Cursive writing writes 4-yr-old out of school
A telling comment has been added to the city’s state of education this session. A four-year-old toddler — a recent entrant to a private school — is literally being forced out of its rolls because he is ‘ignorant’ of cursive writing, a specialised art of handwriting.
The excitement of joining a new school — Bhavan Vidyalaya in Sector 15, Panchkula — is slowly fading from four-year-old Nidhish Sarin’s eyes as his parents have been told in no uncertain words that they have to withdraw his admission because of this ‘flaw’. This Monday, his parents received a call from the school asking them to take away Nidhish because he “does not need to attend school anymore”. They were also told that at the time of admission, the school authorities had not been able to gauge Nidhish’s ‘caliber’ and that the school did not have enough time to focus on one child — that is, to teach him cursive writing.
But Nidhish had gone through the usual gamut of tests and interviews in the last week of March. The family spent Rs 15,000 on admission and other accessories like books, stationery and uniforms. He joined school in the first week of this month in the UKG section. But in a few days, the teachers started ‘complaining’ of his performance.
The family also showed this correspondent Nidhish’s assessment card issued by his previous school — the Hallmark School of Education. Hallmark might not have taught him cursive writing, but had said Nidhish was a good student with ‘exceptional learning qualities’.
Nidhish’s mother Sabina said: “The behaviour of the school administration — from the receptionist to the principal — has been odd. We wrote several requests to them for an audience with the principal. She met us cursorily one day, barely heard us out, and said Nidhish would have to go.”
The school’s principal Shashi Banerjee, when asked what had happened to Nidhish, denied any such incident had taken place. She would not comment further.
Nidhish’s father Parvesh Sarin said the family had also requested the admission coordinator to demote Nidhish to the lower KG class so that a year of learning would not go waste. “I assured them Nidhish would be able to pick up cursive writing very fast.” Parvesh Sarin had also tried to persuade the authorities to let his son stay on for this year since all other schools in the tri-city had closed admissions.
The school has reportedly relented a bit. After much pleading by the Sarins, the principal has now suggested that Nidhish be kept at home till the summer vacations and practise ‘cursive writing’. Once the school reopens, the authorities will take a test again and decide if he is ‘learned’ enough to come back.
Ritu Sharma

The call that never came from UBS
The University Business School (UBS) — once rated among the finest top ten business schools in the country — has not managed its own internal business very well for the last two months, failing to call successful candidates for the mandatory interview even though the entrance results have been declared long back.
Run by the Panjab University, the UBS chooses students from the crop of those successful at the Common Admission Test or CAT. The interview seals the admission. But nearly two months have passed since the CAT results have been declared but the much-expected interview call is yet to come. With no explanation forthcoming, many students have been forced to seek admission elsewhere — spending in lakhs.
Nobody is owning up for the delay, neither is anyone officially talking about why. Sources inside the business school said the delay is mainly because the school has lost out on crores of rupees because of the decision to abolish seats for NRIs or those sponsored by NRIs. These seats were always a money spinner and without them, the university authorities feel ‘short-changed’, they said. Sources said the authorities are now racking their brains to find out means to make up for this shortfall.
According to practice, the business school takes a few months to sift through the CAT results that are declared by the end of December. The interviews are usually held in the first week of March. Speaking to Newsline, UBS’ Head of the Department Professor Dinesh Gupta only said: “There has been a delay but instead of harping on it, and thinking about the quality of students we shall get now, we must instead pay more attention towards grooming them.”
Director of University Instructions, Professor S K Kulkarni said: “Yes, there has been a delay but I am unaware of the reasons. I had cleared the necessary files for admission long ago. The UBS department should best know why the interviews have not been conducted.”
An aspirant to the business school, Ankita said, “I had high hopes of UBS. Since no interview call came, me and several other friends have taken admission in Delhi schools. The officials have shown scant regard for our careers.”
Jyotsna Jalali