Students writing KCET: out-of-syllabus questionsAn education mess in this southern state which has appropriated its description as the Silicon Valley of India, has become messier. On April 8, the Supreme Court restrained the state’s Congress government from publishing results of board exams held in March for classes V, VIII and IX students of KSEAB (Karnataka […]
A series of teacher recruitment scandals have plagued three-term West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee since 2011 when her Trinamool Congress (TMC) party famously routed the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led LDF coalition which had ruled the state continuously for 34 years.
Employment in government schools in which salaries for primary school teachers […]
A top priority of left — communist, socialist — governments worldwide, is compulsory, free-of-charge early years and primary education for children. Yet despite newly-independent India’s Congress party passing a resolution in 1956 to establish a “socialist pattern of society”, compulsory primary education wasn’t decreed until 2009 […]
One of the most enduring — and justified — criticisms of K-12 education in post-independence India is addiction to rote learning through memorisation rather than comprehension. Obstinacy of the country’s 69 school examination boards to reward students’ memorisation rather than originality, critical thinking and problem-solving skills in […]
“The 52 primers in Indian languages have paved the way for the beginning of a new civilisational renaissance.”
Dharmendra Pradhan, Union education minister, launching 52 school textbooks in Indian non-scheduled languages (Hindustan Times, March 9)
“The government will probably claim that it was simply following the law; that Kejriwal was not responding to summons. But the […]
Although politically BJP, the ruling party at the Centre, and DMK, the ruling party in Tamil Nadu (pop.77 million), are at daggers drawn, the Tamil Nadu government has signalled an intent to embrace the Prime Minister Schools for Rising India (PM-SHRI) programme, launched in September, 2022.
The popular urban perception is that rural SC (scheduled caste) and ST (scheduled tribe) children are content with their backwardness and poor-quality schools. This perception was contradicted on February 26 when a delegation of 40 class VII-VIII girl children of the Government Kanya Shiksha Parisar (GKSP), a
After a month-long flip-flop over conducting class V, VIII and IX ‘summative assessments’ aka board exams for government and private schools affiliated with the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB), the last leg of the exams was conducted on March 25-26. This after the Karnataka […]
With dates of general Election 2024 declared, the political mercury in West Bengal (pop.91 million), set for seven-phase polling from April 19 to June 1, has touched unprecedented levels. Leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and resurgent BJP are trading vitriolic diatribes, indulging in character assassination […]
Newly elected JNUSU president Dhananjay (centre) & supporters
Living up to its reputation of being a bastion of woke Left politics, a students’ coalition of organisations affiliated with mainstream Left parties — AISF (affiliated with CPI), SFI (CPI-M), AISA (Communist Party Marxist Leninist) and DSF (independent Left) backed by BAPSA (a Dalit […]
“It’s a democratic right of the farmers to protest and come and be heard in the national capital. I don’t think the border with China is fortified the way this city is fortified. The government should have learnt a lesson from the previous farmers’ agitation — consult the stakeholders. Last time it took a year-long […]
Ahead of the forthcoming lok Sabha polls scheduled for April-May, Chandrima Bhattacharya, minister of state (independent charge) for finance, tabled a Rs.3.66 lakh crore budget on February 8, announcing a slew of social welfare policies including sops for women and children.
While continuing with existing welfare schemes such as the […]
The annual status of education Report (ASER) 2023, published by the independent not-for-profit Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1995), assessed the learning outcomes of 1,514 teenage children aged 14-18 years from 1,193 households in Bhopal and 60 villages in Bhopal district.
ASER 2023 reports 62 percent of teens struggle with basic arithmetic tasks, such as division […]
A circular dated february 8 issued by the state government’s education ministry advising change of pre-primary to class IV school timings to 9 a.m onwards, has divided the educators and parents communities statewide. Expressing concern over the issue of children not getting adequate sleep because […]
Protesting forestry students: “right to feel wronged”
Over 700 students from three state government-run forestry colleges in Karnataka who — were on a month-long protest in their college campuses, congregated in Bengaluru to stage a protest between February 26-29. Their demand is the state government stipulates that only forestry sciences graduates will […]
The top-ranked Indian institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) has introduced a controversial mandate (January 15) requiring PhD scholars to publish a paper every semester. This policy change has sparked a backlash from students. Over 300 scholars staged a demonstration on the IIT-M campus on January 17 protesting the […]
NAAC headquarters, Bengaluru: new binary accreditation system
Most sentient higher education leaders privately lament the glacial pace at which the mandates of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 are being implemented in collegiate and university education. The Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) — the overarching umbrella organisation mandated to preside over […]
“Deeply regret the passing of Dr. Jagdish Gandhi, founder-chairman of the Lucknow-based City Montessori School, acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest single city multi campus school with over 57,000 students. Dr Gandhi was among the first to encourage the novel EducationWorld venture and a committed supporter throughout his life. From modest beginnings […]
Released on January 17, the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ of the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation paints a dismal picture of the pitiable condition of school education in West Bengal (pop.91 million), a state that prides itself on its intellectual prowess. In Bengal, ASER 2023 field tested […]
Responding to a query filed under the Right to Information Act, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has disclosed that 218 primary schools, including some highly reputed private primary schools in Mumbai — Anandilal Podar, Santacruz; St. Michaels, Mahim; St. Andrews Primary, Bandra; St. Aloysius, Santacruz; Alexandra Girls, Fort; Rustomjee Troopers (Dahisar), and Gloria […]
