Expert Comment

19th Anniversary Essay

K-12 teacher shortage myth

– Sandip Datta is Assistant Professor, Delhi School of Economics & Geeta Gandhi Kingdon is Professor Emeritus of University College London
In 2019, the average number of pupils in 500,000 government schools was a mere 31, translating into a 13.3:1 pupils-teacher ratio. There is no teacher shortage at all if students and teachers are properly deployed

19th Anniversary Essay

Clearing Waqf corruption & confusion

Mohammad Sajjad

– Mohammad Sajjad is Professor, modern and contemporary Indian history, Aligarh Muslim University
Against the backdrop of the Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development Bill 2024 having been referred to a JPC, the author proposes ways and means to fortify it

With tabling of the United Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development […]

19th Anniversary Essay

NEET-UG 2024: Deep rot symptom

Sudheendra Kulkarni

– Sudheendra Kulkarni is a former aide of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) and currently founder, Forum for South Asia.
Prime minister Modi is likely to meet China’s President Xi Jingping at the BRICS Summit in Russia on October 22-24. They should sieze the moment to restore ancient harmonious relations

The […]

19th Anniversary Essay

NEET-UG 2024: Deep rot symptom

Krishna Kumar

– Dr. Krishna Kumar is honorary professor of education, Panjab University, and a former Director of NCERT
The 200 questions that NEET-UG asks candidates to solve are multiple choice questions. Students drilled into speedy cracking of questions are certain to get high rank. What have these skills to do with becoming a […]

19th Anniversary Essay

General Election 2024: Interpreting the verdict

Rasheed Kidwai

– Rasheed Kidwai is a Delhi-based columnist, author of Sonia A Biography and visiting fellow, Observer Research Foundation
Perhaps the most significant outcome of General Election 2024 is that Rahul Gandhi can now shed the failure tag. His biggest contribution was that he improved Congress’ national vote share from 19 to 22 […]

19th Anniversary Essay

A resounding lesson from marginalised poor

Rajiv Desai

– Rajiv Desai, president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist
As results pour in from General Election 2024, it’s clear that semi-literate, rabble rousing bigots cannot endlessly deceive a huge nation of diverse cultures and traditions. They should not be allowed to set the agenda based on dubious understanding of Hindu […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Enabling summer education option

Raymond Ravaglia

The best a student can do during summer is something that would be unavailable during the year. Summer is the ideal time for internships and structured programmes.

Although they are becoming increasingly popular, most university summer programs are inherently deceptive. These programs feed upon the desire of parents and students to attend […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Board exams mystique

The Karnataka state government is pushing the evaluation system several steps backward. The RTE Act, 2009 had stipulated school-based assessment such as continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE)

The Karnataka state government’s decision to revive board exams in classes V and VIII is in keeping with the post-RTE (Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Poor human capital development record

– R.N. Bhaskar, senior journalist, educationist, and researcher

For chest-thumping hyper-nationalist government and ruling BJP spokespersons claiming that India is the world’s fastest growing economy, the third largest global economy and set to become a viswaguru (world teacher), UNDP’s latest Human Development Report 2022-23 is a rude awakening. India’s ranking has slipped from #130 in […]

19th Anniversary Essay

From mosque to temple: An Indian tragedy

– Rajiv Desai
The consecration of the Ram temple was presided by the prime minister himself like a medieval priest before an audience comprising the country’s who’s who. It was a collective takedown of India’s precious secular ethos

Nearly 75 years after India awoke “to life and freedom”, Jawaharlal Nehru, who uttered these stirring words celebrating India’s […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Why China’s universities are world-class

– Sudheendra Kulkarni, former aide of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) and currently founder, Forum for South Asia
The most decisive factor driving the quality of higher education, basic research, and its application in industry, agriculture and services is the unstinted support universities receive from the highest level of Chinese leadership

In June last year I […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Challenge & response in early years education

This essay highlights challenges confronting ECCE in government and private pre-primaries and recommends how to achieve quality standardisation and child-centric education

Kritika Baldi

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) 2022 propose radical changes in teaching-learning during the early years. This is a welcome initiative to prepare the […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Internationalising higher education – an external perspective

Philip G. Altbach, research professor and distinguished fellow, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College

Indian higher education has suddenly become “hot” with delegations of global university leaders and politicians flocking to the country, the latest from Australia. Governments and universities from around the world are signing memoranda of understanding with Indian counterparts and making ambitious […]

