Latest news with #TamilNaduStateCouncilforHigherEducation
New Indian Express
18 hours ago
- Science
- New Indian Express
TN Government made AI accessible even to rural students: Higher Edu Min
CHENNAI: Generative AI is one of the most transformative technologies of the era and students should be trained on its correct usage, said experts at a discussion organised by Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE) on the theme 'Impact of Generative AI on the Future of Education and Employment'. Speaking at the event, Higher Education Minister Govi Chezhiaan highlighted the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and pointed out the government under the leadership of Chief Minister MK Stalin has managed to make it accessible even to school students in the state. 'AI was taught only in private institutions, and that too, it was a costly affair for the students. But in Tamil Nadu, we have managed to introduce AI in the government colleges so that rural students will also be benefited,' said Chezhiaan. The minister said that the Uyarkalvi Uraiyadalgal - Dialogues on Higher Education', organised by TANSCHE will bring various stakeholders together to find ways to improve higher education in the state. TANSCHE vice chairman, MP Vijayakumar, said the primary objective of the event was to examine how Generative AI is poised to transform the education ecosystem and reshape the landscape of future employment, both globally and within the state.
The Hindu
a day ago
- Science
- The Hindu
AI literacy must for teachers to ensure good use of tools by students: panel
While the deep penetration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in India is a serious concern, it could be turned into an opportunity with structured sensitisation and training programmes for both teachers and users, speakers at a panel discussion said on Monday. A way forward would be AI literacy for teachers to ensure good use of AI in educational institutions, including schools. There need to be clear guidelines developed by academics on what these tools can be used for and these guidelines should be continuously monitored, the panelists stressed. The discussion was the first of a series of dialogues started by Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE), titled Uyarkalvi Uraiyadalgal, and the topic was 'Impact of Generative AI on the Future of Education and Employment'. Gayathri Devi Jayan, Indian Chapter President, Applied AI Association, said that children in the education system should be thinking more laterally rather than following a pattern. 'AI follows patterns. We are not AI, we are humans. How do we bring that into the curriculum should be the point of discussion,' she stressed. B. Ravindran, Head, Department of Data Science and AI, and Head, Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT Madras, said that popular LLMs (Large Language Models) have recorded significant biases in their responses. For example, when prompted about higher education opportunities in India, 'almost 80 % of the recommendations are asking you to go to the US or to Europe; they don't recommend higher study institutions in India even though the student is asking [about] India'. There was a need to step back and think about what could be responsible use of AI in the Indian context. V. Ravindran, Director, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, said that AI was a sophisticated tool that mimics our brain and awareness on what it is and how it works should be brought to children at school level because, if used wrongly, their cognitive skills could be hampered and interpersonal relations and emotions can be affected. Industry, too, was incentivising the use of minimal resources to maximise output and, therefore, the right mix of human expertise and AI tools are required to optimise operations, said Dhinakaran Vinayagamurthy, Lead, Quantum Innovation Centre, IBM Quantum India. Data bias and quality of output in AI models, he added, was much more of a serious concern in the industry. Earlier, inaugurating the discussion series, Govi. Chezhiaan, Higher Education Minister, said that for the first time in decades, the State government this fiscal allocated Rs. 60 crore for refurbishing laboratories in higher education institutions strengthening the foundations for development of Tamil Nadu. Besides, two basic science research centres are coming in Chennai and Coimbatore at a cost of Rs. 100 crores. Delivering the keynote address, Lakshmi Narayanan, Managing Trustee, Chennai Mathematical Institute, said that based on the available data, there was a case to demand more investment in higher education from the State government. M.P. Vijayakumar, Vice-President, TANSCHE, said that in addition to the labs and the research centres, a science park would be built on East Coast Road at a cost of Rs. 100 crore and two STEM laboratories would be established in Madurai and Coimbatore at a cost of Rs. 10 crore each. P. Shankar, Higher Education Secretary, spoke. J. Innocent Divya, Commissioner, Directorate of Technical Education, and E. Sundaravalli, Commissioner, Directorate of Collegiate Education, were present.
