International Women’s Day (8 March) - a chance to tackle gender disparities in education

“This year’s International Women’s Day is inspired by the theme of ‘Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.’ This goes to the heart of UNESCO’s mission.”

--(Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO)

Concerning equal access to education how do women and girls fare? There has been undoubted progress – more girls are enrolled in school than ever before, from primary to tertiary education. Gender parity in primary school enrolment has greatly improved in the countries that started the decade with the greatest gender gaps. However, two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate adults are women and discrimination still continues: less than 40 percent of countries provide girls and boys with equal access to education and more than 55% of out-of-school children are girls. Special efforts – from recruiting female teachers to making schools more girl-friendly – are needed to redress the balance.

Girls’ and women’s education has a positive impact on the achievement of all the MDGs, from improved health and better prevention against HIV and AIDs to higher income. UNESCO emphasizes a gender-sensitive approach and works with Member States and partners to increase women’s literacy, develop curricula that challenge gender stereotypes and policies that promote of them participation in secondary and technical and vocational education. Learning materials about HIV and AIDS give girls and women the knowledge and skills to cope with the pandemic.

Most recently, UNESCO has promoted gender-sensitive approaches to literacy research, engaged in innovative new partnerships with the private sector and focused on the integration of girls into national technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes.

Source:http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/single-view/news/international_womens_day_8_march_a_chance_to_tackle_gender_disparities_in_education/

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

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

21st Century Tools for Iraqi School Children: UNESCO Launches Distance Learning

Satellite TV and an online educational resource are two new tools supporting education in Iraq. UNESCO, with the support of the European Union and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, announced the formal opening of The Iraqi educational Television (Iraqi Edu at Nile Sat) and The Iraqi Curricula Website (www.iraqicurricula.org) at a ceremony in Baghdad on Wednesday the 23rd of February, 2011.

“What make our present era remarkable are the number, variety and importance of means of communication and information in presenting information and ideas, in such easiness and high speed, in addition to the elements of suspense it carries in order to break the routine and benefit from previous experiences that contributed to the process development of the transfer of audiovisuals to the recipient” Minister of Education Dr. Mohammad Ali Tamim said in his speech.
 

Within The Educational TV programming, UNESCO established two TV production / broadcasting studios with a satellite transmission unit, produced 624 TV lessons, provided a total of 725 hours of externally produced TV programs for Iraqi students and produced 24 episodes of Abu Salam Family, an animated series of 24 episodes focusing attention on civic values, gender equality and human rights. In addition, UNESCO established a TV library and trained all the TV station staff each in his own specialty.

The Iraqi Curricula Website is an online resource with links to all relevant educational materials covering learning from primary to secondary schooling. Among the features of the website are resources for literacy, accelerated learning for students who have missed school and need to catch-up, along with teacher guidebooks and all of the Educational TV programs, including The Abu Salam Family series.

“Combined, the website and Educational TV, give school age children, no matter where they are in the world, an opportunity to learn. This is a commitment to learning for the children of Iraq and an investment in Iraq’s future,” said Mohamad Djelid, director of the UNESCO Iraq Office.

Since 2003, Iraq has struggled to resuscitate the education sector after years of neglect. “This commitment to education is about making a down payment on tomorrow,” said Mr. Jerzy Skuratowicz, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations, adding, “the progression is simple: education leads to opportunity, opportunity leads to progress, and progress leads to a brighter future for Iraq and the region.”
 

UNESCO, along with UNICEF, UN-Habitat, The World Bank and our Iraqi counterparts, has worked tirelessly to restore the reputation of the educational system that was once the most respected in the Arab world. These two resources immediately address the needs of students who have been unable to regularly attend class due to war or insecurity. The satellite TV programs have a regional footprint and by the nature of the internet, all Iraqis no matter where they live can access educational material and programs from a computer.
 

“The new educational TV will make the official curriculum available to everybody who has access to television. And here we are talking about almost 90 % of the population in Iraq and even more in the Diaspora.” Said Mr. Jobst von Kirchmann, EU - Head of Cooperation.
 

Source:

http://www.unesco.org/en/iraq-office/dynamic-content-single-view/news/21st_century_tools_for_iraqi_school_children_unesco_launches_distance_learning/back/9623/cHash/b0cdb12149/

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

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/