Page 248 - Education

Muslims shower flowers during RSS procession in Ajmer

A rare display of harmony was seen in Ajmer on Friday when Muslims showered flowers to welcome an RSS procession taken out on Dussehra.

Vijayadasmi celebrated with religious fervour across Kerala

People across Kerala celebrated Vijayadasami Friday with thousands of children, aged two to three, being initiated into the world of learning and writing. Vijayadasmi, dedicated to goddess Saraswathi, the deity of learning, marks the end of the annual nine-day-long Navaratri festival. Children, along with their parents, gathered in large numbers at temples of Saraswathi, schools and cultural centres where arrangements were made for the 'ezhuthiniruthu' (initiation ceremony). Vijayadasami is observed as the day of 'Vidyarambham' the beginning of learning. Scholars, writers, teachers and literary personalities encouraged the children to learn and write.

Petition to make sports compulsory in educational curriculum filed in SC

A petition seeking direction to Central and state governments to make sports compulsory in educational curriculum from elementary to higher education has been filed in the Supreme Court.The petition, filed by Kanishka Pandey, has been admitted by the apex court, and is likely to be heard in the first week of November.The petition, a copy of which was accessed by ANI, stressed that "in prestigious tournaments like Olympics and World Championships, foreign countries make big gains on the back of their student-athletes. But in India, this average is almost nil because of minimal efforts made by the educational institutes of the country."It further argued that in international tournaments, India send their amateur team which comes empty-handed most of the time in spite of the fact that "a lot of money is spent by the public exchequer."The petitioner said that unless positive steps for the promotion of sports activities and sports education are not initiated in the country, it is almost ...

Dehradun gang-rape: Victim's parents claim schools denying admission to girl

Parents of a Class 10 student, who was gang-raped at a boarding school here, have filed a police complaint alleging that schools in the city are denying her admission on the ground that she will spoil the atmosphere on campus, police said on Friday. As per the complaint, the girl's parents approached a couple of schools but she was denied admission, Senior Superintendent of Police Nivedita Kukreti said. One of the schools allegedly denied her admission on the ground that enrolling her will spoil the atmosphere on campus, she said. "We are looking into the complaint. We will send a team to the school concerned to take its version on Monday as it closed for puja holidays. Meanwhile, we are also exploring the legal course of action to be taken in a case like this," Kukreti said. Appropriate action will be taken against the school if the charges against it are found to be true, she added. The girl's parents are now contemplating sending her to some school outside Dehradun. Former chairman

Genes may partly decide which university you attend: Study

Scientists have for the first time shown that DNA plays a significant role in whether young adults choose to go to university, which varsity they choose to attend and how well they do. The researchers from King's College London in the UK found that genetic factors explained 57 per cent of the differences in A-level exam results and 46 per cent of the difference in achievement at university. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, also found that genetics accounted for 51 per cent of the difference in whether young people chose to go to university and 57 per cent of the difference in the quality of the chosen university. "We have shown for the first time that genetic influence on educational achievement continues into higher education," said Emily Smith-Woolley from King's College London. "Our results also demonstrate that the appetite young adults have for choosing to continue with higher education is, in part, influenced by their DNA," Smith-Woolley said. The ...

JNUSU oppose varsity's bid to impose CCS rules on teachers

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union Thursday criticised the varsity's move to imposeCentral Services Rules (CCS) on the teachers. The JNUSU claimed that48 teachers were issued show cause notices in Augustfor participating in a day strike on July 31 to oppose the vice-chancellor's decisions. They termed the varsity's move as "absurd, illegal and unconstitutional". "Universities are autonomous spaces, and teachers are not part of the executives as Government servants are. The ruling regime must not impose the CCS rules on university faculty members, as these are actually framed for the government servants who have to carry forward specific duties and programs of the government," the JNUSU said. The imposition of CCS rules will completely destroy the academic spirit and excellence of universities as now speaking or researching on pressing concerns of our times like caste discrimination, minority witch hunt, gender inequality, economic plunder of natural resources by corporate

Expedite process of uploading teacher-student data: Khattar tells officials

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday directed officials to expedite the process of uploading teacher-student data of all schools on the online portal-- SIMS. The step aims to provide quality education to students by ensuring the required student-teacher ratio in all schools up to Class 12th, an official statement said here. Khattar, who was presiding over a meeting of Education Department here, said that the government has been working towards making the School Information Management System (SIMS) more transparent and updated. The government has already successfully implemented the online teachers transfer policy, he said. SIMS is a comprehensive Information Technology enabled system providing a complete database of all government schools in the state, highlighting staff strength, student-teacher ratio and other components. While reviewing the SIMS, Khattar directed that the updated data of students and teachers, both class-wise and section-wise be made available on .

