EducationWorld July 08

Several years ago I wrote in EducationWorld about an inspiring lady who worked with me in my organic foods retail store. Although unschooled and illiterate she was an amazing worker, always ready to give her best without complaining, always smiling and cheerful. Fittingly she now earns six times what she was earning when she first […]

Every weekday, 300 boys gather in a gym on Chicagos South Side. They are all black. More than 80 percent are poor. Over the past few weeks Chicago has seen a surge in gang violence. But here boys stand in straight lines. Each wears a blazer and a red tie. And in unison they begin […]

An academic is pursuing a last-ditch appeal against a sentence of 150 lashes and eight months in prison for meeting a woman at a coffee shop in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Um al-Qura in Mecca, was convicted of the Islamic law offence of khilwa — […]

Tradition has it that boys are good at counting and girls are good at reading. So much so that Mattel once produced a talking Barbie doll whose stock of phrases included Math class is tough!Dr. Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence and his colleagues have just published the results of a study […]

An injection of millions of dollars to overhaul outdated and inadequate university infrastructure has been announced in Australia. The one-off sum of A$ 500 million (Rs.2,050 crore) was awarded in the new Labour governments first budget presented in May. It was billed as a fund to rebuild campuses after 11 years of neglect.The funds are […]

It is perhaps the hardest reform of all. pension systems or energy shortages can be fixed by cutting entitlements or spending more. But no amount of money can in itself make a million qualified teachers materialise in less than a generation. That is the aim of the Alliance for Educational Quality launched by Felipe Calderon, […]

The recommendation of the national commission for minority educational institutions to establish a Central Madarsa Board to standardise the disparate and often arbitrary syllabuses of the countrys 30,000 madarsa schools, has aroused the opposition of orthodox Muslim clergy. Puja Awasthi reports from LucknowThere is a growing sense of unease in the ranks of Indian liberals […]

The World is What it is — The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French; Picador; Price: Rs.595; 555 ppFor an individual to be acknowledged as the greatest living writer in the English language by V.S. Prichett, arguably the greatest living literary critic in the English language, is a rare honour indeed. More so […]

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke; Scholastic; Price: Rs.356; 560 ppWhen one reads of interesting characters in a well-written book, there is a natural tendency to get drawn into their world. However, what if instead of being drawn into the world depicted in a novel, you find the characters of the narrative popping out and landing […]

The National Knowledge Commission (NKC), constituted by the Union government in June 2005 under the chairmanship of Satyen (‘Sam) Pitroda, has made several recommendations to the Congress-led UPA government for reform of higher education. In its Report to the Nation, presented to prime minister Manmohan Singh on January 12, 2007, NKC suggested ways and means […]

Motorola India Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of the Illinois-based Motorola Inc (sales revenue: $36.6 billon or Rs.153,700 crore in 2007) recently connected four primary-cum-secondary schools of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation scattered across Bangalore, through utilisation of Motorolas state-of-the-art Canpoy™ technology.Employing a completely wireless ecosystem, from infrastructure and applications to end-user devices, Canopy enables streaming of […]

The end of the prolonged and violent agitation by the Gujjar community in Rajasthan and Delhi, following the signing of a peace accord between the state government and 35 leaders of the Gujjar community in Jaipur on June 18, has rung down the curtain upon another manifestation of a peculiar malady which distinguishes the 21st […]

The unequivocal denunciation of faith-proclaimed terrorism in all its manifestations by the Deoband (Uttar Pradesh)-based Darul Uloom — Indias largest Islamic seminary — and its call to save Islam from its lunatic fringe which has brought it grave global disrepute, has come not a day too soon. Addressing a convention comprising thousands of clerics and […]

The circumference of the reservations in education institutions debate has been expanded following a diktat of the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry to the directors of the countrys seven IITs to introduce reservations for SCs (15 percent), STs (7.5 percent), and Other Backward Classes (27 percent) in faculty appointments with immediate effect.The government order […]

The Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, Indias most populous (180 million) and arguably most backward (per capita income: Rs.10,817 per year; adult literacy 56.6 percent) state, is known for the stoicism and resilience with which its long-suffering populace stomachs bad news. Even so the languorous dovecotes of the state government in Vidhan Sabha, Lucknow […]

Although the Delhi-based National Commission of Minority Educational Institutions recommended the establishment of a Central Madarsa Board (CMB) to standardise and upgrade the disparate and often arbitrary syllabuses of the countrys estimated 30,000 madarsa schools in April 2007, theres been little forward movement to action the proposal. Educationists believe this is because of the sharp […]

Academic policy decisions — whether for school, college or university education – take inordinately long to fructify in West Bengal (pop. 80 million), the eastern seaboard state which has been governed for over three decades by the Left Front government headed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). In July 2005, exactly three years ago, […]

Even as a new academic year has begun and bright-eyed students are streaming into college campuses across the country, the R.K. Raghavan Committee, appointed in December 2006 by the Union HRD ministry, (following a Supreme Court directive) to suggest and monitor measures to eliminate intimidation, molestation, assaults etc aka ‘ragging in college campuses, has severely […]

“Steady acceleration of growth bears testimony to the wisdom of the saying, slow and steady wins the race. The Indian tortoise will win the race against many Asian hares.”
Prime minister Manmohan Singh in India Today (June 16)

“We want more Indian students because we want the best in the world to come to Oxford.”
Oxford […]

The US-based multinational Genpact Inc, which manages business processes for companies around the world, and the Delhi-based NIIT Ltd, announced the launch of a joint venture — NIIT Institute of Process Excellence Ltd (NIPE) — on June 10. The joint venture will address the increasing demand for skilled workers in the business and technology services […]

Your cover story ‘India’s fastest growing schools chain’ (EW June) highlighting the achievements of Dr. Augustine Pinto and Mrs. Grace Pinto in establishing a chain of 110 Ryan International Schools providing affordably priced quality English medium education in a mere 25 years, was amazing and inspiring. Dr. Pinto seems to have discovered the methodology to beat […]

A team of five students of the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore has been selected to represent India in the 2008 Microsoft Research Design Expo this month (July), by Microsoft Inc, USA, the theme of which is ‘Learning and Education. Srishti Schools project entitled ‘Moon Vehicle created an interactive user experience, drawing […]

On a recent flight from Goa to Delhi, i was seated across the aisle from three loutish young men. Clearly new rich, they bristled with flashy phones and watches. They didnt bother turning off their cell phones even after the stewardess made an announcement; instead, they went right ahead playing with their toys. I asked […]

Thanks to the popular movie star Aamir Khan who produced and directed the surprise hit Taare Zameen Par (TZP), public awareness of a critical learning difficulty known as dyslexia has sky-rocketed. However, addressing this learning difficulty, which educators believe affects tens of millions of children across the country, demands more than just awareness. It calls […]

In a championship game between two high school soccer teams, a goalkeeper was inadvertently kicked and knocked unconscious. With the ball in play and the unfortunate team trying to defend without a goalkeeper, a member of the opposing team intentionally kicked the ball out of bounds to stop play.When asked later why he kicked the […]

Against the backdrop of a fast developing transnational ITES gaming industry, theres no dearth of career opportunities as India establishes a reputation as the next gaming hubA by-product of the booming IT, ITES (information technology enabled services) and the BPO (business process outsourcing) sectors, the gaming industry, born out of the leisure pursuits of IT […]