Opinion: Foreign Campuses In India - Storm In A Teacup
Anurag Mehra | Friday February 03, 2023Only a slavish, colonial mentality can suggest that we turn our Indian institutions into second class "citizens" by promising all kinds of autonomy - operational and academic - only to foreign universities.
Opinion: Central University Entrance Test (CUET) Is Unfair To Students
Anurag Mehra | Sunday March 27, 2022Our policy-makers have an uncanny knack for finding solutions to existing problems that create even more problems.
Opinion: Indian Med Students From Ukraine Provide A Red-Alert
Anurag Mehra | Monday March 21, 2022For Indian students who left their country at a young age - just after finishing school - to study in an alien land, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has dealt a double blow.
Opinion: On Omicron, Airports In India Show How Wrong We're Getting It
Anurag Mehra | Tuesday December 07, 2021The entire Omicron saga seems to be one of various agencies and experts jumping guns. And it offers lessons about how not to communicate.
Opinion: Admission Madness - The Sad Story Of 100% Cutoffs
Anurag Mehra | Wednesday October 13, 2021An intelligent restructuring of the admissions process is the least that governments, board administrators and institutions can do to clean up the mess they have created and sustained for decades.
Opinion: Without Board Exams, How Colleges Will Seek To Decide Admission
Anurag Mehra, Anshu Deshmukh | Monday June 07, 2021The Prime Minister on June 1, 2021 announced that the Class 12 CBSE board exams stand cancelled. Many other boards have followed suit. This is a welcome move because the safety and health of students is of paramount importance.
Opinion: Don't Blame Covid Crisis on the "System" and "Elites"
Anurag Mehra | Thursday May 20, 2021The massive scale of illness and deaths caused by the mighty second Covid wave has prioritized both the need and the desire to understand the causes of this wave, the severe inadequacy of treatment and the horrific number of deaths.
Opinion: India's New Move Could Produce Second-Rate Engineers
Anurag Mehra | Wednesday March 31, 2021In this context, bridge courses are likely to produce a cohort of students who will mostly be "second-class citizens" among the rest of the "mainstream" students much better versed in Mathematics and Physics.
Opinion: At IITs, With Online Exams, Teachers Confront High-Tech Cheating
Anurag Mehra | Wednesday January 13, 2021To police examinations in the current online scenario, we ask students to write answers on paper sheets while keeping a mobile phone or a laptop camera focused on them so that the proctor can see them working. Sometimes, we ask them to work on one device and use the camera of a second device to display the live video.
Opinion: What We At IITs Are Discovering About Online Classes
Anurag Mehra | Thursday October 08, 2020There is plenty of hype floating around that "digital" is the future of education. Our experiences related to online teaching during the pandemic show shatter this hype.
Opinion: Can The New NEP Really Reform Education In India?
Anurag Mehra | Monday August 03, 2020Finally, the New Education Policy (NEP-2020) is out, though it is somewhat surprising that it comes bang in the middle of a pandemic, and when parliament is not in session. Even though almost two lakh suggestions were received as feedback on the draft policy (DNEP-2019) not much debate about these has been seen in the public domain.
Opinion: India's "Vaccine Games" On Covid-19 Come At Great Risk
Anurag Mehra | Thursday July 16, 2020Our penchant for somehow "topping the class" is deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. Now, we want to be the first in the world to develop and produce a Covid-19 vaccine, even though many other potential vaccines in the fray are far ahead on the developmental trajectory. One way to win this race is to just declare that we will get there first - and even announce a d...
Opinion: The Far From Magnificent Obsession With Ranks At IITs
Anurag Mehra | Monday June 29, 2020The world's best institutions do not worry about rankings but in ensuring that they are respected by their peers for the quality of their graduates and research. They have not reached the top by trying to be "first". We should remember what we tell our students: if we study well , we are likely to get a good grade, but getting a good grade does not necessarily mean we...
Opinion: After Weeks Of Online Classes At IIT, Here's The Truth
Anurag Mehra | Saturday May 30, 2020It is good that we have online options but let us not kid ourselves into the illusion of normalcy. It is worrisome that despite ground realities of this sort, a sense of digital triumphalism seems to hang in the air.
Opinion: IIT-Bombay's Adaptation To The Lockdown - What Works And Doesn't
Anurag Mehra | Tuesday April 07, 2020The two great issues that will surely be impacted by the lockdown are admissions into the IITs and the employment of students from the graduating batch.
