, look for any solutions, if they can   and address them through various mechanisms. These centers promote the practice of local democracy through Child Parliaments, Children committees.Membership in these committees will be rotated on quarterly basis and each child should be a part of any of these committees and 50% ratio is being maintained at all levels. These committees meet on all Saturday, discuss the issues, take decisions and report to the parliaments.

INDIA’S RURAL EDUCATION – AN OPPORTUNITY FOR BOP STARTUPS

Huge demand for affordable, quality education options in rural India are creating opportunities for capable entrepreneurs

The state and central government is trying to tackle these issues by pumping almost INR 310 billion (approx. USD 5.7 billion) into improving school infrastructure and recruiting teachers. Education in rural India is plagued by many problems. Poor infrastructure, access difficulties, lack of financial support and poor quality of educators are a few of the most pressing of problems.

 Quality mid-day meals are also attracting students and giving them the fuel they need for learning.There is also the Right To Education Act enshrining the rights of all children to free and compulsory education. These and other initiatives have over the past four years led to the increased enrollment and attendance levels in schools.  (97% and 71% respectively, according to the ASER 2012 report ).The big question, however, is whether enrollment and attendance are the right barometer for evaluating the progress of rural Indian education. In the mad search for numbers, has quality been ignored?

This is definitely a cause for worry.  Are They Learning? A comprehensive survey conducted by the NGO Pratham, called ASER (The Annual Status of Education Report 2012) – which has reached about 3,00,000 households and 7,00,000 children, spanning every rural district in India –   has put out interesting and alarming statistics.
 Rural schools are not only failing existing students, but also poised to fail the 15.8 crore (158 million) children in the age group of 0-6 who are slated to join the ranks of primary school goers in the coming years.

The Poverty Effect: Secondly, families in rural India struggle to make ends meet. Their low income is hardly enough to cover daily supplies of food and shelter let alone education.

Also, more children in the age group of 5-14, whose parents are not educated seem to be opting to go for work instead of staying in school (UNICEF report 2011). Clearly financial stability and awareness of the opportunities provided via a good education are big factor in ensuring continued education in these families. Children are needed to work in fields, which eventually means that they drop out of school, usually after their primary education. A report by UNICEF estimates that there is a 40-percentage point difference in attendance rate between primary (69.4%) and secondary (39.1%) students coming from poor families.

Opportunities: The opportunities for improving rural education are endless. Governments must do their part, but NGOs and private-sector companies will play a vital part as well. We are actively seeking additional entrepreneurs across India who have plans for scalable and affordable educational services or products that will help India’s children get the education they deserve. Unitus Seed Fund has made its first education-sector investment in Hippocampus Learning Centers, a for-profit BoP Startup that’s already improving the education of children across 80 villages in south India. .

IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE TO A GROWING BUSINESS

This guide explains the basic sources of knowledge available to your business, how you can best harness and exploit this information and how to create a knowledge strategy for your business. All businesses have access to an extensive pool of knowledge - whether this is their understanding of customers' needs and the business environment or the skills and experience of staff.The way a business gathers, shares and exploits this knowledge can be central to its ability to develop successfully. This doesn't just apply to huge multinational companies. Knowledge management can benefit everyone from a local newsstand to a manufacturing firm.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE IN A BUSINESS?

It's much more straightforward. Using knowledge in your business isn't necessarily about thinking up clever new products and services, or devising ingenious new ways of selling them.
Useful and important knowledge already exists in your business. It can be found in:
1.the experience of your employees
2.the designs and processes for your goods and services
3.your files of documents (whether held digitally, on paper or both)
4.your plans for future activities, such as ideas for new products or services
5.The challenge is harnessing this knowledge in a coherent and productive way.

Existing forms of knowledge

1.You've probably done market research into the need for your business to exist in the first place. If nobody wanted what you're selling, you wouldn't be trading. You can tailor this market knowledge to target particular customers with specific types of product or service.
2.Your files of documents from and about customers and suppliers hold a wealth of information which can be invaluable both in developing new products or services and improving existing ones.
3.Your employees are likely to have skills and experience that you can use as an asset. Having staff who are knowledgeable can be invaluable in setting you apart from competitors. You should make sure that your employees' knowledge and skills are passed on to their colleagues and successors wherever possible, e.g. through brainstorming sessions, training courses and documentation. See the page in this guide: create a knowledge strategy for your business.
Your understanding of what customers want, combined with your employees' know-how, can be regarded as your knowledge base.Using this knowledge in the right way can help you run your business more efficiently, decrease business risks and exploit opportunities to the full. This is known as the knowledge advantage.

