In a country where littering and indifference to civic cleanliness is a national malaise, Jashrit Dubey (14), a class IX student of the Gujarati-medium state board-affiliated Hiramani School, Ahmedabad, has assumed the burden of Mahatma Gandhi’s mission of maintaining clean and sanitary local environments, besides stirring fellow students into action. “The journey of a thousand miles […]
Fully persuaded by the logic that social return per dollar invested in early childhood education is higher than equal investment in K-12 and tertiary education, EducationWorld organised major ECE global conferences in 2010 and 2011. On January 19, the 3rd ECE Global Conference 2013 was staged in Bangalore. Dilip Thakore reports
Founded in 1857 and one of the first three universities to be established in the British presidencies, this once highly-reputed varsity with a roll-call of illustrious alumni including Lokmanya Tilak and Dr. Ambedkar, is facing an unprecedented meltdown, with its academic reputation at its nadir. Summiya Yasmeen & Praveer Sinha report
Ashish Puntambekar is a Mumbai-based corporate planner and project designer of the Indian Education Megaproject
The national outrage over the vicious gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in a bus coursing through the national capital, and her subsequent death in a Singapore hospital on December 29, will serve no purpose unless the root causes of […]
Of late there’s been a wave of global rediscovery of the vital importance of early childhood education (ECE). In countries around the world, there is growing acknowledgement of the critical contribution that education in the early years makes towards the overall development of children. Of greater significance though, is growing research data which suggests that […]
I would like to begin with a true story, an episode of a few decades ago. A young woman had come to her parental home during her first pregnancy. Her father was a reputed doctor in a small temple town called Srivilliputtur. The delivery was normal and the baby was healthy. Baths and diets were […]
Against the backdrop of early childhood education (ECE) being described as an area of darkness in Indian education, at the EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013, a panel discussion on the subject ‘Is Indian academia/society ignorant about ECE?’, evoked spirited debate.
Chaired by EducationWorld editor Dilip Thakore (DT), the specially constituted panel comprised Dr. Venita Kaul (VK), director of […]
At the EducationWorld ECE Global Conference 2013, a panel discussion convened to discuss the dangers of age-inappropriate ECE, drew a packed house. The panel chaired by Summiya Yasmeen (SY), managing editor of EducationWorld, included Dr. K.R. Maalathi (KRM), a Chennai-based education consultant and advisor to the Ashok Piramal Group, Mumbai, and Children Welfare Society, Dubai; Dr. Shekhar Seshadri (SS), professor, department […]
Praveer Sinha interviewed Dr. Rajan M. Welukar, vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai (MU) at his office in the Fort campus. Excerpts:
Mumbai University’s academic reputation has been sliding over the years with acute shortage of faculty, question paper leaks and errors in marks cards becoming normative. To what factors do you attribute MU’s decline?
When I […]
By any yardstick the 3rd EducationWorld Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013 held in Bangalore on January 19, was a resounding success. Perhaps more so than its predecessor global conferences (2010 and 2011) staged in Mumbai. Although the Mumbai conferences attracted greater participation from abroad — these are global conferences on a subject in which […]
A thin silver lining to the dark cloud of shame that hangs over the republic following the gangrape incident in Delhi on December 16, is that it has brought the full weight of public opinion to bear upon the long-pending issue of police reforms. It’s shocking but true that reports of several high-powered commissions and […]
I read your cover story on the Manipal Education & Medical Group’s ambitious plans to go global (EW January) with great interest. This is the first time I’ve heard of an Indian education ‘exporter’ with established campuses in Dubai, Malaysia, Nepal and Antigua.
Of course, the parent Manipal University in Udupi enjoys an excellent reputation across the […]
The provisional 8th All India Education Survey (AIES-8) — the census of all recognised schools in the country — released by the Delhi-based National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) on January 23 with a reference date of September 30, 2009, doesn’t spring any surprises. It’s in line with academic estimates relating to growth […]
Notwithstanding tall claims to the contrary by the Congress-led UPA-II government which is now in the final year of its five-year term in office at the Centre, primary education in India is in a tailspin. This is confirmed yet again by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012 — a nationwide survey which measures […]
The road from Gandhinagar capital of the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop. 60 million) — which chief minister Narendra Modi dominates like a colossus — to Delhi is through numerous global capitals. To counter popular domestic resistance to his emergence as the BJP front-runner in the 2014 prime ministerial sweepstakes, Modi has taken to […]
At an inconvenient time when the incumbent BJP government of Karnataka is confronted with a split in its ranks following the exit of former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, and the state scheduled to go to the hustings in May, it is taking heat for infiltrating hindutva propaganda (“saffronisation”) into textbooks of primary and secondary children […]
The rash of scandals including charging prohibited capitation fees, faking the number of minimum faculty members, and other forms of malpractices rampant in several of Tamil Nadu’s 19 government and 23 private medical colleges and one government and 26 private dental colleges, which have been hitting newspaper headlines in Chennai for the past year, have […]
The ruling Trinamool Congress government of West Bengal, after ousting the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) led-Left Front government which ruled this eastern seaboard state uninterruptedly for 34 years in the historic state legislative election of 2011, is set to celebrate the second anniversary of that famous victory in May. One of its major pre-election promises […]
“The president takes the salute on the Raj Path from a parade that is spectacular for the most part but rather reminiscent, with its tanks and missiles of Soviet-style hubris that is unbecoming of a democratic republic.” Gautam Adhikari, well-known journalist, on India’s Republic Day celebrations (Times of India, January 26)
Aakash Educational Services Ltd, (AES, estb. 1998), a well-known Delhi-based test prep (medical and engineering) services company, inaugurated its first centre in Kerala in Kochi on January 11. Addressing media personnel on the occasion, Aakash Chaudhry, AES director, said by end January two more centres will be opened — one at Thiruvananthapuram and […]
Three well-known education not-for-profits — Central Square Foundation, Akanksha Foundation and Teach For India — launched the India School Leadership Institute (ISLI) with support from the US-based KIPP Foundation, on January 16. The prime objective of the Delhi-based ISLI is to train school leaders to deliver high quality education to children of disadvantaged communities.
