The 3rd India & International Premier Schools Exhibition (IIPSE) bandwagon is all set to roll through six Indian cities — Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Ranchi and Patna — starting with a pre-event mega conference titled Premier Schools Conference on February 2 at the Taj Bengal, Kolkata. ‘Building global learning communities through leadership and technology,’ will be the theme of this conference which will be attended by 250 delegates comprising school principals, managing trustees, owners, administrators, teachers and other stakeholders in education. “The objective of the pre-event conference is to provide educators a common platform to share knowledge, build pathways, debate innovations and teaching methodologies and reinvent Indian school education. Eminent speakers from the school education fraternity will share their knowledge and experience,” says Sanjiv Bolia, chief executive of Afairs, a Kolkata-based education fairs promotion firm (estb: 1993) which has staged 80 successful school fairs across India during the past 13 years. According to Bolia, IIPSE has grown into the “biggest scholastic event of its kind in India” and offers a unique interface between schools, parents and service providers. The 3rd IIPSE will be staged in Kolkata (February 3-5), Ranchi (February 7-8), Patna (February 11-12), Hyderabad (February 17-18), Ludhiana (February 21-22) and Ahmedabad (February 24-25). The 3rd IIPSE has the University of Cambridge International Examinations as its platinum sponsor and the Indian Public Schools Conference as its support partner. BIFS mental health study programme The Birla Institute of Futuristic Studies (BIFS), Kolkata has introduced a six month diploma programme in mental healthcare for corporate executives, personality trainers, grooming experts, elderly citizens, NGO and hospital workers and school and college teachers, among others. Graduates of any stream are eligible to enroll for this part-time diploma programme. “Individuals are given training in calming down suicidal or over-aggressive people and to manage stress, anger and improve interpersonal communication skills,” says a BIFS spokesperson. Established in 1998 BIFS also offers diploma programmes in tea and hospital management, photography, public relations and advertising. KLP off to a smooth start An innovative public-private initiative, the Karnataka Learning Partnership (KLP) — a joint programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All) and Akshara Foundation, Bangalore — released its first formal report on December 15. The focus of this partnership is to improve learning outcomes of primary school children. The first phase of KLP which covers 1,200 schools with an aggregate enrollment of 70,000 children and complement of 3,500 teachers spanning the period July-November 2006 was recently concluded. The first KLP report provides details of its Accelerated Reading Programme (ARP). KLP’s baseline test was administered in all 1,410 government primary schools in Bangalore urban district. Out of the enrolled strength of 185,952 children in classes II-VII, 176,235 children attended the baseline test — nearly 95 percent of all enrolled children. According to KLP’s first report, 64 percent of children in the Bangalore urban district who were in the zero letter or word categories, i.e ‘non-readers’, have been converted into readers following implementation of the ARP. Only 2 percent of children continued to…
