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  • Colleges vie for ‘deemed’ status.

    After a gap of two years, the “deemed universities” have come back into focus. Several top engineering colleges in the state are vying for the “deemed” status and have submitted applications to the University Grants Commission. The UGC had stopped processing deemed university applications from 2009, based on a report submitted by the Tandon committee, which blacklisted 44 deemed universities across the country, including the one in Andhra Pradesh — Vignan University — for failing to comply with the norms on faculty and infrastructure.

    However, the UGC has recently re-opened the process of examining the deemed varsity applications. This is reportedly due to “political pressure” from the managements. The move came as a surprise, given that the case of prospective blacklisting of 44 deemed universities is still pending with the Supreme Court. These institutions are desperate to acquire a deemed status, to enjoy autonomy in matters of admission and fees. Interestingly, all these institutes are professional colleges that offer engineering, pharmacy, MBA and MCA courses.

    There is a huge demand for these courses in the state, and certain institutions are frantically trying to obtain “deemed” status. Prominent among these are CBIT, Gokaraju Rangaraju, JBIT, MNR, Srinidhi, St. Mary’s and RGIT-Nandyal. Many of these institutions are considered among the top 10 engineering institutes in the state. Apart from them, the Sweekar Rehabilitation Institute, Secunderabad, Gayatri Vidya Parishad, Montessori Mahila Kalasala and Pulla Reddy Engineering college had also applied for “deemed” status.

    The expert committees of UGC and AICTE completed the inspection process of all these institutes in 2008 and 2009 and recommended them for the “deemed” status. Even the state government issued a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for this purpose. When the stage was set for according a formal “deemed” status to these institutions during the academic year 2009-10, the scenario changed with Mr Kapil Sibal taking over as the HRD minister from Mr Arjun Singh. Mr Sibal ordered a high-level enquiry into all the “deemed” universities and also directed the UGC to keep the new applications on hold.

    Source : DC

  • SSA blamed for poor pass percentage in SSC.

    HYDERABAD: Hyderabad fared poorly for the third time in a row in the SSC examinations this year scoring less than all other districts in terms of pass percentage with government schools performing rather badly. But a study conducted by the district administration almost a year ago had predicted this. The study had found that 81% students from classes I to V in government schools did not know the basics of arithmetic and language.

    In SSC-2011, students from government schools scored a pass percentage of 67, yet again lowest when compared to schools in other districts. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) along with district administration conducted a series of tests in government schools and of 55,388 students, about 37,776 students did not know their numbers. As many as 41,246 did not know much about additions and 45,391 did not understand subtractions. In language studies (Telugu and Urdu), 43,468 students were not fluent in reading, and about 43,000 to 45,000 students knew little of grammar and 37,729 could not write.

    Educationists say that this has to be linked to poor basic education the students would have got in their elementary classes as indicated by the present day figures.

    Students of government schools in the city come from poor socio-economic backgrounds and hence, the primary task should be to make them attend classes regularly, officials said. “The city has large number of private schools when compared to government schools (5800:750). The irregular teaching methods followed by various government schools might have resulted in poor performance by students. This problem is several decades old,” said Sunitha Burra, state head, Pratham, a child rights NGO.

    Educationists blame SSA’s poor interventions in the primary education level for the dismal performance of students. They said that both infrastructure and quality of teachers has remained unchanged despite SSA’s various initiatives.

    The officials, however, stated that the study was conducted to improve the performance of students. “The focus in the state is only on Class X. But we need to strengthen basics and hence, we need to improve standards from lower levels. For the next five years, we are planning to track the learning ability of students from the lower classes as well,” said Gulzar Natarajan, district collector who initiated the programme.

    Source : TOI

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