“Viewed through the prism of brutality, thus, history has few heroes. If the Mughals were violent, it was not because they were Mughals; it was because they were royal.”
Manu S. Pillai, historian and author, on many justifying the NCERT’s deletion of chapters on Mughals in school textbooks by pointing to their brutality (Times of India, […]
“The country is filled with self-confidence, foreign countries as well as foreign experts are optimistic about India. In the middle of all this, talk of pessimism, attempts to degrade India, lower the willpower of the people is taking place. It’s like the tradition of putting a kala tika to ward off evil.”
The resignation of manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister and education minister of the Delhi state government, on February 28 following his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Delhi Excise Policy (2021-22) liquor licensing ‘scam’, is unlikely to prove a set-back to the Delhi school education model that has played […]
At a time when kolkata’s dailies were headlining the Hamburg-based Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) — one of UNESCO’s key education-related institutes and the only organisational unit in the UN family that holds a global mandate for lifelong learning — expressing interest in West Bengal’s education system, smaller news items disclosed that the […]
The suicide of darshan solanki, a first year B.Tech student at the top-ranked Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B, estb.1958) on February 12, has cast a spotlight on the issue of student suicides, especially students admitted under the Central government’s reservations policy.
Under this affirmative action policy, 22.5 percent of seats in all 23 […]
In its third budget presented to the legislative assembly and the public on March 20, the state’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government has increased the outlay for education in 2023-24 to Rs.40,299 crore, 9 percent higher than the previous year and 1.62 percent of GSDP (gross state domestic product).
After a three-month legal drama which went right up to the Supreme Court, the Karnataka Secondary Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) commenced ‘annual assessments’ on March 27 for 1.9 million class V and VIII students in 56,157 KSEAB-affiliated schools statewide.
Since December 13 last year, when the state’s education ministry issued a circular announcing […]
“What does the scientific community expect to see in a Union Budget? The current level of expenditure in S&T is hopelessly inadequate if India is to compete at the international level in knowledge generation. So, the scientific community expects to see a significant increase in the outlay for research.”
Dhrubajyoti Mukherjee, president, The Breakthrough Science Society […]
In end-february, tamil nadu’s Federation of Private School Associations (FePSA) issued a statement warning that its member schools will not admit free-of-charge children as mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, for the academic year 2023-24, unless the DMK-run state government clears its dues of the previous two years.
The west bengal board of Primary Education recently declared results of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), held on December 11, 2022 at 1,460 exam centres across the state. Teachers are being hired for 11,000 vacant posts in 67,699 state government and aided primary schools. TET 2022 was held under tight police vigilance. That’s […]
With state legislative Assembly elections scheduled for May-June, the ruling BJP government is pulling out all the stops to mend its damaged reputation vis-a-vis education. The BJP government’s record in education — which unlike most north Indian states is an important electoral issue in Karnataka — has drawn widespread adverse comment.
The second edition of the State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) Report 2022, released on February 24, indicates that India’s journey towards universalisation of FLN is likely to be arduous, but possible.
While the impact of pandemic school closures and resultant learning loss of two years for children has contributed to the disappointing […]
“Like in cricket, a batter focuses on the ball thrown to him ignoring shouts for fours and sixes from the crowd, students should also concentrate on their work. Do not be suppressed by pressures. Stay focused.”
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s advice to students at his annual ‘thoughts on examination’ interactive session (January 27)
The war between Tamil Nadu’s DMK government and the BJP government at the Centre on education issues is intensifying. On several issues including NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), a central exam for admission into medical colleges; CUET (Common University Entrance Test) for admission into all Central government universities; three-languages learning in K-12 education and […]
For Karnataka’s beleaguered ruling BJP government fighting a spate of corruption scandals ahead of looming legislative assembly elections to be held in May, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, released in the national capital on January 18 and authored by the highly-respected Pratham Education Foundation, contains bad news. The first household child-testing report […]
According to the recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 of the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation, which assessed the learning outcomes of 11,994 children in rural primaries in 18 districts of West Bengal, although classroom attendance has risen to 92.2 percent from a low of 72.9 percent in 2021, learning […]
With the university grants Commission (UGC) — the apex-level body that regulates higher education countrywide — releasing its draft UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023 on January 5, India moved closer to permitting foreign higher education institutions (FHEIs) to establish campuses on Indian […]
With the telangana legislative assembly election scheduled to be held by end December and General Election 2024 obliged to be called the following summer, all political parties led by the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samiti, renamed Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) on December 14 by chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), have gone into election […]
Tamil pride suffered a huge blow in the closing months of last year when the Union ministry of education’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2020-21, released on November 3, 2022, demoted the state’s primary-secondary school system to Level III.
According to the ministry’s department of school education and literacy website, PGI, introduced in 2017-18, “measures […]
Even as west Bengal’s monumental teachers’ recruitment scandal in which cash mountains of Rs.100 crore were discovered in the palatial home of actress Arpita Mukherjee, mistress of education minister Partha Chatterjee, is being investigated by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED), the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) held a fresh Teachers’ […]
With state legislative assembly elections less than six months away, the auguries are not good for the state’s BJP government. The party’s strategy to arouse sub-nationalist Kannada pride by reviving a border dispute with Maharashtra has backfired with the BJP government at the Centre refusing to intervene in the dispute between two BJP-ruled […]
The glacial pace at which the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, formulated after an interregnum of 34 years — during which the world entered the digital age — is being implemented has belatedly galvanised the BJP/NDA government at the Centre into action, especially in higher education.
