1.1 million Australian dollar scholarship to Indian research students

Higher Education

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April 12, 2017

The Australian Government has awarded 1.1 million Australian dollar scholarship to 11 Indian students in form of tuition fee waiver for a three-year course. Education and Training Minister, Senator Simon Birmingham, Australian Government, made the announcement during a visit to the TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre (TDNBC) in Gurugram.

“The TERI Deakin Nano Biotechnology Centre facility is not incredible because we are commissioning bricks and mortar, it’s incredible because of the brains, the students, the knowledge that is embedded within the facility, and the potential that they (students) are going to realise in so many different ways,” Birmingham said.

The scholarships have been awarded to the PhD students engaged in research programmes at the TDNBC, Gurugram. The students are currently enrolled at Deakin University under the Deakin India Research Initiative (DIRI), launched in 2009. DIRI builds on Deakin University’s world-leading expertise in material sciences, nanotechnology and biotechnology.

Under the initiative, Deakin University will facilitate each student to get a full tuition fee waiver of around 1,00,000 Australian dollar for a period of three years. During this period, the students will travel to the university for six to eight months to work closely with their Deakin supervisor.

Professor Jane den Hollander, AO, VC Deakin University said, “The three-year scholarship programme is predominantly designed to equip the best of the talent with advanced research facilities. Under this programme, Deakin University and TERI will provide joint supervision to the students. TDNBC envisions meeting the demand for a global, skilled workforce in nanobiotechnology.”

Dr Ajay Mathur, director general, TERI, said, “Within five years, the centre aims to have a number of researchers, including PhD students, enrolled at Deakin. With its cutting edge technology at the disposal of these bright minds, this centre will help India make a mark on the global map for building new capabilities and bringing new innovations in the field of science and technology.”

CISCO to train 250,000 Indian students in Cyber Security

News

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Akash

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April 12, 2017

Cisco has decided to train 250,000 students in India over a period of time. The training aims to support startups and build successful careers of Indian youth in technology space. The company will impart skill to students in the area of networking, security and Internet of Things (IoT).

Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and SAARC said, CISCO is a major contributor to education sector of the country and many campuses use the company’s technology for teaching and training.

Earlier this month Cisco and RV College of Engineering (RVCE) had announced the launch of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Internet of Things (IoT) to impart training in digital skills in Bengaluru, reported NDTV.

Dinesh malkani said,”We are extremely focused on India. We have been here for 20 years, we have R&D facilities, global delivery centres and have also invested heavily in the country in regards to Digital India perspective.”

The company has been also involved in various projects under the “Smart City Mission”. CISCO is involved in the safe city projects in Navi Mumbai, Lucknow and Nagpur.

“Thus, across the board we have been very focused on the smart cities vertical. We keep refining our solutions and portfolios,” Malkani said.

He also said that the company is currently running 50 projects which aim to help in the area of cyber security and which is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Educational Cooperation important for India, Australia: Prime Minister Narendra Modi

News

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Akash

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April 12, 2017

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the most important aspect of bilateral relations between India and Australia is the cooperation that exists between the two countries in education and research fields.

He said that both the nations emphasise and recognise the core value of education and importance of innovation from countries’ development perspective, reported Business Standard.

In a press statement after delegation-level talks with visiting Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Indian prime minister said both of them reviewed the entire gamut of the bilateral relations.

“We took a number of forwardlooking decisions to further strengthen our partnership, including holding soon the next round of negotiations on our comprehensive economic cooperation agreement”, he added.

Turnbull is on a four-day state visit to India, starting from April 9.

ExtraaEdge: Digitising Student Acquisition

Interviews

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Akash

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April 12, 2017

In order to help progressive educational enterprises acquire, serve and manage their students, ExtraaEdge develops software solutions for them, says Abhishek Ballabh, Co-Founder, ExtraaEdge, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).

What was your vision behind establishing the company?

To pursue their passion for education, founders’ Abhishek Ballabh and Sushil founded the company. During their jobs, both were used to teach and develop software. After going through various dimensions of education sector like learning, employability, flipped classroom etc, they found “Student Acquisition and Education Marketing” as the most prominent segment of education industry for their company to focus on.

Student acquisition for educational institutes is a highly expensive and conventional segment that offers a $ 22.6 billion global opportunity including $ 1.6 billion of Indian share. The opportunities are primarily in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia and New Zealand.

The last decade of the current century has witnessed the emergence of various companies in this segment. To pursue higher studies, more than five million students from all over the world travel to other countries. It is a big global business opportunity to help educational enterprises in finding the right prospective students by judging their behaviour and course intent. Moreover, it is also important to build a cost-effective and scientific data-driven enrollment decision engine for the educational institutes across the globe. Till date, the company has powered over 45 educational institutes in India thereby reducing their student acquisition cost and increasing their enrolment ratio.

