8 million children still out of school in RTE Act first year - April 1 is the first anniversary of implementation of RTE Act

New Delhi: The Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act which promises free and compulsory education to all children between the age six to 14, on Friday completed a year since its implementation. However, the fact that more than eight million children are still out of school shows that a lot more needs to be done.

Releasing the RTE report card in the capital on Friday, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said: "It's unfortunate that 81,50,619 children in the age group of six to 14 are still out of school. We have to bring all those children to school."

The report which analyzed the overall primary education scenario of the country, said that the total enrollment in the primary level in 2009-10 was 13,34,05,581 while in the upper primary level it was 5,44,67,415.

The percentage of girls enrolled in the primary level was 48.46 percent while in the upper primary level it was 48.12 percent.

The total number of elementary schools, government and aided, in 2009-10 was 11,20,968. And the total number of teachers was 44,77,429.

"21 percent teachers were found to be without professional qualification and nine percent schools were with a single teacher," Sibal said, citing the report.

"It was found that 508,000 additional teachers are required and in 2010 we approved the recruitment of 455,000 teachers," he added.

According to Sibal, the real problem now is no longer access to education but its quality.

"Access to education is no longer the real problem now, it's quality of education and for that we have set parameters under the RTE Act like infrastructure in schools, pupil-teacher ratio and professionally qualified teachers," he said.

The student classroom ratio across the country was found to 32:1. As many as 93 percent schools were found to have drinking water facility, 59 percent with girls toilet and 47 percent with ramps for the benefit of physically disadvantaged children.

Some of the not so encouraging figures came as far as the notification of rules in the states was concerned - 15 states had notified the rules and only 11 had constituted state commissions for protection of child rights, meant to monitor implementation of the Act.

"However the level of commitment in the states is good. This is just the first year, things will be even better next year," Sibal said.

Sounding excited about the latest census data, Sibal went on to say that India will be completely literate by the year 2020.

"The Millenium Development Goal says that India should achieve literacy rate of 72 percent by 2015 but we have already gone ahead of that figure. The census datasays that our literacy rate is 74.4 percent," he said.

"What is even more encouraging is that the female literacy rate has gone up by 12 percent," he added.

source:http://www.indiaedunews.net/Today/8_million_children_still_out_of_school_in_RTE_Act_first_year__-_April_1_is_the_first_anniversary_of_implementation_of_RTE_Act_13789/

Finance dominates IIM-Calcutta placements

The finance sector ruled the finalplacements process at the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) with renowned firms from the field making up 31.3 percent of the offers.

"IIM-Calcutta is known as the 'Finance Campus of India', and this year the finance sector contributed the largest number of offers, nearly 31.3 percent. Finance was closely followed by the consulting and marketing sectors," Pritish Gandhi, recruitmentcoordinator, IIM-C, told media persons here.

"International investment banks like UBS, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America hired students from IIM-C. Students have already received pre-placement offers (PPO) from firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland," said Gandhi.

"This year Japanese Investment Bank and Daiwa Securities recruited exclusively from IIM-Calcutta and extended offers to six students," said Gandhi

Consulting firms like Mckinsey and Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain and Company and AT Kearney and Essex Lake Group also recruited exclusively from IIM-Calcutta during the March 3-7 final placement process.

"All 383 students who participated in the placement process had successfully received job offers by the end of the fifth day," said Gandhi.

For students with considerable work-experience, lateral placements in senior positions saw a huge increase of 57.6 percent in the number of offers, up from 92 last year to 145 this year.

More than 50 firms participated in the lateral placement process, including recruiters like Barclays Bank, Olam International, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Shell.

They hired in "unprecedented numbers" after modest hiring or completely giving a miss to placements during the recession period, said Gandhi.

The highlight of the lateral placement process was the participation of private equity firm Gaja Capital, which recruited exclusively from IIM-Calcutta and selected three students. Additionally, MCap Fund Advisors also visited the campus for lateral recruitments.

The IIM-Calcutta this year also introduced "deferred placements" process wherein students who want to pursue entrepreneurship, work in social sector, join a government organization involved in national service or pursue higher education are allowed to sign out of current placement process and join it anytime in the next 3 years.

source:http://indiaedunews.net/IIM/Finance_dominates_IIM-Calcutta_placements_13670/

New test for teacher recruitment

At a time when there is an ongoing debate about the urgent need to restructure the teacher education programmes in the country, would-be teachers in schools will now have to write an eligibility test conducted by either the Centre or the State governments before getting an appointment letter.

Called the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) this examination is external and additional to any other qualification that an aspiring teacher would have. According to a National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) document (this can be accessed at the web site www.ncte-india.org) the rationale for the TET is

It would bring national standards and benchmark of teacher quality in the recruitment process.

It would induce teacher education institutions and students from these institutions to further improve their performance standards

It would send a positive signal to all stakeholders that the government lays special emphasis on teacher quality.

The TET would be conducted by a “suitable professional body” designated by the government concerned. All questions would in the MCQ mode, and each will fetch one mark. There would be four alternatives given out of which one would be the correct answer. There would be no negative marking in TET.

