Dl may 2018 magazine

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Special Is s

ue

Destination

Uttar Pradesh

The Next Big

Education Hub

Feature Story-1 UP: Nurturing Tomorrow with Best Higher Education Practices Feature Story-2 Government Schools: Key to school education

Yogi Adityanath Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

Dr Dinesh Sharma Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

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CONTENTS may 2018 | Volume 14 | Issue 05

cover story

special feature

10

30 UP Government Schools: Ray of Hope and Learning for All

Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub

Policymakers perspective 16 Ramesh Mishra Secretary, Higher Education Government of Uttar Pradesh

18 Selva Kumari J

UP’s Higher Education Scenario

District Magistrate, Etawah Government of Uttar Pradesh

24

22

Nurturing Tomorrow with Best Higher Education Practices

Narendra Shankar Pandey

state Perspective

Special Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh and Director, Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, Uttar Pradesh

28

34

Dr Vedpati Mishra

Mahendra Bahadur Singh

Special Secretary, Basic Education Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and State Project Director, Uttar Pradesh Education for All Project Board

District Magistrate, Rampur Government of Uttar Pradesh

Innovation Perspective

school Perspective

36

46

Dr Jagdish Gandhi

R Ramanan

Founder-Manager City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow

Mission Director - Atal Innovation Mission, Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog, Government of India

54

CBSE Perspective

SP SINGH

40

Former Member of the Legislative Council, Uttar Pradesh Founder-Manager, Lucknow Public Schools & Colleges

Dr MVV Prasada Rao

Director, Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Selection Test (JNVST); Misc Exam, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)

conference reports

UGC Perspective

65

42

Dr Archana Thakur

Joint Secretary University Grants Commission (UGC)

74

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Dr Ravi Gupta EDITORIAL TEAM: DELHI/NCR Senior Assistant Editors: Souvik Goswami, Gautam Debroy, Sandeep Datta Assistant Editors: Priyanka Sharma, Gopi Krishna Arora, Poulami Chakraborty, Mukul Kumar Mishra Senior Correspondents: Akash Tomer, Rashi Aditi Ghosh Correspondent: Ritika Srivastava LUCKNOW BUREAU Assistant Editor: Arpit Gupta MUMBAI BUREAU Senior Assistant Editor: Kartik Sharma Senior Correspondents: Harshal Yashwant Desai, Rakesh Kumar Roy JAIPUR BUREAU Senior Assistant Editor: Kartik Sharma CHANDIGARH BUREAU Assistant Editor: Priya Yadav

HYDERABAD BUREAU Assistant Editor: Sudheer Goutham B AMARAVATI BUREAU Correspondent: Mohammad Akbar Basha AHMEDABAD BUREAU Assistant Editor: Hemangini S Rajput bhopal BUREAu Senior Correspondent: Divakar Mukherjee Sales & Marketing : digitalLearning Senior Manager: Kumar Chandan Anand Subscription & Circulation Team +91-8860635832; subscription@elets.in Design Team Creative Head: Anjan Dey Deputy Art Directors: Om Prakash Thakur, Gopal Thakur, Shyam Kishore, Raja Das Director, Administration Archana Jaiswal

Editorial & Marketing Correspondence digitalLearning – Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd: Stellar IT Park Office No: 7A/7B, 5th Floor, Tower-2, Annexe Building, C-25, Sector-62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201301, Phone: +91-120-4812600, Fax: +91-120-4812660, Email: info@elets.in digitalLearning is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd Owner, Publisher, Printer - Dr Ravi Gupta Printed at First Impression Corporate Services Pvt Ltd, E-114, Sector-63, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

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© All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

Send your feedback about our interviews, features, articles, and news. You can either comment on the webpage of the stories, or mail at editorial@elets.in

EDITORIAL Uttar Pradesh Crafting Innovation in Education Uttar Pradesh today ranks among top States of India in terms of number of institutions of preschool, schools, and higher learning. As these institutes lay the foundation of any generation’s development as a literate society, it’s important to evaluate and innovate curriculums and pedagogies on a regular basis.

In this light, our latest issue of digitalLEARNING magazine has focused on current and prospective educational scenario of Uttar Pradesh in a broad way.

Our cover story “Destination Uttar Pradesh – The Next Big Education Hub” talks about the initiatives taken by the Government to make education available to every section of the society and simultaneously ensuring opportunities to learn skills in this tech-driven world. It also highlights improvements made by the State in the education sector in last two decades Our Special Story “UP Government Schools: Ray of Hope and Learning for All” talks about how the State Government and its policies are playing a seminal role in transforming and improving the school education sector of Uttar Pradesh.

“Nurturing Tomorrow with Best Higher Education Practices” is another special story which dwells upon the vital role of Higher Education in overall development of a State and how the Government and private players are taking initiatives to understand the current requirements and future prospects.

The edition also features the interview of Ramesh Mishra, Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh; Selva Kumari J, District Magistrate, Etawah, Government of Uttar Pradesh; Narendra Shankar Pandey, Special Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh and Director, Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, Uttar Pradesh; Dr Vedpati Mishra, Special Secretary, Basic Education Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and State Project Director, UP Education for All Project Board and Mahendra Bahadur Singh, District Magistrate, Rampur to offer a glimpse of the future growth of education sector in Uttar Pradesh.

Besides, we are also carrying interviews of government officials, school owners, university vice chancellors, principals of higher education institutes and leaders from edu corporate to showcase the overall education scenario in the State.

We are also carrying conference reports of 7th Higher Education & HR Conclave, Pune and 7th School Leadership Summit, Chandigarh. The summits highlighted and shared finest practices, ideas and latest trends about school and higher education among those who matter for overall growth of the Indian education landscape.

Presenting latest bouquet of articles, special stories and interviews along with industry initiatives, we hope to get an invaluable feedback of our readers.

Dr Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief digitalLEARNING magazine and CEO Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd

Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub

Taking education to all and ensuring opportunities to learn skills in this tech-driven world, the State of Uttar Pradesh, the most populated place of the country, is a place to look at, writes Akash Tomer of Elets News Network (ENN).

With education taking a central role in everyday life to survive, especially in term of employment prospects, Uttar Pradesh is fast emerging as an education hub of the country.

With over seven Institutes of National Importance, and cities like Kanpur and Allahabad as the hub of preparation for engineering and medical entrance exams and government jobs, Uttar Pradesh is likely to emerge as the education hub in north India.

Yogi Adityanath Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

In the existing pattern, students of the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Uttar Pradesh, find it hard to score marks, the NCERT pattern would replace it. within a year, games facility, digital black board, e-library, smart classes and Wi-fi facility would be provided to every aided and government school.

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COVER STORY

Uttar Pradesh has a rich history of education and learning. The continuous efforts by every Government has helped the State to improve its overall literacy rate, number of schools, colleges, technical institutions and universities.

The State Governments’ persistent multi-pronged efforts have led to more enrollments of children in school, improved retention rate of students especially from the weaker sections, effective implementation of adult education programmes.

It has also led to establishing of centres of education that are at par with the global standards. As a result, UP is ranked amongst the first few States to have successfully implemented the “Education for All” policy.

The State’s current education system follows schools-to-university structure which was developed during the British administration of the country. It took a long time for Uttar Pradesh to improve the condition of education within the State. Today, there are many prominent private schools, institutions and universities.

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MAY 2018

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Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub

Include Skills, Training in the Curriculum

Higher Education System Uttar Pradesh has a large number of academic and research institutes. These institutes are either under the jurisdiction of the Central Government, the State Government, or are privately run. The premier institutes in the State are:

COVER STORY

With Uttar Pradesh witnessing a major transformation in all departments due to the government’s policy to take education to all sections of society, there is a need to understand it segment wise. The education system of Uttar Pradesh can be classified as: •

Primary School

•

Secondary School

•

College Education

•

University Education

•

Research / Doctorate

•

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is a Central University in Varanasi. It evolved from the Central Hindu College of Varanasi, envisioned as a Hindu university in April 1911 by Annie Wood Besant and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Considered as one of the largest residential universities in Asia, it has more than 128 independent teaching departments. Several of its colleges — including science, linguistics, law, engineering (IIT (BHU) Varanasi) and medicine (IMS-BHU)—are ranked amongst the best in India.

•

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), established in 1959 in the industrial city of Kanpur and enjoys the status of an Institute of National Importance. The institute focuses on undergraduate, post-graduate and research studies in engineering and related science and technology fields.

•

In 2012, IT-BHU was officially rechristened as IIT (BHU) Varanasi. The institute has 13 departments and three inter-disciplinary schools. It enjoys the status of an Institute of National Importance.

•

The Indian Institute of Management Lucknow was established in 1984 by the Government of India. It was the fourth Indian Institute of Management to be established in India, after IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore.

•

The Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad (MNNIT) was formerly Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, Allahabad. It is among one of the leading institutes in the country established in 1961 as a joint enterprise of the governments of India and Uttar Pradesh.

Gaurav Chauhan Business Head, Global Classroom pvt. Ltd

Education in Uttar Pradesh is always emerging day-by-day.

Even government schools and colleges are making their students more capable and developing as well as polishing their skills to empower India

School Education System With 57 per cent literacy rate and 34 million school-going children, the State has turned its hurdles into benchmarks, ensuring that 93 per cent of children are enrolled in school according to a report by UNICEF. The same report also mentions that today, the State has 1,22,000 schools, around 3,00,000 teachers and around 1,00,000 para-teachers to take care of the needs of students at primary and upper primary levels.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) - Universal Elementary Education scheme - has been the main catalyst in recent years in spearheading this metamorphosis in education in the State.

The Unicef supports SSA to ensure all children have access to quality education and complete a full course of elementary schooling.

Over 25,000 out-of-school children have benefited from the accelerated learning approaches, which have allowed them to catchup with other children of their age group in formal schools.

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may 2018

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Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub

•

The Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT) in Jais, Raebareli was established by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOP&NG) of the Government of India through an Act of Parliament. RGIPT has been designated as the Institute of National Importance.

Rajiv Gandhi National Aviation University (RGNAU) is an autonomous public central university located in the Fursatganj Airfield, Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh.

Dr Dinesh Sharma Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

In the existing pattern, students of the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Uttar Pradesh, find it hard to score marks, the NCERT pattern would replace it. Within a year, games facility, digital black board, e-library, smart classes and Wi-fi facility would be provided to every aided and government school.

Allahabad University is a Central University located in Allahabad. Its origins lie in Muir Central College, named after Lt Governor of North-Western Provinces Sir William Muir in 1876. At one point, it was called the “Oxford of the East”. It is the fourth-oldest university in the country.

The Aligarh Muslim University is a residential academic institution. This university is spread over an area of 1.5 sq km (370 acres). Modelled on the University of Cambridge, it was granted the status of a Central University by an Act of Parliament in 1920. It was among the first institutions of higher learning established during the British Raj. The Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad was established in 1999 by the government of India. The institute was conferred deemed university status in 2000, empowering it to award degrees following the setting of its own examinations.

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Prof (Cdr) RP Singh Director (Training and Corporate Relations), Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University (SRMU)

Collaborations with the International Institutions of Higher learning is the key here. Virtual collaborations can help the Institutions in UP to sync with the Global Institutions for Knowledge Exchange Programs, Distant learning, e-learning and Joint Research etc.

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APRIL 2018

13

Destination Uttar Pradesh The Next Big Education Hub

One of the ways that I can think of is to use the virtual classrooms or the digital learning where the teachers are not required to travel to the remotest areas and the students can still benefit from the education that their urban counterparts are availing.

77.28% 67.68%

Key improvements in Uttar Pradesh: To make the population literate, steps are being taken by the Government to involve public participation, including the help of NGOs and other organisations. There are also special programmes, like the World Bank aided District Primary Education Program (DPEP). As a result, the literacy rate of Uttar Pradesh in 1981 was 28% which improved significantly in 2001 and reached to 42.22 percent.

As per the 2011 Census, the literacy rate of the State was 57.18 percent which clearly reflects the efforts made by government and also the increasing inclination of State’s public towards gaining the education.

68.82% 57.18%

56.27%

TOTAL LITERACY

MALE LITERACY

Singh Business Manager, Strategic Alliances, Peoplelink

Technology is indeed making the learning environment more broad and participatory.

Students of this generation live in a world which is greatly linked and agile outside the class room, so traditional methods won’t work now. An expected revolution in education will only happen via digitisation of education so that the students can learn at their own speed both within and outside the classrooms.

2011

2001

2011

2001

2011

2001

42.22%

Abhishek Pratap

FEMALE LITERACY

2011 114,397,555

2011 48,901,413

2011 46,162,591

2001 75,719,284

2001 68,234,964

2001 26,817,871

Though the State lags behind India’s literacy rate and many of the States as well, the State government-led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is working to boost the education in urban as well as rural areas.

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may 2018

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Source: Census - 2011

COVER STORY

Abhishek Dey Co-Founder and Director, Studenting Era Private Limited

It is not only Uttar Pradesh; the entire country is facing the challenges of providing enough number of teachers to the remote rural areas. In such a scenario, I feel there is still a long way to go before children in remote areas of Uttar Pradesh get skilled educationists.

Policymaker’s Perspective

UP Inculcating Cultural Values in Youth through Education In Uttar Pradesh, the need of hour is to inculcate cultural values among youth of the State. For this, various unique courses have been started, says Ramesh Mishra, Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh, in an interview with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN).

What is the reason for education system of Uttar Pradesh for lagging behind in education system of other States?

