All India Council for Technical Education has signed a pact with Microsoft and Autodesk in order to support a free software supply to the education sector in India. AICTE, Autodesk and Microsoft have become partners for delivering free access to development software and design software for institutions, students and faculty in the country.
AICTE Chairman SS Mantha signed MoUs with Autodesk Chief Education Officer Joe Asthroth and Microsoft General Manager
Have you ever experienced your 10yr old child enjoying science experiments? Let Zee Learn Gakken Scienece Academy take your child on an exploration of science and its magic! Zee Learn in association with Gakken J Holdings, a leading educational firm from Japan, has launched 'Zee Learn Gakken Science Academy' for schools. The partnership was sealed by Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group and Tetsuya Onodera, Chairman, Gakken J Holdings. The academy can be incorporated in the schools from the current academic year itself. This academy aims to improve conceptual understanding and develop scientific aptitude amongst students by providing hands-on learning experiment tools. The program is a 3 step systematic methodology of 'OBSERVE, EXPLORE & REFLECT' which would help a child nurture his/her scientific aptitude.
Tetsuya Onodera, Chairman, Gakken J Holdings said, 'Zee Learn Gakken Science Academy has given us an opportunity to bring our expertise to the schools in India. We are thrilled to see the overwhelming response received from schools and students during demonstrations. I am confident that this program will definitely ensure a better conceptual understanding and help children develop an affinity towards the subject.' This methodology enables students to design their own learning process. They lead the way by reflecting on their experiences which makes them the experts of their own learning process. When in classroom, the instructor helps create situations where the students feel safe questioning and reflecting on their learning. Besides building a scientific temper amongst students, Zee Learn Gakken Science Academy also aims to introduce and incorporate best practices in education. In order to execute the same, the science program would be conducted in the school premises by dedicated personnel trained by the company.
Commenting on the occasion, Sumeet Mehta, CEO, Zee Learn said, 'We are extremely excited to bring in this innovative learning method to India in association with Gakken J Holdings. Our aim is to bring the best in class education standards across all schools / education institutions in India and help build superior quality of human capital for the future. We aim to build & create innovative learning environments that facilitate holistic development.' The Indian education system is transforming at a rapid pace. Children today have access to a wide world of knowledge and information through internet and broadcast. The model needs to be in line with the increasing aptitude of this set of next-gen students. 'Being in this sector for more than a decade, we felt the need to revolutionize the way our children were learning. In our search for the right partner who will help bring about this change we found Gakken to be an ideal match,' he added. With an experience and expertise of over a decade in the education industry Zee Learn has now extended its services to other schools in India through Zee Learn School innovations. Zee Learn School Innovations has a vast gamut of offerings ranging from science to robotics to language lab solutions. Zee Learn Gakken Science Academy is a part of this umbrella.
With a successful admission to 50,000 children in 600 state government run residential schools without any entrance test following Right to Education Act, Andhra Pradesh has raised the spirits of the other states. Andhra residential schools, which have been consistently producing good results, have even given reservation higher than 25% stipulated under the RTE Act. Dr D Sambasiva Rao, Secretary, Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh explained that although at first exams were being conducted for admissions to schools but with the act coming into power, screening was prohibited in accordance to the act and RTE was executed.
In case of non-residential schools, the ministry has decided that while 25% reservation to children of economically weaker sections will be given without any screening and on the basis of random selection through draw of lots, for the remaining 75%, there will be a rational system of categorisation.
Plans are being formulated by the central government of India. Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal recently mentioned the intentions of the centre to set up a national vocational education framework to help school students who fall short of receiving higher education. He addressed a conference, Higher Education Conclave 2010 organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and described that there is a need to set up a formal structure of vocational education to empower and harness the talent of students who are unable to pursue the mainstream higher education. The proposed vocational training will begin at the school level only and it will be of 10 levels. Students from Class 8 onwards will be able to take up various vocational courses, like carpentry and para-medical, along with their regular courses till Class 12. They will be provided certificates based on their work over four levels till Class 12 and six levels after Class 12, said the minister.
