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To check dropout rate improve school
infrastructure Making teens interested in maths, science Campus NoteS
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To check dropout rate improve school
infrastructure ONE of the major reasons for girls not attending school or dropping out is the poor infrastructure, which has a great influence on the learning process. Rural schools suffer from severe deficiencies in infrastructure. Broken furniture, lack of water and electricity, no washrooms are just a few of the facilties lacking in countryside schools. It is a fact that where the basic infrastructure is good, the dropout rate is less and the school attendance increases. There is big talk among the planners and educationists to eliminate illiteracy among women. Money is spent on urban school projects, while the poor country school has to make do with mere morsels. Free books, mid-day meals and no fee till 14 years of age will not increase girls’ attendance in school. Only when the basic facilities are there, will girls stay back to complete their matriculation. In Asian, African and Latin American countries, girls drop out of the school on the onset of puberty due to unfriendly sanitation facilities such as separate washrooms. In most rural schools they have to suffer the indignity due to lack of sanitation facilities. Multinational companies have stepped in to do their share of good. One such case study is Maruti Suzuki India Limited which has adopted four schools near Manesar, Gurgaon, in the villages of Kasan, Aliyar-Dhana and Baas. Maruti Suzuki helped in improving the basic infrastructure like providing water, washrooms and modern chalkboards. Organisation of cultural functions and sports events along with rewards to meritorious students has led to a marked increase in enrolment. According to a senior spokesperson of Maruti Suzuki, “Teaching staff, students and infrastructure are the three key pillars of any educational institution. Maruti Suzuki has focused on improving infrastructure of schools in four Manesar villages keeping in mind the specific requirements of these schools. The company held interactions with school staff and worked on providing teaching aids and constructed classrooms, toilets, drinking water system, pavements, etc., as desired. Through this initiative, we have experienced that besides positive impact on enrolment, improvement in school infrastructure has also motivated students to attend their classes regularly. Attendance has improved, this in turn has yielded better results.” Daughter of a daily wage worker, Pooja, of Kasan Senior Secondary School, who is one of the toppers of the Haryana Senior Secondary Board examinations 2012, says, “It is the excellent infrastructure that kept me in school. Chalkboards, classes with proper furniture, water tanks and clean washrooms are a blessing. Though monetary resources are limited I plan to become a teacher and hope the institution I join has equally good facilities. Seperate washrooms with running water are a boon in the school.” Commenting on the increased enrolment at Kasan Senior Secondary School, the principal Dharam Pal said, “ Ours being a rural school saw a high degree of girl drop outs. Parents were reluctant to keep the daughters in school due to unfriendly sanitation facilities and the poor infrastructure. Maruti Suzuki’s efforts have improved the infrastructure and the enrolment has increased along with academic performance.” The vision of a literate India can only be accomplished if basic amenities are provided at the ground level. Free uniforms and books will not keep the young in school. There has to be a decent gender sensitive infrastructure which ensures that the young female learners stay on. |
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Making teens interested in maths, science
EXPERTS in research and policy have examined different ways to enhance and promote STEM education — science, technology, engineering and maths — among students, but most of these efforts are focused within the four walls of the classroom. A new study goes beyond the classroom to examine the unique role that parents can play in promoting students’ STEM motivation. “Our focus for this project was different from our previous work. In classes, we try to promote students’ motivation and performance in that class, but with families, our goal is to promote choices about which courses to take,” said lead author Judith Harackiewicz, of the University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin (USA). Because many maths and science classes are not required, especially in the last two years of high school, student enrolment may be a more fundamentally important issue than student motivation. Harackiewicz and her colleagues Christopher Rozek and Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, and Chris Hulleman of James Madison University, hypothesised that parents could play an instrumental role in helping to boost STEM enrolment. The researchers decided to test this hypothesis with an intervention that involved 181 US high school students and their parents who were part of the longitudinal Wisconsin Study of Families and Work. The intervention spanned the students’ 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years of high school. This longitudinal project was funded by the National Science Foundation. In October of 10th grade, the researchers mailed some parents a glossy brochure that provided information about the importance of maths and science in daily life and for various careers. In January of 11th grade, they mailed the same