EducationWorld March 2022

Climate action warriors @ Navrachana School, Sama

Navrachana Higher Secondary School, Sama has always led the path when it comes to inculcating Naturalistic Intelligence in students. Ranging from K to 12, the school has inter-woven meaningful and engaging activities within the curriculum, to enable each student to benefit from the opportunities.

Sapling Distribution Drive

Even during the online mode of schooling, Navrachana […]

Going beyond academic excellence: Seth Anandram Jaipuria School, Ghaziabad delivers new-age learning experience

Teaching the mind, nurturing the body, enriching the heart

Education in the 21st century is on an upward curve of evolution. While academic excellence still remains its centerpiece, some schools are blazing a new trail by developing a curriculum and incorporating pedagogical practices that nurture the wholesome development of learners.

Gone are the days of didactic teaching […]

Leveraging new-age teaching-learning practices to unleash student creativity

Swoyan Satyendu, COO, ODM Educational Group

What is the purpose of education? Some may state it’s the cultivation of character to live in a civilised society. Many take it as necessary for their child’s development, and for others, it’s the path to success; different factors contribute to defining the purpose of education.

Undeniably, parents are still […]

Do You Really Need School Management Software?

– Abhiraj Malhotra, Co-founder, SchoolPad

The past few years have been a giant techno-bubble where virtually every problem, every pain point has an answer in technology. The education space is no different. It has witnessed a giant boom in edtech ventures, each offering its own technology-based solutions for problems faced by school managements.

School owners may have […]

Enigmatic Magic of Behavioural Finance

– Prof. Ram B. Ramachandran, Professor of Practice and Vice Dean O.P. Jindal Global University

Mysteries of our brain have puzzled human beings for centuries. Neuroscientists and psychologists are still trying to figure out how 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses work in tandem to compute, comprehend and rationalize. Our thoughts, emotions and memories are […]

Countingwell’s State of Math Learning report 2021

Countingwell — a supplementary math learning app/online platform owned by Illuminati Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd — released its State of Math Learning Report 2021 in early January highlighting the decline in math learning skills and outcomes of middle school children countrywide. The report analysed data of 75,000 class VI-VIII students from the learning cycles, assessments […]

Shaping young entrepreneurs

–Anjana Subramanyam, ISC coordinator (Academics and Admissions), Gitanjali Schools, Hyderabad

Abraham Lincoln had rightly said: “The best way to predict your future, is to create it.” Well then, is creating all that simple? Can any one of us become an entrepreneur?

Creation is the power of thought that is strongly reinforced by positive actions, helping us manifest […]

Women All The Way

–Dr. Amita Chauhan, Chairperson, Amity Group of Schools

Women need to be cherished and celebrated every day, and even more so those who shine the light of education upon us while we must acknowledge, on a daily basis, the significant role women play in every aspect of life, it is essential to reiterate their importance on […]

“Education is the soul of society passed down the generations”

A business management alumnus of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai who pressed on to study for a PhD from the International University of America, London. Dr. Chandan Agarwal is chairperson of GD Goenka Public School, Kanpur.

Dr. Chandan Agarwal

What is the objective behind the promotion of GD Goenka School, Kanpur?
Education is […]

They said it in March 2022

“The English language continued to remain dominating (sic) in our country because we were colonised. Parents fear that if their children will not learn English, they won’t have a future. Once we give them better options in regional languages, this hesitancy will go away.”

Dinesh Prasad Saklani, newly appointed director of the National Council of Educational […]

Education Briefs: GHI Presents L’Atelier

GHI Presents L’Atelier
Bengaluru, February 26. M. Venkaiah Naidu, vice president of India, and Thaawarchand Gehlot, governor of Karnataka, inaugurated the state-of-the-art L’Atelier — ensemble of fine arts and indoor sports arena — of the top-ranked Greenwood High International School, Bengaluru (GHI).

Addressing students and parents of GHI, the vice president said: “A healthy body is […]

Education Notes: Happiness textbooks ready

Madhya Pradesh: Happiness textbooks ready
Bhopal, February 4. The Madhya Pradesh government is set to introduce ‘happiness’ as a compulsory subject in its secondary and higher secondary school syllabuses in the academic year 2022-23. MP was the country’s first state to establish a happiness department in 2016.
Addressing the media, Akhilesh Argal, CEO of the […]

Compelling wake-up call: The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State

The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State
by Josy Joseph
Published by Westland Books
Rs. 699
Pages 306

-Anil Thakore

Up until the year 2012, barring a two year blip in the Emergency period (1975-76), India was widely acknowledged as free and democratic, and ranked among the top 30 countries worldwide in the indices of […]

Mafia rule exposé: Red Roulette

Red Roulette
by Desmond Shum
Published by Simon & Schuster
Rs.2000
Pages 310

-Dilip Thakore

There’s no shortage of admirers of the Red China development model of socio-economic growth in India and world over. Admittedly, by any yardstick the dizzying growth of our unfriendly neighbour, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — with whom we share a […]

Incremental popularity of the gap year

Although currently taking a gap year is an upper class privilege, not a few teens from middle class households are becoming aware of the importance of life skills and internships acquired in a break that enrich higher education and develop competencies that are valuable in adult life, writes Abhilasha Ojha

Gap year students: Western […]

National Science Day ruminations

Industrial licensing killed indigenous development. Despite government funding and import protection policies, scientific research in India rarely resulted in saleable products, writes Ramjee Chandran.

