While the British Government which recently approved for its schools a new curriculum to be implemented in the year 2011 is gathering momentum ahead of the year, Famaks International Schools Asokoro, < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
He said, 'Apart from the fact that we will be the first in
NIS L.I.V.E, an initiative of NIS Sparta Ltd., (L.I.V.E. is the acronym for Learning in Interactive Virtual Environment) has in association with Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIM-B) today announced the launch of a bouquet of Advanced Post Graduate Certificate courses. These include PGCBM (Postgraduate Certificate Program in Business Management), PGCHRM (Postgraduate Certificate Program in HR Management), and PGCMM (Postgraduate Certificate Program in Marketing Management). 'These high-end advanced Post Graduate Certificate courses have been designed to cater to the needs of executives who would like to enhance their career and learn from the best in the industry. The weekend schedule allows for working professionals to choose these programs and the presence of NIS L.I.V.E centers ensure a geographical convenience,' said Manoj chawla, Sr. Vice President, NIS Sparta. 'NIS L.I.V.E centres have been created to incorporate synchronous and asynchronous teaching using Video Conferencing Based platforms to provide comprehensive technology enabled tele-education solutions. Advanced video-conferencing technology will be used to teach working executives across India. This technology enables classroom-like interactions between instructors and learners and between learners in different locations. This results in a highly interactive mode of learning that draws from the wealth of knowledge of the faculty and other resources of the institute and the diversity of learners spread across the country. Students can see and hear live lectures of their professors, view slides, audio-visuals as well as participate in interactive sessions with their professors and other students.' 'XIMB professors will teach from the studios of NIS L.I.V.E and students can use the personal transponder to interact with the faculty and raise queries. The students can also choose to set the pace of the lecture. This essentially creates an in-classroom atmosphere and ensures that the student is not taken away from the direct learning experience. We are extremely happy to be associated with training leaders like NIS Academy for these programs. NIS is known for their delivery in terms of content and technology and we are sure that this association will jointly produce the best of Management students in the country,' said Fr. P T Joseph SJ, Director XIM-B. 'These programs provide a broad range of management disciplines. The practical and highly interactive program advances through the major disciplines of management in greater depth and with a strategic perspective. The curriculum provides an integrated set of learning activities that build leadership capacity and the ability to develop other strategic leaders. The curriculum also focuses on enhancing leadership competencies in the areas of communication, critical thinking, collaboration, leading change, and leading people,' he added. These one year advance programs will consist of 240 hours of interactive classrooms via video conference, and also include an 8 day residential program at the XIM-B campus where intensive learning of certain components of the programme is facilitated. Fees can be paid in installments during the course of the programmes. Anyone with a three year bachelor degree (or equivalent) in any discipline and at least two years of work experience can apply.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has now made higher education its thrust area with a view to increasing the gross enrolment ratio to 15% by the end of the 11th Plan. A key announcement in this regard was made in Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's budget speech itself on Monday in the form of a student loan for economically weaker sections. Under this scheme, eligible students will be provided full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium. It will cover loans taken by such students from scheduled banks to pursue any of the approved courses of study, in technical and professional streams, from recognised institutions in the country. An estimated five lakh students would benefit from this scheme. Further, he has extended the scope of Section 80E of the Income-tax Act
A Stanford University Student, Devin Banerjee, has been awarded the 2010 Danile Pearl Memorial Journalism Internship, which will have him working in one of the Wall Street Journal's foreign bureaus this summer. According to the university news release he expects to graduate in 2010. He is the editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily and is working towards a degree in management science and engineering, with a concentration in technology and policy.
The internship was established to commemorate the work and ideals of Pearl, a Stanford graduate and Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. Banerjee is from Calabasas in Southern California, and he has previously held internships at the San Jose Mercury News and the JoongAng Daily in Seoul, Korea.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was both a student and a teacher in the faculty and students of Panjab University, where, which on Monday hailed the budgetary grant of INR50 crore to the cash-starved institution. Many said they were grateful to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as well as Manmohan Singh for coming to the aid of one of India's oldest universities, set up originally in Lahore. The university is funded by the central and Punjab governments in a 60:40 ratio. It has over 10,000 students, 70 % of them women.
Ronki Ram, president of the Panjab University Teachers Association (PUTA), mentioned that Punjab university being chosen for this grant over all other universities was a matter of pride. According to Ronki Ram, currently there is a financial deficit of INR168 crore. The grant 'would certainly help improve the situation to some extent.'
