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IIT JEE Advanced Results 2017 Declared
Ahmedabad :
The results of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2017, which were held on May 21, were announced on Sunday.
Students can check their results on jeeadv.ac.in. The Joint Engineering Examination is the gateway to the IITs, NITs and other centrally funded institutions.
Over 2.2 lakh candidates had cleared the JEE (Main) round and had qualified to the advanced round that was held on May 21.
Gujarat Boy Gets RTE Admission 175km From Home
AHMEDABAD:
The Right to Education (RTE) Act seems to have been construed as a distance education programme by the Gujarat government. A Rajkot boy, Mohit Sodha, the son of a daily wager, has been given admission in a school more than 175km from his home. Mahendra Sodha, who lives in Dhoraji town in Rajkot, had dreamed of sending his son to a private school. Mohit has been given admission in Sanskar Vidyalaya at Bankodi village of Jamkalyanpur taluka of Devbhoomi-Dwarka, which lies in another district! The RTE norms mandate that the school in which a child is admitted should be within the 6km radius from the child's home.
When Gujarat's education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama was informed about Mohit's predicament, he said: "We are looking into the case. If this has happened, we will get the child admission in a school near his home."
Sodha is a mason and his wife works as a maid. "I earn Rs 300 every day whenever I get some construction work," he said. "I could not go to school but I want my son to study well. Owing to our financial condition, I tried to get him admission under the RTE Act; the effort seems to have gone in vain." While applying for admission in the 25% quota for poor children under the RTE Act, Sodha had picked six schools that are near his house in Dhoraji.
When asked why he did not file any objection petition, he said, "I got a message on my cellphone from the education department that my son had been allotted a school in another district. The message was in English, I could not understand it." When Sodha went to the Block Resource Centre (BRC) to ask about the message, he was told that he must get admission in that particular school in Devbhoomi-Dwarka and the deadline to file an objection petition had expired.
"The principal of that school called to ask if I would send my son there," Sodha said. "How can I send my six-year-old over a hundred miles away?" Sodha and his wife also have daughter, who is around around two years old. "My wife also wants my son to get educated so that we can get rid of this life. But with this mismanagement, our dreams have been shattered," Sodha said.
GU Holds Retest For Single Student After 7 Years
Ahmedabad:
Gujarat University conducted the final-year exam of Darshan Shah, a student of the BCom 2008-10 batch, after seven long years, in March this year.
Shah could not clear his final year exams in 2010 and in subsequent attempts. Since then, his re-test had not been conducted as the syllabus had changed. Sources in the university said Shah's exam was conducted under political pressure, as a special case. This is the first time that the varsity has taken a retest for a single student after so many years have passed.
University officials claimed there were no teachers who could set the paper for Shah's exam according to the old syllabus. This March, when his exam was finally conducted, a faculty member of an Ambawadi college had set the paper.
The former vice-chancellor of Gujarat University, M N Patel, had taken up the matter several times. Just before Patel's term ended, the issue was raised again and approval finally granted at a syndicate meeting in January.
Gujarat University Seeks Details Of Last Year’s College Admissions
AHMEDABAD: 6 APR 2017
Gujarat University officials have issued a notice to arts, commerce and science colleges seeking details of last year's admissions. Details sought include the number of seats available last year in both English and Gujarati medium and the number of seats that remained vacant in each college, among others.
The university has asked the institutes to send in the data on a priority basis, as soon after class 12 results are out, the online admission procedure will begin. By June, PIN numbers will be issued to students for accessing and filling online forms. The admissions for commerce and science colleges will be done online for all rounds, while that for arts will be online only for the first round and later individual arts colleges will be able to fill their seats. However, GU officials are thinking about handing over entire responsibility for arts admissions to the colleges and have all forms filled online.
Fee Regulation Bill: No Relief For Parents Yet
AHMEDABAD: 6 APR 2017
It seem that there will be no relief for parents even after the state legislative assembly passed the Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill 2017. While parents hoped to pay fees for their wards' upcoming academic year according to the new structure proposed by the government, the Association of Progressive Schools (APS) has decided to continue levying their existing fees for three months more months.
Fees will be levied as decided by the committee after that. APS has also put into practice a code of conduct to prevent certain schools from levying fees for the entire year at once. APS members met in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, where some crucial decisions were taken. Some 30 schools in Ahmedabad are members of APS.
Currently, schools are confused about charging fees especially with the new structure proposed by the government. On why they could not charge fees as proposed by the government, members said the structure does not apply to private schools.