The education system of Uttar Pradesh is a traditional one that helps inculcating moral

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may 2018

Ramesh Mishra Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh

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Policymaker’s Perspective

values like respecting teachers and elders in the society. But, nowadays it is sad to see that States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which were the pioneers of education in ancient time, given country the education system like Gurukul, where the teachers used to be respected more than the parents, are struggling to maintain a good environment for teachers and students since last 50 or 60 years. Such a good environment may help the education system of Uttar Pradesh to be at par with the other States.

What initiatives have been taken to improve Uttar Pradesh’s education landscape?

After joining as a secretary, I gave priority to inculcate those traditional philosophies, customs and ethical values which used to exist in our culture.

It is my belief that the Indian culture is respected and our philosophies are required to be honoured by making our students study about them. Our philosophies and religious practices are based on scientific and psychological analysis. For this purpose, I requested few vice-chancellors of the universities in our State to develop new curriculum and certification courses which are short in duration and also help students learn about their culture.

Recently, I met with few scholars of Lucknow University and the vice-chancellor in which we decided to conduct five certification courses and online courses on Buddhism, Jainism, Brahminic traditions etc. We have also started certification courses in astrology. One more course we are going to start in film making with the association of Canon India under which the students will be able to learn about using the different lenses in film-making, handling different types of cameras, editing, effects, sound, dubbing etc.

What is the vision behind starting unique courses?

Lucknow University is the first one to start such courses. We have prepared around half of the curriculum for the courses. We hope that soon the citizens of India not only within the country but also from abroad will be benefitted from these courses and know about their forefathers, old traditions through these courses. We are trying to provide them the knowledge of Indian

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philosophy online and we hope that gradually all universities and colleges will introduce such courses. Such courses will help to inculcate ethical values among the Indian Youth. I hope such courses on ethical virtues and moral responsibilities will help Uttar Pradesh to regain its place as a centre of culture not only in India but also in the world.

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17

Policymaker’s Perspective

Etawah – PAVING

WAY FOR ‘EDUCATION for EVERY CHILD’ We have taken several initiatives to make learning an enjoyable experience in schools resulting in improved students’ enrollment and daily attendance.

We are trying to develop the schools as “Ideal Schools” in every aspect, says Selva Kumari J, District Magistrate, Etawah, Government of Uttar Pradesh, in conversation with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN).

“

Technology is having a profound effect on governance and education.

In Etawah schools, we are using technology to improve learning experience.

”

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In line with the UP Government’s vision of State’s holistic development, what are the initiatives undertaken for easy access of “Education to All”, especially for the deprived and economically weaker section of the society in Etawah?

Uttar Pradesh is committed to provide “Education to All”. Significant efforts have been taken at the State level to achieve this dream. We are also undertaking various initiatives at district level to resolve infrastructure related and various other problems. There are 1,775 schools in Etawah where 1,04,578 students are getting education and among them many students are from deprived and economically weaker sections of society. All students are provided free text books, uniforms, mid-day meals, bags, shoes and socks, and winter wears like sweaters as per the Government schemes. We have taken several initiatives to make learning an enjoyable experience in schools resulting in improved students’ enrollment and daily attendance. We are trying to develop the schools as “Ideal Schools” in every aspect. Some of our initiatives in Etawah are: l Running water and toilet facilities are now available in every school l Around 200 schools have been equipped with furniture and colourful wall paintings to attract the child while in the rest of the schools the same is going on with the help of Gram Panchayats l Teaching Learning Material (TLM), reading learning corner, science laboratory, library and many other resources have been arranged for

quality education platforms in 475 schools and incinerators in 186 upper primary schools have been constructed and in the remaining schools the process is going on. l 1,450 teachers received training at DIET Etawah under health and hygiene programme to conduct health and hygiene related practices in their schools leading to lesser absence of students due to illness l Educational Chaupal Programme is also being organised in villages for awareness about education especially girls’ education l Educational calendar and time-table have been provided to every school to complete the syllabus in time l Dining

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l A group of teachers has been formed to share

How an increased use of technology has improved the teaching-learning process in Etawah district? What has been the impact of Smart Classes?

Technology is having a profound effect on governance and education. In Etawah schools, we are using technology to improve learning experience. Projectors have been provided to primary and upper primary schools under Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, to familiarise students familiar with smart classes. It enabled students to understand concepts using visuals, media and graphs resulting in increased interest of students

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“

Uttar Pradesh is committed to provide “Education to All”. Significant efforts have been taken at the State level to achieve this dream. We are also undertaking various initiatives at district level to resolve infrastructure related and various other problems.

”

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in learning. We believe that the use of technology can help in achieving the dream of “Education to All”.

Our teachers have been trained to use learning applications available on smart phones to improve their knowledge. Smart classes and use of technology have increased the attention span of students, helped them connect with huge knowledge base available online.

Biometric machines are being provided to Gram Pradhan (village head) for the attendance of teachers and students so that this positively affects the entire school environment.

Policymaker’s Perspective

innovative ideas through meetings and social media platforms l Yoga, games and other co-curricular activities are being organised in the schools for the holistic development of the children l Meena Manch – Workshops to discuss and resolve problems of girls and to make them aware about Government-run programmes for girl education and safety being organised l KGBV residential schools -- 2 KGBV residential schools are also functioning in Etawah district where 200 girls from deprived and economically weaker section of the society are getting free and quality education l Life skill development programmes like stitching, sweater making etc are also conducted in these schools of Etawah l Three-month Judo-Karate camp -- self-defense training is also oraganised in KGBV to empower girls l “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” scheme has been implemented effectively l A small book having 300 general knowledge questions is also provided in all schools to improve the general knowledge of students l Cassettes and DVDs are also provided to schools for the Learning Process l WhatsApp groups have been made for teachers and education officials for easy communication l In the current session, free NCERT textbooks will be provided to all students in the district for similarity to CBSE/ICSE schools l “School Chalo Abhiyan” is conducted very effectively in the presence of Hon’ble MP and MLAs and other representatives to improve the enrollment in all the schools resulting that the enrollment has increased

What plans does the Government have to bring schools at par with global standards to develop Uttar Pradesh as educational hub of the country?

Priority of the State Government is to improve the infrastructure in the schools. Laying of tiles, electrification, availability of running water and toilet facilities are some of the steps taken by the Government to improve the overall school experience. Facilities for sports and yoga are also being provided. Smart classes are being introduced in phases. Teachers are being encouraged and trained to access latest learning aids on internet to benefit the students. English medium schools have been also started for rural students to help them get red of fear of English.

What innovations have been introduced to curb malnutrition and how did you ensure affordable and accessible healthcare for all?

Malnutrition is being tackled with a targeted and focused approach. Initially, 124 villages were targetted and 96 villages have been saturated.

may 2018

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Policymaker’s Perspective

Under this approach, malnourished children were attended by Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (NRC). Food with enriched nutritional elements is distributed among students. Poshanvatika (Nutrition Garden) is another innovation in this regard. Under this scheme, high quality vegetable seeds containing seeds of all important seasonal vegetables are provided free of cost to families and priority is given to families with pregnant women and children aged 0-6 years. Families are given technical assistance to grow these vegetables in their backyard. Through this approach, families’ food intake now contains nutritious and fresh green vegetables.

As far as healthcare is concerned, the Government schemes are ensuring affordable and quality healthcare. Diagnostic tests are done for free. Under Ayushman Bharat scheme, camps are being organised in villages for enrollment of eligible people.

As the District Magistrate, what are the citizen-centric initiatives have been taken by you?

Some of my initiatives which have bore fruit and helped common citizens are: l A campaign called ‘Mere Gaon Mere Miti” has been started by me in villages during which more than 750 ponds were freed from illegal occupation and at least 3 - 4 chakroads were constructed in every village with their soil.

This measure has drastically reduced number of IGRS complaints on Government lands. This is in addition to almost 90 per cent clearance of encroachments on department lands like Forest, Irrigation, Electricity Department, PWD etc. Many parts of the villages where ambulance, fire services or police vehicles could not reach, have now become accessible. l Initiative of ‘Poshan Vatika’ (Nutrition Gardens) in each village for improvement of health of pregnant women and children in age group of 0-6 l Implemented ‘Nekiki ki Diwar’ (Wall of kindness), a unique concept where food, clothing etc. for needy and destitute are available for 24 hours l Promoted setting up of ‘Rural Haats”/ Smaller upmandi at nyaya panchayat level to help farmers sell their produce like fruits, vegetables, meat and fish l Ensured all schools in Etawah have toilets with running water facility

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l Supply of menstrual pads in all villages for

“

Priority of the State Government is to improve the infrastructure in the schools.

By laying of tiles on floor, electrification, availability of running water and toilet facilities are some of the steps taken by the Government to improve the overall school experience.

”

all the women of the village, along with an incinerator in every village for disposal of menstrual pads. These measures helped in improvements in enrollment ratio of girls in school and retention of girl children increased l Blending scheme of distribution of school uniforms with skill training and selfemployment of women. About 2,000 women earned between Rs 10,000 – 12,000 due to the initiative in Etawah l Implementing e-attendance and spreading awareness using CSCs using projectors purchased through Mudra loan from Bank l Constructed more than 80,000 toilets during my stint in Etawah. The district to achieve ODF shortly for which Government has awarded me l In recognition of my innovations, I received two SKOCH Platinum Awards also

Please give a brief detail about plans ahead.

Currently, my team is working on solution of “Housing for all” problem by trying out low cost and effective solutions. We are also working on making “Gau Sadan” - a form of old-age home for cows which are deserted by people. We are building a shelter where we will be able to accommodate more than 2,000 cows. This will greatly control stray cattle in city, highway and rural areas. We are also working on creating a village model where all the farmers’ income doubles by adopting modern practices including organic farming, cooperative farming and allied farming activities.

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IS YOUR SCHOOL SMART? CONNECTING PARENTS AND TEACHERS

8820088000

Policymaker’s Perspective

Uttar Pradesh Reforming Higher Education Holistically Uttar Pradesh has its focus on imparting innovative learning by infrastructural development, extending opportunities for the capacity building, professional development of faculty and producing skilled and employable human resources, says Narendra Shankar Pandey, Special Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh and Director, Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, Uttar Pradesh, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).

What are the major categories under which RUSA is supporting the State to improve its higher education sector?

“

To facilitate access of SCs/STs/ Weaker Sections and Minorities, to reduce social disparity and ensure affordable and quality education in the State, Construction of 26 Model Degree Colleges has been started with central assistance under RUSA.

”

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May 2018

Uttar Pradesh has submitted proposals under the different components of RUSA. But the State so far has received funding only for the components (1) Model Degree Colleges, (2) Infrastructure grants to Universities, (3) Infrastructure Grants to Colleges, (4) New Professional Colleges, (4)Faculty Improvement, (5) Preparatory Grants and (6) MMER. (7) Upgradation of the college to universities.

What are the major initiatives taken to ensure affordable and quality education to underprivileged sections of the society?

To facilitate access of SCs/STs/Weaker Sections and Minorities, to reduce social disparity and ensure affordable and quality education in the State, construction of 26 Model Degree Colleges has been started with central assistance under RUSA. Of these 26 Colleges, the academic session has been started in 14 Model Degree Colleges from session 2016-17. In rest 12 model degree colleges, efforts are being made both at directorate as well as Government level to make sure these colleges start functioning from academic session 2018-2019.

How the infrastructure grant is helping universities and colleges to improve the educational environment?

The infrastructure grant is sanctioned to 13 State Universities which is helping them in developing new laboratories, buying new equipments, procuring computers, books and furniture, developing or revamping their web portals, and acquiring E books and journals.

Project Approval Board has sanctioned the infrastructural grant to 84 colleges along with nine Government colleges were selected for funding under

this component. But due to lack of NAAC grading these colleges could not get funding. Government Degree College, Adalhat, Mirzapur has recently submitted this certificate to project directorate, which has been forwarded to ministry with a request to release the funding. Efforts are underway to take these colleges on priority basis for NAAC grading.

Uttar Pradesh State Higher Education Council is putting extra efforts and is in constant touch with the principal of the concerned colleges to providing them necessary support for Institutional Information for Quality Assessment(IIQA) submission.

What government initiatives have been undertaken to improve higher education scenario in Uttar Pradesh?

Two new professional colleges are under construction in District Gonda and District Basti.

The Central Government shared its first installment share whereas the State Government has dispersed its complete share of Rs 20 crore.

The State has also received Rs 65 lakhs under Faculty Improvement Programme from the Central Government. The fund will be utilised to train and equip the faculty with the latest and the best teaching skills and practices.

Other major State initiatives include: • New Institutions in underserved and unserved areas especially dominated by vulnerable groups • Promotion of equity initiatives and improvement in access to quality education • Vocationalisation/skill enhancement in institutions of higher learning in States • Online Affiliation module is in the process of development through NIC. This effort is to bring transparency and efficiency into the system.

• Higher Education Quality Enrichment Incentive Scheme: To provide financial assistance to self – finance courses running in Government aided colleges to avail the services of competent teachers.

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UP’s Higher Education Scenario

Nurturing Tomorrow with Best Higher Education Practices Higher Education plays a vital role in overall development of a State in a planned manner. To implement it, the Government along with private players has taken various initiatives understanding the current requirements and future prospects, writes Akash Tomer of Elets News Network (ENN).

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istorical Perspective Uttar Pradesh from ancient times is one of the centres for education. From Vedic to Gupta periods, Sanskrit was the main medium for imparting education to youngsters in this region. As cultures travelled through the region, it brought knowledge from various communities such as Persian and Arabic. These formed the core of Hindu-Buddhist-Muslim education until the rise of British colonialism. The present schools-touniversity system of education was developed during the British colonial administration.

