Page 212 - Education

Narlikar calls for inculcating scientific spirit among kids

Renowned scientist Jayant Vishnu Narlikar on Saturday advocated inculcating scientific spirit among school children, saying their interests should be created in science by changing the teaching method. Narlikar, a renowned astro-physicist, also called for building up a science movement across the country to help in moulding a scientific temperament which can only take the fruits of new scientific discoveries to the people. The Padma Vibhushan recipient was addressing a national conference, "Integrating Science with Society" at Jadavpur University. More than 30 scientists of international repute from various institutes of the country are attending the conference organised by 'Breakthrough Science Society', a voluntary body committed to propagate science and scientific outlook. Jadavpur University Vice-Chancellor Prof Suranjan Das in his inaugural address of the meet said scientific reasoning-based education can help the country come out of the present crisis. Das referred

Formal education not a norm that gets you success: Emraan Hashmi

Actor Emraan Hashmi, who is playing the lead role in the forthcoming film "Cheat India", says that the formal education system of India is not good enough for the growth of young minds and believes that such education cannot be a prerequisite for success.

Separate process to rank small varsities in future: Javadekar

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar Saturday said there would a separate ranking process for small universities in the country in future. He said since the 'no detention policy' might spoil the education, the government plans to implement outcome-based learning modules in primary education to map the learning process of each student. The minister was speaking at the convocation function of the Goa University here. Governor and Chancellor of the university, Mridula Sinha, was also present. University Vice Chancellor Prof Varun Sahni, who also spoke on the occasion, said it was not fair that all the universities, irrespective of their size, are given ranking through a common process. In his response, Javadekar said, "There would be a separate ranking process for smaller universities in future." The minister said the Modi government has been trying to give direction to the education system in the country. "For the last four years, we have been trying to give proper ...

Sandy Hook school evacuated over threat on anniversary of gun massacre

US elementary school Sandy Hook, the scene of a horrific shooting that left 26 children and teachers dead, was evacuated Friday after receiving a bomb threat on the sixth anniversary of the massacre. A police spokesman from Newton, Connecticut told AFP all of the students were evacuated without incident. A police search of the premises did not turn up an explosive device, though school administrators closed the institution for the day as a precaution. The scare occurred exactly six years after the December 14, 2012 slaughter that saw gunman Adam Lanza, 20, enter the school with an assault rifle and shoot dead 20 six- and seven-year-olds along with six teachers, before ending his own life. The shocking tragedy gripped the nation and sparked renewed calls for stronger arms legislation including from former president Barack Obama -- though no meaningful action has been taken since. The school building was demolished in 2013 and completely reconstructed, with reinforced security and a ...

Himachal HC seeks report on parking spaces in schools

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Friday directed the Commissioner of the Shimla Municipal Corporation to constitute a team to visit schools of the city and identify parking spaces for school vehicles.

Odisha Matriculation exams to begin from Feb 22

The annual High School Certificate (HSC) Examination or the Matriculation examinations 2019 will begin from February 22 next year, officials said on Friday. The Matriculation examinations for all the streams will continue till March 8, the Board of Secondary Examination (BSE) president Jahan Ara Begum said. Practical examinations will be held between February 11 and February 16, she said. Examinations equivalent to Matriculation such as the Madhyama for Sanskrit students and State Open School certificate examinations (for dropouts) will also be held during the same period, Begum said. Over six lakh students will appear in the HSC exams next year. The Council of Higher Secondary Education on Thursday said the annual Plus II examinations in Odisha will begin from March 7.

Posters for separate entry for veg, non-veg IIT-M students

Posters earmarking separate entry and exit points and wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students have been allegedly pasted at a mess of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, kicking up a row with a section of students alleging discrimination. While pictures of the posters bearing the name of a local caterer and pasted near the doors of the mess were circulated by some students on the social media, an official pleaded ignorance about them and said if found to be true the handbills will be removed. A student said the posters had been put up near two entrances of the north Indian mess located on the second floor of Himalaya Mess Complex, specifying separate entry points and wash basins for non-vegetarian and vegetarian students. One of the pictures of the poster circulated on social media read "Hand Wash Vegetarian Students" while another said "Winter vacation mess - food arrangements. Entry/exit non vegetarian food students." When contacted, an official ..