BASIC SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE

Your sources of business knowledge could include:

1.Employee and supplier relationships - seek the opinions of your employees and your suppliers - they'll have their own impressions of how you're performing. You can use formal surveys to gather this knowledge or ask for their views on a more informal basis.
2.Customer knowledge - you should know your customers' needs and what they think of you. You may be able to develop mutually beneficial knowledge sharing relationships with customers by talking to them about their future requirements, and discussing how you might be able to develop your own products or services to ensure that you meet their needs.
3.Knowledge of the business environment - your business can be affected by numerous outside factors. Developments in politics, the economy, technology, society and the environment could all affect your business' development, so you need to keep yourself informed. You could consider setting up a team of employees to monitor and report on changes in the business world.
4.Market knowledge - watch developments in your sector. How are your competitors performing? How much are they charging? Are there any new entrants to the market? Have any significant new products been launched?
5.Professional associations and trade bodies - their publications, academic publications, government publications, reports from research bodies, trade and technical magazines.
6.Trade exhibitions and conferences - these can provide an easy way of finding out what your competitors are doing and to see the latest innovations in your sector.
7.Product research and development - scientific and technical research and development can be a vital source of knowledge that can help you create innovative new products - retaining your competitive edge.
8.Organisational memory - be careful not to lose the skills or experience your business has built up. You need to find formal ways of sharing your employees' knowledge about the best ways of doing things. For example, you might create procedural guidance based on your employees' best practice. See the page in this guide: create a knowledge strategy for your business.
9.Non-executive directors - these can be a good way for you to bring on board specialised industry experience and benefit from ready-made contracts.

How to Become a More Effective Learner

Are you interested in finding ways to learn new things faster? Do you want to become a more effective and efficient learner? If you are like many students, your time is limited so it is important to get the most educational value out of the time you have available.

Speed of learning is not the only important factor, however. Retention, recall, and transfer are also critical. Students need to be able to accurately remember the information they learn, recall it at a later time, and utilize it effectively in a wide variety of situations.

 Becoming an effective and efficient student is not something that happens overnight, but putting a few of these tips into daily practice can help you get more out of your study time.So what can you do to become a better learner?
1. Memory Improvement Basics
2. Keep Learning (and Practicing) New Things
3. Learn in Multiple Ways
4. Teach What You've Learned to Another Person
5. Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning
6. Gain Practical Experience
7. Look Up Answers Rather Than Struggle to Remember
8. Understand How You Learn Best
9. Use Testing to Boost Learning
10. Stop Multitasking

let know more about in more details...

1. More Improvement Basics: We've talked before about some of the best ways to improve memory. Basic tips such as improving your focus, avoiding cram sessions, and structuring your study time are a good place to start, but there are even more lessons from psychology that can dramatically improve your learning efficiency.

2. Keep Learning (and Practising) New Things: One sure-fire way to become a more effective learner is to simply keep learning. A 2004 Nature article reported that people who learned how to juggle increased the amount of gray matter in their occipital lobes, the area of the brain is associated with visual memory.This "use-it-or-lose-it" phenomenon involves a brain process known as "pruning." Certain pathways in the brain are maintained, while other are eliminated. If you want the new information you just learned to stay put, keep practicing and rehearsing it.  When these individuals stopped practicing their new skill, this gray matter vanished.So if you're learning a new language, it is important to keep practicing the language in order to maintain the gains you have achieved. 

3. Learn In Multiple Ways: Focus on learning in more than one way. Instead of just listening to a podcast, which involves auditory learning, find a way to rehearse the information both verbally and visually. This might involve describing what you learned to a friend, taking notes, or drawing a mind map. By learning in more than one way, you’re further cementing the knowledge in your mind.
According to Judy Willis, “The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized.” This redundancy means students will have more opportunities to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue.
 

4. Teach What You've Learned to Another Person: Educators have long noted that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment. Some ideas include writing a blog post, creating a podcast, or participating in a group discussion. You can apply the same principle today by sharing your newly learned skills and knowledge with others.Start by translating the information into your own words. This process alone helps solidify new knowledge in your brain. Next, find some way to share what you’ve learned.

5. Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning: Another great way to become a more effective learner is to use relational learning, which involves relating new information to things that you already know. For example, if you are learning about Romeo and Juliet, you might associate what you learn about the play with prior knowledge you have about Shakespeare, the historical period in which the author lived, and other relevant information.

6. Gain Practical Experience: For many students, learning typically involves reading textbooks, attending lectures, or doing research in the library or on the Web. If you are learning a new language, practice speaking with another person and surround yourself with language-immersion experiences. Watch foreign-language films and strike up conversations with native speakers to practice your budding skills. While seeing information and then writing it down is important, actually putting new knowledge and skills into practice can be one of the best ways to improve learning.If you are trying to acquire a new skill or ability, focus on gaining practical experience. If it is a sport or athletic skill, perform the activity on a regular basis.
 

7. Look Up Answers Rather Than Struggle to Remember: Of course, learning isn’t a perfect process. Sometimes, we forget the details of things that we have already learned. If you find yourself struggling to recall some tidbit of information, research suggests that you are better offer simply looking up the correct answer. One study found that the longer you spend trying to remember the answer, the more likely you will be to forget the answer again in the future. Why? Because these attempts to recall previously learned information actually results in learning the "error state" instead of the correct response.
 

8. Understand How You Learn Best: Another great strategy for improving your learning efficiency is to recognize your learning habits and styles. The concept of learning styles has been the subject of considerable debate and criticism, but many students may find that understanding their study and learning preferences can still be helpful.Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences describes eight different types of intelligence that can help reveal your individual strengths. Looking at Carl Jung’s learning style dimensions can also help you better see which learning strategies might work best for you. Other models such as the VARK learning styles and Kolb's learning styles can offer more information about how you prefer to learn new things.There are a number of different theories about learning styles, which can all help you gain a better understanding of how you learn best.
 9. Use Testing to Boost Learning: While it may seem that spending more time studying is one of the best ways to maximize learning, research has demonstrated that taking tests actually helps you better remember what you've learned, even if it wasn't covered on the test.Students who had extra time to study but were not tested had significantly lower recall of the materials The study revealed that students who studied and were then tested had better long-term recall of the materials, even on information that was not covered by the tests.
 

10. Stop Multitasking: For many years, it was thought that people who multitask, or perform more than one activity at once, had an edge over those who did not. However, research now suggests that multitasking can actually make learning less effective.By switching from one activity to another, you will learn more slowly, become less efficient and make more errors. In the study, participants lost significant amounts of time as they switched between multiple tasks and lost even more time as the tasks became increasingly complex.
How can you avoid the dangers of multitasking? Start by focusing your attention on the task at hand and continue working for a predetermined amount of time.

WUSTL law school brings innovative privacy education to middle school​

Washington University law students have begun offering privacy and internet safety education to local middle school students.The law students have launched the program with St. Michael’s School of Clayton, a small independent school near the law school that uses technology extensively as part of its curriculum.

“Raising digitally aware and responsible children is one the greatest challenges facing parents and teachers today,” said Richards.

Law students Matthew Cin and Ujjayini Bose, under the supervision of WUSTL law professor Neil Richards, are adapting an original middle school curriculum for privacy education developed by Fordham Law School’s Center for Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

WUSTL is one of about a dozen law schools set to teach the program in schools across the country starting this semester. “As parents of young children, my wife and I struggle with how to teach our children how to take advantage of the benefits of digital technologies while avoiding their perils. Our Privacy Education Program is an attempt to help local schools address these problems in the middle school years, when children start to fully embrace these technologies as essential parts of their lives.”

“Working with the students has been fascinating. It is astonishing to see how integral technology has become to their development, and how insightful their views are on topics such as privacy, technology, and social media,” said Bose, a second-year student at the law school. Bose added, “Not only is Professor Richards one of the leading voices in privacy law, but he is also a wonderful mentor to both Matt and me. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him.”

The program features a set of hour-long sessions covering topics such as:

The need for this type of education is revealed by recent reports from the Pew Research Center that 93% of teens ages 12 to 17 go online, 53% of teens post their email address online, 20% post their cell phone number and 33% are connected online to people they have never met.

privacy basics;

how to deal with passwords and behavioral ads;

navigating social media and tricky situations;

understanding mobile, WiFi and facial recognition; and

managing a digital reputation.

