Educational Insights | Stay Informed with Edinbox

Since our world is quickly evolving towards an AI and tech-centric future, the college admissions process is no exception. The world economy needs more specialisation and inter-disciplinary problem-solving. The institutional agendas of the best colleges in the world also signify the shift.

Our education system, though, falls behind. Too much emphasis on intellectual brilliance leaves no room for building well-rounded profiles. As the Ivys pursue the intellectual whiz kids, they also search for good extracurricular profiles and individual narratives.

A good academic record can hardly make up for a lack of extracurriculars. An empty lack of academic and career counseling in high-school curriculum compounds the issue. Therefore, academically talented students sometimes fail to impress the admissions committee and their achievements are rendered worthless. This is even more important since the acceptances percentage in the top universities is approaching a historic low. During the previous cycle, we saw some of the percentages fall below 5%—and lower yet for Indian applicants only. 

Australia's 270,000 student cap: What will happen to international students?

There is just one regulation to the process of applying: be engaging. The rules of success in the Ivy League carry over to success in life in general perfectly. So then the solution also is to go back to first principles of quality schooling. The liberal arts model practiced by the finest colleges, including the Ivies, tests students holistically, as opposed to simply on intellectual potential alone.

As was found during the 2014 lawsuit, Harvard evaluates its candidates on these 4 aspects, and collectively they are perfect to test the total growth of a young pupil. This model is adopted by the easiest measurement of total growth:

• Extracurricular: Find your Ikigai through extracurricular activities. Working on social impact personal projects helps in developing interpersonal skills, and pre-professional experiences build relevant transferable skills, providing industry context. Moreover, landing opportunities is an exercise in self-marketing, which is an extremely important skill to learn. Remember to think globally and act locally. The universities are keen to notice how you’re engaging with your local community and solving problems.

Comparison of the costs of housing in the UK's major cities for Indian students

• Personal: To develop the eye to view challenges as opportunities and a challenge of problem-solving and personal development. Social, Emotional, and Ethical learning values should be our guiding light. Values over information and knowledge but values such as ethics, synthesis, and growth, education is necessary to understand this complex world. Being antifragile, inquisitive, leaders, resilient, and culturally embedded is crucial in today's rapidly changing career landscape.
• Academic: Gain scholarly strength. Graduating from high school does not suffice, do high school academic scholarship. Interdisciplinary research is needed to achieve mature balanced scholarly perception. A scholar who has a more holistic perspective across disciplines is a superior problem-solver, entrepreneur, and leader.
• Athletics: Competitive sport is usually the steppingstone to a lifetime of healthy productive life. Colleges also hungrily seek world-class athletes among their student body. Being an athlete in itself isn't necessarily necessary for the process, but sport can be the teacher of values such as discipline, perseverance, team work, and leadership—something very coveted in application season.

Study Abroad: Everything you need to know about hybrid learning

The common denominator for these demands is authenticity, which is a core aspect of personal branding. Thus, one must find one's Ikigai and promise to become brilliant at it, instead of being chased for piecemeal pursuits in the cause of college admissions. The career has to offer teachers particular, moment-to-moment tools and techniques to access the maximum potential of students so they can succeed in their studies as much as in life. Alumni networking has to be facilitated such that there is a system of support and advantage derived from the valid experience of seniors.

In short, the perfect applicant is someone who demonstrates that they can make it in life. Colleges want students who can explain the world's complexities and also challenge themselves. Take the admissions process as an opportunity to discover your voice, find yourself, and where you are meant to be. Bet on yourself and the rest will follow!

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday instructed the officials of education to relocate anganwadi centres into buildings which became vacant following the pairing of schools with fewer students.

"This will improve early childhood education and make maximum use of infrastructure," he said while presiding over a review meeting with officials of basic education.

Yogi added schools having over 50 students must operate as separate institutes to further administrative effectiveness, accountability and academic supervision.

"The paired system should be introduced on a long-term, composite vision. The officials must project its advantage for the students, teachers, and parents through improved utilisation of resources and quality of education," he added. Stressing that the relocation of anganwadi centres must be time-bound and without any letup, Yogi also instructed the school management committees (SMCs), which include the headteacher and village head, to let no child in the age group of 6-14 remain outside school education.

Demanding proper implementation of the 'School Chalo Abhiyan', CM directed officials to ensure that each child is enrolled and is regularly attending school.

He also directed officials to transfer Rs 1,200 for purchasing uniforms, shoes, socks, stationery and study material into parents' bank accounts without delay.

"The DBT process has to be done in a transparent, fair and time-bound manner," he added. Speaking about the problem of poor infrastructure in certain schools, Yogi directed officials to provide the required facilities so that students are able to learn in a clean, secure and favorable environment.

