Week 25: Christmas in Fort Kochi (posted by Megan)

Our time in India wrapped up with Christmas celebrations in Fort Kochi, the historic neighborhood where we were staying in Cochin.  Since the whole region (Kerala) has a significant Christian population, Christmas really was in the air - nearly every house and shop was decked out with lights, lanterns, Santa decorations, Christmas trees, or nativity scenes. There were carolers out in the old town one night, and we also made it to a lessons and carols service at St. Francis Church, the 1500s church established by the Portuguese in the heart of town.

We've eaten so well in India, so it was fitting that we wrapped up our time with a cooking class with a local host in her apartment.  She had her granddaughters visiting at the start of our time with her, and our girls also loved getting a chance to spend time with some other kids their age.

We also managed to squeeze in a Kathakali performance on Christmas Eve - it's the local traditional theater performance, with intricate make-up and costuming, and part of the experience was watching the performers apply their makeup for an hour before the show.

Christmas morning included stockings for the girls, and gifts from each sister for each other.  We also squeezed in a few rounds of cards with the Indian Ocean in the background, and a last walk through the festive old town.

Next stop, Oman!

Research Project: Education in India (posted by Jane)

Intro

When we arrived in India we were bombarded with billboards for tutors and specialized schools. When I looked into why, I found lots of articles on the competitive exams for trying to get into the top Delhi colleges. The Shri Ram College of Commerce has 400 openings each year but there are 28,000 students applying. That is less than a two percent acceptance rate (Flintoff). The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is the main national curriculum that has exams in tenth and twelfth grades; however, to get into college students take the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). So many families will have specialized exam tutors. In India, 29% of students use tutors whereas only 15% of students use tutors in the United  States even though the GDP per capita is eight times greater in the United States. This may not seem like a problem but student suicide rates in India are are strikingly high, at 25.2 suicides per 100,000 deaths in 2023 verus 14.1 per 100,000 deaths in the United States (Shukla).

In 2020 Narendra Modi, the current prime minister, implemented the New Education Policy (NEP). This reform covers lots of issues in the education system from underfunded primary schools to revising the curriculum. Students in grade ten now can retake their board exams in March if they would like. This helps relieve stress from the main exam in February. Also, the government wants schools to use more formative assessments, which is a practice test in class before a summative assessment, to stop coaching culture. Finally the NEP wants each school or cluster of schools to have a counselor to help mitigate stress. I wanted to know if the National Education Policy 2020 helped relieve test anxiety in India.

Methodology & Thesis

For my project I started with online research and I read nine articles, I visited four different schools, finally I also interviewed six people. Ultimately, I found that NEP had good intentions when it came to anxiety and stress, but it benefited public schools not private schools where the students are more competitive academically.

Government Schools Perspective

The NEP has helped government schools, where over half the students in India are learning, in many ways but not how you might think. When I asked principals of public schools what they thought of the NEP reforms they immediately talked about how breakfast has been provided, more access to digital learning, and more activity based learning. At the high school Principal  Dusyntigi was very excited to show us the communal touch screen TV in the office where they would bring classes to watch lessons. At the public primary school, fifteen minutes outside of the heart of Udaipur, there was a sign that listed what the school provided. The number one thing was food, not education. For the 206 million children in poverty, food is much more important than education (Ramya). Mental health is not a concern for government schools. 

Students at government schools don't seem to be stressed out over exams but it is hard to make this generalization about India because the population is almost 1.5 billion people. Lets just say you can tell when you're walking anywhere in India that it has the most people in the world. The quality of schools and performances in exams vary greatly across the country. In one state or city the passing rate of exams in government schools may be 90% and in the countryside of another state the passing rate may be 60%. When we asked Principal Dusyntigi if the high school students were stressed for exams he said no. You could see the difference in motivation between government and private schools. Everybody, including the teacher, seemed much more tired at the government schools which were still underfunded even after the NEP allocated more of the GDP to schooling. This is because the students who go to government schools are generally lower income (Sareen). According to Ideas for India, lower income parents are less likely to believe their child is academically inclined and inadvertently demotivates the student (Duhon). In rural India 36% of adults are illiterate. It is also in rural India where 60% of students go to government schools. Illiteracy limits a parent's awareness of the importance of education (Mehta). This is why the NEP trying to help with mental health seems so futile when many schools are still trying to motivate students to be invested in their education. Students won't recognize the difference between formative and summative assessments if they're not in school at all.

A more important problem principals are facing is being understaffed and teacher retention. Dusyntigi, the principal of the secondary school explained that teachers are being used to conduct the 2030 census which may be the largest ever taken. Teachers are approximately 20% of the government workforce and one of the most organized. Archinigi, the headteacher of the primary school, said that for many classes they rely on interns since there is only one teacher for every 70 students. One important part of the NEP is that there will be counselors for schools to help students cope with stress. How is the government supposed to provide counselors if there aren't even enough teachers?        