Cin, a third-year student at the law school explained, “As technologies become more and more embedded into all aspects of our lives, it’s increasingly important to equip teens in particular with the knowledge to protect themselves from the potential risks associated with these new tools.”

The law school’s program at St. Michael’s has been highly successful. “Using cutting edge technology is part of our school culture. “As online technologies become a key feature in young teens’ lives, parents and educators must teach teens about the privacy and safety implications of these technologies,” said Joel Reidenberg, Fordham Law professor and founding director of CLIP.Richards and his students will bring the program to the John Burroughs School next spring and continue to look for additional partners.

It is our job to teach responsibility, respect and safety in this global community, and we’re delighted to be working with Washington University to tackle this critically-important educational issue,” said Elizabeth T. Mosher, Head of the St. Michael School.

Discovering why study groups are more effective

An expert in creativity and everyday conversation has identified two key patterns that help make studying in groups an effective way to learn.
An expert in creativity and everyday conversation has identified two key patterns that help make studying in groups an effective way to learn.The research is published in the June 2005 issue of Linguistics and Education, an international research journal.
Through painstaking research, an expert in creativity and everyday conversation at Washington University in St. Louis has identified two patterns of group dynamics that show why group study is optimal.


“A large number of college students get together and form study groups, even when they aren’t required by their professor,” says R. Keith Sawyer, Ph.D., associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. “We wanted to determine exactly why that was the case and why they seem to work so well.”

Decades of research by educational psychologists has shown that when students work together in collaborative teams in classrooms, they learn material better than when they sit alone at their desks. But no one had extended those studies to study groups outside the classroom.

The group consisted of four students who got together in advance of each exam to study their lecture notes. In the first scholarly study of such study groups, Sawyer, along with a former undergraduate student, videotaped and analyzed a study group for an undergraduate psychology course at the university.

The time-consuming process unveiled many details and features of conversation that normally would go unnoticed.

                                It’s in the gaze

Sawyer identified two patterns of conversation among the group that made it an effective learning tool.“A lot of our findings were based on the fact that the four students each had a notebook with them during the group study session,” says Sawyer.  They don’t look down all the time — they were constantly looking down and back up.”“A lot of times they were looking at their notebooks while one of them was talking.By transcribing the students’ eye gaze, Sawyer actually noted when they looked down and up, which they seemed to do at the same time — when one looked up they all looked up.

 That eye gaze is a signal that they were starting to make the material their own.“We noticed when they did that it was a sign that they were learning the material at a deeper level.“In the middle of an utterance while they were looking at their notebooks they would look up at the other three students while finishing their sentence,” says Sawyer. They would read it verbatim out of the notes and then look up and paraphrase it to the rest of the group.

“That pattern of looking down, thinking about what the professor said and then looking up and putting it into their own words, we felt that was a big explanation for why group studying was helping them learn the material at a deeper level.” Could you sit in your room by yourself and look down and look up while you studied and get the same results? Maybe, says Sawyer, but he also noticed that there was a group-level pattern that connected all four students together.

Absorbing the material

Then they would move on to the next experiment. “The particular lecture that we studied was in chunks and each chunk pertained to a psychology experiment,” Sawyer says. The students would start talking about the psychology experiments that were in the lecture and they would talk through it for a while and get to a point where everyone agreed about what the experiment was about. “The study group was organized around these experiments.

 Gradually, as all four students began to collectively grasp the material, they started looking up more.The group pattern we discovered was that when they first began discussing an experiment, all four students were looking down at their notebooks.Sawyer argues that this looking up contributes to the individual pattern so that by the end of the study group session when each of the students is looking up, their conversation is much more free-flowing and conversational and they are beginning to more easily grasp the material.

What happens in the study group setting is that through these interaction dynamics that we identified, students could absorb the lecture notes and make them their own. When students hear the voice of the professor and are taking notes, they are so busy writing that it’s hard for them to really absorb the material. Study groups are so effective because they provide a way for students to make the lecture notes their own,” Sawyer says.

Educational Development I

 

great tips for teaching writing to language learners

If you’re a teacher of language, it’s your job to bridge this gap, not only helping your students to write great sentences, but also organizing their thoughts into complete letters, essays, papers, or even books. In fact, they use different parts of the brain so it’s not uncommon to meet dazzling conversationalists who can barely compose an intelligible email. .It’s amazing how often speaking ability doesn’t translate to writing ability with foreign language learners. Never fear, because Open Equal Free’s Literacy Resources and Ed Tips are here to help! In this article, we’ll give you a bird’s eye view of teaching writing: how to help your students get past their fears, organize their ideas, and communicate effectively.

don't lose focos, write for a reason!

