Education and Career

Kolkata, Dec 02: The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) has come up with a provision that a student can pass the Class X examination with only one language subject — English.

From 2012, a student appearing for ICSE examination will not be required to pass in the second language paper — in case of Bengal it is Bengali or Hindi. Most of the Boards at Class X level, including the state Board, make it mandatory for students to qualify in two language papers.

New Delhi, December 02: Yesterday Lok Sabha passed the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill 2009 by a voice vote, allowing the government to set up two separate central universities in two different regions of Jammu and Kashmir.

Replying on the debate, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal clarified that there was no proposal before the government for setting up of any new central university.

”However, as and when, the proposals will come the HRD Ministry will look into it,” he said while thanking the House for the ‘near unanimity’ expressed over his proposal.

New Delhi, December 02: The government on Tuesday expressed concern over ongoing disruption of the computer-based Common Admission Test (CAT) and said precautions should have been taken much before to avoid such problems.

“Steps should have been taken much prior to the holding of the examination to ensure that such kind of problems should not have happened. We are very concerned about it as government,” HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here.

New Delhi, Dec 02: After receiving a report from the convener of the Common Admission Test for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said dry runs ought to have been conducted to rule out every possible error. For, this was the first time CAT was going online.

Talking to journalists on the fourth day of the first-ever experiment of IIMs conducting their all-India CAT online, Mr. Sibal said he had sought a report from CAT convener Satish Deodhar.

New Delhi, Dec 02: Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal today told Parliament that the government has set a target of ensuring that 30 percent of eligible students should attend college by 2020.

At present, 220 million students go to schools across the country and only 12.4 percent of them are eligible to go to colleges. By the year 2020, the gross involvement ratio has to be increased upto 30 percent, he said while replying to a debate in Lok Sabha on the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2009.

New Delhi, Dec 02: Coming to the aid of a girl student whose application for the Prime Minister’s Merit Scholarship Scheme was rejected, the Delhi High Court today asked the government to be a little flexible about the rules.

The court was hearing the petition of B.C.Pathak, father of Garima, who had secured 87.2 percent marks in class XII and secured admission to the MBBS course in a medical college at Patna.

Kolkata, Dec 02: The city’s 192-year-old Presidency College, which played a sterling role in the 19th century renaissance besides churning out scholars and luminaries in various walks of life till date, is now all set to be upgraded to a university.

Chennai, Dec 01: Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala today appointed Prof. Mayil Vahanan Natarajan as Vice Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

A Raj Bhavan press release here said that Mr. Barnala, also the University Chancellor, appointed Dr. Natarajan, presently Head, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Madras Medical College and Government General Hospital, for a period of three years from the date of assuming office.

–PTI

Ahmedabad, Dec 01: Former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam said on Monday that primary education in the country has to be changed to encourage creativity in children.

“The entire education system should be changed so that every young person can say ‘I can do it’. Particularly, primary education has to be changed. Creativity of children needs to come out. At present, we are not doing this. We need a change in the syllabus,” Kalam said at the third IGNITE Awards ceremony at IIM-A.

The awards are given to schoolchildren around the country for innovations and technological ideas.

Allahabad, Dec 01: Come next academic session and the UP Board — the biggest in the country — is going to undergo major changes in terms of syllabus and examination pattern.

The Board has decided to introduce the credit system, compartmental exams and a single question paper system.

Ludhiana, Dec 01: The Punjab Agricultural University Teacher Association (PAUTA) and PAU Fourth Class Workers Unions spearheaded the rally.

All the non-teaching, teaching and class IV employees from various departments of the university participated in the rally.

On Day 3 of the common aptitude test (CAT), there were no reports of any system failure in any of the centres in the city and both sessions went of smoothly.

Prometric, the company is responsible for the conduct of the examination, has said that the exam was going on successfully.

“As a result of isolated technical issues on day 1, some candidates are being rescheduled and provided a new appointment via email and SMS,” said Soumitra Roy, managing director, Prometric .

Ahmedabad, November 29: India has to make innovations to be able to compete with other nations for economic progress, said former president A P J Abdul Kalam.

Kalam was here at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) to deliver a valedictory address during annual event, ‘Confluence-2009.’

He said through innovations, local companies can produce technologically superior products and can become a market leader globally.

“Innovations should be encouraged in agriculture and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) because they drive the economy,” he said.

