The cuts to education system plan for budget cuts in government special needs education, school buses, teacher

The cuts, as reported by Channel 10 on Tuesday evening, will result in the cancellation of weekly school hours for all grades—from elementary school through middle school and high school—which would help save NIS 500 million.

The remaining NIS 500 million will be cut from the Education Ministry's budget. In addition to the teachers, at-risk youth are also expected to pay the price of the cuts, as the program aimed at dealing with drop-outs will suffer budget cuts.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett's office has declined to comment on the planned cuts and their ramifications.

Officials in the Education Ministry, however, attempted to allay the fears. "There's a plan for budget cuts in all government ministries. It doesn't necessarily mean teachers will be fired; we can make cuts in other places. The Education Ministry has a budget of NIS 53 billion a year and we can also cut instead from special needs education, school buses, teacher's assistants, and in other areas. We still don't know where the cuts will be made. We're negotiating with the Finance Ministry."

The officials added that "firing teachers is the most complicated action we can take, as teachers have a lot of protection and their unions would object."

Yossi Wasserman, the chairman of the Israel Teachers' Union, said on Tuesday: "Under no circumstance will we accept or allow the firing of teachers. The education system needs support and an upgrade, not cuts and dismissals."

In addition to the cuts to the education system, the Finance Ministry is planning on cutting some NIS 100 million from higher education.

"The Finance Ministry is working to improve and streamline the education system," the ministry said in a statement. "The Education Ministry's budget has increased by a significant percentage in recent years and is expected to grow this year as well. The claims that teachers would be fired are baseless."


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4839819,00.html

Read More

The Scottish government Senior councillors from across Scotland to discuss the education policy

The Scottish government has said raising attainment is a key priority.

Education conveners from 28 local authorities, which run schools, will debate the issue at the meeting hosted by council umbrella body Cosla.

They are expected to focus on how money resulting from council tax changes will be spent.

From next April, people in the most expensive homes will pay more.This is because the multiples between the different property bands will change - those in the most expensive bands will pay more, irrespective of whether a council decides to put up the basic level of the council tax.

The government wants the £100m this is expected to raise handed to headteachers to spend directly on their schools - specifically on schemes to help raise attainment and close the gap between how well youngsters from relatively rich and poor backgrounds do.

Some in local government want to ensure councils retain the freedom to decide for themselves just how much they need to spend on education and would want to automatically retain all the extra money from the council tax changes.
Attainment fund

Critics also fear that the government could, in effect, decide to put the money into a national pot to redistribute back to councils or individual schools. Some areas would receive more or less than they would have raised locally.

Some councils would react furiously to any attempt by central government to take the money from them or dictate just how it would be spent.

No decisions have been taken yet by the Scottish government although it has made it clear it wants all the extra money spent on education.

The issue is likely to come up during the talks between councillors and the government over next year's funding package.

On Monday, Education Secretary John Swinney told BBC Scotland there were "detailed arrangements to be discussed with local government" on future changes.

He explained: "We made clear in our election manifesto that we would change some of the aspects of council collection, to expand the bands and increase some of the thresholds and that would generate £100m which we would invest in the attainment fund."


http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-37032110

Read More

Higher education system is time to reform India now

The writing is on the wall. India’s higher education system is in crisis and everyone is paying a hefty price for it: students, parents, industry, society and the nation.

Private coaching costs of preparing for premier institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) have soared by 250 to 500 times in the last 30 years. Over the same period, the time required to prepare for the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (IITJEE) has gone up from a one-year grind to four years at a minimum.

As if this wasn’t enough, parents are investing in 24/7 preparation by sending their children to coaching factories in places like Kota. Students are facing extreme pressure, anxiety and uncertainty of receiving admissions into premier institutions, and some pay the ultimate and tragic price of committing suicide.

This pressure has found another outlet: cheating and corruption. The Vyapam scandal, where students cheated, parents paid bribes to politicians and bureaucrats, and all of them colluded with police to facilitate the cheating, is a case study of everything that is wrong with the higher education system in India.

