That public education is a low priority of the Congress party is hardly a national secret. Although the global average outlay for education is 5 percent of GDP and the Kothari Commission recommended 6 percent way back in 1966, post-independence India’s (Centre plus states) annual allocation for education has never exceeded 4 percent of GDP […]
Five months after a devastating fire in Mantralaya — headquarters of the Maharashtra state government — which destroyed the offices of the chief minister and the deputy chief minister on June 21, and took a toll of two dead and 16 injured, a survey made public on October 29, reveals that an estimated 1.64 million […]
A century ago the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million) was the epicentre of India’s intellectual and cultural renaissance under great scholars such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dwarkanath and Rabindranath Tagore. But since then, the state’s intellectual tradition has been reduced to a sorry condition following the 34 years (1977-2011) rule […]
A spate of media reports highlighting that the 83-year-old unitary Annamalai University (AU, estb. 1929) sited in Chidambaram, is reeling under a severe financial crisis has taken the academic community in the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu — and Chennai in particular — by shock and surprise. There is bewilderment within academia and […]
Right until the late 1970s, one of India’s most respected universities — especially for graduating highly skilled and industry-ready engineers — Bangalore University (BU, estb. 1964), which has 600 colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students affiliated with it, has suffered a precipitous decline in norms and standards during the past quarter century. Industry […]
“Arvind Kejriwal has no answer for how they’ll find honest candidates.”
Social activist Anna Hazare (India Today, November 5)
“The success of the 16th President teaches that hard times are precisely when political dexterity is needed most. Politics is the machinery by which we meet tough challenges. Lincoln drilled this idea into his closest aides…” David Von Drehle on […]
Child rights champions and activists in the national capital are up in arms against Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Mehta Vidyalaya, a private school which has reportedly been levying above normative tuition fees upon students with disabilities. In a public interest litigation (PIL) writ petition filed against the school by well-known NGO Social Jurist, a division bench […]
Sixteen years ago, Maharashtra (pop. 112 million) — India’s most industrialized state accounting for 25 percent of the country’s industrial production — became the first state of the Indian Union to declare special education for challenged children a major priority and announced sweeping changes (Maharashtra has 600 special schools exclusively for children with various types […]
The tumultuous reign of Dr. N. Prabhu Dev as vice chancellor of Bangalore University (BU, estb.1964), which has 600 colleges in Karnataka with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students affiliated with it, ended four months prematurely on October 13 when he submitted his resignation to Karnataka governor and ex officio BU chancellor H.R. Bhardwaj. Prabhu […]
Nine students of Gujarat National Law University (GNLU, estb. 2003), who filed a writ petition in the high court against GNLU challenging a varsity order detaining them in the third year of their five-year degree course, have won a major victory.
In a judgement delivered on October 17, Justice K.S. Jhaveri upheld the petition which challenged the […]
Estranged from the Congress-led UPA-II government in New Delhi, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government passed the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Act, 2012 on September 27. Following approval of the Act by the state legislative assembly, a state government representative will replace the UGC member on the search panel to select vice chancellors of the […]
Reports of continuous mismanagement of the city-based Pachaiyappa Trust (PT, estb. 1842), which runs 15 educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, have been hitting the newspaper headlines in Chennai for over two months, raising doubts about whether the government-aided education model is serving any public purpose.
Founded by munificent philanthropist Pachaiyappa Mudaliar 170 years ago, PT manages […]
“We’re not saying anything new but that’s the beauty of the plan.” Pawan Agarwal, advisor (higher education) to the Planning Commission on the 12th Five Year Plan (Forbes, October 12)
“A deal over the border has for years been self-evident: China gets to keep Aksai Chin in the west and India gets to keep the 80,000 sq. […]
The long-standing proposal of the Union government to establish 14 autonomous ‘innovation universities’ — first announced by the National Knowledge Commission in 2010 and for which purpose a draft Universities for Research and Innovation Bill 2012 was tabled in Parliament in May (where it has been stuck in logjam following the prolonged disruption of parliamentary […]
Primary school education in Maharashtra (pop. 112 million) — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 25 percent of the country’s industrial production — is in pathetic condition. And this is official.
According to the latest flash statistics of the District Information System for Education (DISE) 2010-11 of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), […]
Following a spate of tragedies suffered by school children in Tamil Nadu which drew attention to public and official apathy towards child safety rules and regulations, a new scourge of sexual abuse of children is spreading through the state’s 55,567 government and aided and 10,000 private schools, further tarnishing the image of this southern state’s […]
A criminal indictment and trial which had hung like a malevolent cloud over Kolkata’s bhadralok (English literate middle class) — who pride themselves if their children are admitted into the elite La Martiniere for Boys School (LMB, estb. 1836) — was lifted on September 21. Delivering a 11-page written judgement, Judge Madhuchanda Bose, additional district […]
Well-known for his assertive — critics say authoritarian — style of putting his stamp and impress upon every sector of the economy of Gujarat (pop. 60 million), chief minister Narendra Modi is under fire for interfering with higher education institutions, particularly appointments of vice chancellors to universities in the state.
“When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.” Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention (Time, September 17)
“It was a deal worked out over dinner on the kitchen table. I made three dollars on this film, but they’re worth it.”
