Students Should Know How To Market Themselves: Chetan Bhagat

News

By

-

February 22, 2018

Is scoring high percentage in board examinations alone enough for students today?

Students today need to know how to market themselves in addition to scoring good percentage in examinations, feels author Chetan Bhagat. Speaking at a session in a Kolkata based engineering college, author Chetan Bhagat highlights the significance of communication and marketing skills for students.

The author brings back the focus on the need to change the education system of the day to help students connect their knowledge with real life. Sharing his insights on the education scenario, author Bhagat said “Americans are good at marketing, they are the best at marketing.”

Referring to Vasco Da Gama, Bhagat says, students are more interested about scoring marks than gaining knowledge. They would know Vasco Da Gama came to India in 1498 but they were never taught how Da Gama established connections with the local people in that age.

Chethan Bhagat stressed on the role that hard work plays for students to be successful. “Each pain I weather will pave my path (for success),”

Gujarat SMCs to educate migrant kids

News

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

February 19, 2018

Gujarat-based School Management Committees (SMCs) have announced to provide an access to quality education to 6,500 migrant kids from select 680 villages in the State, during its 4th annual convention held recently in Ahmedabad.

SMC was formed under the Government of India’s flagship programme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan — comprising parents, teachers from schools receiving grants from the State Government, and a local authority member.

The primary goal of SMC is to achieve the objectives of Right To Education (RTE). It keeps track of the children enrolment and continued attendance along with monitoring the maintenance of the prescribed norms and standards, check children harassment, denial of admission, etc. It also monitors the identification and enrolment of disabled children and ensures their elementary education.

Presently, Gujarat SMC has 174,054 physical members out of the set target to train 197,760 members, according to “SMC Training Year ?2016?17 Target And Achievement” report.

PM to Pupils: ‘Confidence key to overcome examophobia’

News

By

Akash

-

February 16, 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to students in a unique way in New Delhi. He addressed the students in one of its kind “Pariksha Pe Charcha” event. Interacting with the school children, he tried to assuage the persisiten fear of exam among students.

Lakhs of students and thousands of schools across the country connected with the Prime Minister to discuss exam-related issues through a video conference.

Before taking questions from the students, the Prime Minister Modi said, “it was his exam today”, and thanked his teachers for whom he is “still a student”. “They inspired me to keep the student alive in me,” the Prime Minister said.

Addressing students, the Prime Minister asked students to consider him as their friend. He also thanked students for participating in the ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign.

Telling students about the importance of confidence, Modi said, “There is no shortage of the effort that students put in but lacking in confidence makes you unable to write anything in exam. I followed Swami Vivekananda in my student days. His teachings say that 33 crore gods and goddesses can also not do anything if you are confident of what you are doing.”

To boost the self confidence among students, he gave them the example of Mark McMorris – a snowboarder who won a bronze medal at Winter Olympics going on in South Korea, just 11 months after suffering from multiple injuries in an accident.

In answer to a student’s question on the importance of concentration during exams and in life, he said, “Concentration isn’t something that has to be specifically learnt. Every person concentrates on something or the other during the day, it may be while reading, hearing a song, talking to a friend.” “Yoga is a wonderful way to improve concentration,” he added.

To resolve students’ complaints of parents putting undue pressure on them, he advised parents not to compare their wards with other children. He said, “Every child is different. Try to find out what they are good at and don’t force your dreams on them. Try to be friends with your children.” He also requested parents not to make the achievements of their child a matter of social prestige.

The interactive session, also being dubbed as “Exam Ki Baat”, was organised days after the prime minister launched his book “Exam Warriors”. The book is a collection of anecdotes from his growing up years and lists mantras to help students to stay calm before the examination.

NITI Aayog, KPIT ink SoI to promote student innovation

News

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

February 15, 2018

In a move to foster student innovation, Government’s think tank National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and IT consulting firm KPIT Technologies today signed a 2-year Statement of Intent (SoI) for supporting Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) for select secondary schools in India.

“KPIT and NITI Aayog signed SOI for supporting Atal Tinkering Labs to promote #innovation among school children,” KPIT today said on its Twitter post, adding it will organise workshops, boot camps, innovation contests, and science exhibitions during the course.

ATL was established by NITI Aayog under its flagship programme Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) with an aim to create an ecosystem that promotes development through the use of technology to find solutions to problems.

