Enthused by the success of the Computer-Aided Learning Programme
(CALP) for the government-run upper primary schools across Gujarat, the
Modi government has set a target of covering over 14,000 more schools
under the programme this year.

Under the programme, each of the upper primary
schools is provided with a lab equipped with six computer sets and
furniture. Also, compact discs (CDs) containing specially designed
animated pictorial software and other teaching contents related to
different subjects like maths, science and geography are provided.

“There are around 22,000 government-run upper
primary schools across Gujarat, and we have already set up computer
labs in as many as 4,871 schools. For the new target, the government
has made a budgetary provision of Rs 84 crore,” said Meena Bhatt, state
Project Director (District Primary Education Programme).

Bhatt told Newsline on Saturday that the Gujarat
Informatics Limited (GIL) – the government’s IT arm – will soon invite
bids from private firms to supply computers, software and furniture to
set up labs in schools. The GIL has been assigned the task of inviting
and finalising tenders, and procure hardware and software from the
parties.

In the first phase that covered 4,871 schools,
the government had engaged three leading private firms – Delhi-based
Educom, Chennai-based Teledata and Avronn – for setting up the labs in
these schools on the build, operate, own and transfer (BOOT) basis.
During the five-year BOOT period, the companies are also facilitating
teachers’ training.

“We hope to cover all 22,000 upper primary schools
across the state in the next two years. Besides, each of these schools
is being provided with the satellite-based KU band. This envisages to
enable students to have an easy access to even learning/teaching
programmes being aired from the Gandhinagar-based Bhaskaracharya
Institute for Space Application and Geo-Informatics (BAISAG),” said
Anita Karwal, Primary Education Secretary.

The government had launched the CALP programme
with the objective of making students computer literate, besides
enhancing quality learning/teaching in these schools. Besides, the
programme aims at encouraging parents to send their wards in
government-run schools, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas. The
programme has helped reduce the drop-out rate in most of the schools
where it is already being implemented, claimed a senior officer.

The CDs containing animated software with
interactive features in Gujarati help both the teachers and students in
the teaching/learning process, especially while dealing with nagging
subjects like science and maths.

“At the computer lab, a science teacher finds it
easier while explaining to the students the various functions of heart
through an animated 3-dimension pictorial software than teaching the
same on the blackboard in a class room. Even students find it easier to
learn difficult chapters in science and maths through this unique
computer-aided programme,” said the officer.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs

How do you view the future of low-tech tools such as desktop
publishing software, and is there a worthwhile space for publishing
tools in today’s curriculum?

This would have been an easy question, if it weren’t for the word “future“.
Pondering what the future of education and the use of low-tech tools
may be is an exercise in analyzing complicated concurrent events!

Let’s look at the low-tech desktop publishing software individually.
The innovation of software is the ease in which anyone can access it -
for free - through Web 2.0 websites. The power of Web 1.0 was commerce.
The power of Web 2.0 is people. Empowering people to connect,
communicate, and create information is the strength of Web 2.0. Web 2.0
websites crop up in beta formats with the direct desire to create a
tool that will work for the people who desire to use it. Innovation of
the tool is styled by everyday people with everyday purposes. These
purposes lean heavily toward applications for the business world. Check
out the Web 2.0 Summit 2008
website and note how much of the summit is geared toward educational
interests. Nada. The future of software technology is definitely not
low-tech desktop publishing software. Not for business. But, what about
education?

The Web 2.0 Summit 2008 is narrowing its focus this year to this
question, “How can the web, its technologies, its values, and its
culture be tapped to address pressing opportunities?” This question is
based on the assumption that complex systems are reaching their limits.
Complex systems like: financial markets, healthcare, religious wars.
From harnessing collective intelligence to a bias toward open systems -
worldwide issues could approach solution through innovative Web 2.0
social movements.

