Following is an excerpt from a report in Asian Age.
… 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.
February 13th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
Following is from their page http://www.ncte-in.org/theintro.htm.
National Council of Teacher Education
AT A GLANCE
INTRODUCTION
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.
February 10th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
Update: MHRD thinking of SAT/GRE style staggered exams.
This is a good move by MHRD. Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph about this.
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.
February 9th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
Following is an excerpt from a report in New Indian Express.
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.
February 8th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
Following is an excerpt from a report in New Indian Express.
… 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.
February 7th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
Following are excerpts from a report in Business Standard.
Said D Acharya, director, IIT Kharagpur, “We have lined up huge expansion plans. Being the oldest IIT, our infrastructure is old. We plan to increase the strength of students from the present 7,000 to 20,000. We also want to increase the pool of faculty from 600 at present to 2,000 in the next 10 years. We plan to launch free engineering courses for students and also devise a programme for the training of teachers.”
Following is a quote from an Indian Express report.
In the next five years, the institute plans to increase its intake of students from the present 7,000 to 12,000. By 2017, it plans to increase its strength to 24,000.
While part of me is excited about this development in my alma-matter, I am worried that this will add to the imbalance of higher education spread across India. Earlier IIT Kharagpur had proposed to achieve this expansion by having branch campuses in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar. That would have spread the higher education opportunity across a larger geographical area. But MHRD stopped it and now the plan is to expand in place. This would definitely save some cost but will add to the existing inequity.
February 4th, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
On Feb 2, 2008 9:43 AM, Krishna Murari <kmacharya@…> wrote:
Please see the attached message. Am afraid, the Oriya paper got it completely wrong.
-Special Secy, MHRD
======= His message is below my reply to him. ======
Dear Mr. Acharya:
It is very easy for some one in Orissa to believe that you said what is reported to have been said in Samaja.
Already, your minister Mrs. Purandareswari said something similar. See http://www.indianexpress.com/story/30436.html where it is reported that she read a list of institutions in Orissa that have central assistance to justify why Orissa should not have given an IIT. If she, or the staff who wrote that response, had bothered to compared this with other states, which we did (please see http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol1/state_wise_national_lab.pdf ) she/they would have found that other states have much more such institutes and this reasoning is yet another attempt to harm Orissa by the MHRD.
In general, people all over Orissa have developed a deep distrust of MHRD for reason listed below. From your past actions we are very apprehensive that MHRD will find or make up some reason or other to deny an IIT to Orissa or just deny without any explanation.
This is despite the fact that:
(i) Orissa is now is at the bottom of per-capita spending by MHRD in marquee institutions. In our earlier calculation, reported nation wide (see http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol0/2006%2002%2014%20ht-mhrd-spending.pdf and
http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol0/2006%2002%2012%20asian-age-mhrd-spending.pdf ) and in International Herald Tribune, Bihar and Rajasthan were below Orissa and they were rightly given an IIT. But then Orissa was skipped for the 3rd and 4th new IIT announcements.
(ii) Orissa is at the bottom of higher education enrollment at about 6.1% and needs to cover the largest gap to get to the 11th plan goal of 15%.
(iii) Orissa is the 9th largest state in area and 11th largest in population. (Note that the 8 new IITs will take the total # IITs to 15.)
(iv) Orissa is among the most backward state of the country in most parameters and has the most backward district cluster (KBK districts made up of almost half the size of Orissa) in the country.
(v) Orissa has a vast population of tribals.
(vi) Orissa is trying its best to industrialize and is among the lead in recent ASSOCHAM studies regarding investment destinations.
(vii) The people of Orissa, its MPs, and its CM have been trying very hard for several years now to convince MHRD and the PM about an IIT in Orissa, but without any results. Please see the media articles stored at http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol0/ , http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol1/ , http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol2/ , http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol3/ to know the involvement of every one in Orissa on this. This is very very different from any other state asking for an IIT. Nowhere, the intensity and passion comes even close.
Now let me give you the reasons why people in Orissa have a deep mistrust towards MHRD and believe that MHRD is actively working to keep Orissa down and harm it.
A. MHRD took away a previously announced (by the President) NIS from Orissa. The MHRD fought tooth and nail with Orissa in the political arena (parliament), in courts (Cuttack high court and supreme court), and other places on the NIS issue. And it never gave Orissa the NIS it had taken away which are now called IISERs. MHRD gave them all to its favored states (Pune, Kolkata, Punjab, Bhopal and Kerala.) See http://iit.orissalinks.com/vol1-nis/ and http://iiser.blogspot.com for the press articles and chronology of this.
Thank God, India has a prime minister who has some shame, who sanctioned NISER from his ministry, the DAE. Despite that NISER’s approval in the cabinet was delayed and even now other hurdles have been put that continues to prevent NISER from recruiting regular faculty.
B. The following is a partial list of higher education institutions funded by MHRD that MHRD has announced since this government came. Sir: Can you please find Orissa’s name in it?
