Armed conflicts rob 28 million kids of education

New Delhi, March 2 (IANS) Calling it a 'hidden crisis', a UN report has found that armed conflicts are robbing 28 million children of their right to education while subjecting them to sexual violence.

The report, The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, prepared by Unesco warns that the world is not on track to achieve by 2015 the goal of providing education to all that 160 countries signed in 2000.

'In conflict-affected poor countries, 28 million children of primary school age - 42 percent of the world's total - are out of school,' said the report released Tuesday.

It warns that children in conflict-affected poor countries are twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday as children in other poor countries.

'Only 79 percent of young people are literate in conflict-affected poor countries, compared with 93 percent in other poor countries,' it said.

Over 43 million people are reported to have been displaced mostly by armed conflicts though the actual number is probably far higher.

Refugees and internally displaced people face major barriers to education, according to the report.

The report calls for a determined international response to tackle the crisis. 

 

Source:http://www.sify.com/news/armed-conflicts-rob-28-million-kids-of-education-news-education-ldcu4hchicd.html?scategory=education 

Bangalore most preferred job city for engineering students

NEW DELHI: Seven out of every 10 engineering students in India prefer Bangalore as their 'first job' city, ahead of the capital Delhi, reveals a survey.

According to employability measurement and recruitment firm Aspiring Minds Research Cell, about 72 per cent of the engineering students surveyed voted for Bangalore as the most preferred destination to work in.

"In India, Bangalore is the engineers' Mecca. It offers growth, options and a community of like-minded people. Bangalore has undoubtedly the largest base in terms of IT companies, opportunities and an existing engineering population," Aspiring Minds Founder and Director Himanshu Aggarwal said.

Bangalore was followed by Delhi, which was preferred by 32 per cent of the respondents, while Hyderabad was the favourite among 30 per cent of the students surveyed.

At fourth place is Pune, with 30 per cent of the respondents voting for the city, followed by Chennai, which was favoured by 23 per cent of students.

Mumbai was sixth in the list of preferred cities for engineers.

Regional preferences emerge strongly, as students from the South, West and North of the country voted for Bangalore, Pune and Delhi, respectively, as their favourite city. For easterners, Bangalore was the favourable option. Chandigarh and Mysore also emerged as preferred destinations for engineering students in the survey.

The survey took into account the views of 19,000 engineering students across India. It was undertaken to determine the city preferences of students and allowed the respondents to specify up to three cities. 

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/job-trends/Bangalore-most-preferred-job-city-for-engineering-students/articleshow/7610463.cms 

Exeter University becomes the first outside Russell Group to charge maximum fees

Exeter has become the first university outside the Russell Group to announce that it will charge the maximum £9,000 fee for a degree from next year, saying it will need the extra income to meet higher expectations from students.

Exeter, which follows Cambridge and Imperial College London in confirming plans to treble fees, also said it would offer fee waivers or bursaries for students from less well-off backgrounds. Ministers have said the maximum fee should only apply in "exceptional circumstances".

David Allen, Exeter's registrar and deputy chief executive, said: "By setting our fees at the £9,000 level we are able to continue to invest in the student experience, and spend a lot more money to bring in more people from less well-off backgrounds.

"We are talking about having more academic staff, improving the staff-student ratio, more contact hours. What we're doing is to try and give the best possible experience to our students."

Exeter is a member of the 1994 group of smaller research-intensive universities, which includes East Anglia, York and Leicester. Its decision will increase pressure on similar universities to opt for maximum fees to maintain their prestige. Some universities in this group are looking at whether to charge varying fees for different degrees.

Universities minister David Willetts said that institutions would only need to charge £6,000 to cover the costs of arts and humanities students, whose courses are cheaper than science or medicine.

He said: "The maximum allowable charge of £9,000 in 2012/13 would actually represent an increase for them of over 40% even after inflation, as against an increase of 20% or so for the other disciplines."

But Exeter said it would have to raise fees simply to maintain the same quality of teaching. Allen said: "Our own calculations show that we would need a fee of at least £7,000 just to stand still.

"I think you have to bear in mind there will be much higher student expectations, they will expect to see more staff, have better facilities, as more of the onus on paying for their education is coming on to them after graduating."

When fee waivers are taken into account, the average tuition fee would be less than £9,000, the university said. The fee announcement does not cover the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, which is a partnership between Exeter and Plymouth Universities.

