Diptayan Ghosh
He manages the king’s horses and men on the 1,500-year-old board of 64 squares with consummate ease. Young Diptayan Ghosh (14), a class IX student of South Point School, Kolkata is well on his way to becoming a name to be reckoned with in the world of chess. This winner of the Under-10 Asian […]
Rashi Singhal (24) is founder-director of Vision Mission Foundation (VMF, estb. 2010), a Noida (Delhi NCR)-based NGO which offers screening, counselling and primary services to people afflicted with diabetes. Over the past two years, VMF has screened 35,000 people for diabetes — a condition affecting 51 million Indians according to the World Health Organisation — […]
The majority judgement of a three-judge bench delivered on April 12 substantially upheld the constitutional validity of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and particularly its controversial reserved quota for poor neighbourhood children in private schools. Dilip Thakore report
An uneasy silence has enveloped india’s estimated 80,000 private primary-secondary schools countrywide following […]
As testified by several national and international reports and surveys of child rights organisations and development agencies, India has arguably the worst child neglect and abuse record worldwide. Rutaksha Rawat investigates
• January 18. Two-year-old Falak was admitted into the trauma centre of AIIMS, New Delhi. Abandoned by her sex worker mother, she was battered, beaten and left for […]
s.2.(n) “School” means any recognised school imparting elementary education and includes: (iii) school belonging to specified category and (iv) an unaided school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate government or local authority.
s.3.(1) Every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free […]
Article 15 (1). The State shall not discriminate against any citizens on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
Article 15 (5). Nothing in this article or sub-clause (g) Article 19 shall prevent the State from making any special provision, by law for the advancement of any socially or educationally backward […]
Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia & Justice Swatanter Kumar
“The word ‘free’ in the long title to the 2009 Act stands for the removal by the State of any financial barrier that prevents a child from completing eight years of schooling (para 5).
Advancement of education is a recognised head of charity. S.3(2) has been enacted with the object […]
There is little awareness within the Central, state and local governments or within Indian society, that India is a signatory to several international child rights and protection treaties, which are practised more in the breach than observance. They include:
United Nations Millennium Declaration (2000). Signed by 189 heads of state, the United Nations Millennium Declaration sets out […]
The signing of the United Nations Millennium Declaration which inter alia bound 189 signatory nations to universalise primary education by the year 2015; enactment by Parliament of the 86th Amendment (2002) which inserted Article 21A into the Constitution making elementary (primary and upper primary) education a fundamental right on a par with the right to life and […]
The enactment of the Right to Free and Compulsory (RTE) Education Act, 2009 and the Supreme Court’s substantial validation of its provisions by its judgement delivered on April 12, has belatedly focused national attention upon vitally important primary and upper primary education — the foundation block of national development worldwide. Despite newly independent India having adopted Soviet-style […]
What an inspiring cover story (‘Ingenious tribal children development model’ EW April)! It defies belief that Dr. Achyuta Samanta has been able to establish the world’s largest residential free school for neglected tribal children in the backward state of Odisha.
I was especially struck by your observation that none of the children in KISS is tall because of […]
Although dismissed as pious intent, if not populist propaganda, the Central government’s proposal to promote 6,000 model secondary (classes VI-X) schools in every administrative block countrywide (i.e 6,000 blocks) during the 12th Plan quinquennium (2012-17), is inching forward. Of these 6,000 model secondaries, 2,500 are proposed to be promoted in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. Presenting […]
A series of exam paper leaks followed by boycott of answer scripts evaluation by teachers transformed the already hi-octane exam months of March-April into a time of high anxiety for the 596,739 students in Karnataka writing the state government’s all-important second pre-university (PU) or class XII exam, whose outcomes determine entry into colleges of students’ choice.
On March […]
The 80,000-plus students enroled in 294 schools run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will begin their new academic year in June with severe shortages of textbooks, uniforms and educational materials.
