The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved payment of India's contribution of US $ 239.930 million to the South Asian University, which is around 79 % of the total cost of the full establishment of the University until 2014. 'As part of India's asymmetric commitment to SAARC, India is ready to disburse the first tranche of its financial commitment of US $9.464 million to ensure that the University is operational in July-August 2010,' said the Cabinet. The University will be the first international University to be hosted by India. The objectives of the University are to disseminate and advance knowledge, wisdom and understanding by providing instructional and research facilities in such branches of learning as it may deem fit. The South Asian University shall be a non-state, non-profit self governing international educational institution with a regional focus for the purposes set forth in this Agreement and shall have full academic freedom for the attainment of its objectives. The jurisdiction of the University shall extend to whole of India and to campuses and centres established outside India in the SAARC region. 100 acres of land next to Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is being acquired by the Ministry of External Affairs from DDA for leasing to the University. At the Thirteenth SAARC Summit held in Dhaka, in November 2005, Prime Minister proposed the establishment of a South Asian University to provide world-class facilities and professional faculty to students and researchers from SAARC member countries. The Inter-governmental Agreement for the Establishment of the South Asian University was signed at the 14th SAARC Summit (April 3-4, 2007). The SAARC Member States also decided that the University would be established in India.
MTN Ghana partners with UNDP for ICT centres
The MTN Ghana Foundation, a subsidiary and management structure of Multi-Telecommunication Network, which drives all MTN's social responsibility initiatives, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is to set up ten ICT Learning Centres across the country. The MTN ICT Learning Centres project was funded at the cost of US$669,350.00 with a commitment of US$70,000 by the UNDP. Malcom Frazier Appeadu, Co-ordinator of the MTN Ghana Foundation, who disclosed this at a day's proposal writing workshop, organized by the Foundation for 50 stakeholders in Kumasi last week Thursday said that the Foundation focuses on health and education projects to improve the quality of life of Ghanaians and that a centre would be sited in a district in each of the ten regions.
In Ashanti the ICT Centre is located at Nyinahin, the capital of the Atwima Mponua district while that of Brong Ahafo is situated at Techimantia in the Tano South district. He said the Foundation has expended US$569,157.00 on the Refurbishment of the second floor Labour ward of the Korle Bu Maternity block. Other interventions by the Foundation include a US$90,000 construction of an Intensive Care Unit of the Princess Marie Louis Hospital and a US$70,000 teaching and Learning Aid project for the Academy for Education Development. Appeadu explained that the workshop was intended to equip participants with techniques in proposal writing to enable the Foundation to support communities, institutions and other groups implementing projects. He disclosed that about 1,000 students have benefited from a scholarship scheme initiated by the MTN since 2000 to assist brilliant but needy students. According to him about 298 students, 70% of whom are at the tertiary institutions are currently enjoying the scheme. Appeadu said the Foundation had worked with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to sponsor the National Best Teachers' awards for the last two years.
Pan-African eLearning Network to convene in Senegal in 2009
eLearning Africa 2009 cooperates with Senegalese State IT Agency in the organisation of the 2009 event in Dakar. eLearning Africa continues to expand its network over the Continent. For the organisation of the conference 2009 in Senegal, eLearning Africa is cooperating with the Senegalese state IT agency ADIE (Agence de l'Informatique de l'Etat). The fourth event in the series of pan-African conferences on ICT for Development, Education and Training will take place from May 27 – 29 in the Hotel Le M
Sikkim Manipal University directorate of distance education Announces admissions
SMU-DE, one of the largest providers of Distance Education in India, has announced the opening of admissions to their February 2010 session. Applications to various courses are available at over 710+ SMU-DE Learning Centres covering 310 cities across India. For details, log on to www.smude.edu.in The University offers Post Graduate, Graduate, Post Graduate Diploma and Diploma programs across 10 disciplines. The disciplines include Allied Health, IT, Mass Communication, Biotechnology, Apparel & Fashion Design, Hospitality, Telecom Technology, Commerce, Management and Journalism . In addition, SMU-DE has recently launched new and advanced specializations in Total Quality Management, Operations Management and Project Management for its MBA program. Aspirants enrolling for the February session (and onwards) will also stand to gain through the newly launched next generation learning system 'EduNxt' accessible via internet.
EduNxt with its flexibility, convenience and accessibility offers a first of its kind learning environment in India. EduNxt enables includes small group mentoring, virtual classrooms, simulation and other interactive content, self-study content, recorded presentations and shared browsing. EduNxt empowers students with anywhere, anytime access. Students will now experience a 'portable campus', 'carry along mentors' and will have access to over one million online books and journals
NBT Director says Internet is a knowledge tool but not a replacement for books
Promoting the concept of book reading, Nuzhat Hassan, Director, National Book Trust, mentioned her desire for biennial New Delhi World Book Fair to become a self sustaining project so that the system of giving a portion of the subsidies to publishers can be done away with. At the 19th New Delhi World Book Fair, she described that subsidies were being given to Hindi and the regional language publishers to enable them to open their stalls and stands at half the rates.
