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 […]
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.
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 […]
The brihanmumbai municipal Corporation (BMC) aka Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the richest civic government in India, presented its budget for 2015-16 on February 5. In the Rs.33,514.15 crore budget, education has been allocated a substantial Rs.2,500.89 crore (7.46 percent) to inter alia promote ten new schools, establish 200 computer labs in the corporation’s […]
Ict (information communication technology)-enabled school education in the western sea-board state of Gujarat (pop. 65 million), projected by the propaganda machine of the BJP as India’s model state because Narendra Modi served there as chief minister for almost three successive terms (2001-2014) before he was catapulted to the prime minister’s office following the BJP’s huge […]
Conterminously with the Supreme Court having struck down s. 66A of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 which allowed police countrywide to arrest individuals for posting any ‘offensive content’ on the internet, the Uttar Pradesh government’s department of secondary education has proscribed interaction between teachers and students on the internet, aka, the social media.
The obstinate refusal of the Congress government, voted to power in the legislative assembly election of May 2013, to accept several verdicts of the Karnataka high court and the Supreme Court which have struck down a 1994 government order making Kannada or the mother tongue the medium of instruction in all primary schools (class I-V) […]
Morale in West Bengal’s once famous academy is at an all-time low following continuous student agitations, institutional mismanagement, political interference and rampant lawlessness on campuses during the past few years.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government, which ended 34 years of hegemony of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) over the state in 2011 when it swept […]
Perhaps for the first time in the history of post-independence India, the Union Budget 2015-16 has reduced the Central government’s outlay for education from Rs.82,771 crore in 2014-15 to Rs.69,074 crore in the current year. The rationale advanced for this shocking neglect of the world’s largest population of children and youth is that with the […]
“He was among the tallest leaders of our times. Singapore’s transformation in one generation is a tribute to his leadership… His achievements and thoughts give me confidence in the possibility of India’s own transformation.”
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s tribute to Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founder-prime minister who died on March 23 (March 29)
Even as a task force of the Union HRD ministry is preparing a paper on ‘National Framework of Ranking of Universities and Colleges Suited to Local Conditions, Circumstances and Requirements,’ an EY-FICCI (Ernst & Young-Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry) report on higher education has advised the ministry to identify 100 higher education […]
Educationists in Mumbai — India’s commercial capital — are up in arms against a Central government July 11 notification which obliges private education providers to pay 12.36 percent service tax.
In September 2013, the Congress-led UPA-II government at the Centre had exempted education institutions from paying service tax on all services to encourage the improvement and […]
A bill prohibiting the promotion of private law colleges tabled in the Tamil Nadu state legislative assembly, has drawn strong criticism from lawyers, and judges across the state.
According to the preamble of The Tamil Nadu Establishment of Private Law Colleges (Prohibition) Bill (TNEPLC (P) B) tabled in the assembly on July 30, “… past experience […]
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s native state Gujarat, which he served as chief minister for three consecutive terms before he led the Bharatiya Janata Party to an epic victory in General Election 2014, has become the first state countrywide to install an e-surveillance system which has the potential to curb mass cheating in secondary and higher […]
The ruling trinamool congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is slipping deeper into the quicksand of the Saradha ponzi scam in which the savings of 1.7 million low-income households aggregating an estimated Rs.20,000 crore were misappropriated by the Saradha Group — a consortium of over 200 private companies — managed by Sudipto Sen reportedly close […]
Since july 14, when the heinous rape of a six-year-old girl child of the upmarket CISCE-affiliated Vibgyor High School was reported in Bangalore, the city has witnessed a spate of child sexual abuse crimes. Over the past five months, nine cases of child molestation/rape have been reported within K-12 schools in the city. According to […]
THE 60-DAY-OLD narendra Modi-led NDA-II government is set to consolidate all skill development programmes currently administered by 21 ministries and departments of the Central government, under a newly-created Union ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship (SDE). With the Union Budget 2014-15 presented to Parliament by finance minister Arun Jaitley on July 10, having allocated an […]
THE HEINOUS RAPE OF a six-year-old girl child of the upmarket CISCE-affiliated Vibgyor High School in Bangalore on July 3 allegedly by two school-appointed gym instructors, has shaken the garden city’s community of parents. Since the ghastly crime was reported to the police on July 14 by the girl’s father, the city has witnessed strident […]
LIBERAL APPREHENSIONS that the sweeping victory of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in General Election 2014 would result in tampering and messing with school curriculums, are proving to be justified in Gujarat where a BJP government has been in power since 2001.
On June 30 the Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB) issued a circular […]
AFTER PREVARICATING for four years and delaying payments due to managements of 8,000 private unaided schools which admitted children from poor households in their neighbourhoods, the Maharashtra state government has approved disbursal of the fee reimbursement due to them. Under a July 16 notification, the state government has increased the formerly promised tuition fee reimbursement […]
SHORTLY AFTER THE trinamool Congress party, which ended the 34-year uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front coalition in West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in the summer of 2011, was installed in Writers Building, Kolkata, a 19-member school syllabus reform committee was appointed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee to sanitise school […]
A JUNE 30 CIRCULAR of the delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) directing all its 15,000 affiliated schools countrywide to celebrate Sanskrit Week from August 7-13 has provoked hatred, ridicule and contempt in Tamil Nadu (pop: 72 million).
According to the circular, “the celebration of Sanskrit Week would provide a medium for popularising Sanskrit and […]
FEAR OF FAILURE, LACK OF cooperation from family, inability to control anger, sleeplessness, and poor communication skills. These are just some of the problems suffered by class X students of government schools in Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous state (200 million) — according to a first-of-its-type study conducted by the State Council for Educational […]
“The expansion of public services and social support in India, such as it is, has little to do with any nostalgia for Nehruvian socialism. It is a natural development in a country with a modicum of democracy.” Jean Dreze, well-known developmental economist, on criticism of social sector spending (The Hindu, July 8)
CHAOS OVER NURSERY admissions in Delhi is becoming more confounded with parents resorting to fraud and trickery to get children admitted into the nurseries of the city’s estimated 6,600 composite schools, which ensures a smooth passage in school education for the next 12 years.
After an investigation by the state government’s education ministry unearthed that, “out […]
IT’S A CURIOUS PARADOX of india’s most industrial — and arguably most corrupt — state that vacancies in the state’s engineering colleges have spiralled above 34 percent from less than 1 percent in 2009, while simultaneously 94 additional colleges with an intake capacity of 67,181 additional students have become operational. A 21-member committee led by […]
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