KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Telegraph University Grants Commission has also advocated online exams and ‘blended’ online-offline courses New Delhi: A proposal for India’s universities to introduce “flipped classrooms”, where teachers provide material to students in advance to study at home and the classroom is used for debate, analysis and problem-solving, has divided academics. Central University of Punjab vice-chancellor R.P. Tiwari said flipped classrooms help develop critical thinking while conventional classrooms encourage passive learning, but St Stephens...

-Newsclick.in Academics say the new draft framework of UGC does away with the necessity of master’s in arts and sciences and dilutes the undergraduate programme. After much speculations, University Grants Commission (UGC), the regulatory authority for central universities in the country, released its draft curriculum framework for four-year undergraduate programmes and the stakeholders can submit their comments till April 4, 2022. The final framework will be put in place to be taught...

-Financial Express This is of special interest as FY22 was challenging on several fronts, needing govt intervention Budget FY23 will, of course, be important for the content and its take on the economy, given the Union government has to necessarily take a call on how it thinks the third wave has affected the economy and accordingly make provisions in the Budget. But, also important will be the revised numbers for the different estimates...

-The Telegraph UGC asks varsities to amend their rules to bring them in sync with the new system A group of university teachers and students on Friday criticised the National Education Policy as a document designed to “corporatise” education through the “excessive” use of online content, saying it would take higher education beyond the reach of the poor and marginalised. At a news conference, Delhi University teacher Nandita Narain highlighted NEP initiatives such...