Karate kid Sukanya Sen (10), a class V student of Kolkata’s top-ranked Modern High School for Girls, is one of a growing crop of promising female practitioners of this mentally and physically demanding martial art. Last October, she won the sub-junior kumite — combat with a live opponent — title at the 21st International Sports […]
Against the depressing backdrop of post-independence India’s educationally short-changed citizens floundering in shallows and misery rooted in learning deprivation, news that the new-genre digital technologies-driven Khan Academy, USA has pitched tent in New Delhi offers hope of a countrywide learning revolution:Dilip Thakore
This cover feature is being written on the eve of January 26, when India’s […]
Pessimists believe that the United States has peaked as a superpower and is falling behind in education, research and development, and economic growth. They say the country’s best days are behind it.
They are wrong. Not only is the United States leading a technology revolution that will help solve the grand challenges of humanity — problems […]
Convened at Bangalore’s state-of-the-art ITC Gardenia Hotel on January 23, the 6th EW ECE Global Conference 2016 featured international and national ECCE experts who shared their knowledge and best practices with over 250 promoters, principals and teachers of top-ranked pre-primaries and K-12 schools from across the country:Summiya Yasmeen
For the sixth year consecutively, EducationWorld hosted […]
Awareness of the vital importance of early childhood care and education (ECCE) dawned upon me rather late in life. My working life started with Unilever Malaysia in the human resources department. During a ten-year journey from internship to management, I met many disagreeable adults and happiness became elusive. Therefore […]
The first six years of life are widely acknowledged as a “window of opportunity” for optimising the development of children and realising their inherent potential. This is the period in a child’s life when she records the fastest pace of growth. Research in the neurosciences has […]
With several state governments enacting registration and operational regulations for private preschools, the first panel discussion of the EW ECE Global Conference 2016 featuring Swati Popat Vats (SPV), founder-president of the Early Childhood Association of India; Jaya Sastri (JS), founder-director of SEED group of preschools, Chennai; Dr. Padmini, trustee […]
Do we need to set minimum learning outcomes in ECCE?
The second panel discussion chaired by Summiya Yasmeen (SY), managing editor of EducationWorld, featured Dr. Shailaja Menon (SM), professor at the School of Education, Azim Premji University, Bangalore; Deepa Bhushan (DB), head of Billabong High International schools; Hazel Siromoni (HS), director of Maple Bear India; […]
The Khan Academy’s well-designed and user-friendly website (khanacademy.org) offers a wide range of tutorials adjusted to serve the needs of teachers, parents and self-learners. For learners in any of these categories, registration is easy. The academy’s first display screen which cheerfully assures visitors that “You can learn anything”, invites learners, teachers and parents to register […]
Dilip Thakore interviewed Salman Khan, the US-based founder-CEO of the Khan Academy (KA, estb.2006) over the telephone. Excerpts from the 40-minute late night interview.
Since it was launched in 2006, the online Khan Academy (KA) has captured the imagination of the world. How satisfied are you with the growth of KA thus far?
Power corrupts people in all walks of life. Even the media which has established itself as the powerful and influential fourth estate of this spluttering democracy.
A case in point is the prolonged fratricidal war for editorial authority and dominance being waged in the venerable Chennai-based English daily The Hindu (estb. 1878). On January 5, Malini […]
Country head, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (India)
Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
India’s children and youth deserve ‘best in class’ quality education at affordable cost, benchmarked with international standards. This is the top priority for the nation.
How best to upgrade government colleges?
They should immediately start […]
Money and Politics by Ben Antao; cinnamon teal; Price: Rs.325; Pages: 226
Ben Antao has tackled the birth of Goan independence with humour and an unrepentant pen. That politics is money is unquestioned in this novel. That politics is business is also boldly stated. And with the events in this tale unfolding in the early 1960s […]
I have learned to pay attention to T-shirts. Why? Because, I believe the philosophies of our age are often found on T-shirts. Whether I’m at a mall, a sports stadium, or an amusement park (with the grandkids), just about anywhere, T-shirts inform me about many truths of our time.
Perhaps the most interesting T-shirt I’ve seen […]
Universities worldwide will one day be compared on what their graduates learn and will “compete for superior approaches to teaching”, just as schools do thanks to the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests.
That is the firm view of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s director of education and skills, Andreas Schleicher, who says […]
The university campus, with its myriad opportunities for engagement, is an important place for students to develop as people, not just as scholars. And in light of recent terrorist attacks and the grim history of violence on campus, it is all the more vital that it remain so. This is the view of Eloic Peyrache, […]
The new campus of Saint Petersburg State University’s Graduate School of Management (GSOM) provides quite an effective exemplar of Russian higher education today. Mikhailovskaya Dacha, the site of the summer residence of Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov, was given to the school as part of the Russian government’s 2005 National Priority Project in Education, aimed at […]
Six months ago, one of Canada’s leading neuroscientists, Robert Brownstone, announced his resignation as director of research in neurosurgery at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, citing the Canadian government’s “worrisome” cuts to science funding and its shift towards applied research.