19th Anniversary Essay

International politics of statistics

Everyone has heard of that popular put down of data — “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Getting people to trust official data is more difficult than collecting data. In recent years, gaps in data

SAJAY BARU

collection, partly on account of inadequate funding and partly because of political interference, has generated widespread distrust of statistics […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Global private higher education revolution

PHILIP ALTBACH

Private universities are arguably the best in their countries. Despite challenges, private institutions have brought vitality to moribund higher education environments

In the past half-century and especially since the new millennium, there has been a quiet but extraordinary promotion of high quality non-profit private universities, especially in the Global South (Asia, Africa). These […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Corruption in education — India & China

Sudheendra Kulkarni

Indulging in corrupt practices in China has become highly risky. The anti-corruption drive launched by Xi Jinping be it in the education sector, military or the party itself, hasn’t spared anybody

What unseated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power in Karnataka? The widespread perception, well-grounded in reality, that it was indeed a […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Demographic dividend opportunity & illusion

Suddenly our huge population is expected to yield a “demographic dividend” that will enable us to catch up with China and the US and transform India into a global economic power

Now it’s official. On July 1, India will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation. Though this was expected for some time, a recent […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Transfer sword over government school teachers

The solution to this old, entrenched problem is in school-based recruitment. Private schools enjoy this freedom. Why can’t it work for government schools? The reasons are many…

Entering the foyer of a rural government school, I noticed a list painted on the wall. It displayed the names of eight teachers. Their qualifications, dates of joining, subjects […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Self-reliance as confidence trick

Winning elections is different from effective policy formulation. With the economy, foreign policy, defence, and a myriad other fields, the government has come a cropper

In the nineteenth century, two Boston Brahmins — Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau — together with Russian aristocrat Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, were leading voices against the iniquities of the […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Foreign branded schools cost-benefits

Foreign trusts and corporates rarely plan to operate licensed schools themselves. Whether a local partner renting the Harrow name can truly recreate the ethos of the original institution is doubtful, writes Roshan Gandhi

Indian school pupils will soon be able to follow in Jawaharalal Nehru’s footsteps by attending Harrow School, or spend their formative years ambling […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Settle Sino-India border through compromise

Can one-sided claims or a ‘no-compromise’ stance by either India or China guarantee peace along the LAC, much less cooperation between our two civilizational nations that can shape a new world order?, writes Sudheendra Kulkarni

JUNE 2020: GALWAN VALLEY, LADAKH. DECEMBER 2022: Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. In the absence of a mutually agreed permanent boundary, every time […]

19th Anniversary Essay

NCFFS 2022: Ghost of early literacy

EARLIER THIS YEAR WE LOST INDIA’S stalwart campaigner for sane policies that affect little children’s education. If Mina Swaminathan were around and active, I wouldn’t have ventured to critique the recently presented (October 20) National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCFFS) 2022.

NCFFS aims to integrate anganwadis with early primary classes. The stated purpose of this […]

19th Anniversary Essay

Hindi language zealots should calm down

Sanjaya Baru

OFTEN DISPARAGED BY INTELLECTUALS, no institution has played a bigger role in the popularisation of Hindi across the country than Bollywood cinema. When crowds throng cinema halls in Madurai and Kolkata, Vijayawada and Vadodara to watch Rajesh Khanna romance Hema Malini, they voluntarily learnt the language in which this Punjabi matinee idol was wooing […]

Curious conundrum of declining women’s labour participation

INDIANS TAKE PRIDE IN COMPARING THEIR economy to the fastest and largest in the world. Last month twitter was full of congratulatory messages as India became the world’s fifth largest economy, pushing the UK, its once colonial overlord, to sixth place.

Yet, when it comes to women’s participation in the labour force (WLFP), India trails the […]

Outrageous perversion of justice

-Sudheendra Kulkarni

‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is an aphorism most of us learnt in our school days. “Tarikh pe tarikh” (‘date after date’) is a synonymous but more colloquial axiom familiar to all harassed and frustrated citizens seeking justice in India’s courts, which postpone case hearings habitually and almost interminably.