CBSE amends affiliation by-laws, leaves infrastructural audit to states

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has revamped its norms for granting affiliation to schools, leaving the onus of the infrastructural audit on states and limiting its own role to academic quality monitoring. Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar announced Thursday that the affiliation by-laws of the CBSE have been completely revamped to ensure speed, transparency, hassle-free procedures and ease of doing business with the board. "The new by-laws denote a major shift from the highly complex procedures followed earlier to a simplified system based on preventing duplication of processes. At present, for issuing recognition under the RTE Act and the NOC, the state education administration verifies various certificates to be obtained from local bodies, revenue and cooperative departments. CBSE re-verifies them after the applications are received and hence the process becomes long drawn," he told reporters here. "The board will now not revisit any of the aspects vetted by the ..

School education hobbled by teacher politicisation, lack of accountability

Lack of accountability and politicisation of teachers are the two big issues that need to be tackled to improve the quality of school education in India

13 Indian youth visit Paris as part of Club Young Leaders programme: French Embassy

A motley group of young changemakers, working in areas ranging from law to technological innovation, is visiting Paris as part of a maiden Indo-French leadership programme that seeks to promote France as an economic and cultural destination. "Launched by French President Emmanuel Macron, during his State visit to India in March, the Club Young Leaders India-France aims to build an influential advisory network to promote Indo-French bilateral action," the French Embassy in New Delhi said in a statement Thursday. The first batch of the Club YL programme is in Paris on a tour (October 15-19) highlighting France as a cultural, tourist, investment, economic, educational and innovation destination, it said. The group of 13 young Indian leaders include, a lawyer, an author, journalists, tech innovators, and a sommelier. "Club YL's programme in France comprises meetings with high-level French authorities: President Emmanuel Macron at the Elyse Palace; Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, ..

CBSE affiliation by-laws simplified for speed, transparency: Javadekar

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday announced that the CBSE affiliation by-laws have been revamped to ensure "speed and transparency" in the process.

US teenager baked grandfather's ashes into cookies: police

A high school student mixed her cremated grandfather's ashes into homemade sugar cookies and shared them with several classmates, police in Northern California said Wednesday. The student and a friend baked the cookies and shared them with at least nine classmates at their public charter high school near Sacramento on Oct. 4, said Davis Police Lt. Paul Doroshov. He said the Da Vinci Charter Academy students told some of their classmates that the cookies contained human ashes. He said investigators interviewed nine students who ate the cookies, and said there are other supporting details that he declined to disclose that make the allegations credible. Doroshov said the students are unlikely to be charged with a crime, even if one can be found that would apply. A classmate who told KCRA that he unknowingly took a bite of one of the sandy-textured cookie said he believes they contained human ashes. "She had mentioned her grandpa's ashes before," classmate Andy Knox said. Knox said the ...

Delhi police officials meet foreign students residing in city, assure them of safety

Delhi Police officials met the representatives of the Foreign National Students' Association (FNSA) at the IGI Airport to discuss the problems faced by foreign students in Delhi, the police said Wednesday. A meeting with the representatives of FNSA was held at Mehram Nagar Wednesday, which was headed by Devesh Chandra Srivastava, Joint CP (Southern Range). Additional DCPs of all the districts, along with foreign students, attended it, said Sanjay Bhatia, DCP (IGIA Airport). Srivastava briefed the students about the agenda of the meeting and suggested various ways to them so that they can be safe in Delhi during their stay. They were also apprised of the special helpline number of the Delhi Police -- 8750871111 -- for foreign nationals. They were assured that the police would be sensitive to their problems and issues, the DCP added.

Student union polls in Haryana after 22 years, most parties boycott them

Student union elections were held in Haryana after 22 years on Wednesday but barring the BJP-affiliated ABVP major student bodies stayed away, protesting that these were only indirect polls. In Kurukshetra, over 70 protesting students were detained by police. There were reports of similar demonstrations from other parts of the state. In the indirect polling system, class representatives are elected in colleges and department representatives in universities. They in turn elect the president and other office bearers of student unions. According to the results available till 5 pm, 517 of the 1,108 class representatives (CRs) had been elected unopposed in 11 universities in the state. Similarly, 1,816 CRs in colleges were elected unopposed. Student union polls were banned in 1996 by the then chief minister Bansi Lal following incidents of violence. The state Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said the polling was peaceful. There was tight security on the campuses, including in ...

