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ICAS International Twinning Engineering Program Applications Invite for Batch 2010

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Manipal Education has announced the opening of admissions to their International Centre for Applied Sciences (ICAS) Twinning Program, a collaborative arrangement with foreign universities. The course provides a great platform for students to pursue engineering programs overseas, at a fraction of the cost. ICAS is a unique Credit Transfer Program that enables its students to pursue the first two years of their degree program at Manipal and the last two years in a foreign university. The foreign university awards the degree. Based on the performance in the first two years, the credits can be transferred to Top league institutions like John Hopkins University, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, Virginia Tech, University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, Purdue University, University of California- Berkeley, University of Wisconsin- Madison, Texas A & M, Ohio State University, University of Southern California, University of Minnesota -Twin Cities, Case Western University among many others.

ICAS also has successful tie ups with universities in the U.S., Andrews University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Michigan Technological University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Russ College of Engineering and Technology, St. Cloud State University, The University of Missouri-Kansas, and North Dakota State University. In the U.K., ICAS has tied up with City University, Lancaster University, Sheffield Hallam University and University of Leicester. The ones in Australia are Deakin University and University of Queensland. The Degree will be awarded by that Foreign University after the successful completion of the course. The course curriculum, methodology & evaluation is based on the US University structure / pattern and is compatible with most of the US & UK Universities, thereby making for smooth credit transfers. The course also provides tremendous opportunities to avail paid internships in USA, UK and Australia. Universities also offer part or full tuition fee waivers and scholarships exclusively to ICAS students depending upon their performance & merit. It is also possible to finish the program in less than 4 years as it depends on the number of subjects chosen in each semester.

Bharathidasan University and ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu sign MoU

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

A deal was struck between Bharathidasan University with the ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu (ICTACT) to establish its function as a nodal institution in its jurisdiction comprising seven districts with 104 Arts & Science and Fine Arts colleges, and 13 approved institutions. 18 is the number of autonomous colleges and the student strength in the affiliated colleges is over 1.5 lakh, out of the above mentioned colleges and institutions.

The ICTACT, a consortium of the Centre, State and Confederation of Indian Industry, will provide industry relevant training programmes in the ICT spectrum to the faculty members of the university and its affiliated colleges. Various training programmes will be sponsored by the ICT industry. It is led by a governing body chaired by Lakshmi Narayanan of Cognizant Technology Solutions with members drawn from industry leaders including K. Jayaramakrishnan of TCS, Sameer Garde of Dell, Raghunandan of Redington, Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Capital Ltd., CII Tamil Nadu Chapter Chairman C.K. Ranganathan, and State Secretary of IT P.W.C. Davidar.

High Tech studies soon at Chandigarh

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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14 government and private colleges in Chandigarh are to provide their students with Digital libraries, audio-visual presentations and films, the new educational tools for students with the hope of taking learning beyond the conventional textbook experience. A document on 'Vision 2010' was circulated among colleges with focus on promoting learning through real-life situations exposure, besides introduction of the latest technology.

The document talks about improving infrastructure, proposes industry-community-based interaction, skill development and use of audio-visual aids, movies and documentaries for teaching in smart classrooms equipped with master CDs of eminent scholars.

Fundamental rights on Education to be availed by kids

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Children in the age group of 6-14 years are to receive compulsory education with the notification of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, becoming a fundamental right, in April. While addressing the nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh mentioned that the government is committed to provide all children education to strengthen the future of the nation further. While the notification is an important milestone, the government acknowledged that the real challenge lay in the effective implementation of the Act. The address also comprised of Shri Singh referring to the need for all stakeholders to work together to realize the Right to Education (RTE). The requirement of large funds and inadequate provisioning have been major reasons for the delay in the notification. Welcoming the notification, UNICEF representative in India Karin Hulshof mentioned that the effort will ensure quality education with equity for children, with opening doors for achieving great heights and brighter future.

While these are the initial steps, the government will need to ensure that allocations are made. The Thirteenth Finance Commission has provided for INR 25,000 crore to the states over five years for the implementation of RTE. This over and above allocations for centrally-sponsored schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Mid-Day Meal, teacher education. For the current year, the central allocation is to the tune of INR 15,000 crore, and the centre will bear 55% of the burden. The ministry is keen that the Centre's burden is increased to 65% to ensure that states do not fall behind on implementation due to fund crunch. Work on RTE was started by the NDA government soon after Parliament passed the constitutional amendment in December 2002. The first delay came when the NDA was voted out of power in May 2004. Work on the RTE was then taken up by the Kapil Sibal (now Minster HRD, India) committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE).


