IGNOU’s Gyanvani will not be accessible to the thousands of learners across all age groups, many of whom have no access to formal education. Effective October 1, the All India Radio (AIR) has taken off air all 37 Gyanvani educational FM radio stations, the formidable teaching tool of Indira Gandhi National Open University. The move follows the varsity’s alleged failure to clear the outstanding dues.
In a communique dated September 12 to IGNOU Vice Chancellor M Aslam, the AIR Additional Director-General warned that all channels will be closed following non-payment of the dues, depriving lakhs of Gyanvani listeners their crucial learning resource.
Conceived in 2001, the Electronic Media Production Centre (EMPC) of IGNOU was the producer of an educational programme for students in English, Hindi and other local languages and was being broadcast by AIR every day between 6 AM and 11am, with a repeat between 5pm and 10pm. The general public too could tune in.
An educational FM radio network, Gyanvani aired programmes covering different aspects and levels of education. It had separate programme modules catering to the needs of people pursuing primary and secondary education, adult education, technical and vocational education, higher education and extension education.
Gyanvani’s plight has been blamed on the lack of coordination between the MHRD, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Prasar Bharati and IGNOU. The national open university gets grants from the Centre to promote higher education.
A probe initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development into charges of plagiarism against some teachers of the Delhi University has apparently irked the university’s teachers union which has now moved the ministry seeking investigations into similar allegations against the Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh.
“We have come to know that the MHRD has set up a committee to inquire into allegations of plagiarism regarding some professors at Delhi University. We wanted the MHRD to be aware that there is a pending case of plagiarism against Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh. The issue is part of the White Paper submitted by us, but since there is already a specific committee investigating charges of plagiarism, we have requested the Ministry to include this case too,” said Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain.
She alleged that the “case of Prof. Dinesh Singh’s suspected attempts to pass off five publications authored by someone else as his own,” was reported in December, 2012.
“The university had defended the V-C by claiming that his researcher profile on “ResearcherID”, a website maintained by a news wire, had been hacked and that a complaint had been lodged with the Delhi Police. However, its replies to RTI queries following the incident reveal glaring inconsistencies in the university’s claims,” she said.
The DUTA has also alleged that the university had remained silent on the details about the police complaint it had lodged.
Ranking of Central universities will now be carried out using a national ranking system framework. A primary draft for this has already been prepared. “Delhi University hosted a conclave of vice-chancellors yesterday for developing a framework for a National Ranking System and a draft containing the ranking parameters has been prepared,” Media coordinator and Joint Dean of Students’ Welfare, Delhi University, Malay Neerav, said.
The conclave saw exchange of ideas and a broad consensus was reached on six parameters for the National Ranking System. According to a DU official, “These include academic reputation, research development and innovation, training and placement, internationalisation, per capita academic performance and outreach or geographical reach of universities.”
The work on the framework has been started following a directive by the Ministry of HRD.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked universities from across the country to send academic data to make various policy decisions in higher education. According to a university circular dated October 8, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has asked for information on the teaching and non-teaching staff to be submitted at the earliest.
The information will provide details regarding academic status in universities across the country, which will be used to make policy decisions, regarding fund allocations and other such matters.
The UGC also wants information regarding the number of teaching and non-teaching positions in a university, number of class I-IV positions, total number of sanctioned positions, total number of existing vacant positions and number of employees with disabilities.
In a move aimed at addressing faculty shortage, the Ministry of Human Resource Development is in plans to relax the norms for mobility of faculty at the Indian Institutes of technology (IITs). The premier technical institutes are finding it tough to deal with the staff crunch and have resorted to measures ranging from roping in retired professors to short-term migration of teachers between IITs.
The move by MHRD is expected to help the IITs touch a 10:1 ratio of students to faculty. According to the latest MHRD numbers, IITs are falling short of faculty by 37 per cent. The new norms will allow faculty to migrate in the long term, 10 years, from an old IIT to a new one or vice versa.
Faculty can currently move between IITs only on short term deputation. MHRD is also nudging the department of expenditure to revise the funds allocated to the new IITs for building infrastructure, the official adds. This move will further ensure that the faculties find an equally competitive research environment at new IITs as is currently available at the older IITs.