Three months into his new post as chair of neurosurgery at University College London (UCL), Brownstone is […]
Serhiy Kvit is perhaps Ukraine’s most successful minister, but he became a politician only by chance. Almost two years ago, Kvit was rector of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He agreed to visit student protesters barricaded inside Ukraine’s education ministry during the country’s ‘Maidan revolution’, which led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych […]
George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. On December 9, 2015, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to replace that law. The House has already passed something similar, and President Obama is likely to sign a modified version. This new Bill, too, has support from both parties. But this time it stems […]
“Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music” — Albert Einstein
In multiple studies conducted and reports published around the world, it’s been clearly established that music education greatly aids the cognitive development […]
C.M. Rubin, a US-based educationist, journalist and author of the award-winning ‘Global Search for Education’ series, interviewed Dr. Peter Senge, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the bestselling The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990) which has made him a household name among informed corporate […]
Dr. Yaj Medury is the first vice chancellor of the newly established Bennett University (BU) in Greater Noida, an hour’s drive from central Delhi. The campus is designed by RSP Architects, a renowned Singapore-based firm.
BU has a dedicated corpus of Rs.800 crore for investment in infrastructure and human resources of which Rs.240 crore has been […]
Currently celebrating its 175th anniversary, University of Winchester, UK, which was founded as a teacher training school, has evolved into a top-rated multi-disciplinary varsity with an aggregrate enrolment of 6,878 students:SUMMIYA YASMEEN
Founded in 1840 as a teacher training school, the University of Winchester (UoW) has evolved into a top-rated multi-disciplinary varsity offering undergraduate, […]
The first CAIE, UK-affiliated international primary-secondary of the 200-strong DPS chain, DPS-I has quickly emerged as one of Delhi NCR’s most preferred international schools:Swati Roy
One of 11 ‘core’ schools promoted by the highly-respected Delhi Public School Society comprising over 200 owned and franchised schools in India and abroad, Delhi Public School International (DPS-I, estb.2003) is […]
Gurgaon-based Arhan Bagati (16) is the latest teen to join the brigade of precocious app ideators mushrooming countrywide. Supported by the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), Arhan has conceptualised and helped develop ‘inRio’, a free app which can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices, to ensure better manoeuvrability and quality of life for para-athletes […]
Confluence 2016: Global Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Summit, a two-day event held at the Amity University campus in Noida on January 14-15, attracted participation of academics and corporate leaders from India and around the world.
Among the delegates were representatives of some of the world’s top-ranked higher ed institutions including Cambridge and Nottingham universities in the […]
Chief minister Raman Singh launched the ‘Anganwadi Gunvatta Unnayan Abhiyan’ (Anganwadi upgrade programme) of the state’s women and child development (WCD) ministry in Raipur on January 4. Speaking on the occasion, he lauded the efforts of anganwadi workers in fighting malnutrition and said that with the active support of the WCD ministry, NGOs […]
“The glass, half-empty or half-full — depending on one’s perception — is the best metaphor to describe the skilling scenario in India, Much has been done, but much remains to be done. Less than 2 percent of our workforce has formal skills.”
Sanjeev Duggal, CEO of Centum Learning, on India’s skilling challenge (Business Today, January 17)
Political interference in the internal affairs of education institutions is de rigueur in Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) where continuous interventions by the state’s two major political parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) — has wrecked school education. Reckless interference in K-12 education began during […]
Composite private schools in Karnataka with pre-primary classes are obliged to admit children from poor households in their neighbourhood into kindergarten under s. 12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in the next academic year beginning June. On January 18 the Karnataka high court passed an […]
The small and shrinking minority of bona fide academics in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal, which prides itself for having nurtured some of India’s most renowned scientists and scholars such as Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyen Bose, P.C. Roy, Meghnad Saha, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis among others, are expressing alarm about the continuously declining number […]
Speculation is rife within academics in Mumbai on why enactment of the Maharashtra Public Universities Bill, 2015, which replaces the two-decade-old Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, has been postponed to the state legislative assembly’s budget session which begins in March. Particularly since in anticipation of the enactment of the Bill, the state’s 11 government-funded universities have […]
“I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body… The value of man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind… I am writing this kind of a letter for the first time. My first […]
Your impassioned cover story ‘State of the Republic Report 2016: Heavy price of education neglect’ (EW January) is a depressing account of independent India’s failures — correctly identified as rooted in neglect of public education.
Unfortunately, while all developing countries including China focused on universalising quality primary education, India foolishly under-invested in elementary public education. It’s […]
In several pre-budget interviews featured in the media, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has stated that the Union Budget 2016-17 scheduled to be presented to a fractious Parliament and the nation on February 28, will focus on ramping up investment in the agriculture and social sectors — education and health — of the economy. This […]
Although there’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that quality universal education — especially early childhood, primary and skills education — is the foundation of national development, it’s a telling indication of the low priority given to teaching-learning that news of the US-based Khan Academy establishing an India office in Delhi, has been buried […]
Protests intensified in Kolkata on Friday as hundreds of SFI (Students’ Federation of India) and DYFI (Democratic Youth Federation of India) activists hit the streets .....Read More
[embed]https://youtu.be/KpPWVrJNLtY[/embed] EducationWorld organized a panel discussion to debate a recent controversy Karnataka’s rule mandating an age requirement for children to enter grade 1 in Karnataka. .....Read More