Adding insult to injury, 75-90% of students graduating from colleges are considered unemployable by the industry. As a result, corporations are investing in training of six to 12 months to make these recent graduates ready for productive work. India is facing many mega-scale challenges such as water, energy and health. These challenges can also be tracked back to inadequacies of the current higher education system.

Families are voting with their wallets and their feet. Middle-class parents are spending one-third of their monthly income on private coaching. Lower-income parents are selling their assets or taking loans for the same cause. Those who can afford to send their children overseas for university.

There is a full-blown crisis on India’s hands. In the recent past, the nation has done well in times of crisis: the green revolution for the food crisis, and the white revolution for the milk crisis. Today, it is time for a Gray Revolution for the “gray matter” or the nerve center of society and the nation: its higher education system.Gray Revolution: Transforming India’s higher education system

In India, higher education is all post-secondary education, which includes universities, colleges and vocational schools. The higher education system prepares professionals for all sectors of the economy, including teachers for primary and secondary schools. In a vibrant system, colleges and universities are the enablers of research, innovation and entrepreneurship. Perhaps, most importantly, they prepare individuals for their lives and future careers. They also address problems facing society and the nation.

The Gray Revolution alludes to comprehensive reforms of India’s higher education system. It focuses on three key dimensions: scale and speed; scope and structure; and excellence and impact.

This author discussed these at length in the recently published book, Building Golden India: How to Unleash India’s Vast Potential and Transform Its Higher Education System. Now. A few key ideas from the book are outlined below.
Scale and Speed

India must provide excellent higher education to all within one generation.

The gross enrollment ratio (GER) is a percentage of students enrolled in higher education institutions out of the total number of people aged 18-23 years old. Most developed nations have a GER in the 50-95% range. By contrast, India’s GER is around 23% and lags behind developed countries by a wide margin.

India is a young nation of 1.3 billion people where an additional 20-26 million children are born every year. These demographics could be a dividend but also a liability. Students with inadequate knowledge and skills will be unable to compete in the global marketplace that seeks well-prepared professionals. Unemployment or underemployment for youth, especially after getting worthless degrees, could be a catalyst for violence and a forceful demand for more reservations in education, jobs and promotions. There are several early warning signs on this front.

Delivering a demographic dividend will depend entirely on providing excellent higher education to all. Thanks to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), technological advancements and related innovations, scaling at speed with excellence is a real possibility.
Scope and Structure

India’s colleges and universities must aspire to prepare young men and women for their lives and careers. They also have to provide multiple pathways for students to realize their potential.

India’s colleges and universities are structured to have a narrow scope. Elite institutions, including the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), serve less than 0.5% of the total students enrolled in colleges and universities. These are all narrowly specialized institutions focused on just engineering, business or medicine.

At the other end, the affiliated college system, which serves over 75% of students in higher education, has become a thriving hub for making money and printing degrees. As a result, most undergraduate students do not have access to research and innovation. Rote learning is rampant.According to Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “Politicians have emerged as the single largest provider of new higher educational institutions.” With 50-80% of the colleges owned or operated by politicians or their families, this nexus is driving a race to the bottom. It is no wonder why India is still using British Raj regulations and “divide and conquer” philosophy.

India must end these British-era thinking and practices such as narrowly specialized institutions and an affiliated college system.
Excellence and Impact

India’s higher education institutions must aspire to become world-renowned and make an impact to society and the nation.

Existing multidisciplinary universities have lost their way and most have seen a decline in their reputation, selection and rigor. After nearly 70 years of independence, India does not have one world-class multidisciplinary research university, and just one university, the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, is ranked in the top 500 globally.

