Page 356 - Education

Cabinet decides to withdraw from RS bill to amend Nalanda Univ Act

The government today approved a proposal to withdraw the Nalanda University (Amendment) Bill, 2013 pending in the Rajya Sabha, as the proposed changes need to be discussed with the governing board of the institution before a final decision is taken. The decision to withdraw the amendment bill was taken at the meeting of the Union Cabinet held this evening. The Nalanda University was established on the basis of a joint press statement at the 4th East Asia Summit held in Thailand in October 2009, which supported its establishment as a non-state, non-profit, secular and self-governing international institution. Subsequently, the Nalanda University Act, 2010 was passed and it came into effect from November 25, 2010. The government will now move a motion in the Rajya Sabha to withdraw the amendment bill introduced on August 26, 2013. The Governing Board of Nalanda University has since been constituted. The amendment bill will need to be discussed with the current Governing Board before a ..

Cabinet approves continuation of agriculture education development plan

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved continuation of the Three Year Action Plan (2017-2020) of the scheme for Agricultural Education Division and ICAR Institutes to strengthen and develop higher agricultural education in the country.

PhD mandatory for recruitment of university teachers from 2021-22: Javadekar

PhD has been made mandatory for recruitment of teachers in universities from 2021-22 and cracking the National Eligibility Test (NET) would not be accepted as the only eligibility criteria, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said today. However, masters degree with NET or PhD would continue to be the minimum eligibility criteria for direct recruitment in colleges, a senior official said. Currently, those who hold PhD degree or are NET qualified with masters degree are eligible to apply for assistant professor, the entry level position, in universities. Announcing the new regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Javadekar said Academic Performance Indicators (API), which was resisted by many as research was made compulsory for college teachers, has been scrapped so that they could focus on teaching students. "The whole effort is to improve quality of higher education and to attract and retain the best talent in the country. All the incentives of earlier regulations have ...

Himachal to start admissions for Hamirpur medical college

The Himachal Pradesh cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to admit the first batch of 100 students in Dr Radhakrishnan Government Medical College in Hamirpur town.

HC notice to Centre, TN govt on PIL seeking grace marks in NEET

The Madras High Court today issued notice to the central and Tamil Nadu governments on a PIL by a CPI-M MP seeking award of full marks for 49 'erroneous' questions in the Tamil version of this year's National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. A bench of justices C T Selvam and A M Basheer Ahamed directed the governments to file their replies and posted the matter to June 27 for further hearing. Rajya Sabha member T K Rangarajan in his public interest litigation petition submitted that there were translation errors in 49 questions in physics, chemistry and biology sections in the Tamil version of NEET. There were 180 questions in the test with four marks for each. Out of these, a total of 49 questions in the three subjects were erroneous, he contended. He sought a court direction for awarding full 196 marks for these questions to the students who took the NEET in Tamil. About 1.07 lakh candidates had appeared in the NEET held across 170 centres in 10 cities of the state on May 6. ...

UK's Global Teacher Prize winner wants Indians to apply

The winner of this year's Global Teacher Prize today called on Indian teachers to apply for the 2019 award as nominations for the USD 1 million prize opened this month. London-based Andria Zafirakou, who won the 2018 award founded by the Varkey Foundation, also urged parents and pupils in India to put forward their most inspirational teacher for the prize. "Since winning the Global Teacher Prize 2018 I have tried to shine a spotlight on the importance of raising teacher respect. I encourage everyone in India, from politicians to parents to support and back teachers in every way they can," said Zafirakou, an Art and Textiles teacher from Alperton Community School in north-west London. "Technology is changing the world so fast with everything from Artificial Intelligence to 3D printing that children need great teachers more than ever," she said. Numerous Indian teachers have been shortlisted for the annual Global Teacher Prize since its launch in 2015. Pradeep Negi, an economics, ...

Canada to streamline student visa processing

In order to provide more eligible international students the opportunity to study at a Canadian post-secondary institution and to shorten the visa application processing time, the Government of Canada has made some changes to the student visa program.As of June 8, 2018, the existing Student Partnership Program (SPP) in India will be replaced with the Student Direct Stream (SDS).This new SDS programme will replace existing facilitation programs for students not only in India, but also in China, the Philippines and Vietnam.The existing SPP in India is restricted to international students intending to study at one of approximately 40 post-secondary institutions in Canada.The new SDS will be open to all international students going to any Designated Learning Institution (DLI) in Canada, including both publicly-funded and private post-secondary institutions.The SDS will offer faster and simpler visa processing to international students best placed to complete their academic studies. It ...

SC won't interfere with first round of CLAT-2018 counselling

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to interfere with the first round of CLAT-2018 counselling for admissions to 19 national law universities and colleges.

InstaReM brings zero-margin fee payment for Indian students studying abroad

When it comes to studies abroad, 2017 data reveals that more than 50 percent of Indian students study in North America. As per Government of India data, there are a total of 5.53 lakh Indian students studying across 86 countries.Transferring money abroad for education is a billion-dollar market, because it is well known that for expenses related to education (studies abroad) are substantial. Total fee (study-related) outflow from India in 2017 stood at USD 2.045 billion, as per the data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)."Indian students and their families learn it hard way about the challenges involved in international money transfers relating to fee payments to foreign universities," said Prajit Nanu of InstaReM.Part of the problem on fee remittances for parents comes from a lack of transparency.Here are the key reasons for the same:1. Many universities do not want the cost of tuition to deter applicants, meaning this information can sometimes be overlooked or omitted until later .

