Uttar Pradesh Government has unveiled a draft of “Self-financed Independent Schools (Regulation of fees) Bill-2017”, with an objective to regulate private schools’ annual fee.
The bill will make it mandatory for all the private schools to submit their fee statement online by December 31 every year. The government will also track the fee structure and provide relief to students.
“The draft bill proposes Rs 1 lakh penalty on schools flouting provisions for the first time, Rs 5 lakh for the second and de-recognition in case they do the same for the third time”, said Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma.
“The aim is that there should not be any capitation fee and that the admission fee is not charged every year, and is charged only in class VI, class IX and class XI,” Sharma said.
“For the last six months, we have been studying the fee determination proposals and objections raised in states such as Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Tamil Nadu. We have consulted parents’ associations, roped in experts from the Union HRD Ministry and also studied Supreme Court guidelines before coming out with this draft bill,” he added.
The government will be open to suggestions regarding the bill till December 22, following which it will be sent to the Assembly. The Act will include all the schools of Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board, CBSE, ICSE and minority schools up to Class XII.
The bill may be implemented in the next academic session which depends on the suggestions and objections raised on the state government portal.
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has announced to drop minimum pass percentage for the ICSE and ISC Board exams.
As per the new rule, pass percentage for ICSE class 10 board exam will be 33 per cent and 35% for ISC class 12 board exam , it will be 35 per cent. The changes will be implemented from the academic year 2018-19.
CISCE in its notification said, “The objective of this is to bring about a close conformity with other Boards in the country.”
In an official letter addressed to the heads of all council affiliated schools, CISCE Chief Executive Officer and Secretary Gerry Arathoon has asked to implement the revised pass mark in the Internal examination as well from the academic year 2018-2019 onwards.
“There is a need to have same pass mark criteria among all boards in the country. The new changes are expected to bring about a close uniformity with other Boards in the country,” said Arathoon.
“There are a number of states going for assembly polls during the exam time. Therefore, we are waiting for the EC to declare the poll dates so that we can release our dates accordingly,” Arathoon said.
All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has asked all the technical institutions to publish complete details list of fees on their respective websites.
The step is supposed to bring transparency so that no student is duped and the colleges will not be able to charge students for any other costs. Colleges failed to adhere to the new rule, will be fined double the total fees collected per student by AICTE. In addition to this new rule, the council is likely to suspend approval for NRI and supernumerary seats given to any institution for an academic year.
The new rule also states that the institutes affiliated to AICTE are not allowed to have names in a way that the abbreviated form of their name matches the country’s premier institutes such as IIM, IIT, IISc, NIT or government bodies such as AICTE, UGC, MHRD, GoI.
The notification issued by the council, reads, “The applicant shall also not use the word(s) Government, India, Indian, National, All India, All India Council, Commission anywhere in the name of the Technical Institution and other names as prohibited under the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use), Act, 1950.” The notification also extends to foreign universities/institutions operating in India by opening their own centres or having entered into partnerships with domestic institutions.
According to a senior official, the purpose of this rule is to avoid confusion. He also added that the naming of institutes in similar lines that of the country’s premier institutes is often done to mislead students and to get more admissions.
Unemployment is one of the major problems of India. Exploring the current situation of unemployment in the country, Dr Veni Nair, Assistant Director, ITM Business School, Navi Mumbai, also observes the reason of unemployment in the country for Elets News Network (ENN).
Dr Veni Nair, Assistant Director, ITM Business School, Navi Mumbai
Unemployment is a situation where in the person willing to work fails to find a job that earns him/her a living. Unemployment has been considered as one of the biggest problems of India. A UN Labour report released in January reports that “Unemployment in Indiais projected to increase from 17.7 million last year to 17.8 million in 2017 and 18 million next year. In percentage terms, unemployment rate will remain at 3.4 per cent in 2017-18. It is impossible to imagine a better India with such a big number of unemployed youth in the country.
The reasons for this Unemployment scenario are: high population, defective education system, excessive burden on agriculture, low productivity in agriculture sector combined with lack of alternative opportunities for agricultural worker, unskilled workforce etc. Though education level in the recent years has improved, skill development is still a crucial issue. India has the largest population of youth in the world. Around 65 per cent population of India is under the age of 35, so the impact of declining financial market and the lack of job opportunities has the worst effect in India.
Apart from the usual solutions of controlling the rising population or increasing the quality of our education to include skill based learning. Governmen should also encourage and develop Industrialisation and agriculture based industries especially in rural areas so that the rural candidates don’t migrate to the urban areas.
