Highlighting the potential of the National Programme on National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), the Secretary said that the entire country can be made into a big classroom which will help improve quality of instructions in engineering colleges particularly belonging to the remote areas. He said that the Ministry may approach AICTE to make on-line education mandatory and integral part of education system. Asking to promote virtual lab, Thakur said it should be possible to share classes from IITs to other engineering colleges by making the system more user friendly.

Dr. S.S. Mantha, chairman, AICTE focused on promoting quality initiatives in the country. He said that rapid expansion in institutions has led to the decline in quality. The need of the hour therefore is to nurture quality in the institutions.

The one day workshop was organized by the HRD Ministry with AICTE. More than 150 engineering colleges from the National Capital Region of Delhi participated in the programme.

The post India to Open 50 Educational DTH Channels appeared first on Education News India.

As per the Regulations, only such Foreign Educational Institutions shall be allowed to collaborate and have twinning arrangement with Indian Educational Institutions which are accredited wth highest grade in their homeland. The collaboration shall be allowed with only those Indian institutions which are accredited by nationally recognized accrediting agencies with a grade not less than B or its equivalent in respect of institutional accreditation or a threshold level of accreditation in respect of program accreditation, as the case may be.

Any Indian Educational Institution or Foreign Educational Institution already having a collaborative arrangement shall comply with these regulations within a period of six months from the date of their coming into force.

Any collaborative arrangement, by whatever name, between a Foreign Educational Institution and an Indian Educational Institution, in violation of the regulations shall be declared as “unauthorized collaboration” and action shall be taken against such institutions as per the provisions under the Regulations.

A franchise arrangement, by whatever name, between a Foreign Educational Institution and an Indian Educational Institution shall not be allowed under these regulations.

With the notification of these regulations, no Foreign Educational Institution or Indian Educational Institution shall establish or operate its educational activity in India through collaboration leading to award of degree(s) and postgraduate diploma(s) without express permission or approval of the commission.

Any dispute arising in regard to collaborative arrangement between Indian Educational Institution(s) and Foreign Educational Institution(s) shall be governed by the Indian law.

The UGC has so far not approved any proposal for collaboration with any foreign educational institution under these regulations.

The post UGC’s regulations on Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Educational Institutions appeared first on Education News India.

It will be chaired by the Minister of Human Resource Development (ex-officio) with Chairman and Directors of the four NITTTRs and other academicians as members.

The Council will act as an advisory body to the Central Government on matters relating to Central policies, administration, development of plans and rules, curriculum and institutional resources for the NITTTRs. The Council shall meet at least two times a year.

The four NITTTRs were established as resource institutes in the year 1964 to train technical teachers, develop curriculum and institutional resources, assist Central and State Governments and technical institutes towards improving related process and products.

The post Council of National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research constituted appeared first on Education News India.

Regarding setting up of Model Schools in the educationally backward blocks, the center has already sanctioned 18 model schools and proposal for another 11 schools are under the Ministry’s active consideration. Bundelkhand area in UP has 41 blocks listed as EBBs and remaining 7 blocks are non EBBs. On the status of Kendriya Vidyalayas in the region, only 4 of the 7 KVs are functional.

47% of primary schools and 52% of upper primary schools are not covered under Mid Day Meal Scheme.

The UP State Basic Education Minister Ram Govind Chaudhary is seeking regularization of 64000 siksha mitra – teachers on contract in schools.

The post Central Government Sponsored Educational Schemes in UP appeared first on Education News India.

Under the proposed Rules, Foreign Educational Institutions (FEIs) can set up campuses in India once the FEIs have been notified as Foreign Education Provider (FEPs) by the UGC. FEI have to fulfill of certain eligibility conditions. Any FEI which intends to set up a campus in India would do so through an association to be registered as a company under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. The FEI shall be ranked among the top 400 universities of the world as per the ranking published by Times Higher Education, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) or the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

All FEIs intending to apply under the Rules shall be not-for-profit legal entities, which have been in existence for at least twenty years and accredited by an accrediting agency of that country or in the absence of its accreditation in that country, by an internationally accepted system of accreditation. The FEP will offer programmes of study or courses to be of quality comparable to those offered to students in its main campus.

Each FEI before being notified as an FEP would be required to maintain a corpus of not less than Rupees twenty five crores. The Rules also provide for penalties ranging from Rupees fifty lakhs to Rupees one crore for FEP who contravene any provision of these Rules or UGC Act, and the forfeited of corpus fund. The degrees awarded by these FEPs would be treated as foreign degrees only and the same shall be subject to the equivalence accorded by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) as per their system.

The post India formulating rules for foreign universities campus & foreign degrees appeared first on Education News India.

As per the CABE committee (Central Advisory Board of Education) constituted on the issue of quality teaching, there are concerns on availability of teachers, quality deficit in teaching, issues of contract teachers, teacher absenteeism, teacher accountability, poor quality teacher training institutions and representation of socially disadvantaged categories in teaching profession.

UGC on its part has placed two proposals for teachers training. In the first proposal, UGC has proposed setting up of Regional Centres of Educational Management in the Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Bangalore and in the National University of Educational Planning and Administration. The second proposal recommends establishment of Centres of Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education in leading national level institutions including Indian Institute of Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research etc. for development of specialized cadre of academy of teaching and teacher educators.

