Education News

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…

Maharashtra: Exams U-turn

There is growing opposition within Maharashtra’s students and parents communities against a UGC (University Grants Commission) July 6 order directing universities to conduct final year exams of affiliated colleges for…

Delhi: Yet another quota

On the day (August 5) when the United Nations confirmed that the education of more than 1.5 billion children in 160 countries including India, has been severely disrupted and endangered…

They said it in June

“On one hand, a porous lockdown makes sure that the virus will still exist and as you said, it is still waiting to hit you when you will unlock. So…

Tamil Nadu: Grim future – Tuition fees

The Madras High Court has passed strictures against the AIADMK-led state government for restraining private schools and colleges from collecting tuition fees from parents, as this has led to non-payment…

Karnataka: Battle won – online teaching

An out-of-the-blue statewide ban imposed by the Karnataka government on online teaching-learning in pre-primaries and lower primary (up to class V) schools on June 15, provoked mass outrage within middle…

Kolkata schools to come up with revised fees

West Bengal: Brightening horizon – Private schools

The coronavirus aka covid-19 pandemic has swooped down on the country’s 375,000 private unaided (independent) schools and estimated 400,000 budget private schools (BPS) like a totally unexpected black swan calamity.…

Maharashtra: Cloudy outlook – Teachers’ community

Maharashtra’s teachers’ community has become the unsuspecting casualty of the state’s messy post Covid-19 lockdown education system. Scores of preschool to higher secondary private school teachers have lost their jobs…

Delhi: NIRF Rankings 2020

The fifth edition of the NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) Rankings 2020 released by the Union ministry of human resource development on June 11 has generated considerable excitement in some…

West Bengal: TMC trump card – Supercyclone Amphan

While all of India and the world was fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the east coast state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million) which has reported a modest 5,772 Covid positive…

They said it in May

“With the existing digital divide, expanding online education will push the digital havenots to the periphery of the education system, thereby increasing inequity in educational outcomes.” Protiva Kundu of the…

Tamil Nadu: Dire financial condition

Tamil Nadu’s 18,000 private unaided and 16,500 budget private schools (BPS) are experiencing an unprecedented financial crunch. Because of the Covid-19 lockdown — education institutions in the state have been…

Karnataka: Private preschools predicament

Although the 68 day-national lockdown prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic has hit the entire education sector hard, it has perhaps hit pre-primaries, aka preschools, hardest. In Karnataka, 185 standalone preschools…

Maharashtra: Exam cancellation politics

Over 1,000,000 final year students of universities across Maharashtra are exhibiting signs of panic about whether their final pre-graduation exams will be held at all this year. If cancelled, those…

Delhi: Restart dithering

As India gradually unlocks from the 68-day national lockdown which began on March 25, the Covid-19 spike continues to climb steeply. Nevertheless, two national school boards — CBSE and CISCE…

They said it in April

“I don’t want people to say ‘Oh, environmentalists are celebrating this lockdown.’ We are not. This is not the solution. But whatever the new normal is post-Covid-19, we have to…

Maharashtra: Hard times confrontation

Private unaided aka independent, schools across Maharashtra are up in arms against a directive of the state’s Shiv Sena-led tri-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to waive school fees for…

Karnataka: Foolish populism

Widespread protests by school managements and an online petition demanding public support for private school teachers which attracted over 26,700 signatures, has compelled the state government to amend a March…

State government directives on tuition fees

With the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdown forcing the mass closure of education institutions, several state governments have issued circulars directing private school managements not to collect tuition fees during…

West Bengal: Beneficial fallout

In March, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was riding a wave of popularity for her deft management of the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the country, which has provoked a national…

Delhi: Constructive response

The rapid countrywide spread of the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent national lockdown of all education institutions from Kg-Ph D has disrupted the academic year 2019-20 which was drawing to a…

They said it in March

“Education must deal with the deeper anxieties of the young in order to retain its own sanctity and credibility. The hatred that found open expression for some days in north-east Delhi has…

Karnataka: Crisis opportunity

The upside of the global rampage of the Coronavirus, aka Covid-19 pandemic, which at the time of writing (April 2) has infected 1 million people worldwide and caused 53,238 deaths — and 2,567 and…

West Bengal: Swift response plaudits

Although neither chief minister Mamata Banerjee nor any leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has publicly articulated it, the top brass of West Bengal’s ruling party — a breakaway of the…

Tamil Nadu: Exams U-turn

With all 62,303 k-12 schools in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) shut down since March 16, prior to the national lockdown decreed by the Central government on March 25 due to the…

Maharashtra: Curious exams fervour

Maharashtra’s five-months-old three-party (Shiv Sena, Congress and Nationalist Congress) Maha Vikas Aaghadi (MVA) government is under fire for having pressed ahead to complete the school-leaving exams of the Maharashtra State Board of…