One year after the ambitious National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was presented to the nation by prime minister Narendra Modi on July 29, 2020, the southern state of Karnataka (pop.68.4 million) has become the first countrywide to implement its higher education reform proposals.
On August 7, the BJP state government issued a circular to […]
AAP’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal (right) & education minister Manish Sisodia
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has ruled Delhi state since 2015 and took on and bested the BJP in the state legislative election of 2020 shortly after the saffron party had swept to power in General Election 2019, is perhaps […]
In a classic case of too many cooks, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government’s grand plans to reopen schools from August 17 onwards has run awry because of divergence of opinion between its two Covid-19 management task forces. Fearing resurgence of the pandemic in the state, […]
Under lockdown to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic for over one year, Tamil Nadu’s 37,500 government schools and 12,000 unaided private schools resumed on-campus teaching-learning for classes IX-XII on September 1 subject to maintaining strict Covid protocols and 50 percent capacity, i.e, alternate days attendance. Currently, 4.5 million children are enrolled […]
Established by nobel laureate, savant and litterateur Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) as an abode for students from around the world, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan (VBU, estb.1918) has been mired in controversy and continuous turmoil since Dr. Bidyut Chakrabarty, former professor of political science at Delhi University, assumed office as vice chancellor […]
An estimated 12,000 private unaided schools in Tamil Nadu were given the green light to collect 85 percent of annual fees payable for the academic year 2021-22 by the Madras high court on July 30.
The court’s order was issued with qualifications. The annual fee is payable in six equal instalments by parents who […]
Notwithstanding a large shadow cast by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) which after probing incidents of post-poll violence following re-election for a third term of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in May, has recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe to the Calcutta high court, chief minister Mamata Banerjee remains […]
Almost 15 months after the country’s 1.5 million schools including 450,000 private schools were ordered to shut down by the Central government on March 25, 2020 to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, several surveys and reports are highlighting the extensive damage done to children’s education in terms of learning loss and […]
Succumbing to intensifying pressure from parents demanding reduction of private school fees because of income and job losses suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Maharashtra government is all set to slash fees payable in the new academic year 2021-22. On July 28, the state’s cabinet approved an ordinance to enforce a 15 percent […]
The reconstitution of the union council of ministers on July 7 witnessed the induction of 36 new ministers and 12, including several party heavyweights, dropped, taking the effective strength of the council to 78, just three short of the maximum permitted 81. In this reshuffle, both Union ministers of education (Ramesh Pokhriyal and junior […]
Under the stern glare of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its ideological guardian and mentor, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is unlikely to incorporate the comprehensive, sensible and overdue recommendations of the T.S.R. Subramanian Committee Report into its New Education Policy 2016 (see cover story). However, it’s likely to cherry pick some of […]
Evidently inspired by the example of the neighbouring Kingdom of Bhutan which measures national development through a Gross National Happiness Index (GNHI) and latterly by the Delhi state government which introduced happiness classes into the curricula of government schools, the Anand Vibhag (Happiness Department) of the Madhya Pradesh government has succeeded in ameliorating […]
Even as the new academic year 2021-22 commenced from July 1 with online education decreed compulsory for all of Karnataka’s 76,800 schools including 48,393 government primary-secondaries, the stalemate over fees payable to private schools for 2020-21 and the new academic year is unresolved.
In February, several private schools associations filed writ petitions in the […]
Evidently chief minister Mamata Banerjee, fresh from her resounding third time sweep of the West Bengal state legislative elections, is convinced that her initiatives to reform the state’s moribund education system and raise teaching-learning standards in 92,000 government primary-secondary schools, played a major role in her famous electoral victory in the assembly elections […]
Since it was re-elected to office after a hiatus of ten years, the new Dravida Munnetra Kazhagan (DMK) government led by M.K. Stalin, son of M. Karunanidhi, one of the founders of the party (estb.1949) which initiated uninterrupted rule of Dravidian political parties with close links […]
Despite a May 3 judgement of the Supreme Court in Indian School Jodhpur & Ors vs. State Government of Rajasthan in which the apex court ruled that the right to determine private school fees is of “management alone,” on June 7, the Maharashtra coalition government announced the formation of five Divisional Fee Regulatory […]
The second edition of the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 whose release was “approved” by Union education minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on June 6, has generated a political controversy. Designed by the department of school education and literacy of the Union education ministry and first published last year, the purpose of the […]
The continuing closure of all schools and higher education institutions nationwide to safeguard children from being struck down by the dreaded Coronavirus, has prompted an almost 70 percent drop in pre-primary admissions in nearly 3,000 aided and 12,000 unaided private schools across Tamil Nadu (pop.68 million). According to a survey conducted by the […]
Dwindling student admissions in the wake of the 13-months closure of education institutions nationwide to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic have sounded a death knell for the state’s estimated 10,000 brick-and-mortar private tutorial centres offering supplementary tutorials, aka coaching, to secondary students preparing for school-leaving board exams and professional education entrance […]
In sharp contrast to BJP leaders including prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah who stormed West Bengal with over two dozen visits to preach messages of hindutva and dangers posed by illegal Muslim immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, incumbent chief minister and leader of the ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) […]
A peremptory circular issued on May 19 to Maharashtra’s 21,000 non-minority private independent (‘unaided’) schools by the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government, has dismayed private school managements battling the vicissitudes of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has raised the prospects of another round of courtroom battles. In the circular, […]
Prime minister Narendra Modi: student-friendly decision
Ending months of nationwide tension and anxiety, the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — the country’s largest national Central government controlled school-leaving examination board which has 21,271 schools affiliated with it — cancelled its class XII exam for the academic year 2020-21. Council for […]
Even as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh (pop. 86.8 million) – 492,276 active cases, and 5,519 fatalities as on April 30 – a fake colleges and universities scandal has emerged as a distracting sideshow which is creating additional problems for the state’s BJP government.
