What exactly is reinforcing learning? Reinforcement is nothing other than a reflection of teaching on the one hand and learning on the other. Reinforcement should ideally be an aid to learning the principles that constitute a concept, since the basis of learning is to grasp the fundamental propositions of a topic. This issue includes reinforcement in the most important primary school subjects — so there are experiential articles in maths, language, EVS and science as well as an article on assessing reinforcement which illustrates that assessment, if done holistically, is in itself a reinforcement tool. 

The present study analyses civic and community-based initiatives in conserving urban ecological commons in India, which have been increasingly polluted, encroached upon and degraded because of rapid land-use transformations. Bangalore, a city in south India, has one of the largest networks of manmade lakes, some of which are restored and managed by citizen groups, civil society, environmental activists and voluntary private bodies. The restoration process interfaces with urban policy making, shaping predominant management agendas in association with the State. Community initiatives in conserving the lakes are not only well-organised, but also play a crucial role in making city commons vibrant and integral nodes of cultural and social identification. However, the contemporary management system involving citizen groups in lake conservation is largely at odds with the tradition of community-managed lake systems previously existing in the city, which have eroded as the city became industrialised and increased in size and population, resulting in rapid landscape transformations. Against this background, the present study aims to illustrate that a seemingly representative community management of city ecologies is often embedded in an overwhelming political context. It also discusses the need for an urgent deconstruction to better understand how overtly flexible and dynamic restoration actions interact with inequality, power and conflicts. The results of the present study emphasise that the current participatory and community-driven initiatives of ecological restoration in Indian cities unfortunately accord limited significance to the overarching questions of social justice and relations of power.

How was oxygen discovered? When was it first recognised as a chemical element? 

How do we transform the science lab into a space that encourages students to learn about germination by designing and conducting their own experiments? 

How do metaphors, explanations, and illustrations in textbooks and our classroom instruction shape common misconceptions about the atomic theory? 

What role do empathy and care for local places have in addressing the ecological crisis? 

Join us in exploring these and many other questions. 

This issue is about a term that is very much in the minds of educators today: Socio-emotional Learning (SEL), and which has become an integral part of learning and school life. Schools have ​‘Happiness Curriculums’ to develop self-awareness, enable effective communication, and work collaboratively towards collective goals instead of individual ones to bring equity to the learning process by becoming inclusive and empathetic. Teachers are looking at children as citizens who need to take their place in the larger social setting and learn to contribute to society while themselves leading meaningful and mindful lives.

Why do party balloons rise in air? How high can they go? When do they drift to the ground?

How much water do plants lose? Do they lose it only as water vapour? Can they regulate water-loss? 

Which chemical bonds are stronger — covalent or ionic? How can we tell? 

Can we grow a dense forest of native species in congested urban spaces or degraded land? How long would this take?

Who were the first people to measure the size of the earth? How did they do it? 

Join us in exploring these questions in our new section — Ask a Question. 

Cities are often seen as incubators for enterprise and innovation. However, in this urbanisation era, we seem to suffer from a lack of imagination on how to handle the many environmental problems associated with expanding cities. This is especially true in the case of the peri-urban interface (PUI), a geographical and conceptual landscape with which the city core often has a contentious relationship. In this chapter, we look at the complex linkages between water and waste in the PUIs of two metropolitan cities: Bengaluru and Kolkata. We look at two water systems: Kannuru lake in Bengaluru and Kolkata’s wetlands. Kannuru is a freshwater lake that supported traditional livelihoods and subsistence use by local communities, while Kolkata’s peri-urban wetlands not only served as the city’s natural sewage treatment plant but also enabled agriculture and aquaculture. Urbanization has adversely impacted both these water systems. Kannuru lake is threatened by a landfill on its periphery, while sewage-based farming and fisheries in Kolkata’s wetlands have been impacted by changes in land use and composition of sewage. We unravel the complexity in the waste-water relationship, where waste is seen as a pollutant in one and as a nutrient in the other. We attempt to understand how we can re-envision waste and water linkages in the PUIs of expanding cities if India needs to move towards a sustainable future.

When the life-altering COVID-19 first struck, teachers and students alike had to re-organise themselves; teachers in their pedagogical methodologies, students in their learning capabilities. Overnight, everyone went digital – smartphones, computers and TV screens became the printed page and everyone learned as they went along. 

This issue of the Learning Curve is devoted to the questions everyone had to face during the period of school closures: what can we do to mitigate the difficulties of adjustment that primary school children will undoubtedly face on their return to school? The most heartening aspect of the articles in the issue is the tremendous resilience and innovativeness displayed by everyone concerned in adapting to school closures.

COVID-19 made it clearer than ever that the school does not and cannot be looked at in isolation from society. In this issue, there are articles that show not only teachers supporting children’s learning during the closure, but also how parents overwhelmingly supported teachers to continue their work; how, when all other ways of distance learning failed, the unanimous decision of parents was that the education of their children should go on.

