New Indian-Chennai News + more

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RE: Deemed Universities

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sslc marks 20120407a_003101008

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Change colleges aafter management quota 20120407a_003101006

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College lands 07_04_2012_004_042

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vc appointments 07_04_2012_006_036

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University 07_04_2012_004_035

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Marx cut 07_04_2012_002_023

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MK University 08_04_2012_009_023

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Govt Doc. Suspension before retrirm08_04_2012_005_008

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common entracne 10_04_2012_003_002

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Entracne 10_04_2012_005_021

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cpyt stop teacher killed 20120410a_008101008

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Merit over Seniority 09_04_2012_006_041

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Madurai vc10_04_2012_013_012

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More b.tech seat 10_04_2012_003_038

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Teachers 10_04_2012_011_007

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ugc-university 20120410a_002101006

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HC orders expelled kids back to school

Management Ousted Students For Refusing To Pay Above Govt-Fixed Fee

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: The Madras high court has ordered a CBSE school in Tiruvottriyur to take back the 21 students it threw out for sticking to the fee prescribed by a committee set up by the government.
The students of Kavibarathi Vidyalaya School did not pay the excess fee demanded by the management,instead sent cheques for the committeefixed fee.According to the interim relief granted by the court,the children will be back in class from Wednesday.The school is now expected to file its reply before the court gives its final order.
Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar,granting relief to a group of 16 students who approached the court,asked the school to accept the fee finalised by the feefixation committee.The committee had on June 2011 bracketed the fees for the school between Rs 12,300 for LKG students and Rs 11,450 for Class 10.
The school argued before the fee panel that the Tamil Nadu (Regulation of Collection of Fees) Act did not apply to it as it was a CBSE school.But in reality,the school charged Rs 18,450 for LKG students and Rs 17,750 for Class 10 students.The fee was based on the amount fixed by the panel but had fleshed it out by charging for extra cocurricular activities and technology-based education.
When the parents,who are now before the court,refused to pay the excess fee and instead sent cheques for the sum fixed by the committee,the school refused to accept it.The parents said their wards were not issued report card on March 27,the last day of the academic year.On April 3,the students received posts containing transfer certificates and expulsion orders with a curt note fee not paid.
The parents said the schools action violated the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009,which prohibits expulsion of any student for any reason from the school up to Class 8.They parents told the court that they were willing to pay the legal tuition fee.Under these circumstances,the school was not justified in issuing transfer certificates and expelling their wards,the parents argued.
The parents also charged the school with discriminating children whose parents refused to pay the excess fee.The students were not allowed to participate in programmes in the school,they said.The parents,in the petition,described it as pressure tactics.It wanted the court to quash the schools orders,and direct the management to admit students in the promoted classes.

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students foriegn agents 11_04_2012_004_043

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school fees 11_04_2012_005_034

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school fees 20120411a_001101004

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Illam School 11_04_2012_155_036

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13 Apr 2012
Hindustan Times (Mumbai)

No 25% quota in schools this year

Central government has given states time till 2013 to implement the RTE Act; govt yet to notify rules on 25% reservation clause

I thank SC which has given direction to be followed by the government. The policies under the act should be child centric and not institution centric... Big schools can surely take this burden. cation department official.

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I LLUSTRATION: SHRIKRISHNA PATKAR

A separate fund will be set aside through which students will be funded. He said that the government is also seeking clarity on whether the rule should be implemented from Class 1 or from kindergarten.

On the issue of payment of overhead costs charged by schools for special projects, picnics, education tours, annual days, which goes into thousands in plush schools, the government plans to first read the apex court order before taking a decision on the further rules to be framed.

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This process, he added, may take some time, due to which the act is unlikely to be implemented from the current academic year.

