Telangana defers reopening of schools on June 12

With heat wave continuing to hit the State, the Telangana Government has decided to defer the reopening of schools to June 12 from June 1.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has asked the Education Department to extend the summer holidays till June 11, when temperatures are expected to fall.

Earlier, he directed the officials to keep the school children away from the State Formation Day celebrations scheduled for June 2, keeping in view the heat wave.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/telangana-defers-reopening-of-schools-to-june-12/

Read More

NCERT Director conferred LPU’s ‘Transforming Education Awards’

Considering School-Principals & Teachers backbone of the nation and society, as they lay everlasting progressive impressions upon their students’ lives; Lovely Professional University organized its 2nd Edition of ‘Transforming Education Awards-2018’ on 18th May 2019 at Shanti Devi Mittal Auditorium of the university. Director, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Dr Hrushikesh Senapaty had been benevolent in bestowing the awards of Rs 22+ Lakh Cash Prizes & ‘Certificates of Excellence’ to selected 60 Schools from across the country. For these awards, 1100+ nominations were received from India’s various government and private schools of 26 States and 3 Union Territories of India. 11 Principals/Teachers from across India are honoured with ‘Winner Awards’ of Rs 85,000 each; 37 with Runner –Up awards of Rs 35,000; and, 12 got Appreciation Awards of Rs 10,000 each.

Addressing the winning teachers as significant contributors to the nation and the society, Dr Hrushikesh Senapaty shared: “I appreciate the unique initiative of LPU for awarding school teachers under special recognition for their contribution.” Interacting with teachers and students, Dr Senapaty shared: “Irrespective of any good or bad infrastructure, only a good teacher can create conducive learning environment in his/her classroom. Instead of preparing and inspiring students to get 100% Marks, teachers should enable students to innovate, create, invent, explore and become autonomous learners. Avoid emphasis on text-books and examinations, instead, enable students to face challenges and become problem solvers. We need good citizens, human beings for the country to compete with and excel other nations. Students must be taught about community development, co-operation, leadership qualities, societal values, working in groups in the interest of the nation”. NCERT Director also invoked teachers to develop competencies of their students and work to bring needed changes in class-room process, examination system and assessment methods and more.

Thanking Dr Senapaty for his generosity in consenting to award the winners, LPU Chancellor Mr Ashok Mittal shared: “We all know through our personal experiences that only a teacher can change the nation and the society. And, this gratitude towards teachers made us took this initiative to honour school teachers countrywide. We also congratulate all the winners, and thank all those students and their parents who spared time to nominate and recognize those bodies which prove special in teaching and student support.”

Mr Mittal also honoured Director Pushkar Raj of Allens Career for bringing illustrious transformation in the realms of competitive studies. On this occasion LPU Pro Chancellor Mrs Rashmi Mittal, Vice Chancellor Dr Ramesh Kanwar, DG Er HR Singla, Executive Deans Dr Sanjay Modi, Dr LR Gupta, Senior Dean Dr Monica Gulati, Dr Rajeev Sobti were also present on the main dais.

Ever remembering its Corporate Social Responsibility, LPU launched “Transforming Education Awards” on 5th September 2017-to commemorate Teachers’ Day. For its first edition, LPU had made an earnest approach to former President of India Dr Pranab Mukherjee, who had been gracious enough to inaugurate the awards’ ceremony organized at his residence in New Delhi.

For 2nd Edition of ‘Awards’, videos for the nominee schools/teachers were shortlisted on the basis of endorsements through voting by more than 7 lakh students, parents and teachers. The shortlisted videos and appraisal forms were evaluated by an eminent Jury of 15 elite members, including Head of Asia, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr Purvi Mehta; Leader CSR, Infosys, Suja Warriar; Director-External Relations, Indian School of Business, Kumara Guru DNV; Vice President-CSR, Vedanta, Neelima Khetan; President and COO, SBI Foundation Nixon Joseph; Actress and Media Entrepreneur Deepa Sahi; Director, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dr A. Senthil Kumar.

