SHEMBLOG

All city schools will now start their nursery admission after December 15 according to Directorate of Education. The Education Director has stipulated that the admission schedule will have to start from Dec 15 to 31. But some schools in the Capital have already announced the dates for sale of forms. As per the court orders, the schools are free to decide the dates for sale of forms, provided the DOE has no objection to it. But, no school shall start their admission procedure before December 15.

The guidelines for nursery admissions will be finalized in a week and circulars will be sent to the schools soon afterwards. While the schools are within their rights to follow their own admission schedule, they are required to intimate the DOE, in case they plan to deviate from the said set of guidelines. DOE will issue more directives about admissions in early next week. All this is done to ensure the convenience of the parents regarding the admission process, as DOE feels that the parents will benefit more, if all schools issue forms within the same timeframe.

RBI proposes for a new subject on financial management in schools.

Financial management will soon be taught in schools. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended the HRD ministry to ask the school boards to commence a subject on financial management in the school curriculum which will further increase students’ understanding about the field. But the final decision is yet to be taken by the HRD ministry.

The financial management subject will cover all the aspects of finance/money as well as provide fundamental ideas on the same so that students can develop interest in the subject and pursue higher studies in future. RBI had sent the proposal to MHRD through Finance Ministry.

The HRD Ministry has also discussed about the proposal with National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) that publishes textbooks and prepares broad curriculum for school students. But NCERT did not like the idea. It said that schools already have subjects like commerce and economics that covers various aspects of financial management. There is no special need to start a new and separate subject for the students.

So let’s wait and watch for the final decision…..

Those students who wish to join the BPO sector which is developing at a very fast pace, they can now have the required training in the school itself.

This comes in the wake of the introduction of the special course related to BPO which will start in class 11^th when the session reopens. This action is being taken in Ranchi in Bihar where all CBSE schools are providing this course to the students free of cost to make them fare better in the fast-growing BPO world.

The program is called the Business Processing and Outsourcing Programme and is available for the students of the commerce stream. The main focus of this course would be on various facets of BPO which include advertising, technical up gradation, customer relation management, customer satisfaction. In addition to the theory, it is also proposed that students will be taken on sites of call centres to provide them training in practice as well. Just after completing their Plus Two examinations, the students will be able to take up this upcoming profession.

This course has been developed to give the students a career option which they can take up right after school. It has been developed by the curriculum development committee under the chairmanship of G.C. Sharma who is the director of BLB Institute of Financial Markets. Framework of the course and also the learning tools has been developed by the Central Institute of Vocational Education.

There has been seen an increase in the multi-national companies like ADP, IBM Global Services, Accenture, Convergys, etc which have developed the BPO sector. Also, there are many Indian companies too which are big names that have proven their presence in the market. These include WNS Global Service, Genpact, ICICI OneSource, etc. which provide a good opening for students in the BPO sector. These would provide a good platform for the encashment of their job skills in which they have been trained beforehand.

Startling information has been collected by the National University for Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. This information shows that around 84% primary schools do not have a headmaster or head teachers. This makes about 949 schools out of the 1121 primary schools present in the state which are government schools or aided institutions.

Varying opinions are coming in from different administrational levels in the education department of Goa. The importance of a headmaster or head teacher is being stressed upon to maintain discipline by the former block resource person at SSA Bardez, Narendra Kamat. This however is being refuted by the project director of SSA, P R Nadkarni who says that a headmaster is not necessary for proper functioning of the school. Further, Mr. Nadkarni threw light on the fact that around 70% of primary schools never had a headmaster. The management of these schools is undertaken by higher schools which thereby cut down the need of a head teacher for management.

On this, Mr. Kamat asserted that it is the government schools which are suffering since the government does not provide any head teachers if the student enrolment is below 24 students. This causes multi-tasking in teachers and they have to take up administrative tasks in addition to their teaching. The work of a peon, administrator, teacher, manager and every other function required to be performed has to be done by the teacher itself which causes major disruption in the teaching at school.