ICT to rural Nigeria

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

All over the world, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is fast dictating the pace of development. From communication to banking, education to defence, oil and gas as well as health and agriculture, electronic technology has become the norm. Access to ICT remains low in Nigeria, despite liberalisation of the sector ten years ago. It was told that in parts of Africa where 70% of the population comes under the category of rural population, the people don't have interest in investing in businesses, not to mention the disinterest in terms of ICT.

It was estimated by CTO that only 10% (10 million) of Nigeria's 140 million population have access to the internet. In this scenario, the rural dwellers that constitute the bulk of the people are either totally cut off or under served in terms of ICT. The Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), a federal government agency affiliated to the National Communications commission (NCC)has a five- year strategic plan 2007 – 2011 which consists of five broad goals to promote the widespread availability and usage of network and applications services throughout Nigeria.

HCL introduces Desktop Home Computing 2.0 launches the new Beanstalk range

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

HCL Infosystems India's premier hardware, services and ICT system Integration company, announced the return of Beanstalk, one of the most popular desktop range to cater to the growing demand for cutting-edge technology on the home computing front. With power-packed features and advanced technologies, the all new HCL Beanstalk range will offer the ultimate convenience of productivity, connectivity and an incredible new entertainment experience. HCL Beanstalk was India's first Home Multimedia PC launched by HCL Infosystems in 1995 with a view to address the fast emerging home computing market. Speaking on the occasion, George Paul, Executive Vice President, HCL Infosystems Ltd said, 'HCL Infosystems has a strong heritage in computing business and always pioneered the latest technology for the Indian consumers. We have successfully maintained a strong foothold in the desktop category and have believed in high performance, providing a better experience to our customers. We are leveraging our robust 'eco system' of partners to deliver the performance and set the trend for a smarter computing lifestyle.' He added, 'The return of HCL Beanstalk PCs is a significant step towards expanding our leadership positioning in the high end desktop space. HCL Beanstalk will transform the mainstream consumer experience by bringing a whole rich world of multimedia, entertainment, education and lifestyle aiding features.'

Commenting on the launch Rishi Srivastava, Group Director OEM, Microsoft India said, 'We have enjoyed a very long partnership with HCL, including the first Home PC introduced in India or even the first Media Center PC in India. Today, we are delighted to further cement our long term association, with the return of HCL Beanstalk PCs that will help us collaboratively deliver a premium computing experience to PC users in India. With Windows 7, Microsoft has built an operating system that makes new things possible. It is the PC simplified, and customers will experience a faster, smarter and more secure operating system that just works the way they want.' HCL Infosystems has launched three models of Beanstalk PCs for the Indian market i.e. Beanstalk Classic, Beanstalk Ultima and Beanstalk Xtreme. The Beanstalk range has been equipped with newly designed interface of Microsoft Windows 7 and has Intel Core i3, i5 & i7 processors to completely revolutionize the digital entertainment in India. Beanstalk Classic comes with a sound system from one of the world's best name in sound, the Bose

First elearning syllabus for schools by Kenyan Ministry

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

First e-learning curriculum for schools was launched recently by Kenya. The key focus of the curriculum is on learning institutions to embrace new innovations in IT. The launch took place as part of the first ever regional e-learning conference which officially kicked off in Kenya, recently. The three-day conference organized by the country's Ministry of Education, Microsoft, Kenya ICT Trust Fund, the UN Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) and ICWE Africa has attracted over 1,500 participants from Eastern and Central Africa. Education ministers from the region were also in attendance.

The occasion was graced by presence of Kenyan Education Minister Sam Ongeri. It was mentioned that the conference was held at a time when the country has accelerated its efforts to achieve education for all and Vision 2030. The conference marked a critical milestone in embracing ICT in education and its integration in the education sectors of the nations represented. Held at the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), the conference was viewed as an effort to bring together ICT players from the region. These players were assumed to act as a catalyst to shape global economy and reach desired goals. The conference themed as Transforming Education Through E-learning, was to discuss use of ICT in learning.

Education Budgets stretch in Emerging Markets: Micorsoft, HP

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Made to increase student access to computers and help equip them with the computer literacy skills they will need to be competitive after they graduate, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are supporting the K-12 sector in emerging markets to stretch their computers budgets with a new system. In line with the same, Microsoft’s recently released Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, the HP MultiSeat Computing Solution designed for schools in emerging markets that don’t have the money to buy a PC for every student.