We blew past India’s National Science Day on February 28 — so named to celebrate the discovery of the Raman Effect by Nobel laureate, Sir C.V. Raman. Deservedly, we must acknowledge and […]

France: Campus ideological wars

Sabine Saurugger (left) & Klaus Kinzler: Islamophobia row

A university leader has called for “calm and rationality” as French academics fear being caught in the crossfire of increasingly bitter culture wars in the run-up to the country’s presidential election.

Sabine Saurugger, director of Sciences Po Grenoble, hit the headlines in January after suspending Klaus Kinzler, […]

China: New model private varsities

Nanjing Integrated Circuit University

China’s new crop of privately backed, industry-focused universities could help meet skills gaps and jump-start innovation. At the end of 2021, Chinese businessman Cao Dewang came one step closer to establishing his institution when he signed an agreement with the city government of Fuzhou to build a university for developing […]

Russia: New genre plagiarisation

Yury Chekhovich

About one in 20 papers recently published in Russian journals is an exact or near duplicate of an existing article, with some pieces reproduced as many as 27 times across different publications, according to a study. While the problem of plagiarism in Russian academic papers is well- known, having resulted in hundreds […]

United Kingdom: Young University Rankings 2022

The institutions in the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings are united by their recent foundation dates; only universities aged 50 years and under are included in the annual list of the world’s top newcomers in higher education. But the stories and circumstances around their creation are very different.

There are institutions that already seem to […]

Turkey: More sackings at Bogazici

The sacking of three elected deans from Bogazici University could signal a renewed attack on institutional autonomy and freedom of speech in Turkey’s universities, warn scholars. The dismissal of Ozlem Berk Albachten, Metin Ercan and Yasemin Bayyurt by Turkey’s Higher Education Council (YOK) follows a tumultuous year at Istanbul’s premier university, which has been riven […]

Africa: Fair deal for pregnant girls

Sierra Leone minister Sengeh (right): crime victims

Sarah didn’t know she was pregnant until teachers told her. In 2020, her state-run boarding school in Tanzania ordered tests for all the girls returning after a three-month closure caused by Covid-19. When her pregnancy was confirmed, she was expelled and sent home. She was less than […]

Vartamelo ideator: Darsha Kikani

-Aruna Raghuram (Ahmedabad)

Ahmedabad-based mother tongue advocate-entrepreneur Darsha Kikani is an independent director of several public limited liability companies. She also organises the annual Vartamelo (story fair) in Gujarati language creative writing competition open to class VII-XII students and teachers.

Launched in 2017, this annual storywriting competition held in January-February every year attracted participation from 200 schools […]

Street corner teacher: Deep Narayan Nayak

-Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

Deep Narayan Nayak, a teacher at the state government promoted Tilka Maji Adibashi Free Primary School, in the Jamuria village (pop.1.5 lakh) in Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal, is popularly known as ‘Raster Master’ (Teacher of the Street). This enterprising 34-year-old educator turned walls of village homes into blackboards and roads into […]

Executive educator: Ranjita Raman

-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)

Ranjita Raman is the Mumbai-based CEO of Jaro Education Pvt. Ltd (JE, estb.2009) — a constituent of the Jaro Group of companies. JE is an edtech company that provides world-class executive education, certificate and degree programmes included, to enable junior, middle and senior-level working professionals to upskill and advance their careers.

Since inception, Jaro […]

Creativity stimulator: Aayur Kaul

-Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)

Bengaluru-based Aayur Kaul is the India head of the New York-based Skillshare Inc. (est.2010) — “the world’s largest online learning community for creativity”. Skillshare, with over 13 million registered members worldwide, made its India debut last November. Kaul’s brief is to introduce Skillshare’s products and services to Indian learners.

Newspeg: Skillshare’s India debut fortuitously […]

Communication skills educator: Dr. Rakesh Godhwani

Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)

Dr. Rakesh Godhwani

A widely acknowledged master of articulation, Dr. Rakesh Godhwani is the Bengaluru-based founder-CEO of the School of Meaningful Experiences (SoME, estb.2018, head count: 22), an education start-up that offers online communication and leadership skills development programmes to teenage children, entrepreneurs and working professionals.

