Punjab Engineering College with ESRI India to foster geospatial technology

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December 14, 2017

Punjab Engineering College (PEC) has inked MoU with ESRI India to foster Geospatial Technology in the country.

Under this partnership, PEC aims to disseminate information and awareness about Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and Digital Mapping.

Along with the project and consultancy, the association of PEC and ESRI will work towards capacity building for geospatial technology. Moreover, this step reinforces the vision and mission of PEC to enhance itself as a Centre of Excellence in technical education and research.

This initiative is in line with the visions of Central Government’s flagship programmes like Smart Cities, Digital India and Clean Ganga, among others.

On this association, PEC Director Prof Manoj K Arora said, “The future lies in the study of geospatial data. Due to unavailability of the expertise in the relevant field, the need for such a centre assumes greater significance.”

ESRI is also working with various institutes to address the needs of building GIS and take it to higher levels.

ESRI India President Agendra Kumar said, “ESRI is also working with colleges, universities and research institutes to build GIS capacity and address changing skill requirements and resource shortage.”

Geospatial technology is among the modern tools contributing to the geographic mapping, analysis of the Earth and human societies. It includes a variety of technologies like Remote Sensing, GIS, Global Positioning System (GPS), internet mapping technologies, etc.

Pradeep Negi among top 50 contenders for USD 1 million global award

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Akash

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December 14, 2017

Pradeep Negi, a differently abled teacher from Uttarakhand has placed himself among the top 50 contenders for an USD one million global award.

Pradeep Negi is a teacher of economics, social science and computer science at Government Inter College BHEL Ranipur, Haridwar, Uttarakhand.

Out of 30,000 nominations and applications from 173 countries across the world, Negi has been shortlisted among top 50 for the annual Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2018.

“It is unbelievable. I am proud that I have been chosen as one of the top 50 teachers. It has motivated teachers in our community,” said Mr Negi.

“I am handicapped but it hasn’t stopped me from succeeding and I am glad that I can inspire other disabled people in India. I have developed a lot of innovative work in ICT for my poor children and I am glad it has been recognised,” said Mr Negi, who was physically disabled at the age of two due to polio.

Overcoming his adversities, Negi used technology to make subjects like economies and social sciences compelling to the students. He has been chosen for his fighting spirit. Negi has helped train more than 1,200 teachers in his state.

“Congratulations to Pradeep Negi for reaching the final 50. I hope his story inspires those looking to enter the teaching profession and shines a spotlight on the incredible work teachers do all over the world every day,” said Varkey Foundation and the Global Teacher Prize founder Sunny Varkey.

“We intend to keep this momentum going as our journey continues to return teachers to their rightful position as one of the most respected professions in society,” he said.

The Global Teacher Prize was set up to recognise one exceptional teacher every year who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

Delhi Government strict against the fee hike in private schools

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Akash

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December 14, 2017

The Delhi State Government has called a meeting of all the legislators and officials from education department to toughen its stand against fee hike in private schools.

Following the complaints from parents about the hike in fee by private schools along with demand of arrears, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia – who also holds the education portfolio – met at the Delhi Secretariat.

According to an official, Kejriwal and Sisodia have discussed the issue in the meeting with all the MLAs and education department officials.

The official also revealed that the legislators will get the data of complaints of fee hiking registered against the private schools of their respective.

The Directorate of Education (DoE) had also written to schools recently asking them to refrain from any “unjustified” hike in school fees in the name of implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations.

Government receives 100 applications for World Class University tag

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Akash

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December 13, 2017

The Central Government has received 100 applications for the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s ambitious project of setting up/upgrading 20 world class institutions in India.

“Overwhelming response to the idea of Institutions of Eminence, which will become World Class Universities, is a validation of the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for improving the quality of Higher Education in India”, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The Government had approved the enabling regulatory architecture for of 10 public and 10 private Institutions of Eminence so as to enable them to reach amongst top 100 of world institutions ranking.

Under public sector, 10 Central Universities, 25 State Universities, six Deemed to be Universities, 20 Institutions of National Importance and six Standalone Institutions have applied. Under Private Sector, 9 Private Universities and 16 Deemed to be Universities have applied in brownfield category and 8 Institutions have applied in greenfield category.

“All lovers of education will welcome this development. This is how World Class Universities were built in various countries. The same thing will happen in India”, Shri Javadekar said, adding that “the selection of Institutions of Eminence will not only improve the quality of education, but also propel competition in the entire education sector,” Javadekar added.

The 20 institutions selected as “Institutions of Eminence” will have freedom to choose their own path to become world class institutions. “They will be provided with greater autonomy to admit up to 30 per cent foreign students, to recruit up to 25 per cent foreign faculty, to offer online courses up to 20 per cent of its programmes, to enter into academic collaboration with top 500 in the world ranking institutions without permission of the UGC,” a senior HRD Ministry official said.

No job offers for 80% of students in B-schools: Assocham

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Akash

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December 12, 2017

Around 80 per cent of the students in the business schools are not getting jobs. The current placement year seems the most challenging one in recent times for Indian business schools, reveals Assocham.

According to the The Associated Chambers of Commerce of India, demonetisation, lacklustre business sentiment and stalling of new projects, are the reasons of job opportunities for business school (B-school) students are drying on.

The campus hiring in B-schools of India has gone down severely (around 30 per cent) this than last year.

“The salary packages which are offered at B-schools and engineering colleges are also being curtailed by 40-45 per cent as compared to last year,” Assocham said.