Higher Education institutes and universities in Uttar Pradesh are either managed by the Central/ State Government or by private trusts.

Current Scenario: Uttar Pradesh (UP) the most populous state of India as per Census-2011, the State has 49 universities of which four are central universities,

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16 are state universities and 29 are private (as per State’s Higher Education Department).

According to Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, the State also has seven Institutes of National Importance.

It includes the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur; Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi; Motilal Nehru Institute of Technology, Allahabad; Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad; Indian Institute of Information Technology, Lucknow; Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Rae Bareli, and Footwear Design & Development Institute, Noida.

Alongside above mentioned institutes of higher learning and universities, there are 5,842 colleges (AISHE 2015-16) in the State, to scholars interested in different course work (undergraduate, postgraduate and research) and programme (Humanities, Arts, Science,

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Uttar Pradesh being the home of some of the most prestigious educational institutes in the country attracts students from other Indian states and other countries of the world.

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UP’s Higher Education Scenario 26

Commerce, and others) in higher studies. Out of these colleges, 4,435 are private un-aided, 613 are private and 794 are government colleges.

Opportunities for Non-Residents and Foreign Students Uttar Pradesh being the home of some of the most prestigious educational institutes in the country attracts students from other Indian states and countries. These students have to clear an exam for college enrollment in the State. Special foreign cells in colleges and universities of Uttar Pradesh protect the interests of the NRIs, foreigners and students of other States.

Future Prospect: Since its inception, every Government of Uttar Pradesh has invested in all sectors of education and achieved significant success in overcoming general educational backwardness and illiteracy.

Recently, several initiatives have been taken by the Government to boost State’s Higher Education.

Few of them are: Ahilyabai Kanya Nishulk Shiksha Yojana: Under this scheme, the State Government has decided to provide free education to girls from class I to graduation level. The budget allocated for the education of girls up to graduation level under the scheme is around Rs 21 crore. The initiative is likely to encourage the girl education in tier II and tier III cities and in the villages of the State.

Free Wi-Fi to college and Universities: In Uttar Pradesh’s Annual Budget of 2018-19, Rs 50 crore have been allocated to enable free data services for students of universities and degree colleges

May 2018

across the state. It will enable students to access various course materials online and help them along with their teachers to know about the best practices, latest researches and teaching-learning practices available across the globe. The step is likely to bring a revolution in Higher Education and it will be easier for the State Government to move towards the concept of digitalisation.

Technical & Skill Education: • Technical and skill education has also received a boost with 19 polytechnics being set up in the State and 17 hostels being constructed.

• In all, 33 polytechnics were provided free Wi-Fi facilities for students, as per the government’s directives.

• Virtual classrooms were set up in 19 polytechnics and 15 more polytechnics to get virtual classrooms.

• A placement cell is being set up in polytechnics with financial aid from the state government to enable diploma holders to get jobs.

With seven Institutes of National Importance, four central universities and many government and private Higher Education institutes, Uttar Pradesh has one of the best Higher Education ecosystems of India.

The government is providing its full support to bring the system at par with the global institutions and universities. Various steps have also been taken to encourage enrolment of girls at Higher Education level. The progress is likely to help the State in continuing its legacy of imparting quality education.

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Under this scheme, the State Government has decided to offer free education to girls from class I to graduation level. The budget allocates for the education of girls up to graduation level under the scheme is around Rs 21 crore.

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State Perspective

UP Makes Strides under ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ In a bid to take education to every nook and corner of Uttar Pradesh, enabling every household and section of society beyond caste, creed, and religion, the Yogi Adityanath Government appears resolutely working with a missionary zeal, says Dr Vedpati Mishra, Special Secretary, Basic Education Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and State Project Director, UP Education for All Project Board, as he shares his views with Elets News Network (ENN).

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s part of this mission, a survey of families across the districts of Uttar Pradesh aimed to ascertain the number of children not going to schools was conducted recently between May 5-15. The survey revealed a total of 27,695 children were ‘out of school’, of which a total of 27, 251 were admitted into school, according to Mishra.

Honourable Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath has already appealed to all parliamentarians, legislators, and local representatives to provide cooperation in the admission process of children (6-14 years) under ‘School Chalo’ initiative.

Stating that last year, the Hon’ble Chief Minister launched ‘School Chalo Abhiyan’ drive on July 1, Mishra said it was carried out on a large scale across Uttar Pradesh and it continued till the month of August. Children were admitted into the school under this programme.

“Free of cost new school uniforms were made available for boys and girls studying in class 1-8 of district council and aided schools. A total of 1.59 crore students were benefitted with the same,” he said.

As part of a slew of measures in this spirit, under the ‘Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayala’ (KGBV) scheme following programmes were organised: • 90 episodes of Let’s Learn English radio programme were aired during 10:45 to 11:00 am • Through Radio programme, 27,895 children learnt spoken English skill at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayala (KGBV) and 56,680 at higher primary schools • 48,482 girls were trained at 638 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayala (KGBVs) were provided Self-Defence Training • On State level a sports competition was organised at Barbanki district in which 2,000 students participated • Girls students were taken on educational trip where they

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saw historical places, banks, post offices and Railway stations.

• Students of class 1-8 were provided free of cost quality notebooks and text books.

• During September 1-15, a fortnight-long cleanliness drive ‘Swachh Bharat Pakhwada’ was organised in the State.

To make school management committees active in all schools, six members per school were provided training. Total 9.14 lakh members were trained in the State, Mishra said.

Asked about any initiative taken for the visually challenged students, Mishra said: “To provide education to visually challenged and hearing impaired students, a total of 94 residential camps were organised in all the districts of the State. A total of 5,135 students were provided free of cost residential education.”

In addition, 419 medical assessment camps were organised where 31,173 students were given medical checkups. They were given a ‘Divyang certificate’, confirming them as differently abled individual. 1,834 visually-challenged, handicapped children were provided Brail textbooks. In addition to that, 21, 790 students were given machines, he added.

To improve standard of education, 1.03 lakh teachers were given training in English and 96, 500 were trained in environment studies.

For overall evaluation of schools, Indian Government’s ‘Shaala Siddhi’ portal was implemented. Total 1.52 lakh schools uploaded self evaluation data on the portal.

To provide computer aided education in schools, 1,166 schools were equipped with computer facility.

To increase curiosity for science among students and to make subject popular, National Invention Campaign was organised.

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Special Feature

UP Government Schools: Ray of Hope and Learning for All As education takes a central role in individuals’ lives in modern times, every State and country has to view its economic growth through doors of education. Shradha Agarwal of Elets News Network (ENN) takes a look at Uttar Pradesh’s Government Schools with this perspective.

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Real education enhances the dignity of a human being and increases his or her selfrespect. If only the real sense of education could be realised by each individual and carried forward in every field of human activity, the world will be so much a better place to live in, former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam once said.

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chool education forms the core of all the actions we take. Good education empowers us, making us strong to take care of ourselves in any situation. It is so rightly said that the educated person has the ability to differentiate between the right and wrong.

Thus, it is the foremost responsibility of our governments to educate the children in the best possible way.

The Government schools are meant to fulfill this requirement, taking education to every household and enabling a brighter tomorrow for all.

It is important in the Indian set up that the drivers of change in the education sector should be the government schools. Aiming this, the Uttar Pradesh government is all set to have 5,000 government- run English medium

primary schools. These schools are expected to commence soon.

Uttar Pradesh has started to revamp the school education by improving infrastructure for the school students as well as for the academic staff. The government has acknowledged the fact that the school education is the critical strategic investment and has given it the status of vital infrastructure project.

The State government has announced that the 19,000 Madarasas that are registered under the Madarasa Board in the State of Uttar Pradesh will also have NCERT books and the mandatory subjects like English, Maths and Science. The government has also suggested that books of various subjects, except English and Hindi, will be made available in Urdu.

The government plan is to launch the

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Special Feature

CBSE pattern in the education system of Uttar Pradesh. The course introduced from 2018 onwards will have 70% syllabus from NCERT and the remaining 30% from the local volumes like the local history, geography of the State.

The government also increased the number of teachers to enhance the quality of education at the elementary level. The teachers have started taking classes and outsourcing of teaching activities has been curbed drastically.

There has been a drastic increase in the number of enrollment which has gone up to 10 lakhs, which displays that children have returned to the schools.

The government is providing free books to students along with shoes and socks, encouraging the students to attend school. This has encouraged parents to send their wards to school and study instead of putting the children to work.

Leaders in the Uttar Pradesh government are taking serious steps for improving the conditions of schools, where they want to impart such education which will boost employment for future generation. The government is also working towards creating such an education system in which the students and the faculty members build a disciplined and a corruption free society in the future.

Initiatives like “School Chalo Abhiyan” and “Khoob Padho Aage Badho” have been taken by the government to ensure children attend schools. Students are also provided free uniform to - motivate and encourage them to attend school. This step has also influenced parents to send their children to school.

Vision The government of Uttar Pradesh aims to develop world class skilled workforce, which should be able to get better employment opportunities in the future. They are focussing on creating skilled individuals which starts from the primary education.

Flexible education should be the need of the hour, which has been acknowledged by the leaders of the State. Flexible education serves the students’ needs and this, in turn, helps students to continue their studies. With the flexible education plan parents too encourage children to pursue studies.

The Government has come up with ideas where skill development has been made part

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The Government has come up with ideas where skill development has been made part of the curriculum. This is a vital part of the education system as this is the part of the holistic development of students.

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of the curriculum. This is a vital part of the education system as this is the part of the holistic development of students. The holistic development ensures literacy, life skills and great employment opportunities.

The policymakers have acknowledged the fact that most of the students quit their studies due to lack of funds. Addressing this challenge, the government has ensured that the studies of students will not discontinue in case of lack of funds. This policy has been welcomed by parents and the educational community as this was the major reason for the students to discontinue their studies.

Education of girl child has also been taken into account. The Government has also launched various schemes under which education for the girl child has been made affordable and mandatory.

The leaders aim to make India a knowledge superpower by providing its students various skills and knowledge. Our political leaders wish to abolish the deficiency of skilled manpower in diverse fields of science, technology, academics and other industries. In fact, parents have insisted that their children should attend school even if they have to sit on the floor.

There are 1,23,540 schools in Uttar Pradesh.

This consists of pre-primary schools, elementary schools, primary schools, secondary schools, and senior secondary schools.

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Policymaker’s Perspective

Rampur: Improving Educational System through better Initiatives Various initiatives have been taken in Rampur district to improve enrollment and attendance of students in schools and regularity of teachers along with schools’ infrastructure, says Mahendra Bahadur Singh, District Magistrate, Rampur, Government of Uttar Pradesh, in conversation with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN).

What are the various initiatives taken by you to improve the education sector in Rampur?

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The district administration is also working on upgradation of schools through 14th finance commission funds. We are also trying to develop software like ECI but due to lack of technical expertise, it couldn’t happen so far.

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When I joined as a District Magistrate in Rampur, I initiated the campaign “Swachh Rampur, Sundar Rampur” with an aim to create awareness about hygiene and cleanliness. Subsequently, all Gram Panchayats were instructed to renovate government schools’ building with neat and clean premises. Moreover, I also felt the need of motivating teachers to ensure regular classes and improved attendance of students in class. Along with that I ensured that teachers should not be suspended for small errors to avoid their demoralisation. I initiated a doorto-door movement for students’ registration and attendance and created WhatsApp groups of school teachers and government officials in the education department to manage the same.

Minimum 60 per cent attendance target was given to each school. The idea was to seek feedback from the people why they are reluctant to send their wards to schools. Those who did outstanding work, were praised on the groups. It helped creating a positive environment in the district and conducting regular classes in the schools.

What efforts are being made by the district administration to improve the education system?

We have started sudden inspection of government schools twice in a month to understand the problems with on the spot solutions and also rewarding the schools and teachers for their extraordinary job. Besides, weekly random inspections are also being carried out by SubDivisional Magistrate (SDM) and Tehsildar. They

also take feedbacks from teachers.

The district administration is also working on upgradation of schools through 14th finance commission funds. We are also trying to develop software like ECI but due to lack of technical expertise, it couldn’t happen so far.

What changes have you seen in the mindset of people so far?

There are many examples. Primary school in Lalpur Kala (Saidnagar block) has been given a look and feel of Express train to attract students. According to the principal of the school Shabnam Aara, the on-roll students have increased up to 162, out of which 40 students have been added recently after the renovation of the school building. The

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education model adopted in Banda?

How is it helpful for the students?

As a public servant, what changes would you like to see in the current education system of India?

We should utilise at least 50 per cent funds allocated for education in the budget under the 14th Finance Commission. More enrollment and attendance of students will motivate teachers leading to better teaching-learning processes.

Performance based incentives should be given to teachers to encourage them for continuing the good work. Incentives may be in the form of monetary benefits or choice transfer/posting.

My wish is to start evening classes for the students in Panchayat Bhavan. I will try to introduce the concept at panchayat level in Rampur and invite teachers to volunteer for the same.

To impart quality education, we have to create good environment and infrastructure in the schools. Uniform and stationary should be distributed to teachers.

Please

describe

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To impart quality education, we have to create good environment and infrastructure in the schools.

Uniform and stationary should be distributed to teachers.

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Policymaker’s Perspective

school also organises competition, activities and programmes like that of any convent school.

Primary and Junior High School, Krishna Nagar, Bilaspur (Rampur) has become a role model for others. It has 162 students in junior section and 290 students in the primary section.

There are nine teachers and two mentors to teach the students. This became possible following the sincere efforts made by Principal (Junior) Hariram Divakar and Principal (Primary) Archana Pandey.

