Jalandhar, October 9
Started during the British era in 1934, the state’s only institute of leather technology is in a shambles. The Government Tanning Institute on Nakodar Road here is facing problems ranging from inadequate infrastructure to the shortage of staff, besides lack of hostel facilities.

As one looks at the building from outside, it seems to be a dilapidated one requiring immediate attention, as windowpanes seem to be broken and wears a dusty and repulsive facade.

However, as one moves inside, things appear to be better. The part of the building visible from outside is actually not in use. The huge three-storey building, housing five workshops, is lying unused owing to a legal battle with a builder. Students of the first and second semesters, who are supposed to take training in welding, soldering, smithy, foundry and electrical trades in these workshops, are now being forced to take training in one room under one teacher.

Adding to the woes is campus hostel. The new hostel building, constructed by the same builder, is lying vacant as the legal battle is still going on and the old hostel building has been declared unsafe by the PWD. Therefore, students are forced to use old laboratories as dormitories.

The institute offers three-year diploma courses in leather technology and footwear technology. In leather technology, the students learn to treat hides, while footwear technology students use the treated hide to design shoes, bags, purses, jackets, belts, skirts, mobile covers and wallets.

In the current session, only four seats out of 25 have been filled till date in the leather technology course. However, footwear technology had a better response from the students filling 24 out of 30 seats. The admission began in June and is still on.

The institute is trying to fill all its seats by the October 31 deadline and is distributing pamphlets giving information about the courses.

Blaming the fee structure for low turnout, an institute staff member said, “There has been a steady rise in fees for the past seven

years. Presently it is Rs 22,000 per year. Parents do not want to shell out such a huge amount for a diploma course.” However, there was good news for the SC category aspirants. The state government had waved off their fee for the courses and they would be charged only Rs 6,000 at the time of admission as refundable security.

The total strength of students at the institute in all three years is around 165. The final semester students have been taking training in local tannery units. In addition, they are getting job works from industry according to the MoU signed by the institute as per the internal resource generation (IRG) scheme. The state government is earning revenue close to Rs 5,000 per month due to the scheme. As the IRG scheme was not available for the designing students, so the institute has applied for it.

Meanwhile, institute’s officiating principal Harish Kumar Bhola said he was trying his best to improve the institute’s standard and making courses more job-oriented.

Jalandhar, October 9
Parents are in a dilemma nowadays. As most local schools planning kindergarten sections (admissions open next month), parents are finding it hard to decide the school for their children.

“Shall we go in for an old, established school or a fancy, new one teaching concepts using hi-fi gadgets? Need we spend a high budget for our child’s education or can we get the same for very affordable charges? Will a co-educational school be better than a girls’ or a boys’ one? We both are working, so does our child need to go in for a day-boarding school? Is the school in our colony as good or need we send him off a few kilometres?” are some of the conflicting questions that most parents are deliberating upon.

While the parents are confused, the school authorities are trying their best to put up an image of a modern school. Schools have been trying to maintain the right mixes of various concepts by using innovative learning methodology and imparting spiritual values at the same time, disciplining students and giving them some liberty as well, and keeping pace with academics while also promoting sports and co-curricular activities.

In this endeavour, the old schools, including convents like the DAVs and MGNs, are introducing new teaching methods which are more activity-oriented, giving individual attention, having more interactive sessions with the parents.

The new schools, on the other hand, have preferred taking to chanting of mantras and shlokas of every religion in the assembly and making moral education a compulsory part of their syllabi. They have also distinguished them apart by introducing T-shirts instead of shirts in the uniforms and doing away with ties and belts.

While the old schools are harping on their past results and prizes their teams have won on various fronts, the new schools have been making statements about their earthquake proof buildings, automatic doors with sensors, AC classrooms and RO water purifiers that they have been using besides boasting of their tie-ups with foreign institutes and introduction of foreign languages. Obviously, such schools also become the status symbol for many.

Rajesh Mayor of Mayor World School listed a few selling points, “Our ACs are not those ordinary window ACs. We have chillers that allow the foul air to pass out and fresh air to enter. We have a reverse osmosis water plant on the campus that ensures the purest water for the children.

We have a tie-up with Mayo College Ajmer. We also provide a certification of Allahabad University to students taking Visharad course in dance. We maintain a low student-teacher ratio. We have a golf course and trainers for the students on the campus. We have also purchased a land, 7 kms from the school which will house our sports complex.”

Eklavya School director Seema Handa takes pride in having introduced novel concepts for building teacher-parent relationship. “Our teachers visit the home of every child at the start of the session to understand the child’s behaviour with parents. We have quarterly individual parent-educator meetings in which both parents discuss the child’s development, interests and performance. We have monthly meetings as well with the parents for correct concept re-enforcement of the syllabi so that the parents and teachers work on a child in a parallel way. Besides our teachers visit other schools, attend workshops and seminars so that they bring in new ideas,” she explained.

