Evidently inspired by the example of the neighbouring Kingdom of Bhutan which measures national development through a Gross National Happiness Index (GNHI) and latterly by the Delhi state government which introduced happiness classes into the curricula of government schools, the Anand Vibhag (Happiness Department) of the Madhya Pradesh government has succeeded in ameliorating […]
Even as the new academic year 2021-22 commenced from July 1 with online education decreed compulsory for all of Karnataka’s 76,800 schools including 48,393 government primary-secondaries, the stalemate over fees payable to private schools for 2020-21 and the new academic year is unresolved.
In February, several private schools associations filed writ petitions in the […]
Evidently chief minister Mamata Banerjee, fresh from her resounding third time sweep of the West Bengal state legislative elections, is convinced that her initiatives to reform the state’s moribund education system and raise teaching-learning standards in 92,000 government primary-secondary schools, played a major role in her famous electoral victory in the assembly elections […]
Since it was re-elected to office after a hiatus of ten years, the new Dravida Munnetra Kazhagan (DMK) government led by M.K. Stalin, son of M. Karunanidhi, one of the founders of the party (estb.1949) which initiated uninterrupted rule of Dravidian political parties with close links […]
Despite a May 3 judgement of the Supreme Court in Indian School Jodhpur & Ors vs. State Government of Rajasthan in which the apex court ruled that the right to determine private school fees is of “management alone,” on June 7, the Maharashtra coalition government announced the formation of five Divisional Fee Regulatory […]
The second edition of the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 whose release was “approved” by Union education minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on June 6, has generated a political controversy. Designed by the department of school education and literacy of the Union education ministry and first published last year, the purpose of the […]
The continuing closure of all schools and higher education institutions nationwide to safeguard children from being struck down by the dreaded Coronavirus, has prompted an almost 70 percent drop in pre-primary admissions in nearly 3,000 aided and 12,000 unaided private schools across Tamil Nadu (pop.68 million). According to a survey conducted by the […]
Dwindling student admissions in the wake of the 13-months closure of education institutions nationwide to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic have sounded a death knell for the state’s estimated 10,000 brick-and-mortar private tutorial centres offering supplementary tutorials, aka coaching, to secondary students preparing for school-leaving board exams and professional education entrance […]
In sharp contrast to BJP leaders including prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah who stormed West Bengal with over two dozen visits to preach messages of hindutva and dangers posed by illegal Muslim immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, incumbent chief minister and leader of the ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) […]
A peremptory circular issued on May 19 to Maharashtra’s 21,000 non-minority private independent (‘unaided’) schools by the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government, has dismayed private school managements battling the vicissitudes of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has raised the prospects of another round of courtroom battles. In the circular, […]
Prime minister Narendra Modi: student-friendly decision
Ending months of nationwide tension and anxiety, the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — the country’s largest national Central government controlled school-leaving examination board which has 21,271 schools affiliated with it — cancelled its class XII exam for the academic year 2020-21. Council for […]
Even as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh (pop. 86.8 million) – 492,276 active cases, and 5,519 fatalities as on April 30 – a fake colleges and universities scandal has emerged as a distracting sideshow which is creating additional problems for the state’s BJP government.
West Bengal’s unprecedented eight-phase legislative assembly election ended on May 2 with a thumping third-time victory for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee, not necessarily in that order. Not only did the dream of the BJP led by star campaigners — prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home […]
A detailed and brilliantly reasoned 128-page judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on May 3, has huge implications for the country’s under-appreciated 450,000 private schools which — most people are unaware — host 48 percent of India’s 260 million in-school children.
Upholding two sets of appeals filed by the Indian School, Jodhpur and Association of Private […]
The state government’s cancellation of the school-leaving class X SSC exam of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), because of rising Covid-19 cases in the state, has aroused fears of class X students from 21,000 MSBSHSE-affiliated schools being at a disadvantage when competing with […]
“There needs to be recognition that socialism is not the only ideology that has copyright on welfare. When the economy does not do well and wealth isn’t generated, then social good suffers and so does the welfare state. So, we have now called the bluff that wealth creation is in conflict with welfare.”— Nirmala Sitharaman, […]
Even as several parts of the country are bracing for a second wave following a massive surge in Covid-19 cases, parents of primary school children in Karnataka (pop.63 million) are divided on the issue of sending their children back to school.
An online survey conducted last month (March) by the Vidyarthigala Nade Shaleya Kade […]
Despite ‘ragging’ — an archaic initiation ritual during which new entrants into schools and colleges are teased and bullied by seniors having been banned by the Central and state governments and inviting the wrath of the Supreme Court — acts of ragging are punishable by fines of up to Rs. 50,000, jail terms […]
It seems to be the season for top-level resignations from blue-chip higher ed institutions. Soon after the highly respected public intellectual Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Dr. Arvind Subramaniam, former chief economic advisor of the BJP/NDA government, put in their papers at the ambitious, privately-promoted Ashoka University in Delhi NCR on March 15, […]
The year-long shutdown of all education institutions countrywide to protect children and youth from the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the finances of the overwhelming majority of the country’s 450,000 private schools into disarray. Even in upscale private schools, cash flows have been adversely affected because a minority of parents who suffered salary cuts […]
The resignation of prof. Pratap Bhanu Mehta from the political science faculty of Ashoka University (AU) on March 15, has stirred the academy in India and abroad and shaken the carefully curated reputation of this seven-year-old university positioned as the country’s first wholly — American Ivy league-style — liberal arts university.
