Government Amends Central Universities Act

Source: The Indian Express via PwC – EdLive

A proposal to bring an amendment to the Central Universities Act for enabling the setting-up of two central varsities in Bihar was cleared by the government recently. The Union Cabinet approved amending the Act after the HRD ministry took a decision to set up a central university in Motihari in addition to the one already proposed in Gaya. This is only the second exception made by the union government for setting up two central universities in

a particular state, the first being Jammu and Kashmir. The Act had the provision for setting two central universities in Jammu and Kashmir as a special case. The government’s decision for setting up a central university in Motihari had put an end to a prolonged slugfest over the issue. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other political parties had been insisting that the central university should be established in Motihari to end regional disparities.

CII launches educational excellence forum

Source: The Hindu via PwC – EdLive

The Confederation of Indian Industry, Tiruchi Zone, has launched its Education Excellence Forum (EEF) constituting eight member institutions in the region. R Nandini, Chairperson, CII Southern Region Education Sub-Committee, launched the forum as part of the CII’s Southern Region Education Initiative.

As a follow-up to the EEF’s maiden launch at MAM College of Engineering, the initiative will be extended to other zones, she said. The objective of EEF is to address core components of education: faculty, student and curriculum, through the prism of industry to improve the employability quotient. A year-long activity with a top-to-bottom approach will provide tailor-made solutions and recommendations for a synergised outcome. The approach will enable students to align their learning practices with industry requirements and equip themselves to meet dynamic changes in the economy directed at reviving the nation’s growth trajectory, a CII press release said.

AICTE to give 1 crore INR seed capital for research parks

Source: DNA India via PwC – EdLive

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will fund institutes with 1 crore INR to set up research parks, in order to encourage research among students. An industry partner will also be tasked with setting up the research park, along with providing funds to the tune of 1 crore INR. The research activities to be carried out in the park will also include studies needed for the industry.

“This will be a perfect give-and-take deal. While the industry will participate in financial assistance, the institutes will conduct research on the basis of industry needs. Researchers will also get hands-on experience with real-time industry research activities,” said SS Mantha, Chairman, AICTE. The research park will be set up on the institute premises itself, which should make available at least a 3,000-square-feet area for it.

“We aim to open such research parks in at least one state each. However, more such parks would be welcome to provide ample opportunities to research scholars in India,” added Mantha.

Besides this, the AICTE is also going to offer other schemes to encourage research work. The top 100 research students will be placed at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories. The scholars will be shortlisted through a competitive model of testing and the AICTE will give 15,000 INR per month to each student for three years.

Future Learning seeks international tie-up

Source: The Hindu Business Line via PwC – EdLive

Future Learning, the education and skill development arm of the Future Group, is scouting for an international tie-up to run specific courses in visual management, sourcing, supply chain and even luxury retailing. The company, which was carved out as a separate entity four years ago, said it has identified 21 key sectors to impart skills in retail and services sector. Future Learning is affiliated to the Indira Gandhi National Open University and offers courses at four centres — Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.

On its accreditation, Future Learning is interested in international tie-up as more international retailers are entering India. In places such as the US, the UK and Australia, where retail is highly developed, institutes are accredited and we are in talks for similar accreditation. According to industry sources, Future Group is understood to have an investment of 25 crore INR in Future Learning.

COU announces new family medicine training opportunities

Toronto, February 2011

The federal government would be funding $11.3 million over four years to support a project in Ontario that offers new family medicine positions and training opportunities across Canada from 2011. The funding would cover the entire costs for establishing residency positions. The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) is striving to improve access to healthcare for Ontarians in remote and rural communities. Approximately 60 additional third-year family medicine residency positions will be created at Ontario’s six Faculties of Medicine to enhance emergency medicine and enhanced skills, which includes McMaster University, University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, as well as the Northern Ontario School of Medicine at Laurentian University and Lakehead University.

According to Dr. Catharine Whiteside, co-chair person of COU Faculties of Medicine and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, “focusing on specializations such as anesthesia, obstetrics, care of the elderly, palliative care, rural skills, mental health and additions, will be a starting point to support comprehensive family practice in under-served communities.” Hence, with the continuing support from provincial government to improve health care facilities across Ontario, people living in rural communities will be having greater benefits.

