Students of 100 engineering colleges will now be virtually taught by IIT professors. From January, as many as nine subjects, from mechanical engineering to Mathematics will be taught to these students by one of the best faculties in the country. In a variation of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), lectures by senior IIT faculty will be combined with inputs from regular college staff to improve educational outcomes. The initiative is taken as part of the Quality Enhancement in Engineering Education programme guided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. E-tutorials and e-labs are also part of the first phase of the programme. The ministry reportedly hopes to extend this experiment to other disciplines.
India has previously experimented with online classes but their impact has been marginal probably due to their lack of interactivity. When the teacher-student ratio in most classrooms is 1:40, there is dearth of properly trained faculty; the availability of online content can usher in the much required experimentation in the higher education model.
IIT professors to take virtual classes in 100 colleges
Amity to provide vocational training in collaboration with international counterparts
Amity University sealed a deal with Australia based training providers Heraud Education and TAFE to provide vocational education in India.
Technical And Further Education South Australia (TAFE SA) will work with the two institutes and develop its first series of course on automotive training which will start next February in Amity’s Manesar Campus. TAFE SA will also develop courses on retail, building and construction, banking, accounting and healthcare. The initial course implementation and delivery, quality assurance and audits for delivery of the courses will be managed by Heraud.
Vocational courses offered will focus on providing value-based employment oriented future ready skills. Amity has also decided to open two new institutes, Amity Vocational Training Institute and Amity Skills Institute.
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115 more IIM seats added but CAT aspirants decline
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) have added 115 more seats this year but the overall registration for CAT (Common Admission Test) has come down. The number of registrations have declined from 2.14 lakh in 2012 to 1.94 this year recording the lowest in the last five years.
The number of CAT aspirants from Tamil Nadu has shown a dip of 6% over the last year. As against with 13,121 candidates in 2012, only 12,348 registered this time. The sudden decline is understandable due to the economy slowdown. The existing sentiments of the graduates that there is no job in the country despite a management degree has affected registration. Earlier MBA degree was a safe bet but now there are apprehensions whether it is worth it. With the B-school fees going up from Rs10 lakh to Rs15 lakh for the two-year course, many aspirants feel that the cost is too high compared to the returns after completion of the course.
A total of 115 seats have been added to the IIMs, taking the tally to 3,335 seats. Maharashtra has the highest number of registrations, at 25,333, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. Tamil Nadu comes fifth on the list, followed by Karnataka.
DTE announces JEE centres in 20 cities of MP
Names of twenty cities which will be the centre of Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)- Main to be organized by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in April 2014 have been announced by the Directorate Technical Education(DTE) of Madhya Pradesh. But it is not yet disclosed whether the new cities will be offline or online centres for the examination.
It has been made very clear by the authorities that as per government’s order, admission to state engineering colleges will only be through JEE from 2014. DTE had requested the CBSE to increase the number of JEE centres in the state to twenty eight but CBSE has agreed upon only 20 cities. The cities where JEE will be organized this year are Bhopal, Barwani, Balaghat, Betul, Chhatarpur, Chhindwara, Guna, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur, Khandwa, Khargone, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Rewa, Sagar, Satna, Shahdol, Ujjain and Vidisha.
IIT Madras students win Nissan Global Foundation Scholarship
Two students from IIT Madras (IITM) have been selected for the prestigious fourth annual Nissan Global Foundation Scholarship. Both students from Mechanical Engineering department were selected by a joint committee of Nissan Global Foundation and IIT Madras.
Along with the scholarship fund amounting Rs.1.2 Lakhs, the students will also get an opportunity to visit Nissan headquarters, production plant and R&D centre in Japan. The students will also do an internship at Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI). The scholarship has a rigorous selection process involving interviews by IIT Professors and NGF officials to assess the technical and leadership abilities of candidates. The two recipients of this prestigious scholarship were chosen from amongst more than 50 students. Along with the scholarship programme, Nissan is actively engaged in collaborative research programmes with IIT Madras in areas of automobile technology. The ‘Nissan Support Program’ supports Research & Development projects at IITM in the areas of engineering, science, management, humanities and social sciences. Nissan Global also chooses five projects for funding every year based on proposals sent by the young faculty of IITM.
