Green campus initiative

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April 22, 2013

Green Campus Initiative
Organisation: Sona College of Technology
Website: www.sonatech.ac.in
Implementing Agency: Department of Civil Engineering
Objective: To promote optimum utilisation of renewable resources, to reduce the destruction of natural areas and damage to the surroundings, to maintain green performance levels, etc
Description: Green campus initiative started from the inception of the Institution in 1997. The entire 45 Acre campus is planned keeping in mind the holistic perspective of land use, social well being and preservation of the environment. Development of infrastructure ensured that no damage is caused to the natural surroundings.
Target Group: Engineering colleges
Achievements:
• Energy saving of at least three percent
• Higher comfort levels inside the building, even during the peak summer days
• The waste is converted into a precious, useful resource

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Green Campus at UPSES
Organisation: University of Petroleum and Energy Studies
Website: www.upes.ac.in
Objective: Design and implement practices, processes, and material selection to promote energy efficiency and sustainability to create a green and sustainable university campus
Description: University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun, is a young institution, which has been acknowledged in India and abroad for its academic programs focused on energy and core sector domains. UPES has consciously adopted contemporary techniques in its curriculum design, pedagogy as well as its industry interface. UPES has adopted the same advanced approach in developing an eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable campus.
Target Group: Local community, students, faculty
Achievements:
• Top soil preservation and re-using preserved top soil for landscape purpose
• Demonstrated reduction in water consumption by 33.16 percent compared to the base case scenario by adopting necessary water saving measures
• Use of 100 percent CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) and HCFC (hydrochlorofluorocarbon) free refrigerant and insulation
• UPES received GRIHA award from the Shri Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Green Campus Challenge
Organisation: DRMK Engineering College
Website: www.rmkec.ac.in
Objective: Green Campus Challenge has been designed with a vision of making campus more sustainable and green, and promotes the idea and the necessity of the same
Description: The college has a landscape consultant and comprehensive set of garden equipment. The college has green and pollution-free ambience, which has been conducive to a good educational ambience.
Achievements:
• Green and Clean Campus award by Rotary Club of Chennapatna in 2006
• Purified drinking water is provided to all students and staff
• High level of appreciation by all stake holders for the maintenance of green environment
• Capacity building of teacher and digitisation education material

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Green all Around
Organisation: ACCMAN Institute of Management
Website: www.accman.in
Objective: To encourage healthy and eco-friendly environment in and around the Institute
Description: ACCMAN has more than 80 percent green coverage filled with beautifully laid-out landscape, lush green parks running
around the five-acre campus. The garden and greenery are daily maintained / looked after by permanent expert gardeners. Only natural manure is used.
Achievements:
• Clean and green environment
• Bio-diversity awareness
• Clean air/environment
• Vermiculture awareness
• Waste management awareness

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Sustainable Green Campus
Organisation: Swami Parmanand Group of Colleges
Website: www.spcet.org
Objective: To protect and preserve environment
Description: Swami Parmanand Group of Colleges started a mission of making the Campus green in which management, staff members and students have contributed to its efforts in decreasing energy consumption reducing our energy cost, and increasing understanding and awareness of environmental concerns, all have worked to gather to produce energy efficient, sustainable and healthy college environment
Target Group: Demographic-Youth from all over India. Socially and economically weaker section of society. Faculty, staff and students.
Achievements:
1. Best upcoming Engineering College from Punjab awarded by India Achieve Podium.
2. Best Public Choice award for ICT enabled Higher Education Institute 2011 by World Summit.
3. India Leadership Award for Education Excellence by India Economic Development & Research Association.

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Green Technology Mission
Organisation: Sagar Institute of Research & Technology
Website: www.sirtbhopal.ac.in
Objective: To demonstrate and develop feasible production technology of Bio Diesel
Description: Dependency on fossil fuel can be reduced greatly through revolutionary green technology. Production of Bio Diesel from various vegetable oils is one of the promising technologies to achieve such target. Sagar Institute of Research and Technology has conceived the idea of design and develops low cost Bio Diesel Reactor.
Target Group: Village Community
Achievements:
• High Efficiency is achieved
• Low Cost Reactor developed
• One of the vehicles of the Institute is still running Using Biodiesel

