Online Education in India – Going the Right Way

Technology in education is creating a disruption in the higher education sector globally. Heavy textbooks and notebooks are paving the way for technology led means of learning like interactive videos and virtual live learning sessions. Online reading devices, mobiles, tablets, laptops, multiple digital tools and applications are revolutionizing the learning habits of the student community.

According to the Docebo report of July 2014, the global market for self-paced e-learning is growing very fast in the developing economies of the world – the highest being 17.3% in Asia, followed by Eastern Europe (16.9%), Africa (15.2%) and Latin America (14.6%).

Online education has the potential to bridge the gap between the education provider and a student by providing a more engaging, interactive and mass reach platform. Features such as live instructions, video conferencing, remote test administration and peer to peer networking equip online education to complement the brick-and-mortar classroom training. At the same time, innovation will be required to overcome the challenge of low engagement and high dropout rate on the student side and lack of edtech adoption on the faculty side.

Within India, there has been a steady growth in the adoption of blended or hybrid learning models and even complete online delivery models. Institutions in the country like the Indian School of Business and the Indian Institute of Management are experimenting with direct to desktop models for providing executive education while Indian Institute of Technology (Mumbai) has successfully delivered courses on edX. Government and private institutions such as Acharya Nagarjuna University, Annamalai University, Dr. BR Ambedkar Open University, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and Amity University have launched their distance degree programs in online mode. Many training companies have launched courses in areas such including Digital Marketing, Big Data, Healthcare, Law, Finance and more. There has been an emergence of online assessment companies who are supporting these online learning programs by providing rigorous assessment tools.

With new government initiatives such as the Digital India Initiative to drive up the internet penetration and the launch of Swayam (the MOOC Platform), more companies emerging in the space and a very favorable demographic dividend, you can expect to see a lot of action in the field of online education in the coming years!

http://www.iamwire.com/2015/03/online-education-india/111949

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Telangana Epass Fresh Application 2014-15 Scholarship Status

All students of Telangana can apply Fresh applications for 2014-15 in telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in . Application process will start very soon . Candidates can apply in official website telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in

Important announcement for students who are residents and economically backward of Telangana State those are eligible for this E pass fresh scholarship 2014-15. The Telangana E pass fresh scholarship application form is available on the official website www.telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in. We all know that the Telangana government is providing financial support to the student who belongs to economically backward sections. The reservations candidates belong to SC/ST/BC categories with lower income levels are eligible to claim e-pass scholarship.

The students who are pursuing their undergraduate courses in the state of Telangana are eligible to get scholarships from Telangana government. Telangana government has announced scholarship notification for students for the year 2014-2015. The candidates who are eligible to claim scholarship have been already applied through online within the specified dates announced by the Telangana Govt. Now students can get updated with their e-pass scholarship status 2014 on the Official Website of Telangana Govt. www.telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in.

Telangana E-pass scholarship application status:

The candidates will be able to find the status of their Telangana scholarship applications through the official web portal, so that they can relieve from their tension about fee reimbursement. The students claiming e-pass scholarship are instructed to submit the relevant certificates while applying. The students are supposed to attach copies of income certificate, all academic certificate copies including previous year marks lists and caste certificate, Residence Proof to apply for Telangana e-pass scholarship.  The students should apply the e-pass once and they are supposed to renew every year. The students can check their Telangana (TG) e-pass Scholarship Application status 2014-15, e-pass Renewal Application at telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in. Telangana state government has invites online application forms form eligible candidates for Reimbursement of Tuition Fee for the academic year 2014-15.

Telangana E pass Fresh application forms 2014-15 apply online at www.telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in:The e-pass Scholarship system provided financial assistance for so many students who fall under the lower income level. In the previous academic year 2013-14 a grand total of 14.339 lakhs students have applied for tuition fee reimbursement and 922 crores have released for tuition fee and 244.41 crores have released Mess charges. Candidates who belong to the SC, ST categories, whose annual income is Rs. 2 Lakhs or below and BC, EBC, Disabled Welfare Students and whose parental income is RS. 1 lakh or below are eligible for Telangana E-pass fresh scholarship for tuition fee reimbursement 2014-15. The following are the simple steps to get the e pass scholarship. These are very useful for those students who are facing problem and having doubts in attaining e pass scholarship.