Through partnerships with corporates, schools, colleges and […]

People’s pulse?

One major argument advanced in favour of the country’s political class which has divided society on religious and caste lines to win political advantage, and has wrecked the Indian economy with its inorganic socialism experiments, is that they have the pulse of the people. If so, how will apologists for duly elected people’s representatives, explain […]

Bhagat’s broadside

There’s an inherent paradox in best-selling author and newspaper columnist Chetan Bhagat. Although he writes thought-provoking and readable 1,000 word newspaper columns, he also writes puerile and lazy 60,000-80,000 word English language novels which no intelligent or discerning reader can stomach. If his novels are best-sellers as his publishers proclaim, it’s an indictment of the […]

Fairweather friend

As the renowned English poet John Donne (1572-1631) observed, every man’s death diminishes us. More so if the man is a great leader who has contributed to the public good and welfare of the general populace. Rahul Bajaj who passed away on January 13 at his home in Pune, was undoubtedly a great industrialist and […]

Co-curricular education evangelist: Yashovardhan Poddar & Akshay Rampuria

Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)

Yashovardhan Poddar (right) and Akshay Rampuria:

Yashovardhan Poddar is the Bengaluru-based co-founder of edtech start-up Openhouse Technologies Pvt. Ltd (estb.2018, head count: 100) that offers K-12 children a rich menu of curated after-school learning programmes including academic support, public speaking, theatre, dance, entrepreneurship, community service, chess, robotics, data science, and music.

Initially based […]

An educators Almanac to building resilience and managing crisis

– Saurabh Modi, Founder-Chairman, Neerja Modi School, Jaipur

Education is the cornerstone for development and growth, for an individual and society at large. It’s an equalizer and the most effective tool to build a more inclusive and diverse world. Education sector has consistently evolved through generations and is continues to do so – staying relevant […]

Post-pandemic recovery solutions

Following the most prolonged education lockdown of any major country worldwide, the world’s largest cohort of children and youth estimated at 500 million has suffered huge learning loss and has a steep mountain to climb to make good the lost lessons of the pandemic era, writes Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

With the worst of the […]

George Mason University, USA

Currently celebrating its golden jubilee year, GMU sited in close proximity to Washington DC, is noted for its highly acclaimed faculty of Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates, writes Reshma Ravishanker

With enviable on-campus facilities, an awards-winning faculty and proximity to Washington DC, America’s political capital, George Mason University (GMU, estb.1972) is a nationally respected public […]

Gurukul The School, Ghaziabad

Established in 2002, GTS-G has swiftly developed into a progressive CBSE-affiliated K-12 school ranked among the Top 25 in Delhi NCR in the EW India School Rankings 2021-22 writes Autar Nehru.

Sited on a 10-acre state-of-the-art campus off the Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Ghaziabad (pop.2 million), Gurukul The School, Ghaziabad (GTS-G, estb.2002) has swiftly developed into a […]

Hindi promotion not in the National interest

– Rahul Singh

The National Education Policy (NEP) approved by Parliament in 2020 has been widely praised. However, it has a major flaw that hasn’t been adequately addressed, viz its promotion of Hindi, while simultaneously disparaging English. The disastrous — unimplemented and unimplementable — three language policy, instead of being discarded, has been given a new […]

Tamil Nadu: Learning enthusiasm

-Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai)

After a gap of nearly two years, 3,000 aided and 12,000 unaided private schools across Tamil Nadu reopened nursery classes on February 16, following an official order of the DMK-led state government permiting nursery classes, kindergarten, and playschools statewide to restart. This order has brought much needed relief to pre-primary schools, which had […]

West Bengal: Sceptical jubilation

-Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

With the daily count of Covid-19 cases in West Bengal dipping from 24,000 cases per day in mid-January to 500 on February 13, the state’s hyper cautious Trinamool Congress government announced reopening of all primary and upper primary schools with effect from February 16 — after a 23-months lockdown. The government also greenlighted […]

Karnataka: Real independence demand

Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)

Against the backdrop of Karnataka (pop.69 million) becoming the first state countrywide to start implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 beginning with higher education last September, the Karnataka Private School Managements Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff Coordination Committee (KPMTCC), which has 7,000 member schools, hosted a two-day national symposium to deliberate the ‘Regulatory […]

Maharashtra: Poor payment record

-Dipta Joshi

On February 27, as Maharashtra celebrated Marathi Language Day on the birth anniversary of popular poet, Kusumagraj, 64,000 mostly Marathi medium private aided schools announced they would abstain from conducting the state government’s forthcoming class X and class XII board exams on their premises. The managements of these schools are on the warpath against […]