Click here to read more details about this initiative

TECHNOLOGY FOR ENGINEERING INSTITUTES

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April 22, 2013

Robotics, Virtual 3-D Simulations at JECRC
Organisation: Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre
Website: www.jecrcfoundation.com
Implementing Agency: JECRC Foundation
Objective: The main aim behind this venture is generation of education and research at a blend for Rajasthan at large
Description: Microsoft has signed an MoU with JECRC Innovation Academy, and it was renamed as Microsoft i- Spark Centre. This was the first time that Microsoft joined hands for innovation alliance in India, providing a global outreach to JECRC students. A joint cooperation between Cranes Software and TI India has been established. JECRC Foundation was selected as a first Nodal Centre of Virtual Labs in Rajasthan by IIT Delhi. JECRC provides a platform for students to extract benefits from various workshops and seminars on new technologies by World leaders.
Click here to read more details about this initiative

Teacher Driven Engineering e-Learning Solution
Organisation: Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd
Website: www.globarena.com
Objective: To provide the faculty an edge with the use of technology in teaching, by effectively utilising the time by overall improving the effectiveness in delivering sessions in an interactive manner
Description: TekEdge is the solution that synergises faculty efforts and ICT effectiveness, making classroom learning livelier, interactive and interesting. TekEdge facilitates faculty to explain complex concepts in an easy to understand manner through rich multimedia, audio, video, animations, simulations, etc. Target Group: Engineering students and faculty
Achievements:
• Outstanding feedback from colleges
• Standardisation of content delivery
• Ease of use
Click here to read more details about this initiative

Microsoft India Student AppFest
Organisation: Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd
Website: www.microsoft.com/india
Objective: The goal of the initiative was to ignite the imagination of students from colleges representing the full spectra of Indian academia
Description: Microsoft India has organised the India Student AppFest as an initiative, which marked the single-largest live student outreach in India. This initiative helps in building the trained talent pool of engineering and technical students on priority technologies like Windows 8 / Mobile and cloud application development across universities and colleges imparting engineering/ technical education in India.
Target Group: Engineering and technical students
Achievements:
• 13,381 STEM students trained on Windows 8, Windows Phone and Cloud Application Development in single day across 525 colleges spread across 18 states of India
• Pre Event awareness campaign was organised with 25 Windows-on-Wheel College buses

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Innovation in TEACHING PEDAGOGY

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April 22, 2013

Dalimss Sunbeam SchoolsOrganisation: Dalimss Sunbeam Schools
Website: www.dalimss.com
Target Group: Primary to senior secondary education
Achievements:
• Educating more than 15,000 students
• Twenty one branches in eastern Uttar Pradesh
• CBSE based education
• Free education to over 1,600 students
• Vast social service network in orphanages, old age houses and various disease centers

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Change the way India Teaches

Organisation: Golden Bells Pre School
Website: www.goldenbellsdelhi.com
Implementing Agency: Telescope Solutions Plc
Objective: DMIT helps parents, educators, doctors, counselors discover innate strength/weakness, enhance learning experience by identifying learning style
Description: Dermatoglyphics is the Science which studies the patterns on the fingerprints of human beings and reveals the congenital link between the fingers and the inborn qualities and traits. DMIT helps in identifying the multiple intelligences,preferred learning style and personality type of the individual.
Achievements:
• Identifying innate Multiple Intelligences
• Identifying preferred Learning style
• Identifying Brain Dominance
• Identifying Personality Type and Identifying Possible Career Choices

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Making No Bones About It

Organisation: Mahatma Gandhi International School
Website: www.mgis.in
Objective: The objective was to make students learn about the Skeleton System in an interactive way and make them work on science topics with fun
Description: The curiosity of what actually is happening in our body is the most interesting thing for a student. The whole class was asked to choose a sport and draw theactual function. For example, playing football the leg was drawn in a particular manner.The process involved learning about the human body, bones, its functions.
Target Group: K-12 student
Achievements:
• Working in teams with entire class involvement
• A model skeleton was made, which could be used for any further reference
• Very concrete documentation was made and preserved

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Most Beneficial Learning Environment

Organisation: Excelsior American School
Website: www.excelsioreducation.org
Objective: The school’s mission is to develop a strong sense of self worth and responsibility among its students that will in turn prepare the child for a lifetime of achievement and contribution to society
Description: The Excelsior approach differs from traditional education in several important ways. Learning is achieved through direct experience and active involvement. Students learn at their own pace. Self direction is encouraged. Small sized classrooms Excelsior programme takes into account that each child develops at his or her own pace.
Target Group: Students
Achievements:
• Child centered
• All aspects of the child are developed (physical, emotional, moral, social and intellectual)
• Learning is achieved through direct experience and active involvement