Embarassed PMC officials attribute this faux pas to “miscommunication and confusion” over procurement of educational material between the civic body and its school board. Under a system […]
Perhaps no politician in post-independence India’s history has precipitated as wild a run on her bank of goodwill as West Bengal’s mercurial chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Exactly a year ago when Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress party won a sweeping victory in the West Bengal legislative assembly elections to end 34 years of continuous rule of the Communist […]
An enduring and indelible characteristic of academics and administrators in India’s 31,000 colleges and 603 universities is a patriarchal mindset and prim sexual conservatism — often described as envy — which inhibits them from respecting even postgraduate students as adults. In college and varsity campuses countrywide, it’s quite common for learned professors and academics to refer to […]
“It is such a shame that India and Pakistan where large segments of population live in such desperate poverty must spend so much on weapons.”
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan People’s Party chairman, commenting on twitter before his first visit to India (April 9)
“Almost 70 percent of unaided schools are of minority status. If they are excluded from […]
Rajasthan
Law college vacancies
The principal’s post in all the 15 government law colleges in Rajasthan is vacant. Replying to a question in the state legislative assembly on April 19, the minister of state for higher education, Dayaram Parmar, said the matter of departmental promotions, through which these vacancies have to be filled, is sub judice. “So […]
Pearson PLC — the world’s largest education company — launched the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Tenth Edition (India) aka Stanford 10 India in April. According to Pearson Education (India) sources, Stanford 10 India is an adaptation and standardisation of the Stanford gold standard for achievement testing, adapted to suit the needs of the Indian education […]
Rashi Singhal (24) is founder-director of Vision Mission Foundation (VMF, estb. 2010), a Noida (Delhi NCR)-based NGO which offers screening, counselling and primary services to people afflicted with diabetes. Over the past two years, VMF has screened 35,000 people for diabetes — a condition affecting 51 million Indians according to the World Health Organisation — […]
Affiliated with the Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, BNM Institute of Technology, Bangalore (estb. 2001) has earned an excellent reputation for academic and extra-curricular education
Sited on a five-acre campus in south Bangalore (pop. 9 million), BNM Institute of Technology (BNMIT, estb. 2001) has established an enviable academic reputation with its […]
One of America’s most respected independent boarding schools, Wasatch Academy (estb. 1875) boasts 300 students from 38 countries from around the world
Located in the western state of Utah, Wasatch Academy (estb. 1875) is one of America’s most respected independent (private) boarding schools. This top-ranked preparatory (classes VIII-XII) school boasts […]
The road to hell, it is rightly said, is often paved with good intentions. This observation is true of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 which stipulates that all children between the ages of six-14 be given free and compulsory education in their neighbourhood schools.
Nobody can seriously argue against […]
This industry is scaling new heights every year with the textbooks and non-formal books publishing sectors growing at over 15 percent annually
Prophets of doom who predicted the early demise of the traditional paper and print publishing industry following the rapid development of new digital technologies, and advent of e-publishing options such as the Amazon Kindle, have been […]
I’m keen on studying robotics after completing my engineering degree in 2013. Which universities offer a Masters programme in robotics?
Ravi Krishnan, Chennai
In India, studies related to robot technology and its ramifications are conducted by the Union government’s department of science and technology (DST) and department of scientific and industrial research. Research and development opportunities are also available […]
Chennai-based couple MS Bala and B Amudhavalli are joint promoters of Baala Gurukulam Pvt. Ltd (BG, estb.2009), an education company offering a range of educational and allied services including preschool education, whole-brain development programmes and after-school activities for children. Currently, BG runs four centres of Roots to Wings — a chain of preschools promoted and […]
Determined to give children who have dropped out of school a second chance, in 2008 Kolkata-based Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, a senior Ashoka Fellow and promoter-director of Bandhan Microfinance (estb. 2001), promoted ten free schools in South 24-Parganas in rural West Bengal for underprivileged children. Since then, the number of Bandhan remedial schools has grown to […]
An alumnus of Mayo College, Ajmer with a business administration degree from Denver University, USA, Mumbai-based entrepreneur Chirag Shah and Sudhir Menon, a friend and alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, are co-founders of BEE Interactive Systems Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2010), a company specialising in digital education.