1. IISER Kolkata, West Bengal (1)
2. IISER Pune, Maharashtra (1)
3. IISER Mohali, Punjab (1)
4. IISER in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (1)
5. IISER in Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala (1)
6. IIT in Andhra Pradesh (1)
7. IIT in Rajasthan (1)
8. IIT in Bihar (1)
9. IIM at Shillong, Meghalaya (1)
10. SPA in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh (2)
11. SPA in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (2)
12. Upgradation of Bengal Engineering and Sc U to an IIT clone (IIEST), West Bengal (2)
13. Upgradation of Andhra Univ Engineering College to IIT clone (IIEST), Andhra Pradesh (3)
14. Upgradation of Osmania Univ Engg College to IIT clone (IIEST), Andhra Pradesh (4)
15. Upgradation of IT BHU to IIT clone (IIEST), Uttar Pradesh (1)
16. Upgradation of Cochin Univ of Sc and Tech to IIT clone (IIEST), Kerala (2)
17. IIIT Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu (1)
18. Allahbad University made to a Central University, Uttar Pradesh (2)
19. Manipur University made to a Central University, Manipur (1)
20. Arunachal Pradesh university made to a Central University,Arunachal Pradesh (1)
21. Tripura university made to a Central University, Tripura (1)
22. New Central University in Sikkim, Sikkim (1)
23. CIEFL Hyderabad made to a central university, Andhra Pradesh (5)
24. Indira Gandhi Nationan Tribal University, Madhya Pradesh (3)
25. IIT in Himachal Pradesh (1)
This MHRD has announced TWENTY FIVE+ national institutions so far and Orissa does not even figure once in that list and I am sure you can figure out why people from Orissa completely distrust MHRD and its intentions.
C: Please read the following excerpt from the Orissa government press release on Oct 24 2005 where CM of Orissa discussed about a tribal university in KBK region of Orissa.
… In addition to this, Shri Patnaik also requested for establishment of a Central University for the KBK Region, which is one of the most backward regions in the country. He pointed out that there was a heavy concentration of the scheduled tribe and scheduled caste population in this region, which has a literacy rate below 50%. Shri Patnaik stated that setting up a Central University in the KBK region would go a long way in encouraging higher education among tribal population. He added that the university could also set up specialized centres for tribal development related studies, as tribal development was one of the biggest challenges facing the country today. Shri. Arjun Singh appreciated the rationale of having a Central University in the KBK region and sought a formal proposal in this regard from the State Government. He assured that this would receive high priority whenever the Central Government considers setting up of new central universities
Please compare it with the following about the proposed Indira Gandhi National Tribal University that came out in Hindu on 19th November 2006. (http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/19/stories/2006111900750900.htm) and it seems that the idea proposed by our CM was stolen by MHRD to establish a similar university with HQ in MP and Orissa was conveniently ignored and thus harmed.
- … The Indira Gandhi National Tribal University will encourage studies on tribal art, culture and traditions, forests and natural resources. Tribal students will be given priority in admission. … The D. Swaminadhan Committee, set up by the University Grants Commission, recommended the setting up of a varsity exclusively for promoting tribal culture and providing tribals access to higher education.
====
Thus MHRD is the ministry which not only has not given any national institute to Orissa but seems to have taken away two of them from Orissa: an NIS/IISER and the tribal central university which Orissa seem to have proposed first. Please look up a thesaurus to find out the adjectives used for some one who steals from the poorest of the poor. MHRD, because of its actions towards Orissa, deserves that adjective.
==
Since we do not have any trust in MHRD, we have to take things directly to the PM, Mrs. Gandhi, the planning commission and the people of India at large. There is no other option left for the weakest and the poorest and the most backward when the MHRD that is supposed to help it steals from it and tries its best to harm it and makes up ridiculous and false reasons for it.
We sincerely hope that either the MHRD will come to its senses or the PM and the planning commission will bring it into its senses so that MHRD grants at least
(i) an IIT to Orissa so that Orissa has one of the 15 IITs in the country (b) one of the 14 proposed world class central universities (c) one of the proposed 10 NITs (d) a tribal central university in KBK (out of the remaining 16 new central universities) for all of the reasons mentioned earlier in the mail.
[Again, Orissa is the 9th largest state in area, 11th largest state in population, has been historically funded the least by MHRD, has to bridge the largest gap from 6.1% to the 11th plan target of 15%, and among the states that is trying its hardest – by rapid industrialization- to get out of the bottom of everything.]
Anything less, we will know that MHRD is up to its tricks again, and despite the fact that the PM has increased the number of institutions to so many (8 new IITs taking the total to 15; 14 world class central universities; and 10 new NITs) that there is really no reason, except spite and intent to harm, to not give Orissa the above mentioned institutions.
sincerely and with best regards,
Chitta Baral
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Krishna Murari <kmacharya@…>
To: RAJESH MOHAPATRA <mahapatrark@…>
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:43:18 +0500
Subject: Re: Please don’t force Orissa to remain backward: Reaction to "No IIT for Orissa because it has NISER" – MHRD special secretary as reported in The Samaja
The statement apparently attributed to the Special Secretary, MHRD, in some sections of the Oriya press is completely wrong. No such statement -that because of the NISER, IIT would not be considered for an IIT – was ever made. What was actually said was that Orissa’s demand for an IISER was met by establishing a NISER there.
– Special Secy, MHRD
February 3rd, 2008
Author : Chitta Baral
