Latest news with #MoE
The Hindu
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Centre asks Jharkhand, Bihar to act against unrecognised schools
The Centre has urged Jharkhand and Bihar to tackle the issue of unrecognised schools 'at the earliest.' The Ministry of Education (MoE) flagged the issue of a high number of unrecognised schools operating in Jharkhand and Bihar during the meeting of Project Approval Board (PAB), while discussing the Annual Work Plan and Budget 2025-26 for Samagra Shiksha scheme held in March and April earlier this year. The meetings were held under the chairmanship of Sanjay Kumar, Secretary (School Education and Literacy). An unrecognised school is a private institution run without appropriate licence from the government authority. For recognition, a private school needs to submit various documents, including details of school's infrastructure and facilities, information about teachers and their qualifications to the district authorities. This is followed by an inspection by the District Education Officer, who visits the school to see if preconditions are fulfilled. For instance, the private school is run by a registered society or a public trust, it must have sufficient financial resources to maintain operations and it must follow prescribed curriculum and have qualified teachers. According to the PAB minutes of the meetings, as per the Unified District Information System for Education plus, (UDISE+) Jharkhand has the highest number of unrecognised schools in the country — 5,879 schools with an enrolment of 8,37,897 students and 46,421 teachers. The minutes also pointed out that as per UDISE+, there are 4,915 unrecognised schools in Bihar with an enrolment of 7,75,704 students and 42,377 teachers. Right to Education Act In the minutes, the MoE pointed out to the States that Section 19 of the Right to Education (RTE) Act stipulates that those schools established before the commencement of the Act (in 2009) and not fulfilling the norms shall take steps to fulfil the norms within three years from the date of commencement of the Act. RTE norms include having appropriate school infrastructure and maintenance, a fixed teacher-student ratio, qualified teachers, 25% seats in class 1 of private schools reserved for economically disadvantaged children and recognition by government authorities after meeting specified norms and standards. The RTE Act also mandates that if such schools fail to fulfil the norms, the recognition shall be withdrawn and the school shall cease to function. The MoE has urged Jharkhand and Bihar to issue suitable instructions to the concerned authorities, 'to recognise these unrecognised schools or to take appropriate action as deemed fit at the earliest.' The RTE Act states that any person who continues to run a school after the recognition is withdrawn, shall be liable to a fine which may extend to ₹1 lakh and in case of continuing contraventions, to a fine of ₹10,000 for each day during which contravention continues.
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Identifying steady increase in private school enrolments, Centre asks States to reverse trend
Flagging a 'disturbing trend' of students choosing private schools over government schools in at least 11 States and Union Territories — including Uttarakhand, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh — the Union Ministry of Education (MoE) has asked these States to take 'remedial steps' to reverse the trend. The issue was pointed out to individual States in Project Approval Board (PAB) meetings held in March and April earlier this year to consider the Annual Work Plan and Budget under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for 2025-26. In Telangana, for instance, the PAB meeting minutes note that as per Unified District Information System for Eduction plus (UDISE+) 2023-24 data, out of 42,901 schools in the State, 70% (30,022) are government schools and 28.26% (12,126) are unaided schools. 'Total enrolment in government schools is only 38.11% (27.8 lakh) as compared to 60.75% (44.31 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools,' the minutes note. 'Take remedial steps' MoE has observed that the school enrolment trend during 2018-19 to 2023-24 suggests that, except during 2021-22, when education was disrupted by COVID-19, enrolment in unaided schools is steadily increasing. According to the minutes of the meetings, School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar expressed his concerns that in spite of spending a large amount of money, students are moving away from government schools, which is a disturbing trend. He suggested that States should make a sincere analysis of the root cause so as to take remedial steps and reverse this trend. 'Build government school brand' A trend similar to Telangana has been observed in Uttarakhand, where enrolment in unaided schools has steadily increased except for the COVID-19 period of 2021-22. In Uttarakhand, the minutes note, as per UDISE+ 2023-24, out of 22,551 schools in the state, 71.84% (16, 201) are government schools and 23.29% (5252) are unaided schools. 'However, total enrolment in government schools is only 36.68% (8.7 lakh) as compared to 54.39% (12.90 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools,' the minutes state. In Tamil Nadu, MoE observed that as per UDISE+ 2023-24, 64% of government schools in the State have 37% enrolment whereas 21% of unaided school have 46% enrolment. 'In this regard, State was urged to build the government school brand so as to increase enrolment and make best use of the available resources,' the minutes state. In Andhra Pradesh, the UDISE+ 2023-24 data states that, out of 61,373 schools in the State, 45,000 (73.32%) are government schools and 15,232 (24.82%) are unaided schools. 'However, total enrolment in government schools is 46.33% (40.5 lakh) as compared to 52.09% (45.53 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools. Enrolment trend during 2021-22 to 2023-24 suggests that enrolment in unaided schools is steadily increasing,' the minutes state. Data cleansing exercise During Maharashtra's PAB meet, when the Union School Education Secretary expressed concerns about the reduction in enrolment in government and aided schools, from over 1.63 crore students in 2018-19 to a little over 1.50 crore in 2023-24, the State's Principal Secretary for Education & Sports attributed the trend to a data cleansing excercise, using Aadhaar verification. Kerala's Principal Secretary for Education said a similar exercise had been done there as well, when concerns were raised about the reduction of students in government and aided schools, from close to 46.37 lakh in 2022-23 to 45.50 lakh in 2023-24. 'Apart from this, the State (Kerala) is also making APAAR IDs in order to validate enrolment details,' the minutes noted. A similar trend was also seen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Delhi, Puducherry, and Ladakh, according to the meeting minutes.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Your Mind Can Create Using The Same Process As AI