Controlling for monetary policy, government transfers are potentially inflationary. This, however, may not be true when the economy is demandconstrained. Using a panel data of 17 Indian states over 30 years, we show that government transfers via welfare programs do not lead to inflation. For identification, we use a narrative shock series of transfer spending that is based on the introduction of new welfare programs. We then look at a specific program, NREGA, which has been shown to increase rural wages, and show that its implementation did not increase inflation.

Authors:

• Girish Bahal
• Anand Shrivastava

Most international development economics and industrial organization literature emphasises the importance of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) as important to output, but especially to employment generation. Countries have different definitions for SMEs. In India the MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) are defined in terms of investment in plant and machinery or equipment. The MSME Ministry (Annual Report, Government of India 2017 – 18) stated that the sector accounts for 45% of the manufacturing output and 40% of the total exports of the country; also that MSMEs accounted for 30.74% of GDP in 2014– 15. Not surprising, MSMEs are considered a driving force of the economy.

Authors:

• Santosh Mehrotra
• Tuhinsubhra Giri

In this issue, we have a wide range of articles from writers who have looked at children with disabilities in a variety of ways- but through the same lens: inclusion. There are articles tracing the history of different organizations which have worked for several years to create opportunities for the education of children with disabilities, language acquisition, travel, opportunities for independence and respectful acceptance, among others.

Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs) and Aids, which form the focus of this issue of Learning Curve, an indispensable part of a teacher’s bag of tricks, is a generic term that describes any material that supports and buttresses teachers’ efforts in getting a class of diverse capabilities to understand the basics of any learning. They have to fulfil some basic requirements: simplify concepts, provide the chance of practice, increase interest and motivation, help to explain complexities, concretise abstractions, enrich the course — though, of course, a single TLM may not meet all the above criteria. Thus, they are various kinds of TLMs, starting with the humble, but ever-present, blackboard (which has come in for much adverse criticism) and going all the way up to ​‘smart classrooms’, with all the advanced technology they entail. TLMs have the added value of aiding the memory — when children see how a concept/​rule of language/​experiment works, it is more likely to stay in the active memory than just learning the same thing by heart. This issue presents a wide variety of opinions and experiences with TLMs and Aids.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. To be a stable and prosperous democracy, this growth must be accompanied by the creation of meaningful, secure and remunerative employment. Realising this goal requires a grounded and comprehensive overview of the state of labour markets, employment generation, demographic challenges and the nature of growth.

The State of Working India (SWI) is envisioned as a regular publication that delivers well-researched, analytically useful information on India’s labour market, by bringing together researchers, journalists, civil society activists, and policymakers interested in labour and employment issues.

The report is based on the research of CSE staff, as well as on background papers which are available online. SWI conceives of India’s ongoing structural transformation as composed of two processes — movement of workers from agriculture to non-farm occupations (the Kuznets process) and from informal activities to formal ones (the Lewis process). But it adds crucial considerations of social equity and ecological sustainability to this standard framework. In the 21^st century, Lewis and Kuznets have to meet Ambedkar and Gandhi.

Report Documents

• Complete Report (PDF) Corrigendum
• All Figures (PDF)
• Figure Data (XLS)
• Appendix Tables (XLS)
• Media Coverage
• Background Papers
• Individual Chapters:
  • Cover And TOC
  • Executive Summary (Hindi version)
  • Chapter One : Introduction
  • Chapter Two : Who Is Looking For Work?
  • Chapter Three : Where Is the Work?
  • Chapter Four: How Good Is The Work
  • Chapter Five: Who Does The Work
  • Chapter Six : Conclusion
  • Methods
  • Bibliography

What happens within the classroom has the power to change lives — for the better or for the worse. We ourselves know from our own school experiences of transactions which empowered or disabled or left us unmoved, according to the atmosphere in the classroom. This is not quite the same as the relationship between teacher and student, vital as that is. In this issue, we have a number of articles which explore the boundaries of the classroom and its importance as an investment for the future.

The dictionary defines the word ​“enable” as, to make able, to give power, means or ability; to make competent, authorise, to make possible or easy. The word ​“enabling” when used as an indicator in school education can be defined as a comprehensive, multi-faceted series of empowering activities required to address the needs of youngsters facing barriers in the acquisition of both academic and life skills. In this Issue, we have tried to bring together articles recounting the experiences of practicing teachers, educators and students across India even one from a school at an altitude of 12,000 feet from distant Leh! — who have all been part of this process. We have articles that enlarge on the theme of empowerment through responsible citizenry by involving the community in the process, of methods used to facilitate collaborative learning by getting students and teachers to jointly examine their problems and concerns, of attitudinal changes enabled through dialogue.

Volume 1 Issue 2:

This issue of Learning Curve focuses on ​‘sports in education’ which explores topics ranging from the interpersonal and collaborative influences that sports have on children to the skills it develops, from the harsh realities about why people don’t take up sporting careers to the challenges parents face while bringing up sporting kids, from questioning notions of competition in sports to detailing the power of a sporting mind, from examining the contribution of the RTE to revealing the NCF’s take on sports education.