Promoted as a one-room test prep venture in 1995, through a strategy of backward integration, career launcher has metamorphosed into cl educate ltd, a multi-divisional corporate spanning the education spectrum and vying for market leadership. Dilip Thakore reports
With the forecast for Educomp Solutions and Everonn — hitherto India’s most high-profile and fancied listed private education ICT […]
A new genre of highly qualified education entrepreneurs are combining sports evangelism with enlightened capitalism, and are pulling out all stops to sell the concept of professionally delivered sports and fitness training to the country’s 1.30 million, particularly 80,000 private schools. Summiya Yasmeen reports
Although dressed up as India’s best ever Olympic games performance by frenzied media […]
On August 14, the Greater Noida-based CL Educate Ltd (estimated revenue: Rs.200 crore in 2011-12) completed 17 years of operations and attained adulthood. Started in 1995 by a St. Stephen’s, Delhi and IIM-Bangalore alumnus Satya Narayanan R. as Career Launcher, the enterprise has since grown from a one-room test prep school into a multi-divisional company […]
Dilip Thakore interviewed Satya Narayanan R. (popularly known as Satya), founder-chairman of CL Educate Ltd in the company’s head office in Greater Noida. Excerpts.
What were the motivations and objectives which prompted you to promote Career Launcher as a one-man tutorials firm in 1995?
After landing what everyone considered a dream job in Ranbaxy after graduating from IIM-Bangalore, I […]
The general consensus in Indian society is that “commercialisation of education” is one of the seven deadly sins. Politicians condemn it even as using insiders’ knowledge of the byzantine education licencing and regulatory system, they promote private education institutions and profit from them. The learned justices of the Supreme Court condemn it, unmindful of the […]
The recently concluded 19-day monsoon session of Parliament which ended on September 7 without any orderly debate or passage of legislation, is a blot on India’s experiment in democracy. Although media pundits excoriated all political parties for the daily disruption of both houses of Parliament during the entire monsoon session of the country’s apex legislative […]
I wish to express my gratitude for publishing the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (September).
Your commentary on the changing expectations of parents about school education is insightful and encouraging for the teachers community. The prominence given to views of eminent school and education leaders will definitely help to influence the future direction of primary-secondary education. I […]
The long-standing proposal of the Union government to establish 14 autonomous ‘innovation universities’ — first announced by the National Knowledge Commission in 2010 and for which purpose a draft Universities for Research and Innovation Bill 2012 was tabled in Parliament in May (where it has been stuck in logjam following the prolonged disruption of parliamentary […]
Primary school education in Maharashtra (pop. 112 million) — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 25 percent of the country’s industrial production — is in pathetic condition. And this is official.
According to the latest flash statistics of the District Information System for Education (DISE) 2010-11 of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), […]
Following a spate of tragedies suffered by school children in Tamil Nadu which drew attention to public and official apathy towards child safety rules and regulations, a new scourge of sexual abuse of children is spreading through the state’s 55,567 government and aided and 10,000 private schools, further tarnishing the image of this southern state’s […]
A criminal indictment and trial which had hung like a malevolent cloud over Kolkata’s bhadralok (English literate middle class) — who pride themselves if their children are admitted into the elite La Martiniere for Boys School (LMB, estb. 1836) — was lifted on September 21. Delivering a 11-page written judgement, Judge Madhuchanda Bose, additional district […]
Well-known for his assertive — critics say authoritarian — style of putting his stamp and impress upon every sector of the economy of Gujarat (pop. 60 million), chief minister Narendra Modi is under fire for interfering with higher education institutions, particularly appointments of vice chancellors to universities in the state.
On June 30, Dr. Parimal Trivedi […]
“When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.”
Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention (Time, September 17)
“It was a deal worked out over dinner on the kitchen table. I made three dollars on this film, but they’re worth it.”
Author Salman Rushdie on […]
Maharashtra
Emerging education hub
With the newly constituted Gondwana University — sited in the heart of the Naxal insurgency affected Gadchiroli district — having admitted its first batch of students in August, the demand for a separate divisional office of the Maharashtra Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (MSHSEB) located here, is gaining ground. “Currently, all education-related […]
The city of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which host more than 150 schools of higher education, inaugurated a ‘connect centre’ at the Narsee Monjee Educational Trust, Mumbai on September 22. Christened the American Education Center (AEC), it is housed in the Jamnabai Narsee School, Mumbai and will operate under the aegis of the […]
Shreya Vardhan, (16), a class XII student of the nationally reputed Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, has become a DPS and India star by scoring a perfect 100 in the US-administered SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), AP (Advance Placement) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) — all mandatory qualifying examinations for admission […]
Ranked Varanasi’s No. 1 school for the second year in succession in the EW India School Rankings 2012, Sunbeam School, Lahartara is set to celebrate its tenth anniversary this year
Sited in the sacred city of Varanasi (pop.3 million), the CBSE-affiliated K-12 Sunbeam School, Lahartara (estb. 2002) has speedily acquired an excellent reputation […]
The mint new second campus of the island republic’s top international school, Canadian Indian School, Singapore constructed at a cost of Rs.630 crore completes one year of operations this month
A live example of the transformative power of high quality education to develop human capital into national prosperity, the Republic of Singapore (per […]
With a crime wave sweeping India, the demand for criminologists who determine the causes and effects of criminal activity and develop strategies for crime abatement, is becoming pressing, writes Indra Gidwani (Mumbai)
According to latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau — a statistical unit of the Union home ministry — a crime wave is sweeping […]
I’m a final year B.Sc (maths) student keen on a research career in astronomy or astrophysics. Which universities offer Masters degrees in these subjects?
