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HRD to give prority to educational reforms

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has chalked out its 100-day agenda in which it has given top priority to a scheme for providing interest subsidy to non-creamy layer students on educational loans and introducing a Bill to regulate foreign educational institutions in India.

The scheme, which was approved by the committee of secretaries, awaits approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. A committee, headed by Higher Education Secretary R P Agrawal, is looking into establishing educational tribunals in institutions for settling disputes between the staff and authorities. Minister for MHRD Kapil Sibal, while taking charge of the ministry, had said that priorities were yet to be decided, the extensive 100-day plan also emphasises on accreditation to be made mandatory for all the higher and technical educational institutions. Currently, only 10 per cent of the institutions have been accredited.

The ministry also aims to establish autonomous State Higher Education Councils in all states with the support of the University Grants Commission. The government will also introduce academic reforms like semester system, credit transfer and revision of curriculum in educational institutions. The government hopes to implement a new scheme to give education loans to economically backward and meritorious students at subsidised interest rates.

The scheme, for which the government has earmarked INR 4,000 crore and is awaiting Cabinet approval, intends to provide the benefits to non-creamy layer students for professional courses. MHRD is keen to introduce Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill in Parliament.

Muslim women under focus of Minsitry

A scheme to provide skill development and leadership training to Muslim women exhibiting entrepreneurial skills is set to be rolled out soon by the Ministry of Minority Affairs as the Manmohan Singh Government begins work on a 100-day action plan for governance.

The Minority Affairs Ministry is giving final touches to the scheme, aimed at empowering Muslim women who have been left out of the development trajectory. The scheme, which would be Centrally sponsored, is likely to have a flexible one-time financial support component as well. Though the scheme would be implemented directly by the Minority Affairs Ministry, the services of state governments and NGOs would be sought to identify the beneficiaries. A selection committee would be set up to screen the individual applications and the names forwarded by states and NGOs.

While the Ministry is yet to finalize the lower & upper limits of the financial support aspect, sources said the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation could be linked with the beneficiaries to ensure that they continued to get support till they became self-reliant. The Sachar Committee had pointed out that although Muslim women were ‘overwhelmingly self-employed’ and engaged in home-based work, they did not have independent access to credit facilities, opportunities for skill up-gradation, or access to markets. There was discrimination in giving Muslim women credit facilities.

The Ministry’s plan is to support such self-employed women to develop the leadership skills in them, sharpen their entrepreneurial talent and help improve their primary skills. The Sachar Committee had found that self-employed Muslim women were primarily engaged in activities like sewing, embroidery, agarbatti rolling and beedi making.

Home Internet for teachers by Bulgarian Education Ministry

A total of 70,000 Bulgarian teachers are to receive subsidised home internet connections, said Bulgarian weekly Computerworld. The maximum subsidy would be 15 leva a month, said, the weekly. The subsidy is only available for teachers in 1st to 12th grade and applications will be granted based on a set of criteria that include computer knowledge, possession of IT certification, the ability to speak one or more foreign languages and whether or not the teacher has a personal blog or site, among others

 

Teachers who want to make use of the subsidy have to apply online, using a special section of the Education Ministry's website. The application process includes a questionnaire that will automatically handle the classification. The first up to 25 000 teachers would start receiving subsidised internet in July 2009, the rest in September at the start of the new school year. The Ministry of Education has included more than 300 internet service providers in the programme, many offering preferential prices, though others also offer more expensive packages. Teachers who opt for a more expensive package would have to match the difference, said Computerworld. The programme is part of the ICT in Education programme, which is funded under the EU Human Resource Development Programme.

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European Scholarship to 300 students, teachers

A cooperation and mobility programme in the field of higher education by the European Union namely Erasmus Mundus, is being sought by over 300 Delhi University (DU) students, researchers and faculty members. Under this cooperation batches of students are sent as well as hosted from the European universities. In 2008 DU became a partnering university of the Erasmus Mundus programme. Since then the university has sent one batch comprising of 35-40 scholars to the European universities as well as boarded students from there.

The 2009-10 Erasmus Mundus programme also has two sub-programmes titled Lot 13A and Window India Learning Link Power or WILLPower. Under the Lot 13A sub-programme, the exchange of students, researchers and academic staff is facilitated. They are provided an opportunity to work or study in one of the partnered universities through a scholarshipprogramme, which covers all their expenses. Twelve European and eight Indian universities are partnering institutions in Lot 13A. The Indian partnering universities include Delhi University; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Pune University; Kerala University; Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K); Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, Loni; and Anand Agricultural University, Gujarat. Each scholarship covers tuition fees, subsistence costs, travel expenses and insurance.