Woman sketching a business plan on a placard at a creative office Four short months ago, when China launched DeepSeek, its new AI chatbot, the effect on the U.S. stock market was profound. Hardest hit was NVIDIA Corporation, the leading supplier of hardware and software for DeepSeek's entrenched American competitors— OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta's Llama, and Anthropic's Claude. NVIDIA lost almost $600 billion in market capitalization and its share price plummeted 17%. As this Forbes article reports, DeepSeek also started a price war among its Chinese AI competitors: ByteDance, Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba. What shook up all these constituencies was DeepSeek's revolutionary AI architecture with a secret sauce called Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) a vast simplification from the single giant neural network called Large Language Model (LLM) used by ChatGPT, Llama, and Claude. Both MoE and LLM provide users with the ability to manage access to a huge corpus of digital information. But your mind is capable of doing the same with a huge corpus of human information. With or without AI, whenever you set about to generate, organize, and create information—whether as text or spoken—you must access a huge corpus of information in your brain. So in the spirt of National Creativity Day, this blog will provide you with a very simple four-step process to do that—and to become more effective when you create. Fundamental to all the steps is an understanding of the basic concepts in Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman's bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow in which he explains that the human mind functions in two distinct phases. If you start to develop your presentation, report, or email with Slow Thinking factors such as logic, sequence, and word choice (or, for that matter, the color, style, font, and design of your slides) while your Fast Thinking is bubbling up all those random ideas, the whole process descends into disarray. The key then is to allow the Fast Thinking to run its course before attempting to impose a sequence with Slow Thinking. So, control your Fast Thinking with these four steps: Now and only now are you ready to organize and sequence your content. Who needs DeepSeek?
Muscat Daily
21-05-2025
- Business
- Muscat Daily
MoE outlines sustainable development plans for governorates
Muscat – Ministry of Economy (MoE) convened a high-level meeting on Wednesday to present proposed frameworks and programmes for sustainable development of cities and governorates as part of the sultanate's 11th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). Held under the patronage of H E Dr Said bin Mohammed al Saqri, Minister of Economy, the meeting included members of central technical teams drafting the plan, alongside representatives from government bodies and the private sector. It reviewed mechanisms and priorities designed to promote balanced urban and regional development aligned with the objectives of Oman Vision 2040. Participants engaged in discussions to propose recommendations for specific developmental needs of each governorate. In his opening remarks, H E Saqri said the plan builds on lessons from past development cycles and aims to adopt more integrated and effective strategies. 'It aims to enhance the competitiveness of governorates by empowering decentralisation and strengthening local governance.' He noted that one of the key objectives of the new plan is development of infrastructure and services to improve quality of life and position cities as centres of economic and cultural activity. H E Saqri added that empowering local administrations and supporting the autonomy of governorates in economic decisions are central to achieving regional development. H E Dr Said bin Mohammed al Saqri, Minister of Economy 'Directing investments towards projects that reflect actual needs and leveraging each governorate's comparative advantages to build a sustainable local economy are at the heart of the new plan.' The meeting allowed exchange of ideas and experiences to ensure development initiatives are rooted in local realities. The 11th Five-Year Plan was formulated using a scientific approach based on international best practices, past experiences and data-driven assessments. It incorporates national sectoral strategies and aligns with findings of national programmes and studies to identify key challenges and priorities.
Muscat Daily
21-05-2025
- Business
- Muscat Daily
Digital curricula rolled out for grades 1 to 12 in Omani schools
Muscat – A national initiative has been launched to digitise school curricula of grades 1 to 12 as part of broader efforts to modernise the country's education system and equip students with digital skills. Spearheaded by Ministry of Education (MoE), in collaboration with BP Oman, the initiative was unveiled on Wednesday at a ceremony held under the patronage of H E Saeed bin Hamood al Mawali, Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, in the presence of H E Dr Madiha bint Ahmed al Shaibani, Minister of Education. The school curricula digitisation project aims to convert textbooks and learning resources into interactive digital formats to enhance accessibility, promote self-learning and provide both students and teachers with updated educational tools. 'The curricula digitisation project provides teachers with modern educational tools and supports students with a more interactive, flexible, and comprehensive learning experience that suits their individual needs and abilities,' said H E Dr Abdullah bin Khamis Ambusaidi, MoE Undersecretary. H E Dr Abdullah bin Khamis Ambusaidi, MoE Undersecretary He described the initiative as central to MoE's strategy to build an integrated, technology-based education system. The rollout will take place in six phases, beginning with preparatory work to set educational and technical standards, followed by content analysis, development of educational scenarios and digital content production. A pilot phase will be conducted in selected schools before the material is made available on MoE's e-learning portal and the 'Noor' platform. The digital material will support collaborative learning, improve academic performance, and broaden teaching and assessment methods. The digitisation initiative is also expected to equip students with essential digital and analytical skills for future employment.