IIT Hyderabad with barely 140 regular faculty members for around 1,700 students, has invested in building a strong infrastructure for research and development. IIT Kanpur, on the other hand, has recently introduced video conferencing for faculty selection. The ratio of teacher to students at IIT Kanpur is at 1:17. It has around 10 to 12 visiting faculty of which many are retired faculty members.
School exams for most, is the fear to fear. But this issue can be easily tackled by understanding individual attributes of every child and enabling personalized learning which is tailoring of pedagogy, curriculum and learning environments to meet the different learning needs and aspirations that allows a child to keep learning, growing, and changing.
Etymologically, the word education is derived from the Latin word educare meaning “bring up”, which is interrelated to educere meaning “bring forth what is within” and ducere, “to lead”. Efforts at all levels should be made so that a child enjoys whatever is taught. Education is complete only if it encompasses head, heart, hands-on and health. Head needs information & knowledge. With the limitless supply of online-courses, books and other aids, there is no excuse. The solution is starting a new habit. For example, while travelling, instead of listening to FM Radio children can switch to an audio book. Kids must also engage in some social service to build their emotional quotient and engrain values. It’s important to get ‘hands-on-training’. Children ought to learn at least one sport. The playfields can open their minds to endless potentiality, most importantly it teaches team spirit, focus and concentration. For holistic development of a child, his health both physical and spiritual ought to be taken care of.
‘Learn- Unlearn- Relearn’ is not a choice but an essential tool for visioning in the future and preparing oneself to accurately predict and perform. Learning fills and makes a complete human being by developing the emotional-mental-spiritual-social quotient.
THE CHALLENGES ARE ESCALATING …………… Nowadays the various facets of an individual are evaluated, graded and then reported. The rank system has been abolished and students are given grades. This is in a quest to bring in excellence and avoid the rat race for number one position. Real education is what remains after the schooling is through, the children must learn and stay abreast with the changes. But while school is on, a child is assessed, tested and often pressurized with exams. Majority of kids face difficulty and undergo stress in learning, retaining and replying aptly and adequately. Here are some tips for all –
An extract from Dr Anshu Arora’s book ‘School Truths REVEALED’ where the five characters namely Surujeet, Tanvi, Anshika, Robin and Suja(narrator) talk about examination and give us an insight about the varied learning techniques.
‘I stick to Hanuman ji approach. Whenever in doubt, just write everything you know about that. The kind teacher may have mercy on you and award you some marks,’ said Tanvi. Probably it was her tried and tested formula.
‘Tanvi, regularity and learning daily is the technique you should adopt,’ suggested Surujeet.
‘I read and revise my chapters daily. This helps the short term memory to become long term memory.’
‘Surujeet is right. We understand everything, the only challenge is to remember it at a later date,’ remarked Robin.
‘The RAM- random access memory displayed on the black-board and the class discussion needs to be converted into commented Anshika.
Information has to be carefully stored to ease its retrieval later.
‘I have no problems in learning,’ I said.
‘Ya.. ya.. the genius,’ taunted Tanvi.
‘Not exactly but I devise ways to understand, assimilate and remember,’ I countered Tanvi.
‘Ways?’ she wanted to know more.
‘Yes, we are all different and so are the learning abilities. If my brother and I have to write an exam on the book “101 things you didn’t know about Jane Austen”, he would probably learn the book cover to cover since he is good at cramming and is blessed with a photographic memory. But I would read, understand and devise methods to remember it all,’ I said.
‘Is it possible? How?’ asked Surujeet who wanted to learn the art of learning.
‘Yes, like acronyms – ‘VIBGYOR’ for seven colours of the rainbow namely violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Simple sentences like ‘My very elegant mother just showed us nine planets’ gives out the names of the nine planets in an order – Mercury,Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Apart from this, I use mind- maps, charts and diagrams to understand well,’ I was giving a few of my learning tips.
‘Suja is right. I also use the association method. It really works,’ said Robin.
‘What is that?’ Anshika wanted to know.
‘Relating what you want to learn with something you already know, just like Santa reminds you of Christmas. Now December, 25th, Santa, Christmas tree can be co-related and associated with other things to learn and retain better,’ Robin explained.
