An online education channel was launched by Sify.com, in association with MingleBox.com. This online education channel is to offer information on educational institutes, courses offered, campus photos and reviews posted by students and alumni. The new channel will also allow students to prepare for entrance exams, check results and then apply online to educational institutes.
The Anil Ambani group has forayed into animation education by launching the Big Animation Infotainment and
'It will be a big leap for freshers, amateurs and aspirants to migrate to a much higher level of training practised by major Hollywood studios like Dreamworks,' told Kulkarni. He added, 'We will train them and groom them to help learn the basics and principles of storytelling in animation and feature films.' Starting June, Big Aims offers professional full-time one-year advanced courses in three-dimensional and two-dimensional films, as well as pre-production and post-production work.
Southeast Asian education ministries are supportive for the adoption of a common educational standard for Southeast Asians schools and the inclusion of climate change lessons in a common curriculum and are pushing intensely for the same. The ministers are currently meeting at the Shangri-La's Mactan Island Resort and Spa in Cebu for the 45th Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Council Conference and the 5th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Education Ministers Summit. The emphasis regarding the above was underlined by Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, who assumed last Wednesday the Presidency of SEAMEO, to adopt a common curriculum. At the same time, he hinted at the possibility of the ASEAN adopting a common currency, to unite Asian nations in the face of global competition.
SEAMEO is an international and regional intergovernmental organization whose members are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. It has 19 specialist Regional Centres in Southeast Asia. The ten collaborative projects of the SEAMEO Member States hold high importance amongst the points on the agenda. These projects are designed to provide education in the underserved communities in the region, integration of climate change in the school curriculum, harmonization of higher education in Southeast Asia, building capacity on maximizing the use of language in teaching, integration of ICT in teaching and learning, and so on.
A dedicated university for media studies is likely to be setup in Karnataka soon. This was announced by Minister for Information and Publicity of Karnataka Government Katta Subramanya at a function organized to celebrate press day and the platinum jubilee of the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ).
The Government has named the Karnataka Media Academy as the nodal agency to start the process of setting up the university. Chairman of the Legislative Council; Veeranna Mathikatti, Media Adviser to the Chief Minister; R.P. Jagadish, President of KUWJ; H.S. Sudheendra Kumar and General Secretary of KUWJ; Gangadhar Mudaliar were all present on the occasion.
In advance to implementation of Right To Education Act (RTE), coming into effect from April 1, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal mentioned that he wants to build a consensus with state governments. Sibal stated that soon private schools in India will have the right to decide the fees they want to charge from the students they enroll and also decide the salaries they want to pay to their teachers.
In Delhi, Sibal's proposal contradicts the 1973 Delhi School Education Act, which stipulates that teachers in private schools cannot be paid less than their counterparts in government schools. However, he defended that the contradictions would be invalid once the RTE is implemented. Teachers working at public schools are required to be paid a minimum of INR 22,000 a month, according to the Sixth Pay Commission set up in 2006 by the Cabinet to revise the salaries of government employees.
The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss) is willing to start orientation/remedial coaching from next year for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for admissions to its various masters' programmes. 18pc OBC quota is being implemented by the Tiss from this year. 'But, this year we will not be able to fill up the OBC seats in some courses. Many OBCs aspirants who have taken the written test for admission to Tiss are placed far below in the merit list,' said
'They exceeded their quota share of 13% (SC) and 7% (ST). This is because the pre-examination orientation has greatly increases the chances of the SC/ST candidates to qualify in Tiss entrance and enroll as general category students after their quota gets filled up,' said a Tiss report.
A survey conducted by Intel and presented at the BETT education technology show in London indicated that 76% of teachers surveyed in Europe believe that their governments should be doing more to support computer access for students. In the survey, more than 2 700 teachers in 15 countries worldwide had expressed that while 70% of educators believe their students should have access to a laptop computer in class, only 3% of their students currently have such a computer. Just under a third of those questioned said that a lack of funding was preventing the required investment in computers.