These three big ideas will address the scale and speed, scope and structure, and excellence and impact dimensions:

1) Establish world-class multidisciplinary research universities

2) Create a master plan for every state and union territory

3) Attract the best and the brightest talent to be faculty members
Establish world-class multidisciplinary research universities

India must establish 50 to 100 world-class multidisciplinary research universities. This could include a mix of newly established universities and transforming some of the existing premier institutions.
Create a master plan for every state and union territory

Each state must establish an integrated higher education master plan to provide an excellent education for all its residents. The mix of institutions could include world-class multidisciplinary research universities, Master’s and Bachelor’s degree-granting colleges, and community colleges. The community colleges would be responsible for vocational education, remedial training and preparing students to transfer to research universities and Master’s and Bachelor’s degree-granting colleges.
Attract the best and the brightest talent to be faculty members

The success of the Gray Revolution rests entirely on the shoulders and gray matter of India’s faculty members. One of the fundamental changes India must institutionalize is a radically new compensation and incentive structure for faculty members. Their total compensation and incentive structure has to be benchmarked with the local industry and global faculty compensation, and not pegged to the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) or any other government category pay scales. A flexibility to pay differential salaries based on market forces and merit must be part of this transformation.

Along with the transformed compensation structure, culture and rewards and recognition, India must also ensure that the processes to train, select and retain faculty members are of the highest standards.Finally, India must adopt the tenure system to improve accountability in the faculty as the United States and many other countries have done.

Most dynamic societies are defined by their higher education institutions. Once, Nalanda University from ancient India was home to great minds, and scholars from around the world flocked there. Today, Harvard, Stanford and many US universities rule the roost. A staggering 146 universities in top 500 of global ranking are in America. These universities add tremendous cultural, intellectual and economic heft to the US.

California was the first state to develop the master plan that has been adopted across the US. Due in large measure to its higher education system, California is home to a thriving economy and diverse industries such as agriculture, entertainment, financial and business services, manufacturing, tourism, life sciences and health care, trade and high-technology.

Stanford University transformed from a regional university in 1940s to its current elite status by attracting the best and the brightest talent as faculty members. In 2014, Stanford University start-ups generated $2.7 trillion in annual revenues.

China is taking a leaf out of the US playbook by transforming its higher education system. India can and must do better. A country that can send an orbiter to Mars, build nuclear bombs, have its people win Nobel prizes and lead Fortune 500 companies can certainly transform its ailing higher education system.

To quote a Chinese proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.” The time to plant the sapling of higher education transformation is now.


http://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/time-reform-indias-education-system-now-23203/

Read More

Adhitya Iyer education system is the deadliest terrorist organisation in india

.says Adhitya Iyer, author of The Great Indian Obsession, who left home for two years and travelled across the country to find out why Indian parents are obsessed with getting their children to study Engineering.

If 3 Idiots were to be remade, Adhitya Iyer would be glad to play Aamir Khan’s Rancho. For him, learning is more important than the college degrees and only logic does the talking. That’s probably why he didn’t like the idea of engineering from day one. What did he do instead? A start-up that sells T-shirts with lines from the average frustrated engineering student printed on them. And, ironically, that’s what exactly got him into the list of the country’s top 30 young entrepreneurs. But that’s just the beginning of the story.

He then came down to Bengaluru, worked in another startup that essentially sold chai (tea), spoke to dozens of IT workers and quit that job to travel across 10 states to find the answer to one simple question — “How did I end up here?” This led to another interesting story which the world knows as The Great Indian Obsession — the book that became the highest selling crowdfunded book in India and the sixth highest in Asia. It was through this journey that Adhitya Iyer presents to you the world’s most interesting educational story. Excerpts from an extra witty interview...How did you go from taking a trip to writing a book?

It was a series of experiences. Firstly, even I was tricked into getting into an engineering college because I was good with Maths and Physics. And as we know,  this combination is pretty lethal, by default. During my college days, I realised that engineering is not my thing. So to vent my frustration, I set up this start-up while in college. This earned me a lot of laurels, including the tag of top 30 young entrepreneurs of the country. Then I moved to Bengaluru where I essentially sold tea. Ummm well, it was a start-up. Bengaluru has more engineers than all of Silicon valley. Not just engineers, they are engineers frustrated with life. Most of these customers I used to talk to, while at the start-up, had similar experiences about how they were tricked. That was the last straw and I wanted to write a book on this issue.

