School Education

Need to create capacity at secondary, higher secondary levels: Secy

School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar calls for more secondary and higher secondary schools to address dropout rates and align with NEP 2020 enrolment targets

15-yr-old boy becomes first to clear Class 10 in UP village since 1947

Ramkeval, a 15-year-old student from Nizampur village in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district, became the first student in his village to pass the 10th class exam since India's independence

Expensive but innovative: IB schools offer an alternative learning arc

In a world that's rapidly shifting from rote to reasoning, the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme stands out as a different education system, valuing questioning over memorising

Sudha Murty urges govt to provide funds to promote storytelling in schools

Rajya Sabha MP Sudha Murty on Tuesday urged the union government to provide funds to schools to build halls where students can be taught values through storytelling. Participating in a debate on the Budget in the Rajya Sabha, the engineer-turned-philanthropist said the Budget is particularly good for the middle-classes. While welcoming the budget, she stressed that children should be taught values to make them good citizens. "We can teach children AI, computer science, mathematics etc, but you are not making our children good citizens. A good character, value based education, we are not able to do that," Murty said. "It is very difficult to bring up children without a value system because ultimately they do not become good citizens even though they may be highly educated people," she said. Murty added that just moral science classes won't help either. "Once I was working in a school village. Many parents, especially mothers, came to me and said our children don't listen to us, th

Nearly 250 mn children missed school in 2024 due to extreme weather: Unicef

At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a new report Friday. UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards. The report also outlined how some countries saw hundreds of their schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard. But other regions weren't spared the extreme weather, as torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children. Thousands had their classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain. While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year, UNICEF said, as the earth recorded its .

School enrolment falls by 3.7 mn in 2023-24, shows education ministry data

Enrolment in schools across India fell by 37 lakh in 2023-24 as compared to the previous year, Ministry of Education's UDISE data showed. The Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus is a data aggregation platform maintained by the education ministry to collate school education data from across the country. While the number of enrolled students in 2022-23 was 25.17 crore, the figures for 2023-24 stood at 24.80 crore. The number of girl students dropped by 16 lakh during the period under review, while the number of boy students fell by 21 lakh. The representation of minorities in total enrolment stood at around 20 per cent. Among the minorities, 79.6 per cent were Muslims, 10 per cent Christians, 6.9 per cent Sikhs, 2.2 per cent Buddhists, 1.3 per cent Jains, and 0.1 per cent Parsis. At the national level, 26.9 per cent students registered in UDISE+ were from the general category, 18 per cent from Scheduled Caste, 9.9 per cent from Scheduled Tribe, and 45.2 pe

RTE Amendments 2024: Schools now allowed to fail class 5 and 8 students

RTE Amendments: Under the new rules, schools can hold year-end exams for classes 5 and 8. Students who fail will receive additional instruction and an opportunity to retake the exams after two months

Committed to providing school education to every section, says PM Modi

Union Cabinet approved the establishment of 28 new Navodaya Vidyalayas (NVs) in districts that are currently not covered by the Navodaya Vidyalaya Scheme

Chhattisgarh govt to use AI for improving school education, programmes

The department has set up Vidya Samiksha Kendra in the state capital Raipur to implement the AI system. Another major initiative is monitoring the performance of school students, the official said

Schools to mark Savarkar Jayanti, Article 370 abrogation: Rajasthan govt

The Rajasthan Education Department announced that from academic year 2024-25, schools will celebrate Savarkar Jayanti on May 28 and the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5

Education ministry releases guidelines for 10 bagless days for classes 6-8

The Union education ministry on Monday notified guidelines for implementation of bagless days for classes 6-8 and making learning in schools more joyful, experiential and stress-free. The guidelines, developed by PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education, a unit of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), were released on the fourth anniversary of the new National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. The NEP, 2020, had recommended that all students in classes 6-8 participate in a 10-day bagless period. "The idea behind 10 bagless days is to make them an integral part of the teaching learning process rather than an add-on to the existing scheme of studies of education from classes 6-8. It will not only reduce the boundaries between the bookish knowledge and application of knowledge but also expose children to the skill requirements in the work areas, thus helping them to decide the future career path," the guidelines stated. "Every student will take a fun cou

Boys outshine girls in class 10 board exam in Assam, pass rate at 75.7%

Boys outshone girls in the class 10 board examinations in Assam, results of which were declared on Saturday. The overall pass percentage in the High School Leaving Certificate (HSCL) examination held in February-March this year was 75.7 per cent, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam, (SEBA) said. The total percentage was an improvement over the last two years, with the pass percentages in 2022 and 2023 being 56.4 per cent and 72.6 per cent respectively. A total of 4,19,078 students, comprising 1,87,904 boys, 2,31,164 girls and 10 transgenders, had appeared in the examination. The pass percentage among boys was 77.3 per cent, girls 74.4 per cent and transgenders 80 per cent. Chirang district had the highest pass percentage at 91.2 per cent, while the lowest of 60.9 per cent was in Udalguri district. The SEBA also announced the top three rank holders, with three students sharing the third position. Anurag Doloi of Pragya Academy Senior Secondary School topped the list, scoring

