EducationWorld November 2018

Current edition

November 2018

Cover Story

BJP/NDA Government’s Education Report Card (2014-18)

It is the misfortune of the world’s largest child and youth population that like its predecessor governments, the BJP-NDA government at the Centre and in several major states has failed…

Special Report

Can Allahabad University bloom again in U.P. desert?

Once the epicentre of India’s freedom struggle and the alma mater of three prime ministers, two vice-presidents and a president of India as well as of authors, artistes and senior…

19th Anniversary Essay

Dangerous consequences of dying reading habit

Decades ago, when I studied educational theory abroad, one of the many startling things I learnt was the presence of reading in the daily time table of schools from the…

Letter from the Editor

An assessment of the education development track record of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government which completed four years in office at the Centre in May and is now…

Editorial

Trivialisation of Mahatma Gandhi

The sesquicentennial (150th) birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 was half-heartedly celebrated in New Delhi and with even less enthusiasm in the rest of the country. With the…

Editorial

Mobocracy hurtling towards anarchy

When the bharatiya janata Party (BJP) was elected to power at the Centre following a sweeping victory in General Election 2014, and subsequently triumphed in several state legislative assembly elections,…

Mailbox

Encouraging cover story

Your October cover story ‘Why boarding schools are becoming popular again’ was interesting and information-packed. It’s true that our cities and towns are becoming highly-polluted gas chambers with children having to…

Education News

Delhi – Sustainable development education gloom

A year after it produced its SDG 4.7 review report titled Rethinking Schooling at the 39th session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) held in Paris,…

Education News

Maharashtra – Unwarranted expediency

The vintage mumbai university (MU, estb.1857) has been at the receiving end of a fusillade from the Bombay high court for “abdicating” its responsibility of conducting independent law examinations and…

Education News

Karnataka – Cynical ploy

Popularly known as the rte quota, the compulsory admission of children from poor neighbourhood households into private non-minority day schools under s. 12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children…

Education News

West Bengal – Rising student unrest

Against the backdrop of an estimated 31 million youth registered as unemployed in official employment agencies across the country and the BJP/NDA government at the Centre having abandoned all claims…

Education News

Tamil Nadu – Overdue attention

Three years after the jayalalithaa-led all india Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government of Tamil Nadu promulgated India’s first code of regulations for play schools (aka pre-primaries/preschools), and also drafted…

Education News

They said it in October

“Teacher education programmes should underline active engagement in public life, and dispositions and sensibilities for living in plural societies with a commitment to social cohesion and solidarity.” Seema Sarohe, assistant…

Education Notes

Delhi: India’s cleanest varsity campuses

New Delhi, October 1. Haryana’s Maharashi Dayanand University is India’s ‘Cleanest Public University’ in 2018, according to a Union human resource development ministry survey. The Swachh (‘clean’) Campus Rankings in…

Education Briefs

MaGE-Equifax concordat

Bangalore, October 4. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Manipal ProLearn, a professional learning arm of the Bangalore-based Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE), and Atlanta (USA)-based Equifax Inc,…

Young Achievers

R. Praggnanandhaa

In June R. Praggnanandhaa (RP), a class VIII student of the Velammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai, took the chess world by storm when he outsmarted Italian Grandmaster (GM) Luca…

Young Achievers

Arsh Ali

There’s no telling the tonnes of evidence budding archaeologist Arsh Ali (18) may unearth, given his knowledge of 15 ancient written scripts including Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Currently, Arsh is busy deciphering…

19th Anniversary Essay

Desperate effort to replenish bare cupboard

The government of Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous state (215 million) — is headed by a violent and bigoted godman. He was the subject, and probably the source of…

Institution Profile

National University of Ireland, Galway

NUI enjoys an excellent national reputation for teaching and research. It was conferred the Sunday Times University of the Year Award for the third time in 2018 Founded in 1845…

Institution Profile

Nehru World School, Ghaziabad

Started as a Hindi-medium UP state board-affiliated school in 1978, NWS has transformed into a progressive English-medium K-12 institution offering CBSE and Cambridge International (UK) curriculums to its 1,540 students…

