When Education Overwhelmed A Nation of Islands — Bahrain

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March 16, 2017

Bahrain witnessed a grand congregation of thought leaders, stake holders and entrepreneurs of the education sector recently during the 8^thElets World Education Summit 2017 organised from 8-9 March.

Organised at the Bahrain Bayan School, Bahrain, the special summit included various discussion segments related to demographics, geo-politics, societal aspirations and technological trends and practices.

Parameters influencing and driving investment flows in the field of education across MENA region was also one of the major key discussion points during the event.

Eminent speakers laid stress on the need for formal and informal methods to teach or learn to develop an approach of life-long learning, along with strategies employed in creating policies and structures to encourage and support direct Industry collaborations for robust institutions.

On this occasion speakers such as Dr Riad Hamza, President, University of Bahrain; Paul Fear, Chief Executive Officer, British Accreditation Council; Dr. Khaled Saeed Tabbara, Vice President, Arabian Gulf University; Prof Abdul Sattar Ahmad Al-Alusi, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emirates College for Management and Information Technology, Dubai, UAE; Professor Mazin M.A. Jumaah, President, Royal University for Women, Bahrain etc shared their pearls of wisdom.

In an endeavour to recognise and encourage organisations, projects, and programme initiatives in the field of education, notable eduleaders were presented awards in the varying categories like Edupreneurship, Introducing Innovations in Teaching Pedagogy Global Collaborative Learning Environments, Innovative Interventions in Pre-School Teaching & Learning.

Education to touch new heights with Great Lakes Institute’s campus in Andhra Pradesh

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Akash

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March 15, 2017

Great Lakes, a Chennai and Gurgaon based institute in management studies has launched the Great Lakes International University (GLIU) in Andhra Pradesh, which is among one of the first few private universities being set up in the state.

The first academic session of the university will commence in August 2017 with two undergraduate courses — a BBA and a BTech in computer science. The intake will be 120 students for each course. Specialisations in business analytics, ecommerce and supply chain management, fintech and digital marketing will be offered under the undergraduate business degree. The technical degree will focus on new age specializations such as cyber security, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, Internet of Things and cloud computing.

“The university aims to nurture future leaders who are armed with intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and confidence derived from strong values and a global perspective,” Mohan Lakhamraju, co-founder of the university told to a leading newspaper.

“We’ve designed the educational experience at GLIU with a multidisciplinary approach in mind — drawing inspiration from top global schools like The Wharton School and Singapore Management University, and focusing not just on core competencies like business and technology, but also building a broadbased intellectual foundation through studying the liberal arts,” said Lakhamraju, co-founder of GLIU.

GLIU already has academic collaborations in place with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Bordeaux University in Europe, and Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Amazon emerged as top recruiter at IIM-A, offered 18 jobs

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Akash

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March 15, 2017

E-commerce giant Amazon has emerged as the top recruiter at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A). The e-commerce company has offered 18 jobs for the class of 2017 at India’s top B-school.

A little more than 100 firms took part in the final round of placements at IIM-A. Sector-wise, consulting firms, such as Accenture Strategy, Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company and The Boston Consulting Group, made the highest number of offers.

Among global banks, Goldman Sachs was the largest recruiter among global banks which picked up nine students. Hindustan Unilever has offered seven jobs, highest in the sales and marketing domain followed by Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Samsung, with six offers each.

Tata Administrative Service was the largest recruiter in the general management area with 10 offers whereas consumer tech cohort, Sprinklr made nine offers.

Among the Banking, Financial Services & Insurance recruiters, American Express, FinIQ, Fullerton and RBL were some of them who extended offers.

Sales and marketing roles were offered by regular recruiters like Airtel, Asian Paints, HUL, ITC, Nestle, P&G and Reckitt Benckiser, among others.

IIIT-Delhi joins hands with IBM, Federal Bank for interactive online hackathon

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Akash

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March 15, 2017

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi ((IIIT-Delhi) has announced an interactive online hackathon, “IBM Challenge” in collaboration with IBM and Federal Bank. In 2016, the event attracted over 500 students.

