Maharashtra’s night schools, which run evening classes to provide classes V-XII state board education for economically weaker sections of society (irrespective of age and gender) unable to attend day schools, are facing an acute shortage of teachers since the beginning of the current academic year (2017-18). That’s because a government resolution (GR) dated May 17 […]
The initiative of the vintage but continuously parochialised University of Mumbai (MU, estb. 1857) to replace manual assessment of students’ examination papers with an online evaluation system has come a cropper with technological disruptions and tedious processes delaying results for most of the university’s undergrad and postgraduate students. The delay has impacted 425,000 students who […]
It’s hardly a national secret that the biggest drag on national development are the BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) Hindi-belt states of the Indian Union. Among them, Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (215 million) state — is commonly believed to be the country’s most lawless and educationally backward, with the possible […]
The Madras high court has struck down the Tamil Nadu Establishment of Private Law Colleges (Prohibition) Act, 2014 which had banned the promotion of new private law colleges in the state. A division bench which heard a batch of three writ petitions on October 26 ruled: “There is a difference between restriction or regulation and […]
The southern state of Karnataka (pop. 64 million) is staring at a massive teacher shortage crisis in primary-secondary education. According to a survey report of the Union HRD ministry (Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan) titled Teacher Demand and Supply in Secondary Schools, released in May, only 5.3 percent of the state’s 14,937 secondary schools and 7.2 […]
FOR THE SECOND YEAR in a row, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government — which swept to power in the Delhi state legislative assembly last year routing the fancied BJP — tabled an education-focused Budget 2016-17 on March 29. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, also the finance and education minister, announced an outlay of Rs.10,690 […]
THE BJP-SHIV SENA government of Maharashtra (pop.112 million), which swept to power with a huge majority in the state’s legislative assembly election of October 2014, is set to make Marathi a compulsory subject for primary (class I-VII) children in all schools, no exceptions. Hitherto primary-secondaries affiliated with the pan-India Delhi-based Council for the Indian School […]
THE MANAGEMENTS OF TAMIL NADU’S 580 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and 52 Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) schools got a respite on January 28 when the Supreme Court passed an interim order restraining the Justice S.R. Singaravelu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee (PSFDC) from interfering with tuition fees charged by […]
AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE engineered to track the number of children in government primary schools with the objective of controlling wastage of social benefits — free mid-day meals, textbooks, uniforms etc — has yielded unexpected data. Of the total 159,625 state government primary-secondary schools, 6,898 have less than 25 students on their muster rolls while 22,959 […]
CAMPAIGNING IS IN FULL swing in West Bengal for the state’s 16th legislative assembly election which begins on April 4 and concludes on May 5. During its first term in office, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government led by the fiery trade unionist Mamata Banerjee, who improbably ended the uninterrupted 34-year rule over the state of […]
With only one of india’s 800 universities (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) ranked among the Top 200 in the World University Rankings (WURs) league tables published annually by the reputed London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education and Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University, the 18-month-old BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has devised an out-of-the-box solution. […]
The BJP/Shiv Sena government of Maharashtra — India’s most industrial state (pop.112 million) — is under opposition fire for its suggestions made to the Delhi-based Union human resource development ministry which is putting the finishing touches to its much awaited New Education Policy (NEP). The report uploaded on the state government’s website on November 9, […]
Persistent attempts by the dominant regional parties in Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) to make all school children statewide study Tamil, including students of 6,500 private matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu), 565 schools affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and 468 Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), have […]
It’s an indicator of the magnitude of the scale of educated unemployed in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million), where too few jobs were created during 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (1977-2011) because of a prolonged private investment famine and flight of capital. The Teacher […]
On November 16, following a supreme court directive of September 8, the Bangalore-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC, estb.1994), which appraises and accredits institutions of higher education in India, cleared 38 private universities which were among 44 universities across the country that had been recommended for derecognition by the Tandon Committee (2009) for “aberrations […]
“Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble.”
US President Barack Obama calling for a cap on time spent on standardised testing in US classrooms “to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing” (Time, November 9)
“There is an imperative need in India to have these issues discussed openly, beginning with the pervasive […]
On the first ever world youth Skills day (July 15), the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government launched the Skill India initiative, the third such ambitious programme after Make in India and Digital India in recent months. A National Skill Development Mission and a new National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (NPSDE) 2015 are […]
Like the BJP/NDA government at the Centre, nine months into its first term the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, led by the previously unknown Devendra Fadnavis, is mired in corruption scandals. The Maharashtra legislative council has asked women and child welfare minister Pankaja Munde to provide a written explanation for orally ordering supplies (books, food) […]
Quite obviously, primary teaching jobs are highly prized in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million). In the West Bengal primary TET (teacher eligibility test) 2015 scheduled to be conducted by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) within the framework of the NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) on August […]
In the popular narrative of spokespersons and acolytes of the BJP/NDA government which was swept to power in Delhi in General Election 2014 — with the BJP emerging as the first political party since 1985 to win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha — the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop.65 million), ruled by […]
It was too good to last. The sole preserve in the education continuum — early childhood care and education (ECCE) — which had escaped the heavy regulatory hand of government for over six decades, has lost its independence.