Why do we write? To communicate ideas, of course! This is perhaps one of the most important rules for teaching writing.  The more you have your students write to communicate an idea effectively to another person, the better.Sure, that person can be you, but why not to another student, or better yet, a whole group of them?

Instead of having a student write a biography she quietly turns in, why not have her write a biography of a famous person without stating the name? Then, have her read the biography out loud to the class. If the class can guess who the bio is about, the student did a good job. If the class can’t guess who they’ve written about, she needs to get back to work!
Not only do students immediately know whether they’ve succeeded or not, but they also understand why they’ve failed, and the reason they’ve failed goes straight to the heart of writing: They didn’t get their ideas across to their readers.This can work with almost any writing assignment.
 Instead of making the goal to “get an A,” the goal becomes to “use your writing to communicate an idea effectively.”

BUILD STRONG WRITERS don't expect to birth them

 What many teachers are unable to accept is that sometimes you can’t take your students from zero to two without that crucial step in the middle..Most teachers know that you can’t take your students from zero to sixty without some steps in between. It’s one of the oldest plays in the teacher book: Scaffolding.

The write thing Project 365(2) Day 12Whenever your students are having difficulty with anything, the best thing you can do is stop, rewind, and break the lesson into smaller pieces.

First of all, think long and hard about what you’re teaching. Are you teaching writing? Writing and vocab? Writing, vocab, and grammar? Even if you are teaching multiple things, or expect your students to negotiate multiple new language concepts, the trick is to walk them through them so that they’re only tackling one at a time.

For example, let’s say you want them to write a restaurant review. If you try to get a bunch of beginning language learners to not only organize their thoughts, but also generate vocabulary and decide what tenses and phrasing are appropriate for a review article all at once, you’re likely setting them up for failure. Break it down!

Like all scaffolding, how many of these steps you’ll have to do depends on the level of your students and what your objectives for the lesson are, but, here are some bites you can help them take during your lesson:

E-learning: The easy way of gaining knowledge...

 

Overview

E-learning refers to the use of technology in learning and education. There are several aspects to describing the intellectual and technical development of e-learning, which can be categorized into discrete areas. These are addressed in turn in the sections of this article:

 1.   e-learning itself as an educational subject; such courses may be called "Computer Studies" or "Information and Communication Technology (ICT)";

   2. e-learning as a technological medium that assists in the communication of knowledge, and its development and exchange;

    3.e-learning administrative tools such as education management information systems (EMIS).

   4. e-learning is beneficial Economically because of no use of Paper & Pencil.

    5.e-learning is a Study Medium without Teacher and Physical Classroom.

   6. e-learning as an educational approach or tool that supports traditional subjects;

 Background

E-learning is a broadly inclusive term that describes educational technology that electronically or technologically supports learning and teaching. Bernard Luskin, a pioneer of e-learning, advocates that the "e" should be interpreted to mean "exciting, energetic, enthusiastic, emotional, extended, excellent, and educational" in addition to "electronic." This broad interpretation focuses on new applications and developments, and also brings learning and media psychology into consideration.Parks suggested that the "e" should refer to "everything, everyone, engaging, easy".

Accordingly, virtual education refers to a form of distance learning in which course content is delivered by various methods such as course management applications, multimedia resources, and videoconferencing. Students and instructors communicate via these technologiesAs such, e-learning encompasses multimedia learning, technology-enhanced learning (TEL), computer-based training (CBT), computer-assisted instruction (CAI), internet-based training (IBT), web-based training (WBT), online education, virtual education, virtual learning environments (VLE) which are also called learning platforms, m-learning, digital educational collaboration, distributed learning, computer-mediated communication, cyber-learning, and multi-modal instruction. Every one of these numerous terms has had its advocates, who point up particular potential distinctions... In practice, a "virtual education course" refers to any instructional course in which all, or at least a significant portion, is delivered by the Internet. "Virtual" is used in that broader way to describe a course that not taught in a classroom face-to-face but through a substitute mode that can conceptually be associated "virtually" with classroom teaching, which means that people do not have to go to the physical classroom to learn. Depending on whether a particular aspect, component or delivery method is given emphasis, a wide array of similar or overlapping terms has been used.  In practice, as technology has advanced, the particular "narrowly defined" aspect that was initially emphasized has blended into "e-learning." As an example, "virtual learning" in a narrowly-defined semantic sense implies entering the environmental simulation within a virtual world, for example in treating PTSD

