ICAI to hold campus placements in New Delhi

By

-

March 8, 2014

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the statutory body for regulation of Chartered Accountants in the country, will hold its campus placement programme from 10th to 15th March, 2014. About 980 candidates, who have recently completed their chartered accountancy, are likely to participate in the campus placement programme in New Delhi. Some of the leading names of Indian industry like Bharti Airtel, MMTC Limited, Genpact, Bharat Petroleum Corpn. Limited, Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited, Macquarie Global Services, The Federal Bank Limited, Wipro Limited and Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Limited etc., have confirmed their participation for the placement programme.

ICAI, through its Committee for Members in Industry (CMII), organises Campus Placement Programme at 16 different locations in the country. The programme is held twice every year in February-March and August-September. In 2013, about 120 companies participated in Campus Placement Programme and about 1600 candidates were offered jobs. The companies, which hired Chartered Accountants in 2013, mostly belonged to industries like Information Technology, Financial Services, Oil & Gas Refining, Banking, BPO, Telecommunication, Mining, FMCG, Agro etc.

Commenting on the placement drive, CA K. Raghu, President, ICAI, said, “This is an excellent opportunity for topline Indian companies to recruit the finest minds in the accountancy space. For budding chartered accountants, the campus placement programme means they can start their career on a high note and get exposed to managing finances of some of the biggest corporates and conglomerates.”

Banaras Hindu University to start MSc in forensic science

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 7, 2014

Banaras Hindu University in collaboration with a Hydrabad-based laboratory and two foreign universities will introduce a master’s course in forensic science. The Department of Chemistry, BHU will play a major role in this endeavour and will see a participation of almost 37 departments of the varsity. The course is expected to start from the next academic session (2014-15).

According to the vice-chancellor of BHU, Lalji Singh, the course will also be available online for the professionals from law, police, government and private investigating agencies. There will be no age limit for the online module of the course.

The V-C further said that the DNA fingerprinting and molecular diagnostics facility along with the forensic science study and research would give the region much needed investigative facility to provide forensic services, including DNA profiling, document verification, disputed fingerprints, cyber forensics and crime scene investigation, incident reconstruction, failure analysis, psychological evaluation and audio-visual identification and authentication.

Technology helps education board watchdog school activities

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 6, 2014

In order to monitor its schools, the education board of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has installed the School Management Software (SMS). The phase I of the project has been completed and now all the civic schools update about the developments, including attendance of teachers, to head office instantly.

The project was envisaged last year by the NMMC education department. The idea was to connect all civic schools with the Headquarter located in Koparkhairane so as to keep a watch on the functioning of the schools. Harur Attar, education officer of NMMC said that the SMS had reduced the paperwork substantially and it saved time. The SMS software works with Internet connection.

The plus point of this software is that teachers cannot report to school late, as their attendance will immediately be updated at the head office, Attar added.

Attar further said that the software would help them to keep track of teaching and non-teaching staffs of the school.

Centre supports the nursery admission guidelines

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 6, 2014

The Centre has supported the nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. In a short affidavit filed in Delhi high court on Monday, the Centre says in view of the provisions/clarification in the Right To Education Act, the order of the LG, Delhi on 25% seats for economically weaker sections and for awarding points for neighbourhood policy are “in consistency with the RTE Act”.

The Centre’s response came on batch of petitions filed by private unaided schools opposing the new nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lt Governor on December 18 by which various decisions, including scrapping of 20 per cent management quota, were taken.

Schools have maintained the admission norms take away their autonomy and right to choose students on the basis of reasonable criteria. The Action Committee of Unaided Recognized Private Schools has challenged the guidelines on the ground that autonomy of institutions will be curtailed by the government’s notification. HC had then sought the Centre’s stand.

The private schools had earlier been denied interim relief of stay of operation of the guidelines by the single judge bench and later approached the larger bench of the high court and the Supreme Court which also did not grant any relief and in fact, directed early disposal of their pleas.

GER in higher education in North East low

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 6, 2014

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chief SS Manth while addressing the 6th convocation of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala stated that, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education is very low in the North East Region. It can be improved by setting up a Virtual Educational Trust (VET).

