News and views about the Education in India

Weekly news updates on trends and happenings in the Indian Education scene

In urban centres, we take education for granted, debate upon the relative merits and demerits of different courses or career options over tea. Comfortable, even proud of our language proficiency or skill levels, we perhaps need to pause and spare a thought for girl children in parts of India where education beyond class four is a luxury they cannot afford.

- Chillibreeze Business Research Team

The problem of girl education in rural Uttar Pradesh

Rekha Sahu, a primary school teacher in Khajuraho Bujurg village in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh, was shocked when she found out that one of her Class 4 students had got married. But this wasn't the first time such an incident had occurred. School-going minor girls in this rural region of Uttar Pradesh are often married off at a young age and forced to drop out of school, reports Grassroots Features.

"There is great awareness about the education of girls in this area but somehow it has remained confirmed to basic literacy level. The social taboos are still strong and hardly 10 percent girls make it to the high school, even lesser number to the college," said Anil Kumar Srivastava, coordinator of the Babina Block Resource Centre that looks after basic education institutions in the area.

In Simarwara village, the government-run primary school has about 250 boys and only 70-80 girls. Ganpat Singh, a Class 8 student, said: "I have two sisters. Both of them were married off before they turned 15. One studied up to Class 5 and the other did not study at all."

One of the reasons cited by villagers for the high dropout rate is the lack of job opportunities for educated people in this area. "We would like even girls to take up jobs after getting educated but the problem is that there are hardly any jobs here." said Om Singh Rajput of Simarwara village. The region is facing a drought like situation for two years. Many families moved to cities seeking gainful employment, and they generally moved with their families. As a result, a large number of children drop out of school.

Another major problem is the poor state of infrastructure in the primary schools. A large number of schools in Babina block have no power connection and no functional toilets, let alone separate toilets for girls. There are only three computers for over 100 students. The school in Khajuraho Bujurg, like other schools in the area, is allotted a meagre sum of about Rs.7,000 a year for maintenance.

Apparently, the village panchayats have refused to part with any money to facilitate a power connection on the plea that they are only allotted money for planned expenditure and there is no provision for electricity consumption. Nor is there any provision for water supply. Singh said that most of the students bring water bottles from their homes as the only hand pump in the school has gone dry.

Many villagers in Babina block complain that teachers often remain absent and the timetable is not followed. They allege that children feel neglected and the quality of education is poor. That perhaps explains the mushrooming of several private schools in this area, which remain largely unregulated but continue to attract increasing number of children from relatively 'affluent' families.

Srivastava stressed that there is a need to create awareness among people to ensure that children and especially girls at least complete their school education. He is probably right if the response to UNICEF's Girl Star project is anything to go by.

From the second week of May, the lives and struggles of 15 women, who belonged to the marginalised sections of the society, were narrated through short films in the villages and small towns of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar as part of the Girl Star project.

In Uttar Pradesh, this mobile theatre travelled to more than 60 villages in four districts - Bahraich, Varanasi, Jhansi and Lalitpur. Three films, of about seven minutes each, depicted the real life stories of Shabnam, Madhuri and Sandhya - all from Uttar Pradesh. They are being projected as role models to inspire the rural folk, especially girl children and women. In Bijauli village, which is a couple of kilometres away from Khajuraho Bujurg, five-year-old Shobha, who studies in Class 5, saw the films and said: "I want to become like them. I want to be a doctor. I will study very hard and will not stop going to school come what may."

Shobha was particularly impressed by the short film on Sandhya, one of the protagonists, who made it big in life. "I want to learn computers like Sandhya didi and I am sure I will be able to do that."

July 15, 2007 
Source: IANS via indiaedunews.net

India Inc offers job training, stipend

India Inc on Saturday backed its promises on affirmative action with offers of hard cash. While industry body FICCI offered to pay stipends to ITI students, Assocham proposed a one per cent cess on corporate annual profits for providing elementary education to people belonging to backward classes. However, all the chambers opposed any compulsion in providing jobs to people of disadvantaged classes in the private sector through legislation.

In a meeting convened by Mr T.K.A. Nair, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, FICCI offered to adopt 50 ITIs this year. Each institute will train 100 students of the backward communities every year, thus, providing training to 5,000 people. The chamber also requested the Government to provide for half of the stipend of Rs 750 per month to be paid to each of these 5,000 people, while the other half would be borne by the chamber. Thus, the chamber would disburse Rs 18,75,000 to these students every month.

