Education Briefs

Istituto Marangoni’s India debut

Istituto Marangoni, Milan (estb.1935) inaugurated its first educational facility in India in Mumbai recently. The new school will offer a wide set of training resources and tools designed to provide fashion students and industry professionals the most qualitative learning experiences.

The institute offers broad (i.e, 24 weeks) and short-term (one week) courses focused on fashion design, fashion business, brand management and fashion buying, while also “instilling a rich sense of Italian flair and design thinking” in its study programmes. The Mumbai facility will have some notable permanent faculty members from Italy, including fashion professionals and industry veterans. Their focus will be to ensure the same qualitative teaching experience offered in the other campuses in Milan, Florence, Paris, London, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

“Given the shifts in global trends, India represents the next fashion frontier and the establishment of our new school here in Mumbai will allow Istituto Marangoni to train, guide and mentor talented students, who will positively influence the best of Indian fashion and design as well as play a vital role in the global market,” said Roberto Riccio, group managing director of Istituto Marangoni, speaking on the occasion.

 

Green Talent award winners

Rama Kant Dubey (BHU, Varanasi), Jayati Trivedi (CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun) and Pratiksha Srivastava (CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar) are among 25 scientists shortlisted for the Green Talents Award 2017 instituted by the Federal ministry of education & research, Germany.

The awards ceremony provides young researchers with a platform to share their views on green concepts to make the world a better and cleaner place. A high-ranking jury selected 25 promising young scientists out of 602 applicants from 95 countries who submitted papers on ‘sustainable production and consumption’. The awardees won an all expenses paid trip to the Green Talents — International Forum for High Potential in Sustainable Development ceremony which will be held in  Berlin, presided over by Prof. Johanna Wanka, research minister of the Federal government, in the near future.

Their visit will include a two-week science tour which will provide Green Talents with insights into the German research landscape and the opportunity to meet green experts and visit some of the most renowned ecology and environment sustainability research institutions in Germany. 

 

ClassEdge-CMS concordat

For the first time in India, Tata ClassEdge has introduced a measurement-driven model, MATE (Managed Adoption of Technology in Education), for effective usage of technology in classrooms. MATE will be introduced in 877 classrooms of the City Montessori School, Lucknow, and will be the “largest measurement-driven school education initiative anywhere worldwide”.

According to Tata ClassEdge spokespersons, MATE is a platform for schools to improve their teaching-learning practices “through data-based feedback loops”. In this collaborative partnership, MATE will serve as an end-to-end service agreement under which Tata ClassEdge takes complete responsibility for teacher training, acceptance, adoption and effective usage of technology in classrooms.

“After receiving feedback from teachers and our research team, we decided to introduce MATE for improving technology-enabled teaching and learning in the school’s classrooms. Our usage data has been augmented over the years after feedback from more than 100,000 teachers across the country. The data we will gather from CMS will provide invaluable insights to design high impact personalised interventions for better use of technology in classrooms,” says Nirav Khambhati, CEO of Tata ClassEdge. 

Adds Dr. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, president of CMS: “CMS has been a pioneer in providing education via interactive white boards in every classroom. MATE contains excellent off-the-shelf content, which puts teachers in control while also providing pedagogical tools — an example of ‘appropriate technology’ for enhancing our students’ learning.”

 

WorldSkills winners

As India celebrated Diwali, Team India created history by winning one silver (Mohit Dudeja), one bronze (Kiran Sudhakar) and nine medallions of excellence at the 44th WorldSkills competition which concluded in Abu Dhabi on October 18. This is India’s best performance since it started participating in this competition in 2007. The Indian team was competing with candidates from 59 other WorldSkills member countries.

Dudeja won a silver for patisserie and confectionery, and Sudhakar bagged a bronze for prototype modelling. Nine medallions for excellence were won in trades/skills such as mechatronics, brick-laying, restaurant service, automobile technology, jewellery, graphic design technology, mobile robotics, beauty therapy and car painting. The winners were presented their medals at a glittering closing ceremony in Abu Dhabi on October 18. 

About 1,300 youth from 59 WorldSkills member countries showcased their talent across 51 skills competitions between October 15-18. This was the first time the WorldSkills competition was staged in the Middle East and North Africa region. A team of 28 participants in 26 skill categories represented India this year led by the National Skill Development Corporation.