A number of schemes
have been announced by the HRD Ministry. The Department of School Education and
Literacy has supported the Ministry of Women and Child Development for roll out
of “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” Abhiyan in 100 districts of the country to
enhance the sex ratio and the status of the girl child. An award is being
instituted from the “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” Abhiyan for School
Management Committees which achieve 100% transition of girls at different
levels of education.
The Department is
committed to the provision of functional girls’ toilet in every school. A
specific “Swachh Vidyalaya” campaign has been rolled out which will
ensure that a functional toilet is available in every school before 15th August
2015.
UDAAN
is an initiative of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to enable
disadvantaged girl students and other students from SC/ST & minorities to
transit from school to post-school professional education especially in
Science and Math. The first flight of UDAAN is to address lower enrolment of
girls in engineering colleges which is currently about 23% girls as against 77%
of boys. It aims to reduce the quality gap between school education and
engineering education entrance systems by focusing on the three dimensions-
curriculum design, transaction and assessment. It will do this by enriching and
supplementing teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics at Senior
Secondary level. The CBSE will provide free and online resources to the entire
student population with special incentives and support to a thousand selected
disadvantaged girls per year.
UGC has formulated the
scheme Swami Vivekananda Single Girl Child Scholarship for Research in
Social Sciences the scheme under which 300 scholars would be provided Junior
Research Fellowship @ Rs. 8,000/--10,000/- per month, and will be implemented
from academic year 2014-15.
The AICTE scheme PRAGATI
(Providing Assistance for Girls’ Advancement in Technical Education Initiative)
envisages selection of one girl per family where family income is less than 6
lakhs / annum on merit at the qualifying examination to pursue technical
education. The scheme is to be implemented by the authorised admission centre
of respective State Governments. 4000 girls are expected to get benefit of scholarships
available per annum. The scholarship amount is Rs. 30,000 or tuition fees or
actual whichever is less and Rs. 2000 / month for ten months as contingency
allowance.
For integrating over 25
lakh children with special needs enrolled in elementary education across the
country in a regular classroom environment, a handbook on curricular
adaptations to orient all primary school teachers across the country was
developed by National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) and
released by the Human Resource Minister on 26th August, 2014.
AICTE has decided to
award 1000 scholarships per annum under Saksham to differently abled
students to pursue technical education based on merit in the qualifying
examination to pursue technical education. The scholarship amount would be
Rs. 30000 or tuition fees or actual whichever is less and Rs. 2000 / month for
ten months as contingency allowance.
The UGC has launched a
special scholarship Scheme for students of North East Region Ishan Uday
from the academic session 2014-15. The Scheme envisages grant of 10,000
scholarships to students from North East Region whose parental income is below
Rs. 4.5 lakh per annum and would be provided scholarship ranging from Rs. 3,500
to 5,000 per month for studying at under graduate level in
Colleges/Universities of the country.
Ishān Vikās
is a comprehensive plan to bring selected students from the school and college
levels from the North-Eastern states into close contact with the IITs, NITs and
IISERs during their vacation periods. A typical visit is envisaged for a period
of ten days to one of these institutions, in the form of either an exposure or
an Internship programme. Each school will send one teacher to accompany a group
of about 32 students of class IX and X and 8 teachers. The college students
would be organised in two groups in summer and in winter, consisting of 32
students each group. About 2016 college students and 504 teachers from N-E will
be visiting premier Institutes, like IIT/NIT/IISERs in an academic year.
The Summer Internship
for students from the Engineering Colleges (State or Centrally Funded
Technological Institutes) with Stipends and Travel will be taken up. From 25
Institutions, about 250 students will be visiting 16 IITs and 6 NITs (to start with
six NITs are being considered) per year.
Padhe Bharat Badhe
Bharat initiative was launched on 26th August, 2014, to
focus on the quality of foundational learning so that each child attains
appropriate learning levels in classes I and II for reading, writing language
comprehension and numeracy. Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat is a sub-component of
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) and is being rolled out by 17 States and UTs.
A Framework for School
Assessment and Evaluation is being developed as a self-
improvement tool for schools themselves and also to reorient school
inspectors, district and block level officers to objective assessment of
schools with a view to enhance their effectiveness. The programme in the field
would be rolled out by January 2015.
The initiative Enabling
Interaction of Scholars with our Students aims at creating a talent pool of
eminent scientists/scholars abroad or in India to enable their interaction with
Indian student/ faculty. The task of identifying such scientists/ scholars has
been initiated. A database is being created with the help of eminent academic
institutions so as to initiate activities from the academic year 2015.
Under SWAYAM (Study
Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) Programme Professors of
centrally funded institutions like IITs, IIMs, Centrally universities will
offer online courses to citizens of our country. All courses will be made
available free of cost for learning. In case the learner requires a Verified
Certificate, a small fee will be applicable.
In the first phase, IIT
Bombay, IIT Chennai, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, University of Delhi, Jawahar Lal
Nehru University, IGNOU, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, Banaras Hindu University,
alone as well as with the help of faculty from foreign universities will be
offering courses in areas of engineering education, social science, energy,
management, basic sciences. At least one crore students are expected to benefit
in 2 to 3 years through this initiative. SWAYAM will be launched in 2014.