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Inclusion of Social with AcademicOrganisation: The Millennium School, Noida (TMS)
Website: www.illenniumnoida.com
Objective: The school’s aim is to empower the differently abled children as the productive members of society. TMS, Noida impart education as per the level of the differently abled child irrespective of time taken by the child
Description: The school is following a child centric curriculum. At TMS, the differently abled children are placed in the class as per their chronological age. Being a tech savvy school, some software are also used to help these children.
Target Group: Autism, Border line intelligence, Ataxia, Dsylexia, ADD, ADHD, Syndrome,Behavioral issues and other childhood disorders
Achievements:
• Used software for better retention ability in students who have problems in recalling the concepts
• Students who had inclination for music were trained by using song with the help of the music teacher in such a way that they are now capable enough to compose their own musicClick here to read more details about this initiative

Radio Masters

Organisation: Hansraj Public School
Website: www.hansrajschool.org
Implementing Agency: IRJ Institute of Radio Jockeying
Objective: The main objectives of the projects launched and initiated by the school are to inculcate content of social media, vision, ethics and actions
Description: In order to use social media in education, the school has been undertaking various projects to offer a practical application of social media tools in the school environment. It provides information to films, TV, Print, Radio and Internet
Achievements:
• The foremost achievement of the programme is remarkable improvement in voice modulation and voice culturing of the students.
• Communication skills development through public speaking among students
• Enhancement of student’s script writing skills editing and conceptualisation
• Team spirit, event management and co-ordination as well as group discussions
• News reporting radio programming by students which also includes stage anchoring

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Expanding Capacities of IndividualsOrganisation: MRV School
Website: www.mrvps.org
Objective: Bringing youth at peace by culture of heart through art and music and enabling school education to develop knowledgeable,skillful and value oriented programme
Description: The school took the initiative to make behavior policy, which will be accepted by all members at home and school to avoid unnecessary pressure. It pamper the child educate the parents – the slogan is taken forward because loveand affection make children relaxed and happy and only happy children can explore and create.
Target Group: Students of class 1 to 12th
Achievements:
• Children do not throw litter
• They have become more respectful and responsible
• Noise is reduced
• Bullying and fighting almost is controlled
• Children/Teachers speak slowly and softly

Click here to read more details about this initiative

Essence of Education

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April 22, 2013

Integration of technology with latest infrastructure definitely helps students keep themselves updated and be prepared for the corporate world
By Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan International Group of Institutions

There are two educations.One teaches us how to make a living and the otherhow to live.” In this quote, John Adamshas beautifully brought out the true essence of education. While on one hand it highlights the necessity of educating oneself to earn a living, on the other hand it throws light on the ethical dimension of human life.Today’s schools must encourage teachers to be repared,committed and passionate about their role and responsibility. The recent study from HRD Ministry in fact reveals that India has a huge gap of teachers.It estimates this gap of 5.23 lakh vacancies at elementary level alone and if the stipulated student-teacher ratio is to be reached, there is a need of another 5.1 lakh teachers. There are about 7.74 lakh teachers who are not fully trained or are otherwise unqualified.These are figures only for the public education system.The current trend that is widely observed is that schools invest a big amount to offer the latest frills and fancies in way of facilities and infrastructure. However, schools should in-fact provide facilities appropriate for quality teaching and learning and invest in teachers training and their upgradation.
Keeping with the actual concept of education, besides the current norm, the educators need to offer a plethora of enriching school activities, transdisciplinary in nature and aspire to go beyond the given requirements in enhancing the learning experience for students especially encouraging student research and opportunities to pursue various topics. The focus of every educator has to be that of working on skills, attitudes and values that will enable students to be ethical individuals who are basically motivated,emotionally intelligent and responsible citizens of our country. Providing value based education and developing globally responsible citizens may appear to be very lofty. Due to which there may be a tendency that schools lay greater emphasis on mere integration of technology into education,infrastructure, etc. However, the true essence of teaching and learning does not eliminate the aspect of values,which is an integral and indispensable element of education.The need of the hour is to provide holistic education and if we as educators have the responsibility to educate ethical, motivated, emotionally intelligent, and socially responsible students, then the responsibility of nurturing highly committed and prepared teachers also solely lies on us.In this present digital edge, teachers need to make a shift from the conventional teaching to new and increasingly accepted methods to developholistic human beings. Teachers have the accountability to create critical thinking skills for academic success and also success in the performing arts, media, leadership activities and sports, etc by opening avenues to explore things beyond classroom.Teacher as a facilitator should delve on the innovative aspects of teaching and learning and make education child centred and interesting.
Although technology today is seen as one of the most important component in education, integration of values, involvement of students in community transformation projects and making them aware of what the actual world is all about and what its demand are is equally important.
Integration of technology with latest infrastructure definitely helps students keep themselves updated and be prepared for the corporate world. However, while technology does its bit, highly motivated and well prepared teachers as facilitators add the desired human touch and instill values for holistic development and uplift the essence of education. Right values with the relevant body of knowledge and the wisdom to use it constructively will help our children become industry ready. To be successful as professionals,children must also learn to become positive contributors within the global community. It is best summed up by “start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it”.