In order to provide best digital experience to your clients, which advanced advertising technologies are used by your company?

Understanding the prospective students and their social behaviour is the key to sell courses and our platform (awaiting patent) exactly does that. The company is developing solutions for institutes to manage their sales and digital marketing expenditure.

Solving student acquisitions by understanding their behaviour and using data-driven approach will help in understanding the course they wish for. We also have to integrate data driven approach with social media, various websites and mobile friendly smart solutions to understand students’ requirement. Our business model is based on the leads we generate. We also use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) enabled landing pages for institutes integrated with Ad-words and Ad-sense campaigns.

What according to you is the importance of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for developing the products as per the customers’ requirement?

The two technologies have less scope as far as student acquisition space is concerned, however, these two technologies are very much required for 21st-century learners to enhance their learning capabilities. In future, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality will help the students in immersive learning.

Please explain about Multi-touch Technology and Gesture Based Technology?

With the evolution of iPads, tablets and smart phones, sales and marketing automation software of ExtraaEdge provides its customers anytime and anywhere availability of their sales report. The company focuses majorly on mobile applications that have taken a huge prominence as far as usages are concerned.

On gesture-based technology, it’s more immersive & applicable for K12 & learning domain. Please provide a list of your clients and explain the kind of products you are developing for them.

We help educational institutes to enhance and manage their admissions. We deliver value to institutes by reducing student acquisition cost, enhancing counsellors’ efficiency, brand recall, mobile presence and social engagement.

It is important to define the “Objective of a Course” to sell it. Our software echoes this principle. Our product “PotentialEDGE” is a sales management and digital marketing software (web + mobile app) for educational institutes. This helps in a cost-effective and data driven student acquisition for the institutes primarily in four ways:

Qualifying Leads via our patented methods – to analyze students’ digital footprint and intent behavior via our analytics.

Persuade Leads to provide seamless communication & automated workflows for counselors and admission team for converting leads to enrolments.

Measure Enrolments via our detailed sales & marketing reports + analytics

Generating Leads via innovative social, gamified & online channels.

Some of our customers are:

Aptech India, SEED Infotech Pvt. Ltd., BSE Institute, D Y Patil Group of Institutes, MIT Institute of Design, MIT Skills, ISDI Mumbai, Ecole-Intuit Lab, SeamEdu, ASM Group of Institutes, Amplify Mindware, ICA Group, MIT School of Broadcasting & Journalism, Akemi Group of Institutes, Times & Trends Academy, INIFD etc.

What are your plans for future and pipeline projects?

We are planning to expand our business in the southern region of India along with penetration in the Northern vocational training and coaching market. Along with this, we are trying to engage new clients in Middle East Asia Region for various pilot projects and to enter in the international market.

We are also building a product roadmap with data science capabilities to understand student’s intent and behaviour for helping institutes to make smart enrolment decisions.

IIITs established under PPP mode soon to be declared as institute of national importance

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Akash

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April 11, 2017

All 15 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) set up under public-private partnership (PPP) mode will soon be allowed to award degrees to their students.

In this regard, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar has introduced the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public-Private Partnership) Bill, 2017 in the Lok Sabha. The Bill seeks to declare 15 functional IIITs as institutions of national importance, reported The Economic Times.

According to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the bill, these institutes are required to be given statutory status and enable them to “grant degrees to the students”.

The degree granting power to IIITs would enhance their acceptability. Moreover, there is an urgent need to confer the statutory status to these institutions since students of five such institutes would be completing their graduation in July and August this year, the statement said.

In order to address the challenges faced by the country’s IT industry, the government has decided to set up 20 IIITs under the public-private partnership mode.

Among others, the bill provides powers to “hold examinations and grant degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions or title and to confer honorary degrees”.

Malala Yousafzai, new UN Peace Messenger, to promote girl education

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Akash

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April 11, 2017

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, newly designated UN Peace Messenger said that in second life, she got after extremists unsuccessful attempt to kill her, she will be working for education especially of girls and hoping boys will advocate for gender equality.

Expressing great disappointment on media’s portrayal of Muslims as “terrorists” and “jihadists”, the 19-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate stressed that Islam means peace and called herself a proud Muslim, reported The Economic Times.

“People should look at me and the Muslims who are living in peace and believe in peace, rather than looking at the few terrorists,” she said.

Malala was answering questions from young people after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres officially bestowed on her the highest honor the UN chief can give a global citizen, calling her “a hero.”