Through the hackathon, students will get an opportunity to learn new cognitive computing skills. The hackathon will also enable students to solve reallife business problems using IBM Watson API’s on the IBM Cloud platform.

An official communique in this regard revealed that the hackathon is a part of Research Showcase 2017. It is an annual event exhibiting the research and development work from premier educational institutions in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) region.

“The IBM Challenge is designed to blend handson learning with relevant market skill development. The participants will be asked to solve a realworld banking industry business problem and develop relevant technology solutions as part of the challenge,” said A.V. Subramanyam, Chair, Research Showcase 2017, IIIT-Delhi.

The theme of the hackathon is online customer engagement. Here students will be able to develop solutions to help banks for providing their customers better banking experience.

“Our association with IIIT-Delhi and Federal Bank will help arm the developers of tomorrow with the latest capabilities and foster the necessary skills to join the workforce and create enterprise class applications at consumer scale.” said Devkant Aggarwal, Manager, University Relations, IBM India.

The participants will be mentored by IIIT-Delhi and IBM and the winner will be adjudged jointly by IIIT-Delhi, Federal Bank and IBM.

Andhra government allocates over Rs 20,000 crore for education

By

Akash

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March 15, 2017

The Andhra Pradesh government has announced that it will increase the share of funds for education in the state’s budget. The state government has also announced to make special provisions for assistance to unemployed youth in the state.

According to State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Rs 500 crore has been allocated for assistance to unemployed youth.

In the budget, Rs 20,384 crore has been allocated for general education and Rs 765 crore for technical education whereas Rs 398 crore were allotted for Skill Development schemes.

In comparison to the last financial year, total allocation to education sector has increased by more than 20% by the AP government. It is also noteworthy that the AP government has set aside a separate fund for technical education.

Elaborating on the idea behind allocating the “gender budget”, Ramakrishnudu said, “Gender budgeting is a process of incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process, assessing the needs of target groups and allocating resources. The government will undertake a comprehensive set of actions to improve the lives of women across all human development indicators.”

Andhra Pradesh is not the only state to focus on education for the financial year 2017-18; Delhi Government had also announced special focus on education in its annual budget presentation.

St Xavier’s college is set to reach new heights as a university

By

Akash

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March 11, 2017

Kolkata campus of St. Xavier’s University is expected to be inaugurated in July, 2017. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Lakshmi Niwas Mittal would inaugurate the university. It is expected that initially the university will offer four postgraduate courses.

The new campus of the university will spread over 17 acres of land. The campus would include two hostels for both boys and girls with a capacity of 1,000 students in each. The university campus would also house a football field, a sports academy, a swimming pool, a 3500 sq ft food court and a law institute and, St Xavier’s University and its Rajarhat will be.

“We are thinking of a scenario 50100 years down the line. We will need more space to start new age courses and accommodate more students,” said vice chancellor Father Felix Raj.

In its first academic session, the university will offer six courses. Around 650 students will be enrolled in these courses in the first year.

IIT-Kanpur to become cashless, partnered with Paytm

By

Akash

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March 11, 2017

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur) has entered in a partnership with digital payment company Paytm under the company’s ‘Cashless Campus’ initiative, official statement said.

In a statement shared by Paytm, the company said that QR code-based cashless payment solution has been enabled by the company within IIT-Kanpur. Offline touch-points are available across the campus including hostel canteens, medical store, tea stalls, book stalls and cycle repairing shops.

According to the company, the partnership will help students and teachers to make quick and easy payments without the worries of carrying loose change.

“Our ‘Cashless Campus’ initiative has proven to be a great success with the country’s youth. This is a clear reflection of the younger generation’s eagerness to choose digital payments over the hassles of cash”.

