Budget hike won't help education sector - Sibal

The 24 percent hike in the outlay for education announced in the union budget will not help the sector because what is needed is a change in mindset, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday.

"A 24 percent budget hike will not help the education sector. It is not just money allocation that we need, the country needs a change in mindsets involved in teaching, the quality of education and the education provider," Sibal said at the inauguration of the three-day Emerging Directions inGlobal Education (EDGE) conference in the capital.

"To change the dimensions of higher education in the country, we need a whole new crop of teachers who are responsible and willing to teach from their hearts," the minister added.

The annual EDGE conference brings together the heads of higher education institutions from all over the country, including vice chancellors, directors and educationists, to interact on policy making in the higher education sector. 

"While focusing on higher education, we also need to think of the diluting quality because of mushrooming institutes. The ministry has often done checks in such private institutions where the entire faculty is hired for a very short period to lure students," Sibal said, referring to the money minting business in the education business.

According to statistics by Ernst and Young, nearly 40 million students are expected to opt for higher education by the year 2020, compared to the current 17 million.

source:http://indiaedunews.net/Today/Budget_hike_won't_help_education_sector_-_Sibal_13671/

Sibal inaugurates E-certificate for UGC-NET qualifying candidates

New Delhi: Union Minister for Human ResourceDevelopment Kapil Sibal on Thursday inaugurated the 'e-certificate' for the University Grants Commission - National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) qualified candidates.

The minister also released a compendium of UGC schemes. The UGC has initiated steps for online registration of the NET examination so that all the necessary information with regard to the candidates is captured, including their photographs, at the time of registration itself.

The information thus captured is proposed to be used for the award of these e-certificates once the results are announced.

These e-certificates will cut down the time lag for issuing the certificate from 6-8 months to 6 days. Similarly, whenever an institution writes to UGC for verification of authenticity of the NET Certificatepresented by the candidates, the authenticity of thecertificate will now be done within a span of 24 hours as against the earlier 4 months.

The process of issuing the UGC-NET qualificationcertificate to successful candidates normally takes around 6-8 months, a cause of concern both to UGC and to the students.

Also, institutions wrote to UGC for verifying the authenticity of the NET Certificates being presented by the candidates at the time of admission to Ph.D. or at the time ofappointment in a College/University for the teaching assignment. This verification currently takes around 4 months another matter of great concern for all stakeholders.

In the compendium, 63 schemes of the UGC have been synoptically profiled, covering the objectives of each scheme, the criteria for becoming eligible to receive financial assistance from the UGC, the operational tenure of the scheme and the process of selection followed in approving the proposals, and finally the quantum of financial assistance that can be provided to execute the scheme.

The University Grants Commission conducts the national level test, viz-a-viz the National Eligibility Test (NET) twice in a year; in June and December to determine the eligibility for the recruitment of teachers as Assistant Professors in Institutions of Higher Learning and for the award of Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs).

The Test is conducted in 77 subjects at 74 Centres spread across the country. While the examination for the award of JRF is being conducted since 1984, the examination for determining the eligibility for Assistant Professorship is being conducted since 1989.

The number of Fellowships under the NET scheme has been increased from 2,000 to 6,400 per annum since 2010. In June, 2010, 10,433 candidates successfully qualified the NET for Assistant Professorship, including JRF.

source:http://indiaedunews.net/Today/Sibal_inaugurates_E-certificate_for_UGC-NET_qualifying_candidates_13636/

Delhi's slum children to get Australian degrees

Delhi's slum children will now be able to study in Australia under an exchange programme between the University of Melbourne and voluntary organisation Asha, officials said here Tuesday.

'This is going to be the first-of-its-kind Asha model as we focus on urban poor, mainly slum children, to give them access to higher education from a country other than India,' Asha founder Kiran Martin said.

A new India-Australia partnership to support the needs of Delhi's urban poor will operate in three areas - research, education and community engagement.

'This is going to be a unique programme in terms of catering to the needs of the urban poor, who can't even afford the basic education. We also aim at finding solutions to the needs of urban poor as we begin interacting with the students,' said Amitabh Mattoo, director of the University of Melbourne's Australia India Institute.

The collaborative programme will fund 40 projects during 2011 across areas such as resource and environment, contemporary India, regional relationships, health, education, economics and business.

'A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne, and Asha community health and development society has also been signed,' added Martin.

The programme will be launched by Human Resource and Development Minister Kapil Sibal here Wednesday.

Source:http://www.sify.com/news/delhi-s-slum-children-to-get-australian-degrees-news-education-ldbt4peddgb.html?scategory=education

CBSE CCE Result 2011 : Common Result for Board and Home Exam

Important: kindly note that schools would not communicate the marks of summative assessment – II to the candidates of class x under any circumstances.

As per the scheme laid down and communicated earlier, the board would be declaring the results of the candidates of class x in the month of may along with the results of board based summative assessment-ii, and will be issuing the uniform certificate to every student.

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Sibal moots institutional framework between NCERT and SCERTs

New Delhi: Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Kapil Sibal has mooted the framework for an institution that will be set up constituting of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs).

This framework could include the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council of Boards of School Education (COBSE) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) as invitees, and would be a mechanism for coordination, continuous flow of information and dialogue.

Speaking at a meeting of the Central and State Regulatory Institutions for School Education, the minister said that the focus of the framework institution would be on improving the quality of education throughout the country.

He also underlined that the effort of the educational administrators and curriculum developers should be to maximize standards rather than settling for minimum standards. He was speaking at a meeting of Central and State Regulatory Institutions for School Education, here today.

The minister stated that as per the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) teacher qualification norms under the Right to Education Act, Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) will be an essential qualification.

He said that while the NCTE is developing the standards and benchmarks for this Teacher Eligibility Test, state governments would be responsible for administering these tests and it is the responsibility of the state governments to ensure that these tests conform to high standards.

He further added that the institutional mechanism between NCERT and SCERTs should work towards developing question banks which could be used by states for their Teacher Eligibility Test.

The minister also talked about the development of the National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF). He said that "the government has begun a process of series of consultations with different industry groups to facilitate development of vocational curriculum as demanded by the needs/job requirements of these industry groups."

He called upon the state governments to identify skills specific to their states and develop curriculum for these skills.

The NCERT in its presentation, among other things, stated that the government is proposing to set up a 24x7 channel for teaching through information and communications technology (ICT).

The NCERT would be the nodal agency for this channel and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) would be the collaborating agencies.

The target audience for this channel would be school students in the 5-18 years age group, open education students and neo adult literates.

source: http://www.indiaedunews.net/Today/Sibal_moots_institutional_framework_between_NCERT_and_SCERTs_13384/