The Assocham Education Council (AEC) said, “Many parents and students are re-thinking on investing three-four years and several lakhs in a course.”

Lack of student enrollment in B-schools has made over 400 institutions defunct, said the chamber.

As per the findings of the report, a large number of B-schools and engineering colleges are not able to attract students that caused over 250 B-schools to closed down since 2015 in major cities including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Dehradun etc. Another 99 are struggling for their survival, the report added.

“The biggest reason for the gap is the rapid mushrooming of tier-2 and tier-3 management educational institutes that have unfortunately not been matched by the uplift in the quality of management education,” said the chamber.

Suggesting the solutions to the problem, the Assocham stated to improve the infrastructure, train their faculty, work on industry linkages, and spend money on research and knowledge creation and making students employable rather than employed.

Indian parents keen to send their children study abroad: HSBC Study

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December 12, 2017

Indian parents’ wish to make their children study abroad has shown a jump of around 15 per cent, a report of HSBC claims.

HSBC’s report – Value of Education, Higher and Higher revealed that the number of Indian parents wanting their children to study abroad has jumped from 47% in 2016 to 62% in 2017.

After the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India ranked second in the list of 15 countries where parents were surveyed. The 15 countries include: India, China, Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.

The US, Australia and UK, are the top three foreign destinations where Indian parents want their children to study. Parents in China also prefer the destinations in the same order.

Over 8,000 parents have participated in the study of which 42 per cent would consider their wards to study abroad, compared to 35% in 2016. 82% Indian parents would even consider an online university degree for their children.

The trend has seen a big percentage-point (pp) increase from the last year among the parents of Asian countries: India (62%, +15pp), Indonesia (61% +1pp), China (59%, +15pp), Malaysia (51%, +8pp), and Singapore (47%, +4pp).

Around half of these parents (47%) would consider their child to study in the universities of the US, making it the most popular choice overall. The US is the most favoured destination for parents in Taiwan (70%) followed by China (61%) and Canada (61%).

The second most popular choice is Australia (40%) and is the most favoured country for parents in Malaysia (67%), Indonesia (65%) and Singapore (63%).

Third most favoured destination (39%) is UK and is the top destination for parents in Hong Kong (67%), France (52%) and the UAE (48%).

Mental Health Project to benefit over 2 Cr students with learning disabilities

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digitalLEARNING Network

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December 11, 2017

Rupantar – A comprehensive mental health project christened to upskill the teachers of the government schools has been launched by the Sri Aurobindo Society. The project has been initiated aiming to create and provide students with uniform opportunity for education.

For the very first time, the project has been launched in South India. The project is already being implemented in all districts of Uttar Pradesh, engaging more than four lakh teachers and 1.7 lakh schools. Interestingly, the project will eventually benefit more than two crore children of the state of whom more than 70% are in rural areas.

Speaking on the initiative, Pradeep Narang, Chairman of Sri Aurobindo Society stated, “For the last decade or so, we have been on a quest for providing children with an equal opportunity for education. The Sri Aurobindo Society has introduced its comprehensive mental health education program for government schools in Puducherry. In South India, this project will be the first of its kind.”

With such initiative, society seeks to address the growing health, behavioural and other mental health needs of students.

The main objective of the project is to establish an education system that is based on deeper human values and empower children to be life-long learners and fulfilled and happy beings highlighted Narang.

He also said, “Its approach is to harness the potential of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship to develop scalable, sustainable solutions focusing on refining the existing processes rather than creating altogether new systems.”

Now, an app to provide free content to Marathi medium students

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December 11, 2017

Maharashtra Education Minister Vinod Tawde has launched Global Education Trust’s “Robomate+ Education App”. The app will provide digital lessons on SSC coursework for Marathi medium class 100 students free of cost.

The app is for the students of class 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12th of Maharashtra State Board. The minister was impressed with the App and highlighted its features and advantages in a very lucid manner.

Launching of app is a step towards fulfilling the Government’s promise of providing quality education to each child in Maharashtra to strengthen the education system of the system.

Teachers and Students of Marathi Medium can now access online video lectures and tests – anytime and anywhere – at no cost. This initiative has been taken by Global Education Trust to help the underprivileged students who usually do not have access to quality education to secure high marks.

Global Education Trust (GET) is a charitable with a mission is to make available good quality education to each & every student. The trust is engaged in imparting education in Maharashtra, Assam, Punjab, Gujarat and Karnataka.

Delhi Government to provide free entrance coaching to SC/ST students

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December 11, 2017

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has launched a scheme last week to provide free entrance coaching for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students preparing for civil services, judicial services, banking, engineering, medicine, and other competitive examinations.

Under the “Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Viskas Yojana”, the State Government through renowned coaching institutions will provide free coaching to SC/ST students to qualify various entrance exams.

Initially, the project will assist 100 students that will be extended to 5,000 students.

Students will be provided help on the basis of their family income. Students with family income up to Rs 2 lakh will get 100 per cent assistance, while students with families’ income of Rs 2-6 lakh will get 75 per cent assistance.

Monthly stipend of Rs 2,500 will also be provided by the State Government apart from the free coaching.

Launching the scheme, Kejriwal said the government is “translating dreams of Baba Saheb into action by making education accessible and available to poor, SC/STs, OBCs, minorities and other vulnerable sections of the society”.

UP Government’s draft bill to regulate fee in state’s private schools

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digitalLEARNING Network

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December 9, 2017

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.