To improve operational alignment and financial performance, Oracle announced the integration of Oracle(r) Hyperion Planning and Oracle's Demantra Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning. Linking Hyperion Planning and Oracle's Demantra Sales and Operations Planning gives CFOs and supply chain executives a direct path to evolve from a disconnected enterprise and operational planning environment to integrated business planning. As a result, CFOs get a reliable revenue forecast that has been validated against the current operating plan. On the operations side, supply chain and manufacturing managers can reconcile current operating plans against updated financial targets and budgets. With its top rated Enterprise Performance Management applications now linked to its best-in-class Real-time Sales and Operations Planning application, Oracle is first to provide customers with true integrated business planning capabilities.
Leveraging Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA), this integration enables Oracle Hyperion Planning to publish the financial targets for revenue, profits and other metrics to Demantra Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning. This improves decision-making through increased visibility into financial goals and helps improve the quality and profitability of the supply chain operations and demand shaping activities. Demantra Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning provides the current operating forecast and cost of goods sold data to Oracle Hyperion Planning. This operating forecast is delivered in monetary units and enables financial analysts to identify any gaps between the financial plan and current operating plan. Customers will gain additional benefits from adopting Demantra Demand Management, which enables a global demand planning process that senses local demand changes, generates an accurate forecast and supports a cross-functional consensus planning process. With this integration, data can be moved seamlessly, preserving the user interfaces from Hyperion Planning and Demantra so that new training or re-implementation is not required.
To check any 'irregular practices' in deemed universities, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has made significant recommendations, including mandatory accreditation and regular monitoring of their standards. The UGC has submitted these recommendations in the form of a regulation to the Ministry of HRD for consideration. 'The regulation says that an institution must have accreditation by either National Board of Accreditation or National Accreditation and Assessment Council for being given deemed university status. It also sets a number of quality parameters like teacher-student ratio and other facilities,' said a senior HRD Ministry official. At present, the existing criteria for deemed university status does not make accreditation a mandatory requirement.
The regulation also says that the deemed universities will have to maintain a teacher-student ratio of one to 20 for general courses. The UGC has framed these guidelines after it received a number of allegations about these institutions resorting to corrupt practices. 'There are allegations that some of these institutions are running distance courses without permission of the Distance Education Council. There are also allegations that certain deemed universities do not have regular teachers,' said an UGC official. A case has also been filed in the Supreme Court about the 'irregularities' in deemed universities. If the regulation is accepted, the quality aspects in deemed universities will be regularly monitored by the UGC. The government can withdraw the deemed university status from institutes if they violate the guidelines.
Traditional software applications are slowly beginning to yield ground to SaaS applications, with 32% of SaaS adopters replacing an on-premise application, says the latest bulletin. 'Software-as-a-Service in India 2009/2010' from Springboard Research, a leading innovator in the IT Market Research industry. The bulletin also revealed that 22% of those already using an on-premise application have later chosen to adopt the SaaS version of the same application in another geography or department within the organization.
The Springboard bulletin disclosed that India is the fastest growing SaaS market in Asia Pacific, and is estimated to register a growth of 60% CAGR from 2008 to 2012. The India SaaS market, which was US$105 million in 2009, is estimated to be worth US$352 million by 2012. The growing appeal of SaaS in India is also evident from the fact that SaaS familiarity levels in India are much higher than in the Asia Pacific region as a whole, where only 60% of respondents reported being 'very familiar with SaaS', as compared to 74% in India.
'The SaaS market in India is poised for continued strong growth, with the availability of a plethora of SaaS applications and related services,' said Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, Senior Research Manager for Emerging Software at Springboard Research. 'Given the pent-up demand for SaaS applications among enterprises, the momentum generated by vendor activity, participation by telecom companies as partners, and the hype around Cloud Computing, SaaS will proliferate rapidly in the next 18-24 months, not only in top-tier towns and cities but even to secondary places,' added Aggarwal. According to Springboard Research, 'zero or low maintenance' is the leading reason for SaaS adoption in India, followed by 'ease of use'. Among SaaS vendors, Salesforce.com, Citrix Online and CiscoWebEx have a strong hold over the market, as they have been in the market relatively longer than most other players.