‘I remember faces by associating them with people I already know. I guess I was using it without even knowing about it,’ Surujeet was introspecting his own thoughts.
‘Reading makes a full man, interactivity a ready man, writing an exact man and practice a perfect man,’ said Ansika.
‘Yes, indeed, a perfect man,’ smiled Robin.
‘Of course, girls are already perfect. But I stick to practice, practice and lots of practice both oral and written,’ smiled and suggested Anshika.
Exams meant different kind of preparation for different children. Some acquired ‘exam ideas’ through previous years’ question-papers and some stuck to home tuitions.
‘Cram in exam’, ‘miss the test’, ‘notes to cheat’, ‘learn and retain’ was all happening at the same time.
“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.” – Charles Caleb Colton
The author is the Principal of Bal Bharti School, Bahdurgarh and author of ‘School Truths REVEALED’ .
ICT acts as a catalyst that can fuel the growth of education. Modern education is experiential learning, do it yourself or learn from your own practical experiences. it’s obvious that emphasis on ICT is a dire need as it acts as a force multiplier for capacity building effect of information and learning. It also has potential to provide solution to issues such as shortage of quality faculty in remote areas, physical barriers due to large size classroom, or teacher’s personal barriers like shrill voice etc. On the other hand, the young population has an immense appetite of education and with the increasing demand of holistic development only teacher can facilitate but still there is a need for an X-factor, and that X factor could be technology only. I feel that the days of rote learning and cramming are outdated. If I may take your attention back to our pre-primary classes, we were taught z-for-zoo. While the teacher explained that a zoo is a place where animals live together, I imagined a zoo differently. I was not sure whether they lived in separate cages or all together in a single cage. Due to lack of confidence and scared of public speaking, I was not able to clear my doubt. For a long time I remained with my own imaginations about a zoo. Thanks to digital technology now, the situation has turned at the angle of 360 degree, now students know how they live, their habitat, sound, colour, size etc.
Digital classrooms have become the lynchpin of education. We are now standing at the cusp of a technological revolution in the pedagogical aspect of education. The e-beam teaching method used in class is a fun way to learn as an additional help. It facilitates deeper and relevant stories and anecdotes related to the subject. It helps students understand concepts faster and put concept in right prospective.
ICT encourages an out-of-the-box thinking. We now live in a STEM era i.e. science, technology, engineering and mathematics, where technology is boon. Now, students do not have to depend on the formatted knowledge he can search and leave himself as per his requirement. The plethora of information brought to us by the technology gives us an opportunity to learn any subject in depth or in totality.
For the students of surgery and engineering, each part of the human body and machine can be observed on screen which is most of the time not possible practically.
There is no end to innovation and expecting something from technology; it’s pointless as technology has no limit and it will always surpass our expectations, thanks to digital technology to which we are able to save the lives of millions of animals use for dissection.
Technology today is breaking the barrier of distances. One can interact in real time with, students of various places or countries.
Flip classes, virtual classes are actually demand of today. Technology allowed teachers to give drilled instruction that can be accessed by students any time anywhere without geographical disturbances. Technology is not a replacement of a teacher, his role changes from teaching to that of a facilitator. Technology is a double edged weapon, it in supposed to complement and supplement the learning process and not deviate the mind. Click of mouse gives access to useful information to the students. Online competitions like Google science fair create a driver seat for students means choose your own project learn yourself and submit. Therefore Modi ji’s vision of teachsavy India is seems to be full fill soon. As a science teacher in a well known school, I strongly believe in ICT and can see India writing another a new history using innovation, imagination, intelligence quotient with technology.
-Smita Agarwal
Smita Agarwal teaches Science at St Kabir’s School, Hisar, Haryana. The views expressed are her own.
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and GKD Institute for Technological Resources have partnered to launch the School of Vocational Education in Industrial Tool Manufacturing in Coimbatore.
TISS plans to spread the school to a pan-India level. It has identified more than 20 verticals, including vocational courses in travel and tourism, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, industrial safety, industrial tool manufacturing, dialysis technology and printing for starting vocational training schools.