“There needs to be recognition that socialism is not the only ideology that has copyright on welfare. When the economy does not do well and wealth isn’t generated, then social good suffers and so does the welfare state. So, we have now called the bluff that wealth creation is in conflict with welfare.”— Nirmala Sitharaman, […]
With the number of covid positive cases and fatalities in Gujarat falling from a peak of 97,894 and 1,132 on September 16, 2020 to 16,577 and 120 on February 25, 2021, the state government has permitted schools across the state to reopen in a phased manner.
The issue of fees payable by parents of children in private unaided schools during the pandemic close down which is convulsing the nation, has not bypassed the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh (pop.73 million), India’s largest state by land area (308,245 sq. km). On February 12, following a public march by agitated […]
The election Commission of India has announced that West Bengal’s legislative assembly election will be conducted in eight phases between March 27 and April 29. Therefore acrimony between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP, which has replaced the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) that ruled the state uninterruptedly for 34 years […]
An early year notification to all private schools in Karnataka to collect only 70 percent of tuition fees for the current extended academic year ending May 31, provoked an unprecedented protest shutdown of over 100 private unaided schools statewide on February 23. On the same day, a protest rally led by a newly-formed […]
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, India’s wealthiest local government with an annual budget of Rs.39,000 crore, is making final preparations to inaugurate ten free-of-charge KG-class XI schools affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination board.
Supervised by the Union education ministry but certified as autonomous, CBSE is […]
In a major step towards internationalisation and upgradation of the country’s higher education system, on February 17, the University Grants Commission (UGC) circulated a draft of the University Grants Commission (Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Education Institutions to offer Joint Degree, Dual Degree and Twinning Programmes) Regulations, 2021 for public comment […]
“The turning point in my life and Reliance’s life was when India embraced economic reforms. Liberalisation freed the suppressed entrepreneurial energies in our country and gave us the hum kissi se kam nahin spirit.” — Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries (India Today, January 4)
“From 2021, let us recommit ourselves to improving Indian education. Not with […]
With the countdown for the west bengal legislative assembly polls scheduled in April/May having begun in right earnest, the prime contenders — the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Amit Shah-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are loudly promoting their distinctive election agendas.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who famously ended 34 years of uninterrupted […]
Like most of India’s 33 school exam boards, the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Examinations (TNBSE) has reduced the syllabus for its classes X and XII school-leaving public examinations this year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic induced closure of all schools statewide since last March. With teaching-learning adversely affected, the board announced a […]
The BJP government of the state is set to merge all government schools situated within a 15 km radius of each other to reconstitute them into composite K-12 schools. This proposal made under the chief minister’s Rise School programme launched last summer (May 2020), will reduce the number of government schools in 224 […]
Several associations of private schools are all set to file writ petitions in the high court against the constitutional validity of a January 30 state government directive to all private schools — including institutions affiliated with pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards — statewide to collect only 70 […]
Shuttered for over nine months because of the national lockdown of all education institutions countrywide to prevent spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, a rising number of private K-12 schools in Maharashtra are up for sale. Confronted with government indifference, banks unwilling to provide credit and parents unwilling and/or […]
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman (right): human capital blindspot
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 hammered out after a gap of 34 years last July, promised to increase the national outlay for education to 6 percent of GDP. But in early 2020, a deadly new flu virus spread from Wuhan (China) and infected […]
“When people come out on the streets to protest against a law, they are not merely disagreeing but are questioning the legitimacy of the government. This is why the government sees dissent as a foundational attack on the very basis of the state. ” – Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, professor of political science at Ashoka […]
The AIADMK government has cancelled half-yearly examinations in all 39,300 government and government-aided schools in the state. Over 6.7 million children enrolled in these schools statewide who normatively would have written their half-yearly examinations in December won’t be tested. Earlier, quarterly exams usually held in September were […]
With the state legislative assembly election a mere four months away, political jousting in West Bengal (pop.91 million) is getting more fierce by the day. The ruling Trinamool Congress party led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee contesting for a third term in office, is confronted by the BJP, which rules […]
From mid-January onwards, 8,000 private unaided schools across Maharashtra will block online classes for students with unpaid fees. The state’s independent schools say they have been forced to resort to this action as a survey conducted by them indicates 38 percent of financially unhurt parents have […]
[embed]https://youtu.be/T8zpdfot4w4[/embed] Dr. Anunaya Chaubey, Provost of Anant National University, is a distinguished academician, artist, and thought leader in education. His artworks explore the mystery of .....Read More
Mita Mukherjee Bringing a big setback to the Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Calcutta High Court’s decision to .....Read More