Emphasising upon the fact that book reading habit amongst the grown-ups and children hasn't decreased, the NBT Director told that to no doubt Internet is a knowledge tool but it is certainly not a replacement of books. Additionally, she mentioned that National Council for Applied Economic Research was soon to conduct a national readership survey commissioned by NBT. The book fair has grown by leaps and bounds and is now on the international calendar, she added.
INR 2000 increase for Higher Education
Government has proposed to hike the overall plan budget for higher education for the next fiscal by INR 2,000 crore. This was announced by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the Budget in Parliament. Taking forward the government's intent of having one Central university in each of the uncovered state, an amount of INR 827 crore has been allocated in the Budget for the purpose. IITs and NITs have been allocated INR 2,113 crore which includes a provision of INR 450 crore for new institutes. Eight new Indian Institutes of Technology have been approved, six of which, namely, IITs at Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Gandhinagar, Patna and IITs for Rajasthan and Punjab have commenced their academic sessions from the year 2008-09. Remaining two IITs at Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) are likely to commence the academic programmes from 2009-2010.
Computer course for lecturers in India
A computer literacy course for college teachers and e-learning centre of some institution was launched at the Oinam Ibohal Polytechnic, Imphal in India . The course is being sponsored by the directorate of university and higher education, government of Manipur.
Altogether 20 teachers representing different colleges are taking part in the course.
BPL youth to receive soft skill training from IGNOU
IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai announced training and education of youth who are Below Poverty Line (BPL) in six states of the country – UP, Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. Five vocational training and educational programmes have been identified for online delivery. IGNOU has partnered with SREI Sahaj e-village Ltd., a Kolkata based company, which is implementing the CSC project in six short-listed states.
Programmes that will be introduced to these students will be certificate programmes in Computer Basics, Advanced Computing, Job Training and Interview Etiquette, along with a Diploma in Advanced Computing. The proposed programmes will be offered online from application to certification stages. The programmes will be conducted through a Common Service Centre (CSC) in each village panchayat office at the six selected states of Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar , UP and Tamil Nadu. Teachers from nearby areas are being hired to teach and guide the IGNOU students in every village panchayat.
NBQSA Awards for Local ICT talent
National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) 2009, the 11th Annual NBQSA competition was announced recently by the BCS Sri Lanka section, in association with the British Computer Society (UK). NBQSA is the only national competition in Sri Lanka recognising and honouring exceptional local ICT achievements and significant technological advancements in the country. Since 1998, the NBQSA has given opportunities to individuals and organisations that have made outstanding contributions to the development of the ICT Industry in Sri Lanka, to display and benchmark their products. Over the years, the event itself has grown in recognition both locally and internationally. Today, it serves as a vessel to gain international recognition for locally developed ICT products, enabling them to successfully compete in the global market.
'This year's NBQSA specially hopes to bring some relief to the software industry in Sri Lanka, which is still fighting to overcome the impact of the global economic crisis' said Vajeendra Samanpriya, Chairman of the NBQSA Organising Committee and Member of the BCS Sri Lanka Executive Committee. This year NBQSA 2009 competition will cover 16 categories of ICT products and projects ranging from Application and Infrastructure Tools to In House Applications, with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards being presented to winners in each category. In addition, the BCS Sri Lanka section is proud to announce the addition of a new award category this year, where the best application developed using Closed Source and Open Source products would be recognised. The Tertiary category is open to students from Sri Lankan Tertiary Education Institutions. Each year, the judging panel is selected based on their ICT knowledge and experience from diverse disciplines such as IT, Engineering, Management, Accounting and Marketing. It would include persons from both the private sector and the academia, selected to ensure unbiased and objective evaluation as well as confidentiality. Samanpriya invited local ICT innovators to take part and win opportunity for international recognition through Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), an International Awards Programme initiated to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the Digital Divide. The NBQSA events schedule commences with the launch and call for applications on the 17th of July, with the nominees' and judges' briefings to be held on 4th and 6th of August respectively and concluding with the Gala Awards Ceremony on 16th of October 2009.
National Council for Teachers Education Portal Launch by Government of India
A portal of National Council for Teachers' Education (NCTE) was launched recently by the Government of India to ensure transparency in its working. With this portal in progress, the aspiring institutes would be enabled to submit and track the progress of their application in pipeline.
This would discourage manual handling of the matters related to the recognition of the institutes. The level of processing will now be available to the institutions on the portal itself. The website will have hyperlinks to the websites of each individual institute which will be asked to give details about their facility and faculty in the portal.