The National
E-Library has been envisaged as an online portal that will democratize
access to knowledge by ensuring that quality content from central universities
and premier educational institutions are available in a digital format that can
be easily accessed by students, working professionals and researchers across
the country through laptops, smart phones, tablets, PC’s. International
collaboration has been offered by Israel, Norway, UK, UNESCO. The National E
-Library becomes operational in the academic year 2015.
The National
Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) offers digital and digitisable
resources (audio, video, interactive images and documents) in different
languages along with online activities. 13,773 registered users/contributors
of e -content, 71,447 unique visitors have already contributed more than 45
lakh hits on the NROER portal.
There are almost 10,500
colleges which conduct about 14000 Programs and 18000 levels in Technical
Education. Programs are Engineering / Technology, Architecture, Pharmacy,
Applied arts, Management and Hotel Management and Catering Technology. Levels
are Diploma, Post Diploma, Graduate, Post Graduate and Ph D. Similarly, there
are more than 35000 colleges conducting at least 20,000 programs and 50000
levels in the Higher education sector (Other than Technical Colleges)
A new Know your
College Portal has been developed for helping a prospective student make a
valued judgment of the college he / she wishes to join by providing him/her the
necessary information about the same. KYC is a repository of information
pertaining to colleges in India vis-à-vis faculty, labs, and infrastructure.
Work has commenced on “Shaala
Darpan” to ensure that from next academic year, parents of students of
Government and Government aided schools can through a mobile application access
updates on their child’s progress regarding attendance, assignments, and
achievements.
GIS mapping of schools
at elementary as well as secondary level initiated and completed for 13 States
with work underway for another 8 States. This enables mapping infrastructure
gaps and responding to the felt needs of the people in providing schooling
facilities.
The UGC has launched a
new scheme, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan Post Doctoral Fellows in Social Sciences
including Languages. Under the scheme 300 fellowships would be awarded at the
rate of Rs. 25,000 per month + HRA etc. for a period of 3 years to the selected
Fellows.
AICTE has announced
1000 scholarships per annum to eligible candidates to pursue Ph D in CSIR /
DRDO labs or other reputed institutions: Payment of scholarship is as per
the Government norms for the purpose.
Quality Improvement
Programme (QIP) is a program conducted by Government of
India to promote research amongst the eligible teachers in AICTE approved
Institutions and others and facilitate them to complete a Ph D from the best
Institutions in India like the IIT’s and NIT’s or other Nationally important Institutes.
This scheme is open only to regular teachers. It is proposed to offer ME/M.
Tech Scholarships under QIP to 7500 scholarships for M Tech under Quality
Improvement Programme (QIP) and 2500 Scholarships for PhD under QIP.
Ten goal posts have
been identified and Research groups with each of eminent experts are being set
up to formulate time-bound plans of action for each. The task of the Research
Group is to identify the needs of the country in terms of its research and
technology requirements and to enable proper planning for manpower, research
infrastructure, and resources. Leading academic institutions have been
identified to set the process in motion. The lead institutions would be as
follows:
1. Health
care: IIT Kharagpur
2. Computer
Science and ICT –IIT Kharagpur
3.
Energy: IIT Bombay
4. Sustainable
urban design IIT Roorkee
5.
Nano-technology hardware: IIT Bombay
6. Water
resources and River Systems, IIT Kanpur
7. Advance
materials. IIT Kanpur
8. Manufacturing
IIT Madras
9. Defence
IIT Madras
10. Environment
Science and Climate Change IISC, Bangalore
The Research groups
will be expected to share their first Report by March 2015.
The Unnat Bharat
Abhiyan is coordinated by IIT Delhi. It will be launched in 2014 as a
network of IITs and other academic and professional institutes to evolve
appropriate technologies converging for rural development, with focus on water
management, organic farming, renewable energy, frugal technology, infrastructure,
rural livelihood and employment. A three day workshop on this was held in IIT
Delhi on 7th September 2014.
The UGC has notified Regulations
on Recognition and Monitoring of Assessment and Accrediting Agencies which
would enable the UGC to register multiple agencies for undertaking
accreditation of Institutions of Higher Education across the country.
To promote Vocational
Education, Colleges have been given the power to grant certificate/diploma
under the Community college scheme implemented by the UGC.
UGC has accorded
sanction to 102 Community Colleges and 127 B.Voc Degree programmes entailing a
financial outlay of Rs. 329 crore which would bring direct benefit to students
studying in vocational programmes in these Institutions.
Council for Industry-Higher
Education Collaboration (CIHEC) is being operationalised to identify
initiatives to promote research, mobilize resources, develop market ready
manpower, and enhance employability. As a first step to this, a task force of
IIT Directors and Chairpersons has given suggestions for collaboration agenda
to be discussed for implementation in the CIHEC.
19 New Institutions are
in the offing as follows:
1. Five
IITs: A.P, J&K, Chattisgarh, Goa, Kerala
2. Six
IIMs: H.P. AP, Punjab, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha
3. Four
New Central Universities: A.P (1 Central University & 1 Tribal University),
M.P (Jai Prakash Narayan National Centre for Excellence in Humanities), Bihar
(Mahatma Gandhi Central University)
4. One
IISER AP
5. ONE
NIT, AP
6. N
New IIIT in AP
7. 1
Tribal University, Telegana
*****
MC/DS/RK- ACHIEVEMENTS