The Hindu
12-07-2025
- Health
- The Hindu
In novel initiative, coconut farmers in Pollachi deploy climate sensors to explore alternative crops
In a first-of-its-kind initiative in Tamil Nadu, a cohort of coconut farmers from the Pollachi region in Coimbatore district has deployed a technology-based field monitoring system to record climatic conditions and assess crop suitability. Their urgency is the growing threat of Root Wilt Disease affecting their crop. While not a direct intervention against the disease, the initiative is aimed at generating consistent weather data to explore alternatives to coconut cultivation, which farmers fear may not be viable in the future. Farmers from the Anamalai block, as well as the Pollachi South and North blocks, have come together to install real-time climate monitoring systems that track temperature, humidity, rainfall, and solar radiation. The systems are expected to provide location-specific data to guide cropping patterns and land-use decisions in the future. One lakh trees removed According to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Coimbatore, the three blocks collectively have an estimated 75 lakh coconut trees. Of them, 10 lakh are affected by Root Wilt Disease, 3.5 lakh are severely affected, and nearly 1 lakh trees have been removed. M. Raveendran, Director of Research, TNAU, said Root Wilt Disease has no known cure, and the only effective management strategy is the removal of infected trees to limit its spread. The disease is caused by a phytoplasma — a wall-less, bacteria-like micro-organism that lives in the phloem tissue of plants and is transmitted by vectors such as leafhoppers and whiteflies. It was present for long, but its spread has accelerated in recent years owing to changing climatic conditions that favour vector survival and transmission. Once infected, a tree suffers progressive root dysfunction, leading to reduced water and nutrient absorption, yellowing and narrowing of leaflets, stunted canopy development, and declining nut yield. If not removed, infected trees pose a threat to surrounding healthy ones through root contact and vector activity. Farmers have expressed concern that, if unchecked, the disease may make coconut cultivation unviable. M.K. Gokulakrishnan, who manages a 60-acre coconut farm in Pollachi, said, 'I've had to remove around 150 trees. If this continues, it will seriously affect livelihood. Coconut is the principal crop here, and the consequences could be severe.' 'To sustain the livelihood of farmers, alternative crops must be identified and introduced before the situation worsens,' said M.P. Vijayakumar, Vice-Chairman, Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education, and a retired IAS officer, who is also a farmer. He is spearheading the effort to ensure that Pollachi does not remain dependent only on coconut. 'The broader aim is to promote crop diversification and establish Pollachi as a zone for fruits and spices. For this, continuous tracking of temperature, humidity, sunshine, and rainfall is considered essential for assessing crop suitability across micro-climatic zones,' he added. 'Without any government support, we initiated this effort to generate field-level climate data to guide crop planning,' Mr. Vijayakumar said. Low-cost sensors The system, developed by Bengaluru-based Phytec, uses low-cost, solar-powered, sub-gigahertz sensors placed at one-kilometre intervals. These units record environmental parameters and transmit the data through a network to a central gateway, which uploads them on cloud servers. The network operates independently of the mobile phone network and is being piloted in farms in Kottur village. TNAU has agreed to analyse the collected data to assess the impact of climatic conditions on crops and recommend alternatives. Mr. Raveendran said the university is supporting the initiative as farmers have played a proactive role. The coconut-growing area in the three blocks exceeds 50,000 hectares, with distinct climatic variations. Accurate, location-specific data, he said, would help targeted interventions. He added that protecting the existing trees is the immediate priority, given the scale of the coconut-based value chain, including coir and allied sectors. TNAU is evaluating Cococon, an injectable formulation on field trial, testing new chemical treatments to improve productivity, and supplying wilt-resistant varieties. It is also assessing the suitability of fruit and spice crops to support long-term diversification in the region. Mr. Raveendran said 16 farmers in the Anamalai block have come forward to install the devices and added that further adoption would be supported with government intervention.
The Hindu
05-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
T.N. trains college teachers to set question papers testing students' analytical, problem-solving skills
Numbers, often, do not reflect the reality. Masked behind Tamil Nadu's high gross enrolment ratio (GER) of 52% in higher education are serious deficiencies in curriculum transaction and assessment, as highlighted by a State Planning Commission's evaluation of university question papers that was released in December 2023. The report was an indictment of the rot that had set in in Tamil Nadu's higher education realm. Question papers for semester-end exams for Engineering and Arts and Science subjects barely challenged the students to use analytical or problem-solving methods; rather, they had questions that involved mere recall of concepts, which promoted rote learning. These deficiencies in pedagogical methods directly affected learning outcomes that are reflected by placement performance of institutions. So, how did the State respond? After twiddling its fingers for about a year, the government launched a training programme in December 2024 for the faculty of all State universities and government colleges. The revised Bloom's Taxonomy, a framework to classify learning outcomes based on six cognitive levels — namely remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create — forms the core of the training programme. While the first two levels largely pertain to recall of the concepts, the next four levels require higher order thinking and problem solving skills. Improving quality of education 'In these training programmes, which are conducted in workshop mode, the teachers are being taught to write the course outcomes to align with the larger programme outcomes,' said M.P. Vijayakumar, Vice Chairman, Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE), the agency with the mandate to improve the quality of higher education in the State. 'We want to build their capacity to frame analytical and problem-solving questions for evaluating students.' This change, he cautions, needs to be brought in gradually so as not to inconvenience learning. Giving an example, Mr. Vijayakumar said that for science subjects, investigation, which is a K4-level attribute in revised Bloom's Taxonomy, can happen essentially in a laboratory, but focus on laboratory curriculum has been lagging. So far, nearly 2,000 faculty members have been trained in about 20 sessions, but extending the programme to cover all 50,000 faculty members across the State appears a tall order. The Council has already trained 180 master trainers who would then train other faculty members. 'We would like to cover as much ground as possible within this academic year,' Mr. Vijayakumar added. Registrars and controllers of examination of all State universities have undergone this training. At the day-long workshops, the faculty members are given a rundown on Learning Outcome-based Curriculum Framework (LOCF) formulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Outcome-Based Education (OBE) adopted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). They are then required to write their course outcomes to reflect the final programme outcomes. This is followed by a group discussion and feedback on the outcomes. As a follow-up to this, the Council plans to audit all question papers of State universities and autonomous colleges on the percentage of questions based on higher order thinking skills once the new form of evaluation is rolled out. It would take a while, years perhaps, to notice any tangible result, but these initial steps need to be taken and pursued doggedly.
The Hindu
17-06-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
TANSCHE to annually train 180 UG and PG students during vacations for national level entrance tests
The Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE) will train 180 UG and PG students of basic sciences annually to get them ready for national level entrance examinations. According to a government order issued earlier this month, 30 students each from and programmes in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics will be selected from government colleges through a merit-based screening test. During summer and winter vacations, they will be put through two five-day residential workshops 'aimed at enhancing the conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills'. This would help the students face national entrance examinations such as Joint Admission Test for Masters (JAM), Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST), Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), National Eligibility Test (NET) and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Graduate School. The government has allocated ₹28 lakh per annum for the two residential camps. The programme seeks to provide a level the playing field for students from poor and marginalised backgrounds and increase their enrollment into premier institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER). At the two camps, the students will be trained by qualified faculty members with proven expertise in problem-solving and examination coaching and will be provided with curated study materials free of cost. Academic support will also be extended to the students round the year through online session.
