The West Bengal government announced that students will not be charged for applying to state-run colleges and universities for admission in undergraduate courses. No money can be charged from students for providing application forms or prospectus for admission.
State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said “Let me assert in unambiguous terms, colleges should not take a single rupee under any head from the candidates during admission.”
“The colleges can’t even charge money for buying prospectus or in any other category. Those universities, which directly offer undergraduate courses, cannot similarly charge anything from the candidates,” he added.
Chatterjee said students should not be put under any economic stress as they are already faced with the hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the minister’s statement, the Higher Education Department issued a notification regarding this. “No charges shall be taken from the students for scanning/uploading of documents for online admission in UG level courses, for providing the application form/prospectus of admission in UG level courses,” it said.
Admission to the colleges and varsities in the state is being conducted online this year in the wake of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Most of the institutes began the process on August 10. West Bengal became the second state to announce free online admission in state government aided colleges and universities.
In a recent list released by the Ministry of Education, Jamia Milia Islamia has been ranked as India’s best central university. The varsity secured a 90 percent score.
The Ministry of Education grades/scores performances of central universities based on parameters fixed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2019-20.
In the recently published ranking list, Jamia secured top rank with a score of 90 percent, Rajiv Gandhi University of Arunachal Pradesh was ranked the second best with a score of 83 percent, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was ranked third with a score of 82 percent, followed by Aligarh Muslim University with a score of 78 percent.
Jamia was also listed among the top ten institutes under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2020, which was released earlier this year. It had secured 12th position in last year’s ranking and jumped two places this year to be listed among the top ten.
Moreover, Jamia has also secured the 16th position in the overall NIRF ranking, improving from last year’s 19th position. Meanwhile, Jamia’s Faculty of Law has been ranked the 9th best law college and their Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics has been ranked the 10th best in Architecture.
Notably, Jamia offers over 20 undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD programmes. The institute also offers diploma, certificate and PG diploma, and advanced diploma programmes in Engineering, Law, Journalism, Pharmacy, etc.
Free coaching for meritorious students under a Delhi government scheme has hit COVID-19 roadblock, but efforts are on to resume the classes soon, Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam said. Coaching classes under the ‘Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojna’ for this session had started in March. “But the pandemic disrupted the classes,” he said.
The minister said over 15,000 seats have been reserved in 46 reputed coaching institutions under the scheme this year.
Online classes could not be started as it is difficult to monitor how many students are taking them. Also, many students don’t have a laptop or mobile phone. So, this them at a disadvantage, Gautam said.
The Delhi government had last year expanded the scheme to include all children who have passed Class X and XII from the national capital and whose annual family income is less than Rs 8 lakh.
Earlier, the scheme was only for students belonging to the Scheduled Castes category.
The maximum financial assistance a student can avail under it was also increased from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
Students can avail the scheme to prepare for examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board, Staff Selection Commission, Railway Recruitment Board, banks and insurance companies and to prepare for medical and engineering pre-examinations.
Last year, 4,953 students got free coaching under the scheme.
With COVID-19 onset, the dynamics and needs of the industry have changed a lot. Although it cannot be predicted with certainty the types of jobs that will exist in the future, today’s students will need a variety of skills, “21st century skills.” However, these are skills that students need today. Knowing this, industry stakeholders must ask themselves what are the best ways to provide all students with authentic, unique, and innovative learning experiences that will foster the development of these essential skills? How can students be prepared for jobs which may not exist yet in our ever-changing world? These are some important questions, which need to be answered.
Looking at the changes in the areas of education and work, students must be provided with ways to more actively learn and explore the world. No matter what students ultimately decide to do, they will have skills, real-world awareness, and flexibility that will have them well-equipped for a constantly changing system.
digitalLEARNING Magazine and Harappa Education organized a webinar on ‘Getting Students Career Ready for the NEW World of Work’ with some eminent speakers from the industry. The discussion highlighted the changes in the industry and needs for the future.