Illustrative, LPU also organizes an annual event “Explorica” to explore young talents. Here, a large number of novel projects of students of class 10 to 10+2 from different schools are showcased for all to admire and evaluate. This year 15000+ students from 200 schools visited LPU campus and had first-hand experience of the career options available to them.

http://indiaeducationdiary.in/ncert-director-conferred-lpus-transforming-education-awards-upon-indias-best-schools-teachers/

Read More

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

Read More

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/

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

The education in reservation and employment promotion in government jobs

Kolhapur: Hundreds of youths made their demands for reservation in education and employment, promotion in government jobs and quick action in the Kopardi case abundantly clear by joining the silent march in Kolhapur on Saturday.

The Maratha Kranti Muk Morcha started simultaneously from two places in the city - Gandhi Maidan and Tararani chowk - around 11am. Since early morning, thousands of youths from the community gathered at the two starting points, filling the locations to the bring.

"The state has been witnessing rallies for strong action against the accused in the Kopardi rape case. The rally is our support for the victim's family," said Vanita Ghatage, who had joined the rally at Gandhi maidan.

Many youths spoke about the hardships they experience in the absence of reservation for the community in education and jobs. Raj Shinde, who is pursuing engineering degree, rued that they have to pay higher fees for professional courses compared to other students. "The fees for professional courses such as engineering are beyond our capacity. There is no reservation for Marathas in the government sector and we are deprived of jobs," he said.

Dipti Shinde, a medical professional from the Maratha community, said she had seen even her juniors at government hospital get permanent employment because they belonged to a particular caste. "I have been working in government hospital for last two years. Many of juniors from other castes got the permanent job, while I am still working on contractual system. The reservation should be given on the basis of economic status instead of caste," she said.

Youth also said that there should not be any reservation in the promotions given in a government job. They voiced their demand for the skill development institute for their community on the lines of the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Reserch and Training Institute (BARTI).

"We have to face problems in promotions in government jobs. There should not be any reservation in promotions, rather they should be merit based," said Nilesh Patil, a youth who came to the city just for the rally.

Growing agrarian crisis in the state has also prompted concerns as the community is largely dependent on agriculture. Indrajit Khardekar, a young farmer from Danoli Jaysingpur village, said the government should be provided the Minimum Support Prise (MSP) to agricultural goods.

"The agricultural sector is in crisis. The Maratha community depends on agriculture for its livelihood. The government should implement the recommendations of Swaminathan commission to make farming sustainable," he said.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolhapur/Reservation-in-education-jobs-top-on-agenda/articleshow/54875660.cms

Read More

India is a very prominent learner market coursera adds 60k learners a month from online learning

Coursera Chief Business Officer Nikhil Sinha, who was in the city recently, told DH that a quarter of its Indian learners are interested in technology skills (Computer Science courses).

“Technology and Data Science are the top two areas that are in demand in India, and they are followed by business. India is a very prominent learner market for us because of the combination of a young population with significant aspirations, and where education is the most important mechanism for social mobility, and where there is a large English-speaking workforce, and where people are willing to invest in education,” he said, adding that 20% of Coursera’s users learn only on mobile.

Coursera partners with top universities and organisations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take. Recently, it entered into a partnership with Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE) to offer curated educational content to Manipal Global’s over 1.5 million active learners and alumni community.

Coursera, which has 200 employees inclusive of 100 engineers, has over 22 million registered learners worldwide.

“Three-quarters of learners are from outside the US (76%), and nearly half are from emerging markets (44%). We partner with 146 of the world’s best universities and make their content available on our platform. Our university partners include Universities like Pennsylvania, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, and California, among others,” he said. Coursera offers over 1,500 courses and 150 specialisations.

When asked about its largest market, Sinha said, “The largest market is the US with nearly 25% learner base, followed by India and then China. In addition to 22 million learners today, we add half-a-million learners every month to our platform.”

Though Coursera began by making content available to anyone and anywhere in the world, recently it has launched a new business line — Coursera for Business.

“It is our first enterprise platform for workforce development at scale. Here, we take the content available on our platform, provide a number of services around it, and make them available to companies. Axis Bank is our first enterprise customer in India,” he said.
DH News Service

“We are planning to target more such organisations, and we will be announcing many new deals in the next few weeks.”


http://www.deccanherald.com/content/576035/online-learning-coursera-adds-60k.html

Read More

The traditional practice of more students opting for computer engineering is slowly fading by mechanical engineering

India is looking at a change of trend as far as the engineering discipline is concerned. The traditional practice of more students opting for computer engineering is slowly fading out and is being replaced by mechanical engineering.