You said you sold tea? Really?

Yeah, it sounds weird, I know. But we are so intrigued by our lives that people fail to see the absurdity of it. For me, it was a start-up founded by a Howard graduate and I wanted to explore thigs. But for my mother, it was a nightmare. I had so many cousins and not surprisingly, they were all engineers. It is embarrassing to tell people that you work at a chai point. “Can you tell me something fancy about it or at least make it sound fancy in front of the relatives,” she used to tell me.Coming back to the book, the funds were all from random people?

I took to crowd funding and 301 generous people gave me money to write a book, so it turned out pretty well. My challenge was to make people understand what crowdfunding is and then make them pay. We had a good campaign video that helped. But the usual engineering student’s last moment brain did wonders and things fell in place. I could write another book on the crowdfunding experience.

Did your childhood play any role in writing this book?

I come from a TamBrahm family, so you can do the math (chuckles). We moved from Saudi to India just so that they could put me into engineering. It is just a natural thing in my family. Ever since a kid, I didn’t know anything else. Growing up, I wanted to figure out the cause of this obsession.

So, what do really think of the Indian Education system?

The Indian education system is India’s deadliest terrorist organisation. Even if you look at the numbers, the number of kids that have killed themselves due to the pressure of academics is just disturbing. But the only bright spot is the competitive environment. So, I knew there was no point competing with these people because no matter how hard I try, this is not something I want to do. It was not my thing and thus I started exploring other things, started reading, and then the start-up happened. That’s where I found my space.

Let’s talk about your 10-state tour. What was that like?

I quit in 2013 and thought a small tour will help me write the book. But my visit to Kanpur changed this. There were people shooting each other in Kanpur, there was a proper gang war. Unfortunately, these were not gangsters but educated coaching class teachers. That day, I knew that there is a larger story and I should spend more time travelling.

Let’s talk about the highest and the lowest points of your journey.

My lowest point of the journey was in Hyderabad. I basically call it the prison journey. Have you seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption? There are places in Hyderabad where students are locked inside a room and they are not allowed to come outside. They are cut off from the outside world. In that coaching institute, one boy had blood cancer. His mother did not know it, his father knew it, I knew it and the hostel dean knew it. He was still made to study in that institute. How crazy was that? For all we know that guy may not have lived till the exam and still, his father wanted him to crack IIT. That was the darkest point in my journey. To be very honest, the journey did not have many high points. It is just the way the book is written that people find it interesting and can relate to it.

There must have been something that kept you going?

It was curiosity. I wanted to know how I ended up like this. We are such a diverse country and we have been given so many choices in everything from language to food etc. How are we obsessed with this? In the process, I knew I was also catering to the curiosity of other people like me.

So, how is your super-traditional family taking it?

They were not really happy. But fortunately, I had awards, I had a good 10-minute coverage on TV. So, they had something to tell others. But now that I am 27, the alarm is ringing again.

What’s next? Another witty book?

The book has taken a lot of my energy, both emotionally and physically. But, I want this same story to come out from some other medium. I want this to reach people in every way it can. So, maybe it will be a movie or a short video. Well, I am an engineer, I will figure it out at the last moment somehow. (laughs)

On the indian trail

“There are places in Hyderabad where students are locked inside a room and they are not allowed to come outside. They are cut off from the outside world. In that coaching institute, one boy had blood cancer. His mother did not know it, father knew it, and I knew it and the hostel dean knew it. He was still made to study in that institute.”

“There were people shooting each other in Kanpur, there was a proper gang war. Unfortunately, these were not gangsters but educated coaching class teachers.”