The chamber also proposed to set up four training centres to impart entrepreneurial skills to 2,400 people of the disadvantaged communities every year. The centres, to be established in the four regions of the country, will provide training in accounting, taxation, marketing and technological needs of the entrepreneurs.

Assocham suggested that the one per cent education tax be distributed to relevant institutions following recommendations from chambers of commerce. The chamber also proposed to enlarge its Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Foundation corpus base of Rs 5 crore by another Rs 2 crore to help impart education and other training skills to students of backward communities. In the corpus, all members of the chamber would contribute commensurate to their corporate earnings.

The CII President, Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal; the Assocham President, Mr V.N. Dhoot; and former President of FICCI, Mr K.K. Modi, represented industry at the meeting.

July 15, 2007
Source: The Hindu Businessline

Physical education now a viable career option

Academics from some of India's prominent universities running these courses say there are opportunities galore in the field of sports and physical education, since health is a cause for increasing concern among the teeming millions of India.

Universities and other educational institutions have also realised the importance of sports and physical education as a viable career option as well.

Osmania University, which produced cricketers like M.L. Jaisimha and Mohammed Azharuddin as well as renowned sports broadcaster Harsha Bhogle, offers physical education courses in both under-graduate and post-graduate levels. Similar courses are also available in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education (LNIPE), Gwalior, which is the only deemed university in Asia in the field.

Calcutta, Bangalore and Kerala universities also have such degree and postgraduate courses.

Not to be left behind, Delhi University has now decided to start a three-year degree course from the current academic year. It also plans to start a master's course well before the first batch graduates. Over half a dozen colleges affiliated to the university have already agreed to introduce the course and admissions are expected to start soon.

July 15, 2007 
Source: IANS via indiaedunews.net

Meet soon to put in place 'super UGC'

The Prime Minister's Office has shown interest in the setting up of the proposed Commission for Higher Education. A meeting to discuss the plan is likely to take place soon.

The HRD ministry has already moved a Cabinet note on the creation of the super-regulatory body. The ministry has argued that the commission will bring about uniformity in the country's higher education policy in all sectors, medical, agriculture, management and engineering. The proposed commission will look into access, equity, relevance and quality in higher education. According to the proposal, the regulatory bodies of higher education in all fields will work under the supervision of the new commission. Even the University Grants Commission (UGC) will merge with the new entity.

The proposed apex body will oversee the functioning of higher education bodies like Medical Council of India, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Dental Council on India, All India Council for Technical Education and similar such regulatory bodies.

Most of these regulatory bodies work independently of UGC and are not administered by the HRD ministry.

14 Jul, 2007
Source: The Times of India

Philippine medical colleges open to Indians

Seven hundred seats in the medical colleges of the Philippines have been earmarked for students from other Asian countries, especially India and China.

It will cost an Indian student between Rs.1.2 million to Rs.1.5 million to study in a Philippine university. The amount will include visa fees, course fees and accommodation expenses.

The Government of Philippines has set aside the seats and Indian service provider Health Care Management International (HCMI) will officially represent here the Philippine government's Commission on Higher Education, which will offer the admissions. Students who graduate from Philippine medical colleges will be given a certificate from the Medical Council of India so that they are able to practice in India, HCMI managing director Baljit Singh said.

July 12, 2007 
Source: IANS via indiaedunews.net

Dictionaries at a mouse length

The time we spend to look up words in dictionaries is shortening as life is becoming busier every day. Working increasingly with computers and round-the-clock Internet accessibility hardly being a matter of concern, today we rarely turn to the paper dictionaries of high repute that we prided in possessing. Instead, we find recourse in online dictionaries, almost all of them offering multiple features. Most online dictionaries give us definitions, thesauri entries, spelling, pronunciation, audio pronunciation, etymology, and so on.

The biggest advantage of online dictionaries is that they seldom disappoint us when looking for a word. Searches for words that are not there in the dictionary concerned may often direct us to encyclopaedias and other reference resources. Internet is indeed a place where the distinction between a dictionary and an encyclopaedia disappears.

Today, most reputed dictionaries have made themselves available on the Net. Those on top, however, do not come free. For example, the legendary Oxford English Dictionary (OED), described by the New York Times as the greatest work in dictionary-making ever undertaken, is available online by subscription.

