Education - Current Affairs for August, 2017

NITI Aayog will launch the Mentor India Campaign.

This is a strategic nation building initiative to engage leaders who can guide and mentor students at more than 900 Atal Tinkering Labs.

These were established across the country as a part of the Atal Innovation Mission.

CEO NITI Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant will unveil the online nationwide initiative in the capital tomorrow on Wednesday, 23rdAugust.

Mentor India is aimed at maximizing the impact of Atal Tinkering Labs, possibly the biggest disruption in formal education globally.

The idea is to engage leaders who will nurture and guide students in the Atal Tinkering Labs.

These labs are non-prescriptive by nature, and mentors are expected to be enablers rather than instructors.

NITI Aayog is looking for leaders who can spend anywhere between one to two hours every week in one or more such labs.

This will enable students to experience, learn and practice future skills such as design and computational thinking.

Atal Innovation Mission: Know More

• Atal Tinkering Labs are dedicated works spaces where students from Class 6th to Class 12th learn innovation skills.
• They also develop ideas that will go on to transform India.
• The labs are powered to acquaint students with state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D printers, robotics & electronics development tools, Internet of things & sensors etc.
• NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission is among one of the flagship programs of the Government of India.
• This is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country to set up the Atal Tinkering Labs across the country.
• The Mission has / is in the process of setting up 900+ such labs across India and aims to have 2,000 such labs by end of 2017.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has accorded its approval on Aug 16, 2017 for creation of a non-lapsable pool in the Public Account for secondary and higher, education known as "Madhyamik and Uchchtar Shiksha Kosh" (MUSK) into which all proceeds of "Secondary and Higher Education Cess" will be credited.

The funds arising from the MUSK would be utilized for schemes in the education sector which would be available for the benefit of students of secondary and higher education, all over the country.

Infusion Nurses Society (INS), India is all set to launch one of its own kind online course on infusion therapy for nurses.

Utilizing the reach and ease of digital platform, the course will enable INS members to access the various infusion therapy modules and speaker presentations from previous conferences through INS website.

The first course would be on the Peripheral IV Cannulation.

Infusion Therapy is a comprehensive method of quality care to all patients.

Online courses will educate the nurses in the scientific method of delivering and maintaining infusion with the aim of cure and prevention of Infection.

Nine out of ten patients admitted in hospitals receive infusion therapy during the course of their stay for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.

Improper infusion practices may lead to complications, causing an increase in mortality, morbidity, duration of hospital stay and healthcare costs.

In a complex healthcare environment, with varied patient needs, ensuring the quality of infusion calls for best nursing practices.

To ensure a patient-centred plan of care, a nurse strives to meet the infusion needs of their patients.

In doing so, they need to strictly adhere to the best practices and the comprehensive INS standards help the infusion nurses to provide excellent infusion care across all practice settings.

Along with online infusion therapy courses for the nurses, INS India is now launching an online course for its 3000 members on peripheral IV cannulation and an annual Mastermind Quiz, where all region’s hospitals will compete for the rotating trophy.

In the past, INS India launched an android app for the nurses and standards to help healthcare professionals, institute gold standard and evidence based protocols into patient care practices, by minimizing medication errors, treatment related complications and healthcare associated infections.

The revised standards will be instrumental in ensuring safety for patients and healthcare professionals.

With such online courses and Android apps, INS India wants to empower nurses with digital tools in infusion standards for better patient care.

Shri Upendra Kushwaha, Minister of State, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India has launched a NCERT’s Web portal for supply of textbooks to schools and individuals in New Delhi on Aug 9, 2017.

The portal will ensure better distribution of textbooks across the country and will also address the apprehensions, on the part of schools and parents, regarding unavailability of NCERT textbooks.

The schools will be able to log on to the portal, by entering their respective Boards’ affiliation numbers and other details, till 8th September 2017 for placing their orders for the session 2018-19.

The Web Portal can be accessed at www.ncertbooks.ncert.gov.in.

At the time of placing the orders, the schools are not required to make the payment; the payment can be made just before the supply.

