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Boards make a big hole in parents

If you thought only IIT, PMT or CAT preparation costs a fortune, sample this. Preparing for CBSE Boards alone can cost anything between INR 5,000 and INR 1.5 lakh these days. A student's tuitions , sample papers, reference material and other facilities like internet and printing cartridges all add up to an exorbitant amount. And, parents don't mind spending over and above the school fees for that 'good' aggregate. Manju Tripathi, whose son studies in Class XII in Naval Public School, pays around INR 500 per hour for her son's private tuitions. 'Education is expensive. We don't mind paying because a good percentage will only help my son get into a good college. But it hurts to see tuitions become so commercial and the tutors are not dedicated,' said Tripathi.

The cost of helping their child gear up for Boards has gone beyond limits for many couples, specially those who are single-earners . But since a good aggregate is 'indispensable' and school teaching is hardly sufficient, some parents even take a loan to bear the expenses . Peer pressure also comes in play for parents as they want their child's preparation to be better than their friends' child.

Intel delivers programmes in 50 countries

The Intel

Enrollment is not Equal to Education

Pratham, the non-governmental organisation engaged in education, has come out with its fourth Annual Status of Education Report (Aser) for rural India. The results are as interesting as in previous years: there is a steady increase in school enrolment and attendance, but not much (if any) improvement in the level of education attained. Drop-out levels remain high, and the majority of students in Class V are unable to do the work that they should have mastered three classes earlier. These are decidedly mixed results when there has been massive recruitment of teachers, and more money spent under a variety of schemes, including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan for building the physical infrastructure for schools.


IIT-M turns down Right To Information plea

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras has taken a position different from the other IITs in a case under the Right to Information Act. IIT, Madras has imposed a blanket ban on providing information under RTI to the media. In a reply to similar RTI applications filed in all seven IITs, IIT-M said the information sought could not be provided because a journalist represents a media organisation and the RTI doesn't allow providing information to a company Quoting section 3 of the RTI Act, the Public Information Officer and Registrar of IIT-M, said, 'since you're representing the press, the information asked for can't be furnished to you.'

To buttress its case, IIT-M also provided a copy of a Central Information Commission order stating that a company cannot seek information under the RTI Act under its name. This has not been clearly stated in the law but the CIC said since the law provides the right only to citizens, companies could not seek the information directly. What IIT-M overlooked was that several CIC orders had said a citizen working in a company has a right to seek information. These observations were made by CIC in appeals where the PIOs rejected RTI applications on similar grounds.

Government balm for school fee hike

Delhi government has assured that the hike, when it is worked out, will not amount to more than Rs 150-200 on an average. 'In some cases it may be as low as INR50. In case of schools that already charge a high fee and have cash reserves in excess of its expenses, there may be no hike,' a highly placed government source told HT.

The five-member committee headed by former bureaucrat S.L. Bansal that Delhi government set up to look into the private schools' de- mand for higher tuition fee submitted its report on Tuesday recommending a cap of Rs 500 on any hike. The government plans to fine-tune this further and prepare a system for fee increase that will not only consider a parents' income, but also a school's assets and income while deciding the hike. 'Of the 1,500-odd private recognised schools, 800 have said they don't want a hike as their students would not be able to afford it. Only about 200 schools are asking for a substantial hike. The government will study their cases individually to ascertain how much they really need to hike,' said the source. The remaining 500 do not want substantial hikes. Schools and parents have reacted differently to the Bansal Committee recommendations and the government's reactions.

IGNOU to set up a Centre on corporate training

Corporate training is now an essential component of almost of companies under the Human Resource Management work domain.

The regular problem of attrition and new recruits in companies has created a need for regular training sessions and knowledge of corporate management. IGNOU keeping the needs in mind has launched its new initiative under the Centre for Corporate Education, Training and Consultancy' to develop programmes on corporate education consistent with the requirements of the corporate sector and industry.

The centre will educate human resources, boost their capacity and train them on-the-job in an industry set-up. It will also develop insights into corporate management, governance practices, strategy formulation and related law, besides their delivery mechanism among others. Apart from an educational facet the Centre will provide consultancy to l educate human resources, boost their capacity and train themselves on-the-job in an industry set-up. It will also develop insights into corporate management, governance practices, strategy formulation and related law, besides their delivery mechanism amongst others.

Digital Library for Nagpur schools

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) keeping the growing need for computer literacy has initiatied computer training for school students in the city.

NMC in collaboration with Everonn Systems India and Computer Business Management would offer computer training in schools and assist students to appear for the Maharashtra State Board for Technical Education (MSCIT)  examination, a compulsory certification required for job seekers in Maharashtra.

NMC education committee chairman Kailash Chute informed that the partnership will see installation of over 1,500 computers in 220 schools which can also be used for providing computer education to dropout school students and illiterate students while employees of civic body and women self help group members will be trained in nominal fees.”
Further we have planned to rope in NGOs for rejuvenating adult literacy programme in city.

Centres of Excellence to be established for advances in Telecom

Technology is changing each day. To keep abreast with the changing trends a country should support institutes that are fore-runners in the frontiers of science. Keeping this in view Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology A.Raja announced the establishment of 'Telcom Centres of Excellence' in prestigious academic institutions across the country.

The work has already begun with Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to set up such centres in public-private partnership mode. This would strengthen research and development efforts. The government on the last day of Pravasi Bharti Divas government also shared their plans to set up three new universities for children of NRIs and PIOs located in Bangalore by 2010.

NASSCOM for Cyber Safe schools in Pune

School students in most of the metros are registered to the social networking sites and indulge in chatting and other related activities that do not fit the school functionalities. Educational institutes in Pune in collaboration with NASSCOM are now in the process of setting up a cyber security support group in each school in the city.

The group aims at reducing misuse of computers, especially the internet, at educational institutes. Each school will have at least one such group, which will monitor the usage of computers by the students. It will also keep an eye on the usage of social networking sites, so that misuse of these sites can be avoided.

The group aims to institutue the cyber securiy systems in upto 25 schools till the end of February.

Mahendra ties with HP for digital archiving

The drive to make Mahendra Engineering College (MEC) accessible to its students anytime anywhere has inked the deal with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to help implementing its Dspace Solution and ProCurve University initiative.

DSpace software platform serves a variety of digital archiving needs for research and educational institutions worldwide including e-thesis, electronic record management, publishing ect.

The college has recently opted for a digital repository solution from HP. The repository could also house digitized courseware (such as NPTEL), project reports, e-books, workshop content, lab manuals, whitepapers and video lectures. All of these elements could potentially be enabled through web access, which basically means that a student can access this content from a remote location through the Internet.

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