Those wishing to get appointed as teachers for Classes I -V would have to appear only for paper one of TET. This one-and-a-half-hour examination would have 30 questions each on Child Development and Pedagogy, language-1, language-2, mathematics and environmental studies.

Questions in Child Development and Pedagogy would be all about the “educational psychology of teaching and learning relevant to the age group 6-11 years,” the NCTE document notes, “They will focus on understanding the characteristics and needs of diverse learners, interaction with learners and the attributes and qualities of a good facilitator of learning.”

The ‘language-1' questions would focus on the proficiencies related to the medium of instruction in each State.

Language-2 will have questions from among the list of languages prescribed in the application form.

The questions on mathematics and environmental studies would give emphasis on the “concepts, problems solving abilities and pedagogical understanding of the subjects.” The questions would be evenly distributed over the syllabi prescribed by the respective governments.

For those wishing to get appointed as teachers in classes six to eight TET paper-2 is the examination to take. Here, it is compulsory to answer the questions on child development and on the two language options. For the math and science teacher there would be sixty MCQs of one mark each, for the social sciences teacher there would be sixty MCQs of one mark each. Other teachers can answer either the mathematics set or the social sciences set. The question papers shall be bilingual; in English and in a language decided by the State government.

Those who wish to be considered for appointment to any class from one to eight would have to appear for both paper one and two of the TET.

Minimum marks

Only a person who scored 60 per cent or more would be deemed to have passed the TET. Though weight should be given to TET scores during the recruitment process, the NCTE document also makes it clear that passing the TET is only an eligibility criteria and that it does not imply a right to get appointed.

The NCTE has recommended that TET be conducted at least once a year. Each government can decide the validity of a TET; in any case this should not exceed seven years.

Certificate

Each successful candidate shall be given a TET certificate which would incorporate adequate security features and would be electronically generated.

The current thinking is to make TET optional for serving teachers. However, they would be encouraged to write TET just to see where they stand on the skills scale.

source:http://www.hindu.com/edu/2011/03/08/stories/2011030850120300.htm

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 

US varsities taking holistic view of Asian students' applications

New Delhi: The focus is shifting from the entrance test scores to a holistic assessment of the profiles of Indian and Asian students aspiring to pursue higher education in the US and Canada, officials said on Saturday.

IDP Education India, one of the largest education placement companies in the world, is currently hosting global education fairs showcasing US and Canadian universities across the country for aspiring students.

"The universities are paying attention to other things than just test scores lately to judge aspiring Asian students seeking admission to American universities. They are trying not to penalize the profiles of students if they fail to log high scores in SAT, GMAT and GRE entrance tests," Luna Das, IDP Education's national manager for training and client relationship (North America), said at a press briefing here on Saturday.

Citing a recent instance, she said, "An Indian student who scored 580 in GMAT (Graduate Management Test Examination) applied to studymaster of business administration at the StanfordUniversity.

"Usually, one cannot expect a student with a GMAT score of 580 to make it to Stanford University. But the university took into account the student's exceptional credentials, professional experience, insightful essays, social work and contacts in the industry to decide that his presence would add value to the classroom."

She said the IDP expected to send nearly 250 Indian students to the US in 2011 fall term. The firm partners with 80 US universities and counsels students applying to 200 universities in America.

According to Mirjana Radulovic, international marketing and recruitment specialist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, "more and more universities in North America were adopting a holistic approach to admission than just relying on the entrance test scores".

Her university, which works with the IDP Education, was no exception.

"Many universities in Canada do not require entrance test scores. We assess students on their bachelors programme and high school scores," Radulovic said.

A tentative break-up of GMAT scores for outstation students for the year 2011 and the corresponding ranking of universities shows that non-American aspirants with an average score of 700 and above are eligible for US universities like HarvardUniversity, Stanford University, U-PENN (Wharton), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-Sloan), Northwestern (Kellogg), Columbia University , Berkeley,University of California, Yale and New York, says Learn Hub, a campus listing group.

A tentative trend of the average Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores for 2010-2011 shows that top US universities like the MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, Cal Tech, Harvard and Cornell require a aggregate of 1,200 and above.

Pointing out changing trends in technical education, Jeffery W. Grundy, director, office of international students and faculty of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said: "Students from India were more inclined to newer streams of technology like bio-informatics, bio-medical technology, electrical technology, pharma-tech and communication technology.

"Nearly 99 per cent of Indian students wanted to have work experience in the US," he said.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology has 670 Indian students in its fraternity of 1,250 students.

IDP has a network of 17 offices in 16 cities of India. "We are planning to set more centres in northeastern India and in Ranchi and Patna," a spokesperson said, adding that the "next two years would see at least 30,000 to 32,000 Indian students applying to foreign universities after a period of low following incidents of racial violence". IANS

source:        http://www.indiaedunews.net/Today/US_varsities_taking_holistic_view_of_Asian_students'_applications_13472/