Name of the organization: Telangana Electronic Payment & Application System of Scholarships (E-pass)

How to apply for E- Pass Scholarship:

•     Open the official website www.telanganaepass.cgg.gov.in
•     Search for E Pass Application Fresh form & status
•     Click to open the link
•     Application form will be opened in new window
•     Fill all particulars correctly & submit the details
•     Application status gets displayed

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IIM Calcutta announces launch of EPBM Programme with Hughes Global Education India

Hughes Global Education India Ltd (HGEIL) today announced the launch and opening of admission to the Executive Programme in Business Management (EPBM) by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta. Delivered over the Hughes Interactive Onsite Learning platform by the eminent faculty of IIM Calcutta, this programme offers working executives comprehensive learning through lectures and real world case studies including addresses by senior executives from the corporate world.

Sudip Chaudhuri, Programme Director EPBM, IIM Calcutta said, “Businesses across the country have been in need of competent and skilled manpower and we are glad that Hughes Global Education India has helped IIM Calcutta to reach out to smaller and more distant locations.”

The unique Hughes Interactive Onsite Learning Platform, offered by HGEIL provides a live, interactive capability where participants in any part of the country can listen and discuss questions directly with IIM Calcutta faculty members, cutting across geographical constraints. The programme is designed to equip the managers and professionals with diverse perspectives, leadership styles, and the skills required to lead their organizations in the liberalized and deregulated business environments.

Partho Banerjee, President and Managing Director of Hughes Communications India Ltd (HCIL), parent company of HGEIL, said, “The Hughes Interactive Onsite Learning platform has helped candidates located at far-off locations benefit from esteemed institutions like the Indian Institute of Management—Calcutta.”

Eligibility:

Applicants should be working professionals/self-employed;

Applicants should have a minimum 5 years of work experience (full time paid employment) post completion of graduation as on Application Closure date i.e. 24 March 2015;

Graduates (10+2+3) / post-graduates in any discipline with min. 50% marks  (aggregate – considering results of all years (e.g. 3 or 4 together)) recognized by UGC/AICTE.

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'Skill up India' online education portal launched in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: Silicon Valley-based 'Code for India' (CFI), a network of Indian-origin technology professionals launched a free education portal 'Skill Up India' here today.

The portal was launched by CFI's Gujarat chapter, in partnership with iCreate, IIT, Gandhinagar, IIM Ahmedabad, CIIE and US-India Business Council (USIBC).

"Gujarat chapter of CFI today launched its education portal for anybody wishing to learn and teach via internet, in partnership with IIM-Ahmedabad, IIT-Gandhinagar, USIBC and Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurs (CIIE)," Karl Mehta, founder of 'Code for India' and CEO of Silicon Valley educational technology company EdCast, said.

CFI was floated by US-based technologists, designers, and engineers to volunteer their time and talent to give back to the community.

Mehta said that the portal will be like a virtual classroom, where facilities like putting publications along with the courses on various subjects will take place and the people can access it through internet for free.

"Skill Up India is part of the new movement in the country to help our youth with free access to high quality education through online and mobile courses essential to re-focus our workforce to meet the demands of global economy," Mehta added.

"Learning is not a one-way process...We will democratise teaching capability of a person. If your are good at teaching a particular subject, one can easily become teacher to the rest of country," he said.

On the process of subscribing to the portal, Mehta said there is no criteria for subscription as it is "casual and open way of learning, where anybody can subscribe to."

However, screening would be done before the content or course is posted on the website.

Mehta said they would think about providing content in regional languages of India and some of the content has already been available in Hindi.

When asked about the contribution of IIM, Ahmedabad and IIT, Gandhinagar, he said, "Both the premiere institutes believe in open way of learning and that is why they support us."