The MultiSeat Computing Solution is comprised of a single PC that is connected with up to 10 clients over a USB 2.0 connection. Each client is equipped with connections for a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but doesn’t have its own processor.

All of the processing is handled by the PC, which acts as a server, with each client accessing a separate instance of Windows 7 that can be centrally administered. The schools through this design are enabled to give the schools give twice as many students access to computers than would be possible by spending the same amount of money on standalone Pcs, it was mentioned.

Computer game boosts maths scores

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

According to study carried out in Scottish schools, a daily dose of computer games can boost maths attainment. Learning and Teaching Scotland – the main organisation for the development of the curriculum – analysed the effect of a “brain training” game.

The study involved more than 600 pupils in 32 schools across Scotland using the Brain Training from Dr Kawashima game on the Nintendo DS every day. The study involved more than 600 pupils across the country. It also found improvements in pupils' concentration and behavior. Researchers found that while all groups had improved their scores, the group using the game had improved by a further 50%. A group of pupils played the game, which included reading tests, problem-solving exercises and memory puzzles, for 20 minutes at the start of their class for nine weeks. A control group continued their lessons in a more traditional manner. The study also found that it made no difference if the children had the game at home and noted no difference in ability between girls or boys.

Harnessing India&rsquo:s Potential through Skill Development

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The present paper talks about Government of India’s perspective on vocational training, skill development and employment. The paper confines to skill development, leaving aside education. Government of India realised that unless we modernise all our existing institutions, upgrade and revise the course curricula and make them industry driven, things will not move.

There are two flagship schemes under DGE&T:
Apprenticeship Training Scheme –ATS, which is also trying to link training with the actual industrial environment. Under the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS), there are 7605 ITIs and ITCs (Govt.-2076 & Pvt.- 5529) with a seating capacity of 10.62 lakh . ITIs are owned and run by the government and ITCs are owned and run by private sector, they could be corporates, NGOs or individuals and other different kinds of entities. There are 112 trades. Many other economies, particularly developed economies have a much larger number of trades. Australia has around 340 and Germany has 350. Training duration is 6 months to 3
years. Entry qualifi cation is VIIIth to XIIth tandard and age from 14 to 40 years. There is no age limit for women. Under the Apprenticeship Training Scheme (ATS), we have 24,815
establishments which impart apprenticeship training. There are 188 trades and they altogether cover 2.79 lakhs seats while Germany as I mentioned, trains about 6.5 lacs apprentices per year. Duration of the Courses is 6 months to 4 years and entry qualifi cation
is 8-12th Standard & ITI pass-outs but in ase somebody has passed ITI then that period is reduced from his apprenticeship training. Minimum age is 14 years and there is no upper age limit.
UP GRADATION OF EXISTING ITIS Up gradation of ITIs into centres of excellence actually started quite accidentally. Government had neglected skill development sector for quite some
time. ITIs were set up way back in 1950s and 60s with an objective that they would train people to meet the requirement of the industry. And Pandit Nehru was so passionate about it. A decision was taken in 1968 by National Development Council  hat these institutions, being closer to the people, may be transferred to the state governments. They were transferred on
April 1, 1969 lock stock and barrel to the state governments and probably that’s when the problems started. They were plan items in the central government as soon as they were transferred to the SHARDA PRASADSo the Government took following decisions:
(i) Modernize & upgrade all the exist ng Government ITIs.
(!i) Set up large number of skill development institutions in Govt., Private and Public
Private Partnerships with some kind of accreditation standards so that they deliver required quality
(iii) Run all ITIs/ ITCs in 2-3 shifts, which is quite easy
(iv) Introduce short term modular courses (so that we can train larger numbers in shorter time) in addition to long duration courses. We had been running longterm courses- six months, one year, two year and some even three year courses in the training institutions. Industry requires faster turnout and therefore short term courses are necessary(v) Take up training of trainers in big way. This is a huge problem, not only in India but in rest of the world also. The whole world is facing the problem of trainers. Therefore this is one issue which has been fl agged. So the broad strategy is that we train trainers in very large numbers who can meet the requirement of different sectors of economy.
(vi) Achieve greater involvement of industry in skill development. Unfortunately, for historical reasons in India skill development efforts were started by government, while in some of the best economies e.g. in Germany it is all driven by the industry. Last year their total expenditure on skill development was of the order of 35 billion Euros in a country of 82 million population and it trains about 650,000 apprentices every year, Out of the expenditure of 35 billion Euros, industry contributed about 28 billion last year which is 80% and the government both federal and the landers equivalent to state governments here contributed only 20%. In India 100% expenditure is made by the governments both the
centre and states.
(vii) Use of Information & communication technology tools for greater outreach to remote areas. And we have already started this. We had the traditional concept of teacher taught ratio I: 20 or 1:30. Why it can’t be 1:1000, 1:10,000 or 1: Million. We just have to set up a studio, a receiving station and arrange lectures.

