Our sister site in Twitter is http://twitter.com/orissalinks. (Often when we are busy or do not feel like writing a full posting here, we post a micro-blog in our Twitter sister site. The Twitter sister site also automatically adds the headline from this site and the orissagrowth site. Once in a while we will collect those headlines here. But readers wanting a broader and more immediate coverage should consider following our Twitter site at http://twitter.com/orissalinks.) Following are some selected items from that site since July 12th.
Orissa govt. adopts AICTE-introduced Tuition Waiver Scheme for women, poor & PH students in professional institutions. http://bit.ly/BVJPs.
India will set up 2,500 new model schools designed after the existing state-run Kendriya Vidyalayas to provide quality education to students in "every block of the country".
"We are rolling out these 2,500 schools from August," said Arun K Rath, secretary in the human resource development (HRD) ministry.
"They will be quality schools like the existing Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs). Our ministry wants that all blocks across the country must have at least one model school," Rath told IANS.
…
"Every school will need an investment of Rs 30 million. While the central government will bear 75 per cent of the cost, the state governments’ share would be 25 per cent," the secretary said.
Rath said KVs are known for quality education and discipline. They have been doing well in both the Class 10 and Class 12 board examinations. "We have modelled these new schools after KVs to keep the education record high."
…
He said all these would be co-educational schools and set up over a period of three years. "The selection of students will be taken care of by the state governments."
"We want to make sure that all deserving students have access to some good schools," he said.
Rath said apart from these 2,500 model schools, the HRD ministry was in talks with private parties to set up 2,500 additional model schools on a public-private participation (PPP) model.
Ashram Schools in tribal areas is another central govt. scheme. However, as the following PIB shows, Orissa has not been taking advantage of it in recent years. (Orissa did take advantage of it in the past.) Its not clear if this is because Orissa decided to focus more on the Ekalavya Vidyalayas as in case of the Ekalavya Vidyalayas the funding is 100% from the central govt. while in case of the Ashram Schools the funding is 50% central and 50% state. In any case, here is the recent PIB on Ashram Schools.
Ministry releases grants to the States for construction of Ashram School in Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) Areas, boys and girls hostels and Post Matric Scholarship is a continuous process. The grant-in-aid is released only if the proposals are complete in all respects including availability of land free of cost, confirmation about availability of matching share in the State budget, Utilization Certificate for grants released in previous years and physical progress reports in respect of proposals sanctioned in previous years and the availability of funds.This was stated by the Minister for Tribal Affairs, Shri P.R. Kyndiah in a reply to a question by Shri M.A.M. Ramswamy in Rajya Sabha today.
The scheme-wise and year-wise funds released to States/UTs including Karnataka during last three years are as follows:
Grant in aid released under the scheme of Ashram Schools in TSP Areas
S.No.
Name of State/UT
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
Amount
Amount
Amount
1.
Gujarat
86.49
200.00
156.52
2.
Madhya Pd.
300.00
200.00
624.01
3.
Karnataka
77.51
150.00
400.00
4.
Maharashtra
86.00
50.00
256.71
5.
Chattishgarh
0
0
112.76
Total
550.00
600.00
1550.00
Grant released under the scheme of Boys/Girls Hostel to various State Govt. during the last three years.
The Government of India has sanctioned 2180 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayasin the country till March, 2007. A list of the KGBVs sanctioned, operational and girls enrolled in them is annexed.
A National Evaluation of the KGBV scheme was conducted through independent experts on girls education in February, 2007 covering 12 States who have found the overall working of the scheme satisfactory. The Report of the National Evaluation is available on website www.ssa.nic.in .
1.
Annexure
Statement showing the number of KGBVs sanctioned, operational and girls enrolled in them State and Union Territory wise as on 31st October, 2007
This information was given by Shri M.M.A Fatmi, Minister of Human Resources Development in the Lok Sabha today in a written reply to a question by Shri Tukaram Ganpatrao Renge Patil and Shri Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy.
The PM’s independence day speech will be remembered for a long time for its groundbreaking educational steps. Here, we analyze them vis-a-vis Orissa.
