I found one building particularly attractive: the canteen in the style of a Buddhist temple. But when I went inside to try the fare, I was disappointed: the food was insipid, the interior dreary and the acoustics such that conversation was drowned out by a called order or moving dishes. One of the lecturers said to me: "This is your new college: all facade and no substance."
…
Typically, the colleges provide the education while an external university provides the actual degree. Thirty per cent of the final marks are assigned internally, and this led to a unique experience in my 30-year career in education: watching a colleague choosing numbers at random between 60% and 90%. No assessment was actually carried out.
Some departments ran what the students referred to as an "autograph" system: the lecturers actually prepared an exam paper, to be shown to the university if necessary, but the students gained their marks – usually a minimum of 70% – if they turned up and signed their names. …
Although some lecturers told me the chairman was simply posturing, accompanied by a senior professor, I went round all the classes advising that the days of fake marks were over. I prepared an elaborate set of internal assessment devices that were duly and diligently used by the lecturers. Some students clearly didn’t take my warnings seriously and absenteeism remained at its normal high level. A fair number of students received fail marks.
But what marks were actually sent off to the university by the college? What I do know is that, when the university published the final results, students who had been given 5/30 somehow or other got 20/30.
The colleges are responsible for 30% internal assessment but the remaining 70% is controlled by the external university. However, in Orissa, the "external university" exists in name more than reality and consisted only of a vice-chancellor and a few office staff. Crucially, the externally supervised end-of-semester exams were invigilated by a mixture of college staff and colleagues from other colleges and all of the colleges were in the same boat: they sank or swam together.
The Indian college system is a huge cesspit: bribery is the norm. …
… the ministry has decided to propose an outlay of nearly Rs 2,522 crores in the 2008-09 Budget to allow institutions to augment their intake capacity if the Supreme Court rules in favour of the Centre’s decision to reserve 27 per cent of the seats in Central educational institutions for other backward classes (OBCs). … For 2007-08, the Budget had provided for an allocation of Rs 2,698 crores to help the institutions augment their capacity. The overall outlay for the implementation of quotas during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-12), is pegged at Rs 11,728,000 crores.
The ministry has proposed an outlay of no less than Rs 12,800.51 crores for the 2008-09 Budget. Not surprising, given the Centre’s ambitious plans to go in for a huge expansion in technical education during the Eleventh Plan which has proposed an outlay of Rs 84,943 crores for it.
The HRD has proposed an outlay of Rs 1,496.01 crores for "new schemes" in areas of technical education in the 2008-09 Budget. Of this amount, a major portion has been proposed as outlay for the setting up of new polytechnics. The ministry wants nearly Rs 440 crores set aside for the new polytechnics apart from another Rs 101 crores for the strengthening of 400 existing polytechnics. Another Rs 150 crores has been proposed as outlay for the 580 new community polytechnics. …
As for the eight new IITs the UPA government has plans to set up, the HRD ministry has proposed an outlay of Rs 200 crores for them in the forthcoming Budget. As for the existing IITs, the ministry has proposed an outlay of Rs 492 crores. The seven new IIMs also on the anvil in the Eleventh Plan have had an outlay of Rs 50 crores proposed for the 2008-09 Budget, while an outlay of Rs 45 crores is proposed for the existing IIMs. For the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the ministry has proposed an outlay of Rs 70 crores for 2008-09. A substantial amount — Rs 150 crores — is the proposed outlay for increasing the fellowship amount for M.Tech. students.
Other institutions that the Budget will be providing for are the 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) that are in the offing. The ministry has budgeted Rs 50 crores as the outlay for 2008-09. As for the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) coming up in Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram and the new one in Mohali, the ministry has proposed an outlay of Rs 100 crores in the coming Budget.
Yet another area set to get a boost is that of faculty development in technical education with the ministry proposing an outlay of Rs 100 crores for 2008-09.
The National Council for Teacher Education, in its previous status since 1973, was an advisory body for the Central and State Governments on all matters pertaining to teacher education, with its Secretariat in the Department of Teacher Education of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Despite its commendable work in the academic fields, it could not perform essential regulatory functions, to ensure maintenance of standards in teacher education and preventing proliferation of substandard teacher education institutions. The National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 and the Programme of Action thereunder, envisaged a National Council for Teacher Education with statutory status and necessary resources as a first step for overhauling the system of teacher education. The National Council for Teacher Education as a statutory body came into existence in pursuance of the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993 (No. 73 of 1993) on the 17th August,1995.
OBJECTIVE
The main objective of the NCTE is to achieve planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country, the regulation and proper maintenance of Norms and Standards in the teacher education system and for matters connected therewith. The mandate given to the NCTE is very broad and covers the whole gamut of teacher education programmes including research and training of persons for equipping them to teach at pre-primary, primary, secondary and senior secondary stages in schools, and non-formal education, part-time education, adult education and distance (correspondence) education courses.
