Education Views | Insightful Perspectives and Analysis - Edinbox

In this more complex world of technology, war, and runaway social change, human rights education is no longer an intellectual indulgence—but a matter of professional exigency for women and men committed to full, participatory living.

From street placards to courtrooms, human rights education is empowering people with the authority to know, claim, and fight for minimum professional rights that every working person—man or woman—ought to be aware of.

Regardless of your professional career as a teacher, technology specialist, physician, designer, or business owner, it's worth understanding your rights as an employee. Too many professionals are unaware of protections and benefits under world law and home law.

What Are Your Basic Professional Rights?

• Equal Pay for Equal Work: There is to be no one given less pay on the grounds of gender, caste, religion, or background for doing equal work under equal conditions.
• Right to Freedom from Harassment and Discrimination: Employers are legally bound to protect people against sexual, verbal, and psychological harassment, as well as discrimination against identity.
• Safe and Healthful Working Environment: All workers are provided a healthy, clean, and danger-free working environment.
• Right of Privacy and Online Protection: With increased AI observation and data tracking, communication privacy and personal information are guaranteed.
• Leave and Parental/Maternity/Paternity Leave: All workers are entitled to paid leave, family leave, sick leave, and maternity leave as set by the laws in the geographical area.
• Right to Join and Form Trade Unions: The workers are free to join and establish trade unions and bargain collectively for better terms of employment.
• Right of Access to the Mechanism of Redressing Grievances: Law ensures the existence of an in-built reporting mechanism of grievances on a reasonable basis at all places of work.

Why Human Rights Education Matters?

Human rights education empowers practitioners to recognize violations so that they can react legally and ethically and ensure others' rights. It's an interdisciplinary approach—applicable to AI and computer ethics in technology, workers' justice in business, ethical care in medicine, and women's equality in social science and law.

There are top-rate institutions such as LSE, Harvard, and Oxford providing human rights courses at an interdisciplinary level. There are regional institutions such as that of EMA in Venice providing such courses. JNU, Delhi University, TISS, and Tamil Nadu universities in India provide full-time and distance courses with specializations in gender rights, labour law, and public policy.

Scholarships like Open Society Fellowships, Erasmus Mundus, Fulbright, and NHRC scholarships enable young professionals to learn about human rights in action—anything from technology companies creating ethical AI, to nonprofits fighting for workers' rights.

Increasingly, employers are seeking human rights practitioners to bring a rights perspective to careers such as corporate governance ESG, digital governance, media accountability, and public health policy. Journalists, programmers, physicians, and economists alike are discovering compelling career tracks where responsibility meets rights.

The Bottom Line

Understanding your professional rights isn't so much about protection as it is about demanding accountability where it counts most. Systematic late payments from employers or HR departments aren't merely administrative oversights—they are evasions of core worker rights.

When senior administrators or HR delay pay, allowances, or reimbursements without explanation or fair process, they subvert trust, destabilize incomes, and damage the ethical consensus of the workplace. Staff—whether senior or on contract—have a right to be paid for their work in good time. It's not a favour; it's a legal and moral right.

Human rights education prepares professionals to see such delays as part of a pattern of disrespect, and to act on them. Ethical responsibility for HR and leadership entails ensuring all workers are paid in full and on time—not sometimes, but always.

Late payments in the modern workplace aren't merely poor practice—they are a violation of dignity. And silence at the top is complicity.

It will be denied new student admission for the next upcoming academic session 2025-26. But already admitted till 2024-2025 session will be permitted to complete their programme

National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) derecognized 2,962 Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) of the nation for not uploading Performance Appraisal Reports (PARs) online for the years 2021-22 and 2022-23 after sending show-cause notices in March and April.

The colleges will be debarred from admitting new students for the upcoming year 2025-26. But students who have been admitted up to the academic year 2024-2025 can proceed with the programme.

