The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

PAU employees meet Bhattal
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
Demanding fulfillment of their long-pending demands, a deputation of the PAU Employees Union met the Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, at Punjab Agricultural University, here yesterday.

Stating their demands in a memorandum, the union said several demands of the employees were not being implemented due to ‘unwanted interference’ by the Finance Department of the Punjab Government. The union demands included allocation of special allowances, complete implementation of G-4 pattern, incentive increments and upgradations. Despite the verdict of the Supreme Court upholding autonomy of the university, decisions of the Board of Management were not being implemented even after 15 months of the verdict, it said. The union urged the minister to direct the Finance Department to admit all cases covered under different decisions of Board of Management.

MoU signed: The university has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Australia for a collaborative agricultural research based on project ‘Permanent beds for irrigated rice-wheat and alternative cropping systems in north-west India and south-east Australia’. The MoU was signed here by Dr K.S. Aulakh, Vice-Chancellor, PAU.

Giving details, Dr G.S. Nanda, Director, Research, said through the project the scientists would aim to improve productivity, profitability and sustainability of irrigated rice-wheat cropping system of north-west India. He said for the five-year project, Dr Sukhraj Singh Dhillon, Senior Agronomist in the Department of Plant Breeding, would be project leader and principal investigator with his team from the Departments of Agronomy, Soils, Economics, Plant Pathology and Entomology.

Dr Nanda said overall funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research would be Rs 37.5 million for bilateral research project, including funds for strengthening of research facilities at the PAU, besides international training, visits and exchange of scientists.

School principals meet education minister
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
To apprise the Education Minister of their problems, a deputation of principals from local schools affiliated with the Punjab School Education Board held a meeting with him yesterday at Chandigarh.

Stating this in a press note, Mr Rajinder Sharma, President of the Association of PSEB Affiliated Schools, said that he told Mr Khushal Behl, Minister of Languages, Primary, Secondary and Higher Education, that while the board had directed them to limit the strength of each class-section to 50 students, it was not possible in some cases due to insufficient land.

He said that the affiliated schools were being discriminated against as all recognised and government schools had been exempted from this condition.

Mr Sharma also told the minister that several objections like sufficient land and appointment of only trained teachers were being raised by the Education Department even though all members of the staff had 10 to 15 years of experience.

Besides, Mr Sharma said that admission forms of students attested by the principals and headmasters were not being accepted by the District Education Officer (primary wing) and the students were being directed to get these attested from the magistrate.

He said that the process was cumbersome and resulted in unnecessary delay, besides incurring an expenditure of Rs 70 to Rs 80. Mr Sharma said that the Education Minister listened to their grievances and assured them that their problems would be looked into.

Toyroom for BCM children
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
To provide an array of indoor activities to tiny tots, a new toy room was inaugurated at BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary School, Shastri Nagar, here today.

The room has been divided into three sections. In one section, colourful soft toys, blocks, magnetic alphabets and numbers, battery-driven toys and other educational toys have been kept. The walls of this section have been illustrated with scenes from stories, picnic scenes, traffic rules, action pictures, flowers and vegetables.

In the second section various swings, slides, a rocker and paddled toys have been kept. The third section is for audio visuals in which a multimedia computer, audio system, TV, VCR with cassettes and CDs of songs, rhymes, stories and other educational topics have been arranged.

Ms Paramjit Kaur, principal, said that the toy room would be open to all pre-primary classes where students from each section would spend one to two hours a week. Mr Satyanand Munjal, president of the school committee, inaugurated the room.