Resources > teacher-resources
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Don’t ask silly questions”, “don’t try to be smart”, “you are too much”, “don’t eat my head”, “don’t question elders”, “just do what you’re told”, “you are like a question mark”. Drawing from memory, these are examples of dismissive statements which are commonplace in school classrooms. In India’s 1.30 million schools, questions are an irritant and unwelcome. Right from infancy c...
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A new hire, a seasoned and experienced professional, an intern or a contractual employee; due to its nature of work, employee’s roles and responsibilities differ significantly. However, what remains common for all its employees is the “Human Touch” rendered by different organizations through their well structured phases of engagement and grooming which gives Talent Management a whole new meaning.
The new mantra complied by the human resource managers these days, is to le...
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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has — anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-78)
In two days I met a host of people. in my mind’s eye, I saw the railway guard blow his whistle and wave the green flag: and wondered how his daughter was faring in college.
The rustic young lady from rural Karnataka impressed me less with her fluent English and more with he...
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A report in the Canberra Times late last year (December 5) disclosed that India has overtaken China and Britain to become the largest supplier nation to Australia’s skilled migrants programme, accounting for 15.7 percent of the total. According to Kate Lundy, federal minister for multicultural affairs and sport, India contributed 29,018 skilled migrants to Oz in the last financial year. Of them, 20 percent are reportedly primary and secondary school teachers. But one of golden Au...
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Modern life offers a powerful paradox: by bouncing waves off satellites suspended in space, humankind has engineered the capability for people in every corner of the earth to communicate in real time with each other. However, despite this progress in communication, human relationships and identities are more fragmented than ever before. Last week, a student in my class articulated this anomaly best when she wrote that we study history to “find faith and hope in our understanding of the wor...
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The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act) became law on April 1, 2010. But two years on, there’s confusion confounded relating to the implementation of the Act, in particular about giving effect to s.12 (1) (c) which makes it mandatory for all private schools to reserve a 25 percent quota in class I or preschool, if any, for “children belonging to weaker section and disadvantaged group in the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory education till its co...
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The Asia-Pacific region encompasses some of the richest and poorest nations on Earth, as well as the largest and some of the smallest. It includes states with the most successful records of economic development in the late 20th century — the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore — and those whose growth has been fragile and disrupted by strife and natural disasters.
Cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversities exist throughout this region. So do differing historical l...
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Shweta Sastri is executive director of the Bangalore-based K-12 co-educational day/boarding Canadian International School (CIS, estb.1996), ranked among India’s Top 20 and Karnataka’s Top 5 international schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012. With an aggregate enrolment of 480 students (70 percent are children of expatriates), CIS was the garden city’s first education institution to launch the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma programme. It also ...
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Even after 14-15 years of education, a large percentage (as high as 70-80 percent depending on which data you look at) of graduates of India’s 431 universities and 21,000 colleges are unemployable. They may have acquired certificates, but little education valued by the market. For a nation which will host 25 percent of the global population in the age group 25-35 by 2035 according to some demographic studies, this situation is simultaneously sickening and alarming. The problem is so...
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In neighbouring Asian countries with successful records of socio-economic development — Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and China — high-quality ECE is receiving urgent attention from planners and educators who have become increasingly aware of the critical importance of providing infants a sound foundation for cognitive growth and development.
Even as the grandiosely nomenclatured union ministry of human resource development and Indian academia in general se...
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Since the days of yore when students studied at gurukuls, education has changed dramatically. Today, more than just teaching the 3Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic, education should aim at th...
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Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), famous American abolitionist, orator, author, statesman and social reformer, famously declared: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Douglass no doubt, made this comment on the basis of personal experience and his observations of the impact of slavery on US society during the 1800s.
Intuitively, one expects a grown adult to be influenced by her experiences as a child. What we know now — and didn’t know u...
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Creative thinking involves both hemispheres of the brain, sometimes alternating, at other times, in synchrony. Ideas hop, skip, and dance a tango often culminating in creative resonance, where great insights explode into consciousness.
The creative brain views peril as a situation bearing promise; risk as a proposition concealing reward, and setbacks as stimulus for success. The best ideas are a multiplicity of ideas, constantly interacting in a ballet of balance, counterbalance, and feed...
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Although the Union HRD ministry seems content to remain ignorant, India’s globally-tuned, upwardly mobile middle class has been quick to embrace early childhood education (ECE). Currently there are an estimated 50,000 privately-promoted preschools countrywide, whose aggregate revenue is growing at 35 percent per year. And far beyond discussing the merits and demerits of ECE, promoters and educators in private preschools are anxious to make the ECE experience more enjoyable and meaningful f...
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Is English India’s first or second language? For a minority of Indians who have had the good fortune to be educated in the country’s 11,000-plus elite CISCE and CBSE English medium schools it is, clearly, the first language. For the rest of the population, including children who attend state board affiliated vernacular and so-called English medium schools, the status of English is ambiguous. I say ‘so-called’, because most of these schools are only nominally Englis...
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Career counseling is gaining increasing importance in India today, as families and education institutions search for methods and systems to help young people make career choices suited to their aptitude and potential.
A few years ago, I presented the idea of school-based career guidance and counseling to a ‘high powered committee’ in Delhi. I thought it was quite a good presentation! But response to the paper however, was startling and une...
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Despite India boasting over a thousand B-schools, some of whom are rated and ranked among the best in the world, most graduates who aspire to corporate careers yearn to do an MBA abroad, especially in the US, UK or Australia. Well aware of this national aspiration, many foreign B-schools have established offices in India and stage pricey promotional programmes in five-star hotels to ‘sensitise’ youth about the great globally cherished MBAs they offer.
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Sensational reports highlighting widespread sexual abuse of children by teachers, care givers, care providers and neighbours which have been appearing in the media with increasing frequency of late, suggest that children are becoming increasingly vulnerable in Indian society, which is experiencing rapid structural changes in demography and economy. The pressures of urbanisation, accelerated rural-urban migration of families in search of work and livelihood, changing societal mores and tr...
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Dr. Mithu Alur (founder chairperson of the National Resource Centre for Inclusion, Mumbai)
The Congress-led UPA-2 government in New Delhi must be applauded for passing the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill which could become an Act of Parliament any day now. This legislation was long overdue and will undoubtedly benefit millions of India’s children. However the fate of 30 million children who are disabled or differently abled remains dismal, as they have bee...
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For all students, particularly those on the threshold of completing their secondary and higher secondary board examinations, writing an engaging English language essay is a vital pre-condition of examination success. The ability to write good essays is also very important for students who wish to do well at university. Therefore it’s important for teachers preparing students to do well in milestone examinations — and indeed in life beyond academic institutions — to help ...
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