Decline in number of student visa applicants to UK
The number of students applying for higher education to UK from India has seen a dip in last twelve months. India contributes the second largest number of students in the UK after China. There are almost 40,000 Indian students studying in UK but now there has been a decrease in the number of Indian students visa applicants to the country.
Possible reason for this decline is the depreciation of Rupee which has made education in UK much more expensive. Also, a tighter monitoring of students’ visa as people with interest other than higher education also use this route has led to the reduction in student visa applicants.
In order to attract more students from India, each year upto 700 scholarships are provided by UK institutions, including 40 sponsored by the UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Recently the UK government has announced their largest ever scholarship programme for India with around 370 scholarships worth nearly one million pounds for 260 PG and UG courses. Moreover, there is no cap on the number of Indian students in the UK.
Hero group launches new university
The Hero Group announced the launch of BML Munjal University (BMU) on 29th November, a higher education initiative in collaboration with London’s Imperial College. The university aspires to nurture ethical leaders who are skilled and knowledgeable, and give its students practical knowledge of best global standards. The university will be providing multiple courses to transform higher education for the better.
The joint MD of Hero MotoCorp, Sunil Kant Munjal is of the view that the focus will be on practical oriented education and to foster employability and a range of life skills among students. A fully-residential university, the BMU, located at Sidhrawali village in Haryana’s Gurgaon district will be equipped with industry-promoted ‘Centres of Excellence,’ where the students will be exposed to the latest technology platforms, real-life projects and hands-on learning.
The School of Engineering and Technology will offer 300 seats in its BTech (honours) programme. The School of Management will offer 60 seats each in its MBA and BBA programmes. Admissions will also be based on ranking in government-conducted exams, Class-12 and Class-10 marks, essays, recommendation letters, and test of aptitude, attitude and hands-on capability.
IIM-A is one of the top 39 elite B-Schools in the world
QS Global Business School Report 2013 ranks Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad (IIM-A) in the top 39 business schools in the world named by the employers. It also ranked Indian MBA graduates as the most academically distinguished in the world.
The report lists 200 best B-Schools in the world, it highlights four distinctive categories of B-school in terms of employer recognition- Elite Global, Emerging Global, Elite Regional and Emerging Regional. The report also highlights that the students of IIM Bangalore (780) and IIM Ahmedabad (767) have the highest average GMAT scores in the world which is ahead of leading institutions like Stanford (730) and INSEAD (704). Apart from IIM-Ahmedabad, two Asian B-Schools to have made it to the Elite Global category are the INSEAD Singapore and NUS Business School, National University of Singapore.
Datawind and World Vision Partner to Supply Tablet in African Countries
Datawind is now working with World Vision Canada to supply the UbiSlate Android powered tablets for trial use in the development agency’s projects in African countries. This initiative is happening through Datawind’s North American partner Canada International Trade Service Inc.
Various models of UbiSlate tablets have been launched for field testing at the community level in Niger and Rwanda with plans to roll out in several other African countries. World Vision is using the DataWind UbiSlate tablets to collect data and monitor change, in an effort to ensure their development work is effectively reaching children and families. Data collected will help World Vision to make significant improvements in healthcare and education, in addition to exploring teaching opportunities with these tablets.
“Datawind is honoured to partner with World Vision Canada in providing technology which will help field workers in Africa as they strive to provide healthcare and education to families and children in need,” said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind. “We are proud to be part of this project, as we are dedicated to creating and providing technology that will empower education and promote innovation and research globally.”
“In our field testing in Niger, these cost-effective tables have shown the potential to increase our aid effectiveness, monitor progress and react to health and economic challenges in communities quickly so that we are able to provide the best support possible to children and families,” said Josh Folkema, World Vision Canada.
