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The National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) has been postponed until further orders, according to a recent announcement from the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Since NTSE was not approved after March 31, 2021, the programme has been put on hold till further notice, according to an official notice from the NCERT. The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Government of India entirely funds the central sector programme known as the National Talent Search Scheme. The NTS scheme is implemented by NCERT. The scheme was approved till March 31, 2021. The scheme’s further implementation in its present form has been postponed until further orders because it has not been approved. “This is for the information of all concerned,” the official notice reads. Recently, the NTSE 2021 was held on October 24, 2021, at 68 exam centers across the nation, and the final results were made public on February 18 on the official NCERT website, ncert.nic.in. On February 9, 2022, the Council made the provisional results and the OMR sheet available on the official NCERT website. The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Government of India (Gol) entirely funds the NTSE scholarship programme, which is administered by the NCERT. Every year, two phases of the scholarship test are held: stage 1 (state level) and stage 2. (national level). The second stage is hosted by NCERT, whilst the first stage is run by the states.

The Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) is urging students to enrol in its Degree Plus programme to help make them “industry ready.” The curriculum is offered in addition to the students’ regular enrollment in the BA, BCom, and BSc degrees. The website offers more than 300 certificate programmes, the majority of which are free. Nitin Karmalkar, who was SPPU’s vice chancellor at the time, spearheaded the project in 2021, making 300–350 courses available to students for less than the original fee. The university has partnered with a number of educational and social organizations to offer the courses, including Harvard Business Online, Stanford University, AWS, Simply Learn, Celebrity School, and IBM. Students at the institution will be able to acquire up-to-date knowledge in fields including economics, culture, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing through “Degree Plus.” The majority of students should take advantage of this opportunity, according to SPPU Vice-Chancellor Karbhari Kale. All of the courses are offered online, and many of them are free. Students receive certificates upon passing the course, and the website has posted the course programme for 2022–2023 already. Nearly 26,000 students signed up for it during its pilot run, and 5,000 students applied for admission. The website http://degreeplus.in is where students seeking degrees from SPPU and its affiliated universities can apply for enrollment to the programme.

Mr. Prahar Anjaria, the founder of Pratham Educare and Rangoli International School, moderated a panel discussion on “New Age Schooling” at Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) campus on September 23, 2022. The panel consisted of Mr. Archit Bhatt (President, AOPS), Dr. Kavita Sharma (Principal, JG International School, Ahmedabad), and Ms. Nirali Dagli (Principal, CPS, Ghatlodia, Ahmedabad and Executive Member, Ahmedabad Gandhinagar Sahodaya Group of Schools). The panel discussed various issues in new age schooling like (a) Experiential learning (b) New age careers (c) Value education and (d) the Role of educators.

In order to establish the “Nykaa Chair in Consumer Technology,” the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Nykaa signed an agreement today. The purpose of this partnership is to advance the scientific practise of marketing. The emphasis will be on research and instruction that offers insights on how digital, social, and mobile technologies affect business models, consumer behaviour, and broader social developments, and that makes it easier to use AI and machine learning insights in a market that has been disrupted. In order to quantify the impact of the Internet and new media on consumer and business behaviour and to comprehend the privacy-preserving potential of digital advertising, it will also make use of economic and statistical models. The Chair will also collaborate closely with academics affiliated with already-existing Centers of Excellence in emerging fields of technology, such as the Brij Disa Centre for Data Science (CDSAI) and Artificial Intelligence and the Centre for Digital Transformation (CDT). The nature of technology and its effects on social and economic systems have drastically changed as a result of technological breakthroughs in the previous ten years. Consumer connection through augmented and virtual environments and greater cross-cultural use of digital technologies necessitates awareness of several facets of consumer tech innovation. “Through our partnership with Nykaa, we aim to work together on finding research solutions to some of the immediate, real-time questions in the consumer tech space. We look forward to bringing on board a talented, research focused individual to take up this position at the institute,” said Professor Errol D’Souza, Director, IIMA.

An effective technique for Sanskrit text sentiment analysis has been developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. The proposed method has a machine translation accuracy of 87.50% and a sentiment classification accuracy of 92.83%. Due to a lack of enough labelled data, these technologies were not used to their full potential. The study suggested a methodology that includes sentiment analysis, machine translation, and translation evaluation models. The cross-lingual mapping of the source and target languages has been done using machine translations. The sentences that were translated into English are as natural and mature as the original English. The Valmiki Ramayana website, which was created and is still being updated by IIT Kanpur researchers, served as the source of the dataset for this study. To improve classification using only root words and their corresponding suffixes and prefixes, the researchers are going to study the morphological features of Sanskrit. They also intend to assess how well the Sanskrit’s rich morphology is preserved in the English translation. In addition, they hope to acquire a model that can recognise the context of words in many languages and offer word embeddings with smaller dimensions. In the journal “Applied Intelligence,” a research paper describing the model has been published.