Bangalore, November 29: GE Healthcare, the $17-billion unit of General Electric, has initiated a project to provide IT solutions to Indian hospitals for affordable treatment.

The $1.5-billion GE Healthcare’s IT business has tied up with the Delhi-based Diwan Chand Aggarwal (DCA) imaging research centre for a pilot project to develop solutions that integrate the various functions of hospitals to deliver quality healthcare.

New Delhi, November 29: CAT’s online examination will not take place today in 50 labs at different centres across the country due to technical snags in server.

Sources said that there are some technical snags in the server. So problem is being faced by the candidates.

CAT’s online examination has to take place at different centres for 10 days. The examination is being conducted by a US organisation Prometric.

Prometric today said that examinations will not take place in 50 labs across the country today

—Agencies

New Delhi, November 29: Pradeep Kumar hasn’t been this nervous about an approaching weekend. The 20-year-old will be one of the first to sample the new computerised Common Admissions Test (CAT) beginning from Saturday, and for the moment, all tips are welcome.

Friends, family, teachers and even neighbours are queuing up at his home in Rohtak, Haryana, to give him last-minute tips, and Pradeep just can’t have enough of it.

“I did not opt for the first day or the first session, but I had no choice,” said Pradeep, a BTech final year student.

New Delhi, November 28:Notwithstanding the hiccups faced by thousands of students on day one of the Common Admission Test (CAT), an Indian Institute of Management (IIM) director said the online examination is a “democratising process” and “all the problems will be sorted out quickly”.

“CAT on computer is a democratising process and aims at benefiting students in a large way. We have heard about the server problem but it won’t be a prolonged one,” Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM Kozhikode, told IANS.

New Delhi, November 28: The Common Admission Test, which is being conducted through computers for the first time, kicked off on Saturday with over 2.4 lakh students registering for the entrance for admission into IIMs.

The IIMs for the first time have entrusted the task of conducting the CAT to Prometric, an American firm, which is organising the computer-based test over a period of 10 days.

The test is being conducted at 105 centres in 32 cities across the country. Students can appear in the test at these centres during the 10-day window period.

New Delhi, November 28: On a day when the Common Admission Test went online for the first time, computer servers crashed at several places across the country leading to the cancellation of examinations at these centres.

According to reports, computer servers crashed at several examination centres at Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Chennai and Kharar near Chandigarh.

Nearly 200 students are reported to have been affected by the technical failure. The affected students have been given new time slots to appear for the exams.

Chandigarh, Nov 27: As the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) goes online from this year, experts caution students to not press the panic button. The entrance test for most of the prestigious business schools in the country will be held in the city from November 28, spanning 10 days, ending on December 7.

The online version of CAT sees changes in the examination pattern. For instance, the number of questions has been reduced and the students will now have to attempt 60 to 70 questions as against over 75 questions in the earlier written version.

Chandigarh, Nov 27: The recent case at Panjab University where Vijay Dhanda’s Ph.D registration was cancelled, no written/verbal communication about the cancellation has been made to Dhanda. While her fate of pursuing Ph.D hangs fire, the officials at varsity have no comment to make.

New Delhi, Nov 27: When education reforms are said to be a primary focus of the central government, a human resource development (HRD) ministry document has revealed that nearly 23,000 government schools are running under an open sky.

To be precise, 22,762 schools including 7,827 run by local bodies have no building, while 1,757 others across the country are running from tents.

Chennai, Nov 27: For three Chennai students, R.S. Anand Kumar, Saleem Khan and Ajai Prasannah, next month’s climate change negotiations at Copenhagen are about the survival of India’s future and the hopes of their own generation.

Chennai, Nov 26: Learning is not a one-step process and the child of tomorrow needs to be prepared differently.

It could be by grooming teachers, developing an attitude towards learning, creating goodwill among schools and functionaries, building public-private partnership, combining sound principles of the past and opportunities of the present or one could devise one’s best practice.

New Delhi, Nov 26: Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal found himself in a spot of bother in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday over his decision to make board examinations optional for Class X in schools under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

While Bhola Singh (Bharatiya Janata Party) wanted to know whether the Minister had taken into account Indian realities before importing this educational norm, Sharad Yadav (Janata Dal-United) sought to point out that the examination system with its roll number format was conceived with a special purpose.