Telangana govt launches digital classrooms in 3,352 schools

The Telangana government on Wednesday launched its digital classrooms programme in 3,352 high schools.

The programme was inaugurated by Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao. Mr. Srihari said it was a big step in reaching out to students in rural areas with quality teaching and at the same time exposing all the students to digital learning, that is adopted now by several private schools.

He said the programme now connected 3,352 out of the total 5,400 government-run high schools. He said the digital class initiative was not to remove teachers from the education system but to supplement their teaching and the initiative will be extended to all schools by the ensuing 2017 academic year.

IT Minister K.T. Rao said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao wants every kid in Telangana to be benefitted by the digital revolution and particularly those from the Government schools.

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Australia paves way for preschoolers to learn Hindi

In a bid to promote languages other than English, Australia today announced national rollout of an online programme for pre-schoolers to learn foreign languages, including Hindi, from next year onwards.

The Early Learning Languages Australia (ELLA) Polyglots applications will help students and their teachers to learn new languages. According to Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham, the government would extend the programme to offer Australian pre-schoolers the opportunity to learn Italian and Spanish in 2017 and Hindi and Modern Greek in 2018.

Birmingham said almost 10,000 children had been part of the $9.8 million programme so far, with almost two in three students studying either Chinese or Japanese. The government has committed an additional $5.9 million for the national roll out.

We know life-long learning begins from the youngest years and our $15.7 million investment in the languages app highlights the Turnbull Government’s commitment to reviving the study of languages throughout Australia’s early education centres, schools and universities, Birmingham said.

The ELLA programme has been extremely popular with children, parents and educators and it’s exciting to see it not only expanded to a national rollout but to also include an additional four languages, he said.

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IGNOU to launch sand art certificate course

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has decided to launch a certificate course on sand art as a first of its kind in the country in a bid to popularise the art form.

Internationally-acclaimed sand artist Sudarsan Patnaik, who is all set to help in designing and developing the unique course, said it would be provided through the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) programme of the University.

He said the decision to introduce the course was revealed by IGNOU’s vice-chancellor Prof Ravindra Kumar at the East Zone Regional Directors’ Meet held here on Friday.

The course to be offered on the University’s online platform would initially be available at Bhubaneswar region as this year’s enrolment of eastern zone was around 25 per cent of the total enrolment of IGNOU, the V-C said.

IGNOU would later introduce the course in other centres, he said, adding, the programme was expected to be launched within three months.

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LinkedIn Signs MoU with HRD Ministry

Microsoft-owned professional social network LinkedIn has signed an MoU with the Ministry of Human Resource Development for all colleges affiliated with the All India Council for Technical Education to use its platform for their placement process.

Placements, a product that LinkedIn has built for India, allows students and placement officers at colleges maximise their reach when searching for prospective jobs. Students will also be able to take an online assessment test which will give them access to openings in partner corporates.

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UGC asks universities to start PhD programmes in AYUSH disciplines

Students will now be able to pursue PhD in traditional medicine courses after the University Grants Commission (UGC) asked all central universities to start a doctorate degree programmes under AYUSH disciplines.

On June 24, AYUSH ministry had written a letter to the UGC requesting it to issue an advisory to educational institutions on the same. AYUSH has announced PhD programmes in AYUSH disciplines from the concerned research council.

The research councils in the field of Ayurvedic Sciences, Homoeopathy, Yoga and Naturopathy among others also conduct clinical and basic research studies

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Kerala schools to get hi-tech internet facility

In a first-of-its-kind scheme in the country, at least 10,000 lower and upper primary Government and aided schools in Kerala are going hi-tech and will start getting internet facilities from November 1.

These schools will be able to get 2 Mbps broadband internet with unlimited data usage powered by BSNL, as part of the ‘IT@School’ Project, the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) arm of the state Education Department.

‘IT@School’ Project has been providing broadband internet connection to close to 5,000 High schools, Higher Secondary Schools and educational offices since 2007. “With the addition of broadband internet to primary section also, the state’s school broadband internet network will cover 100 per cent schools with over 15,000 connections.

This will be the largest and first-of-its-kind in the country,” K Anvar Sadath, Director of the Project, said.

Education Minister, C Ravindranath, said this would be the commencement of upgradation of ICT infrastructure in the primary section. This is in continuation of the High Tech school programme announced by the government through which all classes of Standard 8 to 12 are being upgraded with modern ICT tools. The lower primary schools would get the new ICT Textbooks prepared on Edutainment platform titled ‘Kalipetti’ (play box) in November.

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