His visit to a cram school in the city of Hyderabad was the darkest point of his journey. Boys and girls aren’t allowed to talk to each other and are forced to study 16 hours a day.Just days before his visit a young boy just escaped out of the window. He did not bother to take any of his belongings.

When 301 people from all over the world contributed more than $14,000, crowdfunding history was created. The crowdfunding was for the book The Great Indian Obsession

The book happened because Adhitya Iyer, author of the book, left home on a backpacking trip across 10 states of the country to understand the obsession of engineering among the students and their families

The book is about his experiences while travelling, experiences of students that he met while traveling and how the Indian education system needs to be transformed from “the deadliest terrorist organisation to something people can be happy about”

The book is inspired by his own childhood as well. Adhitya grew up in a Tamb-Brahm family. His family moved from Saudi to India just so that they could put him into engineering, something he says is normal for his family. Ever since then, he was desperate to find the cause of this crazy obsession with engineering

Adhitya wants people to hear this story through other media as well. He hopes to produce a short film someday

http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/edex/Indias-education-system-is-the-deadliest-terrorist-organisation-Adhitya-Iyer/2016/08/08/article3563973.ece

Read More

The Union government no provision for reservation in jobs and education in the transgender Bill

The Union government has made no provision for reservation in jobs and education in the transgender Bill that was introduced in the Lok Sabha this week.

According to an earlier draft of the Cabinet note prepared by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, all transgender persons, barring those who are not from Scheduled Castes and Schedules Tribes, were to be considered in the reservation quota for Other Backward Castes (OBC).

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016, introduced by Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot in Lok Sabha Tuesday, however, has no mention of the reservation. Sources in the ministry said that it was dropped because of protests by OBC groups who feared this would shrink their share of the pie.

The earlier draft Cabinet note had a section on reservation in employment. It read, “Those transgender persons who by birth do not belong to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe may be declared as Backward Class and be entitled to reservation under the existing ceiling of OBC category.”

As for transgender persons belonging to SC and ST communities, they were to take benefit under the existing reservation quota available for these categories, it had said. “Ever since the draft was circulated by us, the ministry received representations from OBC groups who were staunchly opposed to the proposed move,” said a ministry source.

The government had to take up the issue of reservation under OBC quota for transgenders following an August 2014 recommendation by the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) in favour of the inclusion of transgenders in the central list of OBCs.

“The Supreme Court judgment in the case filed by the National Legal Services Authority vs Union of India said that the Centre should treat them as socially and educationally backward classes and provide them with the reservations available to them. We elaborated on the SC order in our report and said that all transgenders from forward castes should be given reservation under the existing 27 per cent quota for OBC,” said NCBC member S K Kharventhan.The government Bill on transgenders’ rights came in the wake of a similar Bill introduced in Rajya Sabha by DMK MP Tiruchi. The private member Bill, the first such to be passed in over four decades, spoke of reservation in not only jobs but also in education — an assured two per cent reservation.

“Instead of two per cent, it could even be 0.5 per cent but it has to be only horizontal reservation. This means that within the existing reservation quota for OBCs, SCs and STs, there must be an assured per cent of reservation for transgenders as they cannot easily get jobs and education if they are made to compete with others in each category. However the Bill introduced in Lok Sabha has nothing on reservation; it is entirely toothless,” said Siva.

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/transgender-bill-has-no-provision-for-quota-in-jobs-education-2954328/

Read More

The empowering girls and re-training parents in Indian school Is working to end child marriage

Habitually wiping the moisture off her brow, Kunti Rawat deftly rings up a sale while waving in a string of shoppers to Didi’s Food in Lucknow, India, where she is second in command.

Her older sisters were child brides, but she holds a Master’s degree in business administration, an unlikely accomplishment for a village girl in a region of India notorious for selective abortions of girls and the use of gang rape to subjugate women. Of the world’s 720 million women married in childhood, a third live in India, where domestic abuse often stomps out academic aspiration.