Admin · Guru

Engg colleges to get their own social network

Himanshi Dhawan TNN

New Delhi: Its our desi facebook.The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Microsoft have collaborated to host a communication service that offers email,instant messaging,Microsoft Office web apps,10GB inbox for 7.5 million engineering students and 5 lakh faculty members spread over 10,000 technical institutes across the country.
Live@edu to be up and running in the next three months will use cloud deployment to expand students access to high-quality technical education.This will allow students to interact and share content both for work and social networking,and even initiate collaborative research projects.
Speaking at the occasion HRD minister Kapil Sibal said,This is an era of collaboration and we hope to empower 7.5 million students and 5 lakh teachers with this use of technology.It is the first project of its kind. Live@edu will be a social networking site linked to its portal,allowing engineering students to interact with each other about their projects with applications intended for educational needs and as a solution to provide better communication and collaboration platform,both for institutes and students.
Talking about the networking platform,AICTE chairman S S Mantha said the site will help every student to put their research work on the portal and have an exchange.This application (live@edu) along with social networking will provide immense opportunities to students to interact and work with other projects.
According to Microsoft,the cloud suite has more than 22 million people using the service.Microsoft MD Sanket Akerkar said that the implementation was underway,and the deployment would be complete by mid-June.
The platform will include email,calendars with 10GB inbox,25GB file storage,document sharing,IM,video chat and mobile email.More than 10,000 schools in over 130 countries have enrolled in live@edu.

AICTE announces new management programmes

New Delhi: Keeping in mind the industry demand,AICTE on Thursday announced two new management programmes,in which a student could enroll right after class XII.The technical education governing body in the country announced the dual degree programme in management and an integrated management programme.AICTE chairman S S Mantha said under the dual degree programme,a student can get dual degree of bachelors and masters programme.In between he can also drop-off for a job as mid-level manager and then return to finish his course.PTI

Admin · Guru

SCs verdict bans pvt tutorials by school teachers

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN

New Delhi: The Supreme Courts Thursday judgement bringing all schools,except the unaided minority institutions,within the ambit of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act gave rise to an eventuality teachers of all schools could be prohibited from giving private tutorials.
The majority judgment by Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar upheld the constitutional validity of the RTE Act and said it would apply to all government,aided and private schools.
Interestingly,Section 28 of the Act banned teachers in schools from teaching students through private tutorials,a thriving business across the country.
The bench took note of this provision and said to ensure that teachers should contribute in imparting quality education in the school itself,Section 28 imposes total prohibition on them to engage in private tuition or private teaching activities.
Given the difficulty faced by working parents in looking after the studies of their wards at home,most engage private tutors,many of whom are already working as teachers in schools,run either by private management or government.Such a ban,if implemented under the mandate of the Act with the additional legitimacy conferred on Thursday by the apex court,could add to parents worries.

Verdict has put controversies to rest: Sibal

Admin · Guru

LEARNING WITH THE TIMES
Govt to foot bill for poor pupils pvt education

Does the RTE apply to the whole country

The RTE applies to all parts of India except for Jammu and Kashmir.

Are schools belonging to all boards,including international boards,bound to follow the RTE

Yes.The Act applies to all schools except unaided minority institutions.

What age group does the RTE apply to

The RTE applies to children from the ages 6 to 14.This translates to Class I to Class VIII.RTE talks of 25% reservation for children from disadvantaged groups and economically weaker sections of society in private schools.

Does this refer to all schools in the country or are there any exceptions

This clause refers to all private aided and unaided day schools.The only schools exempt from this clause are residential (boarding) schools and private unaided minority institutions.If a school has both day scholars and those in residence,the 25% reservation will apply to day scholars only.

Does the government pay private unaided schools for taking in poor children

The government will reimburse private schools at the cost of educating a child in a government school or the actual fee charged by the private school,whichever is less.The actual fee is most likely to be more than the cost of a government school.

Can schools hold separate classes for disadvantaged groups and economically weaker sections or will they have to be integrated in the same classroom as the rest of the kid

No,the school cannot hold separate classes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.Children from varied backgrounds and abilities are expected to study in a shared environment.One of the reasons for fixing the reservation for children from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups at 25% was so that they make up a significant number of the total number of children.

