EducationWorld March 13

Young Achievers

Oxy-Con inventors

Three youths of modest socio-economic backgrounds have developed a new device named Oxy-Con — a non-invasive ventilator — which gives the medical practitioners’ fraternity an option to control oxygen supply administered to patients. The inventors of Oxy-Con are Nilanjan Ghosh (21), Sheikh Akram Ali (22) and Dipayan Jash (21), all final year electronics and communications students at […]

Cover Story

India’s top think tanks

In its latest annual survey of the world’s top 6,603 think tanks, the University of Pennsylvania has ranked the Delhi-based Centre for Civil Society India’s No.1 in its Global Go-To Think Tank league table headed by the Brookings Institution (USA), Chatham House (UK), and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA). K.V. Priya with Dilip Thakore

Even as […]

Special Report

Idealism is not dead: TFI takes wing

Over the past three years, the Mumbai-based Teach For India programme, whose objective is to eliminate educational iniquity in India by cherry-picking outstanding graduates and professionals to teach in low-income schools, has placed 506 fellows in 164 municipal and private budget schools in five cities. Matthew Schneeberger reports

Prasid Sreeprakash (25) is from a middle class family […]

Expert Comment

Social engineering lesson from America

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

Considerable attention in both the print and electronic media has lately been focused on the poor and vulnerable status of Indian girls and women, following the gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi on December 29. Understandable outrage has been […]

Special Report

TFI voices

Prasid Sreeprakash (25), an alumnus of Government Engineering College, Trichur and IIM-Indore, is a second-year TFI fellow who teaches class IV students at Varsha Nagar BMC School, Vikhroli, Mumbai.

On choosing TFI over a corporate career…
A corporate job did not excite me. I wanted to work to solve some of the social problems in India, most […]

Special Report

“We have a long way to go”

Matthew Schneeberger interviewed Shaheen Mistri, CEO of Teach For India (TFI), which has placed 506 teacher fellows in 164 low-income schools in Mumbai and Pune. Mistri is also founder of the Akanksha Foundation, which runs 40 after-school centres and 13 free-of-charge schools in Pune and Mumbai.

How satisfied are you with the growth and development of TFI […]

Special Report

TFA success story

In her final thesis year at Princeton University in 1989, Wendy Kopp conceptualised the Teach For America (TFA) model which essentially involved recruiting high-achieving university graduates to teach in low-income schools for at least two years — a stint she rightly believed would transform them into lifelong champions of school education. Starting with an initial […]

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

This worst of times with the economy in the doldrums, political scandals involving mind-boggling defalcations unfolding every other day, and atrocities against the most vulnerable sections of society — women and children — multiplying almost unchecked among the thousand unnatural shocks that citizens of this beleaguered republic are heir to, could also be the best […]

Editorial

Children First Party of India debut

The republic is in deep crisis. on every norm of good governance and practice, the Congress-led UPA-II government which was returned to power in New Delhi in the summer of 2009 with high hopes and great expectations, has failed. The economy is in serious trouble with the current account deficit ballooning to a record 5.4 […]

Mailbox

Inappropriate education danger

Thanks for your cover story on the EW Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2013 (EW February). The keynote addresses of Rabiatul Adawiah and Dr. S. Anandalakshmy were excellent as were reports on the panel discussions.

In particular I’m pleased you chose to beam focus on the ‘Dangers of age-inappropriate ECE’. This is a big problem in preschools […]

Education News

Delhi: Preschool admissions verdict

By allowing unaided private schools to frame their own criteria for admission into preschools and nurseries, the Delhi high court has restored some order into the national capital’s chaotic nursery admissions scene. But at the same time the court has provided fresh ammunition to activists demanding inclusion of preschool education within the ambit of the […]

Education News

Maharashtra: Continuous neglect

Inclusive education for children with disabilities in Pune (pop. 9 million), the second industrial hub of Maharashtra (after Mumbai), is a distant dream. Under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it is incumbent upon the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children between 6-14 years, including children with disabilities. […]

Education News

Karnataka: Suspicious timing

The southern state of Karnataka (pop. 61 million), once famous for high-quality higher — especially professional — education but whose star has dimmed in recent years because of excessive political interference in academia, is set to experience substantial capacity expansion and quality upgradation in tertiary education.

On February 15, the Karnataka legislative assembly passed four Bills […]

Education News

Tamil Nadu: Damning indictment

Although the southern littoral state of Tamil Nadu (pop: 72.1 million) prides itself on providing easy access to public education with officials claiming 99.4 percent enrolment in government primaries, the quality of education dispensed is a subject they prefer to gloss over.

