Education News | Latest Updates, Trends, and Insights - Edinbox

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) recently launched Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses in Hindi and Odia, with the programme being offered in both languages.

The project is a part of the larger scheme in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) under the E-Kumbh project, an all-India project to convert important learning content into twelve Indian languages. IGNOU's MBA curriculum has been localized using the powerful machine translation tool "Anuvadini" of AICTE to benefit the students who prefer to study in their mother tongue more effectively.

IGNOU is also setting up MBA courses in ten more Indian languages, one step towards bridging language gaps in the field of management studies. It was opened on June 2 and reaffirmed 'IGNOU's commitment to making higher education open and inclusive across India's multilingual landscape,' said IGNOU.

"Today's launch is a turning point in our quest for educational equity," said Shri Mrutyunjay Behera, Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Chief Guest on the occasion. "By introducing MBA courses in regional languages, IGNOU is bringing professional education to the grassroots level, entirely in line with NEP 2020's emphasis on multilingual and inclusive education. This is not policy implementation—it's an education cultural transformation."

Dr Abhay Jere, Vice Chairman AICTE, underlined the paradigm-changing potential of artificial intelligence in education. "We are entering a new era when AI is enabling real-time translation and localisation of content on a scale that previously was not possible. Anuvadini tool is a paradigm leap in making education borderless. AICTE feels honored to partner with IGNOU to build an inclusive scholar future," he added further. He advocated a subscription economy model of post-secondary education for life-long learning.

Prof. Uma Kanjilal, Vice Chancellor of IGNOU, thanked the dignitaries and stakeholders, further stating, "We are deeply thankful to Shri Mrutnajay Behra and Dr. Abhay Jere for facilitating this vision-oriented initiative. Technology is the real facilitator in this project, enabling us to provide quality learning experiences without respect to languages. Our dream is to make sure no learner feels left behind, irrespective of their linguistic legacy."

The Earth isn’t whispering warnings anymore — it’s screaming. From the smoke-choked skies over megacities to rising oceans swallowing coastlines, we’re watching in real time as our planet crosses red lines. But this crisis is not just ecological. It is deeply personal. It’s about the child struggling to breathe through an asthma attack, the farmer standing in a cracked field of failed crops, the family displaced by floods.

On World Environment Day, 2025, in an interview Dr. Amit Dias mentioned, I sound the alarm not as a climate scientist, but as a physician — because the climate crisis is a public health emergency.

The World Health Organization indicates that nearly 13 million deaths each year — one in four — are linked to environmental sources. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) alone contributes to over 7 million deaths each year, and it is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen. Children inhale poison with every breath in South Asian and African cities, setting them up for long-term heart and lung disease.

Unsafe water and poor sanitary conditions claim another 829,000 lives each year, mainly caused by diarrheal illnesses — completely avoidable if ecosystems were intact and infrastructure equitable. And on top of these, throw in the resurgence of vector-borne illnesses — dengue, malaria, chikungunya — now extending their reach due to climate-driven changes in rainfall and temperature.

Nature is not an adversary to human existence. It is existence. And without a living planet, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — specifically SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 6 (Clean Water), and SDG 13 (Climate Action) — will never be achieved. In fact, all 17 SDGs are inextricably connected to environmental wholeness.

Plastic pollution is the focus of global attention this year. While over 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually, nearly half of it being disposable, we are suffocating under our own filth. Microplastics have been found in human blood, lungs, and placentas. The same plastic intended to be "disposable" has become uncomfortably persistent — not only in the environment, but inside us.

But here's the silver lining: it's not a death sentence. We do have solutions.

Ban single-use plastics. Enforce extended producer responsibility. Encourage alternatives like jute, cloth, and biodegradable ones. Make environmental literacy a part of school curriculums. Have community-led clean-up drives. Demand policy reform.

The list is endless. Sikkim, the first organic state in India, shows that there can be harmony between agriculture and environment. Rwanda banned plastic bags in 2008 and boasts of the cleanest streets in Africa. In Goa, panchayats are starting waste segregation and composting programs which are openly improving health and hygiene.

Environmental degradation is not some future concern for scientists and activists. It's a real and immediate health hazard for all human life. Climate change is the most potent health threat of the 21st century, but it's also our greatest opportunity to envision a cleaner, more equitable, healthier world.

Make World Environment Day 2025 more than just a date. Make it a turning point.