But Rawat has no interest in fitting the mold. Tidily dressed in slim black jeans and a white top, her look is a sharp contrast to the women in Lucknow, who are dressed head to toe in colorful salwar kemeez.

“It’s because of Prena,” Rawat said, referring to her high school. There, teachers taught her to challenge patriarchy, drawing straight from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. At Prena, girls perform above the national average, and almost all of them finish 12th grade. They also march every year in the capital of their state in a formation of flowing peach uniforms to demand an end to violence against women and child marriage.

With recent honor killings—the murder of one family member by another due to the belief that the victim brought shame on the family—in Pakistan and Afghanistan, people are starting to take note of Prena and education that empowers girls as a powerful antidote to gender-based violence.

Research showing tremendous payback for investments made early on in a girl’s life is driving more funding. The U.S. announced $70 million in funding to support adolescent girls in Pakistan, and First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let Girls Learn is a multi-million dollar program for adolescent girls abroad.

We went to Prena to sit in on what they call “critical dialogues,” conversations of the sort that don’t usually happen in a school, but should. These discussions often turn to the pressures that so many face—to drop out and marry—but the girls have other concerns as well. In one, after a 9th grader named Shailly told the group how she was harassed by the bus driver on the way to school, her classmates bolstered her courage. In another, the girls improvised a play about a maid trapped in an abusive household. Another 9th grade girl told us the dialogues help them “get ideas for how to deal with our problems.”

The founder of Prena, Dr. Urvashi Sahni, started teaching in her backyard while a young mother and studying herself. She’s been teaching for 30 years, and it’s deeply personal for her. When Sahni was 24-years old, her cousin burned to death—it was either a suicide or a murder at the hands of her abusive husband and in-laws. The cousin’s 2-year-old son was in the house when she died.

Now Sahni protects her students from that kind of abuse. For example, her former student Khushboo was 16 when her father threatened to douse her in kerosene and burn her if she continued at Prena. Sahni went to his house and confronted him, reminding him of his obligation to educate his daughter. That night, he beat Kushboo. Sahni soon found out and called protective services and the police. Still he wouldn’t relent, and so Kushboo moved in with her grandmother and kept coming to Prena. Now Kushboo, a slender woman with lively eyes, has a Master’s degree in gender studies.

Sahni’s curriculum pushes girls to reflect on their lives and to develop strategies to stand up for themselves. Sometimes the girls can’t escape family pressures, and so they work around them. One of Sahni’s students apologized for burning her book corners; she was studying while cooking lentils for her family.

About 800 girls attend Prena, paying only $1.5 per month, which Sahni calls a “commitment fee,” although its often forgiven for girls who can’t pay. Sahni also founded the Study Hall Educational Foundation which, in addition to other programs, runs a well-respected private school serving middle class families in Lucknow. Prena holds its classes on the Study Hall school campus in the afternoon. The double shifting lets Sahni keep Prena fees low, and is also practical: most Prena students work and can’t study in the mornings.

This month, parents streamed through Prena’s courtyard and into an auditorium for a back-to-school meeting. But rather than discuss the calendar and the grading policy, Sahni held forth on the perils of child marriage. Ceiling fans blew hot air on the crowd while a panel of students spoke. One recounted how her parents had been furious when she declined to get married and instead stayed in school, “but now they are very proud of me,” she said. Before leaving, the principal asked each parent to sign a promise to keep their daughters in school at least until graduation.

“We want parents to understand that their daughters’ rights are underpinned by the constitution,” Sahni said. “And even though our bond isn’t legal tender, in many ways it morally binds them.”

A prolific social entrepreneur, Sahni also founded Didi’s Food, where she employs 65 Prena graduates and their mothers. A former Ashoka fellow, several years ago we recruited her to be an Echidna Scholar, a fellowship program for global advocates for girls’ education at the Brookings Institution. From there she planned the expansion of Prena’s work into India’s public schools. Through this, Sahni is now reaching about 100,000 girls in 1,000 schools.