“IIT Kanpur would be a great addition to our extensive portfolio of premium institutions including IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Madras and Sree Ram College of Commerce among others that have gone cashless with Paytm. We strongly believe these cashless campuses would add a huge positive impetus to our vision of a cashless India,” Kiran Vasireddy, sr. vice president – Paytm said.

This move is in line with Paytm’s strategy of targeting major campus areas for cashless transactions, the company added further.

Number of Indian students to rise remarkably in varsities: Canadian Consulate General

By

Akash

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March 11, 2017

With nearly 50,000 Indian students studying in various universities of Canada, the number is expected to grow remarkably every year, said Jennifer Daubeny, Consul General for South India.

Daubeny was recently in the Mangaluru to participate in a meeting organised by Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). She said, the number of students coming to study in Canada is expected to increase significantly from this year onwards. “Most of the young graduates land in Canada for PG and certificate courses. They prefer educational institutions across country. It is because the education there (Canada) is affordable and of high quality,” Jennifer told to a leading newspaper.

In order to support students in the admission process, many Canadian educational institutions have set up their offices in India. Only in Bengaluru, six universities have set up their offices to engage actively with the Indian students. “We are also witnessing a new trend that students are moving to Canada for under graduate courses,” she said.

Interestingly, not only Indian students are going to Canada but Canadian students are also coming to India for higher studies, she said, citing Manipal University, which has signed several MoUs with Canadian educational institutions.

When it comes to working visas, more and more IT professionals are moving to Canada with their families. “Indians are the second largest immigrants in Canada after China,” she added.

Delhi University’s course voted best in QS World Ranking

Higher Education

By

Akash

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March 10, 2017

Delhi University’s development studies programme has been ranked 16 in the latest QS World University Rankings.

The seventh edition of Quacquarelli Symonds’s (QS) analysis was released on March 8. In this edition of QS world ranking, world’s best universities are listed for the study of 46 different subjects based on the subject-specific university performance.

The University of Delhi has better its rank by two places in development studies which now provides India’s top four universities – one more than last year. Indian School of Mines (ISM) improving its category has moved to 24th for engineering – mineral and mining from 51-100 category. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has made its debut in the engineering – mineral and mining ranking with 35th position.

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) ranked 49 for electrical engineering. From last year’s 22, the number of Indian institutions providing top-50 programmes has increased to 28, which is one of Indian higher education’s major highlights this year.

India also increases its overall share of places. Last year, its 22 universities were ranked 117 times, taking 1.27% of all available places whereas, this year, its 28 universities are ranked 151 times, representing 1.32% of overall places.

QS have also released their QS World University Rankings by Faculty after assessing university performance across five broad groups of subjects: arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, and social sciences and management.

In the faculty based rankings IIT Delhi is placed at the 71 in the engineering and technology faculty area followed by IIT Bombay at 78 in the same faculty area.

Architecture, planning colleges likely to come under urban development ministry

By

Akash

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March 10, 2017

Government is planning to bring all architecture engineering colleges including all Schools of Planning & Architecture (SPAs) under the Union urban development ministry. Currently all architecture institutes such as Mumbai’s JJ School of Architecture and Ahmedabad’s CEPT University are under the purview of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

“The panel felt the urban development ministry, which deals with urban affair issues is better equipped to cater to the needs of architecture education since bulk of planned building activity and main employment space of practising architects and planners is in urban areas,“ said a government source.

The council of secretaries headed by cabinet secretary PK Sinha last month recommended that these institutes should be brought under the Union urban development ministry. The step will ensure better synergy between what is taught in the institutes and how they are getting translated on the ground.

Any building activity in urban areas is regulated through various building bye-laws which are standardised by the urban development ministry.

The recommendations by committee are under reallocation of Architects Act, 1972 from MHRD to the urban development ministry. The Act provides for registration of architects, standards of education, recognition of qualifications and standards of practice to be complied with by practising architects.

“The proposal will now go to the cabinet for final approval,” a HRD ministry official said.

“The 52 member council is mandated to regulate not only architectural education but its practice throughout India, besides maintaining the register of architects,” an SPA official said.

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