Emphasizing the importance of having an ideal teacher-student ratio, yogi urged immediate recruitment to fill vacant teaching positions. He also instructed the department to dispatch requisitions for all vacancies forthwith and finalize the appointment process on a time-bound basis.

The first nationwide test in the series under the PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) program, named Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024, has brought to fore revealing insights into India's education system's state.

Conducted on December 4, 2024, the test evaluated approximately 21.15 lakh students from 74,229 schools within 781 districts, for Grade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 9 based on the NEP 2020 levels. The test was held in order to ascertain competency-based learning outcomes in subjects like Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, and Environmental Studies.

The key findings present alarming gaps: while Grade 3 students produced encouraging results—57% exhibiting language and 65% showing mathematics proficiency—performance crashed in higher grades. The majority of Grades 6 and 9 students lack a basis in mathematics, science, and reading comprehension.

Rural students excelled over their urban peers at the early stages, and State Government schools led Grade 3 scores, showing the beginning of the NIPUN Bharat Mission contribution. However, while grades progress, gender as well as rural-urban disparities remain apparent. Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh states got all-time high proficiency rates.

PARAKH's robust methodology blended paper-and-pencil tests with OMR technology and was overseen by over 95,000 field investigators, 3,128 district-level officers, and 180 state nodal officers. The survey also recorded responses of over 2.7 lakh teachers and school principals, in digital tool usage and students' well-being.

Dr. Japasree Mukherjee, Principal, Orchids The International School, Malad West, stated, "The PARAKH report has highlighted various discoveries which will be a guiding light for creating innovative teaching practices in schools.". It rightly emphasizes the significance of embracing strong pedagogies to inculcate core skills in science and mathematics subjects so that children develop a sound foundation as they move to advanced classes and acquire an inherent interest in these subjects. These findings are consistent with NEP 2020, which places major emphasis on the incorporation of digital learning to strengthen teaching techniques and testing practices.

We at Orchids The International School have always made a conscious effort to integrate these very principles in our educational philosophy. Our Early Years Program is designed to offer a wholesome and challenging space for children between the age group of 2-5 years old with a mix of play-based learning, interactive sessions, and an international best practice-inspired curriculum.". We also provide best comprehension of a student of a specific grade with the experiential learning through our specially crafted teaching learning kits. Our teachers tailor their instruction to meet each child's way of learning, developing basic thinking and written skills and building a solid foundation for future academic achievement," she added further.

Experts point out that while positive changes at foundational levels have been seen, the overall learning gains are a cause for concern, similar to previous reports such as ASER, and call for a drastic system overhaul.

The Education Ministry has pledged to release detailed district and state reports by July 2025 and focused workshops to bridge learning gaps and augment NEP 2020 objectives.

The Uttar Pradesh government launched on Thursday a 'Learning by Doing' program to reorient education in government schools throughout the state, according to a statement.

"According to the National Education Policy 2020, this programme offers students of classes 6 to 8 hands-on training in various areas like woodwork, metalwork, energy and environment, agriculture and horticulture, and health and nutrition," the statement added.

The effort, under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, is a reflection of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's vision of connecting education with employability and life skills, it further added.

Adityanath has always stressed establishing Uttar Pradesh as self-sufficient and empowered, which means incorporating skills into education.

"Following this vision, the Basic Education Department has offered four-day multi-skilling training to science and mathematics teachers, allowing them to equip students with the ability to face real-life situations along with academics," the statement added.

Besides, with UNICEF technical support and collaboration with Vigyan Ashram, the state has created a teachers' guide consisting of 60 skill-based activities, which has been ratified by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), it said. 

The government highlighted that during 2024–25, the programme would be expanded with the opening of modern Learning by Doing (LBD) laboratories in 2,274 upper primary and composite schools spread across all 75 districts of the state.

Each of the laboratories has 205 varieties of contemporary tools and apparatus. School Management Committees (SMCs) have also been offered raw materials and consumables to aid these activities, it added.

The pilot run of the programme was earlier conducted in 60 schools in 15 districts, imparting training to 5,937 students in different trades. The government added that the programme contributed to an improved attendance and learning interest among students.

The government added that it is also making efforts to roll out this innovative program to another 3,288 schools in the 2025–26 academic year through the Samagra Shiksha and PM SHRI schemes.

"This rollout will benefit lakhs of students in the state through vocational education," it said.

The government has also averred that the programme not only empowers students with new skills but also teaches respect for the dignity of labour. The best feature is that girls actively participate in engineering, electrical works, and workshop activities, leading to gender equality in practical education.