On June 12, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) promulgated post-independence India’s first draft code […]
Karnataka’s 10.2 million students enroled in 76,000 state board-affiliated government, private aided and unaided primary-secondary schools who began the new academic year 2015-16 in June, are obliged to make do with previous years’ error-ridden textbooks. Several textbook committees constituted by the Congress state government after it assumed office in May 2013 following the rout of […]
A seven-day protest fast by magsaysay award winner (2002) Sandeep Pandey against Lucknow’s top-ranked City Montessori School (CMS) over its refusal to admit children from economically weaker sections (EWS) under s.12 (1) (c) of the controversial Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act), has created a major stir in […]
The mysterious death of a class IX student in one of Lucknow’s most prestigious schools has triggered loud protests and allegations of a cover-up against the school management and the state police, besides drawing political parties into the brewing imbroglio.
On April 11, Rahul Sridhar (15) reportedly leapt to his death from the fourth floor parapet […]
Five years after the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which makes it mandatory for the State to provide free and compulsory elementary (class I-VIII) education to all children between 6-14 years of age became operational on April 1, 2010, several provisions of this hastily drafted law continue to attract controversy.
The validity of the vintage observation that a picture is worth a thousand words was not only proved right, but amplified to a million when a photograph of dozens of parents, friends and relatives scaling the walls of a four-storey building in Manhar village (Vaishali district), 60 km from Patna, to pass notes and chits […]
The brihanmumbai municipal Corporation (BMC) aka Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the richest civic government in India, presented its budget for 2015-16 on February 5. In the Rs.33,514.15 crore budget, education has been allocated a substantial Rs.2,500.89 crore (7.46 percent) to inter alia promote ten new schools, establish 200 computer labs in the corporation’s […]
Ict (information communication technology)-enabled school education in the western sea-board state of Gujarat (pop. 65 million), projected by the propaganda machine of the BJP as India’s model state because Narendra Modi served there as chief minister for almost three successive terms (2001-2014) before he was catapulted to the prime minister’s office following the BJP’s huge […]
Conterminously with the Supreme Court having struck down s. 66A of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 which allowed police countrywide to arrest individuals for posting any ‘offensive content’ on the internet, the Uttar Pradesh government’s department of secondary education has proscribed interaction between teachers and students on the internet, aka, the social media.
The obstinate refusal of the Congress government, voted to power in the legislative assembly election of May 2013, to accept several verdicts of the Karnataka high court and the Supreme Court which have struck down a 1994 government order making Kannada or the mother tongue the medium of instruction in all primary schools (class I-V) […]
Morale in West Bengal’s once famous academy is at an all-time low following continuous student agitations, institutional mismanagement, political interference and rampant lawlessness on campuses during the past few years.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government, which ended 34 years of hegemony of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) over the state in 2011 when it swept […]
Perhaps for the first time in the history of post-independence India, the Union Budget 2015-16 has reduced the Central government’s outlay for education from Rs.82,771 crore in 2014-15 to Rs.69,074 crore in the current year. The rationale advanced for this shocking neglect of the world’s largest population of children and youth is that with the […]
“He was among the tallest leaders of our times. Singapore’s transformation in one generation is a tribute to his leadership… His achievements and thoughts give me confidence in the possibility of India’s own transformation.”
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s tribute to Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founder-prime minister who died on March 23 (March 29)
Even as a task force of the Union HRD ministry is preparing a paper on ‘National Framework of Ranking of Universities and Colleges Suited to Local Conditions, Circumstances and Requirements,’ an EY-FICCI (Ernst & Young-Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry) report on higher education has advised the ministry to identify 100 higher education […]
Educationists in Mumbai — India’s commercial capital — are up in arms against a Central government July 11 notification which obliges private education providers to pay 12.36 percent service tax.
In September 2013, the Congress-led UPA-II government at the Centre had exempted education institutions from paying service tax on all services to encourage the improvement and […]
A bill prohibiting the promotion of private law colleges tabled in the Tamil Nadu state legislative assembly, has drawn strong criticism from lawyers, and judges across the state.
According to the preamble of The Tamil Nadu Establishment of Private Law Colleges (Prohibition) Bill (TNEPLC (P) B) tabled in the assembly on July 30, “… past experience […]
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s native state Gujarat, which he served as chief minister for three consecutive terms before he led the Bharatiya Janata Party to an epic victory in General Election 2014, has become the first state countrywide to install an e-surveillance system which has the potential to curb mass cheating in secondary and higher […]
The ruling trinamool congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is slipping deeper into the quicksand of the Saradha ponzi scam in which the savings of 1.7 million low-income households aggregating an estimated Rs.20,000 crore were misappropriated by the Saradha Group — a consortium of over 200 private companies — managed by Sudipto Sen reportedly close […]
- Mita Mukherjee Nearly 25 lakh persons working as pre-primary facilitators and caregivers in the country will be offered training to equip them with the .....Read More
Businessmen Elon Musk has established a new Montessori preschool ‘Ad Astra’ in Bastrop, Texas, a one-of-its-kind, endorsing his and US President-elect Donald Trump’s views on .....Read More