Though the North East Region in the last decades has progressed in providing higher education and made a progress in GER, it is much below the national average, he added. Mantha further added that NE can set an example by contributing in the growth pattern by creating alternative systems like VET skill building and education.

VET is a team of professionals who have experience in the field of higher education and worked in various reputed universities of India.VET was established in 2001 with the objective to provide modern education with special emphasis on Information Technology and Management through virtual and distance mode. While concerning his grief over the maximum number of districts being terror prone, Mantha said these are the result of social and economic inequities and education in the country and such inequities should be narrowed down.

Students perform better in class 12 by skipping class 10 board exams: CBSE report says

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 6, 2014

In a report released by the Central Board of Secondary Education on the five years of working of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), it stated that students who skipped class 10 board examination performed extremely well in class 12 examination.

CCE made taking class 10 board examination optional. The first batch to miss out on the class 10 board exams was in 2011. By 2013 the pass percentage recorded a high of 98.76% which was miles ahead of 88.94% in 2009 when CCE was not introduced. Impact of making class 10 examination optional could be seen in class 12 also. In 2012-13, 6.82 lakh students appeared for class 12 examination. Among them, the percentage of students who had appeared in the school exam in class 10 were 64.93% and those who opted for Board examination were 35.07%. In class 12, 18.52% students scored more than 80%. The corresponding figure for students who appeared for board and school examination in class 10 were 17.4% and 19.44% respectively.

CBSE’s analysis of class 12 results shows that students who skipped the Board’s class 10 exam have done better, both in terms of high marks and mean marks. CBSE took 100 samples of 30,000 students across India who took board exams in class 10 in 2011 and similar sample of those who took school based assessment.

Placement season in ISB displays marked increase in job offers

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 5, 2014

The job offers for the Postgraduate Management Programme (PGP) students at Indian School of Business (ISB) displayed an increase this year. There were 831 job offers for the PGP students compared to 697 offers last year. The companies which placed more job offers include Apple, Cognizant, Facebook and consulting sectors including KPMG and Deloitte. Out of all the job offers, technology companies placed 35% job offers and consulting sectors placed 21% job offers.

There were 81 offers from e-commerce companies. There were 50% more job offers from start up companies. Senior management roles were also offered in the final placement season of ISB by the companies representing technology, telecom, e-commerce, transportation and education sectors. Many VCs and promoters also participated the ISB placement season. The new startup companies who participated in the placement include BankBazaar.com, Proptiger, Kirusa, Zipdial, Zomato and ZoomCar. The Healthcare, Pharma and BFSI participated with 8% of all the job offers each.

RAS scaling system held invalid by Rajasthan High Court

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 5, 2014

The scaling system adopted by Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) in preparing the results of (Rajasthan Administrative Service) RAS was held invalid by Rajasthan High Court on Monday. The Rajasthan High Court ordered the RPSC to prepare the RAS (Main) results on the basis of raw marks within a month and conduct the interviews afterwards.

The court also directed the RPSC to re-conduct the examination with new rules for the additional 105 seats, which were added to the originally announced 1,106 seats after the main examination was over.

Justice G K Vyas, while disposing of a petition on Monday challenging the RPSC’s decision to increase the number of posts after the main examination using the scaling method and non-discloser of the raw marks, issued these directions. The court had, however, completed the arguments on February 25 and had reserved the order for Monday.

Fee committee faces opposition from private schools

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

March 5, 2014

The private schools of Jaipur have raised objection against the fee committee constituted by the Supreme Court of India. The move came after the fee committee determined the fees without considering the expenses incurred on expansion and development of schools. The fee committee’s decision affected fees in 400 schools.

Terming the move as “Unconstitutional”, the private schools have challenged the fee committee’s order in the High Court. Schools argued that the committee hiked only the tuition fees without considering other expenditures. The principal of a private schools said that the tuition fees formed nearly 60% of their expenses. Other things like maintenance, expansion and funds for workshops and seminars which are most of the time not planned involves huge expenses and which was ignored by the committee, he added.

The fee committee was constituted by the Supreme Court. It was constituted under the Rajasthan Fee Act and was assigned the task of determining the fees of private schools on the basis of expenses they are incurring on education. The state has over 37,000 private schools and about 2/3 of them have not submitted the required information to the fee committee. The fee structure of almost all schools is posted on their websites.