Any number of persons can receive lessons like this. digital LEARNING APRIL 2010 23 state governments, they became non
plan items. In 2004, after the new government was, formed, Finance Minister Chidambram
was holding a pre budget meeting with the captains of Industry. One of the important issues raised by them, besides other things like taxations etc., was that government was running a huge system but the quality of people produced was not up to the mark and they were not
relevant to their current requirements of skills. Chidamdram announced in the fi rst budget he presented that we ould upgrade 500 ITIs into centres of excellence by investing domestic
resources and would also take world Bank assistance. That’s how this scheme started. We took up the fi rst 100 ITIs in 2005-06 at a cost of about INR 160crores and took World Bank credit of US $280 million to upgrade 400 ITIs. The idea was not to upgrade just one time but there was some kind of paradigm shift.Another feature of the policy was that it took in to account the fact that in another 10 or 20 years the machinery would become irrelevant as the technology is changing fast and the one time big investment would then go waste. So we thought that industry must be put in the centre of the whole skill development effort like what the rest of the world was doing. Up gradation of remaining 1396 ITIs (at that time we had 1896 ITIs)
was taken up in PPP mode, in addition o 500 already taken up and Finance Minister announced in 2007 budget a commitment of about INR 3550 crores. IMCs were converted into societies which comprised fi ve members from the industry, fi ve from the government
and the Principal would become the Member Secretary. They were given full academic, administrative and fi nancial autonomy so that they became the new management and took all decisions at the local level and didn’t have to refer anything to the state government or the
Directorate. Infrastructure development has already been taken up in 500 Govt. ITIs, 100 Domestic funded and 400 World Bank assisted. In addition, Centres of Excellence (COE) for producing multi skilled workforce of world standard at acost of INR 1741 crore (Domestic – INR 160 crore and WB INR 1581 crore) are also being created. Total number of ITIs
covered under PPP is 600.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
This was also announced in 2007. The private sector infrastructure was taken into account and tried to use that infrastructure to train people according to requirement of the industry. The initiative is demand driven with short term training  ourses based on Modular Employable Skills (MES). A person can do any module; he can do second module, third module, fourth and so on as per his choice and eed of the industry.

The cost of trainingis borne by Govt. of India. A Scheme has  been approved to train 1 million peopleat a cost of INR 550 crores in 5 years. Thereafter infrastructure so created will be used to train one million every year. 3.54  Lakh people have already been trained/tested since inception against a target of 1.90 Lakh. 970 course curricula have been developed against a target of 200.4538 Vocational Training Providers (VTPs)have been registered and 22 Independentassessing bodies empanelled who assessthe competencies of trainees so that thequality of training is not compromised. NCVT certifi cate is given to successful candidates. India is the fi rst country
which has done this innovation.
NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
The National Skill Development Policy has been formulated and was approved by the Union Cabinet on February 23, 2009. In last 60 years we didn’t have any policy and it is a laudable work which has been done. With Prime Minister himself guiding the whole process wehave been mandated to skill 500 million persons by 2022. The policy aims at enhancing individual employability and strengthening competitiveness of the country. It addresses the issues such as National Qualifi cation Framework, expansion of outreach, equity & access,quality and relevance, skill development for the unorganised sector, benchmarking of skill defi cit, setting up of Sector Skill Councils, etc. It is a mammoth task but by the time India completes 75 years of independence we should have adequately skilled manpower in the country if wewant to reap the demographic dividend.
NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT MISSION
Prime minister announced National Skill Development Mission on August 15, 2007 which has been put in place. Following institutions have been created under this Mission: Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development: This is headed by the Prime Minister himself and he conducts its meetings. There are about 8 cabinet ministers, 6 persons from private sector. Nandan Nilekani, Rajendra Pawar of NIIT, Professor C.K. Prahlad and many
emin

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