Political Deadlock

NDTV News, Ahmedabad, March 2011

As of 2009, The Union Government had assigned 10 crore rupees for minority students in Gujarat. Students who have not previously completed Grade 10 and whose parents earn less than 1 lakh annually were eligible for scholarships worth Rs. 800 – 1500 a month. About 52,000 could qualify. However, due to politicking between BJP and Congress, thousands of students are robbed of life-changing opportunities. Let us hope that this issue gets solved in the favor of innocent minority people of Gujarat.

Deloitte hires

Source: CyberMediaNews, Mumbai, March 2011

Indian IT Industry is on a hiring spree. IT Consulting firm Deloitte would be hiring an 2.25 lakh candidates in 2011. With this addition, the total number of employees working in the IT/ITeS sector in India would grow to 22.3 lakh in 2011. As per the predictions for 2011, IT outsourcing industry and business processes will reach US $ 71.7 Billion for 2011, which would account to 5.8% of the country’s GDP.

“This would be the starting point of active participation between telecom service providers and various industries including IT, Media, Banking, Healthcare and Education in reaching and offering services for the empowerment of rural India”, predicts Mr Jolyon Barker, Global Leader Deloitte’s TMT,2011.

Quoting a spokesperson from Deloitte, “The advantage for customers from MNP would be better quality of service, lesser call drops, better infrastructures and an increase in loyalty programs and customer retention marketing techniques. Operators offering 3G services would have an edge with the introduction of MNP as not all operators have won the auctioned 3G spectrum.”

Public-private partnership catalyzes educational excellence

www.indiaeducationdiary.in, Chennai, March 2011

As per the 11th educational budgetary plan, Government of India is working on improving the education sector by increasing the allocation by 19 percent of the gross budgetary support. A conference was held on “Education for Sustainable Development” organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Dr Purandeswari, Honorable Minister of State of the Human Resources Development, Government of India, addressed the audience at the conference. She stated that the education system should respond to the changing needs of the stakeholders and focus on quality of education and the faculty, in addition to infrastructure and curriculum. She urged the state governments to increase funding to the Universities and also enact the Right to Education Act to ensure a holistic development in the education sector.

The Minister mentioned that it is crucial for the private sector to join hands with the Government to provide on-the-job experience for students to develop their vocational skills and employability.

Mr Arun Maira, Member of Planning Commission, Government of India emphasized on three key elements to make education relevant to current scenario which include “innovation in delivery, new methods of learning and job-oriented education.” He stated that it is critical for the education system to align with the emerging economic trends and employment potential.

Mr S Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of CII Southern Region and Managing Director of Infosys Technologies Ltd, stated that “education should be an enabler of sustainable development and aim at developing people with right attitudes, skills and knowledge.” He also mentioned that technology delivery systems should be used in education systems, which would pave a way to open learning platforms reaching a large section of people.

Mr C R Swaminathan, Conference Chairman & Chief Executive of PSG Industrial Institute stated that realigning education to promote awareness, attitudes and skills, changes in the work systems and the use of technology will lead to sustainable development.

In her welcome address, Ms Nandini Rangaswamy, Chairperson of CII Tamil Nadu & Managing Director of Chandra Group emphasized the need to strengthen skills training capabilities to meet the ever growing demand for skilled labor. Furthermore, she added that this could only be achieved through partnerships involving academia, industry and government.

The vote of thanks was proposed by Mr N K Ranganath, Vice Chairman of CII Tamil Nadu & Managing Director of Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd.

IELTS tops the list

PRNewswire, Cairo, March 2011

The International English Language Testing System, commonly known as IELTS, made its way to the top in the list of World’s most popular high stakes English Language tests. A record breaking 1.5 million tests were taken around the world in 2010 with the increase in the number of tests taken year-after-year since 1995. North America experienced the largest growth over the year followed by Philippines and Hong Kong. China, Australia and India continue to retain their positions as the largest markets for IELTS.

IELTS provides a reliable measure of a candidate’s ability across the four skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking. Candidates mainly take IELTS in pursuit of entry into an academic institution or immigration processes, mainly to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. IELTS is jointly owned by British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia, and the University of Cambridge (Examinations ESOL).