Explore, Analyse and Assess in Education

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April 22, 2013

Prof S K Kak, Vice Chancellor, Mahamaya Technical University, believes that education is beyond bookish knowledge

In today’s knowledge centric environment the future of any country is dependent on how educated and well trained the workforce is. We need to ensure that every individual has access to all the opportunities for getting the best possible training, so that he or she can be a productive and inspiring member of the society.
In India, our educational system has remained stagnant, moribund and fossilised due to the total lack of academic and intellectual leadership from those within and outside the institutions of learning. Most of our education is bookish, and stylised without any connection to the real world of social and economic activity. This need to change, requiring complete and total overhaul of our schools, colleges and universities and the way teaching and learning is happening in these places. We need to focus more on knowledge than on information and explain to the students the difference between the two, we need to have active learning pedagogy, we need to teach application and use of knowledge rather than simply test the ability to memorise information.
Most of the higher education institutions have been working with very poor funds and even poorer utilisation of these. The institutions do not operate with well defined administrative and operational processes and if some of them have these, they are seldom revised based on feedback and problems faced by the institution. Thus the self corrective mechanisms are nonexistent making the processes archaic and very inefficient as they have no agility to meet the requirements of today’s explosive knowledge world. Many of the best institutions do not have any learning and academic outcome related metrics for evaluating the efficacy of education happening in these centres and no effort is thus possible to record the outcomes that are achievable vis-a-vis what is achieved. Most of the models of excellence that are used even in the best of educational institutions are those that have been evolved for the industrial world and they fail to assess the quality of education and thus make educational institutions focus more on administrative and managerial aspects rather than academic and intellectual ones. This is creating a very sad situation where the academics is sacrificed or seconded to administrative or managerial controls and requirements.

Many of the best institutions do not have any learning and academic outcome related metrics for evaluating the efficacy of education being imparted in these centres”

Education is not simply a way of knowing from the books or classrooms but it must bring about an ability to explore, analyse and assess everything around oneself. The structured knowledge must be tested on the field to validate it for oneself and then apply it to situations that confront us as individuals or as social beings. We academicians in India have failed to create any connection between what is learnt in the classrooms to what, how and why it is applied in the world outside, this is the main failure of education, and this leads to educated persons being misfit for the world they are to live, work and succeed in.
The huge advantage we have of having a large part of our population of these young and eager persons who need to learn to earn and need to realise the dreams that they have for themselves and the world around can be lost if our education system fails to meet their basic aspirations’ due to deficit skills that are demanded from them in the workplace. This is the challenge that can be converted into a great opportunity by the combined efforts of the teachers, educationists, and academicians by transforming the education system that tunes to the need of the times. The consequences in failing to do so can be disastrous for the nation and hence we have very little choice.

Technology Enabled Assessment Management Solution

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April 22, 2013

VSN Raju,
CEO, Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd

“The USP of our assessment / examination management solutions is that they have been calibrated in Indian examination context after taking inputs from the industry, tech-gurus and leading academicians,” says VSN Raju, CEO, Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd

How do you see the role of technology in assessment?
Technology is being widely used in the assessment space by important stakeholders of India like the government departments, corporate enterprises,industry associations, universities and educational institutions. These stakeholders are breathing with ease as they are able to effortlessly replace their traditional human dependent assessment systems with efficient and robust technology enabled assessment systems. These assessment systems are empowering them to save cost, adapt best practices, processes and prevent malpractices while conducting assessments.
Making technology enabled assessment engines or systems easily available are more relevant today as:
• Firstly, the traditional assessment systems are slowly but surely ceasing to be effective as the number of assessment takers, be it students, job-seekers, employees is growing and the sheer number of assessments conducted every year is increasing tremendously with the passage of time.
• Secondly, the availability of ICT tools like the biometric devices, high-end cameras, display units have enhanced remote monitoring possibilities at assessment centers. They have also enabled possibility of stringent authentication of personnel and test takers at the test centre with absolute ease which can curb malpractices like favoritism and impersonation during assessments/ examinations.