Back at Didi’s, Rawat works with electric determination, perhaps learned from Sahni, whom she calls “Auntie.” Her older sisters were married as young as 9, but her younger sisters will all graduate and get degrees. “I made a huge mistake marrying off my girls” Rawat’s father says of his first four daughters. “But now I have learned.”

http://time.com/4428450/india-child-marriage-education/

Read More

The pro Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University in quality a big challenge for the Indian education sector

Jumpstart Goes to School, a seminar concentrating on children’s education, was held in the Capital today. This two-day seminar is focusing on the education in theory and in practice as well as school education with regard to children’s content.

Delivering the keynote address, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University, Vineet Gupta, himself an IITian and a first generation entrepreneur, highlighted the key aspects and challenges of the Indian education system.

Gupta said that India has the largest higher education system in the world in terms of institutions. “We have about 712 universities and 36,671 colleges. We are also the largest market for higher education with a population of 14 crore in the the 18-23 years age group,” he said.

According to Gupta, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) at the school entry level is 93 per cent which drops to 36 per cent at the higher secondary level. “The system of education is more input based which deteriorates the output. Half the students cannot read a text and two-thirds cannot do simple arithmetic after primary school,” he elaborated.

Talking about the challenges of higher education in India, Gupta said that quality is a big challenge for the Indian education sector. “We need to focus on faculty development and training. We’ve left the training of teachers to government institutions. There is shortage of 12 lakh teachers at the school level. In a Central Teacher Eligibility Test conducted by the CBSE recently, only six per cent of the seven lakh graduates who appeared for the exam passed the test,” he said.

Among the panelists present for the first half of the seminar were educator Preminda Langar, Australian author Ken Spillman, CEO of Institute of Digital Learning, Munich, Dr Florian Sochatzy and children’s books writer and illustrator, Orit Bergman.

Langar enlightened the audience about the need for experience-based learning right from the primary level. She said that learning needs to inculcate the physical, emotional, social, cerebral, moral and ethical, as well as spiritual aspects. “We need to focus on helping create more scientists than focus on science, more authors than scribes,” she said.

Spillman, who spoke about bringing technology to education in order to enhance learning, said, “Technology is not just for learning but is a great place to connect.” He added that educators need to be themselves as humans respond better to others when they see that others are real.

Jumpstart, started in 2009, began as a series of workshops and seminars focusing on children’s books. The workshop is organised annual by the German Book Office (GBO), New Delhi, which is a joint venture of the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Foreign Ministry of Germany. GBO New Delhi serves as a portal for projects related with content, publishing and exchange between South Asia, Germany and the international book market.

The seminar is being held at the India International Centre, New Delhi, and will continue till August 3, 2016.

http://indianexpress.com/article/education/quality-a-big-challenge-for-the-indian-education-sector-says-pro-vice-chancellor-of-ashoka-university/

Read More

US firms to expand genomics and biotech educational programming globally in india

An American non-profit body and an India-based of provider of software products and services will collaborate to provide genomics and biotech educational programming globally.

As part of the collaboration, Chennai-based Bahwan Cyber Tek, will work with Alabama-based HudsonAlpha to provide genomics and biotech educational programming globally.

The two organisations plan to work together to use HudsonAlpha s expertise in genomic and biotech education to implement high quality educational strategies and materials, such as the iCell and TouchingTriton digital apps and educational kits, a statement said.

"When we saw the educational programming HudsonAlpha has built, we were interested in bringing that foundation to the students of this generation and the next generation in Oman," said S Durgaprasad, co-founder and chief executive officer of BCT.

"Providing this opportunity to students will open up significant means of future employment as well as prepare everyone to benefit from the latest advancements in healthcare," he said.

HudsonAlpha is a nonprofit genomics and genetics research institute located in Huntsville, Alabama to provide genomics and biotech educational programming globally.

