America’s Teacher Advancement ProgramIn business, the most important lessonI have learned is that there is one currency that always plays the key role in forming value, and that is human capital ‚ the knowledge, skills and experiences of people. In education, the same principle applies. We know from research that aside from home and family, […]
In a state where higher education is in a shambles and law and order is held hostage by anti-socials and criminals, LNMI has managed to consistently maintain high academic standards
Located in the heart of Patna, contiguous to the high court and a stone’s throw from the state secretariat, the Lalit Narayan Mishra Institute of Economic […]
They said it”The Mittal-Arcelor deal has nothing to do with India even though the main shareholder in Mittal Steel is Indian. He could be of any other citizenship. That is the way we see the problem” — Jacques Chirac, President of France about the proposed merger of Mittal Steel with French steel giant Arcelor (February […]
Letter from EditorThere are few everyday sights which are more emotionally uplifting and morale boosting than of well-scrubbed, bright-eyed children setting out for school in the morning. Even if momentarily, one is thrown back in time into remembrance of things past and one‚s own school days. Subconsciously we also connect with the dreams and joie […]
25 Principals Redefining Indian Education (contd.)Continuously learning principalAnu Dhingra heads Delhi Public School, Lucknow, an institution which admits only 2 percent of the children who apply for admission. But when Dhingra joined in 1999, this then one-year-old CBSE affiliated school had only 450 students. Since then the enrollment has swelled to 1,700. The secret of […]
For mysterious reasons the newest poster boy of the Indian establishment and the Delhi durbar in particular is Shashi Tharoor, the former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, who is now back in India after having been sacked by the newly elected UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, the cheerful former foreign minister of South Korea. Despite […]
Nani A. Palkhivala — A Life by M.V. Kamath; Hay House India; Price: Rs.594; 524 pp
If you believe that history is biography or a compendium of biographies, when a defining, ideologically unbiased history of 20th century India is written, one of the heroes of that great tome will be the late Nani A. Palkhivala (1920-2002). The great […]
Equal Education for All Odyssey (contd.)EducationWorld‚s special correspondent Srinidhi Raghavendra is on a five-month, 25,000 km motorcycle odyssey across India and Asia. His mission: to communicate the importance of providing access to equal education to build harmonious societiesThe mission statement of EducationWorld (estb. 1999) is to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education […]
If your child came up to you and said, “I’m only going to eat carrots for the rest of my life,” would you let her do so? Of course not. Because it’s important for children to have a balanced diet. So, even though carrots are nutritious and kids should eat plenty of them, it wouldn’t be […]
I have just returned to Mumbai from my favourite hangout, Goa, where I attended the first international Indology conference. The theme of the conference was ‚ËœIndian culture, ancient wisdom in modern times‚.It was during the three-day conference that I became aware that I had been so busy with keeping Conscious Food going that despite delivering […]
Letter from London
Blair’s last hurrah?
There is every likelihood that Gordon Brown, the current chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister), will become prime minister when Tony Blair finally steps down soon. As that time gets nigh, interest is growing in the education policies he might introduce. He has already made it clear that he will […]
His majesty Druk Gyalpo (King) Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk, the fifth monarch of Bhutan (pop. 6 million) — the stamp size Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between India’s eastern border and China — recently celebrated his 27th birthday by announcing wide ranging education reforms.
