The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

PEC students plan apkesaath.com
By Kanchan Vasdev
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 29 — Queues in front of railway stations and cinema halls are going to be things of the past. A group of young and zealous students from Punjab Engineering College are launching a website “apkesaath.com”, that will provide advance booking for cinema tickets and reservation for railway and air tickets online.

So the next time you plan to travel by air, train or want to go for a movie just log on to www. apkesaath.com and place your orders for tickets. Representatives from the website will deliver the tickets at your doorstep. There are no advance payments from your side and its completely hassle free.

Six third year students of PEC conceived this idea some months ago and now they are all set to execute it into action. The website will be launched formally in a few weeks. Nitin Ghai, Vivek Bansal, Amit Garg, Munish Goyal, Payal Chadha and Bhanu Gupta form the group that has decided to experiment with the knowledge they gained while learning.

So how did the group embark upon the idea? “Today no body is left untouched by e-world. There are lots of e-portals in India, with many players in the field. We want to improvise upon the concept of e-renaissance. “ says Nitin Ghai, one of the partners.

“Here we are talking about the world’s fastest medium of business, entertainment , media and interaction. With the introduction of nearly 100 dotcoms per day in India alone, the inclination and fascination of Indians towards web is self explanatory. Moreover, similar concepts are very popular in metros. The response to similar sites down south is enormous. It won’t be asking for too much if we expect the same response from Chandigarhians.” says Ghai.

“Barring Delhi , Chandigarh has been a trend-setter in North India but with the present scenario of oblivion about the internet among city residents, it stands in no comparison to metros,” adds Ghai.

The group is all set to tie up with cinema owners and travel agents. The students and agents will work making a chain to make the website a success.

The mode of operation will be that the orders for cinema tickets will be placed a day before that scheduled show and the customer will be required to specify the requirements including the name of the cinema, show timing and number of tickets. The tickets will be delivered at the doorstep much before the scheduled time for the show.

The cinema owners will be contacted to buy the tickets a day in advance and if the tickets will not be sold out, they will be merged into current quota. This will save the loss incurred in the process.

“The most attractive feature of our proposal is that the customers as well as the cinema owners have nothing to loose but to benefit from our idea. Collecting tickets from the outlets and delivering at the doorstep is all our headache. That too free of cost. Moreover, the cinema owners will earn a place in the market as there will be a free publicity on the net. So all pros and no cons,” says Ghai.

“The cinema owners are going to benefit the most as without spending an extra buck, they will be part of the dotcom world. They can also add up their special features and schemes, all day, on our site, that, too, free of cost, “ he adds.

BCA or BSc computers?
From Chitleen Sethi
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 29 — Fads are fads and they sometimes extend to education too. With the introduction of BBA and BCA courses in colleges, traditional science courses have received a setback. There are very few takers for the traditional B.Sc subjects and many a time the colleges are not able to fill up seats. On the other hand, the number of applications received by various colleges for BBA and BCA courses is almost three times the number of seats sought in other fields. Many students have to go back dejected, in spite of having scored high percentages. Examples could be the local DAV college, Sector 10, where the cut off percentage for BCA was 81.2, in GGDSD College, Sector 32, it went up to 83 and at the SGGS, Sector 26, it was 79 per cent.

The viable courses for Bachelors of Science are only those which offer subjects like Maths, Physics and now Computer science and Computer applications. These subjects have been introduced only in the recent past keeping in view the rising demand of IT professionals in India and abroad.

Local colleges offer BSc with Computer science as an elective subject along with Maths and Physics and a graduate with this combination has a hoard of openings at the postgraduate level. They can join MSc in Computer Science, MSc in Computer Applications, MSc maths, MSc Physics, MCA, MCom and appear in the Civil Services as well. On the other hand, those who do a simple BCA have very few opportunities for anything other than an MCA. Also noteworthy is the fact that BCA is a much more expensive course than a BSc Computers.

Though there are a fairly large number of students who apply for admission to BSc. Computers, yet, many of them are not selected. This is simply because of the constraint on all colleges imposed by the Panjab University to keep these seats limited. To most colleges, this seems unfair, especially when there are very few takers for the traditional BSc subjects and also when the colleges promise to provide the required infrastructure.

“The standard of BCA has been lowered with the change in criteria of not having mathematics as a compulsory subject and moreover all one can do after doing BCA is MCA while a BSc Computer Science graduate will have a plethora of openings before him,” said Mr P.S. Sangha Principal, SGGS College. “With a change in the job scene, more and more job-orientated courses should be offered to students. Instead of churning out thousands of unemployable youths each year, we should give them an education that will fetch them jobs.” added Mr R.C. Jeevan, Principal, DAV College.

Decision to shift classes draws flak
By Kanchan Vasdev
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 29 — The students of Class XII of arts stream in Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 23, are sore over the Education Department’s decision to shift them to Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 15.

This decision was taken by the Education Department while the admissions to all government run schools were in progress. As per the plan, the students of arts stream of GMSSS, Sector 23, would be shifted to GSSS, Sector 15, and those of science stream from the latter would be moved to the former.

The students of arts from Sector 23 GMSSS said that they took admission in a model school and now they were forced to move in an ordinary school. They alleged that they were not told by the authorities earlier about the plan and after they took admission they were told that they would be shifted to the other school.