Developments in internet and multimedia technologies are the basic enabler of e-learning, with consulting, content, technologies, services and support being identified as the five key sectors of the e-learning industry. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are used extensively by young people.The worldwide e-learning industry is economically significant, and was estimated in 2000 to be over $48 billion according to conservative estimates.

E-learning expenditures differ within and between countries. Finland, Norway, Belgium and Korea appear to have comparatively effective programs.

 Educational approach

The extent to which e-learning assists or replaces other learning and teaching approaches is variable, ranging on a continuum from none to fully online distance learning.'Distributed learning' may describe either the e-learning component of a hybrid approach, or fully online distance learning environments. Another scheme described the level of technological support as 'web enhanced', 'web supplemented' and 'web dependent'.(Sloan Commission). A variety of descriptive terms have been employed (somewhat inconsistently) to categorize the extent to which technology is used. For example, 'hybrid learning' or 'blended learning' may refer to classroom aids and laptops, or may refer to approaches in which traditional.classroom time is reduced but not eliminated, and is replaced with some online learning.

The Educational System In India.

In the Beginning

In ancient times, India had the Gurukula system of education in which anyone who wished to study went to a teacher's (Guru) house and requested to be taught.  This not only created a strong tie between the teacher and the student, but also taught the student everything about running a house. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life, and not confined to memorizing some information.The guru taught everything the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the holy scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as long as she wished or until the guru felt that he had taught everything he could teach. If accepted as a student by the guru, he would then stay at the guru's place and help in all activities at home.Teaching was confined to classrooms and the link with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between the teacher and the student.
The curriculum was confined to “modern” subjects such as science and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were considered unnecessary. The modern school system was brought to India, including the English language, originally by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. The Uttar Pradesh (a state in India) Board of High School and Intermediate Education was the first Board set up in India in the year 1921 with jurisdiction over Rajputana, Central India and Gwalior.
 In 1929, the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Rajputana, was established. Later, boards were established in some of the states. But eventually, in 1952, the constitution of the board was amended and it was renamed Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Today there are thousands of schools affiliated to the Board, both within India and in many other countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.All schools in Delhi and some other regions came under the Board. It was the function of the Board to decide on things like curriculum, textbooks and examination system for all schools affiliated to it.

 But this objective remains far away even more than half a century later. However, in the recent past, the government appears to have taken a serious note of this lapse and has made primary education a Fundamental Right of every Indian citizen. Universal and compulsory education for all children in the age group of 6-14 was a cherished dream of the new government of the Republic of India. .The pressures of economic growth and the acute scarcity of skilled and trained manpower must certainly have played a role to make the government take such a step. The expenditure by the Government of India on school education in recent years comes to around 3% of the GDP, which is recognized to be very low.This is evident from the fact that it is incorporated as a directive policy in article 45 of the constitution

 “In recent times, several major announcements were made for developing the poor state of affairs in education sector in India, the most notable ones being the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government   The announcements are; (a) To progressively increase expenditure on education to around 6 percent of GDP. (b) To support this increase in expenditure on education, and to increase the quality of education, there would be an imposition of an education cess over all central government taxes. (c) To ensure that no one is denied of education due to economic backwardness and poverty. (d) To make right to education a fundamental right for all children in the age group 6–14 years. (e) To universalize education through its flagship programmes such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid Day Meal.” Wikipedia: Education in India..

The School System

India is divided into 28 states and 7 so-called “Union Territories”. The states have their own elected governments while the Union Territories are ruled directly by the Government of India, with the President of India appointing an administrator for each Union Territory. As per the constitution of India, school education was originally a state subject —that is, the states had complete authority on deciding policies and implementing them. The role of the Government of India (GoI) was limited to coordination and deciding on the standards of higher education.  The role of the Government of India (GoI) was limited to coordination and deciding on the standards of higher education.  The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), set up in 1935, continues to play a lead role in the evolution and monitoring of educational policies and programmes.That is, school education policies and programmes are suggested at the national level by the GoI though the state governments have a lot of freedom in implementing programmes. This was changed with a constitutional amendment in 1976 so that education now comes in the so-called concurrent list. Policies are announced at the national level periodically.

