Special school for child laborers
Odisha.com reports on a special school for child workers that has been started in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
July 7th, 2007
Archive for July 7th, 2007
Cultural dimension of education
The book "Cultural dimension of Education" is a collection of essays available on-line on this topic.
2 comments July 7th, 2007
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan: EGS (Education Guarantee Scheme) and its follow-up
Quoting from http://ssa.nic.in/ssaframework/
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an effort to universalise elementary education by community-ownership of the school system. It is a response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country. The SSA programme is also an attempt to provide an opportunity for improving human capabilities to all children, through provision of community-owned quality education in a mission mode.
EGS is one of schemes that has been used for the above effort. Now that the central govt has asked some aspects of EGS to be changed the Orissa government plans to develop an alternative. The following article in Samaja elaborates on a proposal that is under consideration.
July 7th, 2007
SCB got back the 43 seats it had recently lost
Dharitri has reported that SCB has got back the 43 seats it had recently lost.
July 7th, 2007
Two central universities per state
Following are excerpts on this topic from a Business standard report:
The government has allocated Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in states which do not have one so far . The plan was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently.
Once these universities are in place, the government plans to have two central universities in each state.
“The government has set aside Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in 16 states that lack such varsities till now,” an official in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told Business Standard.
The allocation would take care of non-recurring costs like infrastructure and recurring costs like salaries and other yearly expenditures throughout the Eleventh Plan period.
“While Rs 60 crore is the non-recurring cost to set up a varsity, an yearly amount of Rs 12 crore would be made available for five years to take care of the recurring costs of a university,” the source said.
While estimates point that setting up one full-fledged central university costs around Rs 400 crore, the ministry expects the amount of Rs 120 crore to take care of the initial expenses like the construction of buildings and staff salaries. Since the state governments are expected to provide the required land, the amount is being considered sufficient for now. …
The source said that once the 16 universities were in place, the government would go ahead to set up two central universities in every state. There are 20 central universities in the country at present.
July 7th, 2007
Seven new IIMs, higher salary for professors etc.
Hindustan Times reports on further development on the HRD front with respect to the 11th plan. Following are some excerpts.
… Planning Commission recommending higher remuneration for faculty and mandatory curricula revision every three years.
The commission said the government should look at alternate ways to improve the wages of professors and to tap the large pool of teachers of Indian origin. "The faculty can get a share of the money earned from research projects for the corporate world. Even research students can earn from these," a government official said.
The commission also proposed that some faculty be recruited on salaries higher than government pay scales, on contract basis for five years with no assurance of automatic renewal. The contract system would be mostly for NRIs with special research funding support. Tenured appointments should also be available at a certain stage for professors achieving objectively set academic standards, Planning Commission vice-chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in a presentation to the PM. …
The government aims to bring two per cent students under the scholarship fold and double the number of junior research fellowships. This is aimed at improving research quality. It is also working on information communication technology for all 367 universities and on connecting 18,000 colleges through the National Knowledge Network, as recommended by the National Knowledge Commission, the commission said.
The commission also said it had given in-principle approval to the setting up of three new IITs, seven new IIMs, 20 National Institutes of Technology, five Indian Institutes of Science Education Research, 20 IIITs, two Schools of Planning and Architecture.
Lets elaborate a bit on the last sentence.
- The three IIT locations are announced as Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
- Among the seven new IIMs, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Shillong (Meghalaya) are three of the locations. The remaining four locations are as yet unrevealed. (This calculation probably does not take into account the recent news that IIM Lucknow is establishing a campus in NOIDA, in the New Delhi metropolitan area. Also, note that IIM Bangalore is making good progress towards establishing a campus in Singapore.)
- The 20 NITs are existing ones.
- The five IISERs are in Kolkata, Pune, Mohali (Punjab), Kerala and Bhopal.
- The 20 IIITs will be one in each of the major states.
- The two SPAs are announced to be in Bhopal and Vijaywada.
July 7th, 2007