EducationWorld October 16

The discerning among the rising number of regular readers of this publication are likely to have noticed that during the past few months, a searchlight has increasingly been focused on school examination boards and the role they play in syllabus development and design.

This is because in the light of authoritative reports highlighting declining learning outcomes […]

The Rise And Fall Of Nations by Ruchir Sharma Penguin Books; Price: Rs.799; Pages: 464

For the Indian economy with its pathetic 2 percent share of international trade, the global financial crisis of 2008 triggered by the subprime mortgages investment boom in the US, wasn’t a big deal. The economy recorded 8.4 percent GDP growth in the […]

The stand-off between the bjp-led NDA government and the Supreme Court over the former’s delay in appointing judges proposed by the apex court’s collegium, threatens to paralyse the country’s already sclerotic judicial system. On August 13, a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur rebuked the Centre for bringing the entire […]

Yoga is a multi-billion dollar business and an attractive career option for youth and adults aspiring to teach this ancient Indian mind and body healing science: Indra Gidwani

From a relatively unknown spiritually uplifting discipline, today yoga has become a transnational cultural phenomenon with millions of practitioners worldwide and a dedicated International Yoga Day. The fact […]

Post-independence India’s Nehruvian socialist legacy has ensured there’s no stopping the slide of academia into mediocrity. Not only has public expenditure (Centre plus states) remained stuck in the 3-3.5 percent per annum groove for over 60 years as against 6 percent recommended by the high-powered Kothari Commission in 1966, the country’s higher judiciary has facilitated […]

Please refer to our email sent to C fore dated July 15 in which we clearly disagreed with the format of the EW India School Rankings 2016 survey and conveyed our refusal to participate in it. We have serious objections that in spite of our refusal, you have printed the name of DPS, Faridabad in […]

I’m a class XII (commerce) student interested in gaming/game programming as a career. Which courses should I sign up for?
Deepak Srinivasan, Chennai

Game programme design relies heavily on math and physics. As a commerce student, you are at a disadvantage. However, don’t lose hope. You can sign up for a BCA or B.Sc (IT) undergraduate […]

With an education budget of Rs.10,690 crore in fiscal 2016-17, the highest ever allocated by any government of Delhi state which includes the national capital, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government — elected to power in February 2015 with a sweeping majority — raised hopes of radical changes in Delhi’s 924 government schools. Unfortunately, the […]

The fashionable new buzzword in contemporary education is ‘inclusive education’. The Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which makes it mandatory for privately promoted schools to admit children from socio-economically disadvantaged households in their neighbourhoods (s.12 (1) (c)), is the latest instance of inclusive education. Earlier, inclusive education was propagated […]

A row has broken out between the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, estb.1936), reputed as among the country’s best social sciences higher ed institution (ranked #25 in the EducationWorld India National University Rankings 2015), and the University Grants Commission (UGC, estb.1956), the apex non-technical higher education regulatory and funding organisation. A deemed (public) […]

As the new school year approaches, most pupils in Detroit and New Orleans are preparing to return to desks in America’s charter schools. First permitted by Minnesota in 1991, charter schools are found in 43 states; in a few cities they have become mainstream. Academies — their equivalents in England — were set up later […]

A May 24 ordinance of the union government which granted aspiring medical students the option of exemption from NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) — a common national exam for admission into undergraduate and postgrad medical and dental study programmes of all medical colleges countrywide — for one year (2016-17), came as a great relief to thousands […]

Nearly half of prime minister Theresa May’s cabinet went to comprehensive (i.e, non-selective) state schools; Justine Greening, the new education secretary, is one of them. Outside 10 Downing Street on July 13, May pointed out that children in state schools had less of a chance of making it to the top than their privately educated […]

After storming to power for a second consecutive term in 2016, the Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has established its supremacy in West Bengal (pop. 91 million). The 2016 assembly election results have vindicated the TMC’s socialist populism. Metalled roads in more than 170 rural constituencies, village electrification, […]

The Netherlands’ university association has defended the growth of English-language courses at Dutch institutions, claiming that it will “enhance the quality of education” and boost the country’s “innovative strength and competitiveness”. Figures revealed by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant in August found that 60 percent of courses at Dutch universities are taught in English, and this […]

Six years after it became law on April 1, 2010, the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act — particularly s. 12 (1) (c) of the Act which makes it obligatory for private non-minority schools to reserve 25 percent of seats in elementary classes (I-VIII) for children from poor households in their […]

Work never stops at Jamia Sirat-ul-Mustaqeem, a madrassa in a rundown part of Rawalpindi in Pakistan Punjab. After its 20 pupils are in bed, the teachers use Skype to connect to homes in Britain, France, Norway and Sweden, where teenagers attempt to read the unfamiliar Arabic script of the Koran. Many European parents find these […]

“Nearly 90 per cent of teacher training institutes are now in the private sector. A new kind of post-liberalisation inspector raj governs them, with rampant corruption. There’s pervasive commercialisation in this sector and little room for quality concerns.”

Dr. Krishna Kumar, professor of education, Delhi University on the crisis in teacher eductation (Hindustan Times, September 4)

“The […]

Tamil Nadu
TCS-Sastra concordat

To celebrate Teachers’ Day (September 5), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India’s premier IT services, consulting and business solutions company (annual revenue: Rs.110,084 crore), inked a partnership agreement with the Thanjavur-based SASTRA University.

Under the terms of the agreement, TCS will train over 2,000 government and private school teachers in Tamil Nadu to use […]

Huang Yanlai was 74 when he first raped 11-year-old Xiao Yu. He threatened her with a bamboo-harvesting knife while she was out gathering snails in the fields for her grandmother in Nan village, Guangxi province, in south-west China. Over the following two years, Xiao Yu (a nickname meaning Light Rain) was raped more than 50 […]

The Educomp Schools Conclave 2016 of Educomp Solutions Ltd — India’s largest education company and pioneer of the Smartclass education system in India — was held in Noida (Delhi NCR) on September 27. Over 50 principals of top-ranked schools in Noida attended the conclave where the company unveiled its latest offering in innovative learning branded […]

Its buses and trains arrive on the dot. Its engineers are famously precise. But when it comes to English, Japan is uncharacteristically sloppy. Signs are often misspelled. Taxi drivers point at phrasebooks to communicate with foreigners. Shops that take an English name to be trendy often get it horribly wrong: witness ‘Poopdick’, a second-hand cosmetics […]