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

By
Akash
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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

By
Akash
-

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

By
Akash
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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

By
Akash
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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

By
Akash
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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

By
Akash
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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“.

IIT Kharagpur and AIIM to collaborate for “Unique Joint Initiatives”

By
Akash
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IIT Kharagpur (IIIT – Kgp) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) may join hands together to explore opportunities in academics and research, including a super-speciality hospital.

“IIT Kharagpur and AIIMS are planning some unique joint initiatives in academics and research that will open new directions in education and take technology-enabled healthcare directly to the people at large,” IIT Kharagpur Director Prof P P Chakrabarti said.

According to him, the joint initiative of the two institutions will strengthen the ongoing activities through collaborative education programmes, research and collaboration for management and analysis of hospital data.

“Both institutions have unique strengths and through this collaboration, we hope to explore and exchange them. IIT Kharagpur has expertise in developing medical devices and diagnostics, medical imaging and analysis, systems modelling, big data analysis and machine learning from others. These can be put to use in medical science to improve on experience driven procedures to technology centric medical services,” said Prof Suman Chakraborty, faculty coordinator of the initiative and Head of School of Medical Science and Technology, IIT Kharagpur.

AIIMS Delhi Director Prof Randeep Guleria said, “The medical domain is becoming progressively technology intensive, which puts the matter of IIT Kharagpur providing medical and allied education in perspective. Modelling, simulation, and analytics will be essential tools for medical intervention in the years to come.”

IIT Kharagpur and AIIMS would also work towards encouraging more medical practitioners in the research domain.

The collaborative initiatives would foster cross-migration of medical professionals to the research domain, and engineering researchers to work on outstanding clinical problems, according to professors of the two institutions.

With the super-speciality hospital at IIT Kharagpur expected to be operational by the end of this year, AIIMS will also collaborate for data processing, analytics and management of medical data in addition to digitised medical consultation, human resource support and advisory role in procurements.

B Tech Students to get 70,000 per month under PM Research Fellowship scheme

By
Akash
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Research
Scientist using a microscope

The Union Cabinet has approved the scheme at a cost of Rs 1,650 crore for a period of seven years, beginning in 2018-19.

Describing about the scheme, the Union Human Resource Development Minister said that the Research Fellowship scheme for 1,000 B Tech students for pursuing PhD courses at IITs and IISc will help convert brain drain into brain gain. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the scheme in his budget speech in Parliament on February 1.

“The scheme will go a long way in tapping the talent pool of the country for carrying out research indigenously in cutting edge science and technology domains,” Javadekar told reporters at a press conference here. “Research under the scheme will address our national priorities at the one hand and shortage of quality faculty in premier educational institutions of the country on the other. It will help convert brain drain into brain gain,” he said.

Under the scheme, final year engineering students along with the students who have completed their B Tech or integrated M Tech/MSc at IISc, IITs, NITs, IISERs, IIITs, will be offered direct admissions to PhD programmes in IITs and IISc.

Shortlisted students would be offered a monthly fellowship of Rs 70,000 during the first two years, Rs 75,000 per month during the third year and Rs 80,000 per month during the fourth and the fifth year. During the programme students will also be provided a research grant of Rs two lakh for a period of five years to cover their foreign travel expenses. The grant will support them to present their research papers at international conferences and seminars.

Closure order issued to unrecognized schools in Delhi

By
Akash
-

The Delhi Government has issued a closure order to the private schools violating the Right to Education Act from the next academic session.

The AAP Government of the state, in an official order, has notified all the societies / trusts / agencies / organisations or individuals running unrecognised schools to discontinue the educational activities from 2018-19 academic session. It also mentioned that strict actions will be taken against the institutions failed to comply with the order.

“It has come to our notice that several unrecognised private schools are functioning without obtaining the mandatory certificate of recognition from appropriate authority which is in violation of the Right to Education Act,” the official order by the Directorate of Education (DoE) said.

The government also asked the parents to get their wards admitted in the schools run as well as recognised by either Department of Education or any other local authorities such as municipal councils.

More than 40 lakh students have registered in both private and government schools combined in Delhi.

Happiness lessons to be introduced in Delhi’s Government Schools

By
Akash
-
Delhi’s Government schools

Delhi Government is now planning to introduce a “happiness curriculum” in State Government-run schools for the students of nursery to class eight from upcoming academic session.

While addressing an event, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia said, “The Delhi government has commissioned a team of experts, including school teachers, which is preparing a framework for the happiness curriculum.”

“The entire curriculum will be purely activity-based and no formal examinations will be conducted on it. However, a periodic assessment of children’s progress will be made using a happiness index,” he said.

“Education has to serve a larger moral and societal purpose and cannot be looked at in isolation from the needs of society. Even as we aim for economic equality, we must strive for ‘happiness equality’ as well,” Sisodia added.

Sisodia, also appealed to teachers and students of government schools in the capital to come forward and assist the government in developing the happiness curriculum.

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