NCTE, which is responsible for the task of making sure there are norms and standards in teacher education, made it obligatory to submit PAR in September 2019 so that only authenticated institutions can try fulfilling NCTE norms, standards, and guidelines. While submitting PAR, colleges need to submit a list of documents to the council, such as faculty details together with qualification records, institute finance statements, together with geo-tagged documents and photographs.

NCTE had previously made December 30, 2024, the date for PAR receipt, with a double extension. In February 2025, the commission, with member of NCTE's Northern Regional Committee Harish Chandra Singh Rathore as the chairperson, established the five-member expert committee to recommend actions against defaulting institutions. Show-cause notices were sent by NCTE to defaulting institutions for failure to submit PARs for 2021-22 and 2022-23 in March and April 2025. Defaulting institutions were then given notices of withdrawal of recognition by NCTE in April and May 2025 for defaulting in accepting the notices.

"Those colleges have not filed their PARs since they were provided with double the extension and did not respond to show-cause notices. We will take action against additional TEIs as well if we discover that they are breaching our rules and regulations as well. We wish to maintain education standards at TEIs as per provisions under National Education Policy (NEP) 2020," Rathore told HT in an interview.

In light of intimation to defaulting institutions, recognitions to such institutes have been withdrawn with effect from academic year 2025-2026 as per Section 17 of the NCTE Act, 1993. According to Section 17 of NCTE Act, 1993, a regional committee is also authorized to withdraw recognition of a teacher education institution for default against the Act or rules and for course drop out, affiliation cancelled, false qualification to teach, and ban to admit students without recognition.

India's TEIs have been classified into four zones. According to information accessed from NCTE website, the maximum number of derecognised TEIs is in Northern zone at 1,225 (41.36% of the total of 2,962), followed by Southern zone with 960 (32.41%), Western zone with 748 (25.25%), and the minimum in Eastern zone with 29 (0.98%).

Uttar Pradesh dominates the North with 1,059 derecognised TEIs, or 86% of the region total and more than 37% of derecognitions within India. Tamil Nadu (361) and Karnataka (224) dominate South derecognitions. Maharashtra (571 derecognized TEIs) dominates other Western state rivals such as Gujarat and Rajasthan (63 each). West Bengal dominates the East with 18 derecognised TEIs.

Rakesh Mani Tripathi, Principal derecognised Dr Ram Prasanna Maniram Singh Mahavidyalaya, Ayodhya stated: "We have been conducting Bachelor of Education (BEd) since 2002. NCTE is recognising us for the first time for our college. We were unable to fill PAR in time. We are discussing with our teaching staff how we can appeal against the NCTE order.".

Shad Khan, Choudhary Bashir Khan Mahavidyalaya Meerut official also added, "We have been running BEd course since 2016-17 but this year NCTE derecognized our college. The college management committee is searching for the next move to appeal against the NCTE order."

As per NCTE, in case the institution is not content with this order, the institution can prefer an appeal under Section 18 of the NCTE Act, 1993 in online mode on the NCTE website within 60 days from notice. The provision has been made under the section for appeals against the orders of NCTE and it is mentioned that any aggrieved person can prefer an appeal before the council within the given time limit.

"Derecognised TEI persons can send their documents to appeal committee under various regional committees of NCTE. Appeal committee will consider their documents and make a fair judgment," Rathore added.

As per recent available data available on NCTE website, India as nation has 20,454 formally certified TEIs with highest number of them located in Northern Region (8,120 TEIs), followed by Western Region (4,928), Southern Region (4,757), and Eastern Region (2,649).

The Tamil Nadu Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi's recent comment regarding the failure of more than 90,000 students in Karnataka on account of language imposition is not merely a political catchphrase — it is an eye-opener. With India's education sector headed for standardisation along the lines of the National Education Policy (NEP), we need to take a step back and ask ourselves: at what expense?