K-12
"We will support 6,000 new high quality schools — one in every block of the country" [Orissa has 314 blocks. Currently the central govt has three kinds of schools: Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Ekalabya Vidyalayas. My guess is these will be Navodaya Vidyalayas. Until now, Navodaya Vidyalayas were being made one per district. Extending it to one per block will do wonders.]
Higher education
"We will also ensure that adequate numbers of colleges are set up across the country, especially in districts where enrollment levels are low. We will help States set up colleges in 370 such districts." [Orissa has 30 districts. As per the NSSO study of 2004-2005, Table 3.14.1 shows that in the 15-19 age group 29% people in Orissa are attending school/college and in the 20-24 age group this number for Orissa is 6.1%. (Both numbers are lowest among all but the small states/UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep.) For the Scheduled Tribe population these numbers are 17.1% for the 15-19 age group and 4.1% for the 20-24 age group.]
"We will set up thirty new Central Universities. Every state that does not have a central university will now have one." [Orissa does not have one so it should get one. But considering that there are 23 other existing central universities, making it a total of 53 central universities, Orissa should get two.]
"we are setting up five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research" [The five IISERs are at Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal, and Trivendrum. A NISER is being set up in Bhubaneswar.]
"eight new Indian Institutes of Technology" [Three of these IITs are announced to be in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Orissa should get one of the other five IITs.]
"seven new Indian Institutes of Management" [Announcements have been made with respect to Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Shillong. If Orissa gets a new IIT then its chance of getting a new IIM this round is much less. Orissa should try though.]
"twenty new Indian Institutes of Information Technology." [There will be one in each main states, including Orissa, which does not have one. Existing ones are at Allahabad, Amethi, Jabalpur, and Gwalior and a new one is being established at Kanchipuram. ]
Vocational Education
"We will soon launch a Mission on Vocational Education and Skill Development, through which we will open 1600 new industrial training institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics, 10,000 new vocational schools and 50,000 new Skill Development Centres."
"We will ensure that annually, over 100 lakh students get vocational training – which is a four-fold increase from today’s level."
More scholarships
"We should seek not just functional literacy, but good quality education – education that is affordable, accessible, equitable – and available to every boy and girl who seeks to study. For the needy we will provide more scholarships."
2180 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) have been sanctioned upto March 2007, which includes 1000 new KGBVs in 2006-07. 88% of KGBVs have been operationalised. A major national evaluation conducted this year has shown that the scheme has received ‘high priority and political attention in all States and has been launched in record time with a clear commitment to reach out to out-of-school girls. The programme has been very well received by the community and has responded to diverse poverty situations including remote inaccessible locations’.
From http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=28152
Raising public spending in Education; Commitment to universalise access to quality basic education; Revision of National Curriculum Framework for School Education; Strengthening Technical Education and Expansion of Higher Education are some of the highlights of the major initiatives of the Ministry of Human Resource Development during the last three years. These are:-
A press release mentions that the UPA government has opened 72 Ekalavya Vidyalayas in tribal areas across India. 10 of those are in Orissa. Each is constructed using an one time allocation of 250 lakhs towards school building, hostels, teachers’ quarters, library, laboratory etc. An annual grant of 30 lakhs is then given to run the school.
Dr. Manmohan Singh
South Block, Raisina Hill,
New Delhi, India-110011.
Telephone: 91-11-23012312.
Fax: 91-11-23019545/91-11-23016857.
email: pmosb@pmo.nic.in
http://pmindia.nic.in/write.htm
Mr. Arjun Singh
Ministry of Human Resource Development
Government of India Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi-110001
arjuns@sansad.nic.in
Mr. P. R. Kyndiah
Ministry of Tribal Affairs
Shastri Bhavan,
New Delhi-110001, India.
dirit@tribal.nic.in
cc: Smt. Sonia Gandhi
President: INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
24, Akbar Road, New Delhi 110011 ,
INDIA
TEL : 91-11-23019080
FAX : 91-11-23017047
10janpath@vsnl.net aicc@congress.org.in