Education News

West Bengal government to set up IT hub in Koltaka

Kolkata: West Bengal government will set up an IT hub with private partnership in the south-east suburb of Behala in the metropolis, state Industries and IT Minister Partha Chatterjee said here on Sunday.

"Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has given instructions to look for land at Taratala or adjacent areas for this purpose," Chatterjee said at a function here.

"Techno India Group, Webel and the IT department of the state will jointly set up this hub," he said.

Obama expands OPT visa program for foreign students

A program that allows foreign students who hold or are pursuing degrees in the so-called STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering and math -- to work in the U.S. for 29 months without work visas was quietly expanded last month by President Barack Obama's administration.

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program had allowed students to work in the U.S. without a work visa for up to 12 months until 2008, when the George W. Bush administration increased the time limit to 29 months.

Microsoft launches teaching tools for schools

KOLKATA: Though teaching kids through multimedia teaching is the order of the day, schools are still not being able to implement it properly and capture the attention of the entire class.

The age old ratio of 5% of the class being brilliant, the next 20% being above average, the next 40% being average and the remaining below average has not been bettered despite the fact that several human intelligence surveys proving have shown that only the bottom 5% of any given classroom is beyond help. The remaining can all be made to perform above par with the help of multimedia teaching.

Microsoft is offering cloud-based service to India schools

NEW DELHI: Schools in Delhi and Mumbai partner with Microsoft for cloud based service Microsoft Live@Edu, which provides them access to Microsoft's software and web applications. 

After tying up with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for a mammoth deployment of its cloud based service Microsoft Live@Edu in around 10,000 colleges and institutes last month, Microsoft has now partnered with Indian schools like Delhi Public School, Mathura Road and KR Mangalam school in New Delhi and the American School of Bombay for the service. 

ITIs in Kerala to get virtual classrooms

KOZHIKODE: In what could provide a fillip to quality of education, a programme to introduce virtual classrooms in industrial training institutes (ITIs) in Kerala was inaugurated by Chief MinisterOommen Chandy here today.
The scheme, introduced by the Kerala Industrial Department, envisages imparting studies on changing technology in industrial sector to ITI trainees with the help of e-learning. In the first phase, virtual classrooms would be set up in 34 ITIs.
Chandy set the progamme in motion by inaugurating a virtual classroom studio at the Government Women's ITI at Malikkadavu.

IIT-JEE 2012: Number of girls cracking exam doubles in a year

MUMBAI: Each year boys max out seats at the Indian Institutes of Technology. But the count of girls who secured JEE ranks has doubled to 2,886 since the last edition of the exam. Yet, the tech schools will on another front continue to be an unequal world: students from the IIT-Bombay zone (home to Kota) dominate the list of selected candidates. But the southern zone has bagged the credit for having eight of the top 20 rankers, most from Andhra Pradesh.