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In a very shocking twist of events, a Class 6 boy died under mysterious circumstances within his school hostel in the Kasganj district of the Uttar Pradesh state, sending a red alert over campus security and student health.

Anurag, a 13-year-old boy of Gurukul School, who resided within the school hostel. In the morning of Tuesday when the school was all set to begin another ordinary day, tragedy struck the school. When the class monitor went to wake up Anurag, he was confronted with a ghastly sight—blood was oozing from the boy's nose and ears. The hostel staff carried the dead body to the nearest hospital, where upon arrival, he was declared dead.

Superintendent of Police Rajesh Dwivedi, who had himself undertaken the case, said an inquiry was underway despite no complaint having been lodged by the family. "Six police teams have been formed to inquire into the incident in detail," he told the media.

Accompanied by the Additional Superintendent of Police Diksha Bhawre, SP Dwivedi visited the school campus, met hostel staff and students, and recorded their statements. The authorities are not leaving any stone unturned, and the last hours of Anurag's life on earth are being tried to be reconstructed.

The premature death of the young boy stunned and enraged people. Questions haunt the cause—medical emergency, negligence, or something else?

The school administration has remained tight-lipped until now, but in the coming days, the school authorities will certainly face interrogation.

Like in all such ongoing investigations, Anurag's family is left with questions and despair. The mishap has once again highlighted safety provisions in boarding schools, especially in the case of children outside home and institutional care.

The Azim Premji Foundation has expressed concerns over the improper operationalisation of the six-day-a-week egg distribution programme in many government schools in Karnataka. The irregularities, the Foundation said, were caused by one-sided decisions by School Development and Monitoring Committees (SDMCs).

Eggs substituted with bananas in most schools

In spite of the scheme of eggs being made compulsory for being served six days a week, the Foundation reported eggs are being served only two or three days of the week in most of the schools. Banana is served on the rest of the days. The discrepancy was found by Azim Premji Foundation during school inspections and the foundation has helped out ₹1,500 crore under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to implement this scheme.

Key observations from school inspections

After inspecting 762 schools, the Foundation observed that 568 schools were not serving eggs as directed by the scheme. In a few schools, SDMCs, sometimes with the agreement of parents, have opted to give bananas on Mondays and Saturdays. In others, the routine has been changed to three days' eggs and three days' bananas. But children are said to like getting eggs.

Memorandum released; warning of disciplinary action

The Foundation had filed a report with the state education department, which has now released a memorandum directing SDMCs to get back on track. The department clarified that SDMCs are not entitled to make changes to the approved nutrition plan independently.

The Director of PM Poshan Shakti Nirman cautioned that lapses if repeated would result in disciplinary action against school-level supervisors like headmasters, cluster heads, taluk, and district education officers who did not immediately stop or correct the breaches.

National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and visual communications platform Canva have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the launch of three self-paced, digital certification and training courses for teachers in India. These courses are to be offered for free and are aimed at building digital, creative, and collaborative classroom teaching skills among teachers in schools.

Canva teacher training module will be provided on DIKSHA, the Ministry of Education school education digital platform. It will also be aired through DTH TV channels of PM eVidya to provide reach to teachers in rural and inaccessible areas where internet is not available. The courses will also be provided in some Indian languages to ensure wide outreach.

The educators will be trained to create engaging lesson plans, presentations, infographics, and other educational materials using Canva Education. The educators will learn collaborative pedagogy and classroom applications of AI tools. The educators will be jointly certified by NCERT and Canva upon completion.

Under the MoU, Canva would make its education platform and tools accessible for free, as well as help prepare instructional materials. NCERT would adapt the content to India's national curriculum and customize it for local use.

The training programme is as per National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and emphasizes developing visual learning, critical thinking, and design-based pedagogy. AI functionalities would also be utilized by educators in order to enhance the participation and performance of students.

Through this initiative, Indian teachers will be certified to utilize Canva Education's vast library that has over 500 tools and apps with in-built capabilities like games, translation, worksheets, and infographics for subjects and classes. The platform's AI-based tools will help teachers make it easy to create content while facilitating efficient planning and delivery in terms of time.

In a statement, Canva announced that its education platform has welcomed more than 25 million teachers and students in 2024 alone, taking its global learning base to more than 100 million users. The platform saw a 50% increase in the use of teachers and a 107% increase in student usage over the previous year. Canva's AI-powered tools like Dream Lab are becoming ever-more popular among educators for creating personalized visuals, enhancing online learning environments worldwide even further.

Overwhelming demand for English medium has prompted the department of school education and literacy to declare opening of bilingual sections — English medium and the current Kannada medium — in 4,134 schools in the state.