But the best solution to the problem of unemployment is encouraging entrepreneurship among the youth of country. Entrepreneurs generate employments to many in a country. They also promote capital formation and employ resources leading to add the value to a specific industry. They don’t let wealth concentrate in a few hands, there is more equity in the distribution of wealth.
Since 65 per cent of the population is below 35 in age, and if this young population would get into entrepreneurship, then more than half of unemployed population of India will get employed. So, I would like to conclude that entrepreneurship not only creates wealth creating but jobs too.
The new-age technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), biometrics, natural language processing, and augmented reality are going to throw open job opportunities for 1,000 graduates from India’s top engineering colleges next year.
The graduates from top engineering colleges across the country will get an opportunity to work for Samsung India, a Samsung India official has revealed.
Apart from IITs, Samsung will also be hiring talent from premier institutes like Delhi College of Engineering, BITS Pilani, Manipal Institute of Technology and IIITs among others.
Majority of these engineers are expected to be hired for new-age domains like AI, IoT, ML, biometrics, natural language processing, augmented reality and networks including 5G.
“Samsung is extremely bullish on R&D in India. We have been here for over 22 years. The three R&D centres in India work on several cutting-edge technologies,” a media report quoted Samsung Global SVP and MD of Samsung R&D Institute India, Bengaluru, Dipesh Shah, as saying.
The company had hired 800 engineers for its R&D facilities last year, of which 300 were from IITs.
Having a total of 32 R&D centres globally, Samsung has three R&D centres in India at Bengaluru (largest outside Korea), Noida and Delhi.
Udacity has rolled out UCollege Scholarships on its Nanodegree programmes to help students enhance their skills and prepare themselves for the jobs.
Students enrolled to any UGC or AICTE approved institution from 1st – 15th December, 2017, will be able to avail the scholarship.
With this initiative, the online learning platform aims to inculcate industry-relevant skills through different projects among students. Moreover, it will be an opportunity to showcase their expertise and capability to employers. In addition to that, students will have access to Udacity Propel, the company’s flagship job fair and their exclusive hiring partners.
Speaking on the scholarship and other initiatives, Udacity MD India Ishan Gupta said, “Current college students are likely to be the most affected by changes that technology will bring to industry. Through this initiative, we are aiming to prepare young students of India with skills that will create the future and prepare them for ‘new-collar’ jobs of tomorrow. It is also to provide access to advanced learning curriculum by experts in the field, hands-on experience and job opportunities to the students.”
Udacity’s Nanodegree programs have created 1000+ job opportunities for its graduates with over 80 hiring partners (including Olacabs, Tapzo, KPIT, Directi, Hi-tech Robotics Systemz, redbus, and Tata Elxsi), in 2017 alone.
Udacity offers different online education courses to students in collaboration with top industry leaders like Google, Facebook, AT&T, IBM Watson, Amazon Alexa, Mercedes, DiDi, etc, with objective to create affordable as well as accessible education.
The company offers Nanodegree programmes across a range of subjects including self-driving car, virtual reality development, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, web and mobile development, and data analytics. Udacity has recently secured a prestigious spot in the CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
Accenture staff is conducting Computer Science Education Week from December 4 to December 10 around the world. The event is being organised with an aim to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses among students.
“Technology is creating jobs that didn’t even exist five years ago and learning to code can transform the trajectory of a student’s life and career,” Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology and innovation officer, said.
Accenture Employees across 56 countries have volunteered for over 2,000 hours of local events, along with teachers and Code.org, to help students learn coding and computer science skills. The initiative is in line with the company’s recent commitment to support programmes that would expand STEM and computer science education. The company has allocated a budget of $10 million for the same.
“The Hour of Code campaign has already led to more than 450 million hours of code being completed. This year, we are asking for people to not only do an hour of code, but go beyond one hour and think about what they can do to ensure that computer science education continues for years to come,” said Hadi Partovi, Code.org CEO and co-founder.
“An hour of code can inspire children to a lifetime journey of technology and computer science,” said Mohan Sekhar, senior managing director, Accenture Technology Services.
The UNESCO has revealed in one of its report that lack of accountability is hindering the progress in education sector.
The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report was launched by the UNESCO in New Delhi this week. Highlighting in the report that providing the education at par with global standards is the responsibility of the Government and education stakeholders, the organisation also emphasised that accountability is necessary to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Millions of children not going to school and many not achieving minimum proficiency levels at school indicate that education systems are not on track. The report provides clear evidence on accountability tools that are working and that are not,” Shigeru Aoyagi, director and UNESCO representative said.