The SCERTs generally follow guidelines established by the NCERT. But the states have considerable freedom in implementing the education system.Each state has its counterpart called the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT).There is a national organization that plays a key role in developing policies and programmes, called the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) that prepares a National Curriculum Framework.  These are the bodies that essentially propose educational strategies, curricula, pedagogical schemes and evaluation methodologies to the states' departments of education.

The National Policy on Education, 1986 and the Programme of Action (POA) 1992 envisaged free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality for all children below 14 years before the 21st Century. The government committed to earmark 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for education, half of which would be spent on primary education. The expenditure on Education as a percentage of GDP also rose from 0.7 per cent in 1951-52 to about 3.6 per cent in 1997-98.

The lower primary school is divided into five “standards”, upper primary school into two, high school into three and higher secondary into two. There is some amount of specialization possible at the higher secondary level. Students throughout the country have to learn three languages (namely, English, Hindi and their mother tongue) except in regions where Hindi is the mother tongue and in some streams as discussed below.Students have to learn a common curriculum largely (except for regional changes in mother tongue) till the end of high school. The school system in India has four levels: lower primary (age 6 to 10), upper primary (11 and 12), high (13 to 15) and higher secondary (17 and 18).

 The CBSE also has 141 affiliated schools in 21 other countries mainly catering to the needs of the Indian population there.There are mainly three streams in school education in India. All of them follow textbooks written and published by the NCERT. A number of “central schools” (named Kendriya Vidyalayas) have been established for the purpose in all main urban areas in the country, and they follow a common schedule so that a student going from one school to another on a particular day will hardly see any difference in what is being taught. One subject (Social Studies, consisting of History, Geography and Civics) is always taught in Hindi, and other subjects in English, in these schools. Kendriya Vidyalayas admit other children also if seats are available.In addition to these government-run schools, a number of private schools in the country follow the CBSE syllabus though they may use different text books and follow different teaching schedules.. Two of these are coordinated at the national level, of which one is under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and was originally meant for children of central government employees who are periodically transferred and may have to move to any place in the country. They have a certain amount of freedom in what they teach in lower classes.

The Council was listed in the Delhi School Education Act 1973, as a body conducting public examinations. .The second central scheme is the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE). It seems that this was started as a replacement for the Cambridge School Certificate. The idea was mooted in a conference held in 1952 under the Chairmanship of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Minister for Education.  The inaugural meeting of the Council was held on 3rd November, 1958. In December 1967, the Council was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. The main purpose of the conference was to consider the replacement of the overseas Cambridge School Certificate Examination by an All India Examination. In October 1956 at the meeting of the Inter-State Board for Anglo-Indian Education, a proposal was adopted for the setting up of an Indian Council to administer the University of Cambridge, Local Examinations Syndicate's Examination in India and to advise the Syndicate on the best way to adapt its examination to the needs of the country.Now a large number of schools across the country are affiliated to this Council. All these are private schools and generally cater to children from wealthy families.

 Since this puts a lot of pressure on the child to perform well, there have been suggestions to remove the examination at the end of 10 years.Both the CBSE and the ICSE council conduct their own examinations in schools across the country that are affiliated to them at the end of 10 years of schooling (after high school) and again at the end of 12 years (after higher secondary). Admission to the 11th class is normally based on the performance in this all-India examination.

Exclusive Schools

 Some of these schools also offer the students the opportunity to sit for the ICSE examinations. .They normally have fabulous infrastructure, low student-teacher ratio and very few students. Many of them have teachers from abroad. There are also other exclusive schools such as the Doon School in Dehradun that take in a small number of students and charge exorbitant fees.These are usually very expensive residential schools where some of the Indians working abroad send their children..In addition to the above, there are a relatively small number of schools that follow foreign curricula such as the so-called Senior Cambridge, though this was largely superseded by the ICSE stream elsewhere.

Most such schools are expensive, have high teacher-student ratios and provide a learning environment in which each child can learn at his/her own pace. It would be interesting and instructive to do a study on what impact the kind of school has had on the life of their alumni.Apart from all of these, there are a handful of schools around the country, such as the Rishi Valley school in Andhra Pradesh, that try to break away from the normal education system that promotes rote learning and implement innovative systems such as the Montessori method.

