Education Briefs

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.

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.

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 remain at zero level, and over 95 percent showed movement up the reading scale.

The Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the country’s largest pan-India secondary examination board with over 8,600 affiliated schools, is all set to introduce a new study programme in financial transactions management for Plus Two (class XI-XII) students. CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly says that the "very professionsal" new course will ease the entry of personnel into the capital market which is experiencing an acute shortage of trained and qualified manpower.

According to Ganguly, the transnational consultancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers and ASSOCHAM are helping with the design of the study programme which will be jointly certified by CBSE and the National Stock Exchange. "A higher secondary student who takes this course will be fit for employment in a BPO and/ or as an assistant to a top stockbroker and will have a thorough understanding of financial transactions," says Shashi Bhushan, course and distance learning coordinator of CBSE.

The decks are being cleared for staging the Global Education, Training and Information Technology Exhibition (GETIT) 2007 in Bangalore on January 29-31, 2007. The exhibition organised by International Conferences & Exhibition LLC (IC&E), one of Middle East’s oldest exhibition and conference organisation companies, will showcase the latest in cutting-edge learning systems, including didactic material and learning technologies.

"GETIT will be a one-stop shop for education services providers to articulate the process of investment in learning delivery systems. It will be useful for manufacturers, investors, end-users/ teachers and pupils," says an IC&E spokesperson.

According to the spokesperson, at the current rate of growth the annual revenue of India’s IT industry is expected to aggregate $80 billion (Rs.350,000 crore) by 2008, for which it needs over 2 million knowledge workers. "To keep pace with the IT industry’s growth, government and the private sector have to equip themselves to churn out the required number of knowledge workers. GETIT will provide an ideal platform for ICT (information communication technologies) equipment manufacturers and education providers to interact," explains the IC&E spokesperson.

Over 100 exhibitors and 200 international delegates are expected to participate in the exhibition and the conference. Canada, China, France, Germany, Malaysia, Middle East, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and the US will be among the countries represented by national pavilions.