An Irish Education company is delivering a welcome positive message for teachers this Summer. Despite a challenging year which saw teacher/student ratios continue to increase, combined with the imposition of an effective salary reduction for teachers with the Government pension levy, Fl
Ratnesh, a class IX student of a city government high school, used to feel out of place when boys of his age group, who study in private schools, talked about the web world or the features of their school computer lab. This boy, however, does not feel the same now, as he too now knows how to operate computers and what does sending an e-mail mean. Son of a class IV government employee, Ratnesh did not join any computer institute to learn all these things, rather he learnt the computers in his own school. There are, in fact, thousands of students of government schools in Bihar who have become conversant with computers after the launch of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) project in government-run secondary and senior secondary schools last year. Incidentally, the very purpose of this project is to bridge the digital divide. Under this project, a computer lab is established in select schools, and each lab consists of one server, 10 nodes, networked with a printer and a scanner, computer, furniture etc. Internet connection, too, has been provided to these labs.
Power backup facilities like UPS and gensets too are provided to each school and to enable students to have a quality education in computer, a dedicated IT trainer is also provided. Initially, this central-funded scheme had provisions for supplying computers and furniture to each school, but the Bihar government added some more components like provision of IT trainer, maintenance etc. bearing the additional cost of these features from its own funds. To mitigate risks of failure on operational and financial fronts, the project was rolled out under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model, specially using Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model on quarterly lease basis for three years. Bihar e-Governance Services & Technologies Ltd. (BeST), which is a joint venture of IL&FS and government of Bihar, has been nominated as the project consultant. Currently, about 425 government schools are enjoying the benefits of this project, though in the first phase it was meant for one thousand schools.
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently, honoured teachers from 97 public school, from Central Visayas. These teachers are to compose the first batch of Global Filipino Teachers (GFT). While congratulating the graduates, President Arroyo thanked Globe for providing the backbone to connect to the world through its pillars
A grand Science, Maths and ICT fair was organised over the weekend by Ghana International School (GIS). Attracting several participants including the entire students' body, staff and management of the school, parents and guardians, students from other schools as well as the media, the fair was once of the bi-annual events; where the students are enabled to relate to Science and Maths to technology. The fair also encouraged pupils to appreciate everyday application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
The fair was coloured with interesting projects from all categories of students from junior classes, lower secondary, and upper secondary. In groups of three or four, the students explored projects under various categories including experiment/investigation, inventions, models, engineering and research etc under the broad subjects; Maths, Science and ICT. There were also organised, other activities at the fair to add up to the fun.
Reliance on foreign softwares and other forms of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products has cost Nigerian companies N25 billion in the last 10 years, said National Office of Technology Acquisition and Promotion. NOTAP, a Federal Government agency that is monitoring, coordinating and promoting acquisition of technology, said statistics at its disposal showed that enormous resources had been expended by different companies, especially the banking sector, to acquire foreign software and other forms of ICT products over the past decade.
A statement signed by NOTAP's Director General, Engineer Umar Bindir, noted that this affects companies in Nigeria that registered their technology transfer agreements with NOTAP. He noted that the trend, which is on the increase, has made NOTAP to undertake with zeal, the pursuit of its mandate through formation of new partnership strategies, to achieve the expected goals of technology transfer, acquisition, diffusion and knowledge development in Information Technology (IT). In his address, Director General of NITDA, Professor Cleopas Angaye, expressed appreciation for the visit, which he said had made him to be well educated on the functions and activities of NOTAP. He informed the delegation of current programmes of NITDA, which included establishment of software development centres in Kano and Lagos, for the training of IT resources, as well as testing and development of software, adding that the centres will also review and streamline ICT programmes in the universities.
Cutting costs and aggressive bidding for government school contracts to maintain their margins, is being sought by the education IT providers, who are seeing margins in information and communication technology (ICT) business squeeze. The industry sources reported that longer time taken for execution of government school contracts and delays in getting approvals affect the margins of ICT players. Companies such as Educomp, Everonn and NIIT are looking to cut costs and lobby, with government intending to increase investments in education sector, for streamlining the disbursals process from the state governments to keep their operating margins in check.
