After sustained criticism from academics and educationists, Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK government has revoked its decision of last September (2019) to conduct public exams for children in classes V and VIII. An estimated 200,000 students statewide in the ten-13 years age group were preparing to write board exams in March-April.
With West Bengal’s legislative assembly elections scheduled for the summer of 2021, the municipal elections to be held next month (April) — the exact dates are yet to be finalised — in 110 cities and towns including Kolkata, will be an acid test for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of the state. In 2011 […]
Private independent schools in Maharashtra which have dutifully admitted poor children in their neighbourhoods into primary/elementary school (classes I-VIII) under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, say that the state government owes them Rs.900 crore.
Under this provision, private (non-minority) schools are obliged to reserve 25 […]
Two years ago, a school health Programme (SHP) was launched as a joint initiative of the Union HRD and health and family welfare ministries under the Ayushman Bharat aka PM-JAY — national health programme — of the Central government. PM-JAY enables specified rural and urban poor families to obtain cashless medical treatment of up to […]
“The shocking violence at JNU should convince you of one simple proposition: India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point and crush it by brute force.”
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former vice chancellor of Ashoka University, on the recent attack on JNU students by masked goons (Indian Express, […]
Nationwide protests on college and university campuses against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), exacerbated by the brutal attack on Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University students by masked intruders who assaulted and grievously wounded office-bearers of the JNU Students’ Union on January 5, and police excesses on […]
It doesn’t augur well for the future growth and prosperity of the western seaboard state of Maharashtra — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 20 percent of national industrial output — that less than 6 percent of candidates who have written the state’s teacher eligibility test (TET) — a prerequisite of being allowed to teach […]
Inevitably, the gathering storm of countrywide protests against the BJP/NDA government legislated Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) has struck a resonant chord in college and university campuses in West Bengal — especially in Kolkata — which has a long tradition of students politics and activism. Students of […]
The country’s show-piece Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, estb.1969) sited on a 1,000 acre campus in the heart of New Delhi which has 7,369 postgraduate students mentored by 614 faculty and offers 148 study programmes, is limping back to normalcy. For the past three months since a steep hike in hostel fees — albeit on a […]
“Instead of building gigantic statues to national or religious heroes, India should build more modern schools and universities that will open its children’s minds, making them more tolerant and respectful of one another, and helping them hold their own in the competitive globalised world of tomorrow.”
Raghuram Rajan, former Reserve Bank India governor (India Today, December […]
Although university students in Delhi have been the focus of media attention for mass protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), West Bengal and Kolkata in particular have also witnessed huge public protests with thousands of students and members of the major political parties — the Trinamool […]
Somewhat belatedly, the draft National Education Policy 2019 of the nine-member Kasturirangan committee, which is still receiving “final touches” on the last day of 2019, devoted five pages to early childhood care and education (ECCE) and recommended extension of professionally administered ECCE to “foundational stage” education to all children up to age eight (class II).
There is a palpable sentiment of euphoria within the corridors of Anna University, Chennai (AU, estb.1978) — Tamil Nadu’s premier engineering and technology university — which has 571 affiliated engineering colleges. In August, an expert committee of the University Grants Commission recommended AU for conferment of Institute of Eminence (IoE) status.
Free-of-charge primary-secondary schools owned and managed by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) — the richest local self-government institution in the country (2019-20 budget: Rs.30,692 crore) — continue to report steep decline in enrolments. The number of children enrolled in the corporation’s 1,186 schools dropped from 3.11 lakh in 2017-18 to 3 […]
The estimated 1.7 million class x students who are expected to write the school-leaving exam of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE, estb.1962) — the country’s largest pan-India exam board — can look forward to less math phobia in February-March this year. They will have the option to write either […]
“Recently, we’ve launched a report, which says 54 percent of the young people within the South Asian region do not have the skills they need for employability in 2030. It means these countries cannot contribute to the growth of the world economy.”
Henrietta H Fore, executive director of UNICEF (Forbes India, November 6)
The Karnataka government is confronted with a formidable challenge of finding teachers for 1,000 newly decreed English medium schools (‘sections’) established within Kannada medium government schools.
In July 2018, a Congress-JDS coalition government led by chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy which ruled the state for 14 months (May 2018-July 2019) introduced this initiative with effect from June […]
Ever since general election 2019 in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 18 of the 42 seats allotted to West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in the Lok Sabha, and the number of seats of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party dropped from 34 to 22, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been on the back […]
The tragic suicide of Fathima Latheef (19), a first-year student of the five-year integrated humanities and development studies postgraduate programme, on the campus of the top-ranked Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M, estb.1959) on November 9 — the fifth student suicide in this institute during the past 12 months — has deeply embarrassed the […]
Three years after its accreditation status expired in April 2017, Maharashtra’s oldest varsity, University of Mumbai (estb.1857) has applied for National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) ranking.
The university, funded by the state government, which has 810 affiliated colleges statewide with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students, was awarded grade ‘A’ status for the period 2012-17. […]
Formulation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 is now in its final phase even as a 55-page leaked draft is ubiquitous on social media. All indications are that the final NEP will be formally released by the end of the year.
