Education

Last year, state government got flak for promoting the teaching of Bhagavat Gita in schools. Activists and educationists had branded this as ‘saffronisation' of education. But, for decades, Hindu organisations have been promoting Hinduism in schools throughout the state. Prominent of these is Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an organisation that actively promotes Hindutva. VHP holds exams, competitions, sloka classes etc for schools in the city. Ramakrishna Mission in Ulsoor, and ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), are other organisations that have similar programmes. However, such work has continued without getting the ‘saffronisation' tag. Culture comes from religion VHP has been…

The morning started early for some students of  BGS NPS, Hulimavu on Saturday, 14th July 2012. Twenty seven children of Std VIII, accompanied by three teachers, attended a nature walk at Puttenahalli Lake. Bird watcher Jaishree Govind joined Usha, Nupur, Prasanna and Sapana to take the children on a guided tour of the lake that lasted for almost two hours (7:15 - 9:00 a.m.).  Photo: Harish Mahendrakar The water level has reduced due to evaporation and the delayed monsoon but many more birds have shifted residence to our lake. A Grey Heron has joined the resident bird community and the Purple Herons have increased…

It has been our desire to make the visits to Puttenahalli Lake more meaningful for everyone. Towards this, those who have visited Puttenahalli Lake recently, would have noticed that they have the help of sighting boards to identify the birds that they spot.Over the past year, PNLIT Shutterbugs (enthusiastic individuals who keep visiting the lake to bird watch and photo-capture the birds), have been helping us identify the birds that frequent the lake and document their residency and visits. To date, we have spotted and positively identified more than 55 species of birds in the lake vicinity.41 species, belonging to 21 bird families, have been…

A government First Grade College at Frazer town in Bangalore city operates in a Tamil primary school without having sufficient classrooms and infrastructure. Despite being allocated enough funds in 2010 for building construction, the college authorities have failed to get a land for the same. The college has achieved 80 percent result in the last year. Around 50 students have been placed in reputed companies, the teachers are excellent, says B V Krishnappa, Principal of the college. “But we don’t have resources to run the college in a proper way. We have funds, but we could not find a land…

It is Saturday afternoon and the community welfare centre at Dr Ambedkar Nagar, Koramangala 5th block is abuzz with a bunch of excited 8 to 15 year olds. Today is the day the children of this slum get to learn computers and maths from volunteers of Bhoomi, an NGO.Just as this reporter stepped in, she heard cries for Andrew. No class ever starts without Andrew she was told. He is a student of class VIII in Sacred Heart high school, Richmond road. His eyes sparkle with dreams and his smiling face brims with confidence. Andrews S, wants to become a…

In the commoditised world, if you don't like the price of a shirt or even a car, you can shop around to your hearts content.Schooling though is a different cup of tea altogether. It is an investment parents make for their children, and certainly no commodity. So when private unaided schools increase fees regularly, parents will simply not automatically move out in a hurry. Switching costs time, energy, money and stress on children. Some parents straightaway suspect that they are being exploited because they're not about to change schools at the drop of a hat. In market economics, this is…

With the academic year for schools nearing the end, most parents say it is the time for them to empty their pockets. Private unaided schools are hiking their fees for the coming year and expectedly, parents are worried. "They give us no option but to pay the amount," says a parent of a child studying in St Francis de Sales High School (SFS), Electronic city. Resignation appears to be the state of most parents in the city."The management gave me an option of 3 installments instead of 2 installments," says another parent whose child studies in Deccan International School, Padmanabhanagar.…

Citizen Matters is doing a quick dipstick survey to assess trends regarding private school fee changes in Bangalore for 2012-13. We're compiling responses to this survey as part of our inquiry.This survey will take no more than a minute or two. This run of the survey closes Monday Jan 23rd. Please click here to go into the survey.tinyurl.com/7ppucls

850 students from various schools in the state, participated in the state level Abacus competition held on Sunday, 8, January, 2012. Aloha, an organisation that runs advanced abacus and mental arithmetic programme, conducted the competition at Shri Krishna Kalyana Mantapa, Rajaji Nagar. Vaibhav Prakash, attempting the questions in the state level competition. Pic: Deepti Sarma Arithmetic through abacus is a Chinese tool that helps develop the part of brain which controls creativity and integration of information.Each student sported an Aloha Tshirt and was armed with the beaded abacus to solve 60 complex arithmetic Qs in 5 mins! Sounds unattainable? It…

"Fat" is the F - word in a girl's dictionary. I cannot bear that word as it makes me feel so self conscious. When I see my friends called fat I can see their self esteem becoming lower. The kids in my school who are overweight on the other hand are impacted the most when they are teased about the way they look. Once I was so hurt for my friend (who was on the chubby side) so affected by the taunts that she could no longer take it and changed schools. Yet even now in the other school she…