Mou signed
Prabhatam Group, the country’s leading business conglomerate, has signed a one-of-its-kind Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Canadian International Training and Education Corp (CITREC). Both CITREC and Prabhatam Group through this MoU will explore the opportunity to provide Indian nationals opportunity to attain skilled trades assessment based on Canadian standards before migrating to or finding employment in Canada and be job ready.
The partnership between the two confirms that Prabhatam group’s core stands for making people’s dream come true.
Counseling session
Representatives from the loughborough University will be visiting Delhi from November 24 to 26 and on November 29 and 30 to meet students and answer their queries. Dr lisa Blenkinsop, who is a senior international officer at the university, will be available for counseling sessions.
loughborough University also offers merit based competitive scholarships to the value of 25 per cent of the programme tuition fee for international students applying for certain undergraduate and postgraduate courses. All students applying to the university will be considered for the bursary. Interested students can contact Dr Blenkinsop by seeking an appointment by writing to her at l.Blenkinsop@lboro.ac.uk. For more information visit http://www.lboro.ac.uk/.
Climate change award
TERI University, instituted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has won the Greenest University and Research Institution award.
The award is one amongst 10 inaugural climate change awards organised by Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) — a news and analysis website.
Acknowledging the award Dr leena Srivastava, VC, TERI University and executive director said: “The university is honoured and privileged to receive this recognition. Our entire curriculum is based on sustainability studies and our students are imbibing sustainability solutions on a daily basis.”
IT quiz contest
Over 1400 students from various schools from New Delhi participated in the TCS IT Wiz held at Dogra Hall, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi. TCS IT Wiz— India’s largest inter school IT Quiz event, was organised by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading IT services, consulting and business solutions firm.
The regional finals of New Delhi edition witnessed some edge-of-the-seat quizzing with Apratim Chandra Singh and Naman Dhanuka from Modern Public School, Barakhamba Road trumping their closest rivals and Abhijay Gupta and Samarth Wahal from Delhi Public School, Noida, who came a close second in what was a fitting end to an exhilarating battle between the tech nerds. The winners walked away with an iPad each while the runners up won themselves a galaxy tablet each. The winning duo will represent New Delhi in the mega finals and will contest for the title of “Smart Tech Wizards 2013.”
The prizes were distributed by Debashis Ghosh, president-manufacturing, life Sciences and Energy, and Head TCS North along with Tej Bhatla, vice president and deputy head TCS Delhi and Dr AK Chawla, HR head TCS, India North.
IAFA ceremony by ryan
The Ryan International Group of Institutions organised the grand finale of the 5th Ryan’s IAFA ceremony at MlR Convention Centre Auditorium, Whitefield. Karnataka Home Minister KJ George was the chief guest for the function and presented IAFA awards to the young filmmakers.
Speaking on the occasion, George said that Ryan Group founded by educationists Dr AF Pinto and Grace Pinto is credited with introducing world-class education in their schools across the nation. “Its yeomen service in promoting sports, imbibing moral education, developing self confidence among students amid global challenges is indeed noteworthy,” the Minister said.
Pinto rendered the prayer and welcomed the gathering and said that one of their endeavours is to provide students with the opportunities in consonance to the changing trends and help them be equipped for the future.
Run for a cause
The ‘Réal Run for Children’ was organised recently by Prayas NGO which was participated by 7000 children from 140 schools of Delhi and 1,000 underprivileged children. The children also signed 7,000 postcards addressed to the President of India demanding RTE for underprivileged children, thereby setting a new limca Book Record.
Actors Randeep Hooda and Adil Hussain, singer Richa Sharma, Commisioner of Delhi Police B S Bassi and Amod K Kanth, general secretary of Prayas were amongst many other prominent personalities graced the occasion to encourage the children.
This initiative is a wonderful chance to not just experience the pleasure of running 4.5 km with the children from underprivileged segments of our society and from various schools, but also support their demand for RTE.”
The run started at 7:30 am from Central Secretariat ground to Vinay Marg Chanakya Puri and Hyatt Hotel. The return lap was through Hyatt Hotel to Central Secretariat ground.
Conference on engineering trends
Monad University held a one-day conference on Emerging Trends on Science and Technology. Dr RD Mishra director GHS — IMR Kanpur and Dr RK Mittal chancellor Monad University were the guest of honour for this conference. Dr Mian Jan, vice-chancellor Monad University started the conference.
Speaking at the event, Dr Mishra said: “The private education is spreading like a mushroom in our country but the quality of this kind of education is not at all good. If we compare the education system with their education then we will get the difference. Korea spends 3.9 per cent of their GDP on the education system whereas in country India we spent only 0.95 on the research part. The political system and other political reasons are responsible for this difference.”
He also said that every person should focus on the excellence in their field and find the factor of human happiness with science.
English Proficiency survey
In the recent English proficiency survey conducted by EF Education First, world leader in international education revealed English Proficiency of Indian English medium high school students is at an average of 75 per cent. A Class VIII student Gauri Kedia from Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai topped the country in English proficiency with 99 per cent and completed the test in just 12 minutes. Amity International School student Dhruv Khanna topped the North Zone schools with proficiency of 99 per cent and completed the test in just 18 minutes.
Survey was conducted on online platform and 30 English medium schools were selected, 3,000 students participated, 51 per cent were boys and 49 per cent were girls. The survey was compiled by a detailed analysis of grammar, vocabulary and listening skills of students. A few highlights of the survey:
· The survey highlighted that high school students studying in English medium schools need to improve their English reading skills
· Reading proficiency for schools from all 4 zones — North, South, East and West were low. National average for reading is at 53.62 per cent indicating an area for improvement. Both the genders have weak reading skills
· Indian students have a very high proficiency of 80 per cent in vocabulary which indicates that they are well versed conversing in the language. With globalisation Indians have adopted to speaking English from their childhood. This can be attributed to the increasing viewership of English movies and cartoons on TV
· English proficiency of students when compared on the global standards- the common European framework of reference for languages shows 87per cent of English medium high school students were in the band of C-proficient users and B-independent users of the language. This makes Indians fare much better than their peers in Asia
· 13 per cent students were on band A-basic users being able to communicate in simple and routine tasks. This highlights that these schools should invest on good quality English educators in their schools.
· Students from South specifically need improvement in reading and listening skills compared to the North, West and East zone.
· Students from East zone schools need to focus on improving their English vocabulary.