However, OED offers free its ‘word of the day’ facility to all. Those subscribing to ‘OED word of the day’ will get a taste of this epic English dictionary on historical principles whose making took more than 70 years and several editors. For non-subscribers who look up words online, Oxford offers its Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Compact Dictionary free.

Merriam Webster’s, the ultimate word in American dictionary, too has an excellent online lexical storehouse. Although Webster reserves its famous Unabridged and Collegiate Dictionaries for subscribers – Unabridged is available for $29.95 and Collegiate for $14.95 for a year – the publisher takes pride in providing a daily dose of lexical fun for the language lovers.

When it comes to searching for the meaning of a word on line, neither the Oxford nor the Webster can claim any monopoly. It is a different world where thousands of online dictionaries big and small rule the roost.

One Look Dictionary at onelook.com, for example, offers more than 8.8 million words indexing 937 online dictionaries. It is a search engine for words and phrases. No word is too obscure on a site like this. Even without knowing the correct spelling, you can find the word at One Look Dictionary. Several other dictionaries too offer this facility.

Alpha Dictionary too offers similar facilities. Its word of the day from Dr. Goodword is quite popular. YourDictionary is another free online English dictionary offering a host of features to help language lovers. It uses the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th edition).

It offers converters, free translation links, acronym finders, linguistic, grammar and etymology articles. It has word game puzzles, semantic scrambles, crosswords, spell-binders, and so on.

The Free Dictionary by Farlex, with separate searches in computing dictionary, medical dictionary, legal dictionary, financial dictionary, acronyms, idioms, Columbia Encyclopaedia and Wikipaedia Encyclopaedia, is also a popular online search engine for English words.

Dictionary.com is a multi-source dictionary search service. Although based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Dictionary.com supports other popular American dictionaries like Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary. Microsoft’s Encarta Dictionary offers a simple search site for words.
The great Century Dictionary, which is no longer available in print, is available online.

July 10, 2007
Source: The Hindu

Another season of discontent

Tamil Nadu was known for its systematic and scientific system of admissions to professional colleges over the years. After scrapping the earlier marks+interview system, the State introduced the well-planned system of Plus- Two marks + the Common Entrance Test (CET), followed by a Single Window System of admissions through counselling sessions. It was the envy of other States, which soon followed suit. The whole process was computerised, transparent and well settled.

Among the political parties, there was a gnawing feeling that rural students could not get their due share of seats in this process. Because of the access to special coaching and tuition classes, students in the urban centres appeared to be doing much better, especially in the CET. And this added value to their overall marks. While reducing the marks in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry (for Engineering admissions), and Biology, Physics, and Chemistry (for medical seats) to 200, and adding on 100 marks for CET, students were given a total of 300.

Once the applications came in, a merit list of ranking of all applicants was made and they were called for counselling in four centres — Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, and Madurai. The admissions were granted across the table on the networked computerised system.

When year after year, it became clear that boys and girls in rural areas and educationally backward regions of the State could not get into the best colleges and courses, the State Government decided to tinker with the system. A rural quota was introduced, but struck down by the court. In the earlier regime, a move to scrap CET was disallowed by the court. But the present administration not only introduced an amending legislation, but also offered a “normalisation process” of marking to ensure that students from all streams of education — State and Central boards, in addition to others — could be ranked on a common pattern

Despite these steps and the expert committee recommendations to ensure a smooth admission process, confusion persists in the admissions this year too.

First: There are bound to be several students with the same cut-off marks, making it difficult to rank them. The Government came up with a rather controversial arrangement that will, in the case of a tie in marks, take into account the marks in the optional subject, the date of birth (giving preference to the older candidate), and if everything else is the same, draw lots for the seat.

Second: The private self-financing colleges challenged the Government Order on the surrender of seats to the government quota. Last year, there was an agreement that non-minority colleges would surrender 65 per cent of their seats to the Government, and keep 35 per cent for their management quota. Minority institutions will give up 50 per cent.

The colleges challenged the move, but the High Court has upheld the Government Order. The issue has not been settled, as the managements seem determined to fight this to the end. There is also the question of whether a counselling procedure needs to be followed for admissions under the management quota.

Third: Capitation fees for the management quota seats has remained a ticklish and controversial issue. Political parties have flayed the Government for not cracking down on these institutions and eliminating the system of charging exorbitant fees. The Government on its part has made it clear that it is ready to crack down on any institution if there is a complaint.

