Education News

They said it in January

“The turning point in my life and Reliance’s life was when India embraced economic reforms. Liberalisation freed the suppressed entrepreneurial energies in our country and gave us the hum kissi…

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With the countdown for the west bengal legislative assembly polls scheduled in April/May having begun in right earnest, the prime contenders — the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress…

Tamil Nadu: Syllabus reduction conundrum

Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) Like most of India’s 33 school exam boards, the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Examinations (TNBSE) has reduced the syllabus for its classes X and XII school-leaving…

Madhya Pradesh: Merger proposal debate

Aditi Maheshwari (Bhopal) The BJP government of the state is set to merge all government schools situated within a 15 km radius of each other to reconstitute them into composite…

Karnataka: Fees order outrage

Amrita Ghosh (Bengaluru) Several associations of private schools are all set to file writ petitions in the high court against the constitutional validity of a January 30 state government directive…

Maharashtra: Massive shakeout

Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Shuttered for over nine months because of the national lockdown of all education institutions countrywide to prevent spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, a rising number of private…

Delhi: Missed reform opportunity

Autar Nehru (Delhi) The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 hammered out after a gap of 34 years last July, promised to increase the national outlay for education to 6 percent…

They said it in December

“When people come out on the streets to protest against a law, they are not merely disagreeing but are questioning the legitimacy of the government. This is why the government…

Tamil Nadu: Unseen children

– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) The AIADMK government has cancelled half-yearly examinations in all 39,300 government and government-aided schools in the state. Over 6.7 million children enrolled in these schools statewide…

West Bengal: Teachers recruitment imbroglio

– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With the state legislative assembly election a mere four months away, political jousting in West Bengal (pop.91 million) is getting more fierce by the day. The…

Maharashtra: Unseemly wrangling

– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) From mid-January onwards, 8,000 private unaided schools across Maharashtra will block online classes for students with unpaid fees. The state’s independent schools say they have been…

Delhi: Nursery admissions anxiety

– Autar Nehru (Delhi) The state government’s dithering over notifying guidelines for nursery admissions in Delhi for the academic year 2021-22, is generating confusion among young parents and school managements.…

They said it in November

“I may be the first woman in this office but won’t be the last… Every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. And to the…

West Bengal: Anti-incumbency mountain

– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With only six months to go before the legislative assembly election is held in West Bengal next summer, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is seeking a third…

Tamil Nadu: Treading warily

– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) The AIADMK-led state government has bit the bullet and reopened in-campus classes in higher education institutions (HEIs) on December 7. The reopening order issued under the…

Karnataka: Educators exasperation

– Bandana Brahmin (Bengaluru) There is mounting exasperation among educationists in the state over the BJP government’s repeated postponement of the date for reopening education institutions for fear of children…

Maharashtra Reservations quagmire

– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) The state government has been forced to resume online admissions for 210,482 first-year junior college (FYJC) students after the Bombay high court (November 24) reprimanded it…

Delhi: Rising reopening pressure

– Autar Nehru (Delhi) Almost every private school and education minister at the Centre and in the states have been proclaiming great success in smoothly switching over to online teaching-learning…

They said it in October

“We have this unfortunate situation where everybody from the Supreme Court to the Central government wants to ‘regulate’ the media. People, aam janata, by and large are tired and sniggering…

Tamil Nadu: Weakening resolve

With tamil nadu’s Coronavirus infection rates and fatalities falling from a peak of 57,968 (July) and 127 (August) to 18,709 and 25 in November, the state’s AIADMK government is mulling…

West Bengal: Widening digital divide

With West Bengal’s 81,000 primary, secondary and higher secondary government schools and 600 private schools with an aggregate enrolment of 26 million children shut down since mid-March because of the…

West Bengal: Tuition fees slashed

– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) An October 13 judgement of the Calcutta high court slashing tuition fees payable to private schools with retrospective effect from April this year, has dismayed promoters…

Rajasthan: Private schools strike

Over 48,000 private schools of Rajasthan (pop.78 million) with an aggregate enrolment of 5 million children, which were conducting online classes for their students since April after the Central government…

School reopening experience The Chintels School

Maharashtra: School fees agitation

– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Irate parents and parents associations in Maharashtra are protesting the state government’s inaction in reducing private school fees for the academic year 2020-21. On social media…

Delhi: Digital learning myth

– Autar Nehru (Delhi) A mid-term annual status of Education Report (ASER Wave 1) 2020 released by the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation on October 28 confirms that a mere…

They said it in September

“Government intervention should be minimum in the new education policy. The more teachers and students are associated with the policy, the better will be its functionality and its results.” –…

Karnataka: Heavy dithering price

– Special Correspondent (Bangalore) The vacillation of the BJP government of Karnataka on the issue of reopening K-12 schools in the state is causing great confusion within school managements, parents’…

Tamil Nadu: Quota politics

– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) A new bill providing a 7.5 percent quota within the existing reservation totaling 69 percent of all seats in Tamil Nadu’s 50 medical colleges was passed…

West Bengal: NEP 2020 antagonism

– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With the West Bengal legislative elections scheduled for May 2021 fast approaching, the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) has reportedly drawn up a multi-pronged strategy…

Maharashtra: Quota upon quotas

– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) The state’s tri-party Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government comprising the Shiv Sena, Indian National Congress (INC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), suffered a major…

Delhi: Cautious restart

– Autar Nehru (Delhi) The academic year for higher education institutions which should have begun in July/ August is scheduled to begin from November 1 this year, according to latest…

They said it in August

“In the year after the pandemic schools will have to revisit, in some part at least, the instruction undertaken during the pandemic months and allow their students some leeway to…

West Bengal: Good ill-wind

– Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) Postponed twice for fear of spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) for admission into the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and top-ranked…

Tamil Nadu: Needless resurrection

– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) Although the All India ADMK (AIADMK) ruling party is an ally of the BJP/NDA government at the Centre, the three languages learning formula for all school-going…

Maharashtra: Faculty predicament

– Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) Faculty of an estimated 62 engineering colleges in the Mumbai metropolitan region have not received their salaries since end-March when the BJP/NDA government at the Centre…

Delhi: Reopening dilemma

– Avtar Nehru (Delhi) The unlock 4.0 guidelines announced by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on August 29 which extended the long period (since mid-March) of the closure of…

They said it in July

“I always say it is intellectually lazy for people to advocate herd immunity, because basically it is giving up. It is saying we do not want to work hard on…

West Bengal: NEP 2020 words war

The third National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 approved by the Union Cabinet headed by prime minister Narendra Modi after four years of preparation on July 29, replacing the 34-year-old National…

Tamil Nadu: Soft quota option

Responding to insistent demand, an ordinance providing a 7.5 percent reserved quota in Tamil Nadu’s 41 government and private medical colleges for students of state government higher secondary schools who…

Karnataka: Syllabus pruning row

With Karnataka’s 49,855 government schools shuttered for five months following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the state’s education ministry issued an order on July 25 directing the Karnataka Text…