Page 39 - Education

School closures caused extreme learning losses: World Bank prez Ajay Banga

School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic caused extreme learning losses, World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Wednesday, underlining the need to devise a mechanism to prevent such situations before the next pandemic hits. "We have a real challenge for the generation which was undergoing schooling during the pandemic," Banga said, responding to a question by PTI. "Developed and developing countries were learning how to deal with it when we were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been extreme learning losses due to prolonged school closures during the period...and dealing with the learning losses is not just India's problem, it is an issue across the globe," he said. "My view is that we must learn now. We have to fix what we have got, pretty much make sure we learn before the next pandemic, devise a mechanism...or we will make the same mistakes again. The next one (pandemic) will come fore sure. It is a question of how long before it does come? To me that is the bigger ..

QS best student cities: Mumbai shines but no Indian city in top global 100

Mumbai ranked best student city in India due to affordability but drops 15 places in ranking compared to last year, no Indian city in top 100 cities

NEP 2020 being implemented in foundation stage of school education: Goa CM

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is being implemented in the foundation stage (one) of school education in Goa from the academic year 2023-24, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has said. The NEP for higher education is being implemented in a phased manner as per directives of the Ministry of Education, UGC, NITI Aayog and recommendations of the Chief Secretaries' Conference held in Dharamshala, Sawant said in a written reply in the Goa assembly on Tuesday. He was responding to a question tabled by the opposition members on the implementation of NEP 2020. In a written reply tabled in the assembly, Sawant, who also holds education portfolio, said the new NEP 2020 academic structure has been implemented starting from the first year (2023 onwards) at the under graduate (UG) level in all non-technical colleges in Goa. The monsoon session of Goa legislative assembly began on Tuesday.

MBBS aspirants can now upgrade college seats till third counselling round

The earlier policy, known as the mop-up round, was in practice for five years and has now been withdrawn to give benefit to students of the third round

CUET: Equi-percentile method for normalisation in use for decades, says UGC

The equi-percentile method employed for the normalisation of scores in CUET-UG has been in use for decades globally and it is a fair mechanism where luck plays no role, UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said on Monday. Results for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-UG, the gateway for undergraduate admissions in over 200 universities, were announced on Saturday. Some candidates have been complaining about their scores being brought down due to normalisation. "First, we must remember that we were required to conduct CUET in multiple shifts in a given subject due to the large number of students participating in the test. For example, if the test is in economics, NTA experts prepare multiple economics papers for use in different shifts. Despite our best efforts, the difficulty level of each paper will slightly differ from the other. Therefore, one needs to use normalised scores instead of scores obtained by a student," Kumar said. "For this purpose, we use a scientific method calle

Meghalaya govt appoints 4-member Education Commission to recommend reforms

The Meghalaya government has appointed Sherwin May Sungoh, head of the Education department of the North Eastern Hill University, as the chairperson of a four-member State Education Commission, officials said on Sunday. The commission will recommend reforms and policy changes for promoting quality education in schools, colleges and institutions of higher and technical education, they said. The other members of the Education commission are former UPSC chairman David Reid Syiemlieh, former MBOSE executive chairman Tony TC Marak and education secretary Ambrose Ch Marak who will be the member secretary, they said. According to a notification, the commission will also be assisted by 12 co-opted members and its term will be for two years. "The Education Commission will recommend concrete solutions and strategic intervention and policy decisions for ushering reforms in the school and higher education system from the perspective of NEP 2020 and fulfilling its various principles and ...

CUET-UG results announced, 22,000 candidates score 100 percentile

The National Testing Agency on Saturday declared the results for the Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate (CUET-UG), which showed that over 22,000 candidates scored 100 percentile. The maximum top scorers were in English, followed by Biology and Economics. Over 11.11 lakh candidates had appeared for the second edition of the entrance exam. While 5,685 candidates scored 100 percentile in English, 4,850 candidates got a top score in Biology/Biotechnology/Biochemistry, followed by 2,836 in Economics. "The performance of every candidate has been evaluated using the equi-percentile method wherein normalised marks of each candidate have been calculated using the percentiles of each group of students in a given session across multiple days for the same subject," said Sadhana Parashar, Senior Director, National Testing Agency (NTA). "The role of the NTA is confined to the registration of candidates, conduct of the test, hosting of answer keys, inviting challenges, finalising answ

CUET UG Result 2023 date announced, here's how to check and download result

The CUET UG exam result date was announced by the UGC chairman. The CUET UG result will be declared on Monday, July 17. Candidates can check results from the official website, cuet.samarth.ac.in

'3.3 bn live in countries that spend more on debt interest than education'

Some 3.3 billion people almost half of humanity now live in countries that spend more money paying interest on their debts than on education or health, according to a new UN report released Wednesday. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a press conference launching the report that because this crushing debt crisis is concentrated mostly in poor developing countries, it is not judged to pose a systemic risk to the global financial system. This is a mirage, the U.N. chief warned. 3.3 billion people is more than a systemic risk, it is a systemic failure. Guterres said financial markets may seem not to be suffering yet but billions of people are and the levels of public debt are staggering and surging. In 2022, global public debt reached a record $92 trillion and developing countries shoulder a disproportionate amount, he said. According to the report, the number of countries facing high debt levels has increased sharply from 22 nations in 2011 to 59 in 2022. The ...

