Expert Comment

Private varsity governance pitfalls

– Shiv Visvanathan is a professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat (Haryana) and a member of Compost Heap, an academic think tank

One of the drawbacks of academic controversies is that they surface without articulation of genealogy, or context. They erupt as scandal, evoke a few personalities, allow a trail of gossip, and fade quickly. […]

Chip on shoulder governance

Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist

Long years ago, I was at lunch with Michael McGuire, foreign editor of Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that published and syndicated my columns. The venue was Sayat Nova, an Armenian restaurant on Ohio Street in the buzzy Streeterville neighbourhood, a lively […]

Budget 2021-22 ignores NEP 2020

Protiva Kundu is associate director of research at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi

Year 2020 has been exceptional — a year unlike any other. Before the Covid-19 induced lockdown on March 25, India’s economy was already struggling. The national lockdown plunged it into severe recession. Therefore, there was little headroom […]

Remembrance of an ideal teacher

Among the great teachers I have trained I remember many who knew how to scold without losing their students’ love and trust. Predictability in a teacher’s behaviour is important, advised the late American educator John Holt

Dr. Krishna Kumar is former director of NCERT and former professor of education at Delhi University

One of the four […]

Kamala Harris reviving the American dream

Being black, Asian, the daughter of immigrants from coloured lands like India and Jamaica, Kamala Harris poses a huge threat to the one-dimensional mindset of angry working class whites in America

– Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist

The recently concluded debate between US Vice President Mike Pence and Senator

NEP 2020: Disappointing philosophy

– Shiv Visvanathan is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Systems at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, released on July 29, is being celebrated by many as a great document, the BJP/NDA 2.0 government’s gift to the nation to mark the 74th anniversary of independence. I […]

Edtech can empower NEP 2020

– Roshan Gandhi is director of strategy, City Montessori School, Lucknow and an international edtech consultant

The education sector is abuzz with analyses of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 released on July 29 to a flurry of excited and disappointed commentary nationwide. The new policy contains much that is praiseworthy — its forward-thinking advocacy […]

Decoupling & crash of civilisations

Sudheendra Kulkarni was aide of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) and currently the Mumbai-based founder of Forum for South Asia

“The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to shake off our ancient prejudices, and to build the Earth.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

The […]

Corona in the curriculum

UNESCO’S Journal, PROSPECTS has scheduled an entire issue later in the year to the implications of the coronavirus crisis for curriculum design. Its guest editor will be Prof. William Pinar of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada). The idea is to explore how future curriculum developers in different countries can incorporate […]

Society needs moral repair & healing

The enormity of the corona pandemic crisis demands that we rise above current stereotypes and perceptions. This transformation has to occur in two forms. We have to acknowledge that the Corona crisis has unearthed much deeper and fundamental problems. The first is a crisis of imagination and cerebration. The stereotypes used to evaluate the crisis […]

Making NIRF more credible

Dr. R. Natarajan is former director of IIT-Madras and former chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

In mid-February China’s ministries of education and science and technology jointly issued a notification to reform the academic evaluation system to reduce “excessive reliance on the Science Citation and Social Science Citation indices” as key indicators for “academic […]

India’s unsung ECCE pioneers

In an era when educationists — including early childhood educators — are rightly encouraged to think and act ‘glocal’, i.e, global and local, it’s equally important to realise that at the formative age of 0-6 years, education rooted in a child’s mother tongue and local culture has a lasting impact on the cognitive and socio-emotional […]

Alarming state violence against universities

Sudheendra Kulkarni

There is something troubling, even scary, about the manner in which the Narendra Modi government is handling the critical education sector, specifically higher education. The dreams of Young India cannot be realised unless the government pays focused and sustained attention to introducing much-needed improvements in all facets of education — quality, affordability, […]

Preparing for Education 4.0

Dr. R. Natarajan is former director of IIT-Madras and former chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

The buzzword among educationists today is Education 4.0. To understand Education 4.0, it is important to understand Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0, which gained traction when a German government memo released in 2013 used the term “Industrie […]

Deconstructing disdain for for-profit education

Drawing from the draft prepared by the K. Kasturirangan Committee, the leaked final National Education Policy 2019 document posted on social media sites, laments “rampant commercialisation and economic exploitation of parents by many for-profit private schools”.