NITI says more than 13 thousand schools across the country have applied for ATL.

As part of the initiative, KPIT said to provide two volumes of Chhote Scientists—a platform to kindle the basics of Science—booklets to over 2,500 schools to prepare curriculum and teaching aids.

“Further, in collaboration with NGO partner Jnana Prabodhini, KPIT will work on developing an advanced syllabus which will be at the next level to the scientific learning imparted through the Chhote Scientists platform,” KPIT said.

Recently, NITI Aayog signed another agreement with Germany-based Infineon Technologies to support AIM to design, manufacture semiconductor systems among innovators, incubators and start-ups.

Microsoft and Chalkup join hands to drive better learning experience in classroom

News

By

Akash

-

February 15, 2018

Microsoft has partnered with Chalkup to drive better learning experiences for students globally. Chalkup is a classroom collaboration startup.

Under the collaboration, Microsoft will highlight the best of the Chalkup features like rubrics system,to make it easier to assess and grade student assignments into “Microsoft Teams”.

The move is a part of the tech giant’s continued investment to “help save teachers time, build collaborative classrooms and drive better learning outcomes for students,” Eran Megiddo, CVP, Education said.

Like Chalkup, “Microsoft Teams” includes seamless class discussions, chat and integrated assignments and grading functionality, including Microsoft learning tools. These are free tools that implement proven techniques to improve reading and writing for students regardless of their age or ability. Chalkup was co-founded in 2013 by Chando to build a more compelling digital classroom experience for all students.

“In spending time with the amazing people at Microsoft, it was clear that we were completely aligned in our mission for connecting classrooms, sparking student collaboration, and finding new and innovative ways to work together,” Chando said. “We knew Microsoft would be a great fit and we’re thrilled for what the future holds for our customers,” he added.

Microsoft began its Teams for Education collaboration service in March 2017. It is a free add-on to Office 365 Education for users with an Education, Education Plus, Education E3 and/or an Education E5 suite plan.

Sitharaman approaches Jaitley to remove cap on martyrs’ kin education

News

By

Akash

-

February 12, 2018

In a big step towards education of martyrs’ kin, Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has approached the finance ministry to remove the educational expense cap of Rs 10,000 per month.

According to sources, “The minister has met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and urged him to eliminate the expenses cap of Rs 10,000.”

In December last year, The Defence Ministry revealed that it is reconsidering the decision to cap the educational expenses. The decision then faced a strong protest from affected families with collective representation from the Army, Navy and IAF Chiefs.

The scheme came into effect after the 1971 war to free Bangladesh. Under the scheme, the children of martyrs and those disabled during the war were allowed to get complete re-imbursement of tuition and other fees.

Later, it was extended to children of officers and soldiers killed or disabled in Operation Meghdoot (Siachen-Saltoro Ridge) and Operation Pawan (IPKF in Sri Lanka) as well as in counter-insurgency operations.

English and high cost, reasons of EWS dropout from private schools

News

By

Akash

-

February 12, 2018

Communication in English, high fee along with additional cost of extracurricular activities are major reasons of Economically Weaker Section and Disadvantaged Groups’ students drop out from private schools in Delhi.

According to a study by NCPCR, the dropout rate for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Disadvantaged Group (DG) students in 2011 was around 26 per cent, which came down to 10 per cent in 2014.

“One of the private school stated that students of EWS/DG category tend to get less support from their immediate family due to which they tend to drop out in case the family has to move back to their hometown,” the report said.

Similar instances of drop out cases where family had stated its relocation to village as the reason for cancellation of admission were common across schools.

Parents have complained that cost of books and extra curricular activity is too high and the reimbursement amount is not enough.

The report assess that one of the major reasons for higher cost of books in private schools is the violation of section 29 (1) of the RTE Act, 2009 i.e. when the curriculum and evaluation procedure laid down by the academic authority is not followed.

Class 8 students debate their way to NASA

News

By

Akash

-

February 10, 2018

Eight students of a corporation schools in Chennai have won the ‘Wings to Fly’ elocution contest and a visit to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US.

Rotary Club of Madras East (RCME) in association with Greater Chennai Corporation organised the third edition of ‘Wings to Fly’. RCME will sponsor the two-week trip of the students.