An analysis of the data available with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the government body that is responsible for technical education in the country shows that the number of enrolments in Computer Science as a subject has been on a constant decline since the year 2012. The data also shows that enrolment of for Mechanical is going upward.In the last four years, enrolment in Mechanical has been the highest in the academic year 2013-14 at 534199, in the same year number of students enrolled in Computer science was 323697 and the number has shown a decline in the consecutive years.

With the increase in number of enrolment, number of student intake in these two disciplines has also shown a variation. The number of intake in Mechanical courses in various colleges across the country increased by two lakh from 2012-13 to 2015-16.

Officials in the government attribute it to the global trends of reducing demand for computer science engineering graduates.

"The IT industry was booming sometime back and more and more students were pursuing computer science but now the industry is saturated. There is more supply than demand of IT professionals in the industry which is the reason that students are moving towards other fields of engineering," said a senior HRD Ministry official, associated with technical education.

"Also, one does not need to study computer science engineering to pursue IT. Everyone is studying computers. If 100 people develop a software, only three people are required to maintain it, which reduces the demand for manpower. On the contrary, Mechanical is a field where one needs subject expertise to be able to work in the field," he added.

In terms of placement also, Mechanical has shown an increase in numbers over the last four years. In the academic session 2015-16 139162 students were placed as compared to around 95000 in 2012-13.

The least popular choices among students are Chemical and Textile engineering, even as engineering as a subject continues to be the top choice for students among professional courses like Management and Pharmacy.



http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-move-over-computer-engineering-mechanical-is-new-trend-2263362

Read More

The latest government statistics every two in five elementary schools in India

India’s dream to win gold medals in Olympic Games seems to be far-fetched considering the ground reality. According to latest government statistics, every two in five elementary schools in India don't have playground and power connection, two of the 10 basic norms mandated under the Right to Education Act (RTE).

The initial findings of the latest pan-India survey (called as District Information System for Education or DISE) released this week highlights such a sorry state of affairs of world's largest education system. The survey covered 1.5 million elementary schools in 680 districts across the states catering to 19 crore children.With 40 per cent educational institutions, private and government both, having zero outdoor sports facilities, one can imagine the scale and magnitude of the sports talent India is losing every year. The revelations also cast aspersions over physical fitness of crores of children in the country which is aggressively campaigning for Yoga and Surya Namaskar across the world.

Bihar appears to be worst in the country, where only one-third schools in the state have playground and less than 8 per cent have electricity, say records. West Bengal also cuts a sorry figure with only 40 per cent schools offering playground and less than 13 per cent have electricity, finds the DISE survey conducted by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA).

Almost all the schools in Gujarat have electricity suggesting better classroom conditions for the kids and teachers compared to their counterparts in most states, but many of them are not able to play outdoors. One in every four schools in Gujarat don't have playground.

Maharashtra which has over one lakh elementary schools catering to 1.6 crore pupils appears to be far better than many states. Over 87 per cent institutions in the state do have playground and 94 per cent have power too.

Punjab stands out in the survey, suggesting more focus on sports and physical well-being of the children apart from education. An overwhelming 97 per cent schools in the state have playground facility and 99.9 per cent have electricity as well.

The analysis of last few years' data also suggests that schools have improved fast over the years, bridging gap of separate toilet facilities, drinking water and pupil-teacher ratio and ramp for specially-abled. However, acquiring playground, constructing boundary wall, power connection and computers has remained slow, owing to physical and financial constraints.

A recent study of Indian parliamentary panel has suggested that even for those children who participate in games, the sports are not their first career choice because of high risk, uncertainty and low rewards.

When it comes to spending on sportspersons, India is much below. The US spends a whopping Rs22 a day per person, the UK spends 50 paise and Jamaica 19 paise. India invests just 3 paise per person each day.

"Several schools in Mumbai including BMC schools don't have playground. The kids are supposed to exercise inside the classroom. One can imagine the kind of physical fitness such students have," said Ramesh Joshi, president of BMC school teachers Association.

"While medal winning countries focus on early training, high technology, state-of-the-art equipment, sports medicine, we are not even allowing such a large number of kids to play. Lack of sports not only compromises on their growth and fitness, physically and mentally both, but they also lose out on other crucial life skills such as team building, leadership, managing their own anger and failures and communication skill," said a former hockey player.


http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-over-40-per-cent-schools-without-playground-electricity-dise-report-2263577

Read More