The first private university in the state of Punjab and the largest single-campus university in India, Lovely Professional University, Punjab offers 200 study programmes to 30,000 students from across India and abroad
Sited on a sprawling 600-acre lush green campus on National Highway No. 1 linking Delhi with Jalandhar (Punjab), Lovely Professional University […]
In the THE World University Rankings 2020 California Institute of Technology, USA is ranked No.2. Moreover 31 Caltech alumni/faculty have won the Nobel prize and 66 the US National Medal of Science/technology
Although the test prep business sector is crowded with an estimated 30,000 coaching schools and firms, it reflects well on the native spirit of enterprise that there’s no shortage of edupreneurs entering this highly competitive business. The latest entrants in this sector are Vivek Gupta (24), Mirik Gogri (23) and Nitesh Salvi (23) — final […]
The high-potential biotech industry has a lot to offer youth interested in biology, environment and ecology studies. Career opportunities in industry and corporates are numerous.
Microbiology is fast emerging as a popular career choice for 21st century youth. Hardly surprising given that microbes affect every aspect of life — negatively and positively. The world around us […]
I’m in class X and keen on pursuing a career in biotechnology. Please advise.
Rahul Salve, Pune
In Plus Two you should opt for the science stream with physics, chemistry, biology and maths (see p. 68). After that you should sign up for a four-year B.Tech (biotechnology) or three-year B.Sc (biotechnology, chemistry, botany, zoology etc) or B.Pharm, […]
Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison. In an especially emotional moment during a prayer vigil, Barack Obama read out the first names of the 20 children killed in the December 14 school shoot-out in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The children were all […]
United kingdom: Foreign students exclusion pressure
Theresa May, Britain’s home secretary, has been accused by a vice chancellor of acting “like a Dalek”, and of “casting a dark cloud over British higher education” in her refusal to change course on student visas.
Meanwhile in end December, the House of Lords European Union Committee became the fifth parliamentary […]
Ten Australian universities are performing “above the world standard” for research, including four performing “well above” world standard, according to an evaluation of Australian research.
The Excellence in Research for Australia 2012 National Report, published on December 6, shows there has been a 24 percent increase in the research undertaken since the previous exercise in 2010. There […]
Even as India’s Foreign Education Providers (Regulation of Entry and Operations Bill 2010) has been stalled in the country’s unparliamentary Parliament for several years, whether for the narrow purpose of generating revenue or the broader goal of engaging more deeply with a rapidly emerging and ever more important nation, foreign universities are scrambling to recruit […]
The proliferation of neighbourhood care points (NCP) has had the effect of popularising preschool education throughout Swaziland (pop. 1.38 million) in just over a decade. NCPs were originally a response to the wave of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) created by the country’s staggering HIV rates. With 26 percent of people aged 15-49 living with […]
Top-quality teaching, stringent admissions criteria and impressive qualifications allow the world’s best universities to charge mega fees: over $50,000 for a year of undergraduate study at Harvard. Less exalted providers have boomed too, with a similar model which sells seminars, lectures, exams and a “salad days” social life in a single bundle. Now online provision […]
On a flight from Washington D.C. to California some years ago, a passenger sitting beside me inquired what I was working on that seemed to have all my attention. I mentioned I was working on my next book, which was about the impact of sports and physical activity on a young person’s success in life. […]
Music of the Spinning Wheel by Sudheendra Kulkarni; Amaryllis Publishers; Price: Rs.795; 725 pp
A journalist-columnist and occasional spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and currently chairman of the Ambani-funded Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai, Sudheendra Kulkarni was a prominent figure in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, which ruled in Delhi between 1998-2004. As special aide […]
What are the aims and objectives of the Central Square Foundation?
The long-term objective is to transform the quality of school education in India. Our immediate focus is on improving learning outcomes of children from low-income communities.
How best to upgrade government schools?
We have to hold […]
The reportedly rising number of readers of this page are surely well aware that your editor is no Bollywood buff, and certainly not a fan of its over-hyped ham actors, whose movies are an assault on the senses and an insult to people with even minimal intelligence and logic.
However a surprise endorsement of my sustained […]
A peculiar incident has surfaced in Bihar where a male government teacher was granted maternity leave through an online portal and reportedly took a week-long .....Read More
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
Brewing crime tsunami
Ashish Puntambekar is a Mumbai-based corporate planner and project designer of the Indian Education Megaproject
The national outrage over the vicious gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in a bus coursing through the national capital, and her subsequent death in a Singapore hospital on December 29, will serve no purpose unless the root causes of […]