EDUCATION

Ban on recruitment seen as ruse for scrapping lecturers’ posts
Our Correspondent

Sonepat, June 22
Teachers of private colleges are cut up over the state government ban on new recruitment against vacant posts. It is feared that the ban is a ruse for abolishing the posts.

According to a principal of a local girls college, as per government rules, if a vacant post is not filled for more than two years, the government can abolish that post in that college.

“On the other hand, there was no such ban on recruitment of teachers in government colleges where the vacant posts are advertised regularly by the Haryana Public Service Commission. Nor are the posts kept vacant for a long time,” she said.

A member of the management committee of a local college feared that even those subjects, for which the posts had remained vacant for a long time, might be abolished. In Hindu College, for instance, the subject of public administration had been abolished. The principal of Hindu College admits that preferences for a subject keep on changing and that is not a reason good enough for scrapping it.

The management committee member pointed out that in some of the colleges, the management had appointed teachers against a few vacant posts keeping in view the interest of students. But it was very difficult for the management to pay salaries of these teachers from their own resources, he added.

According to information, in local CRA College, eight posts of lecturers of different subjects have reportedly been lying vacant for the last one year and 11 months. It is suspected that these posts including three of English, two of commerce and one each of history, political science and chemistry, besides one vacant post in the library, may be abolished in the end.

Similarly, four posts — two of English and one each of physical education and in the library — in Tika Ram Girls College, one post each of commerce and mathematics lecturer in GVM Girls College and two posts of history lecturers in Hindu College have reportedly been under the recruitment ban.

The principal of Hindu College, stating that the college has been availing the services of retired history lecturers for the past two years, hoped that these posts would be filled once the government lifted the ban.

A lecturer of CRA College said that the burden of the ban had to be borne by the college management. They had to make arrangements by making the teachers devote extra time and as well as by the students who remained deprived of the services of a regular teacher.

The lecturer remarked that the government was gradually moving towards total privatisation of education by banning recruitment. Though there had been an increase in the number of students every year, requiring more number of teachers in the colleges, the government was not even ready to fill up the vacant posts and hardly showed any interest in spending the government money on higher education.

“Privatisation of higher education will deprive the students of poor families of the opportunities of higher education,” he said.

School board takes action against 1,976 students
Our Correspondent

Bhiwani, June 22
The Haryana School Education Board has taken action against 1,976 those students who were found using unfair means during the annual middle examination this year.

While talking to this correspondent here today, the secretary of the board, Mr Rakesh Gupta, said the six committees constituted to deal with such cases after giving personal hearing had disposed of 700 such cases daily. He said papers of 99 students were cancelled. As many as 1,594 students who were found copying were disqualified for a year, 262 were disqualified for two years and 10 were disqualified for three years. Similarly, 11 students were disqualified for a year.

He said it was for the first time that such a large number of defaulters had been punished.

He said the Haryana Government had issued instructions to deal with the menace of copying with a firm hand to improve the standard of education.

He appealed to all students to shun the habit of copying to ensure their bright future. He also urged the teachers to create a more congenial atmosphere for education in their institutions. He urged the parents to ensure that the institution where they would admit their wards for education was recognised. He said many such schools who had been recognised for classes up to classes V or VIII were also admitting students for classes IX to XII on this basis which was unlawful.

SCHOOL BUZZ
This speed king will go places with his typewriter
Smriti Kak

NOT many fathers would want to name their sons Ravana. However, for 13-year-old Kautilya’s father the choice of the name had more to do with the mental calibre of the demon king than his behaviour.

“I wanted to name him Ravana because he was a scholar, a learned Brahmin.

However, after an uproar in the family we decided on Kautilya,” says Mr Arun Kumar, a police officer, whose son Kautilya has earned himself a place in the Limca Book of Records for being the fastest typist.

At the age of nine years 10 months, Kautilya, now a student of Class IX in Bal Bharti Public School, won himself the title of the country’s fastest typist, who could type 138 words per minute. Today with more than 150 words per minute, Kautilya is waiting for his place in the Guinness Book of Records.

“I started tinkering with the typewriter that my father had bought from Holland. Initially, he would scold me for fidgeting with it, but having realised that I was really interested, he gave me a go ahead,” recalls Kautilya.

Kautilya is all set for TV appearances all over Europe. “The Italian channel RAI has invited me for an interview when I go to Italy next month for the Intersteno Congress at Rome,” says the boy who is also a ‘mathematics wizard’.

Being the youngest participant at the competition does not scare him. “I am a self taught steno and can really take dictation fast”. Kautilya says that he can take down between 120-150 words a minute.

Though he wants to grow up to be a computer engineer, Kautiyla is also fascinated with books. “I am writing a thriller these days and it should take another two months to finish it”.

With a flair for writing and his speed on the typewriter, we would not be surprised.