The college lecturers' union, the UCU, said that the average fee needed to replace government funding cuts would be £6,863 for universities offering arts and humanities courses to break even. Sally Hunt, the UCU's general secretary, said: "Our own research shows to replace the money he [the government] has cut, the average fee needs to be almost £7,000. The government urgently needs to look again at the severity of its university funding cuts."

Universities could face a change in the law to stop some of them from charging students £9,000 a year if too many institutions are "clustering their charges at the upper end", the government warned last month.

• This article was amended on 2 March 2011. An editing error inserted references to Exeter as outside the top 20 in the Russell Group. This has been corrected.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/02/exeter-university-to-charge-top-fees

India rejects US offer for English teachers for Madrassas

The Indian Government has turned down an American offer to provide experts for teaching English in the Indian Madrassas.

The Human Resources Development department has flatly refused the US proposal of sending Americans to teach English to the Madtrassa schools in various parts of the country.

The US proposal, which came through the ministry of External Affairs, has been rejected on the ground that the Indian government does not want to interfere in the functioning of Madrassas. “Our policy is of non-interference. The Indian government does not play any proactive role and simply monitors educational schemes for Muslims through its minority cell,” Times of India reported quoting the HRD sources as saying.

In India many Madrassas, where Urdu is taught, have already started teaching English.

India has about 7,000 registered Madrassas with some 3.5 lakh students on their rolls.

Another reason, though unstated, is the fear of evoking a political outcry.

“US is seen as an aggressor by Muslims. Any attempt to bring American teachers in madrassas would have been seen as interference,” a source was quoted as saying.

Source: http://news.worldsnap.com/education/india-rejects-us-offer-for-english-teachers-for-madrassas-99985.html

India No. 4 in World's Best Education Destination list

It is an ill-kept secret that Indian education standards are among the best in the world. But now, it's official. India stands at number 4 in the list of most desired education destinations.

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the body which conducts GMAT recently conducted a survey, which pegged the United States and the United Kingdom at No. 1 and 2, but what has come as a real surprise is India's rank. The third most powerful Asian nation has been placed at the 4th most desired place to study management courses.

GMAT is one amongst the top B-school entrance test which is conducted at global level. Canada has secured the third position in the lot. Even Spain and Israel have appeared in the list among the top preferred destinations for B-schools.

 

Source: http://education.in.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4611231

France wants to 'reinvent' English language teaching from age three

Children could start learning English in France's nursery schools from age three as part of a strategic review of language education launched by education minister Luc Chatel.

Chatel announced last month that he wanted to "reinvent the learning of English" in schools. He said a team of specialists were examining a range of options aimed at boosting young people's skills in English and other foreign languages.

Specialists would investigate starting learning from age three, he said. "We have been experimenting with this and there have been some good results," he said.

He also wants to develop online language learning and to encourage more secondary school children to go on language-study trips to English-speaking countries.

But the minister's commitment to high-quality language teaching has been called into question. As part of cuts to education budgets announced last month, schools are likely to lose up to 1,000 specialist language assistants from classrooms from the start of the next academic year.

According to the Le Monde newspaper, educationalists are sceptical about using computers for language learning from such a young age. "Putting three-year-olds in front of computers?" asked Christian Chevalier, general secretary of the SE-Unsa teachers' union. "We are not opposed to developments in teaching that are useful. But you need a human to impart knowledge. Only a high-quality teacher who can speak English can teach the language," he said.

Source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/08/tefl-france 

CBSE board exams on, physics paper disappoints students

New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examinations started on Tuesday on a disappointing note to many, with several class-12 students complaining that the physics paper was too lengthy to finish in three hours. According to students, the physics paper, though easy, could not be completed as the questions marked 2 and 5 were a bit too lengthy.

"The paper was easy but lengthy and I could attempt only 70 percent of the questions," said a nervous looking Ankit Kumar, a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in the capital.

Some of the students found the questions twisted.

"There were no direct questions and we had to draw graphs in several questions. It took a long time. I only wish the other papers are not too lengthy," Rajul Pandey, a student of Balwant Rai Mehta Vidya Bhawan in Greater Kailash II.

According to teachers, students were not satisfied with their performance on the first day.

My students are really not happy. Most of them could not attempt all the questions," said Asha Singh, physics teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya, JNU.

Parents accompanying their wards were also seen trying to calm them down after the examination.

"I told my son to forget the physics paper and start preparing for the March 7 chemistry paper. I hope he does well from now on," Manisha Singh, mother of a class-12 student, said.