19th Anniversary Essay

Ill-advised higher education reform initiative

The Union human resource development (HRD) ministry’s proposal to scrap the University Grants Commission (UGC, estb. 1956) and replace it with a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) has sparked…

19th Anniversary Essay

Pains & gains of the world’s toughest school-leaving exam

The high rankings awarded to China’s universities in the annual WUR (World University Rankings) of the highly-reputed London-based higher education institution rating agencies Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education…

Career Focus

Swelling demand for maritime archaeologists

As a consequence of global warming and melting polar ice caps, underwater archaeology has emerged as a highly specialised vocation – Paromita Sengupta With rising awareness of the importance of…

Career Focus

Your counselor replies

I am a class X student and want to explore career options which don’t require study of maths. — Vishesh Kumar, Noida Knowledge of mathematics at least of basic level…

19th Anniversary Essay

Faith in the wisdom of children

I am writing this essay in Rome and it has aroused indelible memories of a previous visit to this Eternal City six years ago. The rush of memories is stimulated…

People

Krea U’s first vice chancellor

Currently on a prolonged sabbatical in India, Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy, distinguished professor of international economics at Middlebury College (MC), USA, is the newly appointed vice chancellor of Krea University (KU),…

People

Phoren Kampus goes foreign

Bhavesh Thakkar is the Mumbai-based founder and managing director of Phoren Kampus Pvt. Ltd (PKPL, estb.2005) and its subsidiary Ed Infra (2008), which provide a gamut of education consultancy services…

People

Transnational educator

Mehran Akhtarkhavari is director of the Hiranandani Upscale School, Chennai (HUS, estb.2011) promoted by Surendra Hiranandani, founder-managing director of the Mumbai-based House of Hiranandani, a big name in real estate…

People

Go-getting edupreneur

Priyamvada Agarwal is founder-director of Education & You (E&Y, estb.2014), a Kolkata-based education technology company which provides college admission guidance, career planning advice and training for collegiate and university entrance…

People

Hospitality education maestro

Nigel Viegas is the Barbar (Bahrain)-based executive director of Bahrain Institute of Hospitality and Retail (BIHR) which offers high quality hotel and tourism management and retail study programmes accredited by…

People

SMS consultancy driver

An alumna of Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak and IMT, Ghaziabad, Anju Dhawan is founder-director of the Delhi-based SMS Consultants (estb.2003), a human resource company placing principals and teachers in schools…

Teacher to Teacher

Are teachers going the way of dinosaurs?

A new book The Fourth Education Revolution: Will Artificial Intelligence Liberate or Infantilise humanity? (2018) co-authored by Sir Anthony Seldon and Oladimeji Abidoye, is creating waves within the community of…

International News

Letter from London – Political correctness virus

There are some very sinister and deliberately introduced influences in our society, especially in education, much of it flowing from the global failure of Marxism that will lead to social…

International News

United States – Campus sexual assaults debate

Proposed changes to regulations on campus sexual misconduct in the US are a backward step in the fight against sexual violence and risk turning universities into court-rooms, according to observers.…

International News

Spain – Fraudulent degrees scandal

Even in a country used to academic fraud scandals, the past few months in Spain have been remarkable — it would perhaps be easier to list the Spanish politicians who…

International News

Kazakhstan – Academic integrity drive

The position of Nazarbayev University, named after Kazakhstan’s president, is unique. Established in 2010 as a “beacon” for higher education in this central Asian country, it has far more autonomy…

International News

The world university rankings – Tsinghua ranked Asia’s #1 varsity

China has stepped up its ascent of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, with the country now hosting the top institution in Asia for the first time under the…

International News

France – Arabic teaching-learning row

Arabic is a “perfect, smooth and rich language”, wrote Ernest Renan, a 19th century French thinker who praised its “extensive vocabulary, the accuracy of its meanings and the beautiful logic…

International News

United Kingdom – Greying faculty profiles

The number of academics working past the age of 65 in UK universities has more than doubled since the compulsory retirement age was abolished seven years ago. About 7,090 scholars…

Eyewitness

India-UAE Partnership Summit 2018

His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Tolerance in the UAE government, conferred Global Education Leaders awards upon nine eminent education leaders from India for…