M P Chandran, spokesperson, APS, said, "If we reduce the fees to as low as what the government has proposed, our internal budget will go for a toss and we will not be able to run the institute effectively with such limited funds."
Another association member, Raja Pathak, said, "If the fees of all 2,600 private schools across the state will have to be changed, it will take at least six or eight months and it will become difficult to run the schools."
The associations members did not know if teachers at these schools were paid in accordance with the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations. When asked if they would reduce the fees, they said that they do not want to compromise on quality and are therefore unwilling to reduce fees.
APS wants new fee structure from 2018
Members of APS made a representation to the government, seeking that the new fee structures be implemented with effect from the next academic year i.e. 2018-19. The members also raised the issue of quality of education and asked to form a committee to ensure quality of education, just like the fee regulatory committee. The quality education committee must probe how schools maintain the quality of education. They were of the opinion that students pay more for coaching classes and therefore, government must intervene in the matter and take action
Poor Response To GU Literary Festival
Ahmedabad: 2 Jan 2016
Very few people turned up at at Gujarat Unversity's convention centre for `Gujarat Sahityotsav-2016: Matru Bhasha Parva,' the first literary festival organised by the state government and Gujarat University. Rs 1 crore was spent on the event which was expected to bring writers under one roof. However, it apparently failed in its mission.
Around 600 people came to the literary festival against the total registration of around 2,400 people. In the afternoon session, very few people could be seen. Because of this, the authorities allowed people without invitation cards to attend the festival.
State ministers Bhupendrasinh Chudasma and Nanu Vanani, who were mentioned as chief guest and special guest, respectively, did not attend the event.
GU vice-chancellor M N Patel said food was arranged done for around 3,400 people but only 1,800 had meal at the literary festival.
Folk artists suffered due to mismanagement. "There was poor arrangement for folk artists. The performers of Lok-Dayro had no idea where they should go. State administrators failed to make proper arrangements for the artists," said a source.
Sources said GU's syndicate members were not invited to the literary festival.Harshad Patel, head of academic council of GU, was also not invited to the event.
GU authorities had earlier claimed that response to the festival would be good and that they had stopped new registrations due to the rush.
Neglect Of Procedure Led To GSEB Goof-up
Ahmedabad: 2 Jan 2016
Gujarat secondary and Higher Secondary Board (GSHSEB), failed to verify marks where it was required to do so, leading to publication of erroneous semester I results for class XI science stream. Though the board has since rectified its error, such goof-up would not have taken place, if the board had carried out verifications before declaring results -something it has been doing since 2008, but failed to do this year.
After facing a severe criticism for the goof-up, the state government has instructed the board to take action against the erring official responsible for it. The board has stripped examination controller V R Gosai of his powers as corrective measures. The board is likely to submit its report to the government by Saturday evening.
Sources in the board said that board officials have to verify the marks obtained by a student in the paper he had failed in, if he had scored above 80% in all other subjects. For example, the board should have verified the marks in Sanskrit of Parth Brahmbhatt, who had scored over 80% marks in Science and other subjects, but received only 20 marks in Sanskrit. Sources said that even the topper in semester I had initially failed in Sanskrit.
If the verification was done according to the rules, then the goof-up in answer keys would have been detected early preventing the publication of erroneous results. The issue surfaced only because all the 57,000 students had failed in Sanskrit subject. Officials said that had this number been 20%, then the goof-up in providing answer keys might have been missed altogether.
Goof ups are, of course, nothing new for the board.Earlier, it was forced to revise its answer key for Semester III on three different occasions, after major errors surfaced in the answer key.On all such occasions, the board's subject experts failed to detect the errors and the revisions took place only because students and teachers pointed out the mistakes, said Diwan Balubhai School principal Kirit Joshi.
Sources in the board said this year the board had given typed answer keys to the agency tasked with checking the paper, as the examination was conducted through optical mark reader. The board, instead of taking its own officials to task, has once again started blaming the agency for the goof up. The board officials said that instead of using the answer key of semester I, the agency had checked the papers with the answer key of semester III. Sources said that it was the duty of board officials to verify the typed answer key , and later on verify marks.But they had failed in their duty.
IIT-Gandhinagar Develops An Eye For Stroke
AHMEDABAD: 29 oct 2015
Stroke has left heart attack behind in terms of morbidity. Every three seconds, somebody suffers a stroke worldwide.
