India, Australia MoUs between top educational institutions

India and Australia today decided to step up institution partnership, collaboration in school policy, skill development and vocational education at a bilateral meeting, which also witnessed signing of three important MoUs between top educational institutions of the two countries.

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said the education dialogue with Australia "reaffirmed the commitment" made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Turnbull Malcolm in April 2017 "to strengthen the education, training and research relationship" between the two nations.

Javadekar is leading a four-member delegation to Australia to participate in the 4th Australia India Education Council (AIEC) meeting which was held at Adelaide today. "At a bilateral meeting in #Adelaide with the Australian Minister of Education & Training, Mr. Simon Birmingham. Emphasis was given to institution partnership, collaboration in school policy, online education, skill development & vocational education & training," the minister tweeted.

He further said his discussion with Birmingham has been "fruitful" and "will take the India, Australia education cooperation to a new level".

During the meeting, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding between Western Sydney University and India's Centurion University, a joint PhD agreement between Curtin University and the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, and a MoU between Deakin University and the Central University of Jammu.

“Australia and India share many values and aspirations, as well as a fundamental commitment to education,” Birmingham said at the AIEC meet.

Noting that the cooperation between the two nations covers research, international education, academic mobility, skills and training and partnerships with industry, he further said, “During my visit to India last year I saw firsthand a number of the close partnerships already underway and the importance of India as a key education partner.''

Aiming at enhancing its footprints in India's booming education market, Australia also announced a fund of five million AUS dollars for the Melbourne-based Australia India Institute (AII) during the bilateral meet.

“AII will be pivotal in building closer cooperation between institutions both here and in India, boosting the mobility of Indian and Australian students and further supporting shared research priorities," Birmingham said.

The AII was established in 2008 and is hosted at the University of Melbourne. The Institute's mandate is to build knowledge about India among Australian government, business and the wider Australian community.

“Our meetings today and the continued work of the Australia India Institute will help further enhance the footprint of Australian universities and vocational education providers in the booming Indian market,'' Birmingham said.

Many more agreements are expected to be signed in the coming weeks, including a Letter of Intent on solar cooperation between the University of New South Wales and The Energy Resources Institute of India.
“With more than 8,000 co-authored academic publications since 2013, more than 400 research partnerships already in place and over 70 000 Indian students currently studying in Australia, the partnership between Australian and India will continue to go from strength to strength,” Birmingham said.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-trends/india-australia-agree-to-step-up-education-cooperation-2652921.html

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Govt to Dissclose UGC, Wants Your Suggestions For Future of Education System in India

In a potentially game-changing move, the Ministry of Human Resource Development is looking to dismantle the University Grants Commission, the statutory body overseeing higher education in India, and replace it with the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).

The first order of business for the Centre is to repeal the UGC Act of 1956 and replace it with the ‘Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of UGC Act), 2018—a new law that will usher in the HECI.

On Wednesday, the government opened the draft law for public consultations, and one can send their feedback until July 7. Unlike the UGC, the government’s new proposed higher education regulator, the HECI, will perform a diminished role. Among other facets, for example, the HECI will give up its grant-giving function to the Central ministry.

According to The Indian Express (TIE), the mandate for the HECI is to set, maintain and improve academic standards in universities.

“Just like how the ministry funds all technical institutes like the IITs, NITs and IISERs and the AICTE focuses on maintaining standards, the government can easily take over funding of central universities. We want to downsize the regulator’s role. There won’t be any interference in the management issues of educational institutions,” said a ministry official to TIE.

Comprising of 12 members appointed by the Central Government, apart from the chairperson and vice-chairperson, here are some of the functions of the proposed HECI:

1) Evaluate yearly academic performance by institutions and mentor those not maintaining required standards.
2) Specify learning outcomes for courses of study in higher education.
3) Establish an accreditation system for evaluation of academic outcomes by various universities.
4) Teacher training.
5) Promote greater use of technology in the classroom.
6) Set the standards for opening and closing institutions of higher education.
7) Set the standards for appointing heads of universities, including those in exalted positions.
8) Institutions approved by UGC will now have to endure another screen test with the HECI and show they are complying with their academic standards.
9) The education ministry will order the closure of ‘sub-standard institutions’ who do not comply within three years after Parliament passes the new law.