“I have great pride to inherit from the fourth Druk Gyalpo the valuable […]
Reconstituted in 2004 by merging the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST, the University of Manchester, UK has an enviable reputation for teaching and research
With an enrollment of 35,655 students reading over 500 academic programmes, the University of Manchester, UK is celebrated as Britain’s largest single-site university. In 2006 the […]
The proposed new foreign contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) Bill, introduced in Parliament during the last session, will have serious ramifications for educational institutions. For a variety of reasons, this Bill is deeply retrograde. It signals the reality that while India has considerably liberalised in many areas, it is still regressing in areas particularly relevant to […]
Your Counsellor RepliesI‚ll be awarded my B.Pharm degree in 2008 and would like to pursue a career in clinical research. Which institutions offer programmes in this subject and what are my career prospects after postgraduation?Geeta Ramachandran, ChennaiWith the clinical trials industry doubling its revenue every two years, career prospects in this field are fabulous. According […]
Unprecedented prosperity in middle class India has stoked demand for wealth management services. This high adrenaline career is attracting a swelling number of B-school graduates in particular
With the economy booming, stock and real estate prices rising, salaries hitting the roof, the wealth and disposable incomes of several million Indians have grown substantially during the past […]
The percentage of children with learning disabilities in India is estimated at 10-14 percent of the national child population of 415 million. However this is a rough estimate as many are undetected and unreported. The domain of learning disabilities is still a grey area in India. Beleaguered parents of such children are usually denied guidance […]
Regular readers of this publication are surely well aware that there’s much that is wrong with the nation’s education system shaped by indifferent governments at the Centre and in the constituent states of the Indian Union. Despite the country being blessed or cursed – the jury is still out on this issue – with the […]
At age ten, he displayed amazing technology absorption capacity. At age 15, he became India’s youngest engineering graduate. Today, at age 16, Chandra Sekar Subramanian’s search for excellence continues. A first year M.Tech student at IIT-Madras, Subramanian was recently awarded a package of grants aggregating Rs.7 lakh, by the Mumbai-based IT enabled services market leader […]
The Bangalore-based National Entrepreneurship Network (estb. 2002), a non-profit initiative of the US-based Wadhwani Foundation celebrated its first Entrepreneurship Week between February 24-March 3. “India offers amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs today although the culture and ecosystem still poses formidable barriers. Entrepreneurship Week has been initiated as both a celebration and a call to action — […]
They said it”We want to put a cradle (palna) in every district headquarters. What we are saying to the people is have your children, don‚t kill them. And if you don‚t want a girl child, leave her to us.” — Renuka Chowdhury, women and child development minister (February 19)”Public education spending in India has been […]
Maharashtra
Inconvenient spotlight
The second Annual Status of Education Report 2006 (ASER 2006) — a valuable initiative which measures the efficiency of government expenditure in rural primaries in terms of learning outcomes — researched, collated and published by the renowned Mumbai-based education NGO, Pratham, was formally released in Mumbai early this year (January). Like Pratham’s inaugural ASER 2005, […]
I refer to your special report ‘New maths learning fever sweeping India’ (EW February). While Summiya Yasmeen has dealt very well with the need to improve math learning in schools, she has mixed up the genuine (math labs, activities and games) approaches with quack (abacus-based) approaches.
Numbers computation is only a very small and insignificant part […]
After a long hiatus of over a decade during which the Indian economy has leapt out of the rut of the so-called Hindu rate of growth (3.5 percent per annum) and is growing at the rate of over 8 percent per year, the spectre of inflation has returned to haunt fast-track, shining India. According to […]
In the perverse Soviet-inspired socio-economic development model imposed upon the public by post-independence India‚s socialist leaders and central planners, politicians, bureaucrats and captains of industry ‚ particularly in the public sector which in the past half century has gone spectacularly bankrupt ‚ are accorded exaggerated importance, notwithstanding their pathetic outcome records. Leaders in other walks […]
By the time this issue of EducationWorld is in your hands, the Union budget for fiscal 2006-07 will have been presented to Parliament and politicians, academics and pundits will be earnestly arguing its implications and merits. The indications are that it will be essentially a status quo budget, bereft of any significant additional revenue mobilisation […]
How Kaplan GRE Test prep materials can help you score high on GRE The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores are a requirement alongside other credentials for admission to graduate programs. Currently administered by ... 
St. Xavier’s College Kolkata to start 3 new PG courses in bio-sciences Mita Mukherjee St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata has decided to introduce three new postgraduate courses in biological sciences from this year ... 
Shimla: Four students injured during practical exam in chemistry lab Four class 12 students of a government school in Shimla were injured on Monday when an explosion occurred while they ... 
Delhi: Consent of parents not mandatory for class 10, 12 students to attend school Students of classes 10 and 12 will no longer need to bring consent letters signed by their parents to attend ... 
