Although the 68 day-national lockdown prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic has hit the entire education sector hard, it has perhaps hit pre-primaries, aka preschools, hardest. In Karnataka, 185 standalone preschools are reportedly up for sale.
Pre-primaries have been particularly impacted by the national lockdown ordered by the Central government on March 25, because the popular perception […]
Over 1,000,000 final year students of universities across Maharashtra are exhibiting signs of panic about whether their final pre-graduation exams will be held at all this year. If cancelled, those opting to write their final year exams may have to take a forced gap year with all further higher education plans in India and abroad […]
As India gradually unlocks from the 68-day national lockdown which began on March 25, the Covid-19 spike continues to climb steeply. Nevertheless, two national school boards — CBSE and CISCE — scheduled their pending school-leaving board exams for classes X and XII for the first fortnight of July. Now all eyes are on guidelines and […]
“I don’t want people to say ‘Oh, environmentalists are celebrating this lockdown.’ We are not. This is not the solution. But whatever the new normal is post-Covid-19, we have to make sure we take this breath of fresh air and think about the serious efforts we need to deal with pollution in Delhi.”
Private unaided aka independent, schools across Maharashtra are up in arms against a directive of the state’s Shiv Sena-led tri-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to waive school fees for the first quarter of the academic year 2020-21, because of the loss of income of the parents community following the nationwide lockdown of industry and […]
Widespread protests by school managements and an online petition demanding public support for private school
teachers which attracted over 26,700 signatures, has compelled the state government to amend a March 30 circular of the department of public instruction (DPI) to private schools to desist from collecting pupils’ tuition fees “until further orders”. Under a second DPI circular […]
With the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdown forcing the mass closure of education institutions, several state governments have issued circulars directing private school managements not to collect tuition fees during the lockdown period. These circulars have jeopardized the financial stability of the country’s 375,000 private independent (unaided) K-12 schools, especially the estimated 400,000 budget private […]
In March, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was riding a wave of popularity for her deft management of the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the country, which has provoked a national lockdown of business and leisure activity from March 25 to May 16. On April 28, West Bengal reported a mere 649 Covid positive cases, 105 […]
The rapid countrywide spread of the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent national lockdown of all education institutions from Kg-Ph D has disrupted the academic year 2019-20 which was drawing to a close for 1.5 million schools (including CBSE, CISCE) Final assessments as well as various entrance examinations conducted by the NTA (National Testing Agency) have been postponed. […]
“Education must deal with the deeper anxieties of the young in order to retain its own sanctity and credibility. The hatred that found open expression for some days in north-east Delhi has put a question mark on the capacity of the system of education to nurture the core values a democratic order demands.”
The upside of the global rampage of the Coronavirus, aka Covid-19 pandemic, which at the time of writing (April 2) has infected 1 million people worldwide and caused 53,238 deaths — and 2,567 and 72 respectively in India — is that it has vastly improved the business prospects of India’s hitherto struggling edtech companies. Although an estimated 380 ed tech companies […]
Although neither chief minister Mamata Banerjee nor any leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has publicly articulated it, the top brass of West Bengal’s ruling party — a breakaway of the now disintegrated Congress party which led India to independence from British rule 72 years ago — is viewing the Coronavirus aka Covid-19 threat sweeping the country, […]
With all 62,303 k-12 schools in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) shut down since March 16, prior to the national lockdown decreed by the Central government on March 25 due to the danger posed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the state government has announced promotion of 7 million classes I-IX children to the next grade without their having to write […]
Maharashtra’s five-months-old three-party (Shiv Sena, Congress and Nationalist Congress) Maha Vikas Aaghadi (MVA) government is under fire for having pressed ahead to complete the school-leaving exams of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) until March 21, despite
the state government itself having issued ‘work from home’ orders to industry and ordering shutdown of all […]
Last December after final year students of the Central government-funded Delhi University (DU) wrote their fifth semester exam, the results, under normal circumstances, would have been declared in end January (2020). But owing to a combination of unforeseen circumstances — the national lockdown on March 25 following the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, and a prolonged university teachers strike that began on December […]
The breakout of the global Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, pandemic has brought education systems around the world to a grinding halt with lockdowns and stay-at-home orders prompting mass closure of education institutions. In India, since the March 25 mandatory nationwide lockdown, all teaching, assessment and evaluation work in education institutions has been adversely impacted and in most cases deferred. All major examinations, including public entrance exams such as […]
“India’s learning outcomes remain stubbornly low. Quality concerns around education are seldom viewed as a political priority. But these concerns cannot be ignored for much longer, especially in light of India’s human capital crisis, reflected in unemployment statistics.”
Rohan Sandhu of the Harvard Kennedy School on why India needs a new education paradigm (Business Line, February […]
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 […]
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