Education Briefs

Lotus Valley International School, Noida (UP) invites admission applications for pre-nursery to class IX for the academic year beginning April 2006. Spread over 12.5 acres on a lush green campus on the outskirts of Delhi, LVIS is a global school offering facilities of international standard. The school propagates "Indian culture and values seasoned with the best from the occident". In it’s centrally air-conditioned building, it provides a comfortable ambience for children to receive education. In addition to games such as football, cricket and basketball the school is training children in horse riding, tennis and golf. A gymnasium has been constructed and a swimming pool is under construction.

Inside the school’s classrooms, the teaching-learning process is aided by hi-tech facilities like smart boards, projectors and 3-D clippings on all subjects. The school’s trinitarian philosophy i.e head, heart and hand, is amply visible in the classrooms.

"The focus of the school is on ‘man-making’ by refining moral, ethical, human and spiritual values with pursuit of excellence as the leitmotif. Conventional education often makes the mistake of inordinately exalting intellect over emotions and other life skills like problem solving, communication, creativity, critical thinking, empathy, interpersonal dealings with the result that children know a lot of facts but lack the inner contentment and fulfillment of a well-developed person. Lotus Valley endeavours to rectify this imbalance," says S.C. Arora, vice chairman of LVIS.

Dupont, the well known 200-year plus science company has introduced its DuPont™ Tyvek®, a non-woven fabric which combines the best properties of paper, film and cloth. Tyvek® is used in innumerable applications worldwide ranging from healthcare, automobiles, construction, electronics to packaging and printing.

The unique attributes of DuPont™ Tyvek® are: excellent strength; light weight; outstanding tear strength; protection against water, chemicals and solvents; excellent printability; protection against ageing and discolouration; excellent folding resistance (can be folded up to 20,000 times); excellent security features; environment friendly and 100 percent recyclability. All these properties make Tyvek® an ideal material for applications that require security features, storage for long periods and protection against rough handling and weather, say company sources.

"Tyvek® envelopes are famous worldwide for their distinct look, feel and performance. From Harvard Business School to Harley Davidson, from USA Today to Fox Channel, they all use Tyvek® envelopes. These strong, water-acid-tear- termite resistant envelopes are ideal for mailing, and provide excellent protection of contents besides economy of postage. For education institutions Tyvek® envelopes are ideally suited as they include tamper evident envelopes for question paper packaging, mailing envelopes for sensitive and delicate items like convocation certificates, and interdepartmental envelopes for cost reduction," says a Dupont spokesperson.

The pioneer Pune-based Dina Institute of Hotel and Business Management (estb: 1996) has unveiled the prototype model of a new 2.5 acre campus. Speaking on the occasion of graduation day and induction of the 2005 new batch of students on September 24, Ajit K Oberoi, promoter executive director of the institute said: "Construction work on the main campus structure resembling a five-star hotel and located amidst green, serene surroundings is scheduled to start soon."

Almost a decade after it admitted its first batch of hospitality industry students, Dina Institute has impressed the academic community. "With its strong focus on practical training, the institute is poised to heavily impact the hospitality industry," says Prof. Ashok Kolaskar, vice chancellor of Pune University, who presented certificates to 65 graduating students of the institute. A fresh batch of 100 incoming students were also welcomed at the grand ceremony.

Encouraged by student response to its full-time, part-time and correspondence courses in business management, Dina Institute will also offer professionally designed travel and tourism, airline operations and IT courses within a year.

Spread over 18,000 sq ft with a current enrollment of 400 students taught by a faculty of 21, Dina’s business management programme includes specialisation in banking, BPO, finance, marketing, international business, human resources and operations and systems. All these study courses are certified by Pune University.

Dina is also affiliated with Sikkim Manipal University, Educational Institute of American Hotel and Lodging Association, USA and Middlesex University, London for specialist study programmes.

The Mumbai-based V.K. Ware Product Group has introduced its Integrated Institute Management System (IIMS), an administrative software package designed to track and manage the network of day-to-day functions in education institutes. Designed to support the functioning of the entire spectrum of education institutes, from day and residential schools to colleges and universities, IIMS has the capacity to support over 750 data entry modules and more than 2,000 combinational reports.

"IIMS serves as a centralised information centre for every activity of an education institute. It provides accurate information for all departments. Any change gets instantly reflected to related administrative needs with excellent controls and audits. It also provides online and offline information to parents about students’ attendance, results, performance etc which can be tracked and communicated via internet, mails, remote access, voice-mails conferencing etc, so that a virtual open house always connects students, parents and teachers," says a Mumbai-based V.K. Ware spokesperson.

Developed over a decade, IIMS has been implemented locally and overseas in institutions such as Children’s Academy (Mumbai), Lady Vissanji (Mumbai), Narsee Monjee University (Mumbai) and the Indian School (Oman).