“The chief executive and other members of management of such institutions who do not comply with the penalty imposed by the Commission shall be liable for prosecution as per procedure laid down under the Criminal Procedure Code and may be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend up to three years,” states the draft.

Reports indicate that the idea for reshaping the UGC came from a meeting between Education Minister Prakash Javadekar and ministry officials, where they discussed the possibility of merging the UGC and AICTE. After some internal revolt on the merge, they decided to go ahead with the HECI.

The reaction to this proposed reform has been mixed. The government is naturally backing this move, arguing that the UGC has lost focus on monitoring various facets of regulating universities, reducing itself to just granting funds for educational institutions.

However, academics and concerned citizens are worried about the lack of autonomy, and the potential for greater government interference in higher education.

Instead of HECI with 12 central government appointees, which include among others secretaries from various ministries, decisions pertaining to universities should be left to a transparent and accountable body not swayed by political interests. They believe that the proposed move is a comprehensive assault by the government on the autonomy of universities.

https://www.thebetterindia.com/147856/ugc-news-university-prakash-javadekar/

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Could India’s poor school education system really stall its potential economic progress?

Could education be one of the four horsemen of India’s potential economic apocalypse?

In Chapter 5 of this year’s Economic Survey, tabled in Parliament on Monday, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian lists four factors that could stall India’s push to catch up with the world’s developed economies. One factor is the creation of human capital, or, in the survey’s definition, people capable of doing the jobs on offer.

Here is how it stands: around 40% of children in Classes 3 to 8 cannot complete a reading or subtraction test prescribed for Class 2, with more children in higher classes capable of doing the test than those in lower classes. This means that children are learning, but they are not learning more as they should moving up the classes. The gap between what they know and what they should know is already wide. With technological advances this gap will widen, leaving them unable to take the jobs that advances in technology bring.

All of this is already well known. No one will contest that India’s school system – public and private – is failing its young. That a solid basic education is a necessary condition for accessing all types of opportunities, and especially higher education, is also uncontested. But there seems to be some demand-supply confusion over education and jobs.

While a great deal is said about the unemployability of Indian school-leavers and even graduates, it really is nothing more than hand-wringing. There is no evidence to suggest that investors have been stymied by the lack of prospective employees.

Remember that engineers and engineering degrees did not precede bridge-building or manufacturing. They followed it. The engineering college boom in India in the last two decades too was driven by a low-value-added computer industry. Higher education produced what industry demanded.

The school education system in India is in dire need of reform. And the question economists should be asking is this: why is it that education reforms have thus far failed to grapple with issues of equity (a corollary of quality) and what economic interests underpin the persistence of educational disparities?

https://scroll.in/article/866851/economic-survey-could-indias-poor-school-education-system-really-stall-its-economic-progress

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India and Oman agreed to cooperate in the tourism and educational sectors

Muscat: India and Oman on Monday agreed to cooperate in the tourism and educational sectors. Both countries agreed to expand the cultural cooperation, including through regular exchange of cultural troupes and holding of cultural festivals. The two sides underlined the importance of cooperation in education, including higher education, and agreed to take initiatives to encourage students from each other's countries to join their higher educational institutions.

Oman sought India's support in encouraging India's engineering, management and Information Technology (IT) institutions to collaborate with Omani educational institutions. The two countries expressed satisfaction at the growing tourism exchanges and welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in Tourism, which will contribute in expanding the cooperation between the two countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the King of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said for ensuring continued welfare of the Indian community. He expressed his appreciation of the Omani Sultanate's policy of allowing Indian community in Oman to practice their faith and celebrate their religious and cultural festivals. The two sides welcomed the signing of an agreement on the mutual exemption of visa requirement for holders of diplomatic, official, special and service passports during the visit. Oman also congratulated Prime Minister Modi's initiative in the declaration of June 21 as International Day of Yoga by the United Nations General Assembly in 2014. It also appreciated India's efforts in making yoga popular in the world, which is aimed at creating a healthy and peaceful world.

http://www.sify.com/finance/india-oman-to-cooperate-in-education-tourism-sectors-news-education-scmvaQebfgcgb.html

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