As per principal of 40-year-old Apeejay School Ranjana Sood, making it to the NASA competitions, was its highlight. “We are looking a hat-trick,” she said. Talking about various changes that the school has made over the years, she said, “We have made the atmosphere very child-friendly. We encourage the children to use internet facilities to learn more. We start introducing scientific terminology to children at very small age. They even see and perform small experiments”.

Jalandhar, October 9
Two Class X students of Police DAV Public School have come up with an innovative idea of setting up a recycling plant for one of the most common new-age electronics industry waste — damaged and used CDs.

Karan and Mehak Chauhan demonstrated the technique through the models they put on display at a recently held CBSE national-level science exhibition at New Delhi. The two have also bagged a prize for their exhibit under the category of ‘Industry and environment’ and even received a cash prize of Rs 1,500 each and a 
certificate from chairman of the board, Ashok Ganguly.

Explaining the project, the students said they tried to exploit the thermoplastic properties of the CDs and subjected them to slow melting. “When heated at a temperature close to 200 celsius, the polycarbonates of CDs start melting and can be re-cast again as discs or other useful items, including optical fibres, glass wool and even as decoration pieces after being given different shapes,” they added. Karan said the since the polycarbonates had all the properties of a good insulator, these could be re-used in various electrical appliances. “We have also devised a scrapping machine to extract the metal, lacquer and print layers used in the CD for re-casting separately”, he quipped.

Mehak said they had first tried to melt the CDs in their school laboratory but could not do because of high temperatures and risk factor involved. “We went to a polytechnic at Hoshiarpur to do re-casting work”, she added. Chemistry teachers Gurpreet Johal and Gijisha Gupta said the students are now preparing for an international-level exhibition to be organised by Intel soon. “The students had started preparing the model in June this year. First our team participated in a regional-level exhibition at Springdales Public School, Amritsar, where our model was selected for the national-level exhibition at Kulachi Hans Raj Model School, New Delhi. The contest saw as many as 170 models from CBSE schools in Dubai and Qatar on display,” they added. The Police DAV model was among the 20-best selected. Four top models from each of the five categories were selected for prizes. — TNS

Jalandhar, October 9
To bring radio jockeys face to face with the listeners, Big 92.7 FM held a ‘Big kitty party with RJ Mamta’ at Meal Makers here on Sunday. Listeners talked and played fun games with their favourite RJ Mamta. The channel had selected around 30 listeners from all over the city and neighbouring areas through a lucky draw.

Tahira Kashyap, channel’s programming head said, “Organising such parties helps to bring the RJs closer to their fans and gives them recognition. It’s also a way of appreciating our listeners.”

Meanwhile, Tahira also said the channel had exclusively joined hands with the city mayor Rakesh Rathore and started a campaign “Jalandhar ki life banao activity.” Under the campaign, a program would be broadcasted on every Saturday at 11 am. Listeners can talk about their problems through SMS and telephone lines, she added.

For 15-year-old Karan it was a great experience to interact with his favourite RJ face to face. Komal, another guest said, “The party is really a great treat for radio buffs like me.”

More than 150 participants took part in the event.

Jalandhar, October 9
To inculcate confidence in children the Chawla Nursing Home and Maternity hospital organised “18th annual baby show” at Red Cross Bhawan on Sunday.

PTU registrar Sarojini Gautam Sharda was the chief guest on the event. She said baby shows help to bring out talent of the children.

Among those present were Dr Surinder Kaur, Dr P.S. Bakhsi, Dr Sushma Chawla.

The event witnessed more than 150 participants who were divided into six age categories for various competitions. In the photo competition for kids between 0 to 1 year, Kashika was declared first, while Saesha Ahuja and Mishthi won second and third prizes, respectively. Guransh Singh was declared as winner in mother and baby photo category, while Kashish and Simrat won second and third prizes, respectively.

Similarly, in father, mother and baby photo category Bhavin was adjudged best. The results were:

One to one-and-a-half years: Ravgun Kaur Sachdeva (first), Astha Bhalla (second), Shivmoli Mehta (third), Gaurish Mago (consolation prize), Samya Bhargav (consolation prize).

One-and-a-half to two years: Shyla (first), Atiksh Suri (second), Arnav Mahajan (third), Kashvi Kapoor (consolation prize), Pahaljot Singh (consolation prize).

Two to two-and-a-half years: Manya Dhir (first), Piyush Malik (second), Prashant Sharma (third), Suhani Bhalla (consolation prize), Ruhani (consolation prize).

Two-and-a-half to three years: Anandni Khurana (first), Sanvi Chopra (second) and Bhoomi Dutta (third), Krish Sareen (consolation prize), Jiya Wadhwa (consolation prize).

Three to four years: Gunishka Bindra (first), Kananpreet Kaur (second), Tejvir Singh (third), Harroop Singh (consolation prize), Jhanvi Gautam (consolation prize).

Four to five years: Bhavleen (first), Sidak (second), Aseem Arora (third) Rushali Popli (consolation prize), Taniksha (consolation prize).