General Awareness

GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION - July 2019

Jul 2019

Oct 06, 2020

NCERT and ISLRTC Sign MoU to Help Deaf Children Access Education Material

The National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) and Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to make the education material accessible to the deaf children.
Under the MoU, educational print materials, teachers' handbook, supplementary materials and NCERT Textbooks are to be converted into sign language in digital format. Apart from these other supplementary materials and all the other resources of Class I-XII of all subjects of both Hindi and English medium are to be converted.
The step is a part of the mandate of New Education Policy, 2020. The policy claimed to standardise Indian Sign Language. It will enhance the literary skills of the deaf children greatly.
The GoI has been taking several measures recently to help the deaf people. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment recently launched the second edition of Indian Sign Language Dictionary. The dictionary was developed by the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre. IT includes 6000 words under categories such as legal, academic, medical, every day terms and technical. The dictionary is available in both video and printed formats.
According to census 2011, around 18.9% of the Indian population is deaf.

Oct 05, 2020

Government Schools Drawing More Students

According to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, five lakh new students have enrolled in government schools in Kerala in the last three years with the focus on upgrading them as "Centres of Excellence" with modern facilities. Though in the past there were discussions in society about closure of government schools, now these were being improved, resulting in them attracting more students.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was speaking after dedicating 90 schools as "Centres of Excellence" and laying the foundation stone virtually for 54 school buildings on Saturday as part of the government's Public Education Rejuvenation Campaign to protect the public education system in the state. He said that the government was implementing changes in the field of school education keeping in mind the next generation.

Schools in Delhi to Remain Closed Till October 31

All schools in the national capital will remain closed till October 31 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Delhi government had earlier extended the school closure till October 5, though the Centre had permitted calling students of classes 9 to 12 to schools on voluntary basis from September 21.
The Directorate of Education (DoE) has been directed to extend the ongoing closure of schools till Oct 31. Formal orders to this effect were issued by DoE.
In March 25, the central government announced a nationwide lockdown to prevent the virus from spreading. As per the latest unlock guidelines, schools, colleges and other educational institutions can reopen outside containment zones after October 15.
However, the decision on whether to reopen educational institutions has been left with states and union territories.

Oct 04, 2020

US Universities Woo Indian Students, Waive GRE

Universities went out of their way to convince students that US education remained the best even during a pandemic. To woo students, a majority of universities have waived the GRE for their programmes and many are offering remote learning options.
A representative of University of Michigan, Flint, said that our computer science program does not require GRE. For students who are apprehensive of travelling to the US, the university is offering a hybrid mode of studying. We also emphasise hands-on learning so there are lots of opportunities for internships and 100% of CS and engineering internships at UM-Flint is paid.

Oct 03, 2020

Marathi Compulsory in All Schools in Maharashtra

The state school education and sports department announced the formation of a committee to draft rules regarding the implementation of The Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Act, 2020.
The Act mandates compulsory teaching and learning of Marathi in all schools — government and private — from Class 1 to X across all mediums and boards in Maharashtra.
As per Section 16 (1) of the Act, which allows the state to frame rules for the law that came into being on April 1, the department has formed an eight-member committee to be headed by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Director Dinkar Patil.
For 2020-21 academic year, Class I and Class VI students will be mandated to study Marathi, followed by Class II and Class VII in 2021-22, Class III and Class VIII in 2022-23, Class IV and Class IX in 2023-24 and Class V and Class X in 2024-25.

Reliance Develops R-Green Kit

Reliance Life Sciences has developed an real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kit. It claims to diagnose COVID-19 infection in about 2 hours. Presently, COVID-19 RT-PCR test takes up to 24 hours to give a diagnosis.
The kit has been developed by Computational biologists at Reliance Life Sciences a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd.
This kit is indigenous development of the R&D scientists working at the firm.
They analysed more than 100 genomes of SARS-CoV-2 sequenced in India in order to design RT-PCR primers for developing quantitative-Real Time PCR kit.
The kit has been technically validated by ICMR for satisfactory performance. It does not approve or disapprove the kit design as well as it does not certify user-friendliness.
The kit can detect the presence of E-gene, R-gene, RdRp gene of SARS COV2 virus with Actin as an internal control. According to the ICMR results, the kit is 98.7 % sensitive and 98.8 % specific. The diagnosis time of the kit is approximately 2 hours.

Oct 02, 2020

IIT Delhi Launches BTech in Materials Engineering

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi launched an undergraduate programme, BTech in materials engineering. Enrollment for the course will start from this year itself and students who qualify JEE Advanced will be eligible to apply for the new BTech programme.
The new course will have 40 seats this year. Students will also have the option to select electives in materials engineering, which would be ideally suited for those interested students in exploring opportunities in both basic sciences and engineering, or a combination of the two, claims the institute.
Graduates of this programme will be poised to enter the aerospace, manufacturing, defence, oil and gas, automotive and petrochemicals industry.
Through the course, students will learn about the relationships between structure and properties in various classes of materials including metals, polymers, electronic materials, and biomaterials.

University of Mumbai Online Exams Begin at Few Colleges, Others to Start Exams Next Week

Even as the status of the final-year (summer 2020) online exam lies in limbo across several state universities, the University of Mumbai (MU) announced the successful commencement of online exams in some of its affiliated colleges. Most city colleges, however, have decided to start their exams from October 5.
While exams at five state universities has been indefinitely deferred due to an ongoing pen-down strike of non-teaching staff members, MU said that their decision to decentralise online exams helped ensure the schedule stays as is.

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