Will schools be allowed to fail a child for a year,or expel a child

No school can hold back a child in class or expel a child from Classes I to VIII.This does not mean that children should not be evaluated at all,but argues for a process of continuous and comprehensive evaluation,under which examinations can be held at various points of time.However,the Act prevents schools from conducting board exams from Classes I-VIII.
As for expelling a child from school,this implies that the education system has refused to serve the child.In the context of elementary education being a fundamental right,the concept of expulsion is not compatible with a right.

What about capitation fee and screening processes (interviews)

The RTE bans schools from collecting capitation fee or conducting interviews in order to select children.A school that accepts capitation fee can be fined ten times the amount of capitation fee received.A school that conducts a screening procedure for children can be fined Rs 25,000 the first time round and Rs 50,000 on each subsequent occasion.

Admin · Guru

13 Apr 2012
Hindustan Times (Delhi)
Vanita Srivastava vanita.shrivastava@hindustantimes.com

PMO returns picks for UGC chairman, seeks their merits

With the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) returning the names of two candidates recommended by the human resources development ministry, it looks like the appointment of the UGC chairman will take a while longer.

Sources said the PMO returned the two names, asking the HRD ministry to disclose the merits of the candidates. The names were sent to the PMO in February-end.

A three-member selection committee, which met on February 21, had shortlisted professor Pankaj Chandra, director of the Indian Institute of Management-bangalore, and former Hyderabad University vice-chancellor Dr Syed Hasnain for the UGC chairman’s post.

Within a fortnight, the ministry is likely to call a meeting of the selection committee again to decide who stands first and second in the merit list.

The names, with their seniority in merit, will be re-sent to the PMO, after which a final decision is likely to be taken. The whole process may take more than a month.

When contacted, Hasnain said he had given a presentation before the selection committee around two months ago. “I have not heard from them since then.” EXTENSION SOUGHT

In an unusual move, the department of science and technology has sought a fifth extension for its secretary, Dr T Ramasami.

A proposal has been sent to the department for personnel and training, seeking the approval of the cabinet's appointments committee.

Ramasami has already got four extensions, something that is considered rare at his level in the central government.

Admin · Guru

Centre needs 2.3L cr to fund RTE initiative

Himanshi Dhawan TNN

NewDelhi:With the Supreme Court bringing all recognized schools under the Right to Education (RTE) Act,the government will have to boost spending on its flagship programme to meet the estimated 2.3 lakh crore needed to fund the initiative over 2010-2014.
RTE has been plagued with fund shortfalls with budgetary provision in the last two years being only half of what was estimated.
The HRD ministry received 21,000 crore in 2011-12 instead of 43,903 crore.The allocation has gone up only marginally to 25,000 crore in the current 2012-13 budget.
The estimated 2.3 lakh crore,to be shared between Centre and states according to a65:35 ratio,is also expected to go up as it does not include subsidy the government is to pay private schools to implement a 25% quota for economically disadvantaged students.
The RTE incorporates the successful Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the ministry had estimated it would need an allocation of 48,000 crore in the current fiscal.
Initially,the government had calculated that it would need 40,500 crore in the first year of implementation.