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published every year by the independent not-for-profit Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1995) usually field tests primary school (classes I-VIII) children in rural India to measure their real learning outcomes. An army of over 1 lakh volunteers — mainly college and university students — test the reading and […]
Against the backdrop of rising student suicides being reported from Kota, Rajasthan — the tests prep capital of India where 26 secondary students committed suicide last year, the highest ever annually — the Union ministry of education has been under pressure to rein in the unchecked growth of the Rs.58,000 crore coaching classes […]
Mumbai nursery children. Inset: Dr. Swati Popat Vats
With the national education Policy (NEP) 2020 having restructured the 10+2 school system of over half a century to the 5+3+3+4 system by tagging on three years of formal early childhood education, the BJP/Shiv Sena government has issued a circular to all schools […]
Two back-to-back incidents of children in government schools being forced to clean toilets of their schools have provoked public outrage in the state. The first incident was reported on December 18 when photographs and video clips of some students of the Morarji Desai Residential School in Malur, […]
The long-standing face-off between the state government and the state governor over the issue of appointment of vice chancellors (VCs) in 31 state government universities has transformed into a full-blown war between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) which rules West Bengal and the governor — an appointee of the ruling BJP government at the […]
Poor student enrolment in the constituent colleges of Chennai’s prestigious Anna University (AU) is causing anxiety within the management of Tamil Nadu’s show-piece state government university, one of India’s top engineering universities ranked in the 501-600 band worldwide by Times Higher Education and among the world’s Top 2,000 by US News & World […]
“We have to bring some changes in the education system of our management institutions for more effective and inclusive development of the country.”
President Droupadi Murmu urging Indian business management institutes to connect their study programmes with Indian corporates, consumers and society (Indian Express, December 7)
“You must be joking about India becoming a developed, rich […]
CBSE school-leavers writing final exam: grades inflation hurdle next
With the two national school examination boards — the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE, 28,926 affiliated schools) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE, 2,700 schools) — and 69 state boards scheduled to stage their school-leaving examinations within the next […]
The UGC (setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, notified on November 7 by the apex Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC), has evoked disappointment and skepticism within academia. Long in the works, the Regulations are unlikely to enthuse foreign universities to establish branch campuses in […]
Although the latest Israel-Hamas war that began on October 7 when Hamas militia crossed into Israel and took Israeli citizens — mainly women and children — hostage resulting in relentless bombing of the Gaza strip governed by Hamas hasn’t impacted the tenor of life in India, it has had an unexpected fallout […]
Although the next legislative assembly election in West Bengal is in the distant future (2026), three-term chief minister Mamata Banerjee (who in a classic case of nepotism has groomed her nephew Abhishek to take over after her) has less than six months to make good her promise to bag all 42 Lok Sabha, […]
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led Tamil Nadu government is determined to scrap the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) — the national exam to determine admission into all 704 medical colleges countrywide, including public and private medical colleges in Tamil Nadu.
For the past seven years since NEET was introduced, a political consensus opposing […]
With student enrolment in the state’s 49,679 government schools showing consistent decline, Karnataka’s Congress government which was voted to power last May, has announced a plan to upgrade 600 government schools to the status of Karnataka Public Schools (KPS) by March 2024. On October 7, Madhu Bangarappa, minister for school education and literacy, […]
“If we are to truly uplift the socio-economically disadvantaged sections, working on mission mode to improve quality of education at school and college levels should be the foremost priority… Compelling higher rated institutions like IIMs and IITs to admit underprepared students from socio-economically weaker backgrounds into their Ph D programmes will not correct the ills […]
“India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world… So therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I’d like to work 70 hours a week.’ You know, this is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War; they made sure that every German […]
A scheme under which corporates, individuals and voluntary organisations (NGOs) have been permitted to ‘adopt’ government schools to improve infrastructure and education quality, has provoked widespread protests from government school teachers statewide.
On September 18, the BJP-Shiv Sena government of the state announced the scheme under which philanthropists, corporates and […]
Ranked #427 among global universities by the highly respected London-based higher ed institution ranking agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the state-government managed Anna University, Chennai, comprising 13 constituent colleges, three regional campuses with an enrolment of 18,000 students, is struggling with only 556 full-time teachers. On October 3, after hearing a batch of petitions […]
A year after the multi-crore teacher recruitment scam for West Bengal’s 92,748 government schools came to light following the arrests of Partha Chatterjee, former education minister, Kalyanmoy Ganguly, former president of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) and several other government and ruling party bigwigs […]
Primary school children: permanent APAAR record for all
When the 65-page national Education Policy (NEP) 2020, distilled from the 484-page report of the K. Kasturirangan Report, was released to an unsuspecting public on July 29, 2020, there was considerable scepticism about its implementation. But bit by bit, several important initiatives – CUET […]
Somewhat unusually, the Congress government in Karnataka (pop.69 million), which completed 100 days in office on August 27, is on fast-track towards fulfilling its education-related election promises. On August 21, deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar announced that as per its manifesto promise, the state government has discontinued implementation […]
- 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
