Education Notes

Uttarakhand Conditional land grants The state government will provide land on lease to reputed private educational institutions to promote schools in the state’s hilly areas which lack educational facilities. This government resolution was confirmed by an official communique issued by chief minister Harish Rawat in Dehradun on October 20. However, educational institutions willing to start campuses in hilly areas are required to fulfill several conditions to become eligible for land lease grants. First, new campuses will be obliged to reserve 30 percent seats for children of state government employees and local residents. Secondly, the state government will determine the tuition fees payable for children admitted under the reserved category. Moreover, the schools must hire local residents for clerical and class IV jobs. Haryana Great LEP forward A learning enhancement programme (LEP) specially developed to improve education quality in government-run schools, is set to become operational in the state’s 3,222 primary schools. Under this state government initiative designed in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group (USA), 18,000 primary school teachers have been trained over the past month. The programme will be gradually rolled out to all 3,222 government schools statewide and will benefit more than 600,000 students, a Haryana government spokesperson informed media personnel in Chandigarh on October 11. Under the programme, the first school hour of all 3,222 schools will be observed as ‘LEP hour’ during which teachers, assisted by specially trained NGO volunteers, will use textbooks specially curated by the State Council of Educational Research and Training for the programme. “The goal of this programme is to ensure all students acquire the competence levels of previous classes. This is an urgent need,” says Haryana’s secretary of school education, T.C. Gupta. Rajasthan Caste discrimination arrest In a shocking reminder that caste-based discrimination is pervasive across large swathes of rural India, Hemaram, a government secondary school teacher in a village near Jodhpur, was arrested for allegedly beating an 11-year-old Dalit student for “touching the plates kept for non-Dalit students”. According to the boy’s father Malaram, who filed a police complaint, the incident came to light when the child was found crying after returning from school. When Malaram personally met the teacher to protest, he was subjected to casteist abuse. “We visited the spot and recorded the statements of students and teachers after which we arrested Hemaram,” a senior police official informed media personnel in Jodhpur on October 4. Meanwhile, the state’s education ministry has suspended the accused teacher and ordered a departmental enquiry. Nutan Bala, deputy director (secondary education), confirmed Hemaram’s suspension, and said he has been ordered to report to the Jodhpur office of the ministry. Gujarat GFSU-CIT concordat The Gujarat Forensic Science University (GFSU) and Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a students, teachers and technology exchange programme. The MoU was signed by GFSU representatives and Australia’s education minister Joy Burch and trade commissioner Tom Calder. “The two institutions have agreed to establish a friendly inter-college relationship and promote personnel exchanges, mutual…