Soon ICT focused studies and research will be made available through the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Chairman, Reliance ADA Group who announced on Thursday the setting up of the Dhirubhai Ambani University (DAU) here on the eve of the Global Investors Meet. Anil Ambani in a statement on the occasion mentioned that the aim of the university will be to deliver high quality programmes in IT to the enrolled students in Bhopal. The DAU will be soon set up in 110 acres of land and the Reliance ADA Group has earmarked INR 100 crore for developing higher education in Madhya Pradesh. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has issued a letter of intent and also provided land for the proposed varsity. Both undergraduate and postgraduate courses will be available at DAU with emphasis on research activities in ICT and allied areas.
A churning is taking place in the INR 400 common admission test (CAT) training business is in a consolidation mode. The number of applicants for the CAT examination has been decreasing steadily, after the MBA entrance went computer-based last year and institutes feel the cost of setting up a computer lab at each centre too high. It is expected that the next two years would see smaller institutes being acquired by bigger players. CAT scores are considered for admission to 10 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and 150 B-Schools. More than one lakh candidates take coaching to prepare for the test. With a computer-based test requiring coaching centres to install computers and develop software support, the new investment could be as high as INR 1 crore. With competition prohibiting raising of fees (INR 35,000 for an 18-month course), institutes prefer to close down some centres.
CAT training institutes like IMS and PT Education, which have a national presence, have together closed down some 35 centres in prominent cities like Delhi, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Muzzafarpur, Gwalior, Surat, Ajmer and Lucknow. Smaller institutes like Ahmedabad-based Navigator Solutions has stopped CAT coaching and switched over to government and banking competitive exam coaching. A few more are closing down smaller centres. The drop in the number of applicants is also being attributed to lack of comfort with computers of the applicants from rural background.
Researchers from the Mobile & Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE) Project are using those phones to teach children how to read. In Henan city of China academicians from Carnegie Mellon, UC-Berkeley, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are working with children in Xin'an, using two mobile learning games, inspired by traditional Chinese children's games. MILLEE later repeated these studies with young children at a privately run school in urban Beijing. Both runs suggest that phone-based games could be a useful tool in teaching literacy.
According to Carnegie Mellon's Matthew Kam, despite the small screens and low level of applications, mobile are form of supportive educational resource as wireless carriers and mobile phone manufacturers move aggressively to extend mobile phone penetration across the globe. Nokia has sponsored a MILLEE project teaching English literacy to rural children in India using mobile phone-based games, beginning with 800 children in 40 villages in southern India's Andhra Pradesh. MILLEE is also working with the University of Nairobi to explore how the games could be adapted to English literacy learning for rural children in Kenya.
Collaboration has taken place between Reliance Foundation and London School of Economics to establish world class universities in India. The announcement on the same was made by LSE's Professor Lord Nicholas Stern. A lecture was delivered at LSE by Nita Ambani, Reliance Foundation's Chairperson and Mukesh Ambani's wife. There was also an address by the Director of the India Observatory and Chairman of the Asia Research Centre at the LSE.
Nita Ambani, who is also the Chairperson of Dhirubhai Ambani International School, said that the school located in Mumbai had produced some of the top talents in the country and some of the students are currently studying at the LSE. She added that Reliance Industries is seeking partnership with global players for a new venture aimed at bridging the gap between urban and rural India. Nita Ambani runs a foundation, covering 12 schools that educate 15000 children in India.
In a speech by the chairperson of World Federation of Engineering Organisation (WFEO) and Women Engineers (WIE), Engineer Joama O Maduka, mentioned that only ten percent of primary school teachers are computer literate. She described that before it was realised that 90% of the primary school teachers are computer illiterate, it was planned that participation of women in economic activities as well as IT application needs to be improved. Alongside it was decided that a Needs Assessment Survey on various women groups will be carried out in Abuja.
The FCT UBEB chairman said five schools in Abuja Municipal Area Council have computer facilities, while 12 junior secondary schools in Abuja are connected to internet facilities with 150 teachers trained out of 5,000 in the past few years. He called for more assistance from other corporate organisations and thanked African WFEO regional office in Nigeria and the Nigerian Society of Engineers for the Abuja Pilot Primary Teachers' IT Training.
