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President urges for quality education

Stressing on the need to improve the quality of education in the country, President Pranab Mukherjee has urged the private sector to invest more in higher education.

Speaking on the occasion of Diamond Jubilee of K.C. College in Maharashtra, Mukherjee said that the best universities cannot be created through government funds alone, private investors should also come forward. He added that to become a first class nation, we need to have first class colleges and universities.

President also expressed his concern over Indian universities not being able to qualify for the list of top 200 institutions as per the international rating agencies.

He added that Universities like Takshashila and Nalanda had dominated the world education system in its days and attracted students, scholars and researchers from across the world.

Armed Forces Medical College proposes PG course in sports medicine

sport medicine

After the proposal by Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) to introduce an MD course in sports medicine, an expert panel from the Medical Council of India (MCI) will soon inspect the college. The initiative was suggested by the Union minister of state for defence, Jitendra Prasad during his visit to AFMC in January.

AFMC has got the state government’s sanction to the course and the Vice Chancellor of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences has also cleared it. The course will be started soon after the inspection by MCI. AFMC will initially start the new MD course with a student intake of two seats considering that the intake is linked with the availability of qualified teachers. Eventually the student intake will be increased. AFMC has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and this would contribute to the process of selection of the right kind of athletes for various sporting events. AFMC will also collaborate with SAI to improve sports medicine infrastructure all over the country by training doctors and paramedics.

Mumbai’s municipal teachers to get English training from British Council

In its recent move to bring semi-English pattern of instructions in its schools, Mumbai’s municipal corporation has tied up with the British council to train its teachers on how to impart lessons in English.

Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte in his budget speech said the MOU has been signed with British council for training 9,600 MCGM teachers during next five years starting from 2013-14 to 2017-18. Under this programme every teacher is given 20 days training per year for two years. Currently training of 2,400 teaches has started.

Kunte added that the programme had been introduced to 177 schools during 2013-2014 and the results were encouraging. The enrollment in many of those schools showed upward trend.

The semi-English pattern of instructions has been proposed to be introduced in all the 1,150 schools during the next five years. Under this pattern, Mathematics and Science will be imparted in English language whereas other subjects will be taught in the mother tongue.

India’s Amity University opens largest campus in Dubai

Amity University has become the first varsity in Dubai to open the largest private regional campus at the Dubai International Academic City (DIAC).

The campus is spread over an area of 700,000 sq ft and can accommodate 5,000 students. The university will offer courses in fields including Engineering, Management, Hospitality and Forensic Science, besides providing extensive sports facilities.

Amity University in Dubai is a part of the non-profit Amity group of international institutions, with a combined student body of over one-hundred thousand in India, the US, the UK, Mauritius, Romania, China and Singapore, among others.

Chancellor Atul Chauhan of Amity University said that they had made a positive impact in the higher education arena, within two years of their presence, in Dubai and had been able to gift scholarships to 125 students every year, and contributed significantly to research and innovation.

Armed Forces Medical College hiked exit bond money to Rs 30 lakh

In a stern measure to prevent its medical and para medical students from opting out of service on completion of their studies, the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) has hiked the exit bond up to Rs 30 lakh.

The bond amount has been revised from the existing Rs 15 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for MBBS students. For postgraduate and super-specialty candidates, the exit bond money will now be in the range of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 30 lakh, as against the prevailing Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh range.

The AFMS had moved the proposal to the MoD during AY 2012-13 to check the tendency among students to opt out of the armed forces after their studies.

The bond amount has been revised as students found it convenient to pay a relatively lesser amount and move to the more lucrative individual medical practice or join a private sector medical facility.

The revised bond money structure covers other ranks, nursing staff, medical and dental undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) trained students and those completing their super-specialty studies.

Delhi is all set to host Techshare India 2014

BarrierBreak in association with National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), Royal National Institute of Blind People (UK) is organizing the 4th edition of Techshare India 2014 – the country’s only Pan-Disability Conference and Exhibition. Techshare India 2014 will be held at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 13th and 14th February, 2014. Microsoft is the main sponsor for the event.

In India, 70 million Persons With Disabilities (PWD) are constantly struggling for respectable employment. They are young, and they want to make a living just like anybody else. However, the rest of the world seems to be far more sensitive to the PWD population. A 2012 OECD report put Britain’s spend at 2.4 per cent of national GDP on benefit for PWD, with the US at 1% of GDP and Japan at 0.4% of GDP. Norway and Iceland, both, lead at 2.8 %. Compare this with India, where Union budgets since 2008 show India spends 0.0009% of its GDP on disability. That makes Norway and Iceland spend more than 3000 times that of India, in % of GDP terms.

