India needs quality educational institutes: President Pranab Mukherjee

India needs more quality educational institutes particularly in remote areas, President Pranab Mukherjee said Friday.

Mukherjee also pitched for improvement in the standards of higher education.

The demand for higher education more than the supply, and there was a need to improve the standards of education, said Mukherjee at the 26th convocation of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) here.

He said the absence of educational institutes in remote areas resulted in low enrolment in higher education.

He commended the IGNOU for making education available to the poor and to those who want to study for self-enrichment and to upgrade skills.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development Jitin Prasada was present on the occasion.

AICTE sends notice to 101 institutions for not meeting quality standards

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has sent notices to 101 institutions across the country for not meeting quality standards. AICTE has sent notices to these technical institutions ahead of new academic session 2013-14 to improve their quality and other requirements.

Maximum numbers of colleges 26 are from Andhra Pradesh, 23 are in Maharashtra and 12 colleges from Uttar Pradesh. Six institutions in Tamil Nadu, including one business school, have been asked to explain their position. Some of them have also been asked to explain why they have not complied with the rules and regulations for setting up an institution.

Former Vice Chancellor of Anna University, E Balaguruswamy said, “As many as 40 per cent of all engineering colleges can be closed down for want of faculty shortage, infrastructure requirement and harassment of students and faculty.

5 things about the Indian education system that we hope changes

Every established system in the country always attracts severe criticism. The Indian Education system especially has been the target of many allegations from students, parents and teachers. Students think they are overburdened, teachers think they are not paid enough and parents want their children to get 99.99 percentage. Where does the buck stop?

Yes, in recent times there have been some steps taken on education reforms, but it needs lot more than that

Check out top 5 things about the Indian education system that we hope changes sooner rather than later!

Rote learning

Yes, we do know that many colleges across India are trying to bring in interactive education and we laud that immensely. But the evil of rote learning is yet to be wiped out from a majority of Indian schools. We’re very sure that most students won’t be clear about many of the basic foundation concepts taught in school even after they’ve graduated. Ever heard of students mugging up balanced equations? This is one fundamental change that needs to come about in our Indian Education System!

Marking System

All the other evils of the Indian education system ultimately come down to the method in which students are marked. Is it justified that a student is evaluated only on the basis of his/her performance for the duration of three hours of the exam? If the axis of grading and marking is shifted to classroom participation, project work, communication and leadership skills and extracurricular performance, only then will a genuine student shine out.

This might sound like a utopian proposition but the Indian education system badly needs to bring about this change.

Respect for all streams

"Oh has she done a MA in English? She’ll end up becoming a teacher"

"What good is a diploma in hospitality management? It ultimately means doing a job in a hotel as a cook right?"

If you’ve heard these lines time and again from you elders, don’t you think it’s time you stop them?

How long are we going to look down upon vocational streams and look up to medicine, engineering, the IIT’s and the IIM’s? Students at the school level need to be educated through career counseling regarding the kind of streams that exist and what importance each of them plays to make an economy diverse.

Variety in education streams

Why do we always see students being envious of their counterparts in the USA?

It’s because there are just three options that student have after Class 10 – they’re stuck with Science, Arts or Commerce. If they’re not good enough for either of these, they jet set straight into diplomas and certificate courses. Don’t you think the Indian education system needs to introduce combination courses in which students can opt for a major and a minor subject? If students in America can pursue Physiotherapy with Art History and Biological Science with Photography, why not in India?

The system of tuition classes

Commenting on this subject is like plunging one’s hand into a vicious cycle which seems to have no beginning or end. Reasons for tuition classes mushrooming are because students say that the teaching in schools is lax and not good enough for them to clear exams. Whereas teachers say that students jump ahead many chapters in the tuition classes before they are even taught in school.

This makes them loose all motivation and steam to attend school in the first place. Forget all of this, what about the poor parent who’s hard earned money gets drained in school and tuition fees alone?

Although the picture does seem dismal, there is hope because some of these changes are slowly being made by select education providers. But how quickly will these changes percolate down to common man in India, only time will tell.

Parents meeting held on 22.2.2013 in AIET

A growing body of evidence suggests that family engagement matters for student success. Research shows that family engagement improves college readiness, student achievement, and social skills. Furthermore, an increasing number of innovative approaches to education leverage and connect the many settings and times in which student learn and grow to create seamless complementary learning systems that place families as core partners in the learning process.

As this research base and local, state, and national policies and models converge in support of family engagement, there is a growing demand to provide practical tools that reflect the current state of the field. This set of parent–teacher conference tip sheets provides administrators, educators, and families with ideas and strategies that honor their shared responsibility in supporting family engagement.

Family engagement does not happen in a vacuum. Rather, it takes the committed actions of both families and college working together—through parent–teacher conferences as well as other forms of engagement—to support student success. Through this shared responsibility, colleges reach out to and engage families in meaningful ways, and, similarly, families do their part to actively support their student's learning and development. These three tip sheets—for principals, teachers, and parents—can help ensure that parent–teacher conferences achieve their maximum potential by providing guidance that reflects each person’s role and responsibility in promoting productive home–college communication. Designed to be used as a set, the tip sheets combine consistent information with targeted suggestions, so that parents and educators enter into conferences with shared expectations and an increased ability to work together to improve student'seducational outcomes.