Private Schools Perspective

There is a wide range of private schools when it comes to adapting to the new holistic curriculum. The first private school we visited was all for vocational training and moving away from a single score on tests, even showing us their comment based report card. However, the second private school, Saint Mary's, was much less enthusiastic about the change to holistic learning. When I interviewed the Headmistress she was more invested in the academic excellence of the school. The implementation of these reforms is also up to classroom teachers who according to ETEducation only 36% of feel confident with their ability to change to a competency based classroom (Kothapa) .This shows how implementing the NEP reforms is really up to the school. 

Another concern for private schools is that the government is not providing extra funding so that they can have counselors and vocational trainers. So schools have to use their own funds on paying a whole new set of faculty members. For lower-fee private schools that is not a viable option. If you were to take on three new staff members at a school it would cost you 15 Lakh to subsidise this endeavor you would need 30 new students assuming each of them is paying 50,000 rupees (salary) . For many schools that doesn't make sense financially. This was backed by the principal at Saint Mary's who did not know where to get vocational trainers.  

Parents perspective

For many upwardly mobile middle class families education and grades are everything. Getting into a good college means getting a "good" career like doctor, coder, and software development. But it is no easy task when you are competing with 1,347,820 students on the CUET to get into college. So parents hire exam coaches and tutors. It has become a whole other industry outside of just school. Our first tour guide in Delhi told us about how his son is in school until three p.m., studies and completes home work until five p.m., only to go to a tutoring session until eight p.m. If you do well though, your face will be on a poster for your school or tutoring company and your parents will be able to brag about you. All around India we saw billboards for schools and tutors listing the top scorers on the board exams with students' faces and grades. Nedeem, our guide, even showed us his four year olds report card where she was in the top 94th percentile for her class. One article on coaching culture put it quite darkly, "The few who make it become poster children; the rest disappear into the statistical abyss" (Mahasuar). School administrators are also aware of the pressure. The principal at Saint Mary's said that many of their students go off to specialized exam prep schools for eleventh and twelfth grade. This begs the question, how can the NEP change the whole culture around test taking when it is so ingrained in society?

The NEP reforms actually do acknowledge the problem of coaching culture and the stress it can cause. In clause 4.36 to 4.38 the NEP says that there should be formative and summative assessments, less material on exams to prevent memorization, and the ability to sit for exams. All of these seem like really good ideas. However, if you have small assessments and big exams it actually means more work for students since they have more work. I do think these are all good steps but parents won't just stop sending their kids to exam schools. There is no way to magically cure anxiety which is what makes this issue so hard to solve.

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that when it comes to anxiety the NEP has not made a huge difference. However, there are much bigger and pressing issues when it comes to Indian education. I think I have learned a little competitiveness is necessary to be able to have these world renowned colleges in India, but what does it matter if so few people get to have the chance for a higher education.

Citations

Avileen Education Foundation.” AAS Vidyalaya, 16 Oct. 2025, www.vidyalaya.org.in/how-poverty-affects-education-understanding-the-barriers-to-learning/. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

Banerjee, Deepto. “National Education Policy (NEP) 2025: What’s Changed and What’s yet to Come?” The Times of India, Times of India, 30 Dec. 2024, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/national-education-policy-nep-2025-whats-changed-and-whats-yet-to-come/articleshow/116804466.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

Dr. Ramya .S, Dr. Ramya .S. “Poverty’s Impact on India’s Education.” Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, vol. 13, no. 3, Mar. 2025, pp. 39–44, https://doi.org/10.35629/9467-13033944. Accessed 5 May 2025.

Duhon, Madelin. “How Socioeconomic Status Shapes Parental Beliefs about Child Academic Achievement.” Ideasforindia.in, 21 Nov. 2023, www.ideasforindia.in/topics/human-development/how-socioeconomic-status-shapes-parental-beliefs-about-child-academic-achievement. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

eduadmin. “Challenges Faced by Economically Disadvantaged Parents in Sending and Retaining Their Children in Schools in India: A Critical Analysis | Education for All in India.” Education for All in India, 26 Feb. 2025, educationforallinindia.com/challenges-faced-by-economically-disadvantaged-parents-in-sending-and-retaining-their-children-in-schools-in-india-a-critical-analysis/. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

ET Education. “The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020: Opportunities and Challenges for Private Schools.” ETEducation.com, ET CONTRIBUTORS, 27 Aug. 2025, education.economictimes.indiatimes.com/blog/navigating-nep-2020-private-schools-path-to-a-progressive-education-revolution/123541111. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

Flintoff, Correy. “In India, the Pressure Cooker of College Admissions.” NPR.org, 10 Jan. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/01/10/144902774/in-india-the-pressure-cooker-of-college-admissions. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

https://www.facebook.com/ar5184. “National Education Policy (NEP) 2020: Reshaping Indian Education for the 21st Century - IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute.” IMPRI 5.