Tezpur University ranked 146th among BRICS nations

Tezpur University Wednesday said it has been ranked 146th among 400 universities in BRICS cuontries, which is an improvement over the previous year. "TU (Tezpur University) now ranks 146th amongst the BRICS nations (out of 400 institutions), which comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa," the central university said in an official release. The rankings are for 2019, it added. "TU ranked 171-180th position in 2018 rankings. The ranking was declared on October 15, 2018. In India, TU ranks 36th position out of 75 higher learning institutions," the statement said. The ranking has been made by the British higher eductaion marketing company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and it has increased the number of universities in the ranking to 400, a rise of 100 from the 2018 edition. The release said that the methodology for BRICS was based on eight indicators -- academic and employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, papers per faculty, citations per paper, staff with ...

Anti-stubble burning awareness duties rankle Gurdaspur teachers

The teaching fraternity of Punjab's Gurdaspur district has demanded withdrawal of the order which has directed them to carry out anti-stubble burning awareness. The government teachers, who have been appointed as nodal officers by the Gurdaspur district administration in their drive against crop residue burning, have sought withdrawal of the order, claiming they have been assigned villages which are "located at far off areas" and that the duties were clashing with their teaching schedule. Harjinder Singh, general secretary of Gurdaspur Democratic Teachers Front, on Wednesday said, "The teachers have been appointed as nodal officers by the Gurdaspur administration to check stubble burning in villages. But it is not our (teachers) duty to stop crop residue burning." Singh claimed some teachers had been assigned villages which were 50 km to 60 km away from their respective schools and homes. "We (teachers) will have to travel about 60 km every day after school hours to perform the job of

Set up intellectual property centres, innovation labs: UGC tells universities

The UGC has asked all universities and higher educational institutions to set up 'Intellectual Property centres' and 'Innovation labs' to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. "The start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs from across the country have appreciably applied their creativity to address social issues. "However, it is further needed that a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship must be promoted as there is is no dearth of grassroots level innovations in the country and efforts must be made to facilitate their growth," the University Grants Commission (UGC) said in a letter to universities. Setting up Intellectual Property Centres at universities, establishing innovation labs, setting up entrepreneurship cells and adding entrepreneurship into curriculum are among the activities prescribed by UGC. It has also asked universities to encourage organisation of boot camps, mentoring and investor sessions and holding entrepreneurship focussed events at colleges ..

Delhi govt signs MoU with British Council for more learning opportunities

The agreement will strengthen partnership between the two sides in the field of education, English language learning, youth skilling, as well as art and culture, Sisodia told reporters here

Police seek info on students from other states studying in Punjab educational institutions

Police is learnt to have sought information, including Aadhaar number, contact details and latest photograph, about students from other states studying in educational institutions in Punjab. The move came days after three students from Jammu and Kashmir were arrested by the Punjab Police and the J&K Police special operations group in a joint operation. Notably, on October 10, police had arrested three Kashmiri students and seized an assault rifle and explosives from them in a raid at a college hostel in Jalandhar. The Punjab Police had then described the trio as a module of Kashmiri terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind and said they had links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed. Now, colleges and educational institutions in the state have been asked to provide details like Aadhaar numbers, permanent addresses, e-mail IDs, dates of birth, fathers' names, names of course and duration, dates of admission and latest photographs of their students who have come from other states. A proforma for ...

JGU youngest Indian university to be ranked in 'QS BRICS Rankings 2019'

O P Jindal Global University (JGU) in Haryana's Sonepat district is the youngest Indian varsity to be ranked in the 'QS BRICS University Rankings 2019' out of the top 75 Indian varsities. JGU, ranked in the 301 to 350 bracket, now holds a place among the top three per cent of the universities in the BRICS region that covers five countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has also been ranked 23 out of the 403 institutions in the category of international faculty. Naveen Jindal, founding chancellor of JGU, said in a statement the global recognition was in their inspirational journey of nine years is "truly remarkable". A total of 9,000 universities in the BRICS region were considered with as many as 31 new universities, and 14 new entrants in India ranking. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) dominate the first-ever stand alone ranking of India's higher education institutions released by a UK-headquartered think-tank. The IIT Bombay tops the 'QS India ...