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
NCTE has its headquarder at New Delhi and four Regional Committees at Banglore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar and Jaipur to look after its statutory responsibilities. In order to enable the NCTE to perform the assigned functions including planned and co-ordinated development and initiating innovations in teacher education, the NCTE in Delhi as well as its four Reginal Committees have administrative and academic wings to deal respectively with finance, establishment and legal matters and with research, policy planning, monitoring, curriculum, innovations, co-ordination, library and documentation, inservice programmes. The NCTE Headquarters is headed by the Chairperson, while each Regional Committee is headed by a Regional Director.
Adam Gross, design principal at the Baltimore architectural firm Ayers Saint Gross, discussed the design of Vedanta University with Tom Hall the Arts and Culture Contributor for Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast and the host of Choral Arts Classics on January 25 2008.
Concerned about the proliferation of private tutorial services and the high fees they charge, the human resource development ministry has approved a proposal to introduce the country’s first public-funded training to crack competitive exams.
Initially, the training is likely to cover entrance tests to the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management. But the government plans to extend the facility to the civil services entrance exam too, senior officials said.
… The government is, however, anxious to ensure that the “cheaper” option does not end up as a poor man’s coaching class.
Teachers from the country’s top higher education institutions will be invited to form a faculty pool for the facility.
“It will be a broad-based effort involving teachers from universities, IITs and IIMs. The institutions have agreed in principle. The challenge will be to bring teachers on board,” the official said.
Officials conceded that at least initially, the online coaching might not be a substitute for the physical tutorials.
But they hoped the low fees would attract people — rich or poor — to it.
“We hope that soon enough they will realise that they will be prepared best for the competitive exams here,” the official said. … the Planning Commission is learnt to have cleared the proposal as well. … sources said students were likely to charged only a basic registration fee — probably less than Rs 1,000 — which will be used to cover additional emoluments for the faculty.
The faculty will each have a blog restricted to students, who can ask questions and will receive answers within a day.
The teachers’ pool will prepare tests in each subject, which students will take online — like the GRE.
Each student will have an online account — their entry to the coaching class.
Apart from the questions through blogs, live classes can also be held, the official said.
The BJP launched a scathing attack on the Congress-led UPA Government for its continued apathy towards the State.
Addressing the opening session of the two-day State executive committee meeting of the BJP here on Thursday, party president Suresh Pujari lambasted the Centre for its preferential treatment to the State so far as sanction of Central projects or Central assistance is concerned.
“The only solution to the Centre’s apathy is to build a movement against the UPA Government in the State,” Pujari said.
The BJD-BJP combination has completed 10 years and the alliance will continue to rule the State, Pujari asserted and exhorted party leaders and workers to defeat the evil design of the Congress. All the projects sanctioned by the NDA Government for the State are either shelved or relocated to other states.
The Netaji Subash Bose All India Institute of Medical Science is languishing for lack of financial support. While Orissa’s demand for an Indian Institute of Technology has been ignored, states having several national institutes are being given special treatment, he rued.
… leading coaching institute and publishing house IMS has come up with a ‘Centre for Communication Studies’ (CCS) here, the first in the country.
The centre will basically act as a finishing school, offering a wide range of classroom programmes to students and corporate executives to develop soft skills, hone business acumen and corporate etiquette.
According to IMS, picking the city over others was a logical step towards developing a pool of industry-ready workforce in a State bursting at its seams.
"The aim was to help more and more students profit from the upcoming opportunities generated by the industrialisation drive with confidence. Hence the move," said CCS director Subrata Dey.
The programmes have been prepared by a pool of IIT and IIM graduates and take strength from the unique methodologies followed to groom students. For example, in the ‘speak e’ class, seeking to develop English communication ability, a learner is ‘immersed into a simulated real-life situation with fellow students and trainers where he/she is encouraged to communicate according to the situation’s requirement.’
Besides, the candidate is placed in a group where others have a similar level of language skills for proper coaching. The other set of programmes from CCS stable include ‘the triple module placement training workshop,’ ‘powerprep’ and ‘propahgroom.’
While the former prepares a student face group discussion and get their basics right through interventions like ‘progressive interaction and argumentation,’ the latter two have been designed keeping the corporate professionals in mind. Interestingly, Dey said, several B-schools in the city have come forward to adopt them, especially ‘powerprep’ in their course curriculum.
It aims to develop the overall communication and report writing skills of participants and make him a true professional in power point presentation.
At present, the students are a mix of job seekers, management students and freshly recruited employees of corporate houses. IIT and IIM alumni would be on faculty.
The Rajasthan Government has asked the Centre to set up an Indian Institute of Technology in Kota, Industry Minister Digamber Singh has said.
At a function yesterday, Singh said "a letter has already been sent to the Centre by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje asking it to set up an IIT at Kota."
He claimed Kota was the most ideal place for setting up such an institute in Rajasthan because it had already become a hub for technical education in northern India.
The Centre has also been approached to issue No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the two civil airports in the State at Bhisiana in Bathinda and Sahnewal near Ludhiana. An IIT or IIM is also proposed to be set up in the city. With the emergence of all these fast-paced developmental activities, Bathinda is fast emerging on the Real Estate Map of India and one of the most sought after land in Punjab.