The free education portal has been supported by iCreate, an autonomous body guided by an advisory board led by technologist N R Narayana Murthy.

iCreate's founding Director Parag Amin said that their attempt is to create a portal where people can learn from best practices of individuals, institutes and corporates.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/education/skill-up-india-online-education-portal-launched-in-gujarat/articleshow/46558712.cms

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Digital Gender Atlas for girls' education in India launched

The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of School Education and Literacy, presented the Digital Gender Atlas for advancing girls' education in India to the media in New Delhi on Monday. The tool, which has been developed with the support of UNICEF, will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities, on specific gender related education indicators.

The Atlas is placed on the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) website and available and ready to use by the states/districts/blocks education administrators or any other interested group. In order to plan and execute educational interventions, the purpose of the Gender Atlas is to help identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities.

To ensure this is feasible, the Gender Atlas has been developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met. The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.

It is constructed on an open source platform with an inbuilt scope of updating data by authorized persons to retain its dynamic character.

Using available government data such as the Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) data (2011-2014), Census 2011 data and District Level Health Survey (DLHS) 2007-08, the Gender Atlas enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls' education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.

No primary data has been generated for the development of the atlas. India has achieved high enrolment rates for girls at primary and upper primary levels of schooling. However, at the secondary level girls' enrolment remains lower. While in upper primary the representation of girls in the total enrolment is 48.66 percent, the percentage in secondary is 47.29 percent.

Girls comprise half the population of school age children, and therefore, it is important to understand the multiple vulnerabilities they face in different areas in order to plan and prioritise inclusive interventions.

The main components of the Gender Atlas are: Composite Gender Ranking, Trend Analysis of Gender Indicators, Vulnerabilities based on educational indicators in districts with substantial tribal, schedule caste, minority population in educationally backward blocks and in left wing extremist districts, and the low sex ratio districts selected under 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programme.

Vrinda Sarup, the Secretary of School Education and Literacy, was also present on the occasion. Additional Secretary (School Education and Literacy), and other senior officers and dignitaries from the Ministry of HRD as well as the UNICEF were also present on the occasion.

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Harvard again ranked as world's best university, no Indian institute makes it to the list

America's Harvard University remains number one in a ranking of 100 most prestigious education institutions across the world, followed by Cambridge and Oxford universities of the UK. The list does not feature any Indian university.

According to the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2015, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of the US was pushed to the fourth spot by the University of Oxford, and Stanford University was pushed to the fifth spot by the University of Cambridge, reported IANS.

Among Asian nations, Japan's University of Tokyo stood at the 12th spot. The rankings revealed that London and Paris have the maximum number of the top universities, with five universities each featuring in the list.

The United States took eight of the top 10 positions and 43 of the top 100 places, down from 46 last year followed by Britain, which has 12 such universities, up from 10 last year and nine in 2013, the report said.

As India failed to make its mark, the report quoted Times Higher Education Rankings editor Phil Baty telling, "It is really a matter of concern that a country of India's great intellectual history and its huge and growing economic power does not have a single university that is regarded by academics globally as being among the world's most prestigious."

Baty added, "Brazil, Russia and China, the other "BRIC" nations, all have at least one top-100 university in this prestigious list. It is time India gave more support to its leading universities to ensure that they can compete on a world stage."

As far as other BRIC countries are concerned, Russia's Lomonosov Moscow State University achieved its highest position yet at the 25th spot. Brazil's University of Sao Paulo jumped from the 81-90 group to the 51-60 band. China too has gained ground as its top institution, Tsinghua University, rose 10 places to 26th, while Peking University too moved up nine places to reach the 32nd spot.

The 2015 World Reputation Rankings are based on 10,507 responses from 142 countries conducted between December 2014 and January 2015. In all, 21 countries are represented in the list.

The poll attracted almost 70,000 responses from more than 150 countries in five annual rounds since the first survey in 2010.


Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/worlds-best-university-indian-institure-harvard-oxford-ranking/1/423389.html

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School Education Set to go Online in Telangana

HYDERABAD: The school education is all set to go online in Telangana State. The school education department is planning to prepare online portals where the digitised lessons will be shared online with the schools across the state.