West Bengal’s unprecedented eight-phase legislative assembly election ended on May 2 with a thumping third-time victory for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee, not necessarily in that order. Not only did the dream of the BJP led by star campaigners — prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home […]
A detailed and brilliantly reasoned 128-page judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on May 3, has huge implications for the country’s under-appreciated 450,000 private schools which — most people are unaware — host 48 percent of India’s 260 million in-school children.
Upholding two sets of appeals filed by the Indian School, Jodhpur and Association of Private […]
The state government’s cancellation of the school-leaving class X SSC exam of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), because of rising Covid-19 cases in the state, has aroused fears of class X students from 21,000 MSBSHSE-affiliated schools being at a disadvantage when competing with […]
“There needs to be recognition that socialism is not the only ideology that has copyright on welfare. When the economy does not do well and wealth isn’t generated, then social good suffers and so does the welfare state. So, we have now called the bluff that wealth creation is in conflict with welfare.”— Nirmala Sitharaman, […]
Even as several parts of the country are bracing for a second wave following a massive surge in Covid-19 cases, parents of primary school children in Karnataka (pop.63 million) are divided on the issue of sending their children back to school.
An online survey conducted last month (March) by the Vidyarthigala Nade Shaleya Kade […]
Despite ‘ragging’ — an archaic initiation ritual during which new entrants into schools and colleges are teased and bullied by seniors having been banned by the Central and state governments and inviting the wrath of the Supreme Court — acts of ragging are punishable by fines of up to Rs. 50,000, jail terms […]
It seems to be the season for top-level resignations from blue-chip higher ed institutions. Soon after the highly respected public intellectual Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Dr. Arvind Subramaniam, former chief economic advisor of the BJP/NDA government, put in their papers at the ambitious, privately-promoted Ashoka University in Delhi NCR on March 15, […]
The year-long shutdown of all education institutions countrywide to protect children and youth from the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the finances of the overwhelming majority of the country’s 450,000 private schools into disarray. Even in upscale private schools, cash flows have been adversely affected because a minority of parents who suffered salary cuts […]
The resignation of prof. Pratap Bhanu Mehta from the political science faculty of Ashoka University (AU) on March 15, has stirred the academy in India and abroad and shaken the carefully curated reputation of this seven-year-old university positioned as the country’s first wholly — American Ivy league-style — liberal arts university.
“There needs to be recognition that socialism is not the only ideology that has copyright on welfare. When the economy does not do well and wealth isn’t generated, then social good suffers and so does the welfare state. So, we have now called the bluff that wealth creation is in conflict with welfare.”— Nirmala Sitharaman, […]
With the number of covid positive cases and fatalities in Gujarat falling from a peak of 97,894 and 1,132 on September 16, 2020 to 16,577 and 120 on February 25, 2021, the state government has permitted schools across the state to reopen in a phased manner.
The issue of fees payable by parents of children in private unaided schools during the pandemic close down which is convulsing the nation, has not bypassed the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh (pop.73 million), India’s largest state by land area (308,245 sq. km). On February 12, following a public march by agitated […]
The election Commission of India has announced that West Bengal’s legislative assembly election will be conducted in eight phases between March 27 and April 29. Therefore acrimony between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP, which has replaced the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) that ruled the state uninterruptedly for 34 years […]
An early year notification to all private schools in Karnataka to collect only 70 percent of tuition fees for the current extended academic year ending May 31, provoked an unprecedented protest shutdown of over 100 private unaided schools statewide on February 23. On the same day, a protest rally led by a newly-formed […]
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, India’s wealthiest local government with an annual budget of Rs.39,000 crore, is making final preparations to inaugurate ten free-of-charge KG-class XI schools affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination board.
Supervised by the Union education ministry but certified as autonomous, CBSE is […]
In a major step towards internationalisation and upgradation of the country’s higher education system, on February 17, the University Grants Commission (UGC) circulated a draft of the University Grants Commission (Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Education Institutions to offer Joint Degree, Dual Degree and Twinning Programmes) Regulations, 2021 for public comment […]
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