What are the assessment tool available for educators?
Currently test organisers and/or developers have the option to choose from a gamut of assessment tools for their requirements. These tools are available online through open source or proprietary tools that come with inbuilt security features which can be used to conduct differed assessments/ examinations be it online delivery model, Web- LAN delivery model or can be used for end-to-end Assessment Management.
Over the last decade Globarena Technologies have grown at a steady pace embracing technology in the assessment conduction and management space by churning out solutions ranging from basic computer adaptive test engines to developing major examination solutions (both conduction and management applications) using highend technology with possibility of integrating with modern-day ICT tools. Our examination management solutions are currently being delivered to renowned universities like Anna University,Shri Venkateshwara University, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Acharya Nagarjuna University, JNTUK-Kakinada. NASSCOM, and IEG, AP to name a few.
The USP of our assessment/ examination management solutions is that they have been calibrated in Indian examination context after taking inputs from industry, tech-gurus and leading academicians. The examination solutions are designed to work efficiently with minimal human interference both in the rural and urban segments with absolute ease and with maximum accuracy.

Please throw some light on your solutions for the education sector
With over a decade of experience in learning and assessment currently we are offering the following solutions to different needs for examination conduction and management:
• OnMark – end-to-end Examination Management Solution
• OneX – Examination Solutions (online and LAN)
OnMark is designed to enable Universities adopt transparent examination management system through online evaluation/ marking of answer scripts, digital storage of answer scripts and result processing which is the need of the hour in the changing times and judicial framework.
OneX–Examination solution has been designed to empower the corporate enterprises and government departments in their Human Resource Development activities like recruitment test, employee succession and VSN Raju training plans.

In Maldives, Parents Promote ICT in Education

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April 22, 2013

Dr Asim Ahmed,
Minister of Education, Maldives

Acceptance to the new technologies is so high among the people in Maldives that Internet based learning is promoted by the parents in most of the schools. With their own funding, parents have provided TV, smart board, computer, etc to schools, says Dr Asim Ahmed, Minister of Education, Maldives. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley.

Majority of South Asian countries are yet to address the problem of literacy, electricity and acceptance to new technologies, in such a scenario where do you see ICT in education stands?
It is very important to use information technology to enhance the quality of education. Many countries, including Maldives have introduced information technology as a subject in the classroom. I agree, there are many challenges related to infrastructure, however, we are fortunate that Maldives has electricity available in all the areas. We have robust internet connectivity. People’s acceptance to the new technologies is so high in Maldives that in most of the schools here internet based learning is promoted by the parents, with their own funding, they have provided TV, Smart-board, Computer, etc to schools.
Government does not have the capacity to provide all the modern facilities to all the schools. Government provides the minimum basic facilities to all the schools such as good infrastructure, quality teachers, text book, and other essential elements. It is the parents who have taken the lead in promoting ICT based education in schools.

In the last few years, gross enrolment ratio across South Asia has improved but not the quality. How do you look at Maldives in that context?
In Maldives we have 100 percent enrolment, so all the kids who are supposed to be in the school, are in the school. However, we prepare students for Cambridge O level examination and Edexcel A level examination; hence our syllabus is geared towards English medium of education.
Quality of education crucially depends on quality of teachers. We have developed many teachers development programme for both in service teachers and also for the one who wants to enter into the profession. So now universities and colleges are offering degree level training for education professionals. This will improve the quality and will reflect upon the performance of the students.
In Maldives, most of the teachers at the primary level are Maldivians now, at secondary level, we still depend on expatriate teachers. Government has improved the infrastructure in last couple of years to enhance the capacity of the schools. Most of the schools are one session school now; this has greatly improved the quality of the education as now students have time for various other educational activities as well.