Some residential schools held prayer meetings for students appearing for the board exams.

"Before the start of the exams, we held a prayer meeting in the school and students chanted the 'Saraswati Mantra'," said a psychologist-cum-counselor with a residential school in south Delhi.

Over 1.8 million students are sitting for the board examinations across the country and abroad.

This year, 1,061,566 students of Class 10 will appear for continuous comprehensive evaluation (CCE) under the CBSE.

As many as 769,929 students - 454,131 boys and 315,798 girls - are appearing for class 12 board exams. IANS

 

Source:

 http://indiaedunews.net/Today/CBSE_board_exams_on,_physics_paper_disappoints_students_13623/

Germany expands nanotechnology funding with new action plan

Germany’s federal government recently introduced its Nanotechnology Action Plan 2015. The comprehensive approach extends and expands upon a previous programme, which provided 400 million euros in public funding for nanotechnology research in 2010 – the highest level in Europe.

“Nanotechnology reaches across industries and research disciplines. In Germany, excellent cooperation between academic institutions, research establishments, and industry players creates excellent chances for foreign investors. With nanotechnology, we can better address a range of global challenges from mobility and energy to healthcare and communication,” according to Rainer Mueller, Senior Manager for Nanotechnology at Germany Trade & Invest in Berlin.

German nanotechnology activities are the most intensive in Europe in terms of public and private funding, patents, active companies and targeted initiatives. With nearly 2,000 players, Germany is the European frontrunner in both research and commercialisation of nanotechnology products and processes. A total of nine national nanotechnology clusters have developed.

Source:http://www.german-info.com/edu_shownews.php?pos=Germany_expands_nanotechnology_funding_with_new_action_plan&pid=215 

Govt won’t rename UPSC paper

The government has refused to give a name to the first reform in nearly two decades in the way India selects its key civil servants. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Saturday notified the public notice for the changed civil services examination that will give at least 880 candidates the

dream job. About 4 lakh people apply for the prestigious examination every year and only half of them are able to take the examination.

The preliminary examination slotted for June 12 this year will be the first after the government changed the syllabus to incorporate what was dubbed as an "aptitude test".

Saturday's notification describes the alterations made to the syllabus for the preliminary examination but does not give it a new name (Civil Service Aptitude Test) — as proposed by the UPSC.

A senior government official told HT that the Department of Personnel and Training — the government's HR manager — had turned down the UPSC request.

"It was felt that even in its new format too, the examination did not really test the candidates’ aptitude… it just has a little more mathematics, English and logical reasoning," the official said.

source:http://www.hindustantimes.com/Govt-won-t-rename-UPSC-paper/Article1-664517.aspx

Education boost: Govt fails to make elementary sense

If one analyzes the fine print of the education budget, the finance minister's talk of " demographic dividend" is just big talk.

Increase in allocation to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)—the vehicle for implementing the Right to Education (RTE) Act—from Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 21,000 crore does not reveal the correct picture. Revised estimate for the SSA in 2010-11 had increased to Rs 19,000 crore after the RTE came into force. So, effectively, the increase is Rs 2,000 crore. Madhav Chavan of NGO Pratham said, "The overall increase in elementary education to Rs 29,000 crore from last year's Rs 26,000 crore is good enough only for inflation adjustment."

The bigger problem with elementary education allocation is the way the government has abdicated its responsibility. Nearly Rs 18,000 crore to elementary education comes not from gross budgetary support, but through Prathmik Shiksha Kosh—the non-lapsable fund where 2% education cess is collected.

Following protests from the HRD ministry, the mid-day meal scheme has got Rs 10,380 crore compared to last year's Rs 9,440 crore.

In higher education, institutions—mostly in poll-bound states—have got a one-time grant. These range from Rs 200 crore to IIT-Kharagpur to Rs 50 crore each to AMU centres in Bengal and Kerala and Rs 100 crore to Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. For Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development, TN, and Madras School of Economics, it is Rs 20 crore.

Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University expects to start work on a Hindi dictionary with a grant of Rs 10 crore.

Pre-matric scholarship for SC/ST students had been in the works for a long time. The FM's announcement is a step in the right direction. 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/union-budget-2011/Education-boost-Govt-fails-to-make-elementary-sense/articleshow/7598194.cms 

Class 12, 10 board exams begin Tuesday

  

New Delhi, Feb 28 : Over 769,929 students are set to appear in the Class 12 exam of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which start Tuesday, a board official said.
 

The Class 10 Board exams would also begin the same day.
 