Mahasuar, Dr Kiran. “India’s Test Prep Industry: A Meritocracy of Inequity - BW Education.” BW Education, 2025, www.bweducation.com/article/indias-test-prep-industry-a-meritocracy-of-inequity-556481. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

Ministry of Human Resource Development. National Education Policy 2020. Government of India, 2020.

“Private School Teacher Salary in Mumbai, In.” Salary.com, 2025, www.salary.com/research/in/private-school-teacher-salary/mumbai?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, et al. “What Drives Demand for Private Tutoring in Secondary Education? Evidence from India.” Journal of Social and Economic Development, 16 Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-023-00291-8. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

PTI. “IIT Madras Researchers Identify Physiological Markers to Predict and Manage Test Anxiety in Students.” The Hindu, 16 Nov. 2025, www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/iit-madras-researchers-identify-physiological-markers-to-predict-and-manage-test-anxiety-in-students/article70286921.ece. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

Shukla, Princy. “Exam Stress Is Breaking India’s Brightest. Here’s What Schools and Parents Can Do.” India Today, 10 Oct. 2025, www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/exam-stress-in-students-how-schools-can-protect-students-mental-health-2800616-2025-10-10. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

SreeRam Thiriveedhi, et al. “A Study on the Assessment of Anxiety and Its Effects on Students Taking the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test for Undergraduates (NEET-UG) 2020.” Cureus, vol. 15, no. 8, Cureus, Inc., Aug. 2023, https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.44240.

Team, ConsumerAffairs Research. “Tutoring Statistics 2024.” ConsumerAffairs, 26 June 2024, www.consumeraffairs.com/education/tutoring-statistics.html#how-many-students-use-tutors.

ThePrint. “NEP Turns 5: Successes, Shortfalls & a Report Card on India’s Biggest Education Reform.” YouTube, 30 July 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bep6AL5Wy2c. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

TIMESOFINDIA.COM. “Cabinet Approves New National Education Policy: Key Points.” The Times of India, Times of India, 29 July 2020, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/cabinet-approves-new-national-education-policy-key-points/articleshow/77241129.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

TIMESOFINDIA.COM. “New Education Policy 2020: Less Focus on ‘Board Exams’, Common University Entrance Test for College Admissions, More Emphasis on Regional Languages.” The Times of India, 30 July 2020, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/parenting/teen/new-education-policy-2020-less-focus-on-board-exams-common-university-entrance-test-for-college-admissions-more-emphasis-on-regional-languages/photostory/77257851.cms?picid=77257862. Accessed 24 Dec. 2025.

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Research Project: Hindu Mythology (posted by Eliza)

The three main gods in Hinduism are Brahma, the creator god, Vishnu, the preserver god, and Shiva, the destroyer god (only of bad things, don't worry!). Each of the three main gods has a wife to compliment their talents. The three wives are Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and the sister of Shiva, Lakshmi, the goddess of money, and Parvati, the goddess of power. Almost everything comes back to the trimurti. My research topic is about four gods / goddesses whom I think are very interesting.

Ganesha

Ganesha's story starts in a mountainside bathhouse. When Shiva was off on a business trip, his wife, Parvati, needed someone to guard the door whilst she was bathing. So, out of her bathing soaps and oils, Parvati made her son, Ganesha. Parvati ordered him to guard the door. Likewise, when Shiva came back from his trip early, just to find he wasn't let in, he got very frustrated. Shiva and Ganesha dueled, and Shiva chopped off Ganesha's head. When Parvati came outside, like any mother, she got VERY angry. To avoid his wife's wrath, Shiva sent two of his disciples to go and fetch the first animal's head they saw. That is the story of how Ganesha got the head of an elephant!

Ganesha is the Hindu god of wisdom, prosperity, and good fortune. I have noticed Ganesha statues above the entryways of businesses and houses. People worship Ganesha with new businesses, new homes, and marriage. We met Sunil at Jagdish Temple in Udaipur, Sunil pointed out his big belly and said he was like Ganesha, his big belly being a sign of prosperity.

Krishna

Krishna's story starts in a prison cell. Krishna's parents, Devaki and Vasudeva, were being held captives by Devaki's brother, the unjust ruler Kamsa, who feared a prophecy that his nephew would kill him. Miraculously, when Krishna was born the bars swung open. Krishna is the 8th reincarnation of Vishnu, the protector god. Vishnu has been reincarnated nine times when the world has been endangered. The ten avatars of Vishnu are:

1. Matsya - the Fish

2. Kurma - the Tortoise

3. Varaha - the Boar

4. Narasimha - the Man-Lion

5. Vamana - the Dwarf

6. Parasurama - the Angry Man

7. Lord Rama - the Perfect Man

8. Lord Krishna - the Divine Statesman

9. Balarama - Krishna’s Elder Brother

When the world is in danger soon there will be a tenth avatar, Kalki - The Mighty Warrior.