As education experts wait in anticipation for the results of Right to Education bill, preschools may pay heed to their services and be ready for additional responsibilities. Right now there is a lot of debate on reforming the education system and to endorse the best practices.

Arguments over school admissions have received the maximum attention. It is believed that thief the bill makes it all through the process, students from class I may have to appear for entrance tests to get admission in a school.

If children from class I have to appear in the test, somebody has to prepare them for the test. That is where preschools come in handy. Therefore, additional responsibilities will have to be shared by the parents and the preschools that train and prepare children to face interviews and tests.

The Central government is very keen on raising the knowledge about the nation’s glorious past among the children and youth. This realisation has come about as the nation’s history is looked upon as textbook subject by a majority of children. In fact, the recent trend indicates a shift of interest levels towards the history of the West, i.e. USA, even when the youth is totally ignorant of their own vast and glorious history. Such sentiments were expressed during the celebrations of the Bahadur Shah Zafar Birth Anniversary that was convened by the Centre for Freedom Struggle Studies, IGNOU.

There were three main points that were stressed upon. These included exhuming the mortal remains of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, construction of a national monument in Delhi in honour of martyrs who had died fighting the British and updating the history books that tend to create an impression that Bahadur Shah Zafar had surrendered to the British. The forum felt that the correction of misplaced facts would also help to strengthen the Hindu-Muslim harmony.

The Human Resource Development, HRD ministry has approved nearly 646 new teaching posts in different departments of Delhi University and its affiliated colleges. This sanction will come in handy to meet the requirements for execution of the OBC reservation quotas. Continuing in this pattern, UGCs will also receive a huge financial grant for making sure that students applying under the OBC quota aren’t denied admissions besides the provision for recurring grants.

In fact, the first monetary instalment has already been discharged. In additions to this, the Delhi Government would provide additional funding to 12 DU colleges that function under its direct jurisdiction. These financial aids were necessary as the Supreme Court had ordered the merging of OBC seats in the General category and this needed the immediate expansion of the University’s infrastructure.

The Union Cabinet has finally passed the Right to Education Bill. This controversial Bill had been deferred twice before. It had earlier faced opposition from the Law, Finance ministries where the major issue was the financial contribution of each state. The Right to Education Bill essentially means that every child in the age group of 6-to-14 has a right to elementary education that is provided free and compulsory and is of equitable quality and available in an accessible area.

This Bill is aimed at setting up certain minimum standards for public and private schools. This would eventually mean raising the worth of educational facilities across the nation. The government is very positive as it realises that the Bill would also help to restrict the problems of child labour and malnutrition. However, the Bill might still face hurdles as it has a clause that makes it compulsory for the private schools to reserve nearly 25% of the seats for the unprivileged and poor children.

The Supreme Court has stayed a plan proposed by the central government to keep some seats reserved for the backward-category students for a period of three years in the higher educational establishments across various states in the country. The SC bench dismissed the plea which wanted that the seats reserved for candidates of the OBC category, if left vacant, shouldn’t be allocated to the general category, GC students.

On behalf of the government, the plea was brought forward by solicitor Goolam Vahanvati. He gave the example of JNU where the government had to allow the vacant seats of the OBC category to be filled by the candidates of the general category. This was argued as a contradiction to the recent educational reservations made for the OBC students. The SC bench, however, rejected this proposal and adjudicated that this was a waste of national resources. The SC has fixed another future hearing in this case.

The Indian government’s 11th Five Year Plan had insisted upon setting up new IITs to broaden the horizon for graduate and post-graduate education. The HRD Ministry had asked the various IITs if they could accommodate extra students. This initiative was further undertaken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had appealed to the IITs having extra land and the potential to expand.