Over 1,061,566 students will appear in Class 10 exams, almost 15 percent higher than last year, the official said Monday.
 

"A total of 454,131 boys and 315,798 girls will be appear in Class 12 board exams, while the Class 10 exam would be taken by 632,726 boys and 428,840 girls," a CBSE official said.

Source: http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-157900.html

Humanoids run world’s first robot marathon race

OSAKA, Japan: Robovie-PC, a toy-sized humanoid, won the world’s first full-length marathon for two-legged robots by a whisker Saturday, beating its closest rival by a single second after more than two days of racing.

Five bipedal machines began the non-stop 42.2-kilometre contest on a 100-metre indoor track in the western Japanese city of Osaka Thursday morning after doing knee bends or raising their hands to greet spectators.

One of the competitors retired after finishing only the first lap, but the others continued running day and night, getting up by themselves every time they fell to the floor or got into collisions with rivals.

Robovie-PC, 40 centimetres tall and weighing 2.4 kilograms stormed into first place with only a few laps to go after Robovie-PC Lite, which had established a comfortable lead and appeared to have secured an easy victory, suddenly locked up.

Robovie-PC Lite managed to return to the track and fiercely chased the leader, but after 422 laps Robovie-PC crossed the line in 54 hours 57 minutes 50 seconds, organisers said, one second ahead of its rival.

Their average speed was 0.77 kilometres per hour.

After the dramatic finish the two robots — both made by Vstone Co., a robot technology firm based in the industrial city which also organised the “Robo Mara Full” race – waved their arms and bowed, to wild applause from the crowd.

According to the event’s regulations, competitors were allowed to change batteries and the servomotors which control the robots’ speed and other functions.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/27/humanoids-run-world%E2%80%99s-first-robot-marathon-race.html

Higher education, lower blood pressure: study

"The study focused on systolic blood pressure over diastolic blood pressure because “systolic hypertension is substantially more common than diastolic hypertension, and systolic blood pressure contributes more to the global disease burden attributable to hypertension than diastolic blood pressure."


WASHINGTON: The more advanced degrees a person has, the lower their blood pressure, a study published online Sunday found.

An analysis of some 4,000 patient records from the 30-year Framingham Offspring Study found that, controlling only for age, women with 17 years or more of education — a master’s degree or doctorate — had systolic blood pressure readings 3.26 millimeters of mercury lower than female high school drop-outs.

Men who went to graduate school had systolic blood pressure readings that were 2.26 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) lower than their counterparts who did not finish high school, the study, published online in the open access journal BMC Public Health, says.

The same inverse relationship between education and blood pressure was also seen, although to a lesser degree, in men and women who got associate’s or bachelor’s degrees at university but did not continue on to graduate school.

They showed greater blood pressure benefits than high school drop-outs but lesser benefits than holders of master’s degrees or doctorates, the study found.

Even after controlling for influences such as smoking, drinking, obesity and blood pressure medication, the benefits persisted, although at a lower level.

The study could help explain the widely documented association in developed countries between education and lower risk of heart disease, said lead author Eric Loucks, an assistant professor of public health at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Blood pressure is “one of the biological underpinnings of heart disease,” said Loucks, urging policy-makers who want to improve public health to think about improving access to education.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/28/higher-education-lower-blood-pressure-study.html

University creates William and Kate scholarship

LONDON (AP) - The Scottish university where Prince William and Kate Middleton met and studied is giving the royal couple an early wedding gift - a scholarship in their honor.

The University of St. Andrews will present the scholarship Friday when the couple visits it to launch its 600th anniversary fund-raising campaign.

The scholarship - which has not yet been named - will pay for up to 70,000 pounds (about $115,000) in tuition costs, accommodation and living expenses for a four-year undergraduate degree in science, arts, medicine or divinity.

It will be open to applicants of all nationalities, and will be awarded annually to a student who would have been unable to attend the university without such financial support.

'This will be the first scholarship of its kind at St Andrews and a reflection of this university's commitment to ensure that we find, attract and support the most gifted students from anywhere in the world,' said Louise Richardson, the university's principal and vice-chancellor.

William and his fiancee will attend a reception at the university Friday and about 600 staff and students will greet them.

The couple studied history of art together and shared a house in the town.

William graduated in 2005 in geography after switching subjects, while Middleton graduated with a degree in art history.