Admin · Guru

12 lakh teachers needed for RTE implementation

New Delhi: With the Supreme Court bringing all recognized schools under the Right to Education (RTE) Act,the government will have to boost spending on its flagship programme to meet the estimated Rs 2.3 lakh crore needed to fund the initiative over 2010-2014.
According to educationist Vinod Raina,a key member of the RTE team,RTE in general suffers from a financial crunch and there has also been a problem of states not being able to spend the funds allocated.There have also been constraints of teacher shortages.
While RTE rollout has been hampered by a resource crunch and infrastructure bottlenecks for which the government has not always been to blame,targets set for UPAs ambitious programme of social inclusiveness have not been met.The erosion of gender imbalances and reduction of dropout rates are still lagging targets.
Implementation of RTE targets still needs 12 lakh teachers and HRD minister Kapil Sibal has said six lakh posts have been sanctioned that need to be filled.RTE sets an ideal 30:1 student-teacher ratio for primary schools.
The overall annual dropout rate for 2009-10 was 9.1% and this has improved to 6.8% in 2010-11.Total enrollment has increased to 13.52 crore from 13.34 crore in the same period.But worryingly dropout rates have increased in states like Tamil Nadu,Gujarat,Madhya Pradesh,Haryana,Mizoram,Sikkim and Tripura.There are about 1.29 million elementary schools in the country.Besides funding,shortage of teachers is a crucial hurdle to implementing the Act.According to the ministry,43% of government schools have a pupil: teacher ratio of more than 30:1.About 9% schools are run by single teachers,while 20% have teachers without professional qualifications.There is an estimated shortage of 12 lakh teachers in eight states,and the worst affected include UP,Bihar and West Bengal.
A recent PAISA report by Accountability Initiative has seconded the governments estimate that allocations to teachers,including salaries,training and teaching inputs such as teacher learning equipment,accounted for the largest share of the SSA budget.
In 2011-2012 teachers accounted for 44% of the budget.School infrastructure made up for the second largest share with a total allocation of 36%,while children (entitlement and special programmes ) accounted for 10%.
While per child allocation has doubled from Rs 2,004 in 2009-1010 to Rs 4,269 in 2011-2012 the report says that a matching increase in quality parameters is absent.

MEGA ROLLOUT

RTE spending budgeted over 2010-2014 Total RTE bill put at 2.31 lakh cr;share of Centre and states in ratio of 65:35 Total RTE bill almost 5 times Indias allocation for school education ( 48,781cr) in Budget 2012-13 It is more than Indias total annual subsidies of 1.9 lakh crore It is also larger than Indias estimated income tax receipts of 1.96 lakh cr in 2012-13

-- Edited by Admin on Saturday 14th of April 2012 11:23:27 AM

Admin · Guru

TN to get 169 more MBBS seats this yr

New College in Sivaganga;More Seats In Kilpauk,Chengalpet

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: The number of seats in the government medical colleges of Tamil Nadu is likely to increase by 169 with the state hopeful of getting permission for a new medical college in Sivaganga and increasing seats in the Kilpauk and Chengalpet medical colleges by 50 each.
State health minister V S Vijay said the Medical Council of India (MCI) has visited the medical college in Sivaganga and procedures for opening two more colleges are nearing completion.We dont want to open more than one medical college a year because we will havetofindteachers andfaculty as per the standard requirements, he said.This year,the state will lay the foundation stone for a new hospital in Tiruvannamalai.
If MCI grants permission for the new college in Sivaganga,the number of medical colleges in the state will go up to 18 andthe number of seatswill go up from 1,945 to 2,295.In 2011,the directorate of medical education admitted students in 1,653 of the 1,945 seats,after surrendering 292 seats for the all-I ndia quota.For a very long time the number of seats in the Kilpauk and Chengalpet colleges has remained low.While newer collegeshave more than 100 seats,Kilpauk has 100 and Chengalpet has just 50, Vijay said.
Every year nearly 24,000 students apply for medical and dental seats in the state,but the rising cut-off makes the competition tougher.
In addition to the government colleges,the state manages to get 50% to 65% of medical seats from self-financing medical colleges affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University.
As per the Supreme Court order in the P A Inamdar case,managements of self-financing institutions are permitted to fill seats in their colleges as per the normslaiddown by the court.But every year the state manages to get 65% seats from non-minority institutions and 50% from minority institutions.In 2011,the state managed to get 839 seats from 11 of the13 affiliated medicalcolleges.
Besides Christian Medical College,Vellore,which does not share seats with the government,the only medical college that did not share seats was DD Medical College.
In the dental category,Madras Dental College is the only college run by the state.This college admits 85 students under the state quota.The remaining 878 seats come from the 17 self-financing institutions affiliated to the state medical university.