Bharti group exits education business

Source: The Economic Times via PwC – EdLive

The Bharti group has exited the education business, selling group company Centum Learning to Everonn Education. The Bharti Family Office, which manages investments made by the promoters of the group in their personal capacity, will receive a combination of cash and equity shares in Everonn. The Bharti group declined to reveal the deal size or their stake in the combined entity. The deal is part of the Bharti group’s plans to exit non-core businesses. “This transaction is in line with our stated objective of focusing our energies on our core businesses,” Centum Chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal said. Everonn Education provides end-to-end training programmes and skill development solutions. “With this acquisition, Everonn will expand its reach in the Indian training space by adding corporate training, the flagship product of Centum, as a new vertical,” Everonn Education Director and CEO of GEMS Education India Rakesh Sharma said. “Other business segments of Centum (skill development, employment generation, professional education and training) will seamlessly integrate with the existing verticals of Everonn,”he added.

Canada and India build closer educational ties

UniversityWorldNews, Issue 128, 2010

India is focusing on giving their students a global experience, and a new bill being passed by the Indian Parliament would bring vast progress and easier access for international universities.

Mr. Pawan Agarwal, author of Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the future and a West Bengal Government member of staff addressed a conference in Ottawa held by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada to promote India-Canada ties in higher education. He stated that with the right foundation, appropriate student recruitment, joint research project ventures and Government support, closer ties can be achieved.

The main reason towards this collaboration is to lessen the unfamiliarity of Canadian Universities and their reputation in India. Raising awareness is critical in overseas development work. Mr Agarwal mentioned that there were about 28,000 Indian students studying in Australia in comparison to a meager 2800 in Canada. Development of offshore campuses, collaborating with Indian institutes and extensive marketing are the ways to go for establishing strong presence in India. In the lines of Virginia tech and Georgia University, US opening off shore campuses in

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Schulich School of business, York University, Canada has already taken a step forward to offer collaborative programs with SP Jain School of Management, Mumbai, India.

According to Mr Shashishekhar Gavai, Indian High Commissioner to Canada, research collaboration was another option of consideration. He mentioned that McGill and Carleton universities are interested in setting up Canada-India centres to address the Indian immigrants in Canada.

On India’s part, India has 26,200 educational institutions with over 15 million students which is expected to grow twice as much in the next few years due to the increased growth of middle and upper classes. Mr Agarwal would like to increase the number of mature students enrolling for post graduate programs, something that Canada has been successful at. He is expecting Canada to diversify growth in areas in addition to Management and Engineering.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper hosted a roundtable discussion with 15 presidents from Indian universities. With premiers of Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec visiting India and expressing interest in pursuing closer ties with the Indian higher education system, 15 Canadian university presidents met in India in November to make progress. India has become a global giant that without considering Indian market there is no real global experience. These programs will also provide tremendous opportunities for Indian students looking to acquire world-class management training and prepare them for global careers in India and around the world.

This Indo-Canadian collaboration will provide students a diverse international perspective and an opportunity to synthesize Western efficiency and Eastern ethos.

It’s raining IT Jobs in Tamil Nadu

Source: The Hindu, Monday, December 20 2010

IT companies are on a hiring spree as the demand for young, fresh and bright minds keeps increasing. Although the past few years were sluggish, software giants including TCS, Wipro, CTS and HCL have been on a hiring spree this year. From Oct’09 to Sept’10, there has been large addition of about 27,500 employees at Cognizant Technologies alone and they are soon expected to reach 100,000 headcount mark. Pondicherry University in Tamil Nadu has reached 100% placement in IT field. Even science graduates recruitment in Wipro increases every year by 5‐ 8%, and is expected to spike to 15‐20% in coming years. These fresh graduates are given special training in BITS Pilani through a PG program administered by Wipro Academy of Software Excellence.

Universities referred in this article: SASTRA University, Thanjavur; SRM University, Chennai; VIT University, Vellore; Anna University of Technology‐ Trichy (AUT‐T); Bharathidasan University. Trichy.

Envisioning Equity in Global Development Agenda

Ms. Sheena Joseph in conversation with Prof. P R Ramanujam

The Pan Commonwealth Forum (PCF) brings together more than 70 countries and about 1000 participants to address the key issues relating to access and equity in education through application of open and distance learning.

