With the Council of Indian Secondary Certificate Examination (CISCE) dropping one of the subjects in Group I (environment education) from the coming academic year, students will be left only with five subjects in Group I and II. While Group III, will have the sixth subject, it will not be considered for admissions to junior colleges in the state.

State science and technology department Director, Shribhagwan Singh said, “There is definite understanding in the science and technology department that there should be a regional centre of AICTE, located at Patna, to address the needs of Bihar and Jharkhand. For, getting a letter of approval (LoA) from, or recognition of, AICTE for any new engineering college or a polytechnic centre in public sector gets delayed”.

In the circumstances, normatively, the state government would pursue the matter with Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal, through letter or a formal meeting on the issue.

He said if the AICTE has its regional centre here, it would be “easier or slightly convenient” to pursue the matter with it, as the state government has willy-nilly made up its mind to give a substantial push to establishment of institutions like engineering colleges and polytechnic institutes in the state, both of which would require final AICTE approval before starting their academic session.

Incidentally, the state government has already decided to open four new polytechnic institutions next year, one each in Nalanda, Vaishali, Rohtas and Lakhisarai districts. Besides, eighth engineering college is in the process of coming up at Barauni in Begusarai district, and more such institutions are to follow.

“We would always look forward to having early clearance from the AICTE for them,” said an official of the department, adding, “If the AICTE decides to start its regional centre at Patna, things would become relatively easier, as its location in the state capital would provide easy proximity and access. Jharkhand, too, would benefit.”

This decision was recently approved by the varsity syndicate, said MU acting VC Arun Kumar. As per Mr. Kumar, the university aims to initially introduce the system at the PG level. This step is being taken on the recommendation of the Committee on Reforms in Higher Education in Bihar with an aim to streamlining higher education and quality teaching at the university and college level.

The acting VC said the university is finalizing the details of courses of studies to be followed at PG level under the semester system. MU is the only university in Bihar which has announced to introduce semester system at PG level this year. “This system will do justice with meritorious students besides maintaining academic ambience in the university,” he said.

Out of four semesters, the first and third semesters have been proposed to be conducted by the respective departments while the second and fourth ones will be conducted by externals. Besides, there is a proposal to introduce one semester internship during which students will work with their parent institutions or departments, sources said.

According to Kumar, the university, which has set up a Board of Studies (BOS) for the PG and UG level courses, is busy drafting regulations for making the semester system successful at PG level.

Meanwhile, a few academics of the university said that all universities of the state must have uniform course of studies at Degree and PG level, so that students do not face any difficulty in migrating to other universities.

Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners.

EdX will build on both universities’ experience in offering online instructional content. The technological platform recently established by MITx, which will serve as the foundation for the new learning system, was designed to offer online versions of MIT courses featuring video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, and student paced learning. Certificates of mastery will be available for those motivated and able to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material.

MIT and Harvard expect that over time other universities will join them in offering courses on the edX platform. The gathering of many universities’ educational content together on one site will enable learners worldwide to access the course content of any participating university from a single website, and to use a set of online educational tools shared by all participating universities.

EdX will release its learning platform as open source software so it can be used by other universities and organizations who wish to host the platform themselves. Because the learning technology will be available as open-source software, other universities and individuals will be able to help edX improve and add features to the technology.

MIT and Harvard will use the jointly operated edX platform to research how students learn and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online. The edX platform will enable the study of which teaching methods and tools are most successful. The findings of this research will be used to inform how faculty use technology in their teaching, which will enhance the experience for students on campus and for the millions expected to take advantage of these new online offerings.

The initiative will be overseen by a not-for-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be owned and governed equally by the two universities. MIT and Harvard have committed to a combined $60 million ($30 million each) in institutional support, grants and philanthropy to launch the collaboration.

MIT’s Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Anant Agarwal, who has led the development of the MITx platform under the leadership of MIT provost L. Rafael Reif, will serve as the first president of edX.

At Harvard, Provost Alan Garber will direct the Harvardx effort and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith will play a leading role in working with faculty to develop and deliver courses.

It is anticipated that near-term course offerings from a range of Harvard and MIT schools will be included on the edX platform.

At the launch of new consumer laptops and tablets, Unaez Quraishi, Sales and distribution Director- System Business Group, Asus India, said in conversation with digitalLEARNING, “We will have thrust on education sector for tablet and laptop products from the second half of this year.”

As a part of education segment engagement strategy, Asus will reach out to students directly and through the education institutions.

Asus designs and manufactures laptops, tablets, desktops, motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, displays, servers, and mobile phones, etc.

The approved rules will replace the office memorandum which the department followed and hopes that the functioning of the education department will be smoothened in matters relating to promotions, filling up of vacancies and regulate teachers trainings in the state.