Avinash Parikh, Mumbai
For Masters degree programmes in astronomy or astrophysics check out Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded 431603; Punjabi University, Patiala 147002; Osmania University, Hyderabad 500007; Birla Planetarium, Kolkata (postgrad diploma). […]
The world of education has grown and expanded exponentially into diverse areas. So have institutions and facilities. But it’s important to remember that sound foundations of young minds are best laid in pre-teen and teenage years. Therefore the school years are a very crucial period in every child’s life. Infrastructure and other facilities in a […]
“If India is to become a globally respected nation, it has to be through the power of education and this can happen only if we nurture high-quality leaders,” says Anil Sachdev, founder and CEO of the Gurgaon-based School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL, estb.2009) — a unique business school focusing on leadership training. Sachdev has undertaken a […]
Shweta Sastri is executive director of the Bangalore-based K-12 co-educational day/boarding Canadian International School (CIS, estb.1996), ranked among India’s Top 20 and Karnataka’s Top 5 international schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012. With an aggregate enrolment of 480 students (70 percent are children of expatriates), CIS was the garden city’s first education institution to […]
Mohammed Asif Iqbal is vice president of Welfare Society for the Blind (WSB), Majerhat, Kolkata. An alumnus of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune, Iqbal lost his vision at age 16. But the disability has driven him to do all he can to make common cause with, […]
Although he is neither a mathematics graduate nor a teacher, TN Mahesh, a business development officer of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), is adept at creating ‘magic square’ puzzles that have engaged the attention of school students and math lovers in Chennai. According to Mahesh, a magic square is an arrangement of numerals set […]
A professional librarian with a Ph D in the subject awarded by Jiwaji University, Gwalior, Dr Rishi Tiwari has been managing the 35,000-volume library of the Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida (Bimtech, estb. 1988), since 2004. Simultaneously, with the encouragement of Bimtech, he promotes libraries and library culture in budget schools in the slums […]
Dr. Anant Agarwal looks out the window of his new office on the seventh floor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences and muses aloud — and without evident irony — about the future of online education. “We’re going to change the world,” says Agarwal, who is heading […]
How Chinese is Hong Kong? Two recent issues have highlighted the territory’s contradictory attitudes toward the mainland. On August 22, seven Hong Kongers belonging to the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands returned to a heroes’ welcome. They had sailed their fishing boat to those barren rocks (known as the Senkakus by the Japanese, […]
London Metropolitan University (LMU) which had to expel 2,600 including 350 Indian students because of visa irregularities in July could be taken over by a private buyer if the loss of its visa licence leads to insolvency. The institution is mounting a legal challenge to the UK Border Agency’s decision to revoke its highly trusted […]
The Buddhist monk, staring intently at the smoke rising from an incense stick, says the government is destroying state-provided education because it’s “easier to control uneducated fools”. Maduluwawe Sobitha is an influential figure among Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhala population. He is also a loud critic of the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The monk’s new […]
Chile’s only university owned by the global arm of US for-profit education giant Apollo Group has had its accreditation withdrawn.
On July 18, following an unsuccessful appeal, Chile’s National Education Council confirmed a decision of the National Accreditation Commission to stop accrediting the University for Arts, Sciences and Communication (UNIACC). Consequently the university’s students will be […]
The intent and purpose of school and youth sports has been debated and philosophised for ages. Why, I am often asked, should my child become involved in tiring games and sports?
For one thing, heed the news. Today’s generation of sedentary children is fighting the worst obesity epidemic in history. Giving kids an opportunity to exercise […]
Beyond the Lines by Kuldip Nayar; Roli Books; Price: Rs.595; 420 pp
One of the few positive developments in these depressing times is the coming of age of India’s book publishing industry. Within the past decade, this industry has evolved with the ready publication of memoirs and autobiographies of captains of industry, political leaders and activists positioned […]
Dr. Pavan Podar, Chairman, Podar Education Network
Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
At the very top. A strong national education movement will have a positive cascading effect on all sectors of the Indian economy.
How best to upgrade government schools.
Government and private schools can learn […]
The flood of media eulogies for the late Dr. Verghese Kurien, former chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF, owner of brand Amul) and architect of Operation Flood (which transformed milk-deficient India into the world’s largest producer of milk and dairy products), is in sharp contrast with […]
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 ... 
15 Ancient jobs that still exist today Ancient jobs came into being primarily because of the earliest human needs. Occupations such as farming, tool making, and carpentry ... 
Tara story-teller: Gita Wolf Chennai-based Gita Wolf is the founder-editor of Tara Books Pvt. Ltd (estb. 1994), which began as a children’s book publishing house but ... 
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 ... 
Remembering Gandhian education
JS Rajput is former director of NCERT and National Council for Teacher Education
On October 2 every year, the nation ritually observes the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the extraordinary sage, savant and visionary who piloted India’s freedom movement, humbling the mighty rulers of the globe-girdling British Empire on which it was proudly claimed, the sun […]