Out of the total 1,465 govt schools in Bangalore South and Bangalore North, 1,103 are permitted to open the sections. There are 373 schools in Bangalore North and 730 in Bangalore South from class 1.

Up to 11,555 possible schools applied from 33 educational regions. The top 15 schools in each taluk with the largest number of students were chosen. English-medium sections began under the HD Kumaraswamy administration in 2019-20. Since then, 2,405 schools have received English-medium sections, including Karnataka Public Schools. During the 2024-25 financial year, 2,000 govt schools were allowed to open the new sections. The first batch is in class 7 presently.

Guest lecturers will be appointed in these sections by the department. The teachers will be trained by the department of state educational, research and training and by the Regional Institute of English prior to the start of classes.

"Admissions are on. As many of the schools had an indication that they would be granted permission, they had already prepared for it and began to admit children. Since class 1 is the Nali Kali system, the children won't require textbooks," said a senior official.

But educationists cautioned that the eleventh-hour decisions should not be allowed to impact teacher training. "Most English teachers in govt schools are not English specialists. They struggle with fluency, confidence, and how to teach English properly. Teacher mentoring and teacher training are necessary to upgrade teachers, to make them sensitized towards curriculum reforms, pedagogical and technological advancements, and enable them to refresh their knowledge and teaching approaches," said a teacher trainer.

"Most guest teachers are not trained in English-medium sections. The reason being that new teachers are appointed every year and there are no provisions in the budget to include guest teachers in training programmes. Even if they are summoned for training, they are not provided with training material, food, or travel allowance. I hope this time there will be a change," he continued.

The Madhya Pradesh government directed an investigation after paintwork invoices for two schools in Shahdol district which went viral on social media revealed suspected fake payments and inflated figures for material and labour.

The bills that were making the rounds online claim inflated quantities of materials and labor, indicating that 168 workers and 65 masons were dispatched to coat four liters of paint for one school and 275 workers and 150 masons to coat 20 liters for another.

Minister of School Education Uday Pratap Singh directed immediate action after suspected fictitious payments sanctioned in the guise of minor repairs at Sakandi Government High School and Nipaniya Higher Secondary School in Shahdol district's Beohari Assembly constituency were discovered.

The racket was exposed after millisecond-to-millisecond bills went viral on social media, highlighting what appear to be bloated entries under material and labour.

In Sakandi High School, official papers claimed that 168 labourers and 65 masons were employed to paint mere four litres. The expenditure documented -- Rs 1,06,984 -- has generated overall suspicion.

Nipaniya School accounts were no less damning: Rs 2,31,685 had been incurred as expended on the work of 275 labourers and 150 masons who reportedly worked on such contracts as pertained to mere twenty litres of paint, fitting ten windows, and four doors.

Taking dramatic action on the report, the Education Minister directed the Secretary of the School Education Department and the Commissioner of Public Instruction to hold a rapid and impartial inquiry.

He reiterated the zero-tolerance of the government towards corruption and malpractices in public departments and reaffirmed nobody caught would be excluded. Popular disillusionment and questions about the innocence of rural school infrastructure funds spending have been evoked by the revelations.

Others were left with amazement at how these overspendings were tolerated, calling for tighter processes of accountability and audit procedures with regional education authorities.

The accident has struck at a time when the Madhya Pradesh government is going all out to push transparency and investment across various sectors. The accident may be a wake-up call for introducing more stringent audit mechanisms, online transparency tools, and decentralized monitoring mechanisms with local stakeholders.

Gorakhpur's Pankhuri Tripathi, a school drop-out student due to financial difficulties, on Monday resumed her studies after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath intervened. During his Janta Darshan in Gorakhpur, Tripathi told CM Yogi about the financial plight of her family that was proving to be a huge hurdle for her education.

CM assured her of his support and directed officials to act expeditiously. "Either your charges will be waived, or we will make the amount," he said to the girl.

Following his intervention, Saraswati Shishu Mandir waived the outstanding fee of Rs 18000 through coordination by the district administration and education department. The RSS-education managed school had first refused to grant any concession on the grounds that "no such provision existed" in the school but Pankhuri returned to school on Monday wearing her school uniform and for Class 7-B. Her fee was waived with help from the district administration, PTI reported.

Tripathi family expressed gratitude to CM Yogi for his timely action. They said his assistance had provided their daughter with a future again.

Pankhuri Tripathi expressed her gratitude to CM Yogi for also sponsoring her education. " I requested CM Yogi to waive my fees. He happily accepted the waiver and motivated me to do better in life. I want to thank him. I am very grateful and happy," she further said.

The family of Pankhuri Tripathi faced a setback when his father lost his job due to an accident. She desires to be an IAS officer.