There are several problems with this presumption. First, commercialisation which implies managing or running an enterprise for financial gain is […]

NEP 2019 draft: Accountability lacuna

A sound accountability system can be built by adopting one of two measures — a financing framework where funding follows students or funding public schools on the basis of learning improvements

Three years ago in 2016, in a monograph titled New Education Policy: Principles, Priorities & Practices, Centre for Civil Society argued that India needs an […]

Draft NEP 2019: Command & control prescription

The draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 released by the Union HRD ministry on May 30, strikes so many different notes in the same breath that one doesn’t quite know which ones might eventually form the tune. Many of the notes are jarring while some are sweet and familiar. Of the latter, some are very […]

Expert Comment: Positives of draft NEP 2019

Should India welcome foreign universities and colleges? Against the backdrop of only two of 21st century India’s 39,000 colleges and 1,241 universities ranked among the global Top 200 in the WUR (World University Rankings) of the London-based QS and Times Higher Education, this is a critical question for the country’s youth because they need — […]

Environment education for Google-savvy children

Dr. Krishna Kumar is former director of NCERT and former professor of education at Delhi University

Every now and then, we hear about the release of a doomsday report detailing the dire state of the environment. The latest is a UN report which warns that more than a million animal and plant species will be lost […]

Bleak future of Indian education

Shiv Visvanathan is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Systems at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat

General Election 2019 has been over-analysed to explain the future of Indian politics. But a clear-cut analysis of what the massive majority awarded to the BJP by the electorate means for Indian education hasn’t been made. Simply […]

Time to focus on heart education

Lijian Zhao is a dynamic young Chinese diplomat posted in Islamabad. China’s close friendship with Pakistan is well known. Also widely known are India’s not-so-close ties with China, and our hostile relations with Pakistan.

Therefore, whenever I try to explain to people that the objective of my Forum for a New South Asia is to promote […]

India’s lamentable social progress

– Rahul Singh, former editor, Reader’s Digest and author of Family Planning Success Stories: Asia, Africa and Latin America

In the final lap of General Election 2019 with electioneering at fever pitch, a major plank of the ruling BJP-led NDA coalition at the Centre is that during its tenure, India has become the fastest growing major […]

No idea of building knowledge society

Budgetary allocations in India are not just a parade of numbers, they represent a parable of messages articulating a regime’s logic of welfare and its vision of the future. Budgets also provide a sense of how a government senses the nature of citizenship. When one reads budgetary allocations, one summons not the accountant but the […]

Undistinguished term in Prime Minister’s office

Rajiv Desai is chairman and CEO of New Delhi-based Comma Consulting Pvt. Ltd and Congress party spokesperson

As the BJP/NDA government at the Centre and prime minister Narendra Modi near the end of their eventful but unproductive, even disastrous terms in office, it may be worthwhile, even imperative, to take stock of their records, especially of […]

Hard times for teachers

Dr. Krishna Kumar is former director of NCERT and former professor of education at Delhi University

Two of my former students have asked for my opinion and advice. Both are teachers. I recall them as good students of education, especially of the peace education course they took with me as B.Ed students. The objective of the […]

Building world-class universities

India’s aspirations to build world-class universities that promote excellence in teaching, research and knowledge creation are as overdue as they are laudable. The early history of higher education institutions in India and the contribution of Indian civilisational heritage to the world is truly remarkable.

