Chennai-based Anagha Sethuraman (13) is the season VI National Classmate Spell Bee 2014 champion, following her victory in the final round of the all-India competition staged in Mumbai on March 8-9. After rigorous elimination rounds at the city and state levels, this teen bested 250,000 students from 750 schools in 27 cities to bag a […]
JAIDEEP GUPTA IS founder-chief executive of the Hyderabad-based Univariety, a college admissions planning service
Although career guidance and counseling services have been integral to school education in the West for a long time, only a handful of schools in India realise the need for these services at the most critical juncture of students™ lives.
The […]
Dilip Thakore interviewed Faizal Kottikollon, promoter-chairman of the Dubai-based KEF Co. Ltd and the Faizal & Shabana Foundation in Bangalore. Excerpts:
What were the factors and motivations which prompted you to enter the education sector?
After I sold the last tranche of my shares in KEF Holdings, Sharjah, which had promoted and developed Emirates Techno […]
THE APPOINTMENT OF Dr.Vishal Sikka, a Stanford alumnus and former chief technology officer of SAP AG as the new executive chairman of the Bangalore-based IT services major Infosys Technologies Ltd (annual revenue: Rs.50,133 crore) with effect from August 1, bodes well for this company, which until recently symbolised post-liberalisation India™s entrepreneurial resurgence and new technologies […]
Chairperson, Mother’s Pride Preschools and Presidium Senior Secondary Schools
Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
Right at the top. Education not only takes a nation forward, it™s the antidote for every social evil plaguing India.
How best to upgrade 1.6 million government anganwadis into preschools?
Structured training for anganwadi teachers that puts […]
Sahara: The Untold Story; Tamal Bandyopadhyay; Jaico Books; Rs.450; Pages 344
AT THE TIME OF writing this review of Tamal Bandyopadhyay™s much awaited and deeply- researched book, Subrata Roy, the high-profile founder and ˜managing worker™ of the Sahara Group of 479 companies, is lodged in Delhi™s Tihar jail. Roy™s offence is that Sahara failed to […]
With some of the highest motorable roads worldwide, a close-up experience of the Himalayas, high-altitude lakes, and primeval wilderness with miles of solitude, the charms of Ladakh are unique. Bhagyalakshmi Krishnamurthy reports
ONE OF THE THREE districts of India™s way-up-north state of Jammu & Kashmir (pop. 12.5 million) and administered by the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Council, […]
œThe four-year undergraduate degree may or may not be inherently superior to the three-year degree. However, the vice chancellor of Delhi University must, in principle, be accorded the respect and autonomy to follow the statutes that govern the university and, with the approval of the academic and executive councils, carry out the changes that they […]
THE CONTROVERSIAL four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), which was discontinued by Delhi University on June 27, was introduced last June by the varsity in all its 64 affiliated colleges in the national capital. The FYUP, which replaced the original three-year BA/B.Sc/B.Com degree programme, was designed to spread across two semesters annually, totaling eight semesters over four […]
The landslide victory of the BJP in General Election 2014 has torpedoed the top-ranked DU™s four-year undergraduate programme introduced last June, with all its 64 affiliated colleges compelled to revert to traditional three-year courses
THE ABSOLUTE LOK SABHA majority won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this summer has torpedoed Delhi University™s path-breaking four-year undergraduate […]
DESPITE REPORTS OF SPORTS icons and even mid-range sports professionals ” especially cricketers ” earning huge retainers, bonuses and endorsement incomes, many parents believe sports and games are frivolous extra-curricular activities unconnected with education. Yet participation in sports is an integral part of every child™s education experience, because there™s much more to sports and games […]
CHINESE UNIVERSITIES outperform those of the US when the countries™ average incomes are taken into account, according to an international ranking of higher education systems. An innovative new Universitas 21 ranking for 2014 shows that overall, the UK has risen to eighth place in the world, overtaking Australia and Singapore.
The ranking of 50 countries […]
A GROUP OF 21 Chilean universities has launched an initiative to boost the number of international students in the country. The scheme hopes to promote Chile as an œinternationally recognised and qualified destination for higher education.