The judicial system of our country […]

75th Independence Day reflections

-Sanjaya Baru

If one’s birthday tends to be a time for self-reflection, Independence Day should be a time for national self-reflection. Media publishes data and analysis on the state of the nation, economy and the people. Independence Day this year is a special milestone because we observe the 75th anniversary of free India. There are two […]

Understanding the Nupur Sharma phenomenon

The story of Nupur Sharma is presented as a case of bad behaviour necessitating quick correction. But when one traces the genealogy of the forces ranked behind her, a different story surfaces, writes Shiv Visvanathan

Foreign policy in the age of Trump and Modi is no longer a sedate, ritualistic, rational affair. Bad behaviour and calculated […]

Overdue recognition of liberal arts & humanities

NEP 2020 acknowledges that liberal arts education is necessary foundation for applying a humanistic (moral and ethical) lens to all science, commerce and professional education, writes Kathleen Modrowski

Somewhat belatedly liberal arts education has experienced a renaissance during the past decade through promotion of several well-funded private universities in India. According to the latest Union education […]

Bigotry is bad for business & economy

The stark truth is that violence and minority bashing is bad for business and the economy. It damages the fabric of society, interrupts commerce and breaks down law and order – Neeraj Kaushal

What deep sense of insecurity compels BJP karyakartas (rank and file) to fear that the existence of other cultures in society threatens […]

Interpreting legislative assembly elections 2022

BJP’s election strategy of mixing ‘faith’ with ‘food’ paid rich dividends. Its hindutva ideology combined with welfare initiatives backed by efficient last mile delivery swelled the BJP tide writes Rasheed Kidwai

The outcome of five recently concluded state legislative assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur will have a major impact on the […]

Hindi promotion not in the National interest

– Rahul Singh

The National Education Policy (NEP) approved by Parliament in 2020 has been widely praised. However, it has a major flaw that hasn’t been adequately addressed, viz its promotion of Hindi, while simultaneously disparaging English. The disastrous — unimplemented and unimplementable — three language policy, instead of being discarded, has been given a new […]

After the pandemic: shaping a new roadmap

There’s no indication yet that a committee will assess the different types of adverse impacts the pandemic has made on institutions, parents and children. Such an inquiry must constitute the first step to shape a roadmap. – Krishna Kumar

To say that post-Covid problems in education present an opportunity to reform the system is to beguile […]

Agenda for Republic at 72

Sustained growth of 8 percentplus requires substantially greater investment in Indian youth and the education sector. Forty percent of the population is below 18 years and half below 24 years of age, writes Neeraj Kaushal

The Republic of India will turn 72 this year. In 1950 when newly independent India transformed into the first republic of […]

Quality education: New definition

Today education has to prepare young citizens to address contemporary health and climate change challenges and harness new technologies, writes Prof. Geeta Kingdon

As India’s education system from pre-primary to university begins to find its bearings after the longest lockdown of education institutions worldwide, it’s important to devise ways and means to rejig the system for […]

Ideating an alternative imagination

WURs routinely show that China has ten universities in the Top 100 while India has none. But there are dangers of imitating China. India has higher levels of dissent and that’s important – writes Shiv Visvanathan

Contemporary news headlines often produce a standard Pavlovian response. The Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) demonstrated how dogs, fed for […]

Why NEP 2020 prescribes multi-disciplinary education

Liberal education can unlock all inherent capacities of human beings — intellectual, aesthetic, social, physical, emotional and moral — in an integrated manner, writes Viraj Kumar

A key pillar of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) is liberal (“holistic and multidisciplinary”) education, which sensitises students to the fundamentally interconnected nature of all human knowledge and enquiry. […]

Towards a level playing field in K-12 education

If government can provide a children’s education allowance (DBT) of Rs.2,250 per month per child to all Central government employees, why can’t it do the same for children of the poor? writes Geeta Kingdon

The Covid-19 pandemic has beamed a spotlight on the extent of private-public school inequality and its tragic consequences. In the Covid period, […]

Ill-advised changes in engineering education

By falling in line with NEP 2020 and particularly its advocacy of multi-disciplinary education, AICTE has diluted the importance of physics and maths, the building blocks of engineering education, writes R. Natarajan

In its approval process handbook 2021-22 released in early March, the Delhi-based All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), established in 1987 by Parliament […]

Repair & recovery after Covid

KRISHNA KUMAR

Our education institutions will require financial boosting and credible leadership to create and sustain a climate for institutional recovery without false pride over trivial achievements

India’s Educational Recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic will require considerable imagination, planning and patience. These resources have been in short supply over the past decade or so. Few state governments […]

Social media regulations require wider debate

Though some of the reasons advanced for regulating social media are justified, the new social media guidelines are open to subjective interpretation by petty bureaucrats and policemen – Rahul Singh.

Freedom of expression is recognised AS a fundamental right under Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. Indeed, it has always […]

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