How far away from understanding the value and essential nature of
digital information can the United States educational system be? While
our “complex system” discusses how to integrate technology within
strict guidelines, control, and restraint - the world is opening up.
The question becomes, “As a complex system has education as we know it
reached its limit? “

David Warlick,
posed this question to NECC 2008 attendees, “What do you believe are
the fundamental disruptive conditions that are demanding a new kind of
educational institution?” Two interesting responses follow:

From Lee Kobert: “This may be politically incorrect, but I believe
the compulsion to be politically correct in every area, really
shortchanges the kids. The desire to avoid conflict, and perhaps
litigation, at all cost in our schools has caused us to do bizarre
things in the name of “increasing graduation rates” or “protecting the
feelings” of our children. For example, we’ve removed playground
equipment and snuffed out recess from the elementary school day, banned
awards ceremonies because not everyone gets an award, locked down
Internet sites based on a single parent’s complaint, changed the
content of history books and give extra credit for bringing in cans of
food for food drives. The top-down pressure has caused our creative
teachers to cower in the corners of their classrooms, waiting for the
door to close so they can teach away from the worksheets and #2 bubble
forms. I imagine an education institution where project-based learning
and the whole student is allowed on the educational playground, even if
he/she may get a bruised knee!

And this from Barbara Jansen:

“Another disruptive condition is the prevalence of technology in the
workplace–not just using Microsoft Word, but using technology to solve
problems and redefine the traditional ways of doing business, from
conducting research to communicating with clients. Traditional
administrators and teachers (those who still teach the way they learned
in high school and college in the 1950s-mid 90s) sometimes have a
difficult time seeing a need for, and identifying how 21st century
skills fit into their curriculum so that we can prepare students for
success in the workplace. State educational learning standards are far
behind the real world. It can take ten or more years for a state to
update standards, then many more for them to actually filter down into
the curriculum that is actually taught. How can we expedite this
process?”

If we believe that desktop publishing as we know it, is a thing of
the past for the business world, can it still have significance for
education? And, better still - should it?

The answer lies in your fundamental beliefs about education. Is
“good enough” enough? Is what is easy, the best? Is teaching to the
test, education? I think China answered a resounding, “No!” to “all of
the above” when they procured an e-learning deal with the UK. From the BBC,
“Education and training are increasingly being seen as an important
export market - with a report last week claiming that it was earning
more for the UK economy than financial services or the car industry.”
The United Kingdom’s innovative e-learning techniques have rendered
them a leader - and the United States - a follower. Our educational
systems recreate the wheel in each individual state - we do not
collaborate between states to create a collaborated curriculum - how
can we merge into collaboration with the world?

So then, is there a space for publishing tools in today’s
curriculum. Yes. Students must learn how to publish their thoughts into
dynamic presentations that may include: newsletters, magazines, flyers,
and brochures. The digital formats that desktop publishing allows can
introduce students to the Internet as “information provider” platform
(Web 1.0). Our need for present day desktop publishing amplifies our
loss of opportunity to collaborate with others in Web 2.0 applications.

I leave you with this, “How can the web, its technologies, its
values, and its culture be tapped to address pressing opportunities in
education?” The answer lies among the collaborative technologies of Web
2.0. Perhaps we should be on the invitation list for Web 2.0 Summit
2008 for our students’ sake.

June 28, 2008

This Conference will be a meeting of minds to primarily discuss on
significant issues which focus on multidisciplinary perspectives in
higher education. The conference will provide a vibrant scholarly space
to critically and creatively engage with new ideas and research about
teaching and lifelong learning in higher education. In addition to
researcher and student presentations, experts of the region will also
be invited to give keynote speeches, sharing their insights on
challenges and issues facing contemporary scholarship on higher
education.

The conference programme explores the theme “Multidisciplinary
Perspectives”. Keynote presentations will examine this theme from
various perspectives, e.g. the internationalisation of teaching and
learning, higher education research, multiculturalism in education,
philosophy of postgraduate studies and supervision of academics in
institutions of higher education.