[colored_box color=”yellow”]“Vocational education is the area that we want to promote within the general education system”[/colored_box]

In 2000, Government introduced Maldives Accreditation Board (MAB) to standardise the quality of education across the board, are you happy with the outcome of MAB?
So far, we are happy with the outcome. The main purpose of the MAB was to improve the standard of education especially at post-secondary level. In Maldives, higher education is largely dominated by private sector. Government is not investing very heavily in higher education. Government has a National University apart from that much of the higher education is provided by private organisations. MAB has helped us in monitoring and providing uniform standard to all these organisations. MAB has set various parameters for the private organisations to get accredited. Getting accreditation is also important for our certificate to get accepted internationally.

Traditionally, most of the Maldivians have gone abroad for higher education, what is the present scenario of higher education in Maldives?
It is true, but with the establishment of the higher education institutes, many students are able to obtain higher education in the country itself, that too for the fraction of the cost they pay abroad. However, many of the courses are still not available in Maldives, hence people go abroad. But now the private sector is competing with regional centre, suchas Malaysia where majority of Maldivians go for higher education.
Maldives National University has grown up and now it is a fully independent university, they provide education and training in all areas of social science. In science education, we still have to work very hard.
Centre for Continuing Education and Education Development Centre have been merged to become the National Institute of Education, it will continue to provide curriculum, research and other activities and most importantly now they will provide the diploma level courses to the teachers who are in the services. We have teacher resource centre, some of them will now act as training centre for NIE. So there is a lot of development happening in case of higher education in Maldives.

Fishing is considered as the lifeblood of Maldives. Do you have any plan or roadmap to educate and train the local fishermen?
Vocational education is the area that we want to promote within the general education system. Right now we are focusing on O level and A level education. Some schools in the rural areas have vocational streams but we do not have enough infrastructure. Recently, I had the discussion with the Fisheries and Agriculture minister on this very issue. We want to develop vocational courses both in fisheries and agriculture. Our schools will introduce these courses and Department of Fisheries and Agriculture would provide the assistance in teaching these subjects. We will plan the syllabus together and then decide a certificate standard; this is one development which we hope to see yielding good results.

Right now, there seems to be little strain in relationship between India and Maldives. What is your sense of India’s relationship with Maldives?
India is not only the close friend of the Maldives; it is like a close relative and brother of Maldives. Historically, culturally, diplomatically and socially we have had strong relationship with India so we cannot afford to have relation strained with India. A lot of Maldivians come to India to get medical treatment, to obtain education, and a lot of them are settled in India to get education for their children, so these are very important relations and we cannot really afford to have anything which disrupts this tie.
I hope that we will be able to work out any difference that we have. I believe India is a matured democracy and similarly Maldives is very old country. I personally feel these relationships will not be disrupted because of the issue we face that have some immediate impact. There will be long and strong relationship between the two countries. I believe foundation is still very strong, and I hope these good relations will bring good for both India and Maldives.

Institution of National Importance status is needed

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April 22, 2013

“NCERT is in the process of becoming the Institution of National Importance, which will empower it to be more flexible and offer degree courses,” says Prof Parvin Sinclair, Director, National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT).

How successful has NCERT been in reflecting the pluralist character of India?
NCERT was formed in 1961 by merging seven bodies that already existed, so our agenda was determined largely by the objectives of those seven bodies.Initially, we were called the research and training body. Our job from the beginning was to look at all aspects of school education,from inside activity of classrooms to outside implicationsof it. So there have been four curriculum frameworks formed over the years as part of meeting these objectives.
Over the years we were supporting the government in providing the universal education which was always there as universalised elementary education scheme but without it being formalised or pushed through like in RTE. However, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and before that DPE, we were all working towards this.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision was that everyone should have a scientific tempo.So accordingly all curriculars were meant for bringing everybody to classroom. However, we agree that ground realities are different. Since we are National Advisory Body under Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the centralbody can only advice the state government as educationis the concurrent subject. So what we proposed can be taken with a complete spirit or partly ormay be not at all by states, that is why the RTE came into being and you can see the great changes it has brought in the last three years. Moreover, now under the act, everyone has to deliver,although we havenot reached 100 percent access,but we are much nearer there than three years ago and a short way to go still in terms of access.

