INDIAN SCHOOLS- ANY PARALLELS TO PORTUGAL or NW-EUROPE II

New Delhi: Molestation of a girl from Arunachal Pradesh in a New Friends Colony school, manhandling of teachers at a school in Timarpur, and now violence against a group of schoolgirls at Shalimar Bagh — the incidents of rowdyism in government schools are increasing. This despite the fact that these schools are posting better results in Board exams and have implemented life-skill programmes like YUVA.
Teachers attribute the alarming trend to disproportionate student-teacher ratio. There are not enough teachers to control the high number of students who study in government schools. They also say students are now blatant in their approach. They have nothing to lose with a ban on corporal punishment in place. In such a scenario, will the defaulters go unchecked?
Explained D K Tiwari, secretary, Government Schools Teachers’ Association, ‘‘It has become difficult for teachers to maintain discipline among students as they no longer fear any action.’’ Tiwari added that there has been an increase of nearly five lakh students in 930 government schools in the city in the last six years. However, the government hasn’t recruited enough teachers all these years.
‘‘We worked hard to improve the results due to which the number of students opting for government schools has increased. But there are nearly 7,000 posts of teachers still vacant,’’ said Tiwari. He added: ‘‘We need 14,000 more teachers for over 13 lakh children studying in government schools today. We have conveyed this to the chief minister but nothing has changed.’’
According to teachers, many classrooms have 80 to 100 students whereas the prescribed teacher-student ratio is 1:40. ‘‘How do we give personal attention to every student? It’s almost a crowd out there,’’ Tiwari said.
‘‘We can’t strike a name off the rolls in case of misconduct. The students in a class are from different age groups as many admissions are done due to political pressure. So it becomes difficult to work on the attitudes of such a heterogeneous group,’’ said a senior government official. ‘‘The posts are sanctioned by the finance department. They take nearly two to three years to sanction posts. In the meantime, the number of students shoot up. Besides recruiting more teachers will need a huge financial outlay that the government can’t afford,’’ the official

SUDDEN RISE IN H1N1 CASES IN DELHI , 233 REPORTED ON SATURDAY

NEW DELHI: On Saturday, 223 H1N1 influenza cases, including one death, were confirmed in the capital. This is the highest number of cases reported
in a day since the infection entered the city.

Though experts rule out the beginning of the ‘‘second wave’’, they advised doctors to give full-treatment dose to those who came in contact with H1N1 positive cases and were showing symptoms of the disease.

Of the 223 confirmed cases, 131 are children. Experts say once a case or two is tested positive at a school or college or any institution, full dose of tamiflu should be given to the rest who show clinical symptoms of H1N1 influenza. The state health department attributed the high figure to awareness about the disease and more number of testing facilities.

‘‘Now people have adequate knowledge about the disease. And with five private labs testing for H1N1, people are getting themselves tested,’’ said Kiran Walia, Delhi’s health minister.

Meanwhile, one 37-year-old man died due to H1N1 influenza at Safdarjung Hospital on Friday night. His reports tested positive on Saturday. So far, 29 people have died due to H1N1 infection in the capital.

toireporter@timesgroup.com
Fact is that the swine flu in India is extremely dangerous with a death rate of 1/31. An extremely deadly figure if compared to Belgium , now leading in the world wide statistics of dead rates from H1N1 with just 1/5,498 cases closely followed by Iceland and Portugal. Obviously the countries with the best medical treatment sytems. In Germany the risk to die is double as high as in the countries mentioned above 1/ 2004)
Amazing is that countries with an elaborated medical treatment systems have a lot high death rates as e.g. :
- Switzerland : 1/310
- Austria : 1/193
- Sweden 1/133
- Japan 1/132
- The Netherlands 1/35 ( very amazing und unexplainable since it is so close to the actual leader Belgium)
- US with 1/23 on the same level as developing countries and worse than India ( the explanation for this scaring figure I leave open for US citizens)

I am still very scared to get H1N1 in India and happy to return soon the Germany , Portugal and Belgium.

ACTUAL DEATH RATES OF H1N1 INFLUENZA (SWINE FLU)

Thsi is just an overview, more detailed figures can be find at http://www.flucount.org/

There is not a lot of changement if compared to the previous figures I published. In the following just a selection of important (at least for me) statistical relavent countries:

Paraguay (leader): 1/10 ( that means of 10 caes 1 will die )
Ghana : 1/14
Brazil : 1/19
India : 1/32
Spain : 1/37
US : 1/80
France : 1/128
Australia : 1/200
Italy : 1/675
Belgium : 1/1177
Portugal : 1/7120
Germany : 1/21129



These are amazing figures showing that in in most countries H1N1 remain a big danger for live. In other countries the death rates are comparable to or even less than the regular influeza (flu). Is there an explanation for it ? I cannot imagine that the quality of health service in Spain and France is considerable lower than in Belgium or Portugal.
Who has an explanation for these figures.
Regarding India there is an explanation: first the health service at the rural site is almost non- existing and second the governement decided that only public clinics can handle swine flu cases and the more efficient and better equipped private hospitals are not entitled to treat the illness

NAZARE

Since I am not all the time in India ... my favorite picture from Nazare in Portugal