The Technology Incubation Center (TIC) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati has supported 42 start-up companies that will operate in a multitude of sectors, including robotics, IT, the water and oil industries, biotechnology, machine learning, the internet of things (IoT), renewable energy, home automation, and logistics. These start-ups have been backed by the incubation centre, which strives to give young people and aspiring entrepreneurs a place to develop their unique ideas into workable business plans. The incubation center’s main goals are to improve traditional knowledge, biodiversity, and science and technology. It also provides a platform for entrepreneurship, fosters a research mindset for societal development, and serves as a bridge between academics, technologists, and industry. The Government of India’s Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has authorised and acknowledged the incubation centre at IIT Guwahati. Start-ups may potentially receive grant aid from The Technology Development Board, which is a part of the Indian government’s Ministry of Science and Technology. The incubation centre welcomes candidates from all areas of incubatees/startups and assists them in turning their concepts into profitable companies. By introducing the candidates to a network of faculties, funding organisations like Oil India Limited (OIL) and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), among others, and other financial institutions like Indian Bank and YES bank, the centre would assist the candidates.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) unveiled a brand-new mascot for global education. The mascot, Uni, which stands for every child’s right to a quality education, will serve as an ambassador for education. The introduction of the new mascot, according to UNICEF, aims to emphasise the value of high-quality education and call attention to the world’s learning crisis. Uni, a blue bag, stands for the optimism that children and their community experience as a result of having access to high-quality education. A simple written story cannot be read and understood by over 70% of children in low- and middle-income nations. According to the organisation, Uni is designed to highlight the existing state of education and motivate activities to help improve it. The Uni mascot, which was created internally by the organisation, has also been produced in life-size by UNICEF. The mascot is six feet tall and covered in a full-body backpack made of bright blue felt and comforting foam. The backpack is similar to the 1.3 million schoolchildren who received the iconic blue UNICEF backpacks last year. “Uni embodies our aspiration that every child has the right to go to school and learn. Every child has a right not only to be in school but to learn in school, acquiring the basic skills that are the foundation for higher learning and higher income levels someday,” according to Paloma Escudero, UNICEF’s global director of communication and advocacy. The Transforming Education Summit will be held in New York on September 16, 17, and 19. UNICEF anticipates that the Uni mascot will contribute to global educational system change. In particular, the crisis of inclusion, equity, quality, and relevance in education is being highlighted by the summit. The future of children and youth around the world is being affected by the issue, which the UN says is sometimes slow-moving and unnoticed.

In partnership with Coursera, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani has introduced an online Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Computer Science programme. Beginning today, interested candidates can visit the Coursera website at coursera.org. Starting now, interested applicants can submit an application for the first cohort, which starts in November 2022. The deadline for applications is November 15. Steps to apply for the programme: Step 1: Go to coursera.org, the Coursera website. Step 2: Candidates can find the option for “online degrees” in the top scroll of the homepage. Step 3: Following that, scroll down and select the link for “Computer Science and Engineering Degrees.” Step 4: Candidates can select the link for the BSc Computer Science from BITS on the new page after clicking “show more” on the previous one. Step 5: Select the “apply now” button at the top. Step 6: Complete the form with all the necessary personal information and submit the registration fee, if required. The early application deadline is October 17, and the final application deadline is November 15. The start of classes is set for November 30. It’s interesting that the degree has no entrance exams and is available to students with a variety of backgrounds, including those without a strong foundation in science or considerable mathematics. Anyone who has completed class 12 or its equivalent is eligible to apply. The three-year degree can also be finished in six years by registered candidates. This will give students the freedom to study the programme concurrently with employment or another degree programme. Students can earn the program’s intermediate exit option, a diploma, in about two years.  

Dharmendra Pradhan, the union minister of education, invited US educational institutions to collaborate with India in the fast-changing fields of education and skilling. In order to offer twinning programmes, joint degrees, and dual degree programmes, higher education institutions in both nations should work more closely together academically. “The new National Education Policy (NEP) has lays emphasis on internationalisation of education. I called upon American institutions and companies to partner with India in rapidly-transforming education and skilling landscape. A growing digital economy, aspirational population, a knowledge-based society and policy reforms are creating unprecedented opportunities in India,” Pradhan said. The education minister was present at the India Ideas Summit when the comments were made. The US-India Business Council and the US Chamber of Commerce, International Affairs, South Asia jointly organised the event. Maximizing the Next 75 Years of US-India Prosperity was the event’s theme. “India and the US have similar societies and shared values. Education and Skill development are important pillars of Indo-US relations,” Pradhan said. The minister also urged improved cooperation between the two countries in the fields of research and skill development. India is making significant attempts to reskill, upskill, and skill its youth. If focused training and capacity building are offered in accordance with industry requirements, India’s vast, young, and educated population will be a benefit to any sector worldwide, he continued. India is in a good position, mostly because of its demographic advantage and other skilling initiatives, according to Pradhan. Source: PTI