Creation of climate of acceptance is important. Does that also get reflected in the NCERT vision?
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 absolutely ensures that each individual level is going to each child which is given opportunity to grow based on her experience. That is what, it is about and that is why it is difficult to bring to the classroom because each has a different back ground. Curriculum is not about reading writing and assessment that is an old colonial view. It’s about rowing as a person, how to care about others and bringing values to people,building the health mental as well as physical, allowing them to ork on cultural and social front, making people learn how to share with others and being included and including others. Be it a girl child or the boy child, they should get equal opportunities and should be confident about it and that is my NCF 2005 vision, so definitely diversity gets reflected in our vision.

What should be the role of ICT in education?
Precisely, what you have mentioned that it should be enabler. ICT is not just power point presentation, it is beyond that. We have started a project called NROER (The National Repository of Open Education Resources)and the idea is to allow children to see from the repository of NROER.People can add to these resources which will be review before being put to NROER, so by that way teachers are enabled to create what is actually needed.That is what the role of ICT should be.

What NCERT is doing currently and what are the future plans?
At present we are in the process of becoming the Institution of National Importance which requires the Parliament clearance so we are in the process of getting that bill drafted. The reason for that there are so many plans that requires flexibility. NCERT is a club of eight big institutes like National Institute of Education,Central Institute of Education and Technology and apart from these wehave five regional institute of education plus we have the Central Institute of Vocational Education so totally we are eight.NCERT is the council overarching body which looks after these institutes. So if this conglomerate becomes the intuition of national importance, you can imagine the kind of empowerment which all the regions will get. So this is one plan we are working on right and there are other areas also where we are focusing and hope to do bring good results.

Education needs both – Teachers & Technology

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April 22, 2013

The government has sanctioned 19.82 lakh posts for teachers to various states and union territories under the Dr Ravi Gupta Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme. Under the 12th Five Year Plan, the Central Government has sanctioned Rupees 6300crore to strengthen teacher education. Despite the massive efforts towards digitisation that are being undertaken, the education system in the country is being stymied due to the lack of properly trained teachers. The Central government’sinitiative to recruit 19.82 new teachers will help in bridging the gap toa significant extent.
ICTs have a major role to play in education. The ICT revolution has providedus with a means for taking teaching and learning out of the confines of theexisting schools and colleges, but students still need access to quality teachersin order to make progress in their learning. The teaching cannot be completelydissociated form the teachers; it must not become insensitive to human relationshipsthat exists between the teacher and the taught. We no longer have achoice in either area. It is no longer an “if ” but “how” to deploy the technologiesoptimally and recruit more teachers to meet the demand-supply gap.
These are just some of the fundamental issues in education that digitalLEARNING has been raising over the years. It is time for us to raise it once again,not only in the magazine, but also in our popular summit on educational issues,the World Education Summit (WES), which is scheduled for 23-24 April,2013, at Le Meridian Hotel, New Delhi. Since its inception, three years ago, theWES has been taking a holistic look at promoting ICT in education. This is thethird edition of the WES. By the time the issue reaches your hands, the magazinewill already be out. In fact, the magazine is being launched at the WES.
Some of the main challenges that the World Education Summit seeks to addressare access, inclusion and quality. This issue of digitalLEARNING is designed toserve as a precursor to the WES. The magazine seeks to set the agenda thatwill be further pursued at the WES with hope that new ideas for improving thestate of our education will emerge. With this objective in mind, while framingthis issue of digitalLEARNING, we have interacted with a host of stakeholdersfrom the education space.
We have the interviews of the education minister of Rajasthan, and also of countries like Maldives and Nepal. There are interactions with senior officials from MHRD. Then there are the enlightening perspectives from industry and the academic community. The range of views that have been expressed are evocative of the passion that education arouses in the modern world. We hope that you will enjoy this issue. Do write back to us with your feedback on this issue of digitalLEARNING and on the World Education Summit.

473 Punjab schools fail to meet RTE standard

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

April 18, 2013

punjab govt 473 private schools in the state of Punjab might face closure due to non-implementation of the provisions of Right to Education Act, as instructed by Punjab education minister Sikander Singh Maluka. Maluka has instructed immediate closure of such schools in the state.

Approximately 37,813 students will be affected due to this decision and could get admissions in the government schools. The decision followed the failure to abide by the deadline of March 31 to fulfil all the norms.

A fine of Rs 1 lakh would be imposed on the schools for not following the government order and if they continue their operations. Director General School Education will be ensuring the closure of such schools in the state.

The district education officers will ensure that the affected students get admission in the nearest government schools in their locality.

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