The conference themes highlight a few areas related to:

How is contemporary research into higher education being reshaped by new theoretical and analytical perspectives and insights?

How is higher education research influencing higher education practices and policies?

How can we best safeguard and strengthen future capacity for research into higher education?

The goal of the conference will be to bring together various
participants comprising, academics, researchers, graduate students and
administrators from higher education faculties who have a stake in the
issues concerned by interacting, networking, sharing findings,
exploring ideas, resources and formulating the direction for this
endeavour.

Dean,
Institute of Graduate Studies,
Universiti Sainsa Malaysia,
Penang,
Malaysia
Email: icpe3@notes.usm.my

Visit the website at http://www.usm.my/icpe3

Virtual Education spreads the word that the Education Grid was launched Friday June 20 at the Sun Microsystems Island in Second Life.

The Education Grid is a project of the Immersive Education Initiative,
a group comprised of research centers, education groups, Sun
Microsystems, and others. The main purpose of the launch was to connect
initiative members, mostly educators, with an early preview of Sun
Microsystems Laboratory’s Project Wonderland virtual world
servers and to give users a chance to see what a virtual education
space might look like in the near future.

VirtuEd provides a good overview of the launch itself, going into
detail about the pros and cons of each of the servers on which the Grid
was hosted. Overall, VirtuEd seemed pretty impressed, even with the
cautionary note thrown their way from Aaron Walsh, Director of the Grid
Institute” “Understand that this is VERY EARLY-STAGE TECHNOLOGY: Please be patient, and prepare for a bumpy ride.”

But VirtuEd gives Sun credit for opening up the project at such an
early Beta stage. The hope, they write, is that “this move is
partly to build excitement and involvement in a platform that will
eventually be open source and community supported.”

VirtuEd also follows up their report with a list of related blog posts on the launch, including ones fromNew Media On The Go, Tim Wang, Fleep, and Yaximixche.

New Delhi, June 28
8000 ‘missing’ in govt schools

Over 8,000 teaching posts lie vacant in government
schools across the Capital, an application filed under the Right To
Information (RTI) Act has found.

And the vast majority of vacancies, says the
response to the RTI filed this March by retired government school
principal Jai Bhagwan Gupta, are for Trained Graduate Teachers (TGTs) —
up until February 27, 6,379 TGT posts lay vacant. An official at the
Delhi government’s Directorate of Education (DoE) said the number is
closer to 7000 today.

Assistant teacher’s posts, mainly required for
primary classes, form another bulk of vacancies: of 3,677 posts
sanctioned, 1,258 was vacant as per DoE records on February 4.

Director of Education Sandeep Kumar said: “Vacancy
and recruitment is a continuous process. Teachers retire every month,
(so) vacancies will be there. We are focusing on how to bridge the gap
as fast as possible.”

But Gupta shot back: “If recruitment is an
ongoing process why have there been vacancies for so many years? Why
isn’t there any foreword planning to fill posts emptied by those who
retire?”

Guest teachers, Kumar said, are a temporary
measure to fill this. But even that fails to meet the shortage. A
subsequent RTI application filed by Gupta found 832 guest teachers work
in government schools. The Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board
(DSSSB), which spearheads recruitment for government jobs, advertised
for 2,747 teaching positions, mostly TGTs, last year following a
requisition from the DoE. Their recruitment examinations were completed
only last month.

“We advertise exams as per requirement of teachers we receive from DoE,” said K C Surender, Deputy Secretary (Exams), DSSSB.

The Board’s figures show Sanskrit teachers are in
greatest demand, with 352 female and 478 male posts lying vacant.
Vacancies for TGTs in Maths, English and Hindi are also high, numbering
336, 317 and 292 respectively.

In past years DSSSB has failed to recommend as
many teachers as there are vacancies. Surender said the reason was
poor-quality candidates and DSSSB’s rigorous testing. “But candidates
are improving now,” he said.