Nashik schools have received notices from the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC)’s education department ordering them to follow norms set by the government in the forthcoming academic year. City schools have been asked to start implementing the rules laid down by the government, right from appointment of staff to details about school uniforms, bags, etc.

The education department has asked for approval of personnel from the schools, that is, a list of staff employed, including the headmistress/headmaster, with their qualifications. To form Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs), the schools have to conduct elections and parents of students from every class should be notified about them. The list of PTA members along with their phone numbers should be displayed on the notice board of the school.

The education department has strictly informed school authorities that all schools should follow the academic calendar drawn up by the department. From last year, there were many complaints that schools were open on Mahavir Jayanti and that exams were conducted during Ganesh Chaturthi.

From June onwards, strict action will be taken by the education department on schools violating norms and surprise visits by officers of zilla parishad and education department will be made.

A university official said, “The examination will be held in Guwahati, Silchar, Nalbari, Lakhimpur, Tezpur, Nagaon, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Bongaigaon in 27 venues and for the first time, CCTV has been installed in the exam centers”. The university has taken such step for the first time to check cheating and unfair means during examination.

The official further added, “Besides, a video recording would also be done, which would be monitored constantly. This is basically to stop students from resorting to unfair means during examinations. There have been instances of cheating in earlier examinations. Such instances leave a bad impression on the student’s mind and also question the credibility of the exam. So, we will not allow any kind of gadget in the hall this time”.

Students were earlier allowed to carry their mobile phones with them in the examination halls, but now students will not be allowed to carry any kind of electronic gadget in the halls and strict action will be taken against anyone who carries gadgets with them.

While new measures are being adopted by the authorities to conduct CEE, there is a possibility that from next session onwards, it will be replaced with National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), which would be conducted by the CBSE board.

Under the agreement, the Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at ISB would deliver executive education courses focused at grooming senior and middle management in the Middle East.

Ramanathan Hariharan, Senior Director, CEE, ISB, and S. Durgaprasad, Director and CEO, Bahwan CyberTek Group (BCT), signed the MoU.

Durgaprasad said, “There is tremendous focus from various governments in the Middle East to look beyond oil. They are looking at creating a knowledge economy. ISB being a leader in executive education, their knowledge and their experience can come handy to build the community in that part of the world”.

Hariharan said, “They are trying to create a knowledge-driven economy which means exposing citizens to new business models, new management practices.”

BCT, an associate of the Suhail Bahwan Group, one of Oman’s foremost business houses, will focus on industry verticals like banking, financial services, government, energy utility industry and infrastructure. The executive education programs will cater to both the citizens of Oman and expatriates.

To start with, the program will be delivered in Oman from September this year for 50 to 100 people in the first year. BCT plans to expand this to the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and other countries in the region.

The MoU with Bahwan comes a few weeks after the ISB signed a similar agreement with the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.

ISB will focus on the design and delivery of the programs, which will be conducted by ISB’s globally renowned faculty.

The CEE, which offers open and custom designed programs, is also looking at creating case studies relevant to the region.

BCT, an information technology, products and services company, hopes the spin-off would be multi-fold.

The $110 million company, which operates in four continents and deliver solutions in 20 countries, expects the ISB programs would meet the internal needs of the 1,500-member organization.

The program – ‘Post-Graduate Program for Certificate in Entrepreneurship Management (PGP-CEM)’, targeted to enterprising individuals and those who run their family businesses will commence on July 2012. The total fee for the program is Rs 55,000, can be paid in two equal installments. The last date for applying to this program is May 30^th, 2012.

Speaking on the new program, Fr. E. Abraham S.J., Director, XLRI said, “This program launched by the Entrepreneurship Development Centre aims to encourage entrepreneurship in the country. The program will be extremely beneficial to all the enterprising individuals, who wish to kick-start their own businesses.”

The program, which starts from July this year, aims to encourage critical and lateral thinking and integrate theory with practice. According to the Director, the objective is to help develop effective and successful entrepreneurs who have an inclination and desire to create new enterprises, and to also enhance the skill-sets of those who are currently managing their own entities.

According to the institute, the core curriculum has been designed carefully in order to ensure that courses included in the program does not only contain the usual inputs on functional areas of business like finance, marketing, strategy and human resource, but also fields of specific interest in the context of entrepreneurial development in India like family business, women entrepreneurship, agri-preneurship and social enterprises.

Graduates from any recognized University are eligible to apply for this program. According to the institute, the applicants will be subject to a process of personal interview and, if necessary, group discussion for admission into the program.

Post Graduate Program for Certificate in Entrepreneurship Management was launched by the Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC) of XLRI in March 2010 to encourage entrepreneurship and social consciousness. After encouraging response for the two batches, XLRI has launched the third round of this program.