The report also recommended some solutions to the problem; one of them was to create a supportive accountability system for teachers and administration by schools. The report also suggested that punitive mechanisms— especially those based on narrow performance measures— should be avoided, democratic participation should be allowed, independent institutions should be set up to handle complaints and media freedom to scrutinise the education system should be respected.
Developing credible and efficient regulations for all education providers and making the right to education justifiable was also among the recommendations given in the report.
Delhi University will soon launch a year-long post-graduate diploma in cyber security to nurture skilled professionals in cyber security, law and research. It has received approvals from statutory bodies to begin the course.
In a statement, the Delhi University has stated: “The University of Delhi with approval of statutory bodies is shortly launching one year post-graduate diploma in Cyber Security and Law. The programme caters to the domain of cyber security with a unique combination of cyber laws.”
With this initiative, the university aims to create professionals in the domain of cyber security and to cater the needs of industry.
The course comprising two semesters will commence from March 2018 reportedly.
Cyber security plays a vital role in protecting networks, programmes and data from cyber attacks and unauthorised access. These days security risks have been constantly evolving across verticals such as banking, telecom, government, etc, which collect and store important personal information of the customers.
And to deal with such issues, the approach required among the cyber security experts will be inculcated through the programme to ensure security of systems.
Rising number of incidents against children in schools is a big concern among the parents. To ensure safety of children in schools, it is very important for parents to take certain steps for the safety of their wards, writes Rahul Belwalkar, CEO, SecUR Credentials, for Elets News Network (ENN).
With more incidents of children’s harassment in schools coming to light, schools’ management everywhere have stepped up their game, taking effective measures to keep school premises safe for their students.
The Law
Rahul Belwalkar, CEO, SecUR Credentials
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 was formulated to address sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children effectively. In addition to defining the age of a child as being under eighteen, the act defines different forms of sexual abuse based on the nature and circumstances. For example, aggravated harassment is when the abused child is mentally unwell or when the abuse is committed by a person in a position of trust or authority like a family member, police officer, doctor, or teacher. Apart from this Act, there are provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to deal with criminal negligence of school authorities. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has also recently launched a platform for children to report cases of sexual abuse.
Current Situation
Though measures are taken to publicise this knowledge in all sections of the media, the general public is still not very familiar with the law. While its implementation is a step forward in the right direction, children will not be able to discern and file complaints unless they are aware of the difference between good and bad touch. For this purpose, handbooks on sexual abuse and exploitation need to be distributed among students, and sessions on the same must also be conducted to inform children about the system of filing a complaint.
Since the first step to address and solve the problem is identifying it, these are some of the common steps parents can take to protect their children from danger.
Be informed about support staff
Parents need to be well informed about the teachers and staff in schools, and nannies at home. Schools must also conduct routine cross verification to stay up-to-date regarding the same.
Enquire about school safety and security protocols
It is the responsibility of schools to have the latest safety and security protocols in place, including CCTV cameras, Keycard systems, transport safety, and adequate security personnel present on premises. Parents should enquire about the same during the time of admission, and regularly check up on their implementation, by speaking to school authorities.
Creating a healthy awareness and trust-based relationship
The environment at home needs to be made favourable for children to be able to speak up about their issues and problems freely. Open ended questions and regular interactions with the child can make them feel comfortable in sharing their concerns and insecurities. Keeping an eye on their behaviour can also help parents to spot signs of unease and distress.
Ask for emergency procedure checklist
Parents should routinely check the school’s emergency procedure checklist so that proper procedures are followed to the children’s well-being. Appropriate post trauma care and the presence of trained personnel are essential. It is also one of the responsibilities of the parent to make sure the school is equipped to deal with any emergencies.
Educate your child about best practices
While it is a given that every parent teaches his kids to not speak to strangers, not many are particular about teaching them what to do if they find themselves in danger. Besides imparting advice on personal safety, parents should also avoid labelling their children’s backpacks and lunchboxes, as they help strangers in identifying their targets.
Regular participation in PT meets
Parents should also regularly attend parent-teacher meetings and school activities to keep themselves updated and informed about their children’s progress, activities at school, and the kind of relationship they share with classmates, teachers, and school staff.
Due to the recent happenings, every school is taking strict measures to avoid any such incidents against the children. Parents’ active involvement will also keep their wards safe.