The minister, making a speech at a school ceremony, was right to ask for an explanation for compelling students to learn a third language, usually foreign to their setting and culture. "A third language should be a choice, not a compulsion," he averred — difficult to argue with. While one of India's biggest assets is multilingualism, it flourishes when nurtured, not mandated.

Let's be real: language imposition is not unity; it's dominance. What's going on in Karnataka is not unique. Students who are fighting with the burden of strange languages are not failing because they are not smart enough — they are failing because policy is failing them.

Poyyamozhi’s criticism of the Union government’s language policy and selective education funding is a serious allegation that deserves scrutiny. If states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala — often leading in literacy and public education models — are being financially sidelined, the question isn’t just about language. It’s about federal fairness.

Supporting him, DMK MP Kanimozhi refuted Union Home Minister Amit Shah's statement on Hindi being the "friend to all languages," by stating that Tamil is not the foe of any language either. Her exhortation to North Indians to learn one South Indian language was not divisive — it was an appeal to actual national integration through mutual respect.

India's power is in its diversity of language, not uniformity. To protect it, education policy needs to be based on inclusion, not ideology. Composing language as a barrier to education subverts all schooling should mean — empowerment, equity, access.

Because when 90,000 students fail, it's not a statistic — it's a policy failure.

Step into a typical classroom in any major Indian city today, and one thing which will be common is that English is everywhere. It’s the language of instruction, conversation, exams, and even casual jokes between students. From kindergarten to coaching classes, English isn’t just a subject, it’s in the atmosphere.

And it’s not hard to see why. English is linked to better jobs, higher education, and international mobility. It signals confidence, polish, and opportunity. In a country as diverse and unequal as India, English is a tool that can level the field.

But in building everything around that one tool, we’re slowly losing others. Our regional languages, the ones we grew up hearing at home, speaking with grandparents, using in street corners and stories are disappearing from schools. Not officially, maybe, but definitely in practice.

In many English-medium schools, regional languages are reduced to two classes a few times a week. Sometimes they’re offered only until Class 8 or as optional papers in exams. Often, they’re treated like a chore, something to get over with. You rarely see the same enthusiasm, resources, or training that’s poured into English.

Even when regional languages are part of the curriculum, they’re not really alive in the school environment. Morning assemblies are in English. Notices are in English. Teachers encourage kids to “speak in English only” even during breaks. Some schools even fine students for speaking in their mother tongue. The message is clear: English means success, and anything else is holding you back.

This hierarchy creates a subtle kind of shame. Kids start feeling awkward speaking in their own language. They switch to English even at home. They laugh at classmates who don’t sound fluent. Slowly, a language that once felt natural begins to feel embarrassing.

It’s not just about grammar or vocabulary. Language is emotional. It’s how we form memories, express feelings, and tell stories. When we push children to learn and think only in English, we risk cutting them off from their cultural identity. We flatten something that used to have depth, variety, and emotion.

According to the 2011 Census, India has 121 major languages and 270 smaller ones. But UNESCO lists 197 Indian languages as either endangered or vulnerable. And while there are many reasons for this including migration, politics, and social shifts, our education system plays a role too. When children don’t see their language respected in the classroom, they stop valuing it elsewhere.

This isn’t about turning away from English. That would be both unrealistic and unfair. English does open doors, especially in higher education and the global job market. The problem isn’t English but it’s how everything else gets pushed aside for it.

The real challenge is coexistence. Can we build classrooms where a child learns to write a perfect essay in English and read a poem in Hindi with the same fluency and pride? Can we create space for local literature, theatre, debate, and storytelling but not just tucked into one period a week, but across the school culture?

Some states and schools are trying. Bilingual teaching models are being tested. In Kerala and parts of Maharashtra, there’s been a push to bring regional literature back into focus. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 also talks about promoting mother tongue instruction, especially in the foundational years. But this implementation is inconsistent. In urban private schools especially, the pressure to stick to English remains high, sometimes from the school, sometimes from the parents themselves.

