Author: Nola Jones

A school that outlives the civilization that created it has a subtly remarkable quality. Yali High School is located on Laodong Road in Changsha, Hunan Province, as if it has always been there, and in many respects it has. Established in 1906 by a group of Yale graduates who thought that education could transcend national boundaries, the institution has endured for more than a century despite political unrest, wars, and forced name changes. It is still present. That conveys a message. The founders, including Warren Seabury, Edward Hume, and Brownell Gage, were neither colonial administrators nor professional diplomats. After graduating…

Tongtex Secondary High School is located on đ峰¹, a street that most people outside the area are unaware of, and is tucked away in Zhudong Township in Hsinchu County, Taiwan. Situated near a nearby train station, the campus is surrounded by the calm, leisurely atmosphere typical of smaller Taiwanese townships. A local shrine and a sports field are both close by. The physical environment doesn’t exude ambition. Nevertheless, this private senior high school, which was established in 1971 and is known by its motto, 勤懇篤實, which means diligence and sincerity, has been gaining recognition well beyond the boundaries of its…

The fallout from the May 2026 collapse of the NEET UG exam was swift and severe. The National Testing Agency had previously experienced controversy, but nothing quite like this: a paper leak, numerous cancellations, irate parents, and sobbing students. Over the next few weeks, there was something between damage control and a thorough reconsideration of the true nature of a national exam. The re-examination, which took place on June 21, was packed with security measures that, to be honest, don’t resemble anything India has ever seen at a civilian testing event. 95,000 exam rooms are equipped with more than 1.38…

A generosity-based land dispute has an almost poetic quality that is also extremely unsettling. Han Chiang School is located in Penang on 12.5 hectares of land that was neither seized nor purchased at a low cost. A philanthropist who thought education was more valuable than the land itself voluntarily donated it. The same gift is now the focus of a multi-court lawsuit that raises issues of law, legacy, and what it means to respect someone’s original intent decades after they have passed away. The story starts in 1948 when the land was placed under a charitable trust created especially to…

On a March evening in 2025, three teenagers perished at a crossroads in Senawang, Negeri Sembilan. Two of them were never able to get off the road. Four days later, the third died in a hospital bed. At the time, the 17-year-old driver struck their motorcycles by running a red light. He entered a guilty plea last week and was given a three-year sentence to attend Henry Gurney School in Melaka. He is now eighteen and uses a walking stick. That sentence will seem either overly forgiving or oddly foreign to a lot of Malaysians. The Henry Gurney School isn’t…

Every first-year university student is familiar with a certain moment. Sitting between the registrar’s office and a partially loaded webpage, you’re attempting to determine whether you are genuinely enrolled in a class or merely wishing you were. It is confusing in a way that seems superfluous. However, that perplexity was only a part of the experience for years. That is beginning to change, though the change is not as significant as you might think. The goal of My Student Compass and other contemporary student information systems is to centralize the entire enrollment and academic administration process. Eliminate the need to…

A well-constructed student center attracts a certain kind of energy. Students in between classes, groups gathering around tables, and the quiet hum of people working things out in real time are more authentic than the forced enthusiasm of an orientation brochure. That energy is carried by Western Michigan University’s Western Student Center. It is located in the center of the main campus, and whether or not that placement was deliberate, it proved to be significant. Structures such as this one often show the true values of a university. What it prioritizes in terms of square footage and concrete, not what…

Seeing a Grammy-winning pop star perform “Love Story” in front of a group of professional football players in Nashville is truly strange. However, that is precisely what occurred this past Tuesday, and for some reason, it didn’t feel out of place at all. This week at Nashville’s FirstBank Stadium, Tight End University, a yearly three-day event started in 2021 by George Kittle, Travis Kelce, and Greg Olsen, concluded its sixth year. What began as a fairly simple football summit—tight ends from all over the league training together, exchanging strategies, and forming bonds—has progressively evolved into something more difficult to define.…

Walking around Ann Arbor on a weekday morning is subtly impressive. Students travel between structures with architectural styles spanning two centuries. Before most people have finished their coffee, researchers are already in the labs. It’s hard to distinguish between the university and the city because they are so entwined. It’s not by accident that something has a sense of permanence, of being made to last. For more than 200 years, the University of Michigan has been doing this. Michigan predates the state itself, having been founded in 1817. It started out as something called the Catholepistemiad, a term that roughly…

It began with a courteous notice. Parents and guardians were asked to enter a Cape Town primary school “neatly and appropriately dressed at all times.”” Clothing with offensive language, dressing gowns, sleep bonnets, and pyjamas were all prohibited. The school even took the time to specify what constitutes appropriate clothing, including dresses, shirts, long pants, jeans, and clean shoes. The entire situation was presented in a delicate, almost contrite manner. However, in a matter of days, the notice sparked a discussion that extended far beyond the school’s boundaries in Cape Town. The fact that a memo regarding adult clothing choices…