Besides, the primary school in Alinagar Jagir village is at par with private schools in terms of infrastructure after its renovation happened due to sincere efforts of the village head (Gram Pradhan).

It was a wonderful model. When I was posted at Banda as the district magistrate, I initiated to renovate the government library. The objective was to create a 24x7 self-study room for the students who are preparing for competitive exams but cannot afford fee of coaching centres. With the help of my wife and Akanksha committee, an NGO working for the welfare of children, the basic amenities were ensured. I motivated students and created awareness through social media about using the library. Within four months, regular attendance of students in the library was around 80. It was a successful initiative because we used to have a weekly interaction. Students were free to meet me anytime and discuss their problems.

People also came forward for the cause and contributed chairs, audio system etc. Teachers were taking classes voluntarily and conducting group discussion. It was under constant monitoring by my wife and Akanksha committee members.

You are quite active on social media.

How does it help you connect with the public?

Social media is a revolutionary medium for registering one’s complaints/suggestions to the right person. I handle my all social media accounts on my own i.e. Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. Whenever there is any complaint from public, I take quick action by forwarding it to the concerned authority and doing follow ups.

Usually, the complaints are related to electricity department, Municipal Corporation, Tehsil etc.

Social media also allows us to showcase our good work and appreciate others.

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Innovation Perspective

Atal Innovation Mission: Promoting Innovation and Entrepreneurship Atal Innovation Mission, through its initiatives, is helping schools to nurture creativity among their students and also supporting incubators to help youth in becoming job creators, says R Ramanan, Mission Director - Atal Innovation Mission, Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog, Government of India, in an interview with Poulami Chakravorty of Elets News network (ENN).

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Till date, 2,441 schools have already been selected for ATL Grants and by the end of 2018 over 5,000 schools are expected to be operational with Atal Tinkering Labs, covering every district of the country.

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Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has two core functions – Entrepreneurship promotion and Innovation promotion.

Please describe in brief.

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is a flagship initiative of Indian Government under NITI Aayog to promote innovation and entrepreneurship across the country. AIM will achieve its objective by adopting a holistic framework of creating, nurturing and supporting an innovative ecosystem at various levels such as schools, universities, small and medium industries, corporate, NGOs and research institutions.

What changes are required in our present education system (higher and school) to make youth innovative and skilled?

India is going to be the youngest country by 2020 with 64% of population in the working age group. We have around 1.5 million schools with over 150 million students enrolled in them and more than 750 universities and over 35,000 colleges across the country. It is important to nurture youth as job creators rather than being job seekers through these institutions. Reforms in the education system should therefore be both incremental and disruptive to enable the same.

Some of the changes needed in our present education system are:

• Enabling access to good quality yet affordable school education in remote districts of the country leveraging digital technologies and digital transformations • Regular updation of curriculum and learning methodologies to remain in sync with the rapidly changing science, technology and business landscape globally • Nurturing innovation and problem solving among school and university students • Resolving the issue of quality teachers and improving the student-teacher ratio through reforms that would create, attract and retain high quality teachers and also incentivise them to teach even in the remotest parts of the country • Reducing student drop-outs especially girls in rural areas by incentivising education and making parents aware about the importance of education for their wards • Emphasis on improving the mathematical and analytical skills at the student level and encourage awareness on social problems and

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To foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds, Atal Tinkering Laboratories were established by AIM. What are prominent features of ATL? At school level, Atal Innovation Mission is setting up state-of-the-art Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) across the country. This is one of the most novel initiatives in our present education system and in the world considering its size and scale. ATLs are dedicated innovation workspaces of 1,2001,500 square feet where Do-It-Yourself (DIY) kits on latest technologies like 3D Printers, Robotics, Internet of Things (IOT), Miniaturised electronics are installed. These labs are established with support from Government for students of Grade VI to Grade XII to learn and develop innovative solutions using these technologies.

Till date, 2,441 schools have already been selected for ATL Grants and by the end of 2018 over 5,000 schools are expected to be operational with Atal Tinkering Labs, covering almost every district of the country.

Other than education, what are the areas AIM is working in to bring innovative transformation? Please share details of Government, public and private organisations, AIM has collaborated with in this regard.

At the university, NGO, SME and Corporate

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India is going to be the youngest country by 2020 with 64% of population in the working age group. We have around 1.5 million schools with over 150 million students enrolled in them, more than 750 universities and over 35,000 colleges.

Innovation Perspective

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) • Ensuring practical tinkering/training in a fun filled learning environment so that theoretical knowledge help students enhance their innovative capabilities

In line with its objective, ATL programme is also conducting various activities to engage students and teachers to identify problems and develop innovative solutions leveraging the technologies available at ATLs. Every school should appoint an ATL in-charge and mentors to ATL students.

Atal Innovation Tinkering challenges are also held in schools by AIM every month to ensure students’ active involvement in creating innovative solutions to problems in their community and in the country.

Recently, ATAL Tinkering Marathon was organised in which over 35,000 students participated and over 650 best innovation entries were submitted for evaluation. 14 April, 2018 celebrated as ATL Community Day which witnessed the participation of over 50,000 children of who 25,000 were from the non ATL schools. The objective behind ATL Community Day was to spread awareness on ATL technology driven innovations among students and schools.

The Atal Tinkering Labs have created enthusiasm among students. A Balanced Score Card based approach has been designed to monitor and measure the outcomes of ATLs.

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Innovation Perspective

industry levels, AIM is setting up world-class Atal Incubators (AICs) that would trigger and support successful growth of sustainable startups from every state of the country. AIM is also providing support to existing incubators to scale up their operations.

AIM is providing grant of up to Rs 10 crore to successful applicants for setting up Greenfield incubators or scaling up existing ones. The idea is that every one of the 110 named smart cities of India and the top 5-10 educational/ industrial institutions of every state should aspire to have a world class incubator leading their students to create new start-ups. Till date, 19 Atal Incubators are operational. By the end of 2018-19, we would have 50+ Atal Incubators operational. AIM is also encouraging Women led incubators and entrepreneurial startups.

To promote product specific innovations with social/economic impact, AIM will be launching Atal New India Challenges in specific areas and sectors of national importance such as Renewable Energies, Energy Storage, Climatesmart precision agriculture, Universal drinking water, Swaach Bharat, Transportation, Education, Healthcare using Robotic, IOT technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Augmented and Virtual reality, Battery Technologies etc.

Most of these areas are in line with the priorities recommended by the recently released Economic Survey of India 2017-18. The first set of 17 Atal New India Challenges (ANIC) has been launched on 26 April, 2018.

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How the Indo Israel Startup contest is supposed to boost the startup culture and innovation in India?

What is the role of Israel in it?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel in July 2017 to mark 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. India counts Israel among its important innovation partners. The need to rely on science, technology, innovation, and higher technical education to overcome developmental challenges is common to both India and Israel. These domains also bring together the creative energy and ideas of the highly skilled youth and entrepreneurs of the two countries.

Please share the future initiatives and schemes under Atal Innovation Mission.

AIM is also envisaged as an organisation that would play an instrumental role in alignment of innovation policies between central, state and sectoral innovation schemes. Long term goals of AIM include establishment and promotion of Small Business Innovation Research and Development at national level (AIM SBIR) for the SME/MSME/start-ups, and rejuvenating Science and Technology innovations in major research institutions of the country like Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) aligned to national socio-economic needs.

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India counts Israel among its important innovation partners. The need to rely on science, technology, innovation, and higher technical education to overcome developmental challenges is common to both India and Israel.

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CBSE’s Perspective

CBSE Boosting Schools Experience via Digitalisation The CBSE is focusing on digitalisation of education for effective learning among students.

The board is also conducting various activities for students’ holistic development, says Dr MVV Prasada Rao, Director, Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Selection Test (JNVST); Misc Exam, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in an interview with Gautam Debroy of Elets News Network (ENN).

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The CBSE is focusing on sports activities as it believes that a “Sound mind lives in a sound body”. Good sports activities help students to focus more on studies as after exercise the blood circulation in mind improves which helps students to concentrate.

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What latest initiatives have been taken by the CBSE for IT-enabled teaching and learning in its schools?

The Central Board of Secondary Education has taken several initiatives for better academics, digitalisation of education and student friendly activities. Students are provided access to various applications for digitalised certificates. It is impossible to think about the growth of students without having the adequate knowledge of IT. So, in all CBSE Schools, digitalisation is at prime-level.

CBSE is also trying to reduce the paper work to zero and convert all its files to e-files and bring a new e-filing system. Our chairperson is very much interested in implementing the e-filing system, initial steps have already been taken in this regard and accounts department of CBSE has already been digitalised.

A lot of steps have also been taken to strengthen the quality of evaluation system through digitalisation for the benefits of children.

Moreover, the presentation of curriculum in the classrooms is very much improved nowadays.

The excessive use of smart classrooms and digital boards have improved the teaching-learning processes. Digitalisation has helped children to learn quickly.

Please share about transformation of evaluation process.

We are trying for a transparent evaluation process for students. Among one of the initiatives, the marks are now uploaded on the portal immediately after the evaluation that earlier used to be sent through post or by courier to the

CBSE office which was a time-taking process. It helped the board to compile the result easily and quickly. Though it has not been implemented for all the classes but we are using it very effectively for the compilation of CBSE class 10th and 12th board results.

As far as other classes are concerned, the CBSE is not interfering in the schools’ jurisdiction.

Schools are also using the IT very well for evaluating, storing and retrieving the marks related data. The main objective of the CBSE is to conduct class 10th and 12th board transparently and declaring the result timely.

How teachers and parents are supporting the digitalisation initiative by the CBSE?

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It is generally heard that the curriculum from class 1 to 5 is very tough, what is your take on that?

At the lower-level, the curriculum is prepared by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). The CBSE always emphasises

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The education is not only meant for getting good marks, the ultimate objective of the education is to apply the knowledge in supporting the society and your country. The students must take out time for activities other than the studies.

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to use the books developed by NCERT effectively.

Questioning the curriculum developed by NCERT is not right, as it has been developed by the renowned educationists after studying and understanding the then situations. Moreover, the minimum learning levels also need to be ensured so that the curriculum is good for students of these classes.

Curriculum is being revised on a regular basis.

The committee suggests the changes in the curriculum on the basis of current requirements, attitude and IQ level of students, and also after considering the standards followed at the global level. At the same time, the curriculum also acts as the base for students to qualify various competitive exams and score good marks in the exams. So, all these factors are taken into account before deciding the curriculum.

What are the major challenges CBSE is facing?

CBSE’s Perspective

Teachers play the most important role in enhancing the learning among students. Initially, it took time for teachers to adopt the digitalisation of education. We have to train them in IT tools for adopting the latest tools. But nowadays teachers are already equipped with tools and preparing their teaching plans and materials digitally.

Parents are also very much interested in this.

The schools, teachers, and parents are working for one objective i.e. to improve the learning among students which is only possible with the use of technology. The best part is whenever a new digital initiative is taken by the school or teachers, parents are giving it their full support.

One unfortunate thing is that the negative part of digitlisation is more dominating than the positive part. My point here is that along with bringing digitalisation, it is very much important to teach the limitations of technology to teachers, parents and students. The technology enabled learning must be thoroughly checked by the schools and by the parents. There must be some checks and balances for students to check whether they are using the technology effectively for their learning or not. It will restrict the student for going towards the negative aspect of technology usage.

The major challenge is to strengthen schools in attaining the quality. The CBSE always aims for the quality whether it is academic affair, sports affair or extracurricular activities. We aim for overall personality development of students and that’s why there are internal marks in every subject which are awarded by the school on the basis of activity by students. This is the reason why the CBSE conducts various other activities like quizzes, sports and region wise or statewise competitions at the end of every academic year. The CBSE is focusing on sports activities as it believes that “A sound mind lives in a sound body”. Good sports activities help students to focus more on studies as after exercise; the blood circulation in mind improves which helps students to concentrate.

What message would you like to give to students?

I appeal to students that the knowledge is everywhere, you all required to figure out the ideas to get that knowledge. The education is not only meant for getting good marks, the ultimate objective of the education is to apply the knowledge in supporting the society and your country. The students must take out time for activities other than the studies. Be a good citizen by showing good behaviour towards your country, your society, your parents, teachers and fellow students, and that’s what an effective learning is.

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may 2018

41

Digital

UGC Perspective

Education Reinventing

Teaching-Learning Practices Digital Learning is a combination of technology, digital content and instructions. On one hand, it helps teachers to deliver the content effectively and on the other, it facilitates how students receive content, says Dr Archana Thakur, Joint Secretary, University Grants Commission (UGC), in an interview with Poulami Chakravorty of Elets News Network (ENN).

“

Digitisation is not going to prohibit face-toface interaction of students and teachers.

Digitisation is an additional tool to help improve the teacher student interaction and education system.

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What are the various initiatives UGC is planning in upcoming months?

As far as digital initiatives are concerned, we have launched “e-PG Pathshala” for 77 postgraduate subjects. We also have come up with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for postgraduate courses available on the SWAYAM platform. In another initiative, we have come up with SWAYAMPRABHA -- an online platform to host MOOCs. One of the major breakthroughs in the digital world of education is that all the scholarships to the students will now be transferred online which earlier used to be sent through cheques causing numerous irregularities. Now, the money is transferred immediately and there is no middle-man.

Other than that we have also started using software like “Skype” to connect with the offices in other parts of the country and conduct meetings with the officials there.

What measures should be taken by the government for skilling students as well as teachers to impart quality education?