Centre to appoint VCs of 5 pvt deemed-to-be-varsities including TISS

Vice chancellors or heads of five private deemed-to-be- universities, including TISS and Dayalbagh Educational Institute, will now be appointed by the central government and not their sponsoring trusts or societies, officials said. The change in appointments comes following new norms notified by the University Grants Commission (UGC) called the UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations. According to the new regulations, heads of deemed universities that receive 50 per cent more funds from the government than their own annual earnings will be appointed by the Centre. The first set of these regulations was notified in 2010, which was revised in 2016 and 2019. In rest of the cases, the vice chancellors shall be appointed by the chancellor from a panel of three names suggested by a search-cum-selection committee. The move, however, has been questioned by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh who raised apprehensions about the autonomy of these institutions. "Although over the .

Narayana to buy stake of Morgan Stanley, BanyanTree in Nspira at Rs 1.4k cr

Morgan Stanley PE and BanyanTree currently hold a 20 per cent stake in Narayana's group firm Nspira Management Services

'Districts' performance in school education sees notable drop during Covid'

The performance of districts in school education saw a significant drop during the Covid pandemic, with none of the districts figuring in the top two categories in the Ministry of Education's Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2020-21 and 2021-22 released on Sunday. Punjab with 18 districts in "Ati-Uttam" category (the third grade out of total 10), in 2021-22 has outperformed Rajasthan whose number of districts in this category came down to five from 26 in 2020-21. Punjab too has one less district in this category compared to 2020-21. The report on PGI-D assesses the performance of school education system at the district level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis. It graded 742 districts during 2020-21 and 748 districts during 2021-22 across the states and Union territories. PGI-D grades the districts into 10 grades with the highest achievable grade being "Daksh", which is for districts scoring more than 90 per cent of the total points in that category or

Kollam highest performing district in school education during 2020-21: MoE

Kerala's Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram were the highest performing districts in school education during 2020-21 followed by Kannur and Thrissur, according to a Ministry of Education's report on Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D). The report released on Sunday assesses the performance of school education system at the district level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis. The districts' performance has been graded under the "Ati Uttam" category, which is the third best category of PGI-D. None of the districts have figured in the two categories with highest grades -- "Daksh" and "Utkarsh". Among the best performing districts, maximum are from Rajsthan (26) followed by Gujarat (22) and Punjab (19). All nine districts of Delhi have figured in the "Ati Uttam" category. The ministry released the PGI-D for 2020-21 and 2021-22. The PGI-D report graded 742 districts during 2020-21 and 748 districts during 2021-22 across the states and Union territories. PGI-D grades t

Jal Jeevan Mission to change face of UP schools, to improve education: Govt

As per the vision of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Jal Jeevan Mission will transform 9 schools under the Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Council

Assam govt releases Rs 96.21 cr grant, holds back grants to 11,480 schools

The Assam government, in April, launched its own Siksha Setu Asom Portal App to collect information about schools, teachers, students and other information

Assam to weed out 'ghost schools and teachers': Education minister

After "ghost students", Assam is planning to weed out "ghost schools and teachers", state Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said on Sunday. Special grants to schools which failed to provide complete information about staff have been put on hold, with salaries of such employees to be stopped in next two months, he said. Addressing a press conference here, Pegu said, "We had already detected ghost students. Now, there could be ghost schools and teachers." Ghost students, schools and teachers are those which exist only on paper. It is done to obtain government funds for various purposes. Around 4.50 lakh ghost students in government and private schools were detected in the state in June during reconciliation of enrolment figures with that of the previous year. Pegu said over 11,000 lower and upper primary government schools have failed to provide complete data of their staff, comprising both teaching and non-teaching, as sought by the department. "The information was to be uploaded on

NET to be minimum criteria for recruitment of assistant professors: UGC

The University Grants Commission has reversed its decision to make PhDs mandatory for hiring assistant professors, saying exams like the NET, SET, and SLET will be the minimum criteria for direct recruitment to the post, according to officials. "PhD qualification for appointment as an assistant professor would continue to be optional. The National Eligibility Test (NET), State Eligibility Test (SET) and State Level Eligibility Test (SLET) shall be the minimum criteria for the direct recruitment to the post of assistant professor for all Higher Education Institutions," said UGC Chairman, M Jagadesh Kumar. In 2018, the UGC set the criteria for recruitment for entry-level posts at universities and colleges. It gave a three-year window to candidates to complete their PhDs and asked all universities and colleges to start applying the criteria for recruitment from the 2021-22 academic session. However, the UGC in 2021 extended the date of applicability of PhD as the minimum qualification

68 students from Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Dantewada crack NEET, JEE

Dantewada Collector Vinit Nandanwar said that the district administration is providing free education to children and also subjecting students to preparations of competitive examinations

Onus on taxpayers to make correct declaration about LRS remittances

TCS on LRS will also apply to remote education and medical consultancy

Union min bats for NEP, says it will give big push to quality education

Union Minister Bhupender Yadav on Saturday said the New Education Policy (NEP) will give a big push to quality and value-based education in the country. The minister for environment, forests and climate change said education should not only be for cracking competitive examinations, but also for developing philosophical values, rational thinking and spiritual capabilities among students. Rising cases of suicides in coaching institutions like those in Kota has been a major concern, he said at the inauguration of a new building complex for Yogoda Satsanga School here. Coaching institutes should not become suicide factories, but help prepare students to face future challenges, Yadav said. We have developed the NEP the way Paramahansa Yogadananda Maharaj had conceptualised. The policy focuses on development of Indian indigenous languages besides emphasising on practicality, he said. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who was also invited for the event, did turn up citing health ...