Make ASC national centre: UGC
From S.P. Sharma
SHIMLA: Keeping in view the performance of the Academic Staff College (ASC) of Himachal Pradesh University, a committee of experts of the UGC has recommended that it should be made a centre for the entire Himalayan region.

Campus scene
Convocation after five years
From Ruchika Mohindra
LUDHIANA: The fifth international veterinary immunology symposium will be held at Punjab Agricultural University from November 8 to 13 under the aegis of the Veterinary Immunology Committee of the International Union of Immunological Societies.

DIARY

Youth & career

School with a difference
From Chander Parkash

BATHINDA: Unable to tolerate the repeated taunts by their classmates over their physical disabilities, three students namely Anoop Kumar, Sushama Kumari and Shilpi, left school.

Repeated persuasion by their parents to send them back did not meet any success and all the three students are sitting idle in their homes.

However, the army came to their help and treated them in the Chetak Asha, a school for handicapped children to help them stand on their feet. Now all three students are taking education in the regular schools.

Set up under aegis of Chetak Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA), the Chetak Asha School has been rendering yeomen service to the society at large. It has been providing an opportunity to the handicapped children both of military personnel and civilians to restore their physiological, psychological and physical functions through basic education, social rehabilitation and training for independent vocation.

In the last one and half years, Chetak Asha has not only made three students join regular school after treating them, its one student, Preeti, won the first prize in the All India Greeting Cards Design Competition in 1997. Her design was also used by the Helpage India.

At present, 36 children are being treated for different disabilities which include the down syndrome, cerebral palsy, cretinism, hearing impairment, muscular dystrophy, polio and mild mental retardation. The school is also imparting training to the parents to enable them acquire skills to handle their children so as to cope with day-to-day problems.

The AWWA has arranged the finance and teachers and other infrastructure from its own resources to run this school. At present six children of civilians are studying in Chetak Asha School.

At present, one classroom is being added to the existing building of the school which is being made by the Army jawans. The additional room would ease out the congestion. The AWWA has also made arrangements to engage doctors from outside for the treatment of the children.

According to Army authorities, Rs 20,000 is being spent every month on this school and the Ministry of Social Welfare is being approached for financial aid.

Make ASC national centre: UGC
From S.P. Sharma

SHIMLA: Keeping in view the performance of the Academic Staff College (ASC) of Himachal Pradesh University, a committee of experts of the UGC has recommended that it should be made a centre for the entire Himalayan region.

The committee has, in its report, said the Academic Staff College could be made a national centre in chosen disciplines. The committee consisting of Prof M. Muniyamma, Prof N.K. Uberoi and Dr B.K. Tyagi, reviewed the functioning of the college in July and recommended that it should be continued on a permanent basis.

The committee observed that the college had the infrastructure and capability to undertake a leadership role. It recommended that the college may be funded for construction of a hostel on a sharing basis between the state government and the UGC.

It observed that the college had done excellent work, covering more than 50 per cent teachers in the state established in 1989 it is engaged in enhancing the professional competence of college and university teachers.

The college Director, Dr Yogendera Verma, said the institute had so far trained 2,615 college and university teachers through 41 orientation programmes and 63 refresher courses till September 15.

He said it was striving hard to develop “competent, vibrant and morally superior” teachers in accordance with the ideals and guidelines of the UGC.

The UGC committee has appreciated the college for having an impressive infrastructure, including two conference rooms, a library, a computer room, an equipment room and an adequate office complex.

The committee has also appreciated the staff, which it has observed, is working with sincerity and devotion. All positions sanctioned by the UGC have been filled.

The committee has suggested that efforts should be made to increase the number of participants per course from the existing 24. Himachal Pradesh University should consider the college as a part of its responsibility rather than a baby of the UGC.

The higher education authorities in the state should extend cooperation in availability of teachers for the courses and make provisions for extending financial support to the scheme by way of infrastructural, the committee has recommended.

New evaluation strategies

The government has finally recognised the limitations of the annual examination system for school students and is considering new strategies for pupil evaluation, according to official sources.

The sources said it had been realised that the continuous comprehensive evaluation system was cumbersome and impractical for regular classroom use by teachers.

In fact, some states had already begun work on recurrent pupil evaluation which was in accordance with pedagogy of activity-based, child-centered and teaching learning processes,they pointed out.

The sources drew attention to an entirely new programme initiated by Kerala for pupil evaluation where teachers themselves prepared evaluation tests every term (three terms in an academic year) that were activity based.

The stress was on ensuring that the evaluation was not a routine exercise. Teachers had been intensively trained for this new method of pupil evaluation.Other states like Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh had also realised the limitations of the existing evaluation practice and had initiated preparatory activities for a more innovative pupil evaluation system, the sources said.

In this connection, the sources listed the efforts made to professionally equip the teachers using a new strategy, develop improved instructional material, provide on-site academic support and institutional capacity building. This had shown positive results. Consequently:

— revised textbooks which match the activity-based, child-centred pedagogy have been introduced in DPEP states

— the assimilation of the new pedagogy (activity-based, child centred) in training and material development in an integrated manner has now become the norm

— there has been a significant shift in the approach, content, duration and frequency of the in-service teacher training programmes and

— more than 2,00,000 teachers have been provided in-service training.