Recently the school education department and the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) proposed to build  online portals which will be made accessible to both private and government schools in the state.

According to the proposal, the school textbooks will be digitised and will be uploaded on the portals. To simplify  learning experience for children, the officials are planning to use animated pictures in the digital lessons. Unlike the lessons in printed textbooks, online lessons will have more pictures and less text, said a senior official of the school education department. They will be available in both English and Telugu languages, he added. 

Apart from providing lessons, the online portal would also help students and teachers to interact with subject experts. They can get the doubts clarified in any subject by using the portals, the officials explained. There is also a plan to have social media platforms for every subject where the discussion forums can be operated. This proposal was addition to the online portals.

The officials are planning to launch the portals by beginning of the next academic year. Since many of the schools have no access to computers, the government is focusing more on computerisation. Currently, only 4000 schools in the state have full-fledged computer labs. As the computerisation of government schools is still under progress, the officials propose to launch the online teaching in various stages.

Earlier, under MANA TV programme, the government used to telecast recorded lessons on television. But the scheme worked only for few years.

The officials found out that the lessons in MANA TV programme remained unchanged for years. To avoid that, it was also proposed to keep updating the lessons in the online portals. It will work like a continuous teacher training programme, said an official from the SCERT.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/School-Education-Set-to-go-Online-in-Telangana/2015/03/10/article2706488.ece

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New Education System in Offing in Telangana

HYDERABAD: As part of the KG-to-PG free education programme, the Telangana government is said to be planning to introduce a new education system and establish a residential education complex in every Assembly constituency in the state. With the intention of bringing all the government educational institutes at single place, the government has recently proposed to build new residential education institutes across the state.

According to the recent proposal, institutes ranging from high schools to degree and PG colleges will be set up at a selected place where students will also be provided accommodation. This is going to be similar to the model of existing social welfare and tribal welfare residential schools, says an official of the State Council of Education and Research Training (SCERT). 

Deputy chief minister and education minister Kadiam Srihari has recently held a review meeting with officials of school education, SCERT and the Telangana State Public Service Commission and discussed the KG-to-PG free education scheme.

According to officials of the school education department, several proposals on reforms in school and higher education were discussed at the review meeting. Introduction of residential education system and free KG-to-PG education from the next academic year were the major subjects of discussion. Another brainstorming session on the KG-to PG-free education scheme is likely to be held on February 18 or 19 to prepare a draft which will be sent to chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for approval.

As earlier announced, English medium of instruction will be introduced in schools but so there is no clarity whether it will be introduced at Nursery or Class V. There are also proposals to introduce vocational courses which are most likely to be introduced in high school. Officials favour their introduction in Class IX and Class X.

To improve the teaching methods, the government is thinking of revising the  teacher training programmes. In addition to the annual training sessions, quarterly refreshing courses are likely to be held for government school teachers.




http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/New-Education-System-in-Offing-in-Telangana/2015/02/17/article2672601.ece

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Digital India: Indian education system has a great opportunity

Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Ltd

It is great to see that the current Union government has set the ball rolling on a New Education Policy. That this is being revisited after nearly 30 years does not take away from the fact that it has come at a critical juncture- when India is staring at a surging youth population, set to be the world's largest in 2020.

While most of the pressing concerns like re-assessing the government's spend on education, access to quality education, innovation, research, regulation, poor ranking of our higher institutes globally and education financing etc. have been factored into the vision document, much will depend on how calibrated the government's approach to solutions will be.

The education sector is in dire need of new thinking and complementing radical steps. Traditionally, in the education sector, the challenge has not been so much about knowing what to do, rather the challenge has been to have the nerve and the action orientation to do what is required. The current government has to plan for a whole generation of young people who are thirsting for access to quality education.

The time for incrementally relevant decisions is over, because we have simply run out of time. The time now is for radically big leaps. It is imperative, therefore, that the HRD minister acts with boldness, speed and vision and our new education policy reflect this. Only then can we hope to see visible impact in the short term, since we do not have the luxury of simply planning for the long term for our large, impatient young population with their pent up hopes and aspirations.