Fourth: Even on the CET, the issue has gone up to the Supreme Court. As the apex court has made the CET the basis for admission in at least three of its judgments on the question, it remains to be seen how it will deal with it when the substantive issue gets argued in due course.

This year of course, admissions will go on without a CET. At the end of the admission season, anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 engineering seats remain unfilled, most of them in colleges where students do not want to study, or in courses that may not be attractive to them. This will continue in 2007-08

July 9, 2007
Source: The Hindu

Finishing School does wonders for placement

The Finishing School Programme that the National Institute of Technology- Tiruchi (NIT-T) conducted during May and June to reinforce skills and infuse industry-specific knowledge into 58 students drawn from various engineering colleges in the State has resulted in 32 of them securing placement in prestigious companies including TCS, CTS, Wipro and Dextrasys.

The purpose of the programme that was conducted as per the directives of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, was to provide opportunities for students who had not secured jobs through campus placements. They acquired the skills and knowledge from trained faculty of NITs and experts of IT and ITES industries. The students underwent the residential programme spanning eight weeks utilising the facilities including library and computer centre at NIT-T, said the institute director M. Chidambaram.

The curriculum was designed and delivered based on inputs provided by TCS and CTS, said G. Kannabiran, programme coordinator.

Similar programmes were held simultaneously at IIT-Rourkela and NITs at Kozhikode, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Suratkal and Warangal. The pilot effort was meant to address the serious situation that threatens India’s position as a leading provider of IT and ITES. According to the predictions of McKinsey Global Institute Study and the National Association of Software and Services Companies, only 25 per cent of the engineering graduates are in the employable category and India could face a shortfall of five lakh IT professionals by 2010.

At NIT-T, the effort aimed at bridging the gap between industry requirement and academic input was well addressed. Of the 32 students who were placed, TCS appointed 20 students. A.K. Bakthavatsalam, Professor and Head, Training and Placement, NIT-T, views the finishing school programme as a College Social Responsibility Initiative. The remaining candidates, to be placed after undergoing the finishing school programme, mostly belong to IT, CSE, and ECE backgrounds.

July 9, 2007
Source: The Hindu

ICAI to offer residential classes to CA students

The Institute of Chattered Accountants of India (ICAI) is planning to make residential classes for Chartered Accountancy (CA) studies compulsory in the coming days. The world's second-largest accounting body is in a process of setting up network centres that will be utilized for special training programmes for its members.

The Institute will make arrangements for students where they can opt for residential facilities at the proposed centres and attend classes for a certain period instead of just studying through the distant learning mode.
"The classes would be made compulsory once there is adequate infrastructure in place," said Chairman of Board of Studies at ICAI, Mr. Jaydeep Shah. Mr. Shah was speaking at the 4th National Convention of CA students jointly organised by ICAI and Western India CA Students Association held at Vadodara.

He further added that students at the initial stage would be given the freedom to familiarize with this concept before making it compulsory. ICAI will setup a network of Centres of Excellence at an investment of about Rs.150 crore within the next 2-3 years.

It is worth noting that presently there is no such provision for CA students to attend any classes. They receive study materials from ICAI and prepare accordingly. However, there are facilities in some major cities for attending regular classes.

In cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad students are offered 100 hour mandatory training classes.

The ICAI has recently started offering study material in digital format and conducting virtual classes through an e-learning platform. It will offer a campus-study atmosphere to its students on the same lines as that of modern B-schools across the country.

July 9, 2007
Source: indiaedunews.net

General seats now open to Reserved Category candidates

There is good news for students who have applied under the Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe categories at Delhi University (DU) this year for under-graduate courses. The varsity has asked all its affiliated colleges to admit candidates from the reserved categories under the General category if they meet the cut-off and eligibility criteria for a particular course.

Earlier, students who were registered under the SC/ST category were not allowed to apply under the General category even if they met the cut-off and eligibility criteria. Around 9000 students from the reserved category have applied under the SC/ST category this year for about 7,500 seats offered at various colleges of the varsity.

Suman Verma, Joint Dean of Students' Welfare (DSW) of DU said, "Several students from the reserved category missed out on admission in courses of their choice due to various reasons. The decision will ensure that these students get admission even after the seats under their category gets filled."

So far, about 4,000 seats under the SC/ST category have been filled at the varsity. The fourth cut-off list of Delhi University is due to be declared on 10th July.

July 9, 2007
Source: indiaedunews.net