CLAT 2018: SC refuses to interfere with first round of counselling

The Supreme Court today refused to interfere with the first round of counselling going on for admissions to 19 prestigious law colleges of the country after the CLAT examination. A vacation bench of Justices U U Lalit and Deepak Gupta directed National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) at Kochi to complete by June 15 the exercise of compensating students who have faced technical glitches in the CLAT 2018 examination. The bench asked NULAS to come up with a revised list by June 16 based on the formula suggested by two member-Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) and include the qualified students in the second round of counselling. The apex court had on June 11 refused to order a "re-test" of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018 or stop the counselling process for admissions in 19 national prestigious law colleges across the country over complaints of technical glitches during the May 13 exam. The court had asked the GRC to look into complaints, to apply the normalisation

Jharkhand Class 10 results out, less than 60% pass

Less than 60 per cent students passed the Class 10 board examination in Jharkhand.

English, Political Science most favoured by DU aspirants

English, followed by B.A. (Programme) and Political Science emerged as the top three courses preferred by students aspiring to study at the Delhi University, revealed data released on Tuesday.

Kept away from smartphones during preps: JEE qualifier from Kashmir

Nineteen-year-old Mohammad Ali from Kargil says he kept himself away from smartphones for nearly a year while preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) as he did not want to get distracted from his goal. The self-restraint paid off as Ali cleared the IIT JEE Advanced examination, the results of which were declared on Sunday. Army chief General Bipin Rawat and Union minister Jitendra Singh felicitated 30 bright students from Jammu and Kashmir here today. The students were trained for free for nearly 11 months under the "Kashmir Super 30" coaching programme to appear in the exams for admission to IITs and NITs, officials said. Ali is one of the seven students among them who cleared the JEE Advanced examination, they added. The programme was a joint initiative of the Army, the Centre for Social Responsibility and Leadership (CSRL), an NGO, and the Petronet LNG Foundation, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) division of petro firm Petronet LNG Ltd, a senior official of the .

32 Kashmiri students crack JEE Mains under Army project

Under an Indian Army project 32 Kashmiri students cracked the Joint Entrance Exam, Mains, this year, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Rajasthan schools to have sermons, story-telling sessions on Saturdays

Saturdays will be different in government schools of Rajasthan from the new academic session, with special sessions on life of distinguished personalities, moral lessons, quizzes and patriotic songs to make the students "culturally and morally strong".

Jitendra Singh felicitates successful students of 'Kashmir Super 30'

Union Minister Jitendra Singh today felicitated around 32 students of 'Kashmir Super 30' -- a coaching endeavour of the Army styled on Bihar's 'Super 30' to train students for the prestigious IIT-JEE examination. Total 50 students were enrolled under the project this year of which, 32 students qualified the JEE Mains Exam, 2017-18, a statement from the government said. Out of these successful students, seven students cracked the JEE Advance test and made it to the prestigious IITs, it said. These students were felicitated by Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Prime Minister's Office, at a function here. Addressing the gathering, the minister said the students have set an example for others to follow and appreciated them for their hard work and focused approach. The students thanked the Army, Petronet LNG Limited (PLL) and Centre for Social Responsibility and Leadership (CSRL), for supporting them in their efforts. Singh said earlier, students of remote and peripheral areas were

Minor girl raped by three men in Odisha

A minor girl was allegedly raped by three men in Balasore district, police said today. The girl, a class 9 student was returning home alone after tuition yesterday evening when the three men allegedly raped her at Kasaba Jaypur village, they said. The girl informed her mother about the incident and the family lodged a case at the police station. The police have nabbed one of the three accused, who allegedly sexually assaulted the girl, a police officer said.

NITI announces 3,000 additional Atal Tinkering Labs

Government think tank NITI Aayog today said that its Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has selected 3,000 additional schools for the establishment of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), bringing the total number of ATL schools to 5,441. The selected schools shall receive a grant of Rs 20 lakh spread over the next five years to establish Atal Tinkering Labs for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among secondary school children across India, NITI Aayog said in a statement. It further added that ATLs will soon be established in every district of India, seeking to enable an innovation ecosystem, which will facilitate transformational change in technological innovation and pedagogy. The AIM of the government's flagship initiative is to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.

English most sought-after subject in Delhi University

English is the most sought-after subject in Delhi University, according to the varsity. As many as 1,26,327 students have applied for the BA (Hons) English programme, followed by 1,05,818 students for BA (Programme), according to data shared by the varsity. BA (Hons) Political Science course saw 1,05,590 applicants, while BA (Hons) Economics had 96,709 applicants. The least number of applicants were for vocational courses -- 49,378 applicants for BA(Voc) Tourism Management, followed by 53,207 for BA (Voc) Human Resource Management. BA (Hons) Applied Psychology was the third least popular with 57,584 applicants. The varsity threw open its admission portal for aspirants of various undergraduate courses on May 15. The registration for these courses ended on June 7. The university has, for now, announced a total of five cut-off lists with the notification for the first cut-off scheduled to be issued on June 19. The total number of male applicants are 1,44,248, women 1,34,297 and other ...

Parents feel maths toughest subject for kids, not taught well in schools: Survey

At least 89 per cent parents feel that Maths is the toughest subject for their kids and 77 per cent of them are of the opinion that the subject is not taught well in schools, thus making tuition classes mandatory, a new survey has revealed. The survey was conducted by Cuemath, a beyond-school, multi-format math learning program that brings together technology and personal teaching. On the basis of interviews of 1,000 parents from across the country, the survey stated that a child's performance in Mathematics was of utmost importance to 81 per cent of parents followed by their performance in Science. According to the survey, 82 per cent parents believe some children have a "natural flair" for Mathematics while it is difficult for others. It said 61 per cent of the parents surveyed maintained that they measure their child's performance and understanding of Mathematics purely on the basis of their score in school. 63 per cent of the parents believe their child gets tensed before a ...