Against this backdrop, there is palpable disappointment that contemporary India doesn’t host […]

Expert Comment

Reflections on humanising male hood

– Dr Krishna Kumar is former professor of education at Delhi University and former director of NCERT

Many years ago I witnessed a class XI boy hurl a shard of metal at his teacher. The heavy metal had rusted, but its edges were still quite sharp. Had it not narrowly missed the teacher, her face […]

Expert Comment

Extraordinary bundle of contradictions

– Rahul Singh, former editor of the Reader’s Digest and Indian Express

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, who passed away recently in London at the age of 85, was one of the most insightful, even if most controversial, writers of our time. A high-caste Brahmin descended from indentured labourers who had migrated from eastern Uttar Pradesh to Trinidad […]

Expert Comment

Impractical comprehensive plastics ban

– Rahul Singh is a former editor of the Readers Digest and Indian Express

In the classic 1967 Mike Nichols movie, The Graduate, a fresh-out-of-college Dustin Hoffman asks his fathers business partner what advice he can give the young Hoffman on which career to pursue. I just want to say one word to you, is […]

Special Report

Encourage independent ECCE affiliation/accreditation boards: Swati Popat Vats

– Dr. Swati Popat Vats is founder-president of the Early Childhood Association and president of the Podar Education Network

All class I-XII schools in India boast state, national and/or international exam/education board affiliation. However, preschools countrywide are not required to affiliate themselves with any board or accreditation authority which can certify their curriculums, child safety and […]

Expert Comment

Computational thinking — the 5th C

Dr. Shuchi Grover, a US-based computer scientist and learning scientist, delivered this keynote address at the EWISRA 2017-18

The 2020 Science Report authored by scientists from around the world at the turn of the century observed that science is changing in a subtle but fundamental way with the use of computer science (CS or simply computing) […]

Expert Comment

New opportunity in early years education

Dr Jeremy Williams is the academic director of Asian International College (India)

India — like many other countries — is in the midst of a paradigm shift in education driven by the very economic and technological forces that have transformed Indian industry. Learning via the Internet — formerly known as ‘e-learning’ — started to become popular in […]

Expert Comment

Education cess imbroglio

Ambarish Datta is MD & CEO of BSE Institute Ltd and founder-director of the BFSI sector skill council, a PPP promoted by industry and NSDC

Albert Einstein once said the hardest thing to understand in the world is income tax. This may not have been true earlier, but it’s certainly true now.

Take the case of education […]

Expert Comment

Islam must reform from within

– Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times, Dubai

All major religions have their ups and downs — Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and of course, Islam. After the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, the focus is currently on Islam. Indeed, during the past decade and a half following […]

Expert Comment

Igniting cognitive capital in elementary education

– Professor J.S. Rajput is a well-known educationist and former director of NCERT and NCTE

For the country’s estimated 15 million class X and 7.7 million higher secondary school-leavers, admission cut-offs into India’s 35,000 undergrad colleges — and especially into the few dozen top-ranked institutions of higher education — range between 95-100 percent, a dismaying reality.

The […]

Expert Comment

BJP/NDA’s RK Puram Budget

– Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist

R.K. Puram is a determinedly downmarket neighbourhood in southwest Delhi. It is chock-a-block with government colonies for middle-level bureaucrats, schooled in a cruel education system that strips young people of hope and ideals, and transformed into cynics who have held the economy to […]

Teacher-to-Teacher

Enabling multiple learning experiences

Travel back in time to Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. Weigh yourself on different planets. Figure out how heating and cooling metals adds or reduces energy. These are a few learning experiences that latter-day information and communication technology (ICT) offers school students. ICT enables students to connect with a world of resources, experts and curious peers. […]

Expert Comment

RTE Act lunacies and lacunae

Dr. Geeta Kingdon is chair of education economics and international development at the Institute of Education, University of London

Four years after the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 became law on April 1, 2010, followed by an inconclusive Supreme Court judgement, there’s still widespread dissatisfaction with the provisions of the Act, its […]

Expert Comment

Delhi University’s FYUP imbroglio

– Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest and Indian Express

NOBODY COMES OUT smelling roses in Delhi University’s four year undergraduate programme (FYUP) imbroglio, following which the programme — hastily introduced last year (2013) — has been reversed in the new academic year. Neither the previous Congress-led UPA-II government, nor its successor the […]

Expert Comment

Critical mass in Indian education

– J.S. Rajput is a former director of NCERT and NCTE

A NEW GOVERNMENT will be sworn into office in New Delhi by mid-May after an aggregate sum of Rs.30,000 crore will have been spent — according to a study of the Centre for Media Studies, Delhi — by an estimated 10,000 candidates in the electoral […]