One reason government schools face especially a
shortage of language teachers is the DoE’s dated recruitment rules,
Indra Behl, Deputy Secretary (CC-I) at DSSSB, said. “TGTs are required
to have an elective in the language they wish to teach,” she said. “But
there’s no elective option in most BEd courses in Delhi, which puts
many at immediate disadvantage. These rules are now under revision.”

CHENNAI: Several lakh degree
certificates awarded by the University of Madras and a few other state
universities through the distance education programme for over 12 years are not
valid for getting employment in Central government departments.

It
has come to light that these degrees are not approved by the Distance Education
Council (DEC), a statutory regulatory body functioning under the Indira Gandhi
National Open University.

Consequently, the dreams of thousands of
aspirants of Central government jobs who had put in years of hard work to obtain
a bachelor’s or master’s degree while working in private companies has
crashed.

Two Chennai residents G Ananda Krishnan of AGS Colony in
Nanganallur and K S Suresh Babu of Railway Quarters in Aynavaram discovered this
recently to their utter shock and disbelief. Krishnan and Babu had appeared for
the competitive examination for selection for the post of Section Officer
(Commercial Audit) in 2007 and both were provisionally selected for the job.

However, last month when they sent in their degree certificates for
verification, the Staff Selection Commission (southern region) of the Union
ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions informed them that the
qualification was not valid for employment and cancelled their candidature.
While Krishnan had completed B.Com in May 2002 through the distance education
mode at the University of Madras, Babu had obtained the degree in
2000.

“The University of Madras has not been granted ex-post-facto
approval (retrospective effect) for the programmes offered through distance mode
in the past as yet. Hence, programmes completed before June 2007 through
distance education mode from the University of Madras are not recognised by DEC
as yet,” said Ramakrishna Rao, joint registrar, DEC, New Delhi.

Courtesy : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

Norway and India will widen their cooperation in higher education, according to
reports reaching here from Oslo Saturday.

The two countries signed an
agreement this week in Oslo and the specific areas for collaboration will be
identified in follow-up talks, the Norwegian Ministry of Higher Education and
Research said in a statement.

Cooperation in science and
technology education will be given priority by Norway, it said, adding that
emphasis would be laid on masters and research levels.

Norway considers India as
among the most important countries to collaborate with in the field of knowledge
and the agreement would have important results for Norway, the Minister of
Higher Education and Research Tora Aasland said in the statement.

It
has addressed 15 questions based on higher education

NEW DELHI: Perceived as anti-poor and anti-reservation, the National
Knowledge Commission (NKC) has sought to set the record straight by
coming out with a clarification on many of its recommendations on
higher education.

Posted in the form of FAQs, the NKC has addressed 15 questions that have been raised on its recommendations on higher education.

Though the NKC has submitted recommendations on at least 20
different issues relating to ‘knowledge,’ its note on higher education
has drawn the maximum flak with a majority of Vice-Chancellors
rejecting the policy direction that the Commission would like to give
this sector.

On reservation

Seeking to clarify its position on reservations, the NKC has stated
that caste-based reservation is only one form of affirmative action.

While this is a position it took in the original note on higher
education, the Commission in the FAQs has dwelt at length on the
deprivation index it had mooted earlier.

Stating that deprivation of educational opportunities is a
multi-dimensional problem, the Commission has pointed out that
attention needs to be paid to different salient levels of deprivation
faced by students.

This includes not just caste but also other indicators such as
income, gender, region, place of residence and even the kind of
schooling a student has had.

“A meaningful and comprehensive framework would account for the
multidimensionality of differences that still persist. Such a
deprivation index could provide weighted scores to students and the
cumulative score could be used to supplement a student’s school
examination score. After adding the score from the deprivation index,
all students could compete for admissions.”

The deprivation index system, according to the NKC, serves the dual
purpose of considering disadvantages and ensuring that a reserved
category student, who has otherwise enjoyed other benefits, does not
get undue preference at the time of admissions.

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