At the Pariksha Pe Charcha held in Delhi on April 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fielded an interesting question from Hari Om Mishra, a Class 12 student of Cambridge School in Noida. Mishra said he had his concerns regarding the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), which has been made mandatory for admission to all central universities in India. “What should we focus on,” he asked the prime minister, “board exams or CUET?”
Modi, who had earlier encouraged students to think of exams as a “festival”, responded by invoking the image of a khiladi (athlete) who must compete at various levels—from the tehsil and the district to the national and the international arena. Competition, he said, was one of life’s greatest gifts. “What is life without it? We should welcome competition in our lives,” he said to a round of applause.
The words, however, are unlikely to assuage Ujjala Bhattacharya’s anxieties regarding CUET. A Class 12 commerce student at Delhi Public School in Noida, Bhattacharya has been attending CUET coaching classes thrice a week. This is in addition to the regular tuition in maths, commerce and economics—her “domain subjects”, in CUET parlance—that she attends every day. She tops her rigorous routine with late-night, self-study sessions to prepare for board and pre-board exams. “My life would have been easier if I didn’t have to prepare for CUET as well,” said Bhattacharya.
This story is from the May 08, 2022 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 08, 2022 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
We need to engage more with communities
Designer Aratrik Dev Varman of the label Tilla has long been a lover of history. One could comfortably call him part-aesthete, part-archeologist, for his clothes dip into vintage styles of the Kutch, Sindh, Balochistan and Afghanistan, bringing alive antique styles and crafts. Tilla, the store and atelier, are situated on a tree-lined avenue in Ahmedabad.
The great luxury slowdown
A year or so ago, if anyone had told me that Tommy Hilfiger would have stolen the show at New York’s Met Gala, I would have laughed. But it seems the end of giant luxury labels is upon us even before we expected it. The American ready-to-wear designer Tommy Hilfiger seems to have created the maximum media buzz at the 2024 Met Gala, according to several data analytics firms.
RAP BRINGS RAPTURE
How indie artistes, especially hip-hoppers, are driving the phenomenal rise of Malayalam music
Employability issues are a narrative created by the corporate world
Prof Yogesh Singh is the 23rd vice chancellor of the century-old University of Delhi (DU). An engineer with a PhD in computer engineering, Singh has an impressive track record of teaching, innovation and research in the area of software engineering. He has more than 250 publications and his book, Software Testing, published by the Cambridge University Press, is well-received internationally. In an interview with THE WEEK, Singh talks about trends in higher education in India, the challenges faced by big universities, and how to make higher education more interesting. Asked about the perception that Indian graduates are “not employable”, he reacts strongly, and emphasises the difference between training and higher education. Edited excerpts:
SERVING WITH DISTINCTION
Conceived as a university like no other, Jawaharlal Nehru University became India's best. Here is how
Mandela Effect and Liar's Dividend
The complex tapestry of AI's impact on society
The other Sabyasachi
I am Sabyasachi Mukherjee, not to be confused with my namesake, the celebrated fashion couturier, declared the venerated director-general of Mumbai’s pride, George Wittet’s Indo-Saracenic jewel, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum.
THE MANGO HUNTERS
'Naadan Maavukal' started out as a Facebook group, but what it does offline has helped conserve many indigenous varieties of mangoes
ANGRY, YOUNG AMERICA
Campus protests against the Gaza war continue to linger as students demand a realignment of US ties with Israel
BJP LEADERS, TOO, HAVE HAD ENOUGH
Farmers’ protest has taken the centre stage in Haryana, which goes to the polls on May 25. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is confident that the Congress, which has been out of power for 10 years, will regain its hold on the state. “People who voted for the BJP are disappointed today. It is clear that they want change,” he told THE WEEK.