This article addresses the key facts of the 6th PCF event (PCF6) and its significance for IGNOU.

Vision:
“PFC6 envisioned an immediate possibility of combining the experiences of the developed and the developing worlds in providing equal opportunities with the global agenda of development implying equitable distribution of benefits through innovative open distance learning methods and programs.”

Mission:
“To give an opportunity for practitioners, researchers, planners and policy makers in the field of open education and development to share their experiences in shaping the future policies of open learning with a view to achieving Millennium Development Goals by 2015 as committed by the UN.”

Significance of the four themes in current global scenario:
According to Prof. Ramanujam, Social justice should only answer the highly complex and contradictory picture of tremendous prosperity vs. extreme poverty. Democratizing education and skill set development would empower people leading to community development.

Empowerment, Equality, Liberty and Fraternity are the four themes which go hand in hand with mutual respect, dignity and social justice for every person.

Key Functions of PCF Committees:
Prof. Ramanujam believes that expertise and guidance provided by several international committee members on strategic planning and implementation of the events are keys to success of PCF ever year. The diversified local committees play a significant role in integrating, evaluating, selecting abstracts & papers and reviewing the conference progress. Moreover, they provided expert advice to the PCF6 secretariat on performing complex tasks on a daily basis. Their combined effort helped carry forward the simultaneous pre conference events and the grand finale in Cochin.

Significance of PCF6 for IGNOU:
IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) and COL (Common Wealth of Learning, Canada) jointly organized PCF6. This event coincided with the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of IGNOU that concludes on November 19, 2010. Several pre‐conference workshops were conducted by Commonwealth of Learning, IGNOU and many other institutions which commenced on November 18, 2010.

According to Prof. P R Ramanujam:

India as an emerging power should significantly focus of education. PCF6 will gain more importance in the wake of three major bills to be passed by the Indian Parliament on The National Council for Education and Research, Educational Tribunal Bill, and the Foreign Universities Bill.

In today’s world, PCF6 can offer considerable insights on reforming the educational agenda at all levels after passing the Right to Education Act.

West Bengal is the place for IT investment

Source: egov weekly, Delhi, Monday, 15 November 2010

West Bengal’s IT Minister Mr. Debesh Shah stated that the government expects huge investments and creation of 25,000 more jobs in the IT sector by 2010‐11. IT is the fastest growing sector with over 150,000 jobs created in 2009, only second to food processing in WB. Although issues related to land acquisitions had a minor impact, it did not stall the growth of IT in the state. Furthermore, Mr. Das added that recent considerable investments by Tata has burst the myth that Tata group of companies wouldn’t make any long term investments after their pullout from Singur.

Web Savvy Futuristic Indians – TCS Survey 2010

Confident, Optimistic, Career Oriented and Socially Connected – Yes, this article relates to Indian Youth.

TCS polled over 10,000 school students between the ages of 12 and 18 across 11 cities in India during 2009‐10 to understand the emerging trends for their second annual “The Web Generation 2.0 Survey”. Key results suggest that India’s youth are more likely to possess a mobile phone, seamlessly progress towards mobile internet, prefer spending time online and embrace social networking sites in a uniquely Indian way.

In terms of education preferences, though they have a pre‐conceived notion that the grass is greener abroad, many students have been considerable to the values of Indian education as well. Although young, they are focused on building key innovative skills and expect substantial salaries while considering future career opportunities.

Statistics illustrate that nearly half of India’s total population are under the age of 20, i.e. about 459 million, and are classified as youth (source: NCEAR).

According to Mr. Ajoy Mukherjee, VP Head, Global Human Resources, this sizeable generation would play an incredibly significant role in taking the nation in a positive direction.

He stated that the survey would not only help TCS choose the cream of the lot, but also provide guidance on communicating with this part of socially connected India.

Survey highlights elucidate that Google (85%) and Wiki (77%) are the ways of life for the students to source information. Home internet access is significant at 86% in the Metro and 79% in Mini Metro areas. 85% of them are ‘hooked’ on to one or more social networking sites. It should be noted that there are more Orkut users (71%) than Facebook (65%) users. It is not surprising that IT (81 %) & Engineering (80%) are conside

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