Jan E Alam, a 1991-batch IAS officer of Nagaland cadre, has been appointed as Chairman of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). Prior to his appointment at NIOS, Alam served as Joint Secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Alam replaces S S Jena as the NIOS Chairman. Jena, who served as Chairman from September 2009, has been shifted as Director at the Regional Services Division of the Indira Gandhi National Open University IGNOU).

Jena served in this capacity before taking up his assignment at the NIOS.

Worried about the increase in the number of cases of students taking sick after consuming food served through the mid-day meal programme, the Ministry of Human Resource Development is all set to review the government scheme. The review will be carried out at a two-day conference in Jodhpur with officers from all states starting October 30.

The conference will see secretaries and directors looking after the mid-Day meal scheme in states in attendance along with nodal officers from the 38 monitoring institutes. The HRD ministry will also review the status of the state of kitchen-cum-stores in schools meant for the scheme.

The conference will also look into the delay in release of funds to the implementing agencies, e-transfer of funds to the implementing agencies and the payment of honorarium to cook-cum-helpers in their bank accounts. The mid-day meal scheme provides hot meals in schools to about 11 crore children every day.

Soldiers, airmen and sailors are miffed with the decision of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to discontinue with its Community College Scheme (CCS) for the armed forces. To make matters worse, close to 3,00,000 military personnel who had enrolled for the scheme are yet get a refund, totaling a whopping Rs 30 crore.

Around Rs 750 each was collected from the military personnel for the IGNOU educational certification programme under the joint venture projects named Gyandeep (Army), Akashdeep (IAF) and Sagardeep (Navy). The Army, IAF and Navy had inked MoUs with IGNOU from 2009-2010 to ensure that in-house training of their personnel below officer rank (PBOR) was “recognized” with diplomas/certificates issued by the varsity under the CCS. The military personnel would then have to undergo just one year’s open programme with IGNOU to get a graduation degree, which would enhance their prospects of a second career after their retirement from military service in their 30s and 40s.

The armed forces have now taken up the issue with the HRD ministry, through the Defence ministry, to demand that IGNOU either confer the servicemen with the educational certification promised to them or expeditiously refund their money.

IGNOU says it discontinued all face-to-face courses after a Delhi High Court order.

However, the IGNOU review committee in 2012 had recommended discontinuance of all community colleges. But crucially, the committee had also said that the one for armed forces should be continued since it falls under IGNOU’s objective of bringing those educated under non-formal systems into the formal system.

In the Army alone, around 4,00,000 soldiers had enrolled for the CCS programme with around Rs 28 crore being paid to IGNOU. Similarly, around Rs 3.5 crore were collected from the airmen in IAF. But while 1,00,000 soldiers in the Army did get their diplomas from IGNOU, around 3 lakh were left high and dry when the scheme was scrapped.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked universities to abolish the requirement for submitting attested documents and start accepting self-certification of marksheets, birth certificates and other key documents. The move will substantially simplify procedures for students.

 “It is requested that the process of abolition of affidavits and adoption of self-certification be complied with at the earliest and compliance report be sent to UGC within a week of the issue of the letter,” the commission said in its communication dated September 26 to vice-chancellors of all universities. The communiqué has also asked varsities to take “urgent necessary steps” to implement the order.

The move is in line with the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission regarding adoption of self-attestation for “simplifying procedures.” Under this, original documents are required to be produced only at the final stage of admission.

In a move that could go a long way in encouraging research at the school and university levels, the government is in plans to set up innovation labs in every district. The idea is to enable students to think of new ideas which will be funded by the government under the ‘Rashtriya Aavishkar Abhiyaan’ programme.

“These labs will be linked to the proposed council of higher education on industry academia collaboration so that innovation that has the potential to turn into great business does not die,” Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani said in New Delhi. The ministry is also in plans to start a fund which will support such innovations and is expected to be launched by early 2015.

Irani further informed that the government also intends to scale up the employability potential of the youth as they have a lot of expectations from the BJP regime. To realise such objectives, she said her ministry has proposed to set up the council for higher education on industry academia collaboration.