Hence, the need for platforms that discuss what needs to be done at the Government, social and developmental levels, to take this dialogue ahead, is very important. One such dialogue is Techshare India – an event to promote accessible technology for Persons With Disabilities. The keynote at Techshare 2014 will be delivered by Stefan Sjostrom, Vice President, Public Sector Asia, Microsoft Corporation, where he will stress on how the lives of persons with disabilities can be transformed through the power of technology.

Other partners include NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India), Paypal, CBM (an international organization, committed to improving the quality of life of people with disabilities in the poorest communities of the world) ADOBE, NASSCOM Foundation, and G3ict.

Microsoft-led consortium to enable futuristic classrooms

Microsoft India announced the availability of special bundled tablets for private schools (K6-12) in partnership with Acer, MBD Group and Tata Teleservices. The bundle is available to all private schools (K6-12) in India. The specially created bundle comprises a Windows 8.1 tablet, an Acer Iconia W4-820, which comes with an impressive HD IPS Display with enhanced brightness for reading in sunlight and runs on the latest Quad Core Intel® Atom™ Processor. The tablet comes with Office Home and Student as well as Office 365. Microsoft has also included the Office 365 Education A2 and Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification for students.
A complete consumption and creation device, the bundle includes digital learning curriculum for students of K-12 state boards, CBSE and ICSE from MBD Group. The multimedia content from MBD is currently available in English and will soon be available in various regional languages as well. On an optional basis, Tata Teleservices is providing Photon Plus, a wireless device that provides high speed internet services on the move.
Arun Rajamani, Head, Public Sector and Education, Microsoft India, said, “This feature-rich tablet provides a secure, convenient and hassle-free experience for schools who want to integrate technology to make learning more enjoyable and interactive for students.”
As part of the offering, students can avail the Microsoft Office Specialist certification program and teachers in turn can gain access to eighty hours of self-learning content on leveraging technology while teaching. As part of the Microsoft Office 365 Education A2 plan, the tablet will also include important tools such as Office Web Apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote; Web Conferencing; SharePoint Intranet site; spam and malware protection; and 25 GB of personal cloud storage via OneDrive, per device.

Pledge against child abuse in CBSE schools soon

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has directed all its affiliated schools across the country to introduce ‘Pledge for An Abuse-Free World for Children’. The initiative was first taken by the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, as an integral part of special and class assemblies.
This is an effort by CBSE to make students aware of their duties, rights and responsibilities and make them responsible for their safety.

The pledge has been circulated all over the schools and it reads “I will not tolerate any type of abusive activities that occur anywhere against me as well as against other children who are my sisters and brothers. I will always be in the forefront to report any such instances to the parents, authorities and the police”. A CBSE notification has asked schools to convene a special assembly to read out the pledge and then include it in class assemblies throughout the year to reinforce the message.

Pranab Mukherjee to host VC’s conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan

A two-day conference of the vice chancellors of Central Universities will be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Feb 6 and 7. The conference will be hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee. The agenda for this year’s VC’s conference include the action taken on recommendations made in last year’s conference, steps to improve the quality of education in Central Universities by creating inter-linkages with industries, interacting with ranking agencies, and use of technology for access, equity, and quality in higher education.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with minister of Human Resource Development, M M Pallam Raju, ministers of state for HRD, chairman of the National Innovation Council, Sam Pitroda, chairman of UGC and others will be part of the conference. President Mukherjee is a visitor to all these universities and it is the second VC’s conference convened by him as the president of the country.

CBSE to hold World Book Fair in Delhi

In a bid to promote reading habit among children, the Central Board of Secondary Education will host the World Book Fair 2014 in Delhi. The fair is slated to begin on 15 and will end on 23 of this month.

The board released a statement saying that the objective behind such an initiative is for teachers, school librarians and parents to motivate children to enjoy reading and enable them to read a wide range of good quality literature, develop holistically, inculcate life skills and be better prepared to face the professional world.

In the statement the board also states that reading for pleasure is more important to a child’s development than other forms of reading in classrooms. Studies show that youngsters who read daily perform better in all areas of the school curriculum than others.

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