A sample survey conducted last December by the Sama Kalvi Iyakkam-Tamil Nadu (SKI-TN) — […]

Education News

Gujarat: Persistent plaintiff

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is a practitioner of aggressive adversorial politics. A telling example is his prolonged legal battle to resist the appointment of a Lok Ayukta (ombudsman) in Gujarat. The appointment of a Lok Ayukta with powers to investigate and prosecute corrupt state government officials was politically blocked for almost a decade by […]

Education News

West Bengal: Depoliticisation politics

One of the major campaign promises of the Trinamool Party before it was voted to power in the summer of 2011, ending 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government in West Bengal, was depoliticisation of academic campuses. But almost two years on, political violence has been escalating […]

Education News

They said it in February

“So should we test more and more or devise methods to ensure that children do learn? Some of the reasons for lack of learning are also fairly well-known, and they are not just absent teachers.”
Vinod Raina, member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, in a column titled ‘Tests are torture’ (India Today, February 4)

“The spirit […]

Education Notes

Education Notes

Gujarat

IGNOU inclusion initiatives

The Delhi-based Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is set to roll out educational programmes for sex workers and their children in Gujarat in July. “The idea is to bring them into the mainstream with the help of education,’’ IGNOU’s regional director Dr. Sujit K. Ghosh announced in Ahmedabad on February 11. “We […]

Education Briefs

Kanthari invites social entrepreneurs

The Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala)-based NGO Kanthari (formerly the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs) invites enrolment applications for the 2013 Kanthari International Leadership Course. Now in its fifth year, the leadership programme has been a platform for social entrepreneurs and change makers from around the world. The seven-month residential programme starts in May with the intake restricted […]

Institution Profile

Lady Andal Venkatasubba Rao Higher Secondary School, Chennai

Lady Andal Venkatasubba Rao Higher Secondary School, Chennai which celebrated its silver jubilee last year has earned a good reputation for providing a free and supportive environment for talented students and for its focus on inclusive education

Sited on a verdant 8.5-acre campus replete with shade-spreading trees and spacious playgrounds in Chennai’s upmarket […]

Institution Profile

Queen’s University Belfast, UK

A member of the Russell group of 24 research-intensive universities of the UK, Queen’s University Belfast, UK is five-time winner of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education

The ninth oldest varsity in the UK, Queen’s University, Belfast (estb. 1845) is reputed nationally and internationally for high-quality academics and research across […]

Young Achievers

Md Abbas Khaleeli and Vibish Sivakumar

The global acclaim and Golden Globe and Oscar awards won by the feature film Life of Pi which narrates the story of a ship-wrecked Puducherry teenage boy adrift on a lifeboat in the Pacific for 227 days, has transformed Bangalore students Md Abbas Khaleeli (16) and Vibish Sivakumar (23) into minor celebrities in this garden-turned-garbage city. They […]

Career Focus

Structural engineers: Enviable profession to be in

With public, private and foreign investment pouring into infrastructure projects, there’s sustained demand for professionally qualified structural engineers

The rapid urbanisation of India — building accommodative and enabling infrastructure for the 140 million rural Indians who will flow into the country’s cities by 2020, which will have to accommodate and employ 700 million citizens in existing […]

Career Focus

Your Counselor Replies

After completing my BE (electronics and communication) degree next year, which postgraduate course would you recommend for boosting my career prospects?
Venkat Narayan, Chennai

Enroling in an M.Tech degree programme will qualify you for jobs in teaching and research, while an MBA will prepare you for a management career in industry.

I’m a qualified chartered accountant with two […]

People

WSC mastermind: Daniel Berdichevky

An alumnus of Harvard and Stanford universities, Daniel Berdichevky is the founder chief executive of DemiDec Resources, a corporate which provides study materials for the United States Academic Decathlon (an annual high school academic competition), and has been hosting the annual World Scholar’s Cup since 2007. Berdichevky and his team were in Delhi last December to […]

People

Corporate leadership savant: Dr Scott Churchill

Dr Scott Churchill is the founding professor and chair of the psychology faculty at the University of Dallas, USA. A fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal The Humanistic Psychologist (estb. 1975), Dr Churchill is currently engaged in the study of leadership in corporate and other organisations.