Chocko Valliappa, VC, Sona Institutions, Founder, HireMee said “There will a lot of changes coming in the near future. The world will be getting back to normal soon. The new-age entrepreneurs are coming up. The gig economy will come up. The model of education will change with NEP. The world is moving towards virtual era.”
He also said “Now, new skills are becoming more relevant. The govt is doing good to develop the skill education within students. This is a world of specialists and things will change.”
“Now more are more people coming to the virtual world and will have more robots and machines in the coming days. The NEP advocates more focus on technology”, he added.
“We are in a technology world and students are very tech-savvy. We are also trying to build technologies for the education sector. The rural students have huge challenges. We need to develop more technologies in the education sector”, he added.
AICTE is more emphasizing on getting faculty from industry. Blended learning will be the new normal in the coming days, he added.
Dr. Rajan Welukar, Vice-Chancellor, AURO University, Surat; Former VC, Mumbai University said “The future will be complexly complex. This year is called ‘Zero Year’. This situation is asking us to introspect ourselves and must prepare resilient minds to tackle the crisis.”
“In the future, those who will not employ themselves, nobody will employ them. The changes have happened very fast in the 21st century. The gossip has changed into a career. The career options have changed a lot. We need to learn new things as the world is changing every day”, he added.
“Every young person must find the motive of his or her life. We must focus on Passion, purpose and lifelong learning. Our younger generation needs life skills and training for future”, he added.
Emphasizing on skill sets, he said “Sense-making, object and subject, operating system 4.0, social intelligence skills, cross competency, data, media literacy, trans-disciplinary, design mind-set, virtual collaboration and wonderful audit skills needed for the future.
He also said Young people want identity, status, independence.
He also said Value assessment for students is very important and each industry has different values.
“Teaching is one way, and creating a learning environment is also essential. Teachers must change their mindset. Content has lost its importance, creating experiences around the content is very important”, he added.
Dr. Sandeep Pachpande, Chairman, ASM Education Group said “New business models are created due to digitization. There are many changes in VUCA world. Technology will be an important part in the coming days as the workforce will be more fluid. We are moving towards the gig economy. Things will change very drastically in the coming days.”
“Now, the definition of success has changed. Many firms are changing their business strategies to cope with the changing world”, he added.
We are preparing students for unknown. We need a holistic approach towards education as the physical education will never go out of demand, he added.
“We need to change the mind-set of students. Students want everything instantly. Critical and design thinking must be given importance. The current situation is how to survive in crisis and then to grow,” he added.
He also said curriculum plays an important role and must provide inculcate with specific skill sets.
Prof. Subramanya, Principal, R.V. College of Engineering, Bengaluru said “There is a lot of pressure on the younger generation over the technology change. The business sector is looking into innovation. Digital learning was not very common in our country, but we have adapted it well in the pandemic. We must adopt new changes”.
Over the future, he said “Education 4.0 advocates anywhere, anytime. There will be evaluation not examinations in the coming days. There will be a lot to change in education. A global mind-set will be developed within the younger generation. For the next 10 years, many things will change.”
More learning is happening outside of classroom. Skills have to be a part of education. Now the time has come from outside to inside. AICTE has also introduced activity points, he added.
“Skills must be developed among children. Our pattern is teacher-centric and with the National Education Policy, we are moving towards children–centric education. We will change the learning styles and failure handing will be a problem”, he added.
“Getting connected with industry is very important. The bondage of industry and institutions is growing in the last few years. We need to bring entrepreneurship culture within students”, he added.
In a major move, Delhi Government has asked the central government to treat the Bachelor of Vocational Degrees (BVoc) equally as the other bachelor degrees. The state govt has also urged to allow the vocational graduates should be eligible to appear for the Civil Service Examinations.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia, the government also raises the issue of universities like Delhi University not treating the students who have taken vocational studies in class 12 equally to the other students.
The minister while speaking to the media raised the question of how the goal of giving a push to vocational education as mentioned in the new National Education Policy can be achieved when the system does not respect those with skill education. He further added that students with vocational subjects or skill-based subjects in class 12 gave a disadvantage in admissions in universities like Delhi University while the students pursuing Bachelor of Vocational courses are also not treated equally to the other graduates. He pointed out that these students do not get equal opportunities in Higher Education or Jobs and they are also not eligible to appear for the Civil Service examinations.
