World’s Largest Online Children’s library on iPhone

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November 20, 2008

The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) which is the world's largest collection of children's literature now available free at Apple's iPhone.

The application allows users to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the iPhone and iPod Touch user interface to read a selection of books from the ICDL's master collection, which today represents thousands of children's stories from 60 countries. The children's books can be read in their native language and in English.

The ICDL iPhone application syncs via Wi-Fi or the user's cellular network and downloads the latest featured children's books directly to the device, giving children and parents access to content offline

FICCI calls for PPP in education sector

Policy Matters

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 20, 2008

According to the report, over 170 million students eligible to pursue higher education in India are out of its ambit and the poor and uneven infrastructure is one of the key reasons behind it.

FICCI has noted that to improve the education delivery in higher education restrictions have to be liberalized, policies updated and a new strategy has to be implemented.

The report findings state that despite government initiatives, there is a need to play a proactive role towards PPP and expedite the approval process at the centre decision-making.The government needs to step in not only through improvised regulatory framework but also through a different form of strategy – PPP.

The industry lobby has advocated that tax exemptions should be provided to corporate and individual contributions to attract private investment into higher educational institutions.

IIM-B fares well in placements

Higher Education

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

Though Lehman Brothers and Merill Lynch were conspicuous by their absence, investment banking remained at the top of the pile for summer placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B). By spreading its net wider and starting the process of inviting companies early

3 too young for Nursery, parents want to repeat

K-12

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

If the waiting list for admission in nursery was long last year, brace for more. The crowd is set to get bigger as many parents of many children, some too young for their peers and who did not perform as per expectation last time, want them to repeat the class. After the courts fixed three years as the minimum age for nursery admission last year, many children who were too young to attend formal schooling were put in nursery. Many schools are now saying that these children should apply for prep instead of nursery as they are more than four years. These schools do not want a varied age group in the same class. But parents insist that schools should let these four-year-olds to repeat nursery and enable them the time for transition into a formal school system.

Many schools, though, have come out with an upper age-limit for children seeking admission to pre-school. Among these are DPS-Mathura Road and Bal Bharti School in Rohini. Result: parents who want to repeat their children in nursery have a shortened list of schools. Take Shilpa Gupta, for instance. Her son Yuvaditya, then three, got admission in a reputed school last year but she is worried that the boy has not been to pick up even the basics. Gupta said Yuvaditya was younger than most children in his class and wants to repeat him nursery. 'When we got through last year (she does not want to name the school), we took it the opportunity since we were scared he might not be successful in another good school. But he was too young

China is hot spot for American students

Higher Education

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

Record numbers of American students are studying abroad, with especially strong growth in educational exchanges with China, the annual report by the Institute on International Education found. The number of Americans studying in China increased by 25 %, and the number of Chinese students studying at American universities increased by 20 % last year, according to the report, 'Open Doors 2008'. 'Interest in China is growing dramatically, and I think we'll see even sharper increases in next year's report,' said Allan E Goodman, president of the institute. 'People used to go to China to study the history and language, and many still do. But with China looming so large in all our futures, there's been a real shift, and more students go for an understanding of what's happening economically and politically.' While the traditional study-abroad sites for Americans

Cristina’s view on education 2015

News

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

'By the end of the year, the University will get the

Govt. for foreign investment in education

Policy Matters

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

The Government wants to free education from bureaucracy and permit foreign investment in education but could not do so as the Left was opposed to it, Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said on Monday. 'Unless we free education from the bureaucracy and permit foreign investment, we cannot develop talent the way we should,' Sibal said at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum India Economic Summit here. Sibal was participating in a discussion on 'From Imitator to Innovator: Globalization of health care and Life Sciences'. He said Rs.5 trillion will be needed to be invested in the health care sector by 2020 to create a health care system that will take care of India's entire population. This presented great opportunities to investors.

'The health insurance sector will grow by Rs.350 billion,' Sibal said, 'This presents another great opportunity.' Malvinder Singh, managing director of Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest drug maker, said that Indian pharmaceutical companies may be strong in generics and branded drugs giving the impression that they are imitators, but they were also innovators. By way of an example, he mentioned how Ranbaxy had developed a new chemical entity (NCE) for malaria treatment. 'No big pharmaceutical company had developed any NCE for malaria treatment in the last three decades.' 'We took up the challenge to develop one at an affordable price and now a NCE is going through phase III clinical trials and if all goes well should be in the market by 2011,' Singh said. 'The key challenge is how to meet the millennium development goals. We are only seven years away from the target date and innovation is every area of healthcare will be needed to meet the goals,' said Douglas Alexander, secretary of state for international development of the United Kingdom.

GIF to set up school in Hyderabad

K-12

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

The school, coming up on a four-acre plot at Uppal with an investment of INR16 crore, would commence classes from June 2009, Mr Maneesh Tripathi, Chief Executive Officer, Global Indian Foundation, told newspersons here on Monday. The curriculum prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education would be offered besides an option of being trained in Cambridge and International Baccalaureate curriculum accepted globally, he said. 'By 2010, we hope to set up 16 schools in India with an investment of Rs150 crore,' said Tripathi.

GIIS is adopting a co-managed model to run the schools. 'We will be collaborating with a local partner but the curriculum and teaching would be monitored from Singapore,' he said. The fee would be between INR 2,500 and INR 4,000 a month. In the first two years, GIIS will offer up to Class X. 'Our infrastructure can support 3,500 students here. We hope to reach full strength by June 2011,' Tripathi said. GIIS is present in seven countries and operates 15 campuses aboard and five in India. It is managed by GIF, a non-profit educational institution headquartered in Singapore.

Schools caught in e-safety dilemma

K-12

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

In the constant struggle to keep kids safer online, a new solution is emerging that enlists the help of schools in age-verification techniques to ensure that online predators are kept off child-friendly web sites. But some critics say this puts schools in a questionable role, because the information they provide can be used to target age-appropriate advertising to their students. The solution in question, developed by an online protection service called eGuardian, is one of the latest attempts at 'digital identification.' eGuardian purports to block online predators from reaching children, making search engines and social-networking sites safer for students.

'We collect just the information we need to verify children by having the parents provide that information

Yale’s initiative in India

Higher Education

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digitalLEARNING Network

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November 18, 2008

The Yale India Initiative boasts a US$75-million endowment dedicated to the growth of faculty and curricular programs in Indian studies at Yale. The University will also augment its efforts to attract students and scholars from India, all in an effort to accelerate the University's India-related programs so that they can be comparable to those in China. 'The scale of what Yale has developed for its Indian studies program,' the president said Monday, 'is unprecedented.' It is difficult to put an exact price on Yale's engagement with China, in part because so many of the more than 80 research and educational programs between the two have been developed over many decades. In contrast, Levin said, the Yale India Initiative will be implemented almost all at once.

Of the US$75 million allocated for the initiative, US$30 million will come from Yale's unrestricted endowment resources, while US$20 million more will be raised from donors in the next year. Gifts already made and planned expansions of the program bring the University to the US$75 million total, which is nearly INR3.75 billion at current exchange rates. George Joseph, assistant secretary of the University in charge of relations with South Asia, said the funds associated with the India initiative will be used to create new professorships and curricula across the University, from Yale Law School and Yale College to the Yale School of Nursing, for example.

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