Krishna is almost always depicted with his flute in hand, although Dad and I saw one mural where baby Krishna is drinking milk out of cow's udders. Krishna is the god of love, compassion, protection, and divine play. Essentially, Krishna has blue skin. He went to his lover and threw blue pigment to try and change her skin, then his lover beat him on the head with a stick. Do you recognize anything? This childish prank started Holi! 

Krishna is also the teacher in the Bhadavad Gita, which is basically the Hindu Bible. In the Bhadavad Gita cousins are competing for the throne and they are about to go to war. In the crowd Arjuna sees teachers, friends, and family. Arjuna says to his friend and charioteer, who is also Krishna, that he can not fight. Krishna then talks about reincarnation and Dharma and stuff. Arjuna asks how he knows this. Now Krishna talks about how he is the taste in food, the light in the sun, etc. Arjuna asks if Krishna can show his true form, so Krishna gives Arjuna the gift of divine seeing. Arjuna sees the past, present  and future.

Hanuman

Hanuman was born with the head of a monkey. His mother is Queen Anjana and I can not even imagine what she was thinking at the time. Just as Krishna is a reincarnation of Vishnu, Hanuman is the reincarnation of Shiva, the destroyer god, although Hanuman was not born to save the world. When the monkey was born he was hungry. Hanuman thought the sun was a fruit, so he flew up to eat it. Seeing what Hanuman was up to, the Goddess of thunder struck him dead. Then Shiva had to come and resurrect him. As a child, Hanuman was very mischievous. When he was a teenager, Hanuman went into the woods where he found a sage praying, and Hanuman stole the headpiece from the sage's head. Little did Hanuman know, the sage was actually Rama, the 7th reincarnation of Vishnu. Then Sita, Rama's wife, gets abducted by a demon, Rama and his brother go to find Hanuman for help. Hanuman says yes, and leads an army of monkeys to support Rama in the Ramayana.

After the fighting finished, Hanuman meditated for a long time to become at peace with himself. Hanuman is the god of courage, strength, and self-discipline. If children have nightmares, then parents take them to a Hanuman temple. I watched a video where they interviewed a local lady. She said the monkeys go to the Hanuman temple because they know nobody will come after them with sticks there, since Hanuman is the god of monkeys. I will say that she was very right. 

The Hanuman temple we visited was in Udaipur next to the lake. There were quite a few trees where the monkeys were looking down at you from. I think it was one of the few spots where locals actually fed monkeys.

Durga

I would start off by telling you how Durga was born, but Durga was never born - she was made. Some people would say when Parvati, Shiva's wife, was born, because Parvati turns into Durga when  she gets really angry. Vishnu and Shiva made Durga when a demon buffalo threatened to destroy the world. Durga faced the demon buffalo and his troops with her lion by her side. Durga and her lion beat the troops to a bloody pulp. Then they were face to face with the demon buffalo. At first, Durga wasn't too angry, but when he hurt her lion she went berserk. She chopped off the head of the demon buffalo. Then he turned into a lion, and she chopped off his head, too. The lion became an elephant, and she chopped off his head. Then the elephant turned into a boar and then she chopped off his head again. Finally, he became his buffalo self again. She chopped off his head once and for all. 

Durga is usually shown with 10 or more arms to hold her weapons, and she's basically a killing machine. Now you can probably see why Shiva really didn't want to anger his wife when he chopped off Ganesha's head. Durga is the goddess of protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga is like Athena but way cooler.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Hinduism is both sacred and profane. One example is the yearly pilgrimage. Up to 18,000,000 pilgrims go to Sabarimala, a temple about 70 miles from Kochi every year. The men go on pilgrimages both to get spiritually cleansed and for a boys outing.We saw hundreds of pilgrims at the airport. The pilgrims wear all black, don't shave for a month and are all barefoot. On the women's side of things, there's Pushkar Lake. Women go there both to be in the holy water and to hang out with their friends and go shopping. Also at Pushkar lake there are the priests who say a prayer for you. At the start they say the choice is totally up to you for the payment but by the end they are pressuring you to give them $40. so it is quite hard to tell if they are holy men or complete con artists. Another example that I saw was a mural of a muscle-bound Hanuman, with some of the other gods that were born with animal heads. They're kind of depicted as super heroes, which made it pretty different from the sacred drawings in the Ramayana. I've only gotten to tell you about four Hindu deities, but there are thousands out there.