Admin · Guru

‘Don’t exclude minority schools’

Express News Service

Last Updated : 14 Apr 2012 09:26:32 AM IST

COIMBATORE: While hailing the Supreme Court’s approval, activists and academics are dissenting the exemption granted to minority-administered schools. “Unaided minority schools should not have been exempted from the mandate of the Act. The real purpose of the RTE Act cannot be achieved by providing such exemptions,” asserted P B Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System. Former Manonmaniam Sundaranar University VC and Tamil Nadu Institute of Human Rights Education chairperson V Vasanthi Devi agrees. “Unaided minority institutions can perhaps provide 25 per cent of the seats to the backward sections from their own community,” she argued.

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MK University 14_04_2012_004_038

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RTE OK 13_04_2012_001_003

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Private schools 13_04_2012_010_025

Private schools rte 1-4th 13_04_2012_002_038

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BE Fees 15_04_2012_003_026

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Model be colleges 16_04_2012_005_030

Admin · Guru

EXAM CENTRES CHANGED
Docs seek action against VC over cheating charge

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association has demanded action against the vice-chancellor of Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University for alleging that professors of Government Stanley Medical College helped nine students cheat during the final year MBBS examinations in February 2012.
The associations state secretary P Balakrishnan on Monday told reporters that the university had changed the exam centres for students of three medical colleges in Chennai.
The centres werent changed for students outside city.The university seems to have concluded that medicos in Chennai are more likely to cheat than others.It is discriminatory and unfair, Balakrishnan said.The students or professors have not even been proven guilty.We want the government to take disciplinary action against the VC or our professors will boycott duty as invigilators.
Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University vice-chancellor Mayil Vahanan Natarajan told reporters in February that nine students from Stanley Medical College had copied during the final year MBBS examination.The university received complaints from two students who also took the examination.The students said they were put at a disadvantage because nine students had cheated in the exam.
During the preliminary inquiry,the university found that one of the students wrote down the questions on a piece of paper and threw it out of a toilet window.A house surgeon took the paper and dictated the answers by mobile phone to nine students wearing wireless headsets.

Admin · Guru

Madarsas,Vedic Schools to be out of RTE Ambit

URMI A GOSWAMI NEW DELHI

The government is committed to keep madarsas and Vedic pathshalas out of the ambit of the Right to Education.An amendment,which intends to keep institutions serving religious and linguistic minorities protected under Articles 29 and 30 out of the ambit of the RTE,is currently pending before Parliament.Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said,the government is committed to passing the amendment and wants to ensure that madarsas,both aided and unaided,do not fall within the purview of the Right to Education Act.The same will apply for the Vedic pathshalas. There was no interpretation on the amendment.The government is keeping these institutions imparting religious education outside the purview of the Act as a matter of policy.Once the amendment is passed,those with a differing view could move the Court, a ministry official said.Since the Act was notified in 2010,there have been intense pressures from Muslim organisations,particularly the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Darool Uloom Deoband,to specifically exempt the madarsas from the Act.Sibals repeated assurances that the government had no intention of bringing madarsas under the RTE since they are not treated as schools,did little to allay apprehensions of Muslim groups.Their fears arose from the laws definition of schools as any recognised institution imparting elementary education.Many madarsas offer their students modern,secular subjects along with deeni talim or religious instruction.To this end,the government provides them a fund under the modernization of madarsas scheme.Finally,the government decided to move an amendment to explicitly keep the madarsas out of the ambit of the Act,removing any scope for an interpretations.In a majority judgment on Thursday,the Supreme Court upheld the Right to Education Act,with the caveat that minority unaided institutions would not be within the purview of the Act.However,Justice KS Radhakrishnan,who presented a dissenting opinion,clearly stated that madarsas,Vedic pathshalas,etc,which predominantly provide religious instructions and do not provide for secular education stand outside the purview of the Act. The exemption given to minorityaided schools by the majority judgment prompted experts to question whether madarsas,which receive funds from the government for teachers salary,would qualify as aided schools.