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/india/indian-us-firms-to-expand-genomics-education-globally/157647.html

Read More

The differently abled people in India are Literacy and education

More differently abled people in India are getting educated, with literacy levels among them seeing visible growth, as per data released by the central government. Data for 2011 shows 1.46 crore or 54.5% of India’s 2.68 crore differently abled people are literate now. In 2001, only 49.3% of such people were literate.

Among different categories in this group, literacy levels of people with speech disability jumped the most—from 36.2% in 2001 to 56.9% in 2011.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Uc9LNviy7xjWj8y87KM30I/In-charts-Literacy-and-education-status-of-Indias-differen.html

Read More

The income tax department official responded to search in education society

Kolhapur: The income tax officials' raid over D Y Patil Education Society (Deemed University) in Kasba Bavda area continued on Thursday as officials arrived from Mumbai and Pune.

While no official responded to the queries regarding the raid over the private university, sources close to the development have confirmed that the raid will go on till Friday.

Documents are being taken into custody by the I-T sleuths currently.

Meanwhile, member of legislative council from Congress and younger brother of Sanjay D Patil, president of D Y Patil Education Society (Deemed University) Satej Patil, said that he will comment on the issue on Friday.

Sources close to Patil have said that they are still unaware of the developments taking place inside the headquarters of the deemed university. They are not allowed to enter the premises as they are not officially a part of the university.

Local police officials have been deployed at the gates of the university and entry is permitted only to the staff and students of the college and university staff and the students of the medical college, which shares its premises with the deemed university.

An internal examination is going on at the medical college currently, where every student is passed through a strict security check-up. All students are being asked to switch off their cellphones while entering the college premises.

Students, who have work at the headquarters have been asked to come later as I-T officials are busy carrying out a search.

This is the second income tax raid over the same group in the last six years. Those who are aware of the previous raid over D Y Patil Education society, have confirmed that the raid is being conducted in a similar fashion.

"We were asked to sit at our respective chairs for a couple of days while I-T officials were carrying out their search. The search had lasted for three consecutive days, but we never heard about the case later. The top management may be aware of it, but the work force never got to know anything, said an employee, who chooses to remain anonymous.

The income tax officials on Thursday continued their raid over city headquartered D Y Patil Education Society (Deemed University). The officials arrived from Mumbai and Pune are still at the universitys headquarter located in Kasba Bavda area.

Though no official of income tax department responded to queries raised by reporters regarding their raid over the private university sources close to the development confirmed that it could continue till Friday. The raid is still on and lot of documents are being taken into custody by the I-T sleuths.

Meanwhile, Satej Patil, member of legislative council from Congress and younger brother of Sanjay D Patil, president of D Y Patil Education Society (Deemed University) said that he would comment over the issue on Friday. He refused to make any further comment over the raids by income tax department.

Patil on Thursday night had said that he hoped that the raids are not political vendetta, but he refused make any comment over the issue.

Sources close to the Patil said that they are still unaware of the developments taking place inside the headquarter of the deemed university. They are also not allowed to enter the premises, as they are not officially part of the university.

Headquarter of the private university and its medical college share the premises in Kolhapur city. Local police officials were deployed at the gates and entry was permitted to the college and universitys staff and students of medical college.

An internal examination is going on in the medical college currently, where every student was passed through a strict security check up. All the students were asked to switch off their mobile handsets, at the time of entering the college premises.

Students, who had some work with the headquarter are also asked to approach the headquarter later as the I-T officials have taken possession of it.

It is to be noted that this the second income tax raid over the same group in last six years. People, working with D Y Patil Education society, who are aware of the previous raids, confirmed that the raid is being conducted in similar fashion. We were asked to sit at our respective chairs for couple of days while IT officials were carrying out their search. It had lasted for three consecutive days but we never heard about the case later. The top management may be aware of it, but the work force never got the wind of it, said the employee on the condition of anonymity.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolhapur/I-T-department-continues-search-in-education-society/articleshow/53444442.cms

Read More