Against the depressing backdrop of plunging learning outcomes in primary, secondary and higher education, a silver lining is the multiplying number of young highly-qualified educationists investing fresh energy, management expertise and inherited knowledge in Indian education across the spectrum – Summiya Yasmeen
India’s “traitorous academics” — a description coined by US-based former financial journalist Martin Hutchinson […]
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s Rs.79,686 crore (0.47 percent of GDP) provision for education as the Centre’s contribution for national education is grossly inadequate and completely divorced from the needs of the world’s largest child and youth (550 million) population – Dilip Thakore
Almost three summers ago when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by then […]
Narendra Modi has often claimed that elevation to the prime minister’s office in New Delhi was historic and inevitable. Last November, he attempted to consolidate his position in Indian history by making a pre-emptive announcement that invalidated Rs.500 and Rs.1,000-rupee notes valued at Rs.15.44 lakh crore or 86 percent of currency in the Indian economy. […]
Avantika Agrawal
Kolkata-based Avantika Arya Agrawal is one of a small group of women causing ripples in the nascent sport of riverine rowing. This 17-year-old and her youthful team won a silver medal in the women’s coxed fours 1,000 metres race, in a nail biting final against Sri Lanka’s national women’s team at the 75th ARAE […]
Khan Academy (India, estb. 2016), the Delhi-based subsidiary of the globally acclaimed Khan Academy, USA, has aligned the maths library containing thousands of videos, exercises and commentaries of its parent not-for-profit company to the classes V-XII syllabus of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — India’s largest national school-leaving examinations board with 18,635 […]
There’s a growing sense of uneasiness within the fast-expanding middle class population of the hi-tech city of Bangalore aka Bengaluru (pop. 11 million) — for whom sending their children to government schools is unthinkable — about the Congress state government’s casualness in clearing 602 pending applications from private education providers to promote new schools.
In a […]
Everyone knows nurturing brainboxes is good for an economy. In Thailand, school reformers have an extra incentive: to narrow differences between rich people in cities and their poorer rural cousins, which have led to a decade of political tension and occasional eruptions of violence. As in India, for decades teaching has favoured urban children whose […]
In her second consecutive term as chief minister of West Bengal (pop.91 million) after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party routed the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front government which ruled the state for 34 years (1977-2011) uninterruptedly, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has belatedly focused her attention on public health and education, the two most […]
More than 250 million children in developing countries are not in school. Those who do attend classes often fail to learn anything. According to a study of seven African countries, primary-school pupils receive less than two-and-a-half hours of teaching each day; teachers are absent from class about half the time. Even when they do show […]
The political impasse in tamil Nadu following the sudden demise of former chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo J. Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016, came to a dramatic end when former public works and highways minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy was sworn in as the chief minister on February 16. Two […]
With Chinese academics explicitly banned from talking about civil rights and press freedom, university campuses may seem unlikely places for murmurs of political dissent. However, despite efforts to crush any appraisal of China’s human rights record on campus, scholars are still finding ways to foster “creative dissent” among their students and to exert a progressive influence […]
“Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female.”
Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state, urging women to “step up and speak out” at the MAKERS women’s leadership conference (Time, February 20)
“The Budget, along with the finance minister’s speech, indicates yet again that the NDA government has little interest […]
The Netherlands’ Eindhoven University of Technology has topped a list of universities which have co-authored maximum papers with the world’s most innovative organisations. The Dutch institution published 1,316 papers with the Top 25 companies that feature in Clarivate Analytics’ list of the Top 100 Global Innovators — almost a quarter more than Harvard University, which […]
A regressive and misogynist sociology textbook prescribed by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MBSHSE) for class XII students of its 28,000 affiliated schools statewide, has precipitated a storm of protest from educators and women’s rights activists.
“If a girl is ugly and handicapped, then it becomes very difficult for her to […]
Ahmedabad-based hi-tech innovator Harshwardhan Zala (14) is the latest teen wonder to join the growing tribe of teenage social entrepreneurs countrywide. Founder-CEO of Aerobotics7 Tech Solutions Llp (estb.2016), this young prodigy recently inked a Rs.5 crore memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government’s department of science and technology. The MoU was signed at […]
A bad attitude is like a flat tyre, if you don’t change it you’ll never go anywhere — Author Unknown
The title of this essay, taken from a coffee mug says it all, “Attitude is Everything”. All coaches have witnessed the ascent of minimally talented athletes and sportspersons who work hard to overcome inherent lack of […]
1962: The War That Wasn’t by Shiv Kunal Verma ; Aleph Book Company, Rs.553, Pages XXI+425
This is a well-written book and charts in considerable detail, all the major battles of the 1962 conflict between India and China in both the north-east and western sectors. The narrative is riveting and supported by maps particularly of battles in the eastern […]
Affiliated with CIE (UK) and IBO (Geneva) — the world’s premier school-leaving examination boards — Canadian International School, Bangalore (estb. 1996) has acquired an excellent reputation for rigorous academics, sports and co-curricular education – Paromita Sengupta
Set in a 15-acre campus shielded by silver oak and eucalyptus trees in north Bangalore’s fast-growth suburb of Yelahanka, the […]
Dr. Kaivan Munshi is professor of economics at Cambridge University (UK) and a winner of the Infosys Prize 2016 for social sciences
Networking is a relatively new buzzword increasingly being recognised as a prerequisite of success in business and industry. But your research studies seem to indicate it’s an ancient phenomenon. Please comment.