The official NEP 2019 is likely to accept 80 percent of the recommendations made […]
An amendment of a rule under the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, decreeing a formula for computing tuition fee increases, has aroused widespread anger within the state’s 13,000 independent (unaided) private schools with an aggregate enrolment of 4.5 million children. Several private schools associations, including the influential Associated Management of Private Unaided English-Medium Schools of Karnataka […]
Public education (and health), widely accepted as the prerequisite of economic growth and development, was grossly neglected during the 34-years of uninterrupted rule (1977-2011) over West Bengal of the CPM-led Left Front government. The outcome is that West Bengal (pop. 91 million), which right until the mid-1970s was a major industry and manufacturing hub of […]
A national eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2019 scandal exposed in Tamil Nadu on September 19, has sent shockwaves across the country and compounded the state’s woes with NEET — the sole national entrance exam for admission into undergraduate and postgrad medical and dental study programmes countrywide. From the time NEET was introduced in 2016, there’s been […]
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliance partner, the Shiv Sena (SS) having won 161 seats in the state’s 288-member legislative assembly in the recently concluded election and likely to form the government, the new BJP-SS government of Maharashtra would do well to thoroughly revamp its education policy initiatives. Since […]
Unusually, the top leadership of the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party), which uncomfortably rules Delhi state jointly with the BJP-led NDA government, seems to believe that education (and health) is an election-winning issue. Ever since it was unexpectedly swept to power in the state legislative assembly with a massive majority in […]
“India’s child wasting rate is extremely high at 20.8 percent—the highest wasting rate of any country in this report for which data or estimates were available.”
The release on September 30 of the School Education Quality Index (SEQI) by Niti Aayog — the Union government’s think tank — marks a new chapter in education development reportage and restoring competition between the states of the Indian Union after a gap of several years.
Since 2011 when the Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by firebrand Mamata Banerjee was swept to power bringing 34 years of uninterrupted rule over the populous (91 million) eastern seaboard state of West Bengal of the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front government to an ignominious end, Banerjee’s poriborton (revolutionary change) promise has not been […]
A September 13 order of the incumbent AIADMK government to introduce board exams for students in classes V and VIII (in addition to existing school-leaving board exams for classes X and XII) from the current academic year 2019-20, set the dovecotes of the state’s academy aflutter. But a strong volley of protests from educationists and […]
Apart from having a finger in every sector of economic activity, India’s powerful control-and-command bureaucracy has a penchant for classification and categorisation. In 2001, babus of the Maharashtra state government created a category of ‘permanent non-aided’ schools.
These are primary, secondary and higher secondary schools managed by private trusts, societies and NGOs on ‘permanent non-aided’ basis […]
At a central advisory board of Education (CABE) committee meeting convened on September 21 to deliberate the 484-page National Education Policy 2019 (NEP) draft report of the K. Kasturirangan Committee (released for public debate on May 31), the Union HRD ministry took time off to release the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2018-19 […]
“Conviction rates tell the tale. Whereas in most rich countries 89 percent or more of those charged with crimes are found guilty, in India the rate is between 40 and 50 percent — and for cases involving politicians just 6 percent.”
The Economist on India’s failing law and justice system (August 24)
Heavy rains and flooding following a devastating drought in 17 districts of the south-western sea-board state of Karnataka (pop.64 million) in early August have taken a toll of 86 lives and inflicted property damage estimated at Rs.40,000 crore. The districts hit hardest include Belagavi, Chikkodi, Bagalkot, Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Gadag. Although relief and rehabilitation plans […]
After the BJP stormed the bastions of the ruling Mamata Banerjee led-Trinamool Congress (TMC) in General Election 2019 — winning 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, only four less than TMC’s 22 — the electoral prospects of TMC, which ended 34 years of uninterrupted rule over West Bengal (pop. 91 million) by the […]
Rising disenchantment with engineering qualifications has prompted a surge in demand for admission into arts, science and commerce study programmes in Tamil Nadu’s 634 arts, science and commerce colleges affiliated with nine universities across the state.
This year’s admission season (May-July) witnessed a huge rush of applicants for undergraduate commerce, computer science, mathematics, English, physics, chemistry […]
The sustained effort of EducationWorld (estb.1999) to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda” seems to be bearing fruit. Although education and human capital development was given step-motherly treatment in the first term of the BJP/NDA government at the Centre (2014-19), in its second term the […]
Introduced in the constitution of India (1950) as affirmative action by the State in favour of specific historically oppressed castes and tribes persecuted and ostracised for several millennia under the Hindu varna caste system, reservation of seats in higher education institutions and government employment is being demanded — and conceded — by populist politicians to […]
“…the draft NEP 2019 itself lacks the very abilities it emphasises, namely critical thinking and deeper understanding. It is a badly written document which hides behind a plethora of terms that are half-understood and clubbed under the overarching master concept of “skill”. In short, the policy lacks depth and loses focus of the richness of […]
The constitution (124th Amendment) Bill 2019 passed by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre on January 9 to provide 10 percent reservation in all government education institutions and jobs for economically weaker sections (EWS) within the upper castes from the academic year 2019-20, has created a furore in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million). Individuals not […]
- 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
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