The Learn Chile project, launched at the Association of International Educators fair in San Diego on May 28, proclaims […]
United Nations report on Asian higher education has questioned the widely held belief among policymakers that investment in university research leads to economic growth.
The study, which examined Malaysia and Thailand in particular, found that in these countries œvery little varsity research is commercialised, and even when it is, it œdoes not yield large financial […]
THE RECENT ASSASSINATION of lawyer and human rights activist Rashid Rehman ” who claimed he had received repeated death threats after agreeing to defend Junaid Hafeez, an adjunct lecturer at the Bahauddin Zakariya University, against charges of blasphemy ” has raised wide concerns about academic freedom in Pakistan.
In response to the killing in Multan […]
NOTHING BETTER illustrates the difficulties in understanding how higher education works in Paris than the term ˜Sorbonne™. Historically associated with the original University of Paris, the name is now carried by three successor institutions ” Paris-Sorbonne University, Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle University and Pantheon-Sorbonne University ” which share classrooms in the historic site of the Sorbonne […]
EVA ULLMANN TOOK HER Masters degree in 2002 on the part that humour plays in psychotherapy, and became hooked on the subject. In 2005, she founded the German Institute for Humour in Leipzig. It™s dedicated to œthe combination of seriousness and humour. She offers lectures, seminars and personal coaching to managers, from small firms to […]
STORIES SHE HEARD FROM other students persuaded Zoe Ridolfi-Starr to go public with her own. An undergraduate at Columbia University, Ms Ridolfi-Starr says that she was sexually assaulted at the end of her first year. But it was not until she heard other women students claiming mistreatment by their universities for reporting alleged sex attacks […]
EVEN PEOPLE WHO don™t track developments in education in India or abroad are aware something big is happening in this sphere, particularly in higher education. Google search the words ˜disruptive innovation in higher education™ and you™ll get 279,000 results. Type ˜crisis in higher education™ and the number rises to 16 million.
The problem, very simply, […]
I™m interested in a career in military engineering after completing class XII (science) next year. Apart from the Army Institute of Technology (AIT), Pune, which other institutions offer courses in military engineering?
Amit Patil, Pune
Admission into the AIT is restricted to children of army personnel. You could instead try for entry into the technical […]
With over half the country™s population suffering rheumatism and degenerative disorders, the demand for orthopaedists/orthopaedic surgeons is rising
WITH INCREASED LIFE expectancy, lifestyle changes and rising incidence of domestic and workplace accidents, the number of people suffering from osteoporosis, arthritis, bone and joint afflictions is multiplying exponentially. According to a WHO-ILAR (International League of Associations […]
PUBLIC-PRIVATE partnerships (PPPs) in school ” especially primary ” education became fashionable in the new millennium after representatives of 189 countries worldwide signed the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations in New York in the year 2000. One of the Millennium Development Goals which topped the declaration was œall children in primary school and learning, […]
Priyentu Sujata Balchandra, class XII. Father manager State Bank of India, mother housewife. œI joined the school in 2007. Since then the changes in GVHSS-N are amazing. Today we have friendly teachers, a good library, clean toilets and separate laboratories for biology, IT, physics and chemistry. It™s like a dream come true. I am inspired […]
In Kozhikode, Kerala “India’s most literate state” a tripartite public-private partnership between an MLA, municipal corporation and the Faizal & Shabana Foundation (estb. 2012) offers an inspirational model for the revival of India’s failing government schools
ONE OF THE GREAT paradoxes of post-independence India™s national development effort is the sustained neglect of 1.20 million government primary-secondary […]
A TEAM OF THREE aeronautical engineering students of ACS College of Engineering, Bangalore Tabrez Nadvi Anser (21), Pawan MJ (21) and Vignesh Arul (20) were declared winners of the inaugural Boeing National Aero-modelling competition staged in Delhi on April 12. Over 170 teams nationwide competed for the winner’s trophy and prize money purse of Rs.1 […]
THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT at the Centre has generated hope and enthusiasm in all sectors of the economy, including education. Prime minister Narendra Modi™s intent to invest œskills, speed and scale into the national development effort is as applicable to the education sector as to any other, perhaps more so. As the new BJP-led NDA […]
Ranked #41 among national universities and #11 among public varsities by the U.S. News & World Report, University of Wisconsin-Madison offers the whole spectrum of liberal arts and professional programmes
Sprawled across a 936-acre campus in Madison city, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M, estb. 1848) is a highly respected teaching-research public university. In its 2014 league […]
Spread over a meticulously landscaped pollution-free seven acre campus in Kandlakoya, on the outskirts of Hyderabad (pop.7.75 million), the CBSE-affiliated Niraj International School (NIS, estb. 2009) is the latest new genre school to spring up in the coveted city, the joint capital of the new state of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (aka Seemandhra) for the […]
Oxford University, UK, invites applications for the Rhodes Scholarships ” routinely included in the list of the most respected postgraduate academic scholarships worldwide. Graduates of Indian universities between the ages 19-25 with at least one first class degree are eligible to apply for two-three years of study (depending on the academic route chosen) at the […]
Assam
Education hub plan
INAUGURATING THE FIRST convocation of the newly-established campus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Guwahati, on June 6, the state™s chief minister Tarun Gogoi stressed the state government™s determination to transform Assam into the education hub of North-east India.