Educomp Solutions, the ICT business sector leader, is looking to reduce its focus on the low-margin and long pay cycle projects to help operational growth, according to an industry source. Educomp has about 14,500 schools in the ICT domain, which contribute about 20-30% to its sales. It plans to end the fiscal at 17,000 schools and is at various stages of negotiations for it. However, the Chennai-based Everonn Education said it is not looking to go slow on the ICT business even though maintaining margins on this business would be difficult. Everonn is expecting to increase its margins by its more profitable business of ViTELS.
More attention is required to the quality of education and skill development described Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday, to enable the country to compete with the developed world. Releasing two volumes of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector's report on 'The Challenge of Employment in India: An Informal Economy Perspective.' Sheila Dikshit said, 'When Commission chairman Arjun Sengupta submitted the report to me on Tuesday, I frankly told him that I don't even know household economics and that I had done practical work all my life!'
Pointing out that we need to upgrade the country's rural infrastructure, noted economist G.K. Chaddha said that there was a need to provide alternative avenues to people working in agricultural areas. He added, 'We must focus on skill development and vocational education. We need to have more people who can ride trucks, buses and repair bicycles.' Describing the report as comprehensive and competent, Prof. Chaddha said it had thrown open a large number of findings and brought fresh insights on economic inadequacy in the unorganised sector.
The Digital Technology Guidelines (DTG) programme of ICT education in schools is moving into broader implementation this month. The project started in early 2008 with 13 pilot schools and has now expanded to 75 schools. The next phase will see that number increase to 120, says Ministry of Education acting e-learning manager Howard Baldwin. The DTG programme supports teachers with their professional development in delivering consistent and relevant material in ICT education. There were misgivings among teachers about the DTG content at the project's early stages. A controversy erupted at the same time (Computerworld June 9, 2008) when the NZ Computer Society released a report by two experts condemning the vagueness of content in existing ICT syllabuses.
The NZCS and some industry sources are now collaborating in the evolution of the ICT educational programme. The DTG project, facilitated by specialist consultancy Cognition Education, focuses on years 11 to 13. It currently includes a framework of skills to be absorbed in each of these years in several modules. The programming module includes teaching of basic constructs such as repetition, choice and looping, which critics suggested were lacking in earlier material. As well as helping teachers convey basic ICT knowledge and an awareness of ICT-related ethics and professionalism, the programme is intended to help create an awareness of ICT career options. Scott Wylie, director of the developer and platform group in Microsoft NZ, is an industry supporter in the DTG project.
The Singapore-listed Raffles EducationCorp, in parntership with Educomp Solutions, Indian education company, on Monday announced the launch of an international design institute in the city, its third campus in the country. Chew Hua Seng, CEO, Raffles Education Corp, said 'The new institution in India will allow us to tap into the over 657 million youth population in the country, the largest population of young people in the world. In the near future the group is also looking to expand its footprint in India through the establishment of more instiutions in main cities.'
The group currently operates three universities and 28 colleges across 10 countries in Asia-Pacific region. Raffles Millennium International would offer certificate courses in fashion design, product design, graphic design, interior design, multimedia design, fashion marketing and management. In addition, courses in business management and tourism and hospitality management will also be offered. The campus offers state-of-the-art calssrooms, design labs, international faculty and a choice of international internships. Shantanu Prakash, MD and CEO, Educomp Solutions explained that there is a lacuna in India of institutes that offer high quality, world class professional courses that prepare students for their choice of stream. The programme here focus on specialized streams that require competencies not available in India.
In the wake of the economic slowdown, the government's premier research institute, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is walking away with students from premier engineering institutes like the IITs and NITs. The DRDO offered campus placements in all but two IITs for the current year and came away with an unprecedented catch of a total of 20 students, DRDO officials said at the sidelines of a briefing on a students' engineering project competition to be held at Kolar, 60 km from Bangalore.
DRDO used to get only up to five students from the IITs every year. The current economic environment coupled with improved pay packages and the prospects of exciting work, has led students, who had earlier ventured abroad or into the IT sector, to show more interest in DRDO, said the organisation's Chief Controller for Research and Development (Services Interaction) Prahlada.
