Education News – December 2014

DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDENTS OF INDIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

* To improve diversity in classrooms, the Indian School of Business is offering diverse scholarships across professions.
* Scholarships are being offered by the Indian School of Business to students to improve diversity in the class.
* A total of 40 scholarships worth Rs. 2.50 crore will be given to students applying for the one-year PGP programme.
* Professionals from varied sectors like health care, government, social sector, hospitality, media, fashion, manufacturing, finance, marketing and sales and technology may apply.
* All the students applying for the PGP programme are automatically evaluated for this scholarship and are awarded, if found meritorious.
* The evaluation is based on past academic records, GMAT scores, personal and professional achievements, career achievements, recommendations, essays and interviews.
* The applications are open all year round. Apply online at http://pgpapp.isb.edu/User/Default.aspx

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LAUNCHES ‘ECHOES’

* Oxford University Press recently launched Echoes, an English learning and speaking programme for students and teachers in India.
* Echoes is a 10-level interactive course that trains students to use English on a daily basis.
* Among other things, this programme teaches pronunciation of words, pauses in long sentences, word and sentence stresses and intonation for different purposes, all applicable and useful for conversing in English.
* Echoes provides all its students audio CDs and aims at helping students feel more confident at using English in their everyday conversations.
* Ultimately, the aim of the programme is to make English a global language.
* Teachers from Delhi Public School, KLE Group of Schools, National Public School and Sindhi High School have already participated in this workshop.

THE GREEN BATTI PROJECT

* An initiative by Social Quotient, The Green Batti enables young people to mentor children from a low income group and help them through a standard curriculum.
* Starting December 2014, this four-month programme will incorporate 500 young professionals to mentor children from low income groups.
* A curriculum is fixed in collaboration with the Tata Institute for Social Sciences that will focus on life and social skills.
* The mentor-mentee pair will meet at a mutually decided time in public places like coffee shops or parks.
* The mentors will be chosen after careful scrutiny and background checks and will then be trained by Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
* To learn more log onto http://www.thegreenbattiproject.in/

IIT-M JOINS HANDS WITH PURDUE UNIVERSITY

* IIT Madras and Purdue University, USA have signed an MoU to share doctoral students and faculty for better results.
* This agreement enables joint supervision of the doctoral candidates of the two institutes.
* The coalition also allows the faculty of Purdue University to advise students at IIT Madras and vice versa.
* This partnership has more than a dozen faculty members on board along with 1,500 students from India
* Students may look forward to innovative teaching methods such as flip classrooms and embedded learning which do not put a premium on class attendance but give preference to projects and interactive exchanges between students from both institutes.
* Representatives of the institutes hope that this partnership will lead to a joint PhD programme soon.

UK TO RECOGNISE CBSE CERTIFICATES FOR ADMISSION

* HRD Minister Smriti Irani has been in talks with UK’s Minister of State for Universities, Greg Clark, relating to admissions for Indian students from the CBSE board and visa issues faced by them.
* Institutes in the UK have insisted that Indian students study an add-on course after CBSE exams as the education system in Britain is a year ahead of the Indian system.
* This non-recognition of CBSE certificates was discouraging for a number of students seeking admission in the UK.
* Universities with an undergraduate programme in the UK have now agreed to recognise the plus-two certificate awarded by India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
* India has also asked for a relaxation in the post-study visa norms that allow students to work with a minimum salary of 20,000 GBP.
* Clark has said that under an initiated programme of the British Government, 25,000 students would be sent to India to study for five years.

NIIT TO LAUNCH PG DIPLOMA IN BANKING AND RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN PARTNERSHIP WITH KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK

* A postgraduate diploma in banking and relationship management is to be launched by a joint venture of NIIT, NIIT Institute of Finance Banking & Insurance Training (IFBI) and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
* The diploma programme will be 12 months long. It aims to develop and empower aspiring professionals with the requisite skills and knowledge to undertake various roles in banking and financial services.
* As part of the programme, NIIT and NIIT IFBI will also train students and organise specialised academics sessions on applied banking, financial, relationship management topics at the NIIT University Campus in Rajasthan.
* During the course students will undergo an industrial internship at Kotak Mahindra Bank.
* Upon completion, students will receive an opportunity to work as probationary officers with Kotak Mahindra Bank.

 

Volume 4 Issue 6