Newspeg. The company’s flagship product, Gototest, a unique online software platform that […]
Amit Sinha is the founder of Jamghat (estb. 2003), a Delhi-based NGO which works to rehabilitate children eking out precarious lives on the streets of Delhi. Currently, Jamghat (‘a gathering’) runs two shelter homes — Aman (for boys) and Aanchal (for girls) — and a daycare centre Angan where 75 street children are provided shelter, […]
Pune-based Milind Shintre (41) is a well-known screenplay writer and film director who has directed and acted in several commercially successful stage plays including Clean Bowled, Poonha Sanshaykallol, Dosh Chandanyacha and Sangeet Nava Bakara. The latter, described as the world’s longest mute play, won a Zee Award for Shintre as writer-director. However, Shintre’s less known passion and […]
Lionel Cranenburgh
Whether seen from the viewpoint of nation-building or the perspective of an on-the-ball school principal, it makes good long-term sense to invest in high-quality teachers who add value to students, attract funds and perhaps even endowments.
Based on a synthesis of 500,000 studies of student achievement in the United States conducted by Prof. John Hattie, […]
Higher education has become the latest battlefield in the polarising campaign among Republicans vying to challenge Barack Obama after one candidate branded the president “a snob” for suggesting that more Americans should go to university.
“There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to the […]
The Chinese government’s budget for basic research is set to increase by more than 25 percent this year, according to Science magazine’s Science Insider website. A draft budget published last week pledges more than 32 billion yuan (Rs.25,600 crore) for basic research in 2012. This represents a 26 percent increase on last year’s budget.
Overall, Chinese […]
Two UK institutions have dropped out of Times Higher Education’s academic prestige Top 100 in the face of increased competition from Asia and mainland Europe. Harvard University tops the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, published on March 15, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge — an unchanged top […]
In the run-up to the french presidential elections, the Socialist Party is insisting it will not backtrack on the current government’s controversial overhaul of higher education. Instead the party promises more funds for academia as investment in “economic development”.
But despite widespread belief that substantially increased tuition fees are on the agenda for the next government […]
In November, 600,000 Colombian students walked out of lectures in protest at what they saw as the increasing privatisation of higher education in the country. Their action prompted the government to back down from plans to reform Law 30, enacted in 1992, which among other things accords higher education in the country the status of […]
Giving a child a computer does not seem to turn him or her into a future Bill Gates — indeed it does not accomplish anything in particular. That is the conclusion from Peru (pop.29 million), epicentre of the largest single programme involving One Laptop per Child, an American charity with backers from the computer industry […]
A member of the Afghan parliament is attempting to level the playing field to ensure that female students from the country’s more remote and unstable provinces have the same access to higher education as their urban-educated peers.
Mujeeb u-Rehman Chamkani, an MP for Paktia, a remote, mountainous and unsettled province in southeast Afghanistan, is pressuring the […]
A proposal to sanction the use of indigenous languages in primary schools in polyglot Timor-Leste (East Timor) has divided members of government, civil society and educators, raising questions about how language can spur harmony — or discord — in the young nation. The ‘mother-tongue’ programme is spearheaded by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural […]
10 oldest cities in the world Every city in the world has a story to unfold. The ancient cities have all the more tales engulfed with ... 
Trivandrum International School In a state which has earned a global reputation for development through education, Trivandrum International School (TIS) has been promoted ... 
Untouched charm of Bhutan An isolated kingdom sited in the deep Himalayas which claims to measure progress by a Gross National Happiness Index, gradually ... 
Bringing nature into the classroom Within India's 5 million-strong school teachers community, there is an urgent need to acknowledge Mother Nature as the greatest teacher ... 
Towards world-class IITs and IIMs
Dr. Lalit Kanodia is the IIT-Bombay and MIT, USA-educated founder-chairman of the Datamatics Group
It is the dream of most students in India to get admission into the country’s seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) with nine in the offing, and 11 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) with two in the pipeline. Every year, over 750,000 […]