The schools will also have the option of directly procuring textbooks either from their nearest NCERT vendors or from the Regional Production-cum-Distribution Centres (RPDCs) of the NCERT’s located at Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Guwahati, and Bengaluru.

Very soon the portal will also be opened to the individual buyers.

The NCERT textbooks can also be downloaded, free of cost, from the NCERT’s website www.ncert.nic.in; one can access the digital versions of NCERT’s textbook by logging onto ‘epathshala’ or through mobile applications.

NCERT also gives copyrights to different States/Union Territories for printing of its textbooks.

Fifteen States and UTs have been given copyright for the session 2017-18.

Nasscom Foundation and post-trade technology firm Arcesium jointly established the first rural digital literacy centre in Telangana, in Peddashapur village, on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

The Centre trains people in use of computers and mobile phones so that they will be able to register for Aadhar, ration, PAN cards, pay bills, send emails and use the internet for multiple utilities.

The initiative is under the ePradhan Mantri Gamin Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan.

Arcesium is supporting the training infrastructure and the trainers at the centre with the help of its implementation partner, Nirmaan Organisation.

The centre is equipped to train as many as 1,000 beneficiaries from under-privileged communities around the Peddashapur area.

The legislator representing Rajendranagar, Prakash Goud said it was necessary for children from villages to develop their competitive skills.

This is the tenth centre in Telangana. Nine centres are in cities. So far, around 7,000 youths have been trained, with each centre accounting for 1,000-1,200.

At the national level so far, 170 centres have been established.

The Centre has devised a curricular of 20 hours with two hours per day to impart training on how to use internet, how to use various apps the Centre has introduced and avail benefit from the schemes.

The collaboration with Nasscom will be further strengthened to reach more rural youth and skill them.

In its efforts to remain relevant and globally acceptable, NAAC has taken cognizance of the changing trends in higher education, stakeholder perceptions and feedback.

This is besides the avalanche of experience gained from its accreditation exercise involving more than 11,132 institutions [518 Universities and 10614 Colleges] till July 2017, which stand in good stead in all its endeavours.

Over the last few months, NAAC has conducted several rounds of stakeholder interactions, a National Workshop and Meetings of several Working Groups for the preparation of the Manuals for Universities, Autonomous Colleges and Affiliated Colleges.

The draft framework was pilot tested on select Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) across the country.

A National Consultation on the Revised Accreditation Framework was held on 25th April, 2017 at New Delhi. Shri Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India, inaugurated the programme in which eminent academicians and educationists actively participated.

The Revised Accreditation Framework which became operational in July 2017, is ICT enabled, objective, transparent, scalable and robust.

The new framework is a subtle combination of System Generated Scores (SGS) with a combination of online evaluation (70%) and Peer evaluation (30%).

This would usher in high level of transparency.

The Revised Framework is more ICT intensive and ‘outcome based’.

The current grading pattern of NAAC (A++, A+, A, B++, B+, B, C, D) would be continued for accreditation.

A system of applying minimum qualifiers for achieving a grade has been designed and will be implemented.

For example, Universities should score a minimum of 3.01 in Criteria 1, 2 and 3 for achieving a “A” “A+” “A++”grade.

NAAC: Know More

• National Assessment and Accreditation Council, an autonomous body, has been established by the University Grants Commission in 1994.
• This is in pursuance of the recommendations made by the National Policy of Education, 1986 and the Programme of Action (POA), 1992 which lay special emphasis on evaluating the quality of higher education in India.
• The prime mandate of NAAC, as envisaged in its Memorandum of Association (MoA), is to assess and accredit institutions of higher learning, universities and colleges or one or more of their units, i.e., departments, schools, institutions, programmes, etc.
• The NAAC functions through its General Council and Executive Committee where educational administrators, policy makers and senior academicians from a cross-section of system of higher education are represented.
• Under the new methodology introduced by NAAC w.e.f. 1st April, 2007, the higher education institutions are assessed and accredited by a two-step approach. In the first step, the institution is required to seek ‘Institutional Eligibility for Quality Assessment (IEQA)’ and the second step is the assessment and accreditation of the institute under the grades ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ for accredited institutions; and ‘D’ for those which are not accredited. NAAC has identified seven criteria.