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) on Saturday started 100 community colleges to bring a 'learning revolution' among under-privileged students across the country. Launching the community college programme of IGNOU, Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari said, 'This effort will empower the disadvantaged through appropriate skill development, leading to gainful employment of people in the grassroots. This will bring a learning revolution. This scheme will lead to inclusive education for most marginalised section of the society.' A unique initiative, community colleges will impart education through private-public partnership to underprivileged students using the unutilised capacities of educational institutions across the country. The colleges will commence their courses from the coming academic session. IGNOU Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai said the present educational system does not match up to the skill requirement in the market. 'These community colleges will impart vocational education to do away with the prevalent mismatch.'
The students who attend these colleges shall acquire associate degrees, which will ensure them a lateral entry to the bachelor's programme for a formal graduation degrees. Initially 100 out of 800 applicant colleges have been selected to run the community colleges. Most of them are private institutions. IGNOU's role will be accreditation, quality monitoring and evaluation, certification and course development. Each selected college has an average capital investment of Rs.150 million including land, building, equipment and other facilities. The institutions have also tied up with local industries, both small and heavy. Ten to 15 teachers will be put on rolls in each college to conduct the classes for the enrolled students. Apart from use of information technology, there will also be personal contact and counselling to develop sound teaching-learning processes. Pointing out that just five percent of labour force in India have vocational qualification, Pillai termed his initiative 'a grass root movement for education.' IGNOU is the world's largest open university, with over 300 courses catering to more than two million students in India and abroad through distance education.
Australian government has started with a new AUS$40 million education initiative that aims to improve the computer literacy of teachers and ensure they can keep up with their students.
On 18th February 2010, Julia Gillard, Education Minister announced that half of the money from the mentioned amount, would be utilised to develop a self- assessment tool for schools to look at where they needed training in ICT. While the remaining portion will be used to set up an ICT Innovation Fund to provide grants for ICT projects.
It was explained by Gillard that the funding can be applied for by universities, state and territory education departments, businesses and the private education sector from April 2010 for projects to improve the capabilities of pre-service and in-service teachers. She also specified that the government had already rolled out 220,000 computers in schools ahead of the program’s 2012 deadline.
Recently, an announcement was made by Masagos Zulkifli, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Home Affairs, for the establishment of the Malay Language Centre of Singapore (MLCS) or 'Pusat Bahasa Melayu Singapura' at the 3rd Arif Budiman Lecture Series. This centre is to open in July 2010 and is to support training of in-service Malay language (ML) teachers. The aim of the initiative is to encourage teaching and learning of the Malay Language in the context of a more challenging and dynamic language environment, where more students are coming from households where English is the dominant home language.
The centre is to station at Bishan. It is to conduct training courses, workshops, seminars and professional sharing sessions for ML teachers. This is suppose to boost teachers' skills and knowledge in a variety of areas such as Malay grammar, Malay culture, teaching strategies, assessment techniques, and application of ICT. These will facilitate teachers in developing more creative and effective ML lessons.
Students, who want to study in Britain, from Indian or European region are to face stricter English-language test and will be banned from bringing over dependents if they are studying short courses, the government announced on Sunday. British Home Minister Alan Johnson described that the norms set will be enforced with immediate effect and will also restrict the number of hours foreign students can work in Britain.
The English language test will be upgraded from the current beginners' English to the intermediate level, the equivalent of a British GCSE foreign language qualification. Students coming to Britain for courses that are under six months in duration will not be allowed to bring in any dependents. The dependent will be allowed to accompany the student pursuing courses that are over six months in duration but not a three-year higher education degree course, but the dependents will not be allowed to work. In addition, the number of hours a foreign student is allowed to work in Britain is being cut down from the current 20 hours a week.
In 2009, there was a rise in the participation of Saudi women in International Computer Driving License (ICDL) training programs across the the country to 35%. In coming years its is expected that the rise will amount to 50% reported a high-ranking official of ICDL Saudi Arabia, the governing body and certification authority of the ICDL program in the Kingdom. According to Dr. Sulaiman Al-Dhalaan, Consultant, ICDL Saudi Arabia, the number of women participating in ICDL training programs across the Kingdom rose from 10% in 2006 to 35% by the end of 2009.
Al-Dhalaan explained that said to ensure the greater adoption of ICDL training into their academic programs, ICDL Saudi Arabia has been closely coordinating with women-only educational institutions such as Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University, the Kingdom's first university for women. Other prominent academic institutions such as King Saud University, Taibah University and Al-Baha University already have women students enrolled in the ICDL programme.