Online virtual school portal inaugurated

Mysmartschool.com, an online interactive virtual school portal, has been chosen for the prestigious Vidya Vahini project, which was recently inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Vidya Vahini is a unique concept, which will connect 60,000 government and its aided schools all over the country through the Internet.

The Rs 6,000 crore project designed by Super Infosoft through Mysmartschool.com is an online interactive virtual school portal, which helps students to grasp topics and any subject of CBSE/ ICSE/ SSC syllabi through animation, graphics, voice-overs, streaming audio and video, stimulated experiments, exhaustive question banks, online contests, online assignments and performance tracking.

The project has been undertaken in 140 schools in seven states, including Lucknow and Allahabad in UP, Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Hazariabagh in Jharkhand, Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh, South 24- Parganas in West Bengal and Parlivaijnath in Maharashtra.

Multimedia technology for the underprivileged

Aptech has decided to take multimedia technology to the underprivileged children, by training children free of cost on Multimedia and Graphic Designing.

The lucky students chosen to receive the training at the Saket centre have been nominated by the well-known NGO CRY.

Popularly known as SRISHTI@ Arena, the project was launched last year to mark Arena’s significant milestone of having trained 1lakh students.

Under this project, 1,000 underprivileged students are to be trained nation-wide on multimedia technologies.

Students in the age group of 14-16 years will be trained in Pace Series Graphic Designing Course, which exposes them to MS Office, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Corel Draw etc.

PRINCIPAL SPEAK
Take a cue from God, he is the most wonderful listener

A victim of an air-accident, Simon Williams, struggled through the jungle to the closest human habitation. There were no other survivors, at least none that he had seen. The trauma of the accident and the ordeal in the jungle had left him exhausted. He was bewildered and in a state of emotional turmoil.

He knocked on the first door and was fortunate enough to be welcomed in by the two sisters who lived in the cottage. Their hospitality far exceeded his expectation. While Thelma got busy getting a warm bath ready and preparing a nutritious meal, the younger sister Susie sat with him and smiled reassuringly. She realised that he wanted to talk.

So, she made him feel as comfortable as possible, showed concern at his state and without appearing inquisitive she initiated a conversation. She succeeded in breaking the barrier of hesitation. For two long hours he spoke till he had poured his soul out-the shock, pain, suffering, anxiety and a gamut of emotions tumbled out one after another.

Feeling light and comforted, he felt things were not so bad after all. He was grateful to the sisters for having helped him in his hour of need. Years later, in his Will, Simon Williams, who was a tycoon, left a sizeable amount of money to Thelma for her warm hospitality but he left his entire business empire to Susie for being such a wonderful listener.

This is a story I had read when I was a young girl. Susie, I felt, was special, for as David Augsburger observes, “an open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart”. Listening shows caring. It makes the other person feel important, motivates him to share his experiences and thoughts with you as well as become receptive to your ideas.

No doubt, there are certain factors that could come in the way of your being a good listener. You could be preoccupied with your thoughts or worries and it is possible that you have no interest in the speaker or the subject.

There can be many reasons, but your greatness would show in your ability to rise above these barriers because ignoring a person’s desire to say something or communicate would amount to rejecting him. It would make the person feel small, insignificant, worthless and dejected.

You yourself must have experienced the frustration when you wanted someone to listen to you but found others either unreceptive or were interrupted at every step, distracting you and distorting what you had to say. These would have been hateful experiences and thus you would not want others to feel as belittled as you had felt.

God is the most wonderful listener. He listens to our prayers, woes, joys, accusations and confessions.

Given our limitation, we perhaps cannot be like him, but we can surely try. It is easier to talk than to listen and therefore, we need to inculcate this ability. It makes us more tolerant and understanding as it helps us to respond to feelings too. It also helps us to become open-minded and we benefit greatly for we gather rich experience and win the trust of others. It takes a few basic rules to be a good listener.

Encourage the speaker to talk; show interest; don’t interrupt or change the topic and most importantly, show understanding and respect.

We all know that for a peaceful and harmonious co-existence we need to hear others out and listen to their viewpoint. This alone would lead to a meaningful dialogue and bring the fragmented world together to live as one family.

Mrs. Madhu Chandra, Principal, Birla Vidya Niketan

Kids at their best

Mother’s Pride Talent 2003 was an event that showcased the enormous mettle of little ones. Dances, songs, skits and catwalk, the stage in the Siri Fort Auditorium witnessed dollops of energy and talent at its best. The audience, including the chief guest, Mr Manohar Joshi, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, was amazed with their performances as the children strove to make it a colourful event. Bhumika Miglani of the Pitampura branch, Abhilasha Mittal and Gautam Nagpal from the Punjabi Bagh and Paschim Vihar branch respectively took the awards. The event raised Rs one lakh for ActionAid, an organisation working for the homeless and destitute. Participating children who were awarded at the end of the event.