A quick, revision-friendly roundup of national and education-sector news from this week — verified against official PIB sources.
Education & Skill Development
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PM-SETU (Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs) completed one year on 4 October 2026. The ₹60,000 crore scheme (₹30,000 crore Centre + ₹20,000 crore States + ₹10,000 crore Industry) aims to modernise 1,000 government ITIs through a hub-and-spoke model. In its first year, 850 ITIs have been identified (172 Hub + 678 Spoke) and 14 ITI clusters approved, representing over ₹3,446 crore in investment. Each upgraded ITI will run as a Special Purpose Vehicle, with industry partners holding 51% and the government 49%.
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The Education Ministry approved 5 new Centres of Excellence for Classical Languages, via an Office Memorandum dated 1 October 2026 — one for each language granted classical status in October 2024:
- Classical Assamese — Tezpur University, Assam
- Classical Bengali — Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal
- Classical Marathi — Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune
- Classical Pali — Central University of Odisha
- Classical Prakrit — Central University of Gujarat
These centres will focus on research, digitisation, and preservation of each language's textual heritage.
Government Schemes in Focus
- MERITE (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Improvement in Technical Education) remains a key scheme to track — Cabinet-approved with a ₹4,200 crore outlay (including a ₹2,100 crore World Bank loan component), covering 275 technical institutions (175 engineering institutions + 100 polytechnics) and expected to benefit around 7.5 lakh students.
Why This Matters
With India's classical languages now at 11, and schemes like PM-SETU and MERITE pushing vocational and technical education, this is a good moment to revisit the skill-development and multilingualism threads of NEP 2020 — see our NEP 2020 guide for how these connect to pedagogy-linked questions.
Check our News and Current Affairs sections regularly — we only publish updates we've verified against official sources.