Because when we conserve the environment, we don't just conserve trees — we conserve lives

Madhya Pradesh in central India is subtly changing the face of education. The state government launched a bold initiative through CM RISE in 2020, named Sandipani Vidyalayas, with the hope of giving a new direction and life to the public school system. Today, these Vidyalayas exist as examples of government schools set up to help children receive quality education.

This transformation is driven by the collaboration of organisations like Peepul and Apraava Energy, which have come together for the Exemplar Schools Project. Working at 10 Sandipani Vidyalayas right now, this project seeks to make significant changes, not just short-term solutions. Rather, it aims to achieve long-lasting improvements by supporting the key people in schools: school leaders and teachers.

This Transformation is Supported by the Three Pillars

1. Fostering School Leadership: Principals and administrators are supported by the project, which helps them build modern leadership skills and a vision for the future. That way, change does not just happen but has a long-term impact.

2. Teacher Development: Every school relies on teachers as its core. Regular training, mentorship, and exposure to best practices motivate and prepare the teachers. The result? Students are more involved in lessons and find them more relevant when classrooms become more engaging.

3. Improving School Culture: When the school culture is good, it means a lot for the students. Sandipani Vidyalayas are places where students are included and appreciated because of the emphasis on both their voices and community involvement.

Sandipani Vidyalayas' impact is big because it involves a strong commitment and cooperation among the government, non-profits, and businesses in the private sector. With their teamwork, Sandipani Vidyalayas are becoming examples of excellence, following gradual and steady improvement. 

The continued growth of these schools proves that when education receives enough support and direction, it can greatly contribute to social change. Sandipani Vidyalayas are doing more than changing classrooms; they are bringing hope for a fairer, brighter future to students and leading Madhya Pradesh education reform. 

In the early twentieth century, 927 out of every 1,000 Ezhavas in Travancore were illiterate; even after the elimination of legal obstacles, Ezhava students were barred from schools. Even if they were learned, jobs were difficult to find, as they were not inducted into government employment.A political awakening had been awakened in Travancore by the 1891 agitation against the autocratic rule in the state and the refusal to native communities of their rightful share in government positions.

The unrest, which had taken as its motto 'Travancore for Travancoreans', eventually culminated in the drafting of the Travancore Memorial (Malayali Memorial), a petition to the Maharaja by Nairs, Ezhavas, and Christians. Yet, the main interest behind the petition was that of the Nair community, and its main grievance was that the native upper castes were not being appropriately represented in the bureaucracy; the grievances of Ezhavas were touched upon only on the surface. The response of the sirkar highlighted the fact that 'Ezhavas were a [contented] people and if the government adopted a conscious policy to provide them with an opening in education and administration it would prove to be futile and generate tension and strain communal harmony.'. Realising that the Malayali Memorial had failed in their perspective, the Ezhava community, led by Dr Palpu, presented in 1895 a lengthy petition, written in English, to Sankara Subaiyer, Dewan of Travancore, tabulating the disabilities endured by them. Another memorandum was presented to the Maharaja in 1896. Both these, referred to as the Ezhava Memorials, called for admission to government schools and government service.

The Dewan responded by assuring the Ezhavas of special schools, which turned out to be an empty promise; only two primary schools were established for them.

Disappointment at the Dewan's reply gave rise to the Ezhava Mahajana Sabha in 1896, but the organisation was not able to make any considerable headway. It was only with the establishment of SNDP in 1903 under the religious guidance of Sri Narayana Guru that the Ezhava demands and struggles gained a significant fillip. The initial goal of SNDP was to eliminate the hindrances to Ezhava admission into government and government-aided schools. Subsequently, the Yogam began to concentrate on opening its own schools and colleges. The motto of Narayan Guru was 'Strengthen through organisation, liberate by education,' and this influenced the Ezhava community; under his leadership, SNDP brought Ezhavas not just from Travancore but also from Cochin and Malabar.

This is not to say that other communities were not hunting for similar opportunities. They, also, organized themselves and started trying to climb the social ladder, but their place was peripheral in this power game. English education, land control, and access to government positions were the three factors that influenced the status and power of each community during that time.

By the 1930s, education was a highly contested political question; although lower castes that agitated for education were usually escaping elite oppression of one sort or another, upper-caste interest in modern schooling was ostensibly connected to novel prospects of employment in the increasingly modernising states, to growing bureaucracy and welfare apparatus, and to economic prospects opening up following Kerala's economic integration into the world-system.

The availability of various communities on the social scale to education, land, and jobs was not equal nor defined by the same equations of benefit, but education was seen by all as the key to economic mobility and the new political space. The strong communities—the economically powerful and/or the caste powerful—prevailed.