Now, the call of the day is to shift from brick and

mortar classrooms to MOOCs. In remote parts of our country, where the teachers or students are not equipped with skills related to computers or mobile applications, getting them trained in these skills will help them to have world class education while sitting at home through the computers or their mobile phones. The Government of India is taking lot of initiatives to train teachers online to impart education digitally to students even in the remotest part of the country.

How important is to skill teachers for developing a better educational ecosystem in the country?

Teachers are the architects of future of children, a country’s most important asset, so skill training of teachers is very important. Teachers’ training in their respective subjects and on their students’ well being, moral education, value, ethics, and

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What initiatives should be taken by the Central Government to improve the education system of every State?

The role of State Governments is much more important than that of the Central Government as the Centre brings a law or Act in any field but implementation part is on the State leadership.

The States in India need to equip themselves with the right tools and values to improve the education system even in the remotest corners.

Are there any negative impacts due to digitisation of education?

Every initiative has two aspects right and wrong.

It is up to us how we look at it. Digitalisation of education is helping the sector positively.

Orthodox system or teachers still consider digitisation bad for education, as they say that it has killed the creativity of teachers and students as everything is available online. It is important to be in sync with the rapidly changing world.

The need of the hour is to understand students’ requirements and digitisation is helping in that.

Digitisation is not going to prohibit face-to-face interaction of students and teachers. Digitisation is an additional tool to help improve the teacherstudent interaction and education system.

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What is the role of corporate to improve the country’s education system?

Corporate are doing a great job as far as improvement in education sector is concerned.

Corporate are coming up with new learning solutions, smart classrooms and mobile applications for easy yet better learning processes. Various educational institutes are also tying up with these corporate for implementing their solutions. It is helping the institutes to adopt the latest practices and innovate the learning process positively.

What are the steps taken by the government to improve the education in north eastern region of the country?

The north eastern region is very important and the Government through its initiatives like MOOCs and other digital platforms is trying to bring the region to mainstream.

How was your experience at 7th HE HR Summit Pune of Elets?

It was a great experience as educationists from state universities, private universities and other higher educational institutes from across the country came and shared their experiences of digital learning. They also explained about the use of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), flipped classroom, digitisation and smart classroom.

Various companies showcased their sophisticated software for digitised educational content to be used by students on their mobile phones.

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One of the major breakthroughs in the digital world of education is that all the scholarships to the students will now be transferred online which earlier used to be sent through cheques causing numerous irregularities.

UGC Perspective

other cultural areas, is necessary to make them well equipped for imparting quality education to students. Teachers’ training is also important not only to make them expert in their respective subjects but also to make them ethical and gender sensitive for girls as well as for boys. It helps teachers to be role model of their students.

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may 2018

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Advertorial

Pitney Bowes: Curbing Certificate Forgery with Cutting Edge Technology

E

ducation is a crucial part of our lives and a good degree or diploma from a college can promise a bright career. This has resulted in a diploma or a degree from a good college becoming one of the most sought-after necessities today. However, it has given rise to an alarming trend – Falsifying or forging these credentials. Individuals or institutes offering forged certification, popularly known as degree or diploma mills, are becoming a menace today.

In a billion-dollar industry, it not only hampers the reputation of educational institutes but also results in varied organisations where these are submitted, expending huge amounts and efforts in verifying these credentials.

Various solutions in the market offer university degree verification but they are far from perfect. Document encryption on the other hand provides heightened security. By converting and securing the raw data into an encrypted format, which can then be embedded into the issued degree as a bar code, the threat of tampering can be eliminated.

It is a proven technology and is fail-safe even when photocopied. The encrypted information can be easily verified with the online repository.

Benefits of Document Encryption l Official, portable, and verifiable electronic version of a document l Employers can use electronic identifier to verify the authenticity of a document

l Universities can provide certificate

validation services from their website l Trusted and widely acceptable since document is digitally signed and encrypted Secure Evidencing Solutions provide tamper-proof evidence that a transaction took place. Typically, there is an ‘issuer’ — an entity that initiates the transaction and a ‘verifier — someone who can independently verify that the transaction occurred.

How pbSecure™ helps curb forgery?

Pitney Bowes (PB) is the only mainstream solutions provider with a direct presence in India. As the leading provider for pre and post-print solutions and equipment, PB has developed pbSecure™ to provide high-security encryption that leverages industry leading cryptography technology. Issuers can produce credentials that are verifiable in real-time using a public key certificate. pbSecure™ offers three layers of protection — it encrypts vital information at the point of origin, verifies decrypted information, and provides proof of authenticity.

Easy to Implement pbSecure™ ensures certification issuance without high IT infrastructure or administrative costs, which helps: l Avoid complex document management involving storage, hash, and digital document management l Eliminate digital safes

Highly secure solution that discourages forgery Online solutions rely on sophisticated strategies to secure the storage of data.

However, these solutions are susceptible to hacking. pbSecure™ provides a hybrid solution, which is hacker-safe since any data tampering is detectable. All records that may have been hacked will fail verification. Since scanning can be done through multiple channels — online, offline or through a smartphone app, traditional forgery methods are discouraged.

“Document encryption is an effective tool to curb document forgery. The first step for educational institutes is to determine their existing security measures and ascertain if it is enough to secure their certificates. From there on, decisions on investing in the right technology can be taken to drive operational benefits. We are happy to launch the whitepaper on our solution approach to this challenge, you can access the whitepaper at www. pitneybowes.com/in/shipping-andmailing/security/pbsecure” – Venkat Rao, Country Director, Pitney Bowes India.

(Data Reference - 2016 NAFSA Annual Conference)

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may 2018

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School perspective

CMS: Nurturing Universal Values Among Students A modern school needs to do much more than ensuring good marks on a sheet, which is the minimum responsibility of a school. The education must nurture a good human being equipped with broad range of capabilities, says Dr Jagdish Gandhi, Founder-Manager, City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow, in conversation with Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN).

City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow is a renowned name of school education sector in the country. How this journey started and with what mission?

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We, rather than forcing students to study, develop an encouraging atmosphere to develop the habit of self study among them.

The encouraging and competitive atmosphere helps them to excel in their studies.

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The vision of City Montessori School (CMS) keeps it distinct from other schools of the country. We at CMS take into account the three realities of a human being: material, human, and divine. These realities help students to be balanced human beings in their life ahead. A balanced person achieves great success and can grow up to any extent in life.

At CMS, we also inculcate “Decision Making” among students for choosing global professions or positions. It has been done through sending our students to various schools abroad and to global conferences. We also organise “Chief Justices Conference” in the school where the Chief Justices and Judges from across the globe participate and interact with our students. So, at CMS, we do not focus only on the material education but we also broaden students’ thinking.

Our results in board and other exams are the best in India. Various renowned newspapers have covered us on the lines of – “Lucknow Emerging as a Quality Education Hub” mentioning CMS among the Top 10 schools of the country. Out of the Top 10 schools of India, five are City Montessori Schools.

The reason behind this is school’s focus on “Divine Education” and on “Human Education” along with “Material Education”. Our “Human Education” helps children to be a contributing member for the family, society and the world.

At CMS, daily prayer-assemblies are planned

to be spiritually nourishing. The integration of all-religion prayers before the commencement of every event is an innovative way to teach children to embrace diversity and create awareness of and reverence for all religions.

Other than that, we have several international activities (28) in which students from across the globe participate. As many as 64 students from our school are going to perform Yoga at the UN and also going to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Along with nurturing global thought process among students, what kind of technological innovations have been adopted by CMS for holistic

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One of the most significant innovations adopted in CMS is the use of white board i.e. every class in CMS is smart class. The CMS has over 4,500 computers to make students tech-savvy.

We are also using technology to handle one of the prime concerns of parents i.e. security. Our all the campuses are under CCTV surveillance to keep an eye on every students and avoid any mishappening. Along with that we also conduct seminars and conferences on road safety.

The curriculum for every school affiliated to a board is same, still CMS performs better than other schools, what are the reasons behind that?

We, rather than forcing students to study, develop an encouraging atmosphere to develop the habit of self-study among them. The encouraging and competitive atmosphere helps them to excel in their studies. For example, we have selected a team of five-six students for participation in an international mathematics competition. The team was selected after conducting various tests and quizzes between the six sections of a class. Such activities make student competitive and motivate them for self study.

We also encourage students by awarding them for their performance in any of the international or national level competition. Recently, we awarded Rs 50,000 each to our three students for getting selected in IBT. Moreover, three CMS students have secured first position at the All-India ISC (Class XII) merit list this year and been awarded cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 each.

A large number of students get

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“

At CMS, daily prayer-assemblies are planned to be spiritually nourishing.

The integration of all-religion prayers before the commencement of every event is an innovative way to teach children to embrace diversity and create awareness of and reverence for all religions.

”

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selected in exams like JEE Main, NEET, UPSC and many others from CMS every year, to whom would you like to give credit for this achievement?

School perspective

development of students?

CMS is among the schools from where a large number of students get selected for various exams every year. Recently our eight students were selected for Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana, a scholarship programme funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

These are due to the combined efforts of everyone.

The school management has a very small role in that but the principals, teachers, students and parents contribute significantly in any such achievement.

Principals motivate teachers; teachers motivate students and counsel their parents by visiting their homes, as a result parents also motivate their wards to excel in any competition. For every teacher, “Home Visit” of at least five students every month is necessary. They have been given additional benefits for this other than the salary. The main objective of these home visits is to tell parents about encouraging students for studies and to encourage parents to avoid scolding and beating.

What are your plans?

Starting from one branch in 1959, the CMS now has 18 campuses and more than 4,500 staff educating over 55,000 students in Lucknow.

Currently, we don’t have any expansion plans.

We aim to provide a joyful learning environment that empowers primary-school aged children and develops their self-confidence and competency in the core subjects. CMS seeks to create a stimulating learning environment that supports to enhance the learning capabilities of a child.

may 2018

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e-learning Perspective

TUK – Adding Value to Education Reading through the internet will make children interested.

This would improve their reading abilities, intelligence quotient and grasping power, says Manmeet Khurana, Founder and CEO, The Ultimate Knowledge, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).

How is The Ultimate Knowledge (TUK) making children be aware at an early age?

“

Our vision is to help society in making the youths aware to take on the world with their knowledge and capabilities.

The world is turning towards India and our students need to be well equipped to utilise this exposure.

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may 2018

The Ultimate Knowledge is a dynamic encyclopedia which aims to develop awareness in the minds of the children from an early age. Across knowledge spectrums and geographical boundaries, we provide knowledge to the children in the form of impeccably written articles supplemented by illustrations and videos.

What are the various domains in which TUK is imparting knowledge to a child? Please describe about every domain in brief.

We have segregated domains after extensive consultations with eminent teachers, educationists, principals and parents. For example, to make students understand Science better, we present situations and phenomenon with proper explanation of the concept behind it.

Similarly under the Technology section, the latest happenings across the world are presented before the children in a lucid language.

On similar lines, the Inventions and Discoveries domain make students aware of how the things they use frequently were invented or discovered.

The Health section makes students aware about the changes required in their lifestyle/posture/ diet to lead a healthier life. Amazing Information section is the collection of amazing things on this planet. The Current Affairs section updates the child with the latest happenings across the globe.

Under the TUK Special section, the most relevant topics are analysed with its past and future aspects. We also have Do & Learn and Stories for the children to enhance their creative side.

How is the information available at TUK different from regular academics? How will it help students boost their Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and learning power?

The information available at TUK is different from academic curriculum and has been designed to supplement the knowledge a child acquires at school. Education is imparted at schools and the information available at TUK makes it holistic by making students aware as well.

How does The Ultimate Knowledge platform helps teachers to improve the learning practices in classroom?

Teachers can add value to their classroom lectures with more interesting information about any topic. As the students are well aware about internet, teachers may also direct them to get additional information about any topic just by reading an article. Any topic taught digitally through illustrations and videos have a permanent impression on child’s memory.

What is the vision and mission of The Ultimate Knowledge for future?

Our mission is to form a perfect blend of education imparted to students at schools with awareness acquired at TUK platform. It will be the most appropriate form of knowledge for developing students holistically.

Our vision is to help society in making the youth aware to take on the world with their knowledge and capabilities. The world is turning towards India and our students need to be well equipped to utilise this exposure.

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Guest Article

Educational Innovations Nurturing Behavioural Excellence Higher education enhances the bandwidth of information and depth of processing the information for skilful application of the knowledge, writes Shishir Jaipuria, Chairman, Seth Anandram Jaipuria Education Society, for Elets News Network (ENN).

T

“

The introduction of digital culture brought forth the first landmark innovation in the field of education. The invention of pocket calculator and personal computers heralded the first major innovation.

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may 2018

he word ‘education’ implies such a wide connotations and is perhaps not amenable to a single definition acceptable to all.

Oxford dictionary, however, gives a very concise and succinct version and that is ‘the process of teaching and learning’. We could take certain liberties with this word and expand the definition to include process of learning, understanding and applying new information for leading a better quality of life.

The objective is to bring a positive change for communicating with each other, and creating a better and more informed society.

The process at primary education level is meant to develop curiosity to explore and discover the material environment, and make sense out of it, first hand. The Secondary and Higher Secondary education is designed to expedite the process of discovery by feeding information on what has been already discovered by others, and yet leave a sense of inquisitiveness for further exploration and creative discovery. Vocational education for becoming economically independent is an integral part of School Education.

Higher education or what is popularly called college education is meant for probing into different branches of knowledge to gain deeper understanding of the subject of interest. At a higher level, the questions for exploration get deeper and become a source for creation of new knowledge by learning what is not known till then.

The learning goes beyond understanding the physical information to a philosophical realm.