The initiative not only cultivating skilled and independent citizens but also establishing the foundation for strong, self-dependent Uttar Pradesh, according to the Skill India Mission," said Basic Education Minister Sandeep Singh.

The majority of those who seek higher education from India never return," declared Prof Nayyar.

"There is a deep silent crisis in Indian higher education. It is palpable," Deepak Nayyar, distinguished academician and Emeritus Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said on Wednesday while giving the BG Deshmukh Lecture 2025 on 'The Crisis of Higher Education in India: Alarming Present and Concerning Future'. 

The crisis is caused by underfunding, political interference, and lack of autonomy, Nayyar explains. "It is no accident our universities have not produced any Nobel laureates in the last 25 years. And I think they never will in the next 25 years, the way we are going," he said.

According to the professor, "The available educational opportunities for school-leavers are simply not enough, and those available are not good enough. The pockets of excellence are products of an enormous reservoir of talent and Darwinian selection processes. It does little for those with average ability or without social opportunities."

The researcher also pointed out how year after year, there has been a steady rise in the number of Indian students abroad pursuing higher studies, the figures growing from approximately 50,000 in the year 2000 to 350,000 in the year 2015, and 600,000 in the year 2019. It further grew to 900,000 in the year 2023, and Indian students abroad spent a staggering $27 billion in the year 2023, equal to India's foreign exchange earnings for tourism in the same year. Significantly: "A large proportion of those who continue education beyond school from India don't return," Prof Nayyar noted.

Here, it's interesting to mention that the "dispersion of education in society is the foundation of success of countries which are late starters to development," he stressed.

The professor strongly emphasized the impact of political interference on higher education, which, he insisted, was not fresh, since the 1975-77 Emergency was a turning point, but gained momentum after the BJP government came to power and Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. "The past five years, since 2019, have seen a fast-paced acceleration of the process. Now it has reached a stage when the fate of public universities in India is at stake."

It's happening in two ways: "First, there is an observable rise of institutionalized control mechanisms that shape what universities can or cannot do," Prof Nayyar said. And "second, appointments in the universities, which would be the sole preserve of the universities, are more and more being made, if not decided by the political motivation, and the unseen hands of the ruling governments. And now, even the admission procedures have been centralized by the National Testing Agency," he further stated, adding that the BJP and RSS ideology are now strongly influencing higher education in India.

Privacy is no longer simply the right to be alone in the digital age. Privacy is now a contested territory, an arena in which technology companies, government agencies, advertisers, and everyday individuals fight over the right to decide what is done with data. At every step we take, whether using Navigation Apps, scrolling through social media, or seeking health information, we leave a trail of data, or breadcrumbs, that are scraped, harvested, analyzed, and monetized in ways most people using technology never understand. Reflecting on the data economy, this is not a glitch, but the very system within which we operate.’ Welcome to the age of *surveillance capital*’.

Professor’ Shoshana Zuboff’(Harvard) describes we have entered the age of *surveillance capitalism*. This new organizing logic collects, extracts and commercializes personal data. Humans' lifetime experiences become a free source of raw material to be turned into profit. When we talk about *surveillance capitalism*, we are talking about a powerful, largely invisible machine that shapes questions of privacy, consent, autonomy, and democracy. 

Grasping Surveillance Capitalism

Surveillance capitalism is the commercialization of individual experience. Big Tech companies—Google, Meta, Amazon, and others—are continuously accumulating vast quantities of personal data on their users: search histories, location data, voice commands, biometric data, and social and commercial interactions. This data is not only used to improve a service, but more importantly, to anticipate—and shape—future behavior.

The predictions are sold to advertisers, political campaigns, and a host of other third-party vendors. Significantly, this model operates on an asymmetry of knowledge and power: individuals know very little about what data is being collected from them and how it is used, whereas companies know everything about their users.

This model has moved significantly beyond targeted advertising. It has grown into pricing insurance, determining employment decisions, police surveillance, and even influencing elections.

The Devaluation of Privacy

Privacy as a *human right*—expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the Indian Constitution—becomes illusory inside a regime of data extraction at scale. Surveillance capitalism flourishes in darkness, implicitly excluding informed consent and relying on obscure terms and conditions that, for the most part, go unread.

Even when people try to protect their data, they are often outpaced. An app can track users in the background long after permissions have been revoked. Facial recognition systems scan public spaces without knowledge or consent. Smart devices unintentionally record conversations. This all leads to a "panopticon effect"in which people act differently just knowing that they might be observed.