The sources said that despite positive indications available in some states, much more required to be done to bring about a significant change in the classroom processes. This would be possible when inputs in the form of materials, training, academic support and evaluation focussed on the impact they had on classroom transaction. — UNI

Campus scene
Convocation after five years
From Ruchika Mohindra

LUDHIANA: The fifth international veterinary immunology symposium will be held at Punjab Agricultural University from November 8 to 13 under the aegis of the Veterinary Immunology Committee of the International Union of Immunological Societies.

As many as 150 delegates from the USA, the UK, Canada, France, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Italy and Czechoslovakia and 250 Indian delegates are expected to participate.

According to Prof M.S. Oberoi, Head, Department of Veterinary Microbiology, PAU, and the organising secretary of the symposium, 50 speakers are expected to address during the symposium on various topics. Some 20 workshops on subject areas ranging from cytokines, regulation of immune response, diagnostics. Neural-immune interaction and immuno-genetics will be held.

In order to train farmers, traders and exporters of horticulture produce on the latest technology in post-harvest handling, the university has started the Punjab Horticultural Post-Harvest Technology Centre.

The centre provides short-term training courses in appropriate post-harvest technologies from storage to transportation to market strategies.

It will assist horticulturists to become more market-oriented by providing information and demonstrations on cost-effective direct marketing practices and assisting clients with project appraisals when applying for investment in their sector.

The centre, which was inaugurated by the Chief Minister on September 17, has been launched in collaboration with the University of California, USA, and will be aided by the Punjab Mandi Board.

Teachers of university are sore over the denial of salary to them for the month of August when they were on a nationwide strike. They have been staging protest dharnas outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office.

The university will hold its convocation on November 5 after a gap of five years. Postgraduate degrees will be awarded to 269 students, doctorate degrees to 58 and MBA degrees to 44. Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill is expected to deliver the convocation address.

DIARY

Britannica for schools in AP
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has announced that Britannica Encyclopaedia Inc. has come forward to provide free software for 1,000 schools in the state. Addressing a meeting of The Ind-US Entrepreneurs at San Jose, Mr Naidu said many NRIs were also coming forward to present computers to educational institutions in the state, reports The Deccan Chronicle. He said he would hold talks with the Union government to sort out the excise problems in this regard. Satellite services would be utilised by adopting a fibre optic system.

Divorced parents’ kids
Children of divorced parents are more prone to bad habits such as smoking and drinking than those whose families remain together, a study has said. The study led by Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the university of Utah, found parental divorce increased the chances of smoking habits by about one-third among adults, while for boys, a single parent meant about a one-third greater chance of turning into a drinker, reports ANI. The study, based on interviews of over 11,000 people aged between 18 and 89, also found that remarriage of parents erases the effect of divorce on problem drinking — but not smoking — for boys. For girls, a new parent meant a slight decline in the number who smoked, although the figure remained higher than among women whose parents did not divorce. “Divorce affects not only the mental well-being but also the physical health of children,” Wolfinger said while stressing that education campaigns should target children of divorced parents.

Rare book of Copernicus stolen
A rare book on the “Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,” authoured by the 16th century Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, is missing from Ukraine’s national library in Kiev. The director of the library says there are only eight or 10 copies of this work published in 1543 all over the world, reports ANI. Published in Nuremburg, the book put forward the controversial idea that the sun was the centre of the universe and not the earth, defying Christian doctrine at the time. “A reader took the book out to read on Wednesday, said he was going out for a smoke and just disappeared with it,” the director said. The book belonged to an elite school for Polish and Ukrainian worthies at the start of the 19the century. It later went to the newly founded university in Kiev and finally to the Vernadsky Library in 1927.

‘Wired’ students
Leavitt, co-founder of the Western Governors University, has suggested colleges might provide students with laptop computers. Only about one-fourth of Utah college students have Internet access from home. “If the student is willing to take one or two courses (by computer) per (term) and not take up the (classroom) space, maybe the university would be willing to partner with them,” Leavitt told student leaders. While he does not intend to request state funding for the plan this year, he said it could occur within a few years, Associated Press reported. Computers could be a cheaper alternative to the new classrooms to handle Utah’s expected boom in college students. The state has about 1,20,000 students enrolled at its nine public colleges and universities. By 2015, that number is expected to double, and it could cost $3 billion to handle the student swell. “It’s coming,” Leavitt said, referring to the day when public colleges will provide students with computers to use. “At some point, it will become economically viable.”

Youth & career

• Department of Financial Studies, University of Delhi, South Campus, Benito Juarez Road, New Delhi: MFC course. Test on February 7. Contact university. Last date December 14.
• Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi: MBA(full and part-time). Test on December 19. Contact institute. Last date October 30.
• Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra: M.Phil in various disciplines. Test on October 15. Contact university. Last date October 9.
• Department of Education, External Scholarships Division, A.1/W3 Curzon Road Barracks, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi: Canadian Commonwealth Scholarships. Contact division. Last date October 29.
• Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur PO, Bangalore: Summer Research Fellowships-1999. Contact centre. Last date November 6.
• Centre for Coaching and Career Planning, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi: Free coaching for competitive exams. Contact centre. Last date October 6.
• Karnataka State Open University, Manasagangotri, Mysore: BA/B.Com/MA/M.Com/B.Ed/M.Ed/MBA/M.Phil/Post-graduate diploma/Certificate courses. Contact university. Last date October 12.