Higher education at the highest level is essentially a philosophical exploration of universal principles

using mathematics or meditation. There is not much scope at this level for use of innovation for learning even in mathematics, for computers cannot generate new mathematics but can only process faster what is already known. That is why no computer on earth has been able to take us beyond the theorems developed by a Ramanujam or Einstein.

The content for Higher Education has two dimensions. At the core, there is dated Knowledge which is essentially information validated by philosophical research methods at certain point of time in history. The knowledge that has remained valid for a long time gets constantly challenged by new explorations and discoveries, and updated over ages out of philosophical exploration and validation of new knowledge.

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The students’ addiction to mobile handsets have made it a ‘no brainer’ to push a substantial part of educational contents to the mobile phones and use the class room time for clarifications and greater student engagement using blended learning methods.

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for clarifications and greater student engagement using blended learning methods. Immersive technologies shall be increasingly useful for enhancing learning with virtual and augmented reality.

There is an interesting paradigm that is visible in the application of new technology that is quite useful for education. The new technology gets applied first for extremely high budget movies, and then gets into business application for making tons of money, and finally gets integrated with education.

Talking about Higher Education in the Age of AI, Joseph E. Aoun introduces a new word HUMANICS, in his book “ROBOT-PROOF” (MIT 2017), as a new learning model. Writing about the positive side of ‘Machine Learning’, he says, “In many ways the new technologies are an astonishing boon for humanity, giving us the power to mitigate poverty, hunger, and disease”.

Aoun writes further, “The robot-proof model of higher education is not concerned solely with topping up student’s minds with high octane facts. Rather it refits their mental engines, calibrating them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or otherwise produce something society deems valuable”.

Lot of people are afraid of machines today.

They think, machines are getting very intelligent and smart and would take away all the jobs from people, not just the manual hardworking jobs at the factory shop floor variety. Thinking jobs are also going away to robots as we are entering the most advanced generation of machines in history. Under these circumstances how can human beings preserve their unique identity and existence in the economic world? This will be possible by discovering and reinforcing some of the unique traits that human beings can only have and which no robot can emulate - traits like ‘creativity’ and ‘flexibility’, suggests Aoun.

Knowledge alone is not sufficient for the work tomorrow, but the cognitive capacities are necessary. Humanics is a future discipline for learning and it is not about content but is about cognitive aspects of learning from data, technology and humanities, all put together.

Lastly, machines can improve efficiency and productivity, but education covers a wide spectrum of transactional behaviour. Innovations in valueeducation, other important aspects of human development and interpersonal relationships are as important and deserve equal attention.

may 2018

Guest Article

New technology has a limited impact on the content of Knowledge but can have a telling impact on the pace of learning the content as well as the application. Innovation in higher education will thus have to be understood with reference to the process of learning, or the process of acquiring existing knowledge and developing skill competence for using the knowledge for value creation.

The introduction of digital culture brought forth the first landmark innovation in the field of education. The invention of pocket calculator and personal computers heralded the first major innovation. The software revolution bringing spreadsheets and power point to class rooms was the next big innovation in learning.

A combination of hardware and software revolution started with the innovation in gaming technology and development of simulators for making learning easy for pilots and factory workers engaged in high-risk or hazardous work processes. Robots had come to replace men in factories, taking over monotonous and difficult manual labour requiring skill precision. But to think of application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics in Education was a little far-fetched.

It is not so now.

The application of AI for making ball by ball analysis, synthesising the data, discovering patterns of behaviour of the player in Cricket, and making analysis and recommendations available on real-time basis for the next player going to the crease, is a classic example of what AI can do in education tomorrow.

The student and teacher’s behaviour in class can be analysed in minute detail to predict the outcome of the teaching-learning process, after each session. Questions in a quiz competition randomly generated by the computer, raises the difficulty levels through the process of screening upward, using artificial intelligence for learning and tasking.

“Out of all the emerging technologies, I believe that AI is the one with the greatest potential for impact on the world of education...,” writes Lasse Rouhiainen, in a book titled, “The Future of Higher Education; How Emerging Technologies will Change Education Forever” (2016).

E-learning Apps and MOOCs are already flooding the Internet. The students’ addiction to mobile handsets have made it a ‘no brainer’ to push a substantial part of educational contents to the mobile phones and use the class room time

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e-learning Perspective

The Connected Campus: Transforming Education Digitally As new learning applications, media channels, forms, and communication and collaboration technologies emerge, IT teams are faced with a re-evaluation of security, personnel, budget and operational issues, writes Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet for Elets News Network (ENN).

A

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AI can facilitate individualised learning by understanding the needs of each student to ensure that they are provided with the material they need to succeed.

This can be done through AIenabled tutoring, AI that provides immediate feedback, and more.

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may 2018

successful digital transformation involves a comprehensive technology, personnel, and budget strategy. This is especially true in education, where common transformation efforts range from content conversion to automating administrative processes and integrating systems.

Campus life from an administrative, teacher and student perspective is targeted for a vast disruption. To remain competitive, institutions need to keep pace with digital innovation without losing sight of security. Identifying devices, segmenting users and updating protection policies are three critical components to securing your digital ecosystem.

Digital Transformation in Education Today, technology is pervasive in many facets of learning, from the physical layout of classrooms (with computers and smart boards) to how lessons are planned and results evaluated (automated grading, and engagement tracking). Here are some of the top areas in which digital transformation is affecting education.  The Internet of Things

As institutions embrace digital transformation, many are looking to outfit “smart classrooms.”

Smart classrooms are those that track and measure performance and efficiency through various connected IoT devices. These smart classrooms often include tablets and eBooks enabled with educational software and applications, smart whiteboards, attendance tracking capabilities, and more.  Artificial Intelligence Powering Personalised Learning

One of the main drivers of tech adoption in education is the desire to enable personalised learning. New tools and applications are helping educators to customise learning plans for individual students based on their strengths and weaknesses.

This has led to blended learning curriculums that combine face-to-face teaching with online activities and instructions, and increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education. AI can facilitate individualised learning by understanding the needs of each student to ensure that they are provided with the material they need to succeed. This can be done through AI-enabled tutoring, AI that provides immediate feedback, and more.

Additionally, AI can be used to speed up the grading process, giving teachers more time to focus on student needs.

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e-learning Perspective

ď‚— Big Data Big data is also being leveraged by institutions to measure and improve courses and curriculums. While personalized learning focuses on the needs of individual students, big data can help educators improve classes on a broader scale. As information is collected about student engagement and success through IoT devices and AI interfaces, this data can be analysed to understand trends demonstrating where students are most engaged or areas where improvements could be made.

Digital Transformation Risks As institutions embrace these technical advances to improve the success of their students, they are also embracing a host of new threats. In the end, incorporating new technology that collects large quantities of data about individual users into the network opens schools up to cyber attacks.

With students using tablets and interactive applications in a classroom while getting feedback from AI programs, a DDoS or ransomware attack that knocks a school offline or locks up the network can be catastrophic. That is why strong network defenses are integral.

Secure Technology Use in Classrooms and on Campuses As institutions plan their security infrastructure, they should be sure to incorporate a NextGeneration Firewall (NGFW), secured network

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As digital technology becomes more entrenched in daily operations, education institutions will be well served to deploy these security controls, as well as any others, as part of an integrated Security Fabric, or unified threat management system.

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access and endpoint protection.

NGFWs provide the strong perimeter defence institutions need to enable digital transformation.

As cybercriminals launch sophisticated attacks against exploits in software and hardware connecting to the network, NGFWs are able to assess this traffic on a granular level using current threat intelligence to permit legitimate traffic, while stopping that which is suspicious.

Endpoint protection is also crucial when securing the digital transformation and the IoT devices involved with it. With smart campuses and classrooms growing, more endpoints are connecting to education networks than ever before. From smartphones and tablets to wireless printers and lighting systems, all of these endpoints serve as entryways into the network.

Strong endpoint protection provides end-to-end threat visibility and automated protection from malware and exploits.

As digital technology becomes more entrenched in daily operations, education institutions will be well served to deploy these security controls, as well as any others, as part of an integrated Security Fabric, or unified threat management system.

Institutions are striving to be leading edge in their curriculum and security is an enabler of that mission. As they move to incorporate technologies such as big data, IoT, and AI, cyber defenses will be a requirement to support digital transformation efforts.

may 2018

55

School Perspective

Seth M R Jaipuria Schools: Imparting Learner Centric Education Seth M R Jaipuria Schools aim to develop scientific temper, modern outlook, and love for culture, heritage and traditions, besides imparting the best academic education to its students, says Kanak Gupta, Vice President, Seth M R Jaipuria Schools, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).

What teaching methodologies Jaipuria School has adopted to be at par with global education scenario?

“

Our focus is on research, benchmarking best practices world-wide and learning from our functioning 21 schools as well. Holistic development of the student, including focus on values is the key.

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may 2018

Our vision is to make quality private education available to students across towns and cities in India. For far too long, quality institutions have been concentrated only in metropolitan cities and a few state capitals. This must change.

Whenever we start a new educational institution, our focus is on how we can give a differentiated learning experience to the student. We strongly believe that education has to be learner centric and participative. Our focus is on research, benchmarking best practices world-wide and learning from our functioning 21 schools as well.

Holistic development of the student, including focus on values is the key. We have a strong belief in teacher development and learning as the path to success for any educational institution. We provide multiple training opportunities to 2,500+ educationists associated with us in school and outside it on pedagogy and subject knowledge.

Moreover, we provide them with new teaching ideas for every topic in the syllabus through around 1,00,000 lesson plans developed by us.

How important is development of critical thinking for student learning?

The greatest challenge is to change mindsets of teachers, administrators and parents towards a new, open and participative learning culture.

The most important skill in today’s world is the ability to learn itself. We try to inculcate selflearning in our students, and try to make them self-motivated from a very young age. In today’s world no success is possible without the ability to work with people and in teams. This requires empathy and listening skills. It gives not only a pathway to success but also makes one a better human being, who understands and helps people around himself or herself.

As classroom teaching has evolved over time, what is technology’s role in improving the teaching-learning process?

We strongly believe technology can be an enabler, not the end-all and be-all of the teaching-learning process. Technology has to be integrated in the learning cycle and we must empower teachers and students to use it well. Flipped classroom, multimedia, peer learning, et al are strengthened through technology.

How does the Group aim to develop students’ latent creative potential?

The world is changing at a very rapid pace. We can’t even imagine the types of careers or lives our students of today would be having in 15-20 years. As an educationist, it is important that we keep pace with the changing world around us. Creativity can’t be taught in a traditional classroom setting. It is developed through practice. From a primary level, the school should make students participate and take responsibility both within and outside the classroom.

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Guest Article

Importance of Nurturing Gender Sensitivity Through Education Gender inequality is treated as a punishable offence as per laws of most of the countries. It is important for parents and teachers to make the children sensitive towards the other gender, writes Hema Kalakoti, Principal, APS Academy, Lucknow for Elets News Network (ENN).

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Gender awareness is more analytical and critical since it clarifies issues about gender disparities and gender issues.

It pertains to one’s effort to show how gender shapes the role of women and men in society including their role in development and how it affects relations between them.

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G

ender inequality is treated as a punishable offence as per laws of most of the countries.

It is important for parents and teachers to make the children sensitive towards the other gender, writes Hema Kalakoti, Principal, APS Academy, Lucknow for Elets News Network (ENN).

Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender. It arises from differences in socially constructed gender roles. Gender systems are often dichotomous and hierarchical, gender binary systems may reflect the inequalities that manifest in numerous dimensions of daily life.

Discrimination based on gender is a common civil rights violation that takes many forms including sexual harassment, pregnancy –discrimination, unequal pay for women who do the same jobs as men and discrimination in employment and education .To overcome gender inequality we need to have gender sensitive society.

What is Gender Sensitivity?

Gender awareness is more analytical and critical since it clarifies issues about gender disparities and gender issues. It pertains to one’s effort to show how gender shapes the role of women and

men in society including their role in development and how it affects relations between them. Our education system needs to be gender sensitive and gender friendly.

One of the best possible strategies to minimise gender discrimination in society is to promote gender awareness at all levels of the society.

The basic concepts between sex and gender are Sex Gender Categorised as male or female Masculinity and feminity Biological Socially ,culturally and historically determined Fixed at birth Learned through socialization Does not change across time and space Varies over time and space Equally valued Unequally valued(Masculinity as the norm)

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Gender Sensitivity in Schools Schools can play an important role in inculcating gender sensitivity in etiquettes and manners of students. It is necessary to create a gender responsive school in which the academic, social and physical environment and its surrounding community take into account the specific needs of girls and boys. A detailed action plan with a definite road map is required in the school curriculum to achieve gender equality.

Gender Sensitivity among Teachers:Teachers play a very important role in the early

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We all know that the teachers sometimes “inadvertently” make disparaging remarks about capabilities or characteristics of either gender, so we need to cope with knowledge, attitude, skills and methodologies that promote gender equality.

” @dl_magazine

digitalLEARNING

Guest Article

Gender Issues In Homes We can promote gender awareness in parents by • School-parent partnership needs to be strengthened to identify gender issues in homes • Promoting girl education in rural areas • NGOs awareness training and counseling.

Parents should be advised to treat both their sons and daughters as equals. Instead of telling their daughters to behave properly, mothers should teach their sons to respect all women as equal. It is important that children should grow up seeing women in their homes being respected by the men in the family. All household females should stop telling the young girls of their families that they need to learn how to cook, serve the husband and in-laws, and always adjust. And whatever else says to make a growing girl feel like she has less access to choice of freedom than her male counterpart.

upbringing of a child .Their idea and beliefs can change the thought processes of young children.