The New Education Policy which was earlier approved by the Cabinet has noted that Vocational Education is perceived to be inferior to mainstream education and meant largely for the students unable to cope with the same. The NEP also aims to overcome the social status hierarchy associated with vocational education and requires the integration of Vocational education programmes into mainstream education in all the educational institutions in phases.
In the wake of Corona virus pandemic, the Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee plans to launch high demand programmes including advanced certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and certification in data science. The institute has partnered with Coursera to offer online programmes for a global audience.
According to the IIT, the Advanced Certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will be a six months programme. It will be a mix of expert lectures, hands-on labs, tutorials, team projects, and workshops along with classes on coding and mathematics necessary for building expertise in AI/ML besides equipping with classical ML techniques and algorithms, programming with TensorFlow for easy model building, robust ML production and powerful experimentation among others.
Certification in Data Science programme is designed for professionals and will focus on data science, ML, critical thinking, data collection, data visualisation, and data management.
Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT-Roorkee said “We are delighted to partner with Coursera to help fulfill the goal of inclusive education of the New Education Policy. Further, this partnership will help us reach out to a global audience of students and professionals aspiring for quality teaching in these sought after areas.”
The Ministry of Education ha earlier asked all top 100 institutes to increase their online presence and conduct online classes.
Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said with the new National Education Policy (NEP) proposing granting more autonomy to colleges and phasing out affiliation system, universities will not be able to provide affiliation to more than 300 colleges.
The Union minister also said “I visited a university recently and when I asked the vice chancellor how many colleges are affiliated to that university he said 800 degree colleges. I thought I heard him wrong. I asked him again and he said 800. It was a convocation ceremony. I was surprised.”
Minister also said “Can he or she keep a tab on the quality and functions of such a huge number of colleges? That is why in the NEP we are saying that in a phased manner we will work on this. One university will not affiliate more than 300 colleges and for that if we need to increase the number of universities we will do that.”
As per the new policy approved by the Union Cabinet last month, the system of affiliation will be phased out over 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism for granting graded autonomy to colleges, through a transparent system of graded accreditation, will be established.
Over a period of time, it is envisaged that every college would develop into either an autonomous degree-granting college, or a constituent college of a university.
1. How COVID has changed the education sector in India?
Akshay Shah: COVID has changed the education sector in India top-down, from no to online people have suddenly accepted and thrived on online. By online I mean everything right from Online Classes to Online Attendance, Admission & even online exams. Teachers, parents, students, staff, academicians & even management/government have suddenly embraced Edtech & edtech SaaS wholeheartedly!
2. The ed-tech firms are going gaga in the lockdown; will the trend continue after schools re-open?
Akshay Shah: There are 2 parts to this, primary & Secondary education (schools) and higher education (colleges & universities). Schools will go more or less back to offline post-COVID as managing kids till say 7th or 8th std is easier in a closed controlled environment rather than online, however, post 7th – 8th std kids right up to higher education the trend will definitely change post-COVID and once we open up and for higher education or higher secondary school people won’t go back to 100% offline, that model is more or less dead. There will be a hybrid model which will survive, I see a 60-40 hybrid model in India where 40% will be online and 60% offline for higher education. However, god forbids if we see a 2nd wave of this pandemic, I see the tide turning in favour of online on a long term basis for both schools as well as higher education in India as well as across the world.
3. How iWeb Technology solutions is unique from others in the market?
Akshay Shah: So at iWeb, we are focussed on Edtech SaaS. We digitize Universities & colleges end to end. iWeb has created a unique student universe that provides students, professors and administrators an amazing academic experience through a comprehensive digitized educational application provided on a 1st of its kind FREEMIUM model that brings banks, fintech, edtech and several other student service players on a common platform. We have over 300k higher education students on our platform across India. We have around 10 plus universities 400 plus colleges on board and we primarily digitize edtech saas workflow!