In addition to Protestant missionaries, Syrian Christians also spent a great deal of money on education. By the last decades of the nineteenth century, we find the Syrian Orthodox Church registering an association to coordinate and oversee its educational endeavors. From the 1880s, Indian Catholics began to open schools, and they soon made excellent strides in this area: between 1882 and 1887, from approximately 10 to more than 1,000, the number of schools under Catholic control grew.

Nearly. a month after the Supreme Court judgment that the earlier recruitment of school teachers in West Bengal "vitiated and tainted," the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) has issued a fresh notification to recruit 35,726 teachers in state-aided schools.

Issued late Thursday night on the commission's official website, the notice outlines the hiring of 23,312 teachers for class 9 and class 10, and 12,514 teachers for classes 11 and 12 in secondary and higher secondary schools.

As per the instructions, the candidates must be between the ages of 21 and 40 years. Relaxations in the maximum age will be granted—5 years for SC/ST candidates, 3 years for OBC candidates, and 8 years for physically handicapped candidates. Candidates would also be supplied with carbon copies of their OMR sheets, which they would retain with them for a period of three years.

The online application portal will remain open from 5 pm on June 16 to 5 pm on June 17.

The drive recruitment comes in the wake of a Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, upholding an April 2024 Calcutta High Court order that had cancelled previous appointments of school staff and teachers.

The court also directed that fresh recruitment advertisement be completed by May 31 and the whole process to be completed by December 31.

In a relief to the schools and students, the court had earlier allowed teachers, who were cleared by the CBI of any alleged misconduct, to continue in service till December-end to avoid further disruption of the academic calendar.

With the release of the notification, the state government and WBSSC will be required to submit a compliance affidavit before the Supreme Court saying the recruitment process has been initiated as ordered.

This is a milestone in the long-pending school recruitment scandal in West Bengal and the way for one of the largest recruitment exercises in the education system of the state

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday directed sternly Deputy Commissioners (DCs), Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), and education officials at a high-level review meeting of the state school education system.

The CM cautioned against poor SSLC performance, delay in infrastructure projects, declining enrollment in government schools, and inaction on child marriage and teenage pregnancy cases.

During the onset of the meeting, Siddaramaiah went through the School Education Department's performance and called out districts that had not performed.

"Do not give excuses such as lack of teachers or staff for poor SSLC performance. Only Dakshina Kannada and a couple of other districts are giving good results. DDPI officers need to take responsibility. DCPIs and District In-charge Secretaries need to go to schools and inspect them. It should be checked if teachers are working with enthusiasm or not. Do not provide unnecessary excuses. If DDPI officers and teachers work with commitment, good results will come everywhere," he stated.

He also complained about delays in the construction of classrooms under the Viveka scheme even when funds were disbursed.

"Under the Viveka scheme, there can be no delay in sanctioning funds for the construction of classrooms. Action plans have to be made at once. Although funds were released, construction of classrooms has not yet started anywhere," Siddaramaiah said.

Emphasizing the problem of dwindling students in government schools, he added officials need to talk to parents and make sure no child is dropped out.

"Teachers and officials have to talk to parents to stop government school students from leaving in large numbers. Everything has to be done to avoid dropouts. District in-charge secretaries have to check if DDPIs and BEOs are going to schools. The annual reduction in government school enrollments is an unhealthy trend. Eggs, milk, ragi malt, soup, and hostel facilities are being offered by the government, but the enrollments are reducing. Identify from officials what ground-level problems are causing this and take action to correct them," the CM directed.

Taking a firm stand, Siddaramaiah instructed the Chief Secretary to take disciplinary action against underperforming education officers.

"Firm instructions are being issued to the CEOs, district collectors, and district in-charge secretaries of the districts where results in the exams and enrolment percentages are below the state average. Things have to improve by next academic year," he stated.

"CEOs of Hyderabad Karnataka and Kalyana Karnataka districts should take a closer look and remain interested. Reasons and alibis for bad results do not matter, but getting results does. Sincere efforts will bring honest results," he said.

Addressing the matter of child marriage and teenage pregnancy, the CM directed officials to address such cases with seriousness and legal intent.

"Don't you think child marriage and cases of teenage pregnancy must be prevented properly?" he asked, raising a doubt about the seriousness of the officials. 

He said such things were prevalent in backward regions and among weaker sections and need to be dealt with in a strict manner. 

"Child marriage and teen pregnancy cases should not be treated lightly. File criminal cases," the Chief Minister asserted.