IIT Guwahati has a major advantage in this regards and nearly 550 acres of its campus would now be used for expansion. The establishment is planning to increase its student intake by nearly three-folds. IIT Guwahati has proposed to enhance its present infrastructure to double its student capacity by the year 2012. The increase in student numbers would mean nearly a 54 per cent rise in the available seats.

The number of Indians having migrated to or studying in Australia has nearly doubled in the last decade. Now, the Indian segment of the population is demanding more recognition and respect for their native language — Hindi. Indian students at the High School Certificate or the HSC level have developed an inclination towards learning the language and want to pursue it as a mainstream subject. However, a minuscule number of universities and schools offer Hindi and that too as an option.

Many Indians working as teachers in Australian schools and universities want to see Hindi being introduced in the school curriculum at par with other European languages. They feel that with the growing number of Hindi-speaking population in Australia and the increasing volume of trade relations between Australia and India, learning the language makes absolute sense. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Sydney has made a significant contribution towards this cause and it organises special Sunday Hindi classes for those wishing to learn Hindi.

Eight students have set a precedent for contesting and claiming one’s right to education by winning a legal battle against government schools that had denied them admission. Vipin Chandra Pal Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Babarpur had denied admission to two girl students. Naazneen and Nasara were told that they were over 18 years of age and hence, couldn’t seek admission into the school.

The students’ petition was filed at the Delhi High Court and their case was argued by Ashok Aggarwal. He argued the case on the basis of the fact that the right to education is mentioned as an Indian citizen’s fundamental right and it couldn’t be declined due to the consideration of their age. Six other students had sought admission to various government schools in Delhi but were denied on some whimsical pretexts.

One of these six students, Kiran was seeking admission to Class 7 but was denied on the basis that she had completed her earlier education in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh and her transfer certificate wasn’t countersigned by the concerned authorities. However, the Court ruled that a student’s education couldn’t be compromised due to the sluggishness of the bureaucratic system. The other five students have also been granted admission into various government schools.

The Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha (GGSIP) University and some of its affiliated engineering colleges ran into trouble when the Delhi High Court issued a notice to them, seeking transparency in the University’s policies for students seeking migration to other colleges.

The three engineering colleges that find themselves in a predicament include Bharatiya Vidya Peeth, Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology and Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology. These colleges have been asked to file a reply within four weeks. The Court’s hearing has been set for January 10, 2009.

The Court’s decision came in wake of a petition filed a second-year B. Tech student of Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology. He had challenged the legitimacy of the college’s migration rule — Revised Ordinance 7. His counsel insisted on the lack of clarity in the migration process.

They alleged that vacant seats in most branches of engineering colleges under GGSIP University weren’t revealed and this was of disadvantage to the students seeking migration from one college to another. The petitioner sought the GGSIP University to make the migration procedure more transparent by declaring vacant seats, preferably, on the University’s website.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or the SSA is a central government project aimed at making education accessible to every child in India. The initiative was launched in 2001. Since then, over 35 million Indian children have joined the noble mission. The main aim of the SSA is to provide primary education to every child and improve upon the quality of education imparted.

With the mission’s progress, the drop-out rate among children, receiving primary education, has also seen a considerable decline. The SSA’s funds allocation has been on the rise ever since its launch, as the mission has been hugely successful. Even the Supreme Court maintains that a right to one’s life is includes a fair opportunity and a right to education. The National Human Rights Commission has further stressed upon the importance of the SSA and the right to education for every child.

The former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Azad will be teaching a batch of 70 students in the country’s premier managment institute, IIM-A. The course, named as “Globalising a Resurgent India through Innovative Transformation (GRIT)” will be attended by the students in the Ahmedabad.

The course is aimed to address reflect on the key areas like Urban-rural divide, Water Conservation, Energy and Security and will also deal with various issues pertaining to the said subjects.  The course has been designed by the former president himself and Professor Anil K.Gupta of the same institute. Other issues regarding governance and policy making, will be covered in the course.