Education

The inaugural session at BNM Pre University College. Pic: B.PAC The Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) in association with Full Circle and One Bengaluru for Lakes, on November 15th kickstarted the Green Ambassador program for college students, with the emphasis to create interest and awareness on urban environmental issues. The 6 months internship program will train participants on issues related to waste, water and energy management. The students will undergo 6 hours of classroom training, after which they will commence the field activity which will be completed in the following 5 months. B.PAC will mentor these participants during the field…

Karnataka Education Department has notified the formula for school fee structure for private (unaided) schools in Karnataka, in accordance with Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulation of Certain Fees and Donations) Rules, 1999. While the rationalisation of the fee structure can benefit the parents—especially poor and middle class families, why are private schools opposing the structure? Citizen Matters brings you some clarity. The Department of Education issued a notification on September 30th 2014, and invited the public and school managements to submit the objections before October 30th 2014. The deadline was extended later, the last date now being November 10. School fee…

  Here is the story of a frog: A scientist decided to test the resilience of a frog. He placed the frog in cold water and gradually increased the temperature of the water. Surprisingly, the frog just lay there, completely oblivious to its changing surroundings—till it was boiled to death! A spate of incidents in Bangalore schools Bangalore witnessed a brutal rape of a two-year-old by a bus-driver a few months back. A furore arose; a few activists wrote about it and protested. And then Bangalore was once again riddled with shock in July 2014, when a 6-year-old was raped…

Pic: Wikimedia commons With more and more cases of sexual assault on children getting reported from schools, the State Government is under fire. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister K J George expressed their helplessness on Friday (October 31, 2014), and requested for the cooperation of the managements in private schools and the public in helping the government in reducing such incidents. K J George, Home Minister Home Minister K J George went on to say that sexual assault on students in private schools cannot be stopped by the government, as it was practically not possible for the police to…

On 26th September 2014, over 200 National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers from Government First Grade College, Yelahanka attended a five-hour workshop on Lake Conservation. The workshop was organised by Mr Govindraju, Program Co-ordinator NSS and conducted by members of Yelahanka United Environment Association (YUVA) - Mr Ravi Gangadharan, Mr Jagadeesh Giri and Mr Jagadeesh KT, supported by Ms Deepa. Mr Muniraju, Corporator of BBMP Ward 4 and Dr HR Prabha, Principal of the college were present at the event. YUVA members spoke on how lakes can solve the problem of water shortage and excess rainfall which floods the city. They presented the methodology adopted…

Namma Bengaluru Foundation CEO Sridhar Pabbisetty and Director of Child Rights Trust, Vasudeva Sharma speaking at the press conference. Pic courtesy: NBF Child safety and security is the need of the hour in Bengaluru, with the recent spate of unfortunate incidents of child abuse reported. Child-safe Bengaluru Initiative is working on preventive and corrective measures to protect child safety across various spaces that involves children. As a part of the Initiative, an interactive discussion on child safety and preventive action has been planned by Namma Bengaluru Foundation, on 6th September, 2014, with Child Psychiatrists, Child Rights Activists, Policy makers, Legislators,…

Angry parents protesting outside the school seeking justice. Pic: Nikita Malusare It is almost a month after the Bengaluru's Vibgyor rape case hit the headlines. There were four arrests so far, and the fourth arrested, the Chairman of the school Rustum Kerawalla has managed to get a bail. The police say that he was in Mumbai when the incident occurred, hence he was not aware of the issue. Now this is the question that haunts everyone: Will other staff in the school go scot-free, even after the reports of the kid allegedly being treated in school itself and teachers not…

Namma Bengaluru Foundation, in association with a group of parents of Vibgyor school has launched a campaign to make Bangalore safer children. The campaign called “Child Safe Bengaluru,” aims at adequate preventive and corrective measures that will ensure safety to every child in the schools of the city. The activities aim to include, effective participation of the Departments of Government such as Education, Transport, Police, Judiciary, Children, Parents, Schools, Media, Elected officials, Policy Makers and various NGOs in ensuring that child protection, child welfare and child rights are effectively controlled and measured. The initiative has already garnered positive impact, with…

Bangalore parents have woken up to increasingly depressing days as incident after incident of child sexual abuse (CSA) gets reported in the city. There have been numerous suggestions on social media to tackle CSA, ranging from the naïve to the critical. 1. Password: In the naïve category is a popular forwarded post from an organization called Kids Time that advises teaching your child a password; if a stranger asks the child to accompany him/her, the child asks for the password and scares away the potential abuser.Password trick being circulated on social media. Will it work? This solution is very naive…

Police team in the press conference where the arrest of two people was announced. Pic: Nikita Malusare Bengaluru police nabbed two more people in relation to Vibgyor High School Marathahalli incident. Bangalore Police Commissioner, M N Reddi informed in a press conference held on July 29, 2014, that gym instructors Waseem Pasha (28) and Lalgiri (21) have been arrested on the basis of investigation and CCTV footage. They also claimed that the incident took place on July 3, 2014, contrary to the complaint filed by the parents of the abused child in Varthur police station that puts the date as…