The endeavor of nation building can happen through education. In the post-independent period education, has been regarded as a primary focus of our country and efforts have gone into providing access to education. The State has set a goal of 100% education through Universalization of school education, also, the Indian higher education system has evolved over a period of time with quantitative expansion providing access to a larger population with a broad spectrum of courses.
With the quantitative growth and emerging trends in education at all levels, there are several challenges that pose the nation to make education more suitable to the context and needs of the Indian society. This envisages a felt need for the establishment of research organizations carrying out quality research that can provide evidence based insights enabling informed policy decisions.
In this context, Centre for Educational and Social Studies (CESS) was established in 2006 and is a Registered Society that has been working with Indian Education system from inception. CESS engaged in myriad activities in the domain of education for over a decade and positioned itself to meet the current challenges in the society keeping education as a focal point.
CESS has actively engaged in various research pursuits and has successfully completed several projects in the area of education, social sciences, culture and Indic studies. The Centre has strived to draw the attention of stakeholders, including State and Central Governments, on vital issues of education through series of National and State level seminars and publications. It aims to become a catalytic force influencing the policy makers and to be a top think tank in the country.
CESS is committed to bringing about ‘Social Transformation through and with Education’ through Research, Policy Advocacy and Capacity Building in the fields of Education, Health and Public Services.
Highlights
- CESS is recognized as Research Centre in Management by Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, Karnataka.
- CESS entered into MoU with NAAC to work in the areas of data analytics, mentoring internal quality assurance cells and capacity building of colleges.
- It has entered into MoU with Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University, Gadag to jointly conduct Research in Rural Development, Capacity Building of Faculty, Identify new programs that can be introduced and to work jointly in many other mutually interested areas.
- CESS also entered into MoU with Tumkur University, Tumkur to jointly undertake Research projects, Capacity Building of Faculty and Academic Administrators, Accredit the teachers and measure the teaching, Design and evaluation of new courses in education, public health and Indic studies and to work jointly in many other mutually interested areas.
- The Institute has organised conferences, seminars, lecture series and panel discussions in collaboration with prestigious Institutions like Association of Indian Universities, Karnataka State Higher Education Council, NAAC, Bangalore University and various other Universities.
- CESS has brought out publications in the areas of school and higher education.
- Many Projects have been executed in collaboration with Azim Premji Foundation, Government of Karnataka, Karnataka Knowledge Commission, R V Educational Consortium, Institute of Public Health and the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium.
- The Institute carried out in-house research and analysis of Yashpal Committee Report, National Knowledge Commission, National Institutional Ranking Framework, Karnataka State Universities Bill and on Rationalisation Syllabus by NCERT.
- Indic Studies being one of the thrust areas, CESS is investigating philosophies of Sri. Aurobindo, Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda. Also the Institute is developing and theorizing Indian Economic Model and Indian Management thought.