As admissions for 2018-19 close for professional education programmes, the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 67 million), which steered the nationwide private engineering colleges building boom of the 1990s, is confronted with the prospect of huge vacancies in these institutions. When the final round of counselling was completed on August 29, of the 68,404 seats […]
“Intellectualism was never associated with Indian politicians, but never before have there been such blatant attempts to de-intellectualise the country as now.”
Anand Teltumbde in ‘The New Normal in Modi’s New India’ (Economic & Political Weekly, August 4)
“Why do we hesitate to spend on them? Why do we constantly look for ways to reduce the […]
Strident protests and threats of prolonged litigation by Maharashtras powerful coaching classes and test prep schools lobby have torpedoed the state governments Private Coaching Classes Regulatory Bill which had been readied for enactment in the monsoon session (July 14-August 30) of the state legislative assembly. The states BJP-Shiv Sena coalition government was determined to enact […]
By ending 34 years ofuninterrupted misrule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government in West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in 2011, and winning a second term for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with a landslide mandate in the 2016 assembly election, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has not only established herself in West Bengal […]
Reckless negligence andflouting of safety norms by schools and colleges continue to take a grim toll of childrens lives in Tamil Nadu. Although a plethora of safety guidelines have been issued by the Central and state governments following a horrifying fire at the private aided Sri Krishna Saraswathi English Medium School, Kumbakonam in 2004 in […]
The politics of language in education is back on the agenda in the southern state of Karnataka (pop.67 million). On July 5, in his maiden budget speech, Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, also finance minister, announced the two-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition governments decision of introducing English medium education in 1,000 government schools, starting from […]
Since children lack both the political resource of ‘voice and the consumer resource of ‘choice, they are ignored by the state, ill-used by the market, and made invisible by society.Manabi Majumdar, professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata (www.thewire.in, July 2)
The IT industry has created bonded labour for years together, making money through labour […]
According to all indications, its finally curtains for the University Grants Commission (UGC, estb.1956), a Soviet-style over-arching control-and-command body (fashioned after the British University Committee, UK, shut down in 1989). For 62 of Indias 70 years as an independent nation, UGC has presided over its higher education system monitoring and accrediting the countrys higher education […]
Following heavy criticism from the media (especially EducationWorld) and the tragic suicide of 17-year-old Anitha, an aspiring medical student who topped the class XII state board exam but failed to clear NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) for admission into medical colleges countrywide, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government led by chief minister […]
Three decades after introduction of the awards-winning Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) across the country, Tamil Nadu (pop.72.1 million) remains the only state that does not host a single one. JNVs are classes VI-XII co-ed, rural, residential schools affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and administered by the Noida-based Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti […]
The tragic suicide of 17-year-old Anitha, an aspiring medical student from a Dalit family in rural Tamil Nadu (pop.72.1 million) on September 1, has sent shockwaves across the country and sparked huge protests by several political parties, college students and activists in the state. Anitha’s tragedy was that she averaged 98 percent in the class […]
After a record breaking 104 days, the general strike in the Darjeeling hills district of West Bengal by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) which is demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal, was called off on September 27, following an appeal by Union home minister Rajnath Singh. Singh said […]
Maharashtra’s night schools, which run evening classes to provide classes V-XII state board education for economically weaker sections of society (irrespective of age and gender) unable to attend day schools, are facing an acute shortage of teachers since the beginning of the current academic year (2017-18). That’s because a government resolution (GR) dated May 17 […]
The initiative of the vintage but continuously parochialised University of Mumbai (MU, estb. 1857) to replace manual assessment of students’ examination papers with an online evaluation system has come a cropper with technological disruptions and tedious processes delaying results for most of the university’s undergrad and postgraduate students. The delay has impacted 425,000 students who […]
It’s hardly a national secret that the biggest drag on national development are the BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) Hindi-belt states of the Indian Union. Among them, Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (215 million) state — is commonly believed to be the country’s most lawless and educationally backward, with the possible […]
The Madras high court has struck down the Tamil Nadu Establishment of Private Law Colleges (Prohibition) Act, 2014 which had banned the promotion of new private law colleges in the state. A division bench which heard a batch of three writ petitions on October 26 ruled: “There is a difference between restriction or regulation and […]
The southern state of Karnataka (pop. 64 million) is staring at a massive teacher shortage crisis in primary-secondary education. According to a survey report of the Union HRD ministry (Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan) titled Teacher Demand and Supply in Secondary Schools, released in May, only 5.3 percent of the state’s 14,937 secondary schools and 7.2 […]
FOR THE SECOND YEAR in a row, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government — which swept to power in the Delhi state legislative assembly last year routing the fancied BJP — tabled an education-focused Budget 2016-17 on March 29. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, also the finance and education minister, announced an outlay of Rs.10,690 […]
THE BJP-SHIV SENA government of Maharashtra (pop.112 million), which swept to power with a huge majority in the state’s legislative assembly election of October 2014, is set to make Marathi a compulsory subject for primary (class I-VII) children in all schools, no exceptions. Hitherto primary-secondaries affiliated with the pan-India Delhi-based Council for the Indian School […]
THE MANAGEMENTS OF TAMIL NADU’S 580 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and 52 Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) schools got a respite on January 28 when the Supreme Court passed an interim order restraining the Justice S.R. Singaravelu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee (PSFDC) from interfering with tuition fees charged by […]
AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE engineered to track the number of children in government primary schools with the objective of controlling wastage of social benefits — free mid-day meals, textbooks, uniforms etc — has yielded unexpected data. Of the total 159,625 state government primary-secondary schools, 6,898 have less than 25 students on their muster rolls while 22,959 […]
CAMPAIGNING IS IN FULL swing in West Bengal for the state’s 16th legislative assembly election which begins on April 4 and concludes on May 5. During its first term in office, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government led by the fiery trade unionist Mamata Banerjee, who improbably ended the uninterrupted 34-year rule over the state of […]
“Sedition is an anachronistic crime but it is unfortunate if a country starts using it more actively.”