“I wanted to study in a model school. That is why I took admission here. Now I am getting to know that we will be shifted to an ordinary school. If they had told me earlier I could have opted for another model school," said a student who did not want to be quoted.

The Director Public Instructions, Mr DS Saroya, refuted their allegation saying that it was clearly mentioned in the prospectus that there would be no arts stream offered in the same school with an immediate effect. He further said it did not matter for senior secondary schools whether they studied in a model school or ordinary school.

The students further said that there was no NCC scheme in GSSS, Sector 15. They had already put in one year time to get an NCC certificate. But if they joined other school they would not be able to continue with the NCC.

They also said that there were more than five students in the cricket team of GMSSS, Sector 23 from arts sections and there was no team in the other school. This would also make all the more miserable if they would have to leave cricket due to department’s decision.

They said that they would not like to go to the other school as they wanted to study in the model school. Moreover the department would not allow any migrations as all of them would like to shift to another model school, they added.

The students coming from Mani Majra and Panchkula said that this school comparatively was nearer for them because they came to bus stand from their places and the other school was far off for them. They also said that few years ago the students of Fabrication Technology were allowed to continue in the same school for their plus two after the department had shifted the vocational course to Mani Majra school. They demanded that the authorities should allow them to continue in the same school.

Mr Saroya said ,”It was not possible for the department to keep the students in the same school for plus two as all teachers from the school will also be shifted to the other school.” He further said, Sector 15 school was not far off and it was hardly 300 metres away from this school. He said that he would solve the problems of all the students who would approach him.

Resource centres to cope with learning disability
By Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, July 29 — With a view to educating teachers about learning disability in students, Optimising Development in Education (ODE), an institute specialising in the field, has opened resources centres in two schools of the city, with the project to be spread to other schools as well.

Handling the centres of the two schools, Ms Bharti Kapoor, says, “There are numerous examples of students suffering from learning disability in every school. However, teachers seem completely ignorant to handle such cases since they are not even aware that such a problem can exist.

The programme, started in two schools, Hansraj Public School, and Saupins School, has been initiated with two teachers each being trained for the purpose. Even though it is in its very initial stages here, the institute has stated receiving queries from schools interested in setting up their own resource centres.

Meanwhile, the teachers’ training, which will go on for six months, is already underway in the schools selected and the exercise of identifying such students in classrooms has already begun. Special sessions with them are conducted in the room and the burden of course curriculum has been completely done away with till they are under “treatment” and ready for the mainstream.

Also associated with the project, Ms Rachna Sharma, explains, “The priority is to train the staff in spotting these children in their respective classes and then going on to teach them to handle the problem on hand instead of giving rise to greater psychological problems among them.”

In the observations carried out by the duo, they have found that in most cases, being unaware of the problem, parents often blame teachers for the dismal performance of their child, attributing these to wrong teaching practices, while teachers accuse parents of not taking in the child.

They add that ODE is working to develop a partnership between parents, school and the child to help the child optimise his potential. “In competitive times like these, academics have become the most important thing in a student’s life. Learning disability covers a host of disabling conditions that hamper a child’s ability to do well in academics which makes remediation at the right time even more essential”, Ms Kapoor informs.

The centre functions in two shifts at the schools and children from other schools are also attended to. “The chances of occurrence is four to five times more in boys than in girls. However, with professional help, the child will most probably overcome the disability with minimal lasting damage, she explains.

Madarsa to be upgraded
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 29 — To preserve the integrity and unity of the nation, all citizens, irrespective of their caste and creed, should come together, said Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal, local MP, while speaking at an annual function of Madarsa Eizah-ul-uloom Mujaddidi, Mani Majra, here today.

He appealed the audience to fight the anti-national propaganda and maintain the integrity of the nation. He said Urdu was a beautiful language and it had its roots in the country. Moreover, it was propaganda in this country only.

He said Urdu literature advocated brotherhood. He lauded the efforts of the madarsa for imparting education and said it was a good effort to upgrade it to the level of a school. He promised that the development of the madarsa would not be affected due to the paucity of funds.

The ‘Najim’ of the madarsa, Maulana Shakil Ahmad, presented an annual report and announced that the institute would be upgraded to the level of a school. Mr DS Saroya, Director, Public Instruction, lauded the performance of madarsa students.

Syndicate to discuss Sodhi Ram’s prosecution
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 29 — Grant of sanction for prosecution of Dr Sodhi Ram, a former Controller of Examination currently under CBI probe for paper leakage, will come in for discussion at the Syndicate meeting scheduled for August 4, sources said here today.

Mr Devender Marwaha’s promotion as administration officer in the Regional Resource Centre by the last Vice-Chancellor will also be discussed.

Another case is that of Mr Heera Lal Nagar. He allegedly could not type in English and was a third divisioner. His appointment as clerk had come under suspicion.

Extension of terms of the Dean University Instructions and the Dean Student Welfare also comes up for approval. The posts of Dean Foreign Students and the Dean Alumni Relations also comes up for approval for extension, sources added.

Highest pass percentage

CHANDGIARH, July 29 — Government College in Sector 46 here has achieved the highest pass percentage in commerce classes in Chandigarh. In B.Com I and III, the pass percentage of the college is the best, while for B.Com II the college finished fourth with GCG 11 topping the list, followed by DAV college and GGDSD College.