The part that I have always cherished as an educator for the last three decades is interacting with students. Each student is like a snowflake that is unique, unmatched, different and each of them has a bearing which intrigues and inspires. Walking into classrooms is therapeutic for me because it is that fertile space where knowledge is cultivated and minds are enriched. However in this field you often come across students with questions that compel you to think what is education? Recently, as I walked into one of the Math classes in my school, I noticed a student looking unconvinced about what was being taught. As I approached him, I could sense that he is pretending to hear and understand what the teacher was saying. I asked him to come out and meet me and as I started my discussion with him, I could sense that the teacher had clearly not connected the topic well for children to understand its relevance.
Education being a seamless exchange of interchanging knowledge and character is not limited to only homework and classroom. It assembles one's identity and holds power to transform capabilities into abilities for students. Co-curricular activities are activities that go hand-in-hand with the classroom curriculum thereby augmenting the overall development of the child.
To succeed in today’s business landscape quality education is a must. It is equivalent to graduating from top institutions. For students who want to pursue higher education like an MBA, the first step is to crack one of the many MBA entrance exams conducted in India. However, there is more to higher education than preparing for entrance exams. In fact, we can go so far as to say that clearing an entrance exam is only the first step towards enrolling in your dream university. Perhaps the most important aspect and oftentimes obstacle to pursuing quality higher education is the ability to pay the exuberant fees. That is when education loans come in.
Online education has gained immense popularity among working professionals and students pursuing higher education. These categories of online learners find immense benefit in the autonomy and flexibility that these courses offer. Online courses can be planned around their schedule which may include full-time employment, internships and caring for family. Online learning can also help them take out some quiet time to study.
Every sector in India Inc is going through a phase of rapid change in the way it operates today. The industry is looking at hiring candidates who are not just well qualified but also highly skilled. The qualifications and skill requirements of young graduates is seeing a change too; students today are apprehensive about opting for an engineering or medical course as a first choice in higher education. The millenials are aware of the importance of skill development above and beyond an academic degree. However, liberalisation of the education sector, which is the need of the hour, is curbed by the highly short-sighted and inflexible rules and regulations adopted by the government. Education institutions should be given a free hand in the pattern of assessing students; written examinations that test textbook knowledge are passe, today educators are looking to assess students with a more practical and research based approach. A technical course such as hotel management needs to focus on the latest developments in the industry today. The Food and Beverage industry is witnessing new trends today such as:
In order for children to become the leaders of tomorrow, it is highly essential for them to be proficient in these fields, besides possessing critical thinking abilities, knowledge of engineering design processes, a high creativity quotient, and problem solving skills. When taught to children early on in their lives, STEM can instil in them a healthy interest in not just gathering knowledge about predefined subjects, but even in exploring, questioning, and discovering everything they cannot understand.
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) making rapid inroads into the global education space, today’s youth are as much in awe of AI as they are keen on leveraging the technology to enhance their learning experience. Given that AI is based on a complex programme built to mimic the cognitive functions between two human brains, it comes handy around the problem solving premises of a learning structure. However, before we accept AI as an indispensable learning tool, we need to first understand the learning process and where and how AI could actually add value in this process.
In an exclusive interview with EducationWorld, Mr Ian Davies, Head of Garodia International Centre for Learning Mumbai (GICLM) - which has recently launched the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) - talks about the way forward for international schools in India.
The battle between digital and print media is long over but publishers across the world keep harkening back to the time when physical books were the only way to discover and ingest new information. When figures released earlier this year by the Publishing Association showed that eBook sales had fallen by about 17 percent in the UK alone, it led to a lot of media frenzy. But a deeper analysis showed that the reason behind this decline is probably higher eBook pricing rather than a renewed demand for print books. Jonathan Stolper, president The NPD Group, also attested to this fact at the Digital Book World in January 2017.
Teacherpreneurship is a combination of teacher and entrepreneurship, wherein the focus is on the teachers, who are ready to take risks, in making profitable learning experience for their students. It describes their relentless effort for the betterment of the education system. Teacherpreneurship is the mindset of the teacher to create something unique and innovative, based on leadership, both for profitable or non-profitable reasons. The teachers of Entrepreneurship or Business impart lessons to the students on how to incubate an idea and how to implement it. Therefore, the teacher is the right person to introduce entrepreneurship skills in the classroom, as teacherpreneurship is an expanded form of entrepreneurship, which adds value to the context of education and leads to an innovative and pioneering education system.
Although most schools boast state-of-the-art facilities pertaining to technology, they must ensure their investments are optimally utilised and instrumental in effective learning outcomes.
The internet is a great resource for teachers, as teachers, you find lesson plans, academic materials, suggestions, support and lots of information that can aid and assist your teaching. Below are websites for teachers you can harness for better and improved teaching:
The idea of school and college education is changing in India. Gone are the dayswhen university education entailed sitting in classrooms for the major part of the day. Distance learning has heralded unprecedented changes in India's higher education landscape.Today, you have e-learning and personalised learning techniques as the newest flavour of the education industry.
Rising competition along with the aim to reach high, has prepared students to leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting into the best college. According to IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education, the stakeholders in the education sector are not only required to nurture the students academically, but also nurture them holistically, in order to ensure that the students reach their goal. Students need to have a thorough understanding of the concepts and a formulated strategy, which is required to achieve high marks in competitive examinations. This is where coaching institutes play a vital role in a student's life. Many students enroll in a coaching institute at a very early age in order to expand the boundaries of their learning and prepare a strong foundation for their future. The responsibility of coaching institutes thus increases as they are required to ensure all-round development of the students.