Speaking about the motivation behing opening the vocational school, Neela Dabir, Deputy Director, TISS, said, “Our vision is to create an ecosystem that would bring back the dignity of labour for blue collar streams of work and create sustainable sources of income for the marginalised youths in the country. It is an initiative of the Union Ministry of HRD. TISS is the nodal point to implement the initiative.”
She said ‘the system involves four different entities – TISS School of Vocational Education, Vertical Anchors, Hubs and Skill Knowledge Partners. While the SVE team has overall control over the process, the vertical anchors design the courses (may also have their own hubs), and the hubs act as implementation partners’. Women participation
The training programme is structured to facilitate vertical movement of the organised and unorganised work force, she said and pointed out that it facilitated participation of women, children and other vulnerable groups as well.
Designed with a vision to improve the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised youth, especially those excluded by the formal school education system, TISS – SVE has enrolled nearly 400 students in various programmes, Dabir said.
Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) has conceptualized an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Park (IEP) in Lucknow and has asked the UP government for 20 acres of land. The IEP will help unskilled workers get a technical education. The industry and the MHRD have already pledged financial support to the park.
The concept behind this initiative is to provide factory/industry employees a chance to not only get their skills honed, but also come forward to opt for entrepreneurship. At IEP, the factory employees will be provided with basic machinery and equipments.
A proposal for setting up the park and need for land for the purpose was sent to the state government four months back but till date there has been no response. The institute has now decided to make a fresh initiative to pursue the matter with the government next week, said Prof B V Phani, associate dean of Innovation and Incubation at IIT-Kanpur.
“The institute plans to set up IEP in Lucknow somewhere close to the airport for which a proposal had been sent to the state government but there has been no reply. On Monday, the matter will be discussed with IIT-K director Prof Indranil Manna and Prof Manindra Agarwal and then pursued with the government,” said Prof Phani.
Elaborating the objective behind setting up IEP, Prof Phani said, “We also need to pay back the society. For this, one aspect would be to train people employed in leather, sugar and various other factories in UP and hone their skills. They, with the help of basic machines and equipments which they otherwise cannot purchase, will be able to produce quality products. At the same time those with entrepreneurial interests will be provided with support to opt for entrepreneurship. We will provide them will space upto 1,000 square feet in the park to set up offices and work from there for a maximum period of three years.”
He added that if land for this purpose is close to the Lucknow airport, the high-quality product could be exported as well.
Prof Phani also said that the IIT-K does not need anything except that government gives it a contribution of Rs 50 crore in the form of land for setting up the park. As soon as the land is provided to us, we will soon begin with the work, he said.
For developing the entire park, Rs 50 crore will be contributed by IIT-K, Rs 75 crore by the industry and Rs 100 crore by the Union ministry of HRD. In the next three years from the time of allotment of the land, the IEP will start functioning completely, said the IIT-K professor. He said that in one year the basic operations will begin at IEP.
Delhi University (DU) has introduced a compulsory course in Environmental Studies for its undergraduate students. The course was mandated by UGC.
The course is being introduced in the current academic session, and studens can take it up wither in their first or second semesters. It will be a qualifying course and carry 100 marks for the three-year undergraduate programme.
“The evaluation for the course will be undertaken by the respective colleges who will later send the evaluated marks to the examination branch through the existing mechanism,” Prof Rup Lal, the DU Dean of Examinations, added in a circular to the principals.
While the course will be available only in English during the present session future sessions will introduce it in Hindi as well.
Directives were issued by the University Grants Commission to colleges and varsities all over India in 2004 as per a Supreme Court order for starting a six-month mandatory environmental science course.
However, the implementation of the course was delayed due to the time-consuming process of curriculum development and infrastructural upgrade, varsity officials said.
According to the teachers in the Environmental Science department, it is important for the students to have a knowledge about what is happening to the earth and its resources.
Ecosystems, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, biodiversity and conservation, pollution, environmental policies and practices, exploitation of mineral, land, water resources and deforestation will be among the subjects covered as part of the course.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked universities from across the country to send academic data to make various policy decisions in higher education. According to a university circular dated October 8, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has asked for information on the teaching and non-teaching staff to be submitted at the earliest.