Children in the formative years easily nurture values and virtues taught to them. Gender sensitivity training should be mandatory for teachers. The training will enable them to disseminate the desirable attitude based on mutual respect and trust between girls and boys.

We all know that the teachers sometimes “inadvertently” make disparaging remarks about capabilities or characteristics of either gender, so we need to cope with knowledge, attitude, skills and methodologies that promote gender equality.

With growing concern over the lack of gender sensitization among youth, the Central Board of secondary Education (CBSE) has developed “a kit on gender sensitivity” for teachers to enable them to ensure unbiased participation of both boys and girls in the learning process.

Gender Sensitive Classrooms Classrooms need to be gender sensitive. We have to take care of few do’s and don’ts for making classroom interaction gender sensitive.

• Encourage both males and females to be class leaders (perhaps one of each sex). Appoint two monitors in each classroom, a boy and a girl.

• Address and call on girls and boys equally. Do not segregate boys and girls in the classroom in primary classes.

• Make mixes groups for group activities and games.

• Try to ‘switch role’ for breaking down gender barriers and stereotyping of gender roles • Make both boys and girls share activities like cleaning, moving furniture, to the chalkboard during a lesson.

• Plan and conduct activities that give opportunity to all children accepting one another as equals.

Gender Sensitivity in Curriculum and text Academic contents with lessons on gender sensitivity and moral traditions will unconsciously mould the character of the tender mind. It is time to transform all text reading materials and books which should be free of notion of gender equality as bias is embedded in textbooks and lessons. In this connection our government has started taking initiatives regarding gender concerns have been included in the curriculum and in the textbooks drawn up by the National Council of Educational Research and Training(NCERT). (Views expressed by author are personal)

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Industry Perspective

Alankit: Developing Futuristic Solutions Alankit Group, a conglomerate of 12 companies, is into diversified activities like Financial Services, e-Governance, Insurance and Health Care verticals. The company envisions to be a leading solution provider in the sectors says Ankit Agarwal, Managing Director, Alankit Limited, in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN).

What inspired launching of this company?

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Being the National Distributor for Entrust Datacard Printers, Alankit facilitates the distribution of millions of corporate ID, health cards, voter ID cards and Aadhaar cards besides accomplishing a tremendous sale of printers in last few years.

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Alankit, the leading service provider, is a twodecade old conglomerate operating in sectors like e-Governance, Financial Services, Healthcare and Insurance Broking. The idea behind launching the company was to provide multiple service offerings under one umbrella by making the processes simpler, faster and hassle-free for all.

The company was started with the vision of being a unique and quality service provider in the sectors it serve with emphasis on customer satisfaction along with supporting the Government initiatives.

The company aims to take its vision forward by supporting the “Digital India” initiative and developing online solutions for different kind of services in these sectors.

Please describe about the innovations

by Alankit in last two years to improve its products and remain ahead of its competitors?

In last two years, Alankit has introduced various new product lines and solutions to boost its market penetration and stay ahead of competitors. Some of the ground-breaking innovative softwares, introduced and developed by Alankit to take the digitisation campaign further, are Alankit GST Muneemji – A secure cloud-based solution for all GST compliances; Alankit GST Saarthi – Point-ofSale (POS) device for small business enterprises; E-Raahi – first-of-its-kind e-Way bill software and various service specific Mobile Apps among others.

The idea is to digitise and simplify the procedures for the masses.

What are the major products of the organisation and how they are helping

in improving the education sector?

Being the National Distributor for Entrust Datacard Printers, Alankit facilitates the distribution of millions of corporate ID, health cards, voter ID cards and Aadhaar cards besides accomplishing a tremendous sale of printers in last few years.

Printers act as system integrators that can analyse and provide easy customisation to avoid any duplication of ID Cards in schools, limiting the chances of any kind of fraud.

What is your vision for upcoming years?

Alankit’s vision for upcoming years is to excel as a leading service provider in the verticals it operates in, facilitating convenience for the people as well as the Government. The company is all set to come up with a more refined version in coming months with an aim to increase the turnover to a new record high. For this, we are taking several initiatives to benefit all stakeholders and encouraging our workforce to contribute more towards the overall growth of the organisation.

Which are the futuristic ways that companies like Alankit can look forward to contribute towards education sector?

The education sector is poised to witness a major growth in the coming years and with the rate economy is growing and technology is advancing, there is a lot that can be accomplished by companies like Alankit in future. We can come up with new solutions to simplify the procedures such as form filling and submission for school admissions and many others. Moreover, we are also trying to introduce advanced level tools to ensure safety and security of school kids.

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Edtech Perspective

Indiannica Enriching Learners’ Experience Indiannica is today a pioneer in creating products that foster exploratory learning, guiding learners to attain the right attitude to seeking knowledge, says Sumit Gupta, Managing Director, Indiannica Learning Pvt Ltd, in an interview with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN).

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We believe “What India thinks today, the world will think tomorrow”.

In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “Make in India”, we partnered with Britannica and named the organisation as Indiannica.

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ur mission at Indiannica Learning is enriching experience of the learners.

Today’s learning is rote- learning developed initially with a focus on not on learning but on getting good marks irrespective of student understanding the concept or not. So, this is what we are working on to develop the solutions that make learning interesting and interactive.

What innovations are you introducing to make the content more enriching for learners?

We are trying to develop the kind of solutions which rather than pushing the students towards learning, fascinates them towards it.

As we all know that the best learning is what we gain after experiencing something rather than reading or studying. So, we are developing games, animations, videos and graphics using technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality to make the learning more interesting.

Indiannica is working on curriculum and digital interface, what are the focus areas in curriculum as well as in digital interface?

In curriculum space, there are text book publishers which B2B (Business to Business) and most of these publishers are using digital component as a gimmick and others are edtech players which are B2C (Business to Customer). Due to paucity of time, we need learning solutions which comprised text book, digital solutions which may be online or in form of an application. This is exactly what Indiannica Learning is doing. We are serving K-12

segment and developing the digital solutions inclined with the curriculum.

What are your expansion plans in India and globally?

We have very ambitious plans of expansion.

Presently, we cover only 45 per cent of the total market and we are planning for gradual increase in the market coverage in the upcoming years.

The second is portfolio increase. We are investing heavily into that for developing physical products i.e. digital and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) along with the curriculum products. This is what we believe will give us the required growth. We are very cautious about price hike and last year there was no increase in our prices. Personally, I would like this company to be three times of its assets in next three to four years.

As per our vision, India and beyond, we want

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What are your plans for working with the Government?

As a business, we are focusing only on private sector. We have kept our market very limited to ICSE, CBSE and few State board schools. As we see that NCERT is being pushed a lot, though it is not able to supply the books and NCERT books are no match to our books in terms of quality, we are looking for engagement with the Government in textbook side. We are already supplying books to Army schools along with few State board schools.

What challenges are you facing?

In a majority of schools infrastructure is unavailable. It is important to understand that teachers are not burden. The average class size nowadays is of 40 students and if a teacher is

“

We are trying to develop the kind of solutions which are rather than pushing the students towards learning is pulling or attracting them towards it. As we all know that the best learning is what we gain after experiencing something rather than reading or studying.

”

teaching three sections of three classes, he/she is dealing with 300 to 400 students. In addition to that they have to prepare tests, check test copies and perform other duties as well. So, reducing the burden on teachers is important which is possible digitally. Providing assessment solutions, test generators will reduce their burden. It will be only possible with technology and good infrastucture.

The second one is the mindset, as whenever we visit a school, they say that we don’t want to expose our children to the Internet. We can restrict a child accessing the Internet at school but at home every child has a laptop, tablet or i-pad etc, which is connected to internet 24x7.

The third challenge is Government initiatives like making use of NCERT books in every school.

The parents are getting their children enrolled in the private schools for quality education and, in my view, such initiatives are not good. Another one is the implementation of new tax regime i.e.

GST. Though the textbooks are tax-free, unless the supply chain management is made tax free the cost will keep rising and we have to increase our prices and ultimately the customers have to suffer.

Edtech Perspective

to be the most trusted learning solution company in India and beyond. In early ages, India used to be the knowledge provider to the world and we want to continue that legacy through our various tested products. We have our business in Srilanka and we are planning for expansion in the SAARC countries as well.

We believe “What India thinks today, the world will think tomorrow”. In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “Make in India”, we partnered with Britannica and named the organisation as Indiannica. Today, the world is looking at us and our Government is also focusing a lot on health and education. We are in the education arena and here we can do a lot to serve our customers.

Is it needed that company like yours, government officials and the school decision-makers should sit together to overcome these challenges?

Definitely, it is very much needed though it is happening in smaller ways. I am in the publishing committee of the FICCI and most of the private sector publishers in meetings discuss various challenges. FICCI takes those challenges to the government bodies. I think, such meetings should happen more frequently and not only FICCI but other bodies should also come forward. I think, the Government is more open to such things nowadays and it will definitely help if go forward and come together to discuss the challenges. We are part of Navneet group which caters to the Government’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities and related various State board schools.

What is the vision of your organisation for the days ahead?

We want to be the most trusted learning solution brand in India and beyond. At the same time, we just don’t want to focus on selling or becoming the largest, we want to grow the trust for our brand among students, teachers and parents, which will help us to grow three times with a span of three to four years.

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conference REPORT

conference REPORT

Inaugauration of 7th Higher Education and HR Conclave

by Meeta Rajiv Lochan, Principal Secretary & State Project Director, State Project Directorate-RUSA, Government of Maharashtra besides Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra, Chancellor, Shobhit University, Meerut; Dr Shravan Kadvekar, In Charge Vice Chancellor, Symbiosis Skills and Open University, Pune; (on stage L-R) Dr Bukinakere Satyanarayan, Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal University, Gurugram; Supreeth Nagaraju, Head Education, Adobe Systems

7th Higher Education and HR Conclave:

Boosting Employability through Innovative Higher Education

Top-notch edu-leaders, policymakers, and stakeholders from the education industry participated in the Higher Education and Human Resource (HE and HR) Conclave on April 21 held in Pune, Maharashtra.

The day-long conference was inaugurated by Meeta Rajivlochan, Principal Secretary and State Project Director, State Project Directorate – RUSA, Government of Maharashtra.

The conclave witnessed deliberations from Dr Manpreet Singh Manna, Director, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Dr Archana Thakur, Joint Secretary, UGC, MHRD, Government of India among others.

Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) participated in the summit as host partner and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) as supporting partner.

The summit showcased the best Higher Education and HR practices from across India to boost employability among students.

During the summit, the panel discussions were conducted on current challenges with expectations to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship among higher education students.

A special panel discussion with HR managers as participants was organised on topic “Importance of Skilling Educators, Ensuring Employability to Youth: Opportunity lies in Challenges”.

During the conclave, top universities, B-schools and engineering colleges ranked by digitalLEARNING magazine were felicitated. HR leaders for adopting or innovating the new policies or practices for boosting employability were also felicitated during the conference.

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key speakers

Meeta Rajiv Lochan

conference REPORT

Principal Secretary & State Project Director, State Project Directorate-RUSA, Government of Maharashtra The current belief is that absence of autonomy is what holding back Higher Education Institutes of India from achieving their full potential. Autonomy or say, pure autonomy per se is not an issue. The things hampering Higher Education Institutes are neglecting the key concern of knowledge creation and dissemination, inadequate concern with upgrading skills of faculty and students, cumbersome procedures for curriculum upgradation.”

Dr Manpreet Singh Manna Director, AICTE, MHRD Government of India

We are at first position in terms of consumers of smart phones. A report by NASSCOM revealed that only two per cent of the apps installed in smart phones are educational apps whereas 82 per cent are the gaming apps. We are among the top three countries in terms of number of consumers but in terms of innovation we are at 60th position.

Though we have improved our position by 15 places but we need to take innovation in every sector and should not limit it to the education only.”

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Dr Archana Thakur Joint Secretary, UGC, MHRD, Government of India

One very important initiative taken by the University Grants Commission is to check the plagiarism of any research paper or content submitted in the university. Digitisation is helping us in checking the plagiarism. It helped us to serve the university and college students with unique and innovative content for their respective courses.”

Dr Shravan Kadvekar

In-Charge Vice Chancellor, Symbiosis Skills and Open University, Pune We are talking about the skills required in the students to be employable. In India, we need to integrate skills with the Higher Education. For this we have established the skill university. We are trying to integrate skilling, technology and industry demands with the pedagogy of Higher Education without changing the curriculum.”

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key speakers

Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra Chancellor, Shobhit University

Supreeth Nagaraju Head – Education West, South, East & Sri Lanka, Adobe

One thing we always believe is that the education is not a spectator’s world. It’s an inclusive effort of students, faculty members and R&D fraternity of industries and labs. Innovation requires labs but it is possible through the young minds of a nation.

To nurture innovation among young minds, it is necessary to think beyond the traditional methods of classroom teaching.”

conference REPORT

In last few years we have seen that more interaction is there on Higher Education.

Regulators are becoming facilitators to improve the Indian Higher Education system.

Through this platform I would like to raise my concerns which are inclusiveness in education, empower the youth in villages and the access of education to every section of the society not only to the elite class.”

Dr Bukinakere Satyanarayan Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal University, Gurugram

I would like to draw your attention towards the education scenario in the country. We have 1,335 million people in this country and only 30 million people are getting education degree of that may be four million are getting education degree and may be around 1.5 lakh are doing a PhD. The stats shows that four percent in this country are getting undergraduate degree, 0.4 per cent are postgraduate and around 0.01 per cent are research scholars.”