Children should be allowed to use internet during exams: Newcastle University professor

A professor at UK's Newcastle University on Friday said children should be allowed to use the internet during examinations and the internet should be introduced as a formal subject in schools. Professor Sugata Mitra was speaking at the 10th School Choice National Conference here organised by an NGO, the Centre for Civil Society. Mitra is known for his hole in the wall experiment which he initiated in 1999. As a part of the experiment, he had dug a hole in a wall in his office in Kalkaji and installed an internet-connected computer there. Through the experiment, he saw children learning to use the computer themselves and then teaching each other. "Children in self-organised learning environment can learn anything by themselves. Teachers need to be friends and not be guides or supervisors," he stressed. He suggested that teachers should say to children when they are keen on exploring technology, "You go there, I will go there with you. Take me along". Mitra also listed out some changes .

Nursery admissions to begin in Delhi from Saturday

The nursery admission process for approximately 1,600 private schools in the national capital will begin from Saturday with private schools making their criteria public on Friday. Distance of student's residence from school, sibling quota, parents being alumni of the school, single child, first child are some of the criteria listed by schools for admissions to the entry level classes. According to the schedule released by the Directorate of Education (DoE), the application window will be open from Saturday and the last date of submitting application forms for nursery class admission for 2019-20 session is January 7. The first list of selected children, along with marks secured by them, will be out on February 4. The second list will be out on February 21 and the nursery admission process will conclude on March 31. Twenty-five per cent seats in pre-school, pre-primary and Class 1 will be reserved for economically weaker sections/disadvantaged groups (EWS/DG). The directorate had ...

Govt open to 'outside' agencies taking up accreditation of institutions: Javadekar

The government is open to the idea of roping in "outside" agencies for accreditation of educational institutions, and IITs and IIMs have also been approached in this regard, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said here on Friday. "To improve the quality of education, we are making the accreditation process more scientific and tough. The government wants to increase the strength of the National Board of Accreditation and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council so that more number of institutions can be accredited," Javadekar said during the national conference on "Positioning India on the Global Education Map". "The government is open to other agencies taking the responsibility of accreditation, and IITs and IIMs have been asked about it ... so that more and more institutions can be accredited," he added. The Union minister said that ranking and rating of education institutions increase competitiveness among them for better performance. "Today, because of the National ...

17,590 girls in the age group of 11 to 14 years mainstreamed back to school: WCD

As many as 17,590 girls in the age group of 11 to 14 years have been mainstreamed back to school since April, the Lok Sabha was told on Friday. The girls were mainstreamed under the Scheme for Adolescent Girls through which girls who dropped out were counselled and motivated to go back to formal schooling or skill training, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Ministry Virendra Kumar told the Lok Sabha. "Under the nutrition part of the scheme, the government is providing nutrition support of 600 calories, 18-20 grams of protein and micronutrients at Rs 9.50 per beneficiary per day for 300 days in a year to out-of-school adolescent girls (11 to 14 years)," he said. The non-nutrition component of the scheme has a built-in factor to motivate out-of-school girls to go back to formal schooling or skill training, he added. "In 2018-19, as reported by states/UTs, 17,590 girls have been mainstreamed to schools," he said. "Under the Nutrition component, as reported by the states, .

In Pakistan public education suffocates under surging population

At the Tanjai Cheena school in northwest Pakistan students squeeze into makeshift classrooms where plastic tarps serve as walls and electricity is sparse, as a surging population overstretches the country's fragile education system. Sandwiched behind desks like sardines, students repeat words learned in Pashto and English during an anatomy lesson: "Guta is finger, laas is hand". Two teachers rotate between four classrooms at the school, which lacks even the most basic amenities including toilets. "The girls usually go to my house and the boys to the bushes," says principal Mohammad Bashir Khan, who has worked at the school in the picturesque Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for 19 years. With birth control and family planning virtually unheard of in this ultraconservative region, the ill-equipped public school system has not kept up with population growth. "In 1984, when my father started the school, there were 20 to 25 kids. Now they are more than 140," Khan says. Pakistan

Goyal, Rupani to dedicate first railway university to India on Saturday

Approximately 110 acres of land at Pipaliya village in District Vadodara has been identified for the university

