Jammu & Kashmir
Village education committees drive
Village Education Committee (VEC) Day was observed statewide during which VECs were formally constituted for government schools under the centrally-funded Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All programme). Each VEC comprises a local panchayat representative, headmaster of the school, representative of a local self-help group, educationists, parents and other eminent locals as members.
“The objective of constituting VECs is to encourage a synergetic government-community partnership to achieve universalisation of elementary education,” said the state’s education minister Naeem Akhtar, addressing media personnel in Srinagar on June 14. According to the minister, VECs will play a major role in changing community attitudes towards education, and motivating parents/guardians to send their children — especially girls and children from socio-economically disadvantaged groups — to school.
Assam
Support withdrawal lament
Assam’s chief minister Tarun Gogoi described a recent Union government’s decision to reduce support to centrally-sponsored schemes in the states, and particularly to the Model Schools Scheme as “lopsided”, and a setback to the national primary education drive. This decision will severely deprive rural students of their right to quality education, said Gogoi in an official statement released in Guwahati on June 8.
Gogoi also sent a letter to the Union human resources development minister Smriti Irani, informing her that Assam has already cleared construction of 48 model schools under the previous arrangement in which the Centre agreed to bear 75 percent of the cost.
“With our efforts, 14 new class I-V schools have already begun operations. The response of students and parents communities has been overwhelming,” Gogoi said in his letter, adding that the Assam government intends to run the schools despite withdrawal of the Centre’s support.
Gujarat
RMC’s first English school
The Municipal School Board (MSB) chairman of the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) Devang Mankad, and Rajkot mayor Raksha Boliya inaugurated the first RMC English-medium school constructed in partnership with the JHP Education Foundation, a non-profit run by the city-based Galaxy Group, under its new public-private partnership English-medium schools initiative. The foundation runs several private schools under the banners of The Galaxy Education System and SNK.
Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding between RMC and JHP Education Foundation which has a duration of ten years, MSB will erect school buildings and provide uniforms to students, while JHP Foundation will manage the free-of-charge schools by recruiting teachers and non-teaching staff, and bear the commuting costs of students.
Kerala
New women’s community college
Kudumbashree (estb.1998), a well-known women’s self-help group and CDS (Community Development Society), are set to launch a community college in the state. This initiative has received assurances of support from the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Kudumbashree executive director K.B. Valsala Kumari informed media in Thiruvananthapuram on June 22.
“The community college initiative is a milestone in the history of Kudumbashree. We have 4.1 million educated members and this project will help them access higher education,” she said, adding that the syllabus and study material of the course, which comprises nine months of classroom study and one month’s field work, have been designed by TISS faculty.
Henceforth, eligible members of the all-woman network can sign up for a free-of-charge postgraduate diploma in development.
Madhya Pradesh
Government stick and carrots
Private schools across the state that have hired teachers without requisite D.Ed/B.Ed qualifications run the risk of losing recognition of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education.
According to a government press release issued in Bhopal on June 10, under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 norms, a middle school teacher must have a D.Ed certification and higher secondary teachers B.Ed degrees.
Moreover from early June, the state’s school education department has made the hitherto paperwork-intensive process of applying for renewal of recognition an online process for all private higher secondary schools.
Jharkhand
New IARI campus
Prime minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation for a new Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) campus at Goriya Karma village in Hazaribagh district. It will develop and research soil health, water-use efficiency and management of both surface and ground water resources in high rainfall regions through multi-disciplinary research, says a media statement dated June 28.
“IARI, Jharkhand will soon have a 1,000-acre campus to give a boost to agriculture education in the region. Jharkhand will achieve inclusive agricultural growth through integrated farming systems,” says the statement.
According to state government spokespersons, the new campus has been designed to attract the cream of postgraduate and doctoral students from across India and abroad to conduct region-specific research. This will have a beneficial fallout in terms of improved soil health, and water use efficiency in high rainfall regions through crop diversification research.