Author Salman Rushdie on […]
Pursuing higher education in India and abroad is set to become easier. The newly re-appointed Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announced that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA, estb. 1946), of which 173 banks — including 26 public, 23 private sector, 38 foreign banks with offices in India and 61 co-operative banks as also 25 financial […]
The dismal condition of 1,167 primary and secondary schools with an aggregate enrolment of 650,000 children, run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in India’s commercial capital (pop. 20.5 million), is now officially admitted. On July 26, by a resolution of the corporation, private educators including corporates, education trusts and NGOs were invited to take […]
Although the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) prides itself for its high academic standards and quality of schools, its school safety record is the mirror opposite of its academic attainments. Almost a decade ago on July 16, 2004, the state’s appalling child safety record hit national headlines when 93 primary school […]
After 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government during which era the education system of West Bengal (pop. 90 million) — once widely accepted as the best in India — was run into the ground by CPM apparatchiks and cadres, academics and parents expected major reforms after […]
Against the backdrop of the Right to Free & Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act) which makes it compulsory for the State, i.e the Central and/or state governments to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of six-14, the primary-higher secondary (class I-XII) education system in the southern state of […]
Privately promoted B-schools countrywide offering postgraduate diplomas in management (PGDM — considered equivalent to an MBA degree programme which can be offered only by University Grants Commission-approved universities) inched a step closer to financial autonomy on July 10. Delivering an interim order in AICTE vs. Education Promotion Society for India, Association of Indian Management Schools […]
The controversial and hotly debated Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which was substantially upheld by the Supreme Court’s April 12 verdict in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan vs. Union of India, has raised more questions than answers. While the apex court famously upheld the constitutional validity of s.12 (1) […]
A week-long (July 16-22) strike called by the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA), which boasts a membership of 1,800 private unaided schools, to protest the “clumsy” implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009 by the state government, received a lukewarm response. Only a handful of private unaided school managements responded to KUSMA’s […]
Following the end of 34 years of rule (1977-2011) of the Communist Party of India (CPM)-led Left Front government in West Bengal (pop. 90 million) in which private initiatives in higher education were strictly verboten, the legislative assembly passed the Techno India University Bill 2012 on July 6 to establish West Bengal’s first private university […]
The politics of confrontation practiced by the Narendra Modi government is adversely impacting education in Gujarat. The chief minister’s fetish for unrestricted control, which has ensured Gujarat remained without a Lok Ayukta (ombudsman) for most of his almost 11-year rule of the state, is now impacting the state’s education system.
Two key education Bills have become the subject of […]
“We’ve been waiting for it for 7,000 years. For the first time in history, we have our own President, elected by us.” Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party, whose candidate Mohamed Morsy became the country’s first democratically elected leader (Time, July 9)
With the release of Delhi University’s first cut-offs list for admission into its 65 affiliated colleges offering 54,000 undergraduate seats on June 25, the stage is set for implementing the new rules for admission of OBC (other backward castes/classes) students who have a 27 percent reserved quota in all Central government-funded higher education institutions.
A youth revolt is brewing in Mumbai (pop. 20.5 million) — India’s commercial capital and most cosmopolitan and westernised city. A series of police raids and crackdowns on pubs, restaurants, discotheques and party revellers over the past two months, is generating a surge of anger against the police and state government, particularly among influential and […]
A major examination scam has rocked the University of Madras (UoM, estb. 1857), exposing the deep rot which has seeped into and festers within this hallowed institution of higher education. An internal investigation conducted last December has unearthed a major tampering of marks racket and procedural lapses in the BE/B.Tech (arrears) exam last year. Tampering […]
The historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009, which came into force in the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 60 million) in the academic year 2012-13 started in June, is floundering in a sea of chaos.
On June 24, the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA), which has a membership of 1,600 private […]
With West Bengal’s education system swamped with apparatchiks and lumpenised cadres of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) which ruled the state (pop. 91 million) with an iron hand for 34 years (1977-2011) until the CPM-led Left Front coalition was routed in the legislative assembly elections last year, the successor Trinamool Congress (TMC) government led […]
“The coaching centres are giving training for the IIT entrance. As a result, students are not studying seriously for class XII exam and giving more attention to entrance. We want to get rid of coaching centres by giving more weightage to the board exam.”
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal on replacing IIT-JEE with a new common entrance […]
Over 100,000 copies of Indian Constitution at Work, a class XI political science textbook published by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) — the country’s largest (Central government controlled) school texts publisher — have been proscribed and withdrawn from the market following protest in Parliament by caste-based political parties on May 14. Their grouse: a cartoon […]
The Maharashtra state government has stayed its decision to implement the controversial s.12 (1) (c) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which makes it mandatory for all private unaided (financially independent) schools to admit 25 percent of children in class I or preschool from among poor households in their neighbourhood. Following the […]
Even as the BJP government in Karnataka (pop.60 million) has gone into overdrive during the past month to implement the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 in private day schools which — post the April 12 verdict of the Supreme Court — are obliged to reserve 25 percent capacity in class I for […]
Every May, the stress levels of millions of students (and parents) in the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million), scrambling for admission into the state’s 525 engineering and 39 medical colleges, rises in direct proportion to mercury levels. This year was no exception. Students and parents had to wait in serpentine queues to purchase […]
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