Pratham Report on Education sector

India's progress in the education sector has been quite slow. However, the recently, brought out Annual Status of Education Report by Pratham, a leading NGO in field of education shows that 96 % of children aged 6-14 years in rural India are now enrolled in schools, while the quality of education remains dismal. Pratham did a survey across 575 rural districts (out of 583) in India. The data covered 16,291 villages, 338,027 households and 6,91,734 children.

It was reported that only 69% of students from class I in the surveyed rural areas were able to recognise numbers between 1 and 9. It also says that the quality of instruction in subjects like arithmetic and English remains poor. One of the findings from the survey indicated that about half of the children in class V in rural areas are unable to read a class III textbook.

55 Engineering colleges open online admissions

Students aspiring to enter leading engineering colleges will now be able to apply and complete their admission procedures online, as 55 institutes country wide have launched a software for the process. Admissions to 20 National Institutes of Technology (NITs), five IITs, 11 Central and State funded Universities and 19 self-financed institutes will be made through the Central Counselling Board (CCB) based on All India Engineering Entrance Examinations (AIEEE) ranks. Candidates, declared eligible for central counseling by the CBSE based on AIEEE ranks for engineering and architecture colleges, will have to register online between June eight to June 28 and select their choices of branches and institutes. The detailed admission procedure is available on the website.

 

The candidates can choose and lock the branches and institutes according to their ranks after analysing the indicative seat allotment, said the CCB. It said, 'The software will then automatically allot seats merit wise based on preferences given by the candidate.' The candidates, who have been allotted seats, will then be required to report to any one of the designated admission centres for 'remote reporting' and 'provisional admissions.' Students, with provisional admissions, will then have to report to their allotted institutes in July. 

Omatek e-Learning programme launched in Nigeria

The Minister of Education, Sam Egwu has expressed the federal government appreciation of Omatek's positive contributions to the development of Education in Nigeria. The Minister expressed the federal government appreciation in Abuja at the official launching of the Omatek e-Learning Initiative and the unveiling of the Omatek 8 and 10 inch Smartbooks for Schools. According to Egwu, the administration of President Umar Yar' Adua recently unveiled the Ministry of Education's Road Map which is intended to harness and give direction to the Federal Government's efforts aimed at strengthening capacity building and quality of education at all levels in the country. He said that the Omatek e-learning initiative is therefore a viable means of adding value to the Federal Government's programme on e-Learning. The Minister reiterated that this road map took consideration of the advantages ICT will bring to the academia adding that the unveiling of the Omatek products for the education sector is a testimony to the role the private sector can continue to play in the actualization of the country's hopes for a brighter future for education in the country.

In his remarks, the chairman, Omatek Ventures Plc, Tim Farinre said, the Omatek e-learning initiative is a one-stop shop which provides a platform to ensure that information and communication technology tools are deployed to schools/classrooms under a carefully structured learning environment, equipped with internet connectivity to create virtual connectivity between students and teachers/lecturers. Thus he said, also involves the deployment of a robust content /curriculum development. Also speaking, the Omatek Group Managing Director, Florence Seriki told that the launch of Omatek e-learning initiative will help to transform the education sector, as well as create the needed path towards achieving sustainable growth especially in the development of ICT in all cadre of schools across the country.

NCR students toppers of CBSE X boards

Two students from schools in the National Capital Region (NCR) have topped the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 examination by securing 98.6 %,  said the school authorities on Friday. Dravyansh Sharma of Delhi Public School (DPS) Ghaziabad and Anusha Gupta of APJ School Noida each secured 98.6 % in their best five subjects, added the school authorities. 'Dravyansh, the son of an engineer working with the Ghaziabad Development Authority secured 98.6 % marks in the CBSE Class 10 exam. He scored 100 marks in Sanskrit, 100 marks in mathematics, 99 marks in social science, 99 marks in science and 95 in English,' told Rita Kapoor, the principal of DPS Ghaziabad.

 

According to N.N. Nayar, principal of APJ School Noida, Anusha Gupta the daughter of Kedar Nath Gupta, a realtor, scored 100 marks in mathematics, 100 marks in social science, 99 marks in English, 98 marks in Sanskrit, 97 marks in science, 98 in introductory IT and 98 in Hindi. She scored 493/500 in her best five subjects.

X class results announced for Delhi, Guwahati and Allahabad

Girls have once again outshone boys in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 board exams, the results of which were declared on Friday in the three zones of Delhi, Guwahati and Allahabad. The overall pass percentage recorded a 1.76 % increase from last year. The pass percentage this year was 88.84 %. The pass percentage of girls was 89.78 %, compared to 88.18 % for boys, said a CBSE spokesperson. The results were uploaded in the board's website www.cbse.nic.in. In the Ajmer, Chennai and Panchkula regions, the results had been declared on Tuesday.

 

The overall pass percentage was the highest in the Chennai region – 95.60 %. This year 824,421 students – 331,922 girls and 473,499 boys – took the Class 10 board exams in the country. 

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