œOur government is committed to encouraging quality education. Today, […]
œIt™s important for good people to join the nation™s decision-making process and take up leadership roles. If we don™t, others will. ” Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, former Olympic silver medallist marksman and first-time MP on the need for youth to join politics (India Today, June 9)
œThe problem is not so much authoritarianism, though all governments here are […]
THE DECADES-LONG STRUGGLE for the establishment of a separate Telangana state, which proponents wanted to be carved out of the state of Andhra Pradesh (pop. 84 million, estb. 1956), is over. On June 2, Telangana was officially promulgated as India™s 29th state after President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, […]
THE HOPES AND DREAMS of 190,000 medical college aspirants in Uttar Pradesh are in suspended animation with the abrupt cancellation of the UP Combined Pre-Medical Test (UPCPMT) on the day of the statewide exam, because of a security breach which has so rattled the state government that it has constituted a Special Investigative Team (SIT) […]
IN A MINOR reshuffle of ministers on May 27, Mamata Banerjee, the mercurial chief minister of West Bengal (pop. 91 million), fired two ministers and changed the portfolios of two others. The reshuffle aroused special interest in the state™s academy because Bratya Basu, the high profile education minister of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government […]
THREE YEARS AFTER the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government grudgingly implemented samacheerkalvi or common school curriculum (through the Uniform System of School Education (USSE) Act, 2010 legislated by the DMK government in January 2010) which mandates a common syllabus for all 52,303 government primary-secondaries and 10,934 private unaided schools affiliated with the Tamil Nadu State Board of […]
INDIAN ENGINEERING education crossed a major milestone on June 13 when the country was admitted into the select club of the Washington Accord (WA) nations. Technically, the membership of WA was awarded to the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), Delhi (together with the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka) at a meeting of the International Engineering […]
YOUR COVER story ˜North-east India™s academic renaissance™ (EW June) was an eye-opener. For too long, the North-east states have been neglected and deprived of proper public infrastructure, quality schools and higher education institutions. The promotion of several new education institutions by can-do entrepreneurs is indeed a welcome and promising development.
Many more institutions are needed […]
DESPITE GLOBAL OUTRAGE over the rape of two teenage cousins and their subsequent lynching on May 27 in a rural hamlet of Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh, crimes against women and children have not abated in this nation which is experiencing gender atrocities of unprecedented scale and magnitude. According to National Crime Records Bureau statistics, […]
Anybody with a modicum of common sense knows that what™s wrong with post-independence India™s education system, is the dismal condition of the country™s 1.20 million government ” especially state and local government ” schools where teachers ritually go through the motions and little learning happens. Defined by crumbling buildings, furniture-less classrooms, lack of electricity and […]
Nearly three months after Delhi University (DU) set up a panel to resolve policy disputes with St. Stephen's College, no meetings have occurred, delaying efforts .....Read More
Ronita Torcato Maharashtra's School Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse has promised to utilize the knowledge and experience of exemplary teachers. Efforts will be made to create .....Read More
