For an accurate assessment of the current learning methods education experts from Indian syllabus-based CBSE schools in the GCC and India are taking initiatives to ensure that students clearly understand core concepts while learning. Recently a discussion was led by GEMS Education, a leading international education company, and the India-based Educational Initiatives (EI), an internationally renowned organisation in the field of child psychology and student assessment methods. Research by Educational Initiatives shows that while children today respond to rote-based questions relatively well, they fail to answer unfamiliar or application-based questions due to unclear core concepts Dr Wasil, Director of GEMS Education, said, “Assessments carried out with the right spirit and approach is a sure-shot path to empowerment and school leadership has to be ever on the learning curve to ensure this.” Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director, Educational Initiatives, said EI and GEMS share the same philosophy of providing an improved system in the region.
P&G
P&G's signature CSR Program “Shiksha” has come up with more than schools all over India after it was launched a few days back with Rani Mukherjee as its brand ambassador. Shiksha has, so far, impacted lives of 150,000 children till 2010, aims to take number to 200,000 in 2011 By this initiative P&G has given its consumers a simple yet powerful way to participate in building India's educational future. Every time a consumer buys P&G products such as Tide, Ariel, Pampers, Whisper, Olay, Vicks, Gillette Oral-B, Head & Shoulders, Pantene and Duracell in the month of April, May & June, Shiksha contributes a portion of the proceeds towards children's education. Now in its 7th year, Shiksha is back with an even stronger commitment – to take its current impact of 150,000 children to the 200,000 mark. In 2010, Shiksha took initiative in building over 20 schools all across India, supported 100+ existing schools and now aims to build at-least 20 more in the coming year. This year, Bollywood megastar Rani Mukherji came on-board to extend her selfless support to Shiksha, encouraging consumers to help Shiksha lead more and more on the path to education. Rani was delighted to hear that Shiksha is also building a school in the state of West Bengal and helped build a model for a play-school that will be presented to the children at RTI Shiksha Begampur High School. At the Shiksha launch event Rani said “It's truly commendable that with your support, Shiksha has been able to impact 150,000 children and begun building 20 schools across India. I am proud to be associated with Shiksha and felt very happy to be creating this playschool that will be built for the children at RTI Shiksha Begampur High School, West Bengal. I urge you to remember that the next time you walk into a store to shop for something basic like a shampoo, a toothbrush or a detergent – you can help educate a lesser-privileged child by making a simple brand choice” Present at the launch, Sharat Verma, Marketing Manager, P&G India said, ''Shiksha is not just an initiative, but a passion that we as an organization strongly believe in. After touching the lives of 150,000 children, we are now helping build the future of India's children “Brick by Brick” by building 20 schools this year and an aim to build another 20 in the coming year and take Shiksha's impact to 200,000 children. After all, “Padhega India, tabhi toh Badhega India”
Education tops 12th five-year list
The 12th five-year plan will put more emphasis on education, health and infrastructure, according to the Planning Commission deputy chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The plan will also propose 'drastic action' to fix problems in the power sector. He said on that it was “probably overambitious” to aim at a double-digit growth in the five-year plan beginning next year. Though, he hastened to add that the exact growth target was yet to be fixed. He said it would be good if 9 per cent GDP growth could be achieved annually as the global economy was not doing well. “Looking forward, the world economy is not doing well. If India grows at an average of 8.5 per cent in 12th plan period, it would be counted as a very good performance. If we do 9 per cent, it will be excellent. I should add that to get 9 per cent growth or a little over 9 per cent a lot of work has to be done. If we try to take it up by 1 per cent from the 11th plan achievement, it will be 9.2 per cent,” told Ahluwalia. Though the Planning Commission had projected 9 per cent annual growth during the 11th plan, it would end up with average 8.2 per cent. “This is an exceptionally good performance compared to rest of the world,” he said. Commenting on the IMF observation that India with 10.3 per cent growth would overtake China (10.2 per cent growth), Ahluwalia said one should not get carried away by these numbers as China had been growing much faster for 30 years. Their per capita income was now much higher than that of India. “Even if India grows at 9 per cent and China at 7 per cent in next 20 years, India would still have a lot of catching up to do,” he said. Ahead of full the Planning Commission meeting on April 21 to be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the approach paper to 12th plan, Ahluwalia said the government proposed to introduce the public-private partnership (PPP) model in education and health for the first time. “The human resources development ministry is now considering how to introduce PPP in school education. Of 6,000 model schools, about 3,500 are to be set up in backward areas where we cannot attract the private sector. The remaining 2,500 are to be set up in PPP mode. We will start this year, but 95 per cent of the work will be done in 12th plan,” he said. This proposal will go to the cabinet soon, he said. A cabinet note prepared by the HRD ministry is already with the Planning Commission. Ahluwalia said the PPP schools should be viewed as a pilot project of the centre. If successful, it could be replicated by state governments as school education was basically a state subject. In the past the centre had set up 900 Navodhya schools as model residential schools all over the country. These have done exceptionally well. The PPP schools would not necessarily be residential schools. Turning to the difficult power situation, Ahluwalia said, “More drastic measures were needed. We need to push five or six key issues
Teachers
