Uttar Pradesh
Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme for girl children
Under the state government’s Kanya Vidya Dhan programme announced on August 22, girl students who clear the intermediate (Plus Two) or equivalent examination from 2012 onwards, will be awarded a lumpsum Rs.30,000.
According to a government order, every girl student who qualifies for this scheme subject to the proviso that the total income of her family is less than Rs.35,000 per year, is eligible to submit her application at an office designated by the district magistrate.
The last date for receiving Kanya Vidya Dhan applications for the inaugural year is September 20. District magistrates have been directed to ensure that annual income certificates are issued to parents of eligible girl children.
Odisha
Nalco full scholarships
Nalco Foundation, the CSR (corporate social responsibility) arm of the Bhubaneswar-based National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco), has signed memoranda of understanding with the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar; Koraput Development Foundation (KDF), Jeypore; and Bikash Vidyalaya, Koraput, under which children from remote villages of Damanjodi in Koraput district will receive full scholarship education in their schools. Nalco will foot all expenses including tuition, board and lodging and other expenses.
This full scholarship residential education programme for which the foundation has made a provision of Rs.70 lakh per year, will enable 450 children from the backward villages of Damanjodi to enrol in KISS, KDF and Bikash Vidyalaya schools. Meanwhile a second batch of 210 tribal children to be enroled in KISS has also been selected.
Punjab
Entrance exam language row
Punjab education minister Sikander Singh Maluka has voiced strident objection to cancellation of the Punjabi language entrance exam of Punjab University (PU) and has invited intervention of vice president Hamid Ansari, in his capacity as ex-officio chancellor of the university, to reverse the decision. According to university rules, all M.Phil entrance exams are obliged to be written in English.
According to Maluka, this is a “dangerous and strange” decision against Punjab and the Punjabi language by PU which has a “systematic plan to decimate the Punjabi language”. He said the state government will not tolerate neglect of Punjabi by PU, which receives state government aid to fund 60 percent of its annual expenditure. “Protection of Punjabi language is the duty of the university administration. Even the country’s highest civil services entrance exams are permitted to be written in Gurmukhi,” he said, inviting the vice president’s intervention.
Tripura
Theatre-in-education study programme
The National School of Drama (NSD), Agartala has introduced a new study programme ‘Theatre-in-education’ — a first-of-its-type in Asia. The initial batch of 20 students admitted to the 12-month programme includes eight students from Tripura and the rest from other states. An interview board — headed by the course coordinator Kirty Jain, a former director of NSD — selected the candidates, said Anuradha Kapur, director of NSD.
The new programme was inaugurated by Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar on August 9.
NSD intends to send its graduates to stage theatre productions countrywide next year, says Kapur. The initial batches of students will study at the Nazrul Kalakshetra in Agartala, but the state government has promised a site to build a new school with state-of-the-art facilities, she adds.
Delhi
Pearson-CBSE concordat
According to an agreement signed in Delhi on August 9, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the London-based global education services provider, Pearson Education, will establish a centre for developing quality research capabilities and applying best practices to school-based assessment and teaching techniques.
“CBSE-affiliated schools and their teachers stand to benefit from the proposed Centre for Assessment, Evaluation and Research to be established in the PPP (public private partnership) mode, to work primarily on grass roots research and applications. Initially the centre will focus on the impact of recent CBSE reforms such as the continuous comprehensive evaluation programme in classrooms and life-skills curriculum,” said CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi speaking on the occasion.
Added Kapil Sibal, Union minister for human resource development: “The Centre will be another example of the successful public private partnership (PPP) model moving towards setting up other centres of excellence. This will ensure we match global best practices in education.”
Kerala
Centre for Biopolymer Science inauguration
India’s first Centre for Biopolymer Science and Technology — a unit of the Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET), Chennai — was jointly inaugurated by Union fertilisers and chemicals minister M.K. Alagiri, and Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy in Kochi on August 25.
The capital outlay of Rs.30 crore for establishing the centre, which will conduct M.Sc and doctoral programmes in biopolymer science, and doctoral programmes in collaboration with Cochin University of Science and Technology, has been shared equally between the Central and state governments. Twenty students have been admitted for the M.Sc degree and 12 for the doctoral programme at the centre, which will initially conduct classes in temporary renovated premises of FACT (Fertilisers and Chemicals, Travancore).
Speaking on the occasion, Alagiri said CIPET will train 215,600 students during the 12th Plan (2012-17) as against 116,638 students in the 11th Plan period. With the support of the Kerala government, a full-fledged campus will be established in two-three years, he added.