Magazine launch at 7th HE HR Conclave, Pune

Inugural Session at 7th HE HR Conclave, Pune

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conference REPORT

Panel Discussion: Experiential Learning: Meeting the changing behaviour of student enrollment and the impact of technology

(From L-R): Major Sonal Kadan, Director, Symbiosis Skills and Open University, Pune; Dr Daniel J Penkar, Director, S B Patil Institute of Management, Pune; Dr D M Deshpande, Vice Chancellor, ISBM University, Raipur; Dr R M Jalnekar, Director, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune; Dr Bukinakere Satyanarayan, Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal University, Gurugram; Nitin Puglia, Chairman, Renaissance Group of Institutions, Chandrapur, Maharashtra.

Panel Discussion: Trends in Higher Education branding, online marketing and enrolment

(From L-R): Dr Anand A Samuel, Vice Chancellor, VIT University, Vellore; Suraj Sapra, Vice President, NoPaperForms, Dr Lakshmi Mohan, Director, ITM Business School, Kharghar; Ambrish Singh, Executive VP, shiksha.com; Dr Shyam L Kaushal, Director, Himachal Pradesh University Business School, Shimla; Prof Ajay Ruhela, Director- Engineering, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad; Santosh Nair, Senior Director, Parul University, Vadodara, .

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Panel Discussion: Higher Education and Skill Training to catalyze equitable growth

conference REPORT

(From L-R): Dr Nitin R Karmalkar, Vice Chancellor, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune; Sachin Satpute, Director, MIT Skills, Pune; Dr M K Verma, Vice Chancellor, Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanand Technical University, Raipur; Garima Babbar, Head – Programme, Education and Skill Development, Adobe Systems; Professor Piyushkant Dixit, Vice Chancellor, Uttarakhand Sanskrit University ,Haridwar.

HR Panel Discussion: Importance of Skilling Educators, Ensuring Employability to Youth: Opportunity lies in Challenges

(From L-R): Capt Anil Dhankher, Former Head HR, Abu Dhabi Commercial Ban; Awantika Bhardwaj, HR Head - India, Tieto; Prasad Kulkarni, Head HR Shared Services, Compensation & Benefits, Policies, HR Technology, Raymond Limited; Sahil Nayar, Associate Director, HR, KPMG; Satish Rajrathnam, Global HRBP, Cognizant; Annapurna Swarup, HR Director, Inspirage; Rajesh Kamath, Co-Founder, MTHR Global (Moderator).

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conference REPORT

industry Presentations

Vijay Mhaskar

Chief Operating Officer, Seqrite

Shailesh Verma

Product Marketing Manager, CloudWalker Streaming Technologies Pvt Ltd

Felicitation

Top Higher Educational Institutes, Universities and B-Schools of Western Zone of India

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EXPO conference REPORT

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conference REPORT

MEDIA COVERAGEthe highlights

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HOST PARTNER

SUPPORTING PARTNER

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Insightful Sessions, Informative Deliberations and Networking

As Elets Higher Education and HR Summit in Pune witnessed the congregation of eminent bureaucrats, policymakers, edu-leaders, edu-tech thought leaders and key stakeholders on April 21, we thank every participant, speaker and exhibitor for sharing their thoughts and innovations in the summit.

SYMBIOSIS SKILLS AND OPEN UNIVERSITY (SSOU)

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conference report

School Education through Innovation

Inaugauration of 7th SLS Chandigarh by Sarvesh Kaushal, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab cum Director General, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Chandigarh besides him (right) Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Group of Schools; Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra, Chancellor, Shobhit University; Sanjiv Mehta, Country Manager, HP Inc; Chandan Anand, Sr Manager, digitalLEARNING magazine (Right)

C

ontinuing the legacy of showcasing the best and the latest practices in school education to right stakeholders, Elets Technomedia, the premier technology and media research organisation, organised the 7th School Leadership Summits (SLS) in Chandigarh.

Renowned education stakeholders participated in the one-day summit to deliberate on finest practices and innovations empowered by technological interventions.

The summit was inaugurated by Sarvesh Kaushal, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab cum Director General, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Chandigarh.

A special edition of digitalLEARNING magazine was also launched by Sarvesh Kaushal, Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Group of Schools, Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra, Chancellor, Shobhit University and Sanjiv Mehta, Country Manager, HP Inc. The summit was organised with the vision to connect educators, policymakers, industry leaders and key stakeholders to share new ideas, best practices, latest trends with each other.

During the summit, eminent edu-leaders deliberated on various important topics. Dr Anup Kumar Rajput, Professor and Head - Department of Elementary Education, NCERTdelivered special address and talked about the vision and mission of NCERT along with the challenges faced by school owners.

During the summit, top schools of Chandigarh, Punjab , Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were falicitated based on the ranking done by digitalLEARNING magazine.

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KEY Speakers Sarvesh Kaushal

Special Chief Secretary Government of Punjab cum Director General, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Chandigarh

conference report

“I am not the one who would cynically like to bring down a relatively high cost quality education institution simply due to the plea that the government school does not have these facilities. I would rather endeavour to upgrade the government schools to the levels of which the private schools can invest in infrastructure and technology and in all aspects of educational management. Both have to go together. Both have to do well. That is my philosophy. It is not one against the other. So there are no biases. It’s unfortunate that a large population cannot afford a very high cost education, it is same as they cannot afford a high cost medical facilities. But that does not mean we close the superspeciality hospitals in the private sector because our own hospitals are not adequate and sufficiently good. So we have to improve them rather than pulling the leaders.”

Sanjiv Mehta

Anirudh Gupta CEO DCM Group of Schools

“If we teach the children today the way we taught them yesterday, we will rob them of their tomorrow.

The onus will be on us. Our government wants the children to innovate in schools. Now - a- days colleges are more of innovative schools. We, as leaders, need to re-orient ourselves, set an agenda, make both short-term and long-term plans.”

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Country Manager HP Inc “Education is the most respected profession in the world. We can look at it from broadly three aspects: one is how do we give access to content or learning to students and teachers, how do we provide learning experience to teachers while they are teaching, and the third aspect is the mix of these two will come out to be a very meaningful outcome.

The area we should look at is assessment. The point in assessment is what we assess, we assess what we teach, we assess what we learn or do we need to teach beyond the curriculum.”

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Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra Chancellor Shobhit University

conference report

“The initial priority of education was to make good human beings. But today the priority is to make our children more skilled to be a good job seeker or to be successful. Five basic challenges of education are: to raise the status of teaching as a career choice, to reduce the disparity between the schools of India, to redesign the curriculum and inculcate technology in that, flexible learning arrangements in education and to identify the children who are at risk of falling behind.�

Magazine Launch at 7th School Leadership Summit, Chandigarh

Panel Discussions: Training Teachers in the Age of Technology-driven Education

(From L-R): Vinesh Menon, Chief Executive Officer - Education, Consulting & Skilling Services, Vibgyor Group of Schools; Pramod Kumar, State Education Officer, Government of Haryana; Sunita Jaisingh, National Academic Head, Global Indian International Schools; Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Group of Schools Vijay Shukla, Director, Indus World Schools P Balchandran, CEO, St Xavier International Schools

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Industry Presentations conference report

Behram Mohta Academic Head, Robomate+

Deepa Dogra, Chief Academics Director Learning Wings Education

Nirman Grewal The Ultimate Knowledge

Kavita Gupta The Ultimate Knowledge

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conference report

Felicitations

Felicitation of Top Schools of Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh

Inauguration of Expo by Sarvesh Kaushal, Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab cum Director General, Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Chandigarh

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7th

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

#SLS2018

CHANDIGARH 2 8 th A P R I L 2 0 1 8

7th

7th

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

As 7th School Leadership Summit 2018 in Chandigarh witnessed the congregation of eminent policymakers, edu-leaders, edu-tech thought leaders and key stakeholders, we thank every participant, speaker and exhibitor for showcasing and sharing their thoughts and innovations in the summit.

ORGANISER

TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

KNOWLEDGE PARTNER

POWERED BY

IT SECURITY PARTNER

SCHOOL PARTNER

EXHIBITORS TM

SEE YOU AT

8th HIGHER

EDUCATION &

HR SUMMIT

CONF E R E NCE

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E X P O

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BENGALURU

F E LICITATIO N

JUNE

2018

6 - 7 AUGUST

Chandan Anand : +91 8860635836 email- school@digitallearning.in

ASSOCIATE PARTNERS

We are an impact driven company incubated at IIT Kanpur working on the vision to make Quality Education accessible to every student studying in the government schools leveraging Technology & Analytics.

To address these challenges we have developed & successfully implemented SMART & Intelligent system “EmpowerU” in 5000 Govt. schools of Jharkhand & Odisha.

- SMART & INTELLIGENT SYSTEM TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS REAL-TIME MONITORING & EVALUATION OF THOUSANDS OF SCHOOLS, TEACHERS & STUDENTS CHALLENGES ADDRESSED Teachers' absenteeism through attendance Marking & GPS based Location Tracking of Teachers which works even in remote areas without the Internet.

Real-time Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Daily Monitoring which ensures meals are cooked as per menu and under hygienic conditions.

Pictorial & Questionnaire based School Academic & Infrastructural Conditions Monitoring like Library, Toilets, Drinking Water, labs, computer etc.

Student Learning Level Assessment to improve the learning outcomes.

Leave Management to improve unauthorized teachers absence.

Intelligent Issue detection using algorithms to filter issues from thousands of schools & millions of data points.

SMART action response system for automatic decision making based on inbuilt intelligence reducing human intervention.

Smart School

HEAD MASTER & CRP

REALTIME DATA TRANSMISSION EVEN WITHOUT INTERNET

AT SCHOOL, BLOCK & DISTRICT LEVEL REAL-TIME MONITORING & ANALYSIS Data Driven Analysis & Decision Making Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) Analysis Cluster-wise & Block-wise Attendance Performance Analysis Pictorial Analysis of Mid Day Meal (MDM) Analysis of Schools Conditions Toilet, Drinking water Lab etc Student Enrollment Analysis Leave Application & Approval Analysis

INTELLIGENT ISSUE DETECTION & REDRESSAL Auto issue detection under following scenarios:

BLOCK & DISTRICT CONTROL ROOM

Low Attendance of teacher or student Issues in school facilities & conditions Shortage of Funds Bad Quality of Food Responsibilities not performed by Teacher, HM, Cluster, Block or District officerGrievances

SMART ACTION RESPONSE SYSTEM Automatic show cause SMS notification with time bound explanation using mobile app for: Unauthorized Absence Non performance of duties Non redressal of issues Under Performance of students Impact

Features

F Implemented in around 5000 schools F Teacher’s attendance average improved from 58% to more than 90% F Mid Day Meal(MDM) serving improved from around 75% to more

F Real-time Data Transmission from thousands of rural schools even

than 90%

F Improvement in Enrollment of Students & Around 6000 teachers monitored every day

without Internet

F GPS tracking to ensure activities performed from school premises F Unique Identification using AadharId F Intelligent issue detection and Data Driven Decision Making

F Around 1,50,000 students monitored every day F Leave compliance and transparency improved. Around 29000 leave applications processed

Awards & Recognition

F EmpowerU under project DISHA was presented to Hon'ble Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi at Niti Aayog when the Deputy Commissioner of Giridih District, Jharkhand was called for the presentation by100 backward districts of India

F The Idea was Awarded For "Innovative Idea for use of Technology and Innovation in Promoting Good Governance" an Initiative by MHRD organized at IIT Kanpur in Dec'14.

F We are Backed & Funded by Villgro Innovation Foundation in partnership with Technology Development Board (TDB)-Govt. Of India,DFID, UK & SIIC, IIT Kanpur

INSTITUTIONS / COLLEGES Seth Anandram Jaipuria Inter College Anand Nagar - Maharajganj (1942) Seth Anandram Jaipuria College Kolkata (1945) Jaipuria Institute of Management Indirapuram, Ghaziabad (2001) Jaipuria School of Business Indirapuram, Ghaziabad (2008)

EDUCATION WITH A DIFFERENCE

SCHOOLS Seth Anandram Jaipuria School 70, Cantonment, Kanpur (1974) Seth Anandram Jaipuria School Vasundhara, Ghaziabad (2004) The Jaipuria School Farrukhabad (2013) Seth Anandram Jaipuria School Shaheed Path, Lucknow (2016) Seth Anandram Jaipuria School Unnao (2016) Seth Anandram Jaipuria School Alambagh, Lucknow (2017) PRE - SCHOOL Little One - The Jaipuria Preschool Kanpur (2015) UPCOMING SCHOOLS Seth Anandram Jaipuria School, Varanasi Little One - The Jaipuria Preschool , Ghaziabad

The Jaipuria Group of Educational Institutions has a legacy of over 114 years. With the support of 13 institutions, 17000 students on roll and alumni strength of 11000, it continues to occupy a premier position in the field of education on a pan-India basis.

Seth Anandram Jaipuria School is ranked No 1 in Kanpur and No 3 in UP

by Education World 2017.

Seth Anandram Jaipuria School in Ghaziabad is ranked No. 1 in the city

by Digital Learning 2017.

Jaipuria Institute of Management (MBA) and Jaipuria School of Business (PGDM), are the preferred choice of students and corporate alike..

Winner of multiple awards, the group has a name for imparting value education and is partnering with like -minded individuals and companies to establish institutions/schools of excellence in various parts of India.

To know more visit us at: www.jaipuria.edu.in | Mail at partner@jaipuria.edu.in | Call: 0120-4881137, (91)-9717163034

RNI NO. UPENG/2008/25311/UP/GZB/70/2018-20