There’s also the issue of teacher training. Many schools simply don’t have well-trained staff to teach regional languages in a way that’s engaging and current. Textbooks are outdated. Classes are dull. And when students don’t see the relevance, they switch off.

Fixing this doesn’t mean turning away from progress. It means understanding that English and Indian languages don’t have to compete. A student can learn both. In fact, research shows that strong skills in the first language actually help in learning a second one. Multilingualism isn’t a burden,  it’s a strength.

And it’s a strength, a power that we’re in danger of losing.

If schools continue to treat regional languages as side characters in the education story, the next generation may never learn to speak, write, or even understand them deeply. Not because they didn’t want to, but because they were never given the tools or encouragement to.

So no, the goal isn’t to stop teaching English. The goal is to stop teaching that English is the only thing that matters. Because the moment we start believing that, we risk forgetting too much of who we are.

By Aditi Sawarkar

It was business as usual at a school in Jalna district of Maharashtra—except that it wasn't. A scene from a skit, indeed, more so when a teacher allegedly slept during a class, leaving the students in a state of confusion and twiddling their thumbs for nearly 30 minutes. Something that started with muffled chuckles by kids now is a state-level discussion on the cracks in our education system.

The instructor, whose identity was not released, dozed during a class that he was monitoring. Without a person to guide at the front, the students sat patiently, some in hushed voices, uncertain as to what they should do next.

"It's deplorable," complained one anxious parent. "What is this teaching our children? That it's okay to nap at work?"

But not all are campaigning to assign blame. Sure, the incident raises valid concerns about classroom responsibility and discipline, but it also points to something more pernicious—teacher burnout. "We don't condone what's happened," a teachers' union official said, "but look at what's driving teachers to do this. Many of us work overfilled classrooms and no extra help and late paychecks. It's not a one-time thing—it's a sign."

They point out how such accidents can turn into an enormous drag on the respectability of the teachers and upset the learning culture. "Teachers form the backbone of any education system," said an educationist. "They need to be role models. But they need to be tended to, trained, and worked into properly.".

The school administration has assured a complete investigation, but the bigger question remains: what does this incident reveal about pressure on educators and lapses in monitoring?

Lastly, the inadvertent doze of the teacher may just prove to be the wake-up call Maharashtra's education system needed. One that reminds us our classrooms don't require discipline alone, but compassion, investment, and reform.

When 643 minds converge at the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, it is not just another year of studies. It is a statement of where India is headed — towards inclusive excellence, inter-disciplinary exploration, and humane leadership.

The thrill of Day One at any top business school is there — new faces, nerves, and aspirations are tied tightly into blazers and formal footwear. But at IIM Lucknow this year, the figures tell a tale of mission. With 30% of the incoming cohort being female, and over 50% of the students hailing from non-engineering streams — from commerce to the arts — the message is stark and simple: Indian business leadership is transforming, and so are those who will transform it.

This isn't about checking diversity boxes. It's about redefining who gets to lead and why. Indian business schools for too long were copies — engineers, men, sometimes of limited emotional range. But the world has moved on. Business leaders today must be learned to listen as well as to strategize, to feel as much as to optimize. And IIM Lucknow appears to be stepping up to this task with intent.

The most powerful message came from Prof. Sanjeet Singh, who highlighted the fact that the job of students should be to build the right questions and not inquiring for pre-set answers. In a world where numbers are crunched by AI and algorithms predict demand, it's the human factor — critical thinking, empathy, ethical sensitivity — that will distinguish good managers from great managers.

What lies in wait for these students is more than a sequence of internships and placements. It's a call to look within, to discover, and finally to redefine leadership in India. This initiation is not a ritualistic function — it's a guarantee. That IIM Lucknow will not merely educate students on how to create businesses, but on how to create character.

Because in the end, as the institute so rightly says, this is not merely the beginning of a career — it's the beginning of becoming.