Concerned about the quality of education imparted by the teachers, the National Council of Teachers (NCTE) has decided to recruit teachers nationwide after clearing the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET). Despite the recruitment being a mammoth task after the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the quality of the education imparted is something with which the Centre doesn't want to compromise at any cost. It is necessary to ensure that persons recruited as teachers possess the essential aptitude and ability to meet the challenges of teaching at the primary and upper primary level.The CTET, to be held on June 26 by the Central Board of Secondary Education, will be conducted in Tamil Nadu in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai. The NCTE is including a pass in the TET as a minimum qualification. While teachers applying to central board schools, including Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, will have to take the test state governments have been given the option of adopting it as a minimum requirement for teachers in schools run by the state, local bodies and aided schools. Sources say that in Tamil Nadu, where teachers are taken in batches by the Teacher Recruitment Board on a seniority basis, the offer has not been taken up. A senior official said, “Some states are known to take in unqualified persons as teachers. The TET is applicable in these states. In Tamil Nadu we only take in trained and qualified teachers so there is no need for a TET.” Only candidates who have passed or are appearing for the final exam of the two-year diploma in elementary education, or four-year bachelor of elementary education, one-year bachelor in education can take the test. I P Kanagasundaram , former principal of a District Institute of Educational Training in the state, said, “A large number of private teacher training institutes have mushroomed in the state. Instead of only depending on the results of a test to verify the eligibility of a teacher, the government should monitor these training institutes to see if they have qualified principals and faculty. Checks should be conducted to see if the institutes provide instructions on how teachers should interact with children and cater to their needs, and on the importance and essence of being a teacher.”
Pawar on for erasing financial burden on educational institutes
With a promise made to look after the financial conditions of the various educational institutions, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) big-shot Sharad Pawar recently met a group of office bearers to discuss the financial burden faced by the institutes. Assuring a role of playing a mediator between the education minister, secretary of the department and the office-bearers, Pawar suggested setting up a forum involving education minister, secretary of the department and office-bearers for a dialogue. The meeting which lasted for over one and half hours revolved round the financial burden faced by the educational institutes, the staff crunch and other issues. For last 10 to 15 years, the institutions have not got non-salary grants from the government. Even if they have got a few grants, those were inadequate. They met Pawar as the higher education department is with the NCP.
Popularity of technical education leads to development
As per an analysis done by the ministry of higher education of Himachal Pradesh, over 85 per cent of the technical institution students are being placed every year compared to the other fields. Over 40,000 students go through a councelling session every year keeping in mind its popularity, said Narender Bragta, Minster of Technical Education Himachal, at Dharamsala. A new hydro-electric engineering college will start functioning in Pragati Nagar of Shimla from this year and this shall be second institution in India where ITI, Polytechnic and Engineering shall be taught under one roof He said adding another hydro engineering college shall be established near Bhakhra Dam in Bilaspur. Bragta said that beside NIT Hamirpur, one IIT has started functioning in Mandi, and the state has also set up one Himachal Pradesh Technical University at Hamirpur. He said that by the conditioning of five more Polytechnics in August this year and estimating the bright aspects of higher technical jobs in the field of hydro electricity in Himachal, every district of the state shall have one such institution.
Higher education is must for employment: Kalam
A large number of talented youth with higher education for creating and imparting knowledge is required in India, former President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has said. Inaugurating a seminar for the CBSE teachers of international schools at the Indian High School here, Dr Kalam said that over three million graduates and post graduates are being delivered by India's higher system and around 7 million students per year are seeking employment after completion of 10th class and 10+2 class. “Thus nearly 10 million youth are injected into the employment market every year. In the 21st century, India needs a large number of talented youth with higher education for the task of knowledge acquisition, knowledge imparting, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing,” he said. According to him, there is a large gap in the availability of employable skill in India. “To bridge the gap, an interface is needed between the school and the school curriculum and the needs of the three sectors of the economy. We have to start right now to realise this goal since the overall time available for such an educational growth is limited,” Dr Kalam said during the seminar. The seminar is being conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi, for 400 teachers from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan along with selected students of all UAE schools. Dr Kalam said that a school is very important because it creates and generate students with confidence that “I can do it” that in turn will generate the team spirit that “We will do it” and “The nation will do it”
NIOS unveils its recording studio
To make teaching and learning process more effective and efficient, National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has recently unveiled a recording studio in its premises. The studio, which was inaugurated by the Hon'ble Minister of State for HRD, Dr. D Purandeswari on 13th April 2011, will be utilised for recording programmes for the proposed 24
Top universities raise fees for status symbol
To avoid being categorised among the substandard varsities, Queen Mary University, London, is among the many institutions which are charging
Private universities to get more money for loans
With an attempt to introduce more competition into higher education and reward private providers who are more likely to offer cut-price courses, undergraduates from the academic year of 2012 will be able to borrow up to