Government introduces bill to amend Right to Education Act

News

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Akash

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April 11, 2017

The Central Government has introduced a bill, seeking to amend the Right to Education Act, in the Lok Sabha. The new amendment will allow elementary teachers to get minimum qualifications as mandated in the act till 2019.

According to the existing Act that came into effect from April 1, 2010, teachers were to acquire minimum qualifications within five years by March 31, 2015. Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar introduced the ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017’.

The new bill has been brought to enable the state governments to continue the training process for in-service untrained teachers.

Subsequently, the state governments had requested for extending the period for “training untrained teachers so as to enable them to initiate and complete the said the training process”, according to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the bill.

The new amendment will also insert a new provision in the Act to provide free and compulsory education to all children of 6 to 14 years of age, reported The Economic Times.

Under the new provision, “every teacher appointed or in position as on March 31, 2015, who does not possess minimum qualifications… shall acquire such minimum qualifications within a period of four years on and from the date of commencement of the proposed legislation”.

The expenditure for training of untrained teachers would come from the approved allocation under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme and shared between the Centre and the State governments.

“It is estimated that a nonrecurring expenditure of Rs 453.62 crore involved would be carried over to subsequent years to complete the training of untrained teachers by March 31, 2019,” the government said in the financial memorandum of the bill.

AICTE to take action against colleges flouting student-faculty ratio

News

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Akash

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April 11, 2017

Senior University Photographer — A professor at Azim Premji University, in Bangalore, India, lectures to a classroom full of students.

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will take action against all the engineering colleges that are not maintaining the prescribed student-faculty ratio.

“Colleges not maintaining prescribed faculty-student ratio shall be liable to punitive actions including suspension of approval for supernumerary seats and reduction in approved intake,” a senior AICTE official said.

“Penal action can also be initiated against technical institutions for not disbursing the salary of the faculty and other staffers regularly and not adhering to timings for the colleges that operate in two shifts.

“Besides these, non-adherence to prescribed pay scales or qualifications prescribed for teaching staff for more than 12 months will also attract penalty,” the official added.

The council will also cross check the pay scales and qualification of faculties and if any discrepancy then it may lead to the suspension of admission process or reduction in intake in technical institutions, reported Hindustan Times.

The AICTE has approved new norms to grant approvals to the technical institutions in a recent meeting. According to the guidelines, suspension of admission in the respective course for one academic year and withdrawing approval of the course or of the institution altogether are the possible actions for the defaulting institutions.

Arunachal Pradesh’s medical college to be functional by 2019-20

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Akash

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April 11, 2017

The proposed Tomo Riba Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (TRIHMS) at Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh is expected to start functioning from 2019-20.

According to the Health & Family Welfare Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Jomde Ken, initially the institute will have 50 seats and recruitment of faculty would begin in the financial year 2018-19. The reservation for outstation candidates will be decided by the TRIHMS Society would decide about seat reservation for outsiders, reported NDTV.

Deputy Chief Minister of the state, Chowna Mein inaugurated a digital X-ray unit and a high-end 4D colour doppler ultrasound machine at Tertiary Cancer Centre (TCC) in Tomo Riba State Hospital (TRSH) at Naharlagun near here.

Mein thanked Samsung for donating a digital X-ray unit and a high-end ultra sonogram worth approximately Rs two crore under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scheme.

Centre plans to link higher educational institutes to rural development processes

By

Akash

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April 11, 2017

Central Government is planning to link all Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) with rural development processes under Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA). The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Panchayati Raj have already signed a tripartite agreement earlier this year in this regard. Through the agreement, the three ministries will try improve the formulation and delivery of developmental schemes in the rural areas.

Replying to a question in the Parliament, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of State (HRD) said that the representatives from Higher Education Institutions will interact with local bodies and community in selected village clusters to provide inputs and knowledge about the Gram Panchayat Development Plans, reported NDTV.

The scheme has been formulated by the Department of Higher Education, MHRD and the first phase of it is under implementation in several parts of the country. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has been designated as the Coordinating Institute.

All the institutions, including Central/State Government funded technical institutions, are advised by the MHRD to adopt clusters of backward Gram Panchayats/villages in their vicinity. The ministry has also asked institutions to apply their knowledge and expertise to improve the infrastructure in the Gram Panchayats.

Along with the Rural Development and Gram Panchayat, higher educational institutions are expected to carry out detailed field study. The institutes are also likely to participate in conceptualising and preparing the community-level development plans by providing technical, managerial inputs and by suggesting innovative solutions.

The institutions have been advised to continue their engagement with chosen Panchayats and offer assistance to the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj personnel. The programme is to be implemented over the next two years, with additional clusters.

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