“The turning point in my life and Reliance’s life was when India embraced economic reforms. Liberalisation freed the suppressed entrepreneurial energies in our country and gave us the hum kissi se kam nahin spirit.” — Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries (India Today, January 4)
“From 2021, let us recommit ourselves to improving Indian education. Not with […]
With the countdown for the west bengal legislative assembly polls scheduled in April/May having begun in right earnest, the prime contenders — the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Amit Shah-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are loudly promoting their distinctive election agendas.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who famously ended 34 years of uninterrupted […]
Like most of India’s 33 school exam boards, the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Examinations (TNBSE) has reduced the syllabus for its classes X and XII school-leaving public examinations this year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic induced closure of all schools statewide since last March. With teaching-learning adversely affected, the board announced a […]
The BJP government of the state is set to merge all government schools situated within a 15 km radius of each other to reconstitute them into composite K-12 schools. This proposal made under the chief minister’s Rise School programme launched last summer (May 2020), will reduce the number of government schools in 224 […]
Several associations of private schools are all set to file writ petitions in the high court against the constitutional validity of a January 30 state government directive to all private schools — including institutions affiliated with pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards — statewide to collect only 70 […]
Shuttered for over nine months because of the national lockdown of all education institutions countrywide to prevent spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, a rising number of private K-12 schools in Maharashtra are up for sale. Confronted with government indifference, banks unwilling to provide credit and parents unwilling and/or […]
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman (right): human capital blindspot
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 hammered out after a gap of 34 years last July, promised to increase the national outlay for education to 6 percent of GDP. But in early 2020, a deadly new flu virus spread from Wuhan (China) and infected […]
“When people come out on the streets to protest against a law, they are not merely disagreeing but are questioning the legitimacy of the government. This is why the government sees dissent as a foundational attack on the very basis of the state. ” – Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, professor of political science at Ashoka […]
The AIADMK government has cancelled half-yearly examinations in all 39,300 government and government-aided schools in the state. Over 6.7 million children enrolled in these schools statewide who normatively would have written their half-yearly examinations in December won’t be tested. Earlier, quarterly exams usually held in September were […]
With the state legislative assembly election a mere four months away, political jousting in West Bengal (pop.91 million) is getting more fierce by the day. The ruling Trinamool Congress party led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee contesting for a third term in office, is confronted by the BJP, which rules […]
From mid-January onwards, 8,000 private unaided schools across Maharashtra will block online classes for students with unpaid fees. The state’s independent schools say they have been forced to resort to this action as a survey conducted by them indicates 38 percent of financially unhurt parents have […]
Nursery admissions scramble in Delhi: postponement rumour heartburn
– Autar Nehru (Delhi)
The state government’s dithering over notifying guidelines for nursery admissions in Delhi for the academic year 2021-22, is generating confusion among young parents and school managements. Normatively, the admission process is spread over the months of December-January. However, this year because of the […]
“I may be the first woman in this office but won’t be the last… Every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourself […]
With only six months to go before the legislative assembly election is held in West Bengal next summer, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is seeking a third five-year term in office for the Trinamool Congress government. But it’s up against a resurgent BJP which bagged an unprecedented 18 seats (out of 42) […]
The AIADMK-led state government has bit the bullet and reopened in-campus classes in higher education institutions (HEIs) on December 7. The reopening order issued under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, is restricted to final-year undergraduate students of arts and science, engineering, agriculture, fisheries and veterinary colleges and universities statewide. It’s also […]
There is mounting exasperation among educationists in the state over the BJP government’s repeated postponement of the date for reopening education institutions for fear of children and students contracting the Covid-19 virus. On November 23, primary and secondary education minister S. Suresh Kumar announced yet another reopening date postponement of preschools, […]
The state government has been forced to resume online admissions for 210,482 first-year junior college (FYJC) students after the Bombay high court (November 24) reprimanded it for the inordinate delay in concluding online admissions for the academic year 2020-21. Earlier, following a Supreme Court stay order (September 9) of a Maharashtra […]
Almost every private school and education minister at the Centre and in the states have been proclaiming great success in smoothly switching over to online teaching-learning following prolonged closure of all education institutions since mid-March in the wake of the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But surveys/studies conducted by reputable NGOs […]
“We have this unfortunate situation where everybody from the Supreme Court to the Central government wants to ‘regulate’ the media. People, aam janata, by and large are tired and sniggering at us.”
Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta on status of divided news media (Business Standard, October 10)
“We are encouraging students, professionals to stay back […]
With tamil nadu’s Coronavirus infection rates and fatalities falling from a peak of 57,968 (July) and 127 (August) to 18,709 and 25 in November, the state’s AIADMK government is mulling over reopening schools and colleges on November 16. However, with the state legislative election due next summer and news that 575 students and 829 teachers […]
With West Bengal’s 81,000 primary, secondary and higher secondary government schools and 600 private schools with an aggregate enrolment of 26 million children shut down since mid-March because of the Coronavirus pandemic which has taken a toll of 7,350 lives in the state, the online education revolution seems to have bypassed the state […]
An October 13 judgement of the Calcutta high court slashing tuition fees payable to private schools with retrospective effect from April this year, has dismayed promoters and managements of West Bengal’s estimated 1,200 private schools, and 300 budget private schools in particular. With all schools shut down since mid-March in the wake […]
Over 48,000 private schools of Rajasthan (pop.78 million) with an aggregate enrolment of 5 million children, which were conducting online classes for their students since April after the Central government ordered a shutdown of all schools and education institutions countrywide, have suspended all teaching-learning operations with effect from November 5. This unprecedented protest has been […]
Irate parents and parents associations in Maharashtra are protesting the state government’s inaction in reducing private school fees for the academic year 2020-21. On social media platforms, they are slamming the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for ignoring their demand for an ordinance decreeing 50 percent reduction in tuition fees […]
A mid-term annual status of Education Report (ASER Wave 1) 2020 released by the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation on October 28 confirms that a mere 30 percent of India’s 260 million school-going children are receiving digital education since education institutions countrywide were closed in mid-March to check the spread of […]
“Government intervention should be minimum in the new education policy. The more teachers and students are associated with the policy, the better will be its functionality and its results.” – Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Governors’ Conference on National Education Policy (September 8)
“The report fails to take into account the impact of poor-quality higher […]
The vacillation of the BJP government of Karnataka on the issue of reopening K-12 schools in the state is causing great confusion within school managements, parents’ communities and among students. According to the normative calendar, the state’s 46,000 government and 20,000 private schools (aggregate enrolment: 15 million students) should have commenced […]
A new bill providing a 7.5 percent quota within the existing reservation totaling 69 percent of all seats in Tamil Nadu’s 50 medical colleges was passed by the state’s legislative assembly on September 15 for students graduating from state government schools who have also passed NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test). In 2013, the […]
With the West Bengal legislative elections scheduled for May 2021 fast approaching, the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) has reportedly drawn up a multi-pronged strategy to take on its principal challenger, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling at the Centre, which has emerged as the second-largest party in the state, eclipsing […]
The state’s tri-party Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government comprising the Shiv Sena, Indian National Congress (INC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), suffered a major setback on September 9 with the Supreme Court staying the state government’s Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018. The Act […]
The academic year for higher education institutions which should have begun in July/ August is scheduled to begin from November 1 this year, according to latest UGC guidelines issued on September 22. The two national higher education regulators — University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical […]
“In the year after the pandemic schools will have to revisit, in some part at least, the instruction undertaken during the pandemic months and allow their students some leeway to accommodate the gaps that may have crept in… The idea is not to treat them with kid gloves…. rather focus on allowing children to regroup […]
Postponed twice for fear of spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) for admission into the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and top-ranked engineering colleges countrywide was held from September 1-6, even as the aggregate number of coronavirus positive cases in India crossed 4 million.
Although the All India ADMK (AIADMK) ruling party is an ally of the BJP/NDA government at the Centre, the three languages learning formula for all school-going children proposed in the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has been rejected outright by the state government and indeed by all political formations in Tamil […]
Faculty of an estimated 62 engineering colleges in the Mumbai metropolitan region have not received their salaries since end-March when the BJP/NDA government at the Centre decreed a national lockdown of industry, business and all education institutions. According to data collected from 48 engineering colleges by the Bombay University and College Teachers’ […]
The unlock 4.0 guidelines announced by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on August 29 which extended the long period (since mid-March) of the closure of all education institutions until September 30, has opened a small window for their early reopening. According to education insiders in the national capital, the Union cabinet […]
“I always say it is intellectually lazy for people to advocate herd immunity, because basically it is giving up. It is saying we do not want to work hard on this, we know it is a problem, let us just let everybody get sick and lots of people die. I don’t think that should be […]
The third National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 approved by the Union Cabinet headed by prime minister Narendra Modi after four years of preparation on July 29, replacing the 34-year-old National Policy on Education legislated in 1986 by prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, has elicited mixed reactions across the country.
Responding to insistent demand, an ordinance providing a 7.5 percent reserved quota in Tamil Nadu’s 41 government and private medical colleges for students of state government higher secondary schools who top the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission into the country’s 542 medical colleges, was issued on July 14
With Karnataka’s 49,855 government schools shuttered for five months following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the state’s education ministry issued an order on July 25 directing the Karnataka Text Book Society (KTBS) to reduce the prescribed state board syllabus for the academic year 2020-21, which began in June, by 30 percent.
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