Education - Current Affairs for February, 2017

Mumbai, the second most affordable city in the world for students till 2016, has dropped to the 30^th position this year.

Delhi, on the other hand, ranks way higher at 15, states a report by Quacquarelli Symonds, who are compilers of the QS World University Rankings.

The organisation published the 2017 list of the 'top 100 student cities in the world' on 16^th Feb 2017.

Mumbai and Delhi rank 85^th and 86^th in the list, respectively.

Paris, which had topped the list since it was first compiled in 2012, was replaced by Montreal in Canada for the first time.

London, ranked fifth last year, has moved up to the third position.

Melbourne, on the other hand, dropped to the fifth position from second.

The top five cities in Asia include Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe.

Where Mumbai and Delhi managed to get higher ranks was in "employer activity".

A city's performance is ranked on six composite indicators - affordability, desirability, student mix (international students), university ranking, employer activity and, for the first time, views of students.

Although an official QS statement shows that Mumbai and Delhi have seen an increase in their desirability score, these cities are still at the bottom.

Mumbai is placed at the 90th position and Delhi 91th. The desirability score takes into account the quality of life, including pollution, corruption and safety.

QS World University Rankings

• Quacquarelli Symonds is a British company specialising in education and study abroad.
• The company was founded in 1990 by Nunzio Quacquarelli.
• In its inaugural rankings for 2012, QS had published the rankings for the top 50 cities.
• Later, it began to publish rankings of 75.
• This year, it has expanded the list to 100.

The government has appointed heads of 10 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), including the first woman to head one of the 20 premier B-schools in the country.

Prof Neelu Rohmetra of Jammu University is the first woman to be appointed director of an IIM at Sirmaur.

She specialises in HRD and cross-culture management.

Currently, she heads the university’s International Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and Human Resource Management.

The IIMs that got new directors are in Bodhgaya (Bihar), Sirmaur (Himachal Pradesh), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Trichy (Tamil Nadu), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Sambalpur (Odisha), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Rohtak (Haryana), Ranchi (Jharkhand) and Bangalore.

Some of these posts had been vacant for at least a year. Of the 10 appointees, three are teaching at IIM-Lucknow.

As reported on November 25, 2016, IIM-Ahmedabad’s Prof G. Raghuram has been given the top job at IIM-Bangalore.

Raghuram, a teacher at IIM-Ahmedabad for nearly three decades, is chairperson of the Public Systems Group at the premier B-School. He specialises in infrastructure and transport systems, and logistics and supply chain management.

Prof Neelu Rohmetra of Jammu University is the first woman to be appointed director of an IIM.

Bharat Bhaskar, professor of information technology systems at IIM-Lucknow, will be the head of IIM-Raipur. He was the interim director of IIM-Lucknow in 2015.

Stage has been set for single NEET-like examination for entrance to engineering colleges from the academic year 2018-19.

HRD ministry asked the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to spell out suitable norms for holding such an exercise.

The AICTE, which oversees aspects related to technical education in the country, had discussed at a recent meeting a proposal for having a single entrance test for engineering colleges for undergraduate courses.

AICTE: Know More

• Formation: November 1945
• Headquarters : New Delhi
• Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Chennai, Kanpur, Mumbai, Baroda, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Bhopal, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon
• Main organ: Council
• Affiliations: Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development
• Website: www.aicte-india.org
• Head: Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman

US Senate on 7^th Feb 2017 confirmed school choice advocate Betsy DeVos as Education secretary by the narrowest of margins.

Vice-President Mike Pence was instrumental in breaking a 50-50 tie in a historic vote.

Two Republicans joined Democrats in the unsuccessful effort to derail the nomination.

The Senate historian said Mr. Pence’s vote was the first by a Vice-President to break a tie on a Cabinet nomination.

It is the first time in US history that a cabinet appointed has required a Vice-Presidential tie-breaker.

This is attesting to the fraught mood in Washington DC after a contentious election.

Two Republican Senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined 46 Democrats and two Democrat-caucusing Independents, in an effort to scupper DeVos confirmation.

DeVos is a long-time Republican and is a billionaire from one of Michigan's wealthiest families.

German technology major, Bosch Rexroth-funded India’s first Centre of Excellence.

The i 4.0 Automation Technology opened at the Vishwakarma Government Engineering College under Gujarat Technological University in Ahmedabad.

The Center of Excellence will be open for students of engineering students from across the state and also for the industry to conduct research in automation and hydraulics.