India has a major contribution to the high number of stroke cases, with 3,800 patients every day . In such a scenario, IIT-Gandhinagar has developed a technique that not only provides an eye-gaze based diagnostic and prognostic tool but also operant conditioning for post-stroke therapy .
Funded by the Indian and French governments, the invention, called SmartEye, relates to a system for diagnosis and therapy of a person suffering from psychomotor symptoms. As participants look into visual simulations, an eye tracker detects anomalies in fixa tion and blinking patterns.Special gaze features convey abnormalities in graphical displays.
"Visual problems due to brain injury are often overlooked during initial treatment, lengthening rehabilitation period. Our cost-effective system uses quantitative interpretation from images of the eye to identify gaze-related indices as biomarkers of stroke. A patient is asked to look towards a slowly moving visual stimulus on the computer screen, and an integrated web-camera looks in the patient's eyes to capture gaze-related indices as biomarkers of stroke condition," said IIT-Gn assistant professor Uttama Lahiri, who worked with Dr Anirban Dutta (from INRIA, France) and Dr Abhijit Das (Institute of Neurosciences, Kolkata).
Central University Of Gujarat Hosts Meet On Education Policy
AHMEDABAD: 12 oct. 2015
A detailed one-day grassroots consultation for a new education policy aimed at 'Improving State Public Universities' was held at the Central University of Gujarat (CUG) in Gandhinagar. The seven-hour discussion involved close to 50 vice chancellors from across the country. These consultations are part of a participative exercise ahead of the proposed new education policy, for which countrywide deliberations are being held on 20 different themes to improve higher education and 13 themes on improving school education.
Right from issues related to interference from the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) in the working of a university, to designing a curriculum, maintaining autonomy and improving accountability in state universities, all were discussed threadbare. "How many of these suggestions will be incorporated remains to be seen. But the whole process seems to be moving towards strengthening the case for a common Universities Act, to be implemented in every state in the country. A one-day deliberation is not enough to address the gamut of issues affecting our education system," said a senior vice chancellor at the meet.
While Maj Gen Dilawar Singh, director of Nehru Yuva Kendra told TOI, "I suggested three major changes, including training VCs with respect to managing HR and finance for better functioning. Also a national level committee should be formed for selection of VCs."
Minister for education, Bhupendrasinh Chdasama told TOI, "The gross enrollment ratio of Gujarat is 21 while that of the country is 21, which is healthy. Also, the suggestions given by various VCs have been documented and will be sent to the Centre for deliberation."
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Rs 1K Crore Package Echoes CM's Scholarship Scheme
GANDHINAGAR: 26 Sep 2015
The much-hyped Rs 1,000-crore package announced by chief minister Anandiben Patel to placate Patidars and other non-quota castes seems to have repeated many aspects of the scholarship scheme announced by he CM in her maiden budget n July 2015.
Majority of the fee incen ives announced in the economic package are, in fact, mere repetitions of what the CM has already promised to bright students belonging to poor and middle class fam lies in her `Mukhya Mantri Shri Scholarship Yojana'.
The following pledges govt to pay 50% fee or up to Rs 2 lakh per annum to students admitted in self-financed medical colleges," and "govt to pay 50% fee up to Rs 50,000 per annum for engineering and other professional courses; Rs 25,000 for diploma engineering courses" -have been borrowed directly rom the Scholarship Scheme.
Interestingly , like the Mukhya Mantri Swavalambi Yojana, the CM Scholarship Scheme too has the upper income limit of Rs 4.5 lakh per annum for students to be eligible for the benefits. This `fresh' income criterion was declared by the CM on Thursday when she said that she does not want four-wheeler owners to benefit from this scheme at the cost of the poor.
A key new aspect of the Swavalambi Yojana is that it has increased the number of students who will be able to benefit from government largesse. While the Scholarship Scheme aims to give benefits to science students in the top four percentile, the Swavalamban Scheme extends the benefits to all students who have over 90 percentile.In the general stream, the Scholarship Scheme gave benefits only to those in the top one percentile.
Some other fresh aspects of the Swavalambi Scheme is benefits to diploma engineering students, grants for hostel and books and higher age limit for government jobs.
Observers say that by increasing the ambit of the scholarship scheme to include 90% of the students, the government has benefited only 7000-odd students who seek admission in engineering and medical courses after Class XII.
A senior official said that education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasma had announced the Scholarship Scheme on July 28 after the government resolution that was issued on July 23, 2014.The state government had even launched a new website.