So, what should the government do? Some key things, are the answer:

Digital education: the Mahamantra

The Indian education system has a great opportunity to go digital, thereby leapfrogging the progress in education that other countries have done. Over the past 8-9 years, Indian schools and students have demonstrated that their ability to adapt to digital technology is no less than anybody else in the world.

It is a fact that today many private schools in India which use products like Smartclass are way ahead of the technology adoption curve than many other schools in the US, Singapore and even Japan. There is a great opportunity in front of us to take e-education and spread it across the country.

The advantages are quite obvious. With one stroke, we will be able to deal with the critical teacher shortage problem and also the teacher quality problem. We will also be able to make education contextualized, localized, relevant and consistent across the country.

It has been proven through multiple studies that when kids are exposed to multi sensory and multimedia education, they absorb better and they are able to retain the learning content. One of the perennial problems in the Indian education has been the huge drop out ratio because students in school do not find education relevant or contextual to their surroundings.

Using high quality digital materials will immediately ensure that every learner in the country will find it a joy to go school and immediately cut down the dropout rate. In the past, many proposals have been made to the government regarding e-education and this could be an opportune time to take up digital class room and digital education across the country.

Unshackling Education:

When you consider it has taken about 60 years to create 1,200 odd Kendriya Vidyalaya, you know that your strategy is not working. Clearly, what is needed is to supplement new schools, institutions on a war footing. For decades we have limited the supply of schools due to self imposed illogical constraints on volumes by keeping private investment out of education.

And yet, there seems to be no rationale to limit the participation of private capital in education. Various estimates suggest that in case private capital is freely allowed to participate in education, it can unleash an investment of over 10,000 crores over the next 12 months. That's a huge sum of money and is the equivalent of building 1,000 new schools. When you consider it has taken about 60 years to create 1,200 odd Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, the logic argument for private investment in education makes sense.

But what prohibits private capital now to enter education? Current regulations only permit non proprietary and non-profit bodies from getting recognition or affiliation from state education authorities or national education board such as CBSE and ICSE.

What is interesting is that this is not the law, this is merely the fine print of regulation that has created a whole bunch of anomalies in the education sector. With a stoke of a pen allowing all kinds of bodies, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, to set up educational institutions, will overnight create an investment environment which will attract capital, not just from India but all over the world.

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How to Apply for Telangana EAMCET 2015 Online Application?

Follow below mentioned steps carefully to apply online for Telangana EAMCET 2015.

1.     First visit the Official website of TS EAMCET.
2.     Now find the EAMCET 2015 Online Application and click on it.
3.     Download the Application form and first pay registration fees of 250/ – at any mee seva center to get application ID nad registration number.
4.     Login with that and fill online application and submit the details.
5.     Upload the respective scanned copies which are suggested
6.     Finally check all provided details and submit the button.

TS State Telangana Eamcet 2015 Application form Submission Dates:
Applications will be Taken through online from 28th February 2015 till 9th April 2015 without any late fee. After also Application will be Taken with following late fee

Last date to submit online application with late fee of Rs.500/- : 15 – 04 – 2015

Last date to submit online application with late fee of Rs.1000/- : 22 – 04 – 2015

Last date to submit online application with late fee of Rs.5000/- : 5 – 05 – 2015

Last date to submit online application with late fee of Rs.10000/- : 12 – 05 – 2015

Students will be allowed to make any corrections in their applications between 15 and 20th April without any additional fee.

For Detailed Telangana Eamcet 2015 official Notification and important guidelines and required documents to submit Online Application and procedure to submit Telangana EAMCET 2015 Application Form, candidates are required to visit official website of Telangana state of Eamcet.
Important Dates of Telangana EAMCET 2015:

•     Telangana EAMCET Notification 2015 Date – 25th Feb, 2015
•     Telangana EAMCET Online Application Form – 28th Feb, 2015
•     Download EAMCET Hall Ticket 2015 – 8th May, 2015
•     Date of Eamcet Examination 2015 – 14th May, 2015
•     Telangana Eamcet Results 2015 – 28th May, 2015

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