CBSE to launch pilot for national credit framework for classes 6, 9 and 11

The CBSE will launch a pilot of the National Credit Framework for classes 6, 9 and 11 from the 2024-25 academic session and has invited its affiliate schools to participate, officials said on Wednesday. The government last year launched the National Credit Framework (NCrF) as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, to ensure seamless integration of school, higher and vocational education, and allow students to accumulate their credits from the pre-primary to the PhD level. Subsequently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) also developed its draft guidelines to implement the framework. "The CBSE developed and circulated draft NCrF implementation guidelines, discussed them in multiple workshops, and received approval from the Union Ministry of Education. To further test, refine and assess their effectiveness in real-world contexts, a pilot implementation of these guidelines has been planned in schools affiliated to CBSE in classes 6, 9 and

Exciting world of data science

...and say bye to the humanities-science divide

Assam govt to take full responsibility for educating girl students: Himanta

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday promised that the BJP government in the state will shoulder the responsibility of educating girl students up to the postgraduate level, and families with a ration card will receive life insurance paid for by the government. Currently, all girls who pass the class 10 examinations are given a cycle or a scooter, but from this year, an amount of Rs 10,000 will be deposited for two years in their bank accounts while they are studying for the class 12 board examinations, the CM said. He was speaking at public rallies before the filing of nominations by BJP candidates for Nagaon and Darrang-Udalguri constituencies going to polls in the second phase on April 26. After the girls pass class 12, they will be given Rs 12,500 for taking admission in college, while those going for postgraduate studies will be given Rs 25,000, he added. 'Betak ma baap porhabo, betik Mama porhabo (Parents will educate their sons but Mama, as he is called by ...

1,606 primary schools in state operate with 1 teacher: Guj govt in Assembly

As many as 1,606 government-run primary schools in Gujarat were functioning with just one teacher, the state government informed the legislative assembly on Monday. In a debate during the Question Hour of the ongoing budget session, state Education Minister Kuber Dindor admitted that the number of schools facing a shortage of teachers has increased in the last two years mainly because of the transfer of educators to places of their choice. While Dindor assured the House that vacant posts in the state-run primary schools would be filled "at the earliest", Congress MLAs took a strong exception and asked the BJP government to specify the timeframe for filling the posts. Responding to a question by Congress MLA Tushar Chaudhary, the minister said 1,606 government primary schools in Gujarat were functioning with just one teacher as of December 2023. The state has more than 32,000 government primary schools. He said steps are being taken to ensure that students do not suffer, and these

Interim Budget: UGC faces 60% cut, budget for school education increased

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has faced a budget cut this year with the Centre reducing its grant by over 60 per cent while the allocation for Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has been slashed for the second consecutive year. The budget for school education has been increased by over Rs 500 crore but the grant for higher education has been reduced by over Rs 9600 crore from the previous fiscal year's Revised Estimate (RE). In the interim budget for 2024-25 announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, the funding for UGC has been brought down to Rs 2500 crore from the previous year's RE of Rs 6409 crore, a 60.99 per cent drop. The IIMs counted among the noted business schools in the country, have faced a cut in the budget for the second year in a row. Last year, the budget for IIMs was slashed from Rs 608.23 crore (RE) to Rs 300 crore. This year, the budget has been brought down further to Rs 212.21 crore from the Revised Estimate of Rs 331 crore. Th

Every year spent in school, college may improve life expectancy: Lancet

Every year spent in school or university may improve life expectancy, while not attending an educational institute could be as bad as smoking or heavy drinking, according to a study published in The Lancet Public Health journal. The research identified data from 59 countries and included over 10,000 data points collected from more than 600 published articles. The team, including researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), found that education saves lives regardless of age, sex, location, and social and demographic backgrounds. They found was that the risk of death drops by 2 per cent with every additional year of education. That means those who completed six years of primary school had a lower risk of death by an average of 13 per cent. After graduating from secondary school, the risk of dying was cut by nearly 25 per cent, and 18 years of education lowered the risk by 34 per cent. according to the study. Researchers also compared the effects of educa

21% students dropped out in Class X in 2021-22, highest in Odisha: Pradhan

The drop out rate in Class 10 stands at 20.6 per cent as of 2021-22 with Odisha being the worst performing state in this regard followed by Bihar, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Lok Sabha on Monday. The drop out rate in Class 10 was 49.9 per cent in Odisha and 42.1 per cent in Bihar, said Pradhan in his written response. The minister was responding to a question by DMK MP Kalanidhi Veeraswamy on whether the government is cognizant of the analysis based on the recent exercise carried out by the Ministry of Education that about 3.5 million students stop their education in Class 10. Pradhan informed that 1,89,90,809 students appeared for Class 10 examination in 2022, of which 29,56,138 students failed to progress to the next class. "The reasons for failure of students in examination depends on various factors viz, not attending the schools, difficulty in following the instruction in schools, lack of interest in the studies, level of difficulty of question pap

Legacy and modernity: What India's best boarding schools offer in education

Elite institutes aim to build students who are suited for the modern world and have a sense of tradition