Amal Clooney, human rights lawyer, addressing the India Today Conclave in New Delhi (March 18)
“What we give to the poor are called subsidies but what we give to the rich is known as incentive. The government gives thousands of crores […]
With only one of india’s 800 universities (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) ranked among the Top 200 in the World University Rankings (WURs) league tables published annually by the reputed London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education and Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University, the 18-month-old BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has devised an out-of-the-box solution. […]
The BJP/Shiv Sena government of Maharashtra — India’s most industrial state (pop.112 million) — is under opposition fire for its suggestions made to the Delhi-based Union human resource development ministry which is putting the finishing touches to its much awaited New Education Policy (NEP). The report uploaded on the state government’s website on November 9, […]
Persistent attempts by the dominant regional parties in Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) to make all school children statewide study Tamil, including students of 6,500 private matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu), 565 schools affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and 468 Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), have […]
It’s an indicator of the magnitude of the scale of educated unemployed in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million), where too few jobs were created during 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (1977-2011) because of a prolonged private investment famine and flight of capital. The Teacher […]
On November 16, following a supreme court directive of September 8, the Bangalore-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC, estb.1994), which appraises and accredits institutions of higher education in India, cleared 38 private universities which were among 44 universities across the country that had been recommended for derecognition by the Tandon Committee (2009) for “aberrations […]
“Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble.”
US President Barack Obama calling for a cap on time spent on standardised testing in US classrooms “to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing” (Time, November 9)
“There is an imperative need in India to have these issues discussed openly, beginning with the pervasive […]
On the first ever world youth Skills day (July 15), the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government launched the Skill India initiative, the third such ambitious programme after Make in India and Digital India in recent months. A National Skill Development Mission and a new National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (NPSDE) 2015 are […]
Like the BJP/NDA government at the Centre, nine months into its first term the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, led by the previously unknown Devendra Fadnavis, is mired in corruption scandals. The Maharashtra legislative council has asked women and child welfare minister Pankaja Munde to provide a written explanation for orally ordering supplies (books, food) […]
Quite obviously, primary teaching jobs are highly prized in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million). In the West Bengal primary TET (teacher eligibility test) 2015 scheduled to be conducted by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) within the framework of the NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) on August […]
In the popular narrative of spokespersons and acolytes of the BJP/NDA government which was swept to power in Delhi in General Election 2014 — with the BJP emerging as the first political party since 1985 to win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha — the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop.65 million), ruled by […]
It was too good to last. The sole preserve in the education continuum — early childhood care and education (ECCE) — which had escaped the heavy regulatory hand of government for over six decades, has lost its independence.
On June 12, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) promulgated post-independence India’s first draft code […]
Karnataka’s 10.2 million students enroled in 76,000 state board-affiliated government, private aided and unaided primary-secondary schools who began the new academic year 2015-16 in June, are obliged to make do with previous years’ error-ridden textbooks. Several textbook committees constituted by the Congress state government after it assumed office in May 2013 following the rout of […]
A seven-day protest fast by magsaysay award winner (2002) Sandeep Pandey against Lucknow’s top-ranked City Montessori School (CMS) over its refusal to admit children from economically weaker sections (EWS) under s.12 (1) (c) of the controversial Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act), has created a major stir in […]
“A brand needs to reinvent itself. It also needs to keep its reputation untarnished. A brand like IIT can’t be setting wrong questions”.
Anand Kumar, founder of the Super 30 IIT-JEE coaching programme, in a critique of the IITs (Outlook, July 6)
“Cut eight days of military spending to give all children access to 12 years of free […]
The mysterious death of a class IX student in one of Lucknow’s most prestigious schools has triggered loud protests and allegations of a cover-up against the school management and the state police, besides drawing political parties into the brewing imbroglio.
On April 11, Rahul Sridhar (15) reportedly leapt to his death from the fourth floor parapet […]
Five years after the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which makes it mandatory for the State to provide free and compulsory elementary (class I-VIII) education to all children between 6-14 years of age became operational on April 1, 2010, several provisions of this hastily drafted law continue to attract controversy.
Initially, […]
The validity of the vintage observation that a picture is worth a thousand words was not only proved right, but amplified to a million when a photograph of dozens of parents, friends and relatives scaling the walls of a four-storey building in Manhar village (Vaishali district), 60 km from Patna, to pass notes and chits […]
Delhi University (DU) has advised colleges to avoid scheduling consecutive classes of Value Addition Courses...
The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the final answer keys for the Common University...
