Haryana
British delegation visit
Haryana education minister Ram Bilas Sharma has invited expressions of interest from the UK government to promote cooperation in the fields of skills development, technology, industrial development, renewable energy and solid waste management, an official spokesman informed the media in Chandigarh on November 13.
The minister made the offer to Baroness Verma, parliamentary under-secretary of state for energy and climate change in the UK, when her seven-member business delegation called on him to discuss issues of mutual interest. He also requested her to explore the possibility of a joint project in power generation.
Baroness Verma confirmed that business and industry in the UK is keen to promote trade and investment in Haryana, and will send a team of investors to visit the state in January 2015. “We are aiming at a long-term future with Haryana,” she said.
Punjab
Technical education drive
The state government has launched an initiative to provide skills development training to 100,000 youth annually to meet demand for skilled manpower from the industrial sector, said Punjab’s technical education minister Madan Mohan Mittal, addressing media personnel in Chandigarh on November 9.
Mittal said the state government’s department of technical education and industrial training has taken “landmark steps” to upgrade vocational education training programmes to enable students to acquire the latest skills. Technical education improvement programmes developed at a cost of Rs.83.90 crore are currently in operation in eight engineering colleges across the state, he added
Towards its skilling initiative, five new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) are currently under construction at Adampur (Jalandhar), Maloud (Ludhiana), Niari (Gurdaspur), Manakpur Sharif (Mohali) and Singhpura (Rupnagar) with additional workshops set up in the ITIs sited in Ludhiana and Lalru, the minister said. Two multi-disciplinary academies as well as five institutes of technology (christened Punjab Institutes of Technology) have also been established at a cost of Rs. 91.77 crore, he added.
Meghalaya
Private varsities review
At a meeting to review the progress of private universities in Meghalaya, governor K.K. Paul stressed the need for dispensing quality education through reputed and well-qualified faculty, says a state government press release. The review meeting convened in Shillong on November 5, was attended by chancellors and vice chancellors of private universities statewide.
Given that universities are the highest seats of learning, Paul said that utmost efforts should be made to ensure these institutions are held in high esteem by the public. His remark came a year after the state’s first private university — the Chandra Mohan Jha University — was accused of involvement in selling fake Ph D degrees to hundreds of students.
The governor stressed the need for conducive environments on campuses, which should be equipped with libraries, laboratories for science and technical courses, research facilities, and sports and cultural arenas, the statement said. “There’s an urgent need to introduce innovative courses in the tertiary sector to suit youth of the North-east and make them readily employable,” he said.
Odisha
Model schools rollout
To encourage English-medium education in rural Odisha, the state government has approved a plan for 100 model schools to begin operations from the academic year 2015-16. These schools, inspired by the Central government-sponsored Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs), will admit students into classes VI-VIII initially, a state government spokesman informed media personnel in Bhubaneswar on November 4.
Equipped with computer and science labs, libraries, sports arenas, and art and music rooms, model schools will be established in the most backward blocks of the state. “The main objective of this initiative is to provide English-medium education in rural areas at affordable prices to ensure rural students don’t lag behind their urban counterparts. There will be 50 percent reservation for girls, with hostel facilities,” a senior official of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) said.
According to the official, construction of 87 school buildings is nearing completion. For effective teaching, the teacher-student ratio will be maintained at 1:40.
The schools will follow the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus and Odia will be taught as a second language. “We have proposed to the state government that it recruits teachers through the Staff Selection Commission on a regular basis. Non-teaching staff will be hired through outsourcing or on contract,” he added.
The state government also proposes to promote an Odisha Model Schools Education Society for management of the model schools. All appointments will be made by the society, the spokesman said.