National Mission on Education through ICT is also an important component of the proposal. ICT is proposed to enable teachers to deliver quality content and teaching.

National Mission on Teachers & Teaching (NMTT) was set up on 12th March, 2012. Quality of teaches have been traditionally lacking and India has witnessed a rapid growth of educational institutions in recent past. Currently there are around 15 lakh schools, and around 50,000 Higher Education Institutions. As per 2012 data, elementary stage alone required around 41.9 lakh teachers in position, and there is a requirement of another 12 lakh teachers. In secondary education quality teaching is lacking particularly in regard to teachers of Science, Mathematics, and English. States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Odisha are facing shortages. As per the estimates, around 36% faculty positions in Central Institutions, including IIT’s, and IIM’s, are vacant, and around 40% to 50% teaching positions in State Universities are vacant. There is a large number of untrained teachers and an inadequate number of Teacher Education Institutes.

The post National Mission on Teachers and Teaching to be launched shortly appeared first on Education News India.

Other Backward Classes has 27% quota only in central Government Institutions/ Universities. The benefit of reservation can be extended only to the OBCs included in the Central List and the implementation of reservations for OBCs has to be without any change in the seats available for Unreserved Category.

Further, the regulations of Medical Council of India’s (MCI) provides that for both PG and UG, 3% seats of the annual sanctioned intake capacity shall be filled up by candidates with locomotors disability of lower limbs between 50% to 70% and in case the quota remains unfilled on account of unavailability of such candidates then such unfilled seats shall be filled by candidates with locomotors disability of lower limbs between 40% to 50%.

The post Quota for undergraduate and postgraduate medical seats in India appeared first on Education News India.

Geospatial Technology facilitates planning, implementation, and monitoring of projects of national importance. Realizing the significance of Geospatial Education, a National Task Force on ‘Evolving Education Strategy’ was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) under the Chairmanship of Dr K Kasturirangan. The Task force now has come up with its recommendations on overall issues with Geospatial Education in the country at School Level, University level, Training and outreach needs, need for high end research, and also the possibility of setting up of an institution for Geospatial education.

Dr. K Kasturirangan highlighted the salient points of the Report. He said that National Task Force has given a four-pronged recommendations on Geospatial Strategy which includes (i) School Geospatial Education Project (SGEP) led by the Department of School Education, MHRD; (ii) Geospatial University Networking Project (GUNP) led by the Department of Higher education, MHRD; (iii) Geospatial Training and Outreach Project (GTOP) led by Department of Science & Technology (DST); and (iv) National Institute of Geospatial Knowledge, Engineering and Management (NGKEM) led by MHRD and DST. He further mentioned that a high-level management council is also recommended with Minister, MHRD as Chair and Member (Science), Planning Commission as Co-chair, with various Secretaries as Members and experts as Members, for guiding and supervising the implementation of recommendations.

The post Report of the National Task Force on Geospatial Education in India appeared first on Education News India.

There are five central IIHT’s located at Varanasi – Uttar Pradesh, Salem – Tamil Nadu, Jodhpur – Rajasthan, Guwahati – Assam and Bargarh -Orissa. Some state governments have also set up IIHT’s with partial support from central government. This includes Shri Pragada Kotaiah Memorial Indian Institute of Handloom Technology Venkatagiri – Andhra Pradesh, IIHT Kannur – Kerala, Karnataka Handloom Technology Institute Gadag-Betagiri -Karnataka, IIHT Champa – Chhattisgarh.

Handloom industry in India uses labour intensive techniques. The total number of people currently employed in this sector/industry is 43.32 lakhs as per the census of 2009-10.

National Institute of Fashion Technology is an apex training institution and does not participate in the Integrated Skill Development Scheme administered by the Ministry of Textiles, in imparting basic skills training to unemployed textiles workers. The NIFT Establishes its campus under section 7 (2) (b) of the NIFT Act, 2006, according to which the Board of the Institute has power to Establish NIFT Campus. Indian Institute of Handloom Technology provides infrastructure back up in the vital areas of applied research, service and training.

The post Indian Institute of Handloom Technology proposed at Shantipur – Nadia appeared first on Education News India.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 mandates the provision of free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years and over time, its continuing implementation will have a positive effect on higher education too. Most eligible habitations in the country have been provided with neighbourhood schools, residential school or transportation facilities, to provide access to elementary education. As per the District Information System for Education (DISE), the enrolment of children at the elementary level has increased from 18.77 crore in 2008-09 to 19.90 crore in 2011-12 which will further enhance the demand for higher education.

The schedule to the RTE Act had specified norms and standards for schools for which considerable progress has been made by all the States and UTs with regard to meeting the standards given in the schedule to the RTE Act, 2009. As per the DISE 2011-12, in Government and Government aided schools 59.05% schools had a Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) as prescribed; 65.35% of the schools had girls’ toilets; 87.81% had boys’ toilets; 94.26% schools had drinking water; and 61.66% had ramps. The focus of SSA – RTE is on improving quality of education so that students passing out of elementary schools are able to pursue secondary, senior secondary and higher education.

The post RTE Act and Higher Education in India appeared first on Education News India.