Odisha CM felicitates budding astronomers of state

Over 60,000 high school students participated in the Tata Steel's Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS) 2018-19 programme, creating a record in its 12 year history. The number of participants this year nearly doubled to 63,000 students from 300 schools of all the 30 districts in Odisha. Around 32,000 students had participated in the competition last year. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik felicitated 20 winners of the programme at a function held at Pathani Samanta Planetarium here on Thursday, a Tata Steel release said. The winning group of aspiring astronomers and scientists will get an opportunity to visit one of the premier facilities of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to get a first-hand experience of space science in action, it said. The theme for this year's competition was "Imagine space exploration, 50 years from now" and it included quiz competitions and essay writing, it said. Speaking at the programme on Thursday, Arun Misra, vice-president, raw ...

'200 cameras keep watchful eye over Oxford University'

UK's University of Oxford, internationally recognised as the oldest in the English-speaking world, has 200 closed-circuit cameras zooming in on its staff and students, the office of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner said in a report on Thursday.

Teen gunman killed self at US school while confronted by police

A teenage gunman killed himself Thursday at a school in Indiana, after being confronted by police officers who were alerted in advance of an armed suspect heading to campus. Police were tipped off at around 8:00am (1300 GMT) of potential violence at Dennis Intermediate School in the city of Richmond, according to the Indiana State Police. "Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the school, which had already been placed on lockdown," the agency said in a statement. Officers confronted a teenage suspect outside the school, who then reportedly shot out the glass of a locked entry door and ran inside. Officers chased him and exchanged gunfire with the teen, but police said they did not yet know if the suspect had been wounded by police. "The teenage suspect is deceased, the result of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," the state police said. It was not immediately known if the teenager was a student at the school. No other students or staff were harmed, authorities said. ...

JNU accuses some students of forcibly entering library with personal books

The Jawaharlal Nehru University accused some students of forcibly entering the library with personal books, which, according to the varsity, is against the rules, even as the students' union maintained that they peacefully reclaimed the library. The Jawaharlal Nehru Students' Union had protested on Wednesday against the library fund cuts and closing of one of the reading halls of the library. The executive council meeting was held on November 20 and it took a decision to temporarily close one reading room in Dr BR Ambedkar Central Library in view of the potential safety and security hazards, JNU registrar Pramod Kumar said. "This decision was taken on the basis of the information that this room has only one door for entry and exit which is very narrow and no more than one person can enter/exit at a time. "When this room was temporarily closed due to safety concerns to the library users, some students began a misinformation campaign stating that the university has withdrawn reading ...

HC directs education dept to file true list of teachers

The Madras High Court Bench here Thursday directed the Tamil Nadu Education department to file the "true list" of teachers whowere transferred through the online counselling process. A bench of Justices K K Sasidharan A D Audikesavalu gave the direction, noting that there was contradiction in the reply submitted by the department in response to an RTI query and the list provided by the Secretary to the court. There was no truth in the list submitted by the Education Secretary regarding general transfer of teachers. The real list should be submitted to the court, the bench said and adjourned the matter. It was hearing a petition alleging irregularities in the transfer of government school teachers.

Washington State LG visits Delhi government school

Washington State's Lt Governor Cyrus Habib on Thursday visited a Delhi government school with city's Education Minister Manish Sisodia to get a glimpse of the educational reforms carried out by the AAP government here.

2 Indian teachers on global prize shortlist

Two Indian teachers have been shortlisted among the top 50 from around the world for the annual USD 1-million Global Teacher Prize, UK-based Varkey Foundation announced in London on Thursday. Arti Qanungo, an English teacher at Government Girls Senior Secondary School at Shakarpur in Delhi, and Swaroop Rawal, a Life Skills teacher at Lavad Primary School in Gujarat, will compete with 48 other teachers for the prestigious award, to be announced at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March. "Global Teacher Prize acknowledges the efforts and endeavour of teachers and respects them; it gives recognition to the issues I have raised by giving it a global voice," said Qanungo, who has been recognised for her efforts to ensure children, particularly girls, from poor backgrounds are protected from abuse and neglect and can embrace language studies and grow in confidence. "Good teachers can help children become good human beings, they can nurture love, wonder, curiosity and ...