In 1969, Meera Mahadevan, a Delhi-based housewife was moved by the plight of a child lying by a busy road unattended, as the parents — construction workers — were obliged to neglect their infant even as they built a new India. That was the genesis of Mobile Creches, recalls Devika Mahadevan (31), the energetic chief […]
The violent caste clashes, which were intensively covered on national television, between student groups of Chennai’s Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College on November 12, have shocked the academic community in the southern state of Tamil Nadu (pop.62 million). They graphically exposed the slimy underbelly of caste driven animosities which have permeated college campuses in this […]
France may think of itself as a literary society, but real prestige is reserved for mathematics. Excellence in maths determines access to the elite, via ultra-selective grandes ecoles such as the Ecole Nationale d’Administration or the Polytechnique.
More French mathematicians have won the Fields Medal, a top international prize, than from any other European country. Top maths […]
The landmark election of senator Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America on November 4, highlights the stark differences in the practice and precepts of democratic governance between the US and India, the most vibrant and most populous democracies respectively of the contemporary world. The overwhelming popular mandate in favour […]
Im in the final year of a hotel management degree programme. Is it worthwhile to press on for an MBA in marketing/finance to better my career prospects?Naresh Rao, Bangalore
An MBA degree will multiply your options for employment across all industries including hospitality, media, banking and finance. If a hospitality industry job is under consideration, […]
Sixty years after independence, the 4,000 members of the elite IAS continue to exercise power out of all proportion to their number, as they preside over the countrys massive bureaucracyThe Indian Civil Service, the elite governing corps which was the ‘steel frame of the British Raj for almost a century (1857-1957), transformed into the Indian […]
A dedicated teacher, trainer, education consultant and edupreneur, Chennai-based KR Maalathi is a woman of numerous accomplishments. Though she discharges her multiple roles with equal zest, her prime focus area is helping edupreneurs promote schools, and hand-hold them through the entire institution development process. For this purpose, she promoted KRM Training and Consultancy Services Pvt. […]
The trend of Indian emigres returning home — a phenomenon accelerated by the economic meltdown in the US and the West — is being warmly welcomed, especially if the accompanying baggage includes ideas and concepts to bridge Indias fractured education system. The baggage of Dinesh Mehta and Narender Oruganti of Gurgaon/California-based Catura Broadband Solutions Pvt. […]
The global financial crisis is taking its toll on the employment market in the UK. The jobless total rose by 164,000 in the three months to September, the biggest rise for 17 years, and the number claiming jobseekers allowance jumped again in September. Much of the pain is being felt near the bottom of the […]
With a population of 1.3 billion and an economic miracle giving it the financial muscle it has lacked in the past, China is already a major world player in higher education. But although it has more than 2,000 higher education institutions, only nine made it into the top 200 in the 2008 Times Higher Education-QS […]
If we managed to deal with communism, nothing can stop us. So says Alina Kozinska-Baldyga, director of the Warsaw-based Federation of Educational Initiatives, of her campaign to open hundreds of small rural schools throughout Poland following government closures.In mid-October, a contingent of Polish headteachers, led by Kozinska-Baldyga, arrived in Britain and threw their support behind […]
Italy may be facing recession, but for Siggi, a textile firm near Civenza in the north-east of the country, 2009 offers the promise of unprecedented growth. Siggi is the biggest producer of grembiuli or school smocks. Once universal in Italian primary schools, they were becoming as outdated as ink-wells. But in July the education minister […]
Technology forces old laws to contort themselves in new ways. The phonograph and radio threatened to wreck the idea of music copyright — then embodied in sheet music. But lawyers struck novel compromises between new media and old laws; collection societies were set up to pay composers and performers, and the market grew. On October […]
On October 22 chancellor (prime minister) Angela Merkel summoned the premiers from all of Germanys 16 states for an ‘education summit in Dresden. Its vaunted aim was to transform Germany from a mediocre performer into a dazzling education republic. Yet the chancellors powers to achieve this goal are limited.Nobody thinks that Germany can afford mediocrity. […]
Cool, exotic, affordable and renowned for superlative service, the land of smiles, which attracted a record 14 million tourists last year (2007), is of special interest to discerning Indian tourists. Ayutthaya, the earlier capital of the Thai kingdom founded by King U-Thong, was named after the sacred city of Ayodhya in IndiaThe south-east Asian kingdom […]
Aids Sutra: Untold Stories from India; Random House India; Price: Rs.395; 334 pp
This anthology of impactful essays with an introduction by Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, is supported by Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It strings together 16 high profile writers, who attempt to provide insights into the […]
In any other country the startling data released recently by the 63rd round survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), indicating that over 300 million citizens of India are obliged to make do with 60 sq. ft housing space per capita — equivalent to the size of an American jail cell — and that […]
Despite the over-blown rhetoric about Indias independent judiciary, and the undeserved halo conferred upon the countrys 13,000 judges great and small (who for all their supposed wisdom, havent been able to resolve the problem of a staggering 30 million cases backlog for over six decades), there is something rotten about this self-righteous institution. How else […]
Government is omnipresent and we all have to learn to live and work with it, is a typical statement of advice from well-wishers of my various enterprises. Yet despite best efforts to follow this advice and minor successes, I must confess failure to work with government.The sticking point has always been the lack of elementary […]
The Punjab government signed a tripartite agreement with Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad, and four Indian business leaders on November 4, to establish a second ISB campus at the Knowledge City, Mohali (Punjab). Signatories to the agreement were chief minister Prakash Singh Badal, Rajat Gupta (chairman ISB) and four ‘founder supporters — Analjit Singh […]
Its an indicator of the depths to which the quality of debate in public life has sunk, that the patently anti- national proposition that north Indians should be discouraged from migrating to metropolitan Mumbai in search of employment and livelihood, has prompted the Congress-led Maharashtra government to pass an order reserving 80 percent of jobs […]
Following close on the heels of prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singhs confession at the recently held (November 21-22) HT Leadership Summit in New Delhi, that his greatest ambition is to witness India trans-forming into a fully-educated country, has come Unescos Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2009, slamming governments around the world for their failure […]
In his last year as chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, US-based switching systems millionaire and architect of Indias astonishing telecom revolution of the 1990s, Sam Pitroda —whose three-year term was extended to March 2009 in October — has fired a broadside at the market economy. In a trademark letter dated November 6 to prime […]
Anywhere in the world, the 150th — or sesquicentennial — anniversary of a greatly respected academic institution would be celebrated with acclamatory cheers, pomp and circumstance. Except in West Bengal, whose 31-year-old CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front governments priority is to maintain rigid control over the education system, from primary to doctoral. Quite […]
A high decibel marathi versus English debate is being conducted in Maharashtra on the eve of the winter session (postponed to the first week of December) of the state legislative assembly. It features Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and a minister of his own cabinet — school education minister Vasant Purake — for and against […]
“There will never be a real estate asset bubble in India because the (revenue from) taxes are so depressed to the real price.”