The Psychological Price of Constant Surveillance

Surveillance capitalism not only impacts our data – it also can impact our minds and the way we act. When users know that they are constantly being watched, they can be pressured to engage in *self-censorship*, have anxiety, and lack spontaneity.

Psychologists argue that constant surveillance erodes one’s *sense of agency and identity*. Social media algorithms (that use surveillance data) try to reward the user by only providing content that validates their existing belief systems, therefore creating echo chambers and fostering polarization. In addition, digital manipulation based on personalized psychometric profiles—for instance, Cambridge Analytica—was able to successfully nudge voting choices, product preferences, and emotional manipulation.

We are now heading toward a world where surveillance is both external, as well as an internalized phenomenon. We are now shifting into an arena where the difference between persuasion and manipulation is disintegrating.

The Real-World Impacts

1. Cambridge Analytica and Electoral Manipulation

One of the archetypal examples of surveillance capitalism was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the data of 87 million people was collected from Facebook, without consent, and then used to interfere with various elections, including the 2016 U.S. Presidential, and the Brexit vote. This case made evident the ways in which predictive data models could manipulate consumer behaviours—or as was done nefariously, the fate of an entire democracy.

2. China’s Social Credit System

In China, surveillance capitalism meets state control. The state deploys AI smart surveillance along with data collection to support a social credit system where individuals receive an often-numbered score based upon their behaviours, financial background, and even friendships. If an individual has a low score, he or she can be prevented from travel, prohibited from being hired in certain jobs and shamed by a social scorecard. Although state controlled, the system highlights the extent to which surveillance can determine opportunities and freedoms in real life.

3.Aadhaar and Digital Identity in India

India's *Aadhaar system*—the largest biometric ID program in the world—was intended to be a system for accessing welfare and promoting digital inclusion. But when Aadhaar was adopted by public services, banks, and telecoms the governmental side of the database caused serious privacy risks (e.g., data leaks, surveillance, misuse of biometric data).

In 2017, the *Supreme Court of India* held that *privacy is a fundamental right,* but the Aadhaar infrastructure raises challenging questions about how data protection will manifest in developing democracies.

The Contribution of Civil Society and Digital Literacy

While legal frameworks are important, *public awareness, activism by civil society organizations*, and campaigns to empower citizens are also crucial in addressing the challenges of surveillance capitalism. There are many organizations doing good work in advocating for rights relating to privacy including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Mozilla Foundation, and India's Internet Freedom Foundation.

Digital literacy is also important. People should know how algorithms work, what data they produce, and how they should protect themselves. Schools, universities, and governments should invest in education to help users take the next step in their digital lives responsibly.

Lastly, media literacy helps a citizen to see the manipulation and misinformation involved with a society that depends on recommendation engines based on surveillance.

Is Ethical Technology Possible?

Surveillance capitalism is not the only possibility for online user engagement: there are *alternative business models* and technologies where users enjoy privacy and actual control over online engagement: 

- With *Privacy centered browsers* such as Brave and Firefox, the technology neither tracks user behavior nor sells data. 

- With *decentralized platforms* Unlike Mastodon and Solid, users own their data and can connect with each other without worrying about being surveilled by a central entity.

- The end-to-end, encrypted communication app Signal has made privacy a main feature of the tech (albeit they do charge for the app). 

Do some tech companies - such as Apple - help users by marketing privacy as a feature? Sure, but some contend that this commercially driven marketing has more to do with disassociation from the "evil" meaning of online engagement rather than a true philosophical shift. 

At the end of the day, if ethical technologies and technologies truly concerned with privacy are going to snowball into development and adoption, users (demand!), investors (excitement!) and regulators (intervention!) need to be involved.

Resisting the Invisible Empire

We're living in an age of surveillance capitalism and this is well beyond our understanding and acquiescence—without ever really knowing the depth of our complicity. We've been conditioned and controlled through our phones, fitness trackers, smart homes and social media so that everything we say or do is sucked-up, refined, measured and analyzed into making choices for us.

However, the good news is that there is a growing global effort behind protecting our right to privacy, demands for transparency, ethical technology, regulation and practice-change that is mounting. Governments are making legislative changes, civil society is mobilizing, and public consciousness is rising in response to the now-dominant surveillance model.

To think that protecting our privacy is only a matter of stopping a data breach, turning off Location Services on our devices, etc., trivializes the significance of what is actually at stake: *our autonomy, democratic liberties, and the very essence of human dignity* in a world that is increasingly algorithmically driven and profit motivated.

In other words, if surveillance capitalism is the infrastructure of control, then the fight for privacy represents the movement of resistance, and it needs participants, advocates and courage.

ARTICLE BY- ANANYA AWASTHI