Education News

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 […]

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 […]

“Christianity is hard to control in China, and getting harder all the time. It is spreading rapidly and infiltrating the party’s own ranks.”

The Economist on how the rapid spread of Christianity is forcing an official rethink on religion (November 7)

“There is ample evidence that mythology is substituting history and that textbooks now in circulation will make […]