RCME president Purushotham said, “The ‘Wings To Fly’ project was initiated three years ago with the aim of providing international exposure to Chennai corporation schoolchildren. Among the 3,000 participants, 2,000 made it to the second round and 500 to the third round. The final round held on Friday saw 100 students compete for the final eight spots.

The contest witnessed the participation of around 3,000 students from Chennai Corporation Schools and of them eight were declared as winners by a panel including senior management professionals from IIT Madras, corporate firms and college professors, along with some Rotarians. Corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan and deputy commissioner (education) Mageswari Ravikumar distributed the awards to the winners.

Participants delivered a three-minute speech on the topic, with one out of two choosing to speak in Tamil. Students who won the previous editions of ‘Wings to Fly’ were flown to Malaysia and Germany.

MSDE introduces new affiliation norms for ITIs

News

By

Akash

-

February 10, 2018

To improve the overall quality of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has introduced new affiliation norms. The new norms will also check on the mushrooming of unauthorised institutes.

The new norms will be applicable from the academic session 2018-19 and the proposal for new ITIs based on IT platform will also be invited accordingly. The new rules are also supposed to develop similar infrastructure for a total of 13192 ITIs in the country to fulfill the vocational needs across various sectors.

MSDE is also planning to digitise the application and assessment process. Other aspects of the new norms include decrease in land lease period to 10 years and inspection of machinery and infrastructure by expert committee.

A three tier assessment process will be held for seeking affiliation: desktop assessment; civil infrastructure assessment; equipment, power, IT lab and infrastructure assessment.

On 3 January 2018, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Anantkumar Hegde had said about the de-affiliation of 350 ITIs in the country. “These ITIs were found non-conforming to the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) norms and accordingly, processed for de-affiliation as per the prevailing de-affiliation procedure,” he said. As stated in the reply, majority of the de-affiliated ITIs belong to Punjab, Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Hiring intent revives in 2018 – India Skills Report 2018

News

By

Akash

-

February 9, 2018

Businessman Choosing The Right Person — ID:62341037

As per the India Hiring Intent survey, organisations across sectors expect 10-15% increase in hiring intent from last year to this year.

From the demand side there is a positive indication as companies show a revival in their hiring intent. While Retail, Banking, Financial Services andInsurance sectors are anticipating an increase in the pace of hiring. Sectors like ITES, Software, Hardware and IT also foresee a moderate change in hiring numbers.

Finding of Wheebox states that employability amongst the fresh talent has increased significantly in the past 5 years. While in 2014, the percentage of employable population was a paltry 33%, it has achieved a 5.6% increase to rest at a respectable 45.60% this year.

The key domains where the increase in employability has been very significant is Engineering, Pharma, MCA and other focused professional courses. It has been found that vocational courses are creating more job ready candidates than generic courses. Also the courses where practical experience and internships, have been included in the formal course content are faring better.

Wheebox Founder and CEO Nirmal Singh said, “India Skills Report findings this year have seen an improvement in employability which is a good sign for the economy. The Government efforts towards skill development especially in higher and vocational training institutions are paving the way for quality hiring. Moreover the efforts from the government and institutions are showing a positive trend. He further added, new career opportunity like AI, Robotics and data analytics are indicating an upward trend for these sectors.”

The report is a joint initiative of Wheebox, PeopleStrong and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). This year the Wheebox report has laid special focus on future jobs and the impact of automation to understand how they see jobs evolving in response to technology and innovation. The results are astounding: 69% of the respondents clearly foresee the impact of automation. Adding to this, 24% employers indicate Analytics and 15% foresee Artificial Intelligence as the emerging jobs.

Another interesting insight from the Wheebox report is that close to 80% of candidates assessed are keen to explore internship opportunities and they believe that internship will help them in being employable, whereas 85% of the candidates feel that they are not fully equipped with information or guidance to take a conscious, thought-out career decision.

PeopleStrong Co-founder and CEO Pankaj Bansal said, “We as a country are undergoing a phase of upward transition as we embrace the impact of digitization and automation in our lives. A lot of effort is needed both at the talent supply side and the demand side to ensure we complete this phase with flying colors. What is reassuring is that our analytics show we are definitely on the right track“.

LATEST NEWS

Top Trending News

Top Trending Categories