parents another brochure that emphasised the same overall themes and included information for a dedicated website called “Choices Ahead”. The website featured links to resources about STEM fields and careers and included interviews with college students about the importance of the maths and science courses they took in high school. In spring of 11th grade, they asked the parents to complete an online questionnaire to evaluate the Choices Ahead website, which helped to ensure that the parents visited the site. Parents in the control group did not receive any of these materials. In the summer following 12th grade, all families — adolescents and parents — completed a final questionnaire about their interactions with the brochures and the website and their perceived utility of maths and science courses. Information about the STEM classes that the students took was obtained through self-report and high school transcripts. The results suggested that the intervention had a noticeable effect on the courses that the students enrolled in: students whose parents received all the materials as part of the experimental group took more science and maths classes in the last two years of high school. The effect amounted to roughly an extra semester of advanced maths or science, including courses such as algebra II, trigonometry, pre-calculus, calculus, statistics, chemistry, and physics. Mothers in the intervention group viewed maths and science courses as more useful than did mothers in the control group. And students with parents in the intervention group had more conversations with their parents about course choices, educational plans, and the importance of maths and science during 12th grade. These two factors — having a mother who values STEM and having more conversations about STEM — seemed to enhance students’ own perceptions of the usefulness of STEM courses. The researchers were surprised by just how effective their modest intervention was. “It’s well known that children of more educated parents take more maths and science courses in high school. The effect of our intervention was just as strong as the parent education effect,” explained Harackiewicz. These findings provide evidence that interventions with parents could be a useful tool for boosting enrolment in STEM courses and could help to close gaps in student enrolment that result from differences in parental education. “Although some people question whether parents wield any influence, we think of parents as an untapped resource. This study shows that it is possible to help parents help their teens make academic choices that will prepare them for the future,” said Harackiewicz. The study has been published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. — ANI |
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Campus NoteS THE Central University of Punjab (CUP), which had conducted a centralised entrance exam at nine centres across India on July 7, has released the first list of candidates who have been called for the interviews for admission to various courses being offered at the university. Beginning this academic session, the university will be offering a new course, M.Tech programme in Computer Science and Technology. The university had received as many as 240 applications for the 20 seats that it is offering for the course. Out of all the candidates who appeared for the entrance exam for this course, a total of 82 students have been called for the interview. The interviews for admission to M.Phil/Ph.D/ M.Pharma/Ph.D, M.Sc/Ph.D, MA/Ph.D, M.Pharma, MTech, LLM, M.Sc and MA programmes will be held on the university campus on July 23, 24 and 25. Students applying for admission to M.Phil/Ph.D integrated programmes are also required to bring five copies of a research proposal in English (minimum 300 words and not exceeding 500 words) in their field of specialisation for admission evaluation purpose. The university will announce the final list of candidates selected for admission on July 27. The last date for payment of fee is July 31. While the orientation and registration will be conducted on IHM fails to draw students It's been three years since the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, was inaugurated with much fanfare in Bathinda. Although affiliated to the National Council for Hotel Management (under the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India), the institute is yet to gain popularity in the region. This is clearly evident from the dismal response that the admission process at the institute is getting this academic session. The institute offers as many 125 seats for the course, but only 60 students have been chosen through counselling so far. The last academic session saw the institute introducing one and a half years diploma courses in food and beverage service, accommodation management, front office management and bakery and confectionary. The courses, however, could not be started as they got absolutely no response. Elaborating on the possible reasons behind the dismal response, Kamal Piyush, principal of the institute, said, “There is no dignity of labour in India. People don't prefer to work with their hands. Irrespective of the fact whether a child is competent or not, his parents want him/her to be an engineer or a doctor.” “It’s a common notion that only the students not good at academics pursue vocational courses. Out of the 60 students we've admitted for the next academic session, many hail from Jaipur, Jodhpur, Agra, Aligarh and other cities. Ironically, only four to five students are from the Malwa region,” he added. — Contributed by Nikhila Pant Dhawan |
Amarinder Gill