Source:http://www.globalgoodnews.com/education-news-a.html?art=1298750679117948447

Education Series on Australia

Australian Trade Commission has plans to work for the energy and food security of India. Michael Carter, Consul-Commercial, Australian Trade Commission, who was here in connection with 'Australian Education Excellence Showcase 2011,' an education series organised by the Australian Government, said that some of the Indian companies already acquired coal mines in Australia.

“Australia has been known for advance agricultural practices and we are ready to transfer the same to India,” he said. In the educational sector, the Curtin University of Australia already entered in to a collaboration with Chennai Business School.

According to Carter, the collaboration with Indian and Australian Educational institutions will take a fast face once the Foreign Education Bill under the consideration of Indian Parliament is passed.Leading Australian universities participated at the education fair in Kochi to disseminate contemporary information about Australian education, especially on the academic programs, scholarships, student experience, safety measures and career paths in Australian educational institutions to prospective students from India.The showcase featured senior representatives and faculties from over 15 leading educational institutions from Australia, including the Curtin University, RMIT, Deakin University and University of Western Sydney.

Source: http://expressbuzz.com/cities/kochi/education-series-on-australia/251907.html

IIM-Calcutta to boost research and upgrade lab

The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) plans to utilize the Rs.20 crore special budgetary grant to help students do research in global finance markets and to upgrade its financial research and trading lab.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced the special grant to the IIM-C in the union budget he presented to the Lok Sabha on Monday.

"The money will help us upgrade our financial research and trading laboratory into a world class facility. The fund will also help students for further research in global finance markets," Ashok Banerjee, professor of finance and head of the lab, said on Monday.

The lab was set up on November 18, 2008, to support advanced applied research in financial markets and equip finance managers with the mathematical and conceptual theories.

"Lot of money is required for further research in the global finance markets. So, this money will help the students to a large extent," Banerjee told the sources.

"The grant will help us obtain important softwares and global market data. Right now this is going on a small scale. The special allocation will give a boost to our upgradation and research projects," he said. IANS

Source:http://indiaedunews.net/IIM/IIM-Calcutta_to_boost_research_and_upgrade_lab_13611/

Google to content farms: It's war

Google has set in motion the changes that it announced recently to combat "content farms"--companies that produce large amounts of inexpensive, search-engine-optimized content that have been frequently decried for their low quality.

But will there be sweeping changes in the way we view and navigate the Web? It's hard to tell just yet.

"In the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking--a change that noticeably impacts 11.8 percent of our queries--and we wanted to let people know what's going on," Google said in a blog post last week. "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites--sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites--sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."

Part of this strategy involves a Chrome browser extension called Personal Blocklist.

But Demand Media, the recent IPO at the forefront of the "content farm" controversy, said last week that it's been unaffected by Google's algorithm change, so far. "It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term--but at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact on our Content and Media business," Demand Media executive vice president Larry Fitzgibbons said last night in a blog post. Demand Media, nevertheless, leaves open the possibility that its content could be affected in the future.

Indeed, Google said the changes may not be visible immediately, especially as the modifications to its algorithm are currently affecting only U.S. users. "We're very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it's a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results," the Google blog post explained. "We've been tackling these issues for more than a year, and working on this specific change for the past few months. And we're working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results."

What's at stake for Google here is the fact that critics have said content farms are making search results less useful and less relevant. With pressure from the "social search" trend fueled by Facebook's success and from search rival Bing inching up in market share, this decision may be more pressing for Google than it appears at first glance.

Soource: http://www.zdnetasia.com/google-to-content-farms-it-s-war-62207115.htm

Government to connect 6,000 colleges with fibre optics

Kochi, Feb 27 : Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said the government would connect 6,000 colleges under 800 universities in the country with fibre optics to build an international highway of information.

Inaugurating the Latin Catholic Samudaya Sangamam here, he said the project was expected to be introduced throughout the country in the next three to four years.

Stating that the object of the project was to provide information to each and every one in the country, the Minister said once the connectivity was through the information to each and every one would be made available free of cost.

The Minister also said the ministry would encourage the students living in coastal areas to choose their own course of study and the government would provide certificates on Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE) system.

By doing this it would be able to give a right hand to lift these category of students from their backwardness, he added.

Mr Sibal also said the government would introduce new devices to know the quantity of fish concentrated in an area for the fishermen, which ultimately would help them to have big catch.

Earlier at a function in Kalamassery while pointing out that there will be a global opportunity as India would be providing the workforce of the world by 2050, he said the country would be the hub of knowledge.

Source:http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-157226.html