Finance minister P. Chidambaram in The Hindu (November 1)
“America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. The road ahead will be […]
Bihar will soon become a hub of professional education following the inauguration of a number of greenfield technical and medical institutes, the state’s chief minister Nitish Kumar said at a press conference in Darbhanga district on November 20. “The state government is promoting new engineering and medical colleges to prevent the flight of […]
The fifth India International Premiere Schools Conference (IIPSE) was staged at the ITC Sonar Bangla hotel in Kolkata on November 8. IIPSE mega school conferences are organised by the Kolkata-based Afairs Exhibitions and Media Pvt. Ltd, Indias leading organiser of education exhibitions and conventions.The full-day conference on the theme ‘Perceptions, Aspirations and Challenges in School […]
Although meant to be a festive communication which celebrates Indias most inventive and innovative teachers, this end-of-the-year letter to EW readers is being written under the shadow of the terrorist outrage of November 26-28 in Mumbai, which claimed over 195 valuable lives and injured 295.Like many corporates, firms and families across the country, EducationWorld and […]
At an impressive ceremony staged at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai (DAIS) on November 7, University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) felicitated students of DAIS who topped CIEs IGCSE (class X) examinations in 2008. Jesika Haria achieved five ‘top in India subject awards plus a special award for scoring the highest marks in India […]
A.M. Thimmiya has signed up with the Bangalore-based 24×7 Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Indias premier talent lifecycle management company, as chief operating officer. In particular, he will head SkillBridge — the employability enhancement program, and AVAGMAH — the continuous learning initiative of the company. Thimmiya will also be involved with developing new growth strategies, and […]
Regrettably, the answer is no. Indian politics is feudal, driven by divisive agendas of caste, ethnicity and religion. It is also nepotistic, fuelled by ties of kinship. The political class has no ideology, except knee-jerk responses evoked by flawed and leftover notions of socialism, secularism and nonalignment. The system that has grown out of the […]
A class XII commerce student of the CBSE-affiliated Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School in Chennai, Shruti Neelakantan has just returned from a 13-day expedition (September 7-20) to the Arctic Circle. Organised by British Council, Canada in collaboration with Cape Farewell, the objective of the London-based trans-national programme is to raise awareness about the global climate […]
Dehradun-based Vandana Panwar (23), who has just graduated (in English, economics and political science) from HNB Garhwal University, is the winner of the gold medal in the giant slalom snow skiing event of the National Winter Games held earlier (February) this year, at Gulmarg in Kashmir. Crossing the finishing line ahead of 30 contestants from […]
The fourth annual Tata Consultancy Services-EducationWorld Teachers Awards 2008 attracted 18,000 nominations from 2,500 schools across the country. At a meticulously planned awards ceremony staged in Lucknow, the eight finalists — all women —were showered with cash awards, certificates and mementos. Summiya Yasmeen reports
A mix of emotions — hope, excitement, optimism, anxiety and joy — pervaded the […]
Someone once memorably remarked that the two people every individual remains indebted to through life are the family doctor and a school teacher. How true! Even in the contemporary world of healthcare specialists, the universal favourite is the ‘family doctor or a GP we trust.If you have been a teacher for many years and often […]
If your child has high self-esteem, he has it made. Self-esteem is the mainspring that slates every child for success or failure as a human being — Dorothy BriggsNobody doubts that confidence is the prerequisite of success, especially in the sports world. The best physique and all the talent in the world wont do a […]
The end of one journey and the beginning of another – such was the scenario during the graduation ceremony of ISC Grade XII students (Batch .....Read More
Alexander Zheltov, Founder, Educate Online Education, in its conventional form, has usually emphasised academic performance as the key measure of success, overlooking critical components of .....Read More
Education beyond textbooks
Someone once memorably remarked that the two people every individual remains indebted to through life are the family doctor and a school teacher. How true! Even in the contemporary world of healthcare specialists, the universal favourite is the ‘family doctor or a GP we trust.If you have been a teacher for many years and often […]