What is the most appropriate age for infants to be inducted into the formal education system? A 13-member committee constituted to formulate a state education policy (SEP), chaired by Justice D. Murugesan, a former chief justice of Delhi high court, is reportedly ready to prescribe a common age for admission into pre-primary learning.
Even as west bengal’s humongous teacher recruitment scam in which bribes aggravating Rs.400-500 crore changed hands is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) has scheduled a new Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) on December 11. This year, 690,931 candidates will write the 150-minutes exam at […]
With the tempo for state legislative assembly elections scheduled for next May building up, Karnataka’s ruling BJP government is pulling out all stops to ensure that it is returned to power in this southern state which is critical for the BJP high command — now in its second term at the Centre — to make […]
Maharashtra — india’s most industrialised state which accounts for almost 25 percent of the country’s annual industrial production — has experienced huge political upheavals in recent times. On June 30, the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress coalition government which had assumed office in 2019 was toppled in a coup engineered by the BJP […]
In a landmark 3-2 majority judgement delivered on November 7, the Supreme Court of India upheld the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, 2019, under which the BJP government at the Centre introduced additional 10 percent reservation in public higher education institutions (HEIs) and government jobs for economically weaker sections (EWS) from the general category.
We aim to ensure that children of poor parents become doctors and engineers even if they are not educated in English (medium). We want to ensure that no one is left behind due to the lack of knowledge of the English language. The New Education Policy of the Centre will pull the country out from […]
India’s most well-administered state until the historic liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy in 1991 transformed its sleepy administrative capital of Bangalore (renamed Bengaluru in 2014) into the country’s Silicon Valley and a bustling commercial metro, Karnataka (pop.68 million) has experienced accelerated descent into pervasive corruption and misgovernance. Since last November, when […]
West Bengal’s mega Rs.400-500 crore teacher recruitment scandal, which has placed education minister Partha Chatterjee and his actress mistress Arpita Mukherjee in jail cells after nearly Rs.100 crore in cash and title deeds of 12 properties were seized from the latter’s four upscale apartments in Kolkata on July 23, is still making headlines […]
The national curriculum Framework (NCF) 2022 was formally launched on October 20 with the presentation of the National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCFFS) for children in the three-eight age group. NCFFS is the first of four frameworks scheduled to be launched under NCF 2022. The other three, expected to be announced soon, […]
“Skill is the currency of the century. Economic actors have a more important role than imagined. An educated and skilled workforce attracts investment, enhances productivity and is critical for moving up in the value chain. Academia and industry must collaborate for better outcomes.”
Vikas Singh, economist & columnist on reforming Indian higher education (Businessworld, September 24)
Academics and media pundits in lucknow, the administrative capital of Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (215 million) state — which is an also-ran on all socio-economic development indices, are pleasantly surprised by a spurt of positive activity in the education sector.
With children having enthusiastically returned to classes after the prolonged lockdown of […]
West Bengal’s unprecedented teacher recruitment and related scandals which have blocked the appointment of much-needed teachers in the state’s 92,000 government schools for over a decade, are in the process of being unblocked.
On September 26, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta high court issued a slew of orders directing the West Bengal School […]
Reeling under attacks from the opposition Congress party which has launched a highly effective ‘Pay CM — 40 percent accepted here’ poster campaign across the state to highlight rampant corruption in the state (last November the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association wrote directly to prime minister Narendra Modi complaining that government […]
Primary school teachers in Maharashtra’s 65,734 government-run zilla parishad (ZP) rural schools are simmering with anger. The state government’s education ministry has directed all teachers to display A4 size photographs of themselves in their classrooms. Additionally, Prashant Bamb, a member of the legislative assembly (MLA) of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has […]
India’s political class is arguably the most obtuse of any country worldwide. Whereas politicians world over are well aware that education of children is the highest priority of parents, for post-independence India’s politicians and political parties, education of generation next is a peripheral low priority issue. Party manifestos […]
The once well-governed southern state of Karnataka (pop.68 million) is rapidly transforming into ‘broken windows’ society. In 1982, American academics James Q. Wilson and George Kelling ideated their Broken Windows theory. They posited that if civic neglect and official corruption in any society or neighbourhood remains unpunished, an outbreak of serious crimes and […]
Although there’s no denying that Christian missionaries have made a great contribution to the growth and dissemination of English-medium school and higher education, there’s rising awareness within the country’s influential middle class that priest-educators, i.e, men and women of the cloth also discharging academic roles and duties, are becoming obsolete.Bound by strict laws […]
Eight months after large-scale tampering and malpractices were reported in the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) 2019-2020 written by 3.43 lakh aspirant school teachers, the Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE) disqualified 7,880 candidates who wrote the exam and banned them from writing any future TETs. In the list of proscribed aspirant primary school […]
Tara Sarna, Grade XII Student at The Sriram School, Moulsari and Founder, Youth for Youth, a student organisation for empowering youth. In an increasingly complex .....Read More
Reshma Ravishanker Intensifying their opposition against the proposal to merge nine universities with parent institutions in Karnataka, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) called for a .....Read More