4. With ed-tech firms, how education standards can be improved?
Akshay Shah: This is a tricky question and let me be dead honest here. With the plethora of Edtech firms jumping-in to encash on this rush of teaching online like the gold market rush! I do not see the standards improving but the standards going down. Since the barrier to trade is none, anyone with a few good teachers/content are starting up and it’s looking actually scary to me. Going forward in the long term like e-commerce and food tech & cloud kitchen I see the Edtech firms going down the drain too once the pandemic ends or tapers!!! I am sure the Ministry of education is seeing all of this and very soon there will be a regulation in the country which will regulate content, teachers & companies too who are into e-learning and/or remote learning/teaching!
5. What are the future plans for iWeb Technology Solutions?
Akshay Shah: Our plans are clear, India has over 900 Universities and more than 40,000 colleges which are less than 5% digitized in the true sense. On our FREEMIUM Model, we plan to onboard 1 million students by March 2021 and then our next milestone will be 10 million students on our platform, ultimately our aim is to reach out to 100 million students in India and change their experience with their respective Universities & Colleges to a seamless world-class experience! Many larger Indian bell-weather ITES companies claim to make many Indian Universities Smart but honestly, none have done it end to end, we want to actually make Universities & Colleges Smart where a student nor parent ever goes and stands in a queue or has to go and meet the dean or registrar office or staff for their day to day affairs be it for Transcript, or admission or Fees or late payment or marksheet verification or convocation or any co-ordination whatsoever. All of this and more has to be made available at the click of a button and only then we can claim a University or a College as SMART. Not just the SLM, we are doing same for the Non-academic modules too wherein the staff, teachers & all concerned stakeholders have a seamless run of their day to day work on our platform. iWeb will basically help the Institute digitize all of their processes, very similar to what core banking software did with Banks a couple of decades ago! But, we are doing it on FREEMIUM and that’s our biggest differentiator!!
6. How the new National Education Policy will impact the usage of technology in the education sector?
Akshay Shah : The policy is a welcome change, I am a strong believer of the fact that something is better than nothing. No policy will be 100% apt and you cannot please all so something will be left out for sure, although, a lot more could have been done in the policy by involving & consulting past and current academic experts, however, it’s a good start and there are miles to go before we stop but yes, technology has been definitely put at the forefront in the NEP and that will have a deep impact for one & all.
Defying government directives, a state-run school in West Bengal restarted classes, prompting the government to issue a notice to the headmaster.
Headmaster Brindaban Ghatak of Hatsarberia BC Roy High School said the decision to restart classes for Class 10 students was taken as their studies were getting affected due to the lockdown.
“We started the classes following all social distancing norms and standard protocols. The students are very enthusiastic about coming to the school after staying at home for all these months,” he told reporters.
Several guardians have also been requesting the school authorities to restart classes and the managing committee gave the go-ahead, Ghatak said.
“We will close the school building if asked by the education department but in that case, we may opt for taking classes in the open,” he said. Ghatak said the school was also considering starting classes of 11 and 12 following all necessary COVID-19 protocols.
An official of the Education Department said the headmaster has been issued a show-cause notice and asked to explain the reasons for violating the government order. “He has to reply within 24 hours. The district inspector has also been asked to visit the school on Thursday and file a report,” the official said.
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, all the educational institutions are closed from mid-March. Preschools and daycare centres have been hit hard by the lockdown with many parents withdrawing children and no new admissions this season.
According to report, thousand of playschools are closed and only in Bengaluru over 300 are closed. The closed down of playschools will hamper the growth of toddlers.
Some of the institutions said sustaining themselves in the aftermath of a lockdown, with no guarantee when they could resume operations, would prove tough.
Parents are skeptical over the health and hygiene as children are very vulnerable to the virus.
Preschools are feeling the pinch also because the time of the lockdown has impacted admissions.
Preschool children are too young to handle laptops or tablets or mobile phones to be available for the online session. Schools across have started special programmes for parents to ensure no stone is unturned in the child’s development, even during the current pandemic.