Newspeg. Churchill was in […]

People

Advantage Gaurav Natekar

Former national and Asian Games singles tennis champion Gaurav Natekar, and winner of 12 Grand Slam doubles titles Mahesh Bhupathi, are co-promoters of the Mumbai-based Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academies Pvt. Ltd (MBTA, estb. 2006), a company that offers world-class tennis coaching programmes to school students.

While Bhupathi is still busy participating in tennis tournaments around the world and […]

People

Darts pioneers: Venu Pillai and S. Saravanaraj

Chennai-based aficionados of the ancient sport of darts — a game in which darts are thrown at a circular bristle board fixed to a wall — Venu Pillai, an interior designer, and S. Saravanaraj, an architect, are pioneers in introducing the game as a competitive sport in Tamil Nadu. In 2011, they formed the Tamil Nadu […]

People

Child wellness missionary: Dr Namrata Bagaria

Dr Namrata Bagaria is the Mumbai-based founder and managing director of PHealth Solutions Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2012), a newly-promoted holistic living and wellness consulting company that draws upon best practices in medicine, nutrition, physiotherapy, Ayurveda, naturopathy, public health, psychology and spiritualism.

Newspeg. For the past year, the company has been working with 30 municipal and 12 night […]

International News

United States: Computer-crime laws reform call

The suicide of a radical advocate of open access to academic research has elevated the topic to the forefront of conversation in the US, and could ultimately widen the availability of documents and prompt copyright reform.

The number of academic papers open to all without charge has increased rapidly in recent years, even before Aaron Swartz […]

International News

France: Professional education row

A row has erupted in French higher education over a privately funded university that is facing legal action from the government. Université Fernando Pessoa (UFP), an institution based in the town of Toulon, has only several dozen students, but it is causing a stir within the education establishment.

The university, backed by French and Portuguese investors, […]

International News

Italy: Gelato University’s soft sell

What is the most popular thing in the world? Music, guessed Donald Trump. No, replied his interviewer, Ali G; it is ice cream. The problem, however, is that ice cream drips. The solution, said the British comedian, is to sell “ice cream gloves” to stop people’s hands getting sticky. The Donald somehow kept a straight […]

International News

Thailand: Islamic militants target teachers

Last December men armed with assault rifles burst into the canteen of Ban Ba Ngo school in the southern Thai province of Pattani and shot two teachers dead. The next day the teachers’ unions shut down all 1,300 state-run schools in the three provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and in four districts of neighbouring […]

International News

Global Review: Pearson presents learning curve

Parents pore over them. teachers protest about them. Politicians preen when they are positive — and blame their predecessors if they are not. International league tables have acquired a central role in debates about education policy.

Data duels are a recent phenomenon. The OECD (a Paris-based developed-country think-tank) has published its PISA (Programme for International Student […]

International News

China: One-child policy fallout

The Chinese new year, which was celebrated on February 10, is a time of family reunions. But Xiao Chaohua spent his sixth new year without his son, who was abducted in 2007 by suspected child traffickers. China’s one-child policy has fuelled demand for children like his, thousands of whom are snatched and sold every year […]

International News

Mali: French intervention blessing

Children returned to school in timbuktu in northern Mali on February 1, a week after Islamist groups retreated following a coordinated ground and air offensive by French and Mali government troops through January. Teachers say about half of all school children fled northern Mali in 2012 when Islamist groups took over much of the north and shut […]

Sports Education

Exerting pressure without stress

Over the years, I have received innumerable calls and e-mails from anxious school leaders, teachers, coaches and parents requesting me or my colleagues to evaluate or somehow assess whether they were pushing their children too hard in sports arenas and classrooms. That’s always been a tough call as it differs from case to case and […]

Books

Brilliant essays

Patriots and Partisans by Ramachandra Guha; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.699; 334 pp

Following India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (2007) and the Makers of Modern India (2012), sociologist, historian and quintessential liberal intellectual Ramachandra Guha’s latest gift to the nation is Patriots and Partisans, a collection of 15 fluent, insightful essays on human and political conditions within […]

Eduleader Bytes

Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, Director, Symbiosis Group

Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, Principal Director, Symbiosis Group

Are you satisfied with the importance given to education on the national development agenda?
No. Health care and education should be the topmost priorities of all developing nations. Unfortunately budget allocations for both tend to be inadequate.

How best to upgrade government colleges?
Upgradation of colleges is […]

Postscript

Strange phenomenon

A curious paradox of the Indian establishment is that a growing number of its children are choosing to desert this democracy and live abroad, especially in the US. This strange phenomenon came into sharp focus on February 5 when the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative released an exhaustive 214-page report, exposing 54 countries that […]