Networks describe economic arrangements in […]
Founded in 1889, Clemson University, USA is ranked #23 among America’s public universities by the US News and World Report
Clemson University (CU, estb.1889) is a top-ranked American public tertiary education institution with an enrolment of 21,957 students mentored by 1,496 faculty. The US News and World Report ranks CU #23 among public universities in its […]
The ugly slugfest between the promoters and professionals of the Bangalore-based blue-chip company Infosys Technologies Ltd (ITL, annual revenue: Rs.67,304 crore; headcount: 190,000) is reminiscent of the recent showdown in Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Mumbai-based Tata Group (Rs.705,000 crore) in which the promoter family’s wily scion Ratan Tata, who found his […]
There’s a new awareness among sports organisations and coaches about the importance of balanced nutrition to improve track and field performance – Odeal D’Souza
ONCE THE MONOPOLY of the well-heeled amateurs, the increasingly professionalised sports industry is a booming $700 billion (Rs.46 lakh crore) business worldwide. Suddenly, physical fitness and well-being is the mantra of 21st […]
Perhaps the only people who aren’t aware that India’s rickety education system is slowly and inexorably sliding towards a deep abyss, are the netas and babus in the education ministries at the Centre and in the states. Year after year, the detailed Annual Status of Education Report of the globally-respected Mumbai-based Pratham Education Foundation laments […]
After completing my BMS (bachelor of management studies) degree programme this year, I want to enroll for an LLB programme and company secretary (CS) course. To better my career prospects, should I also pursue an MBA (finance) degree?
— Ashok Rao, Chennai
CS and LLB is an excellent combination provided you are able to do justice […]
The fantastic series of events shaking Tamil Nadu (pop.78 million) beginning with the mysterious prolonged illness and death on December 5 of J. Jayalalithaa, a popular former film star, AIADMK supremo and three terms chief minister of this southern seaboard state alternatingly ruled by the AIADMK and DMK — political parties with utterly corrupt and […]
In May 2016, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, a premier think-tank of the Union government providing “directional and policy inputs”, proposed the establishment of the Atal Innovation Mission to set up 500 ‘tinkering labs’ in schools for classes VI-XII on a pilot basis. This is an excellent proposal which has the potential […]
I read your cover story ‘Brewing revolt against control and command CBSE’ with shock and dismay (EW February). The brazenness with which the CBSE is passing circulars abridging the autonomy of affiliated private schools is a telling indicator of the intent of this pan-India examinations board to indirectly take over management control of private schools.
I […]
New data on American universities and their role in economic mobility — culled from 30 million tax returns — published by Raj Chetty, an economist at Stanford University and colleagues, show that some colleges do a better job of boosting poor students up the income ladder than others. Previously, the best data available showed only […]
The prolonged see-saw courtroom battles between private schools, NGOs and the state government of Delhi over the issue of the admission process of children into nurseries of composite K-12 schools may well see closure soon.
On February 14 and again on 27, the Delhi high court refused to vacate its stay order on a January 7 […]
Students who study abroad have higher levels of belief in their abilities to perform difficult tasks and cope with adversity, according to new research. A study of 221 students at Leuphana University of Luneburg in Germany, found that students who had been abroad had higher levels of self-efficacy than those who remained on campus.
The paper, […]
Friends-turned-foes — the shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are likely to become friends again to rule Mumbai, the country’s commercial capital. In the local election to elect corporators to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) — the country’s richest municipal government which has an annual budget of Rs.37,052 crore (2016-17) — […]
Academics have spoken out about the risks that Brexit poses to university-business collaboration with the potential loss of research-dependent companies to other countries, reduced access to European funding and falling out of business networks being top concerns. Links between UK universities and European firms received a boost in early February after the announcement that Novo […]
New Academic Year 2024-25 Creating conducive home study environment With the new academic year all set to begin this month, PW presents a comprehensive child development guide devised by ... 
The Importance of Art Appreciation The term art encompasses a large variety of works, from paintings to sculptures, architecture to design, and in modern times ... 
10 personal items its safer not to share In the interests of health and hygiene, it’s important for parents to advise children not to share toys, water bottles ... 
BHU: Sanskrit department reopens amidst protests The Faculty of Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vigyan at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has reopened, the university announced, after days of ... 