State Schools

 As mentioned earlier, the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation method are largely decided by the SCERT in the state, following the national guidelines prescribed by the NCERT.Each state in the country has its own Department of Education that runs its own school system with its own textbooks and evaluation system.

In some states like Kerala, these schools are very similar to government schools since the teachers are paid by the government and the fees are the same as in government schools. These are generally known as government schools. The fees are quite low in such schools. Then there are privately owned schools with their own land and buildings. Here the fees are high and the teachers are paid by the management. The third kind consists of schools that are provided grant-in-aid by the government, though the school was started by a private agency in their own land and buildings.Each state has three kinds of schools that follow the state curriculum. The government runs its own schools in land and buildings owned by the government and paying the staff from its own resources. The grant-in-aid is meant to help reduce the fees and make it possible for poor families to send their children. Such schools mostly cater to the urban middle class families.
The Case of Kerala

 Life expectancy, both male and female, is very high, close to that of the developed world.Government policies also have been very different from the rest of the country, leading to the development model followed in Kerala, with high expenditure in education and welfare, coming to be known as the “Kerala Model“ among economists. It has, for instance, the highest literacy rate among all states, and was declared the first fully literate state about a decade back. Other parameters such as fertility rate, infant and child mortality are among the best in the country, if not the best. The total fertility rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 for the last two decades. Probably as a side-effect of economic and social development, suicide rates and alcoholism are also very high. The state of Kerala, a small state in the South Western coast of India, has been different from the rest of the country in many ways for the last few decades

 The state was the first in the country to move from the traditional behaviorist way of teaching to a social constructivist paradigm. It was mentioned in the National Curriculum Framework of NCERT in the year 2000, and Kerala started trying it out the next year. The transaction in the classroom and the evaluation methodology were changed. This meant that the students had to digest what they studied and had to be able to use their knowledge in a specific situation to answer the questions. At the same time, the new method took away a lot of pressure and the children began to find examinations interesting and enjoyable instead of being stressful. A Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation (CCE) system was introduced along with this, which took into consideration the overall personality of the student and reduced the dependence on a single final examination for deciding promotion to the next class. At present, the CBSE also has implemented CCE, but in a more flexible manner. Every time the NCERT came up with new ideas, it was Kerala that tried it out first. The state experimented with the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) with gusto, though there was opposition to it from various quarters, and even took it beyond primary classes. Instead of direct questions that could be answered only through memorizing the lessons, indirect questions and open ended questions were included so that the student needed to think before answering, and the answers could be subjective to some extent.Kerala has also always shown interest in trying out ways of improving its school education system.

But within one year the government was forced to include Free Software also in the curriculum by protests from Free Software enthusiasts and a favorable stance taken by a school teachers association that had the majority of government teachers as its members The state is now moving towards IT Enabled Education. Eventually, IT will not be taught as a separate subject. Instead, all subjects will be taught with the help of IT so that the children will, on the one hand, learn IT skills and, on the other, make use of educational applications (such as those mentioned below) and resources in the Internet (such as textual material from sites like Wikipedia, images, animations and videos) to study their subjects and to do exercises. Teachers and students have already started using applications such as Dr. Geo, GeoGebra, and KtechLab for studying geometry and electronics. Applications like Sunclock, Kalzium and Ghemical are also popular among teachers and students.Kerala was also the first state in the country to introduce Information Technology as a subject of study at the High School level. It was started in class 8 with the textbook introducing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. . Eventually, from the year 2007, only GNU/Linux was taught in the schools, and all computers in schools had only GNU/Linux installed. At that time, perhaps even today, this was the largest installation of GNU/Linux in schools, and made headlines even in other countries. Every year, from 2007 onwards, about 500,000 children pass out of the schools learning the concepts behind Free Software and the GNU/Linux operating system and applications.

The new education policy of the Government of India speaks about constructivism, IT enabled education, Free Software and sharing educational resources. States like Karnataka and Gujarat are now planning to introduce Free Software in their schools, and some other states like Maharashtra are examining the option. Once a few of the larger states successfully migrate to Free Software, it is hoped that the entire country would follow suit in a relatively short time. When that happens, India could have the largest user base of GNU/Linux and Free Software in general.The initiative taken by Kerala is now influencing other states and even the policies of the Government of India.