A classroom is a microcosm of the universe, and a classroom is an excellent space to inculcate practices that can help students throughout their adult lives. As correctly pointed out by Henry Ford, Coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress. Working together is success Students need to be made comfortable working in groups.
•An English-medium class XII sociology textbook of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education ascribes ugliness and handicap” as the main reasons why Indian parents have to pay dowry for the marriage of their daughters. If a girl is ugly and handicapped, it becomes very difficult for her to get married. To marry her, the girls bridegroom and his family demand more dowry. The helpless parents of such girls are then forced to pay up,” explains the author.
Creativity is dying a slow death as the Indian educational system emphasises rigorously on rote learning rather than critical thinking and problem solving,” says Mitsuyo Tamai, CEO of Japan-based tuition centre Kiwami.
By 2025, India will have 119 million 18 to 22 year olds, which means India will be home to the largest student population in the world by then. Indias education institutes will face several challenges if they are to be able to meet the demand for courses of all types from vocational to academic and at standards acceptable to both students and the government.
Employment assessment programmes at colleges are typically designed to help students attain their goals at the completion of the course. It helps students to recognise their strengths and areas of improvement, identify industries and functions that may suit their skills and interests, measure gaps and provide feedback. These are necessary for students to prepare themselves to get selected and perform at workplace.
A robust education system reflects any country's growth and prosperity. Education acts as the foundation for a brighter future of an individual. Over the last few decades, great strides in India's education system were made though the focus on developing the right set of skills and providing training to create global citizens is still missing. There is a dire need to empower individuals who have the power to make a difference in the world by eradicating the most of the complex issues.
I so vividly remember walking in to teach my ninth Standard English class and one of the students asked me the spelling of a word I did not know. I was so embarrassed because as a teacher I thought I was supposed to know all the answers. I had joined the profession as a thanksgiving to a teacher who had changed my life and loved every bit of it till that one afternoon. I fumbled a bit, and than basically admitted to the class I did not know the spelling to a hushed giggling sound from the back where this child sat. Over the years, I have thought of that particular afternoon and come to realise that as a teacher we are made to believe that we are super human beings with vast storage of knowledge and elevate ourselves to that position by buying into that myth. But it is just not true. We are humans first and teachers later. We have limitations like everyone else. Not that we should not try to overcome them but sometimes the odds are stacked up against us? How am I or anyone else supposed to know how to spell all 1,025,109.8 words in the English language?"
As you enter the school on your first day as a new teacher, a million thoughts must be racing through your mind. On one hand you are excited about your new job and on the other hand you are terrified as to if you made the right choice in taking up this profession. Either ways as butterflies flutter in your stomach now it is show time.
Tons of research in the education field points to an important fact – no sustainable improvement in student results and gaps in achievement can be filled until the school leaders, teachers work on strong norms of behavior. School culture has been defined in many ways but we are focusing here on how the adults - the school leaders - behave in a school setting. What practices they follow, how they interact with each other, what values inform their behavior, how do the leaders model their behavior – these become the main guiding force in the schools capacity to learn, improve, design its long term vision and mission and impact the various stakeholders from the students to the parents.
Talking to a teacher who was overwhelmed by the disruptive behavior of one child, it dawned upon me the challenges the teachers face everyday in their classrooms. One of the most amazing professions requires an overdose of patience, kindness and most importantly self-compassion. What does self-compassion translate to in the teaching scenario? Translated in lay terms, it means being kind to oneself. More often than not we do not take a moment and give a pat on our shoulders and breathe and be compassionate to our self.
Education has consistently been recognised as the cornerstone of development for any country or region, and one of the highest return rewarding development activities. Education outcome is influenced by a number of factors, infrastructure being one of them.
The 1920s was a high point in the Progressive Education movement whose most famous proponent was American educationist John Dewey (1859 - 1952). Developed in response to uniform learning administered according to social class in 19th century industrial society, progressive education broke the mould and introduced a more enlightened approach to public schooling – to transform schools into effective agencies of democratic societies.
With today's generation getting smarter by the day, most parents and teachers find themselves at a loss for words when faced with their bold and intelligent questions. With technology and social media taking our society by storm, kids of all age groups today are much more well informed on various aspects of life than ever before. They are curious, tech savvy, intelligent and articulate.
Access to information ‘anytime, anywhere is becoming the defining mantra for educational digital learning solution providers in India. Traditional classroom teaching model has slowly metamorphosed into digital education learning platform, which is self-driven, ‘eduprenuerial and fastmaking India one of the biggest education markets in the world. Pupils well-versed with the likes of PlayStations and iPads, via digital learning, are making smart classroom environment more inclusive, participatory and transforming the education system into an IT-enabled education system. However, resistance to change along with certain infrastructure challenges is hindering the growth of this market. But with digital ripples via Narendra Modis digital India dream initiative, India's online education market is poised to grow to a US$ 40 billion market by 2017.
Kanishka Agarwal, Senior Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation Associate, Pratham Education Foundation and Muskan, Research Assoicate at ASER Centre, currently pursuing an MBA at MDI. Almost .....Read More
Women empowerment is more than just a movement—it’s a necessary shift toward a world where every woman has the freedom, opportunities, and rights to thrive. .....Read More
