Education Notes

Gujarat IGNOU inclusion initiatives The Delhi-based Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is set to roll out educational programmes for sex workers and their children in Gujarat in July. “The idea is to bring them into the mainstream with the help of education,’’ IGNOU’s regional director Dr. Sujit K. Ghosh announced in Ahmedabad on February 11. “We are in the process of identifying a suitable learning centre for the programme,’’ he added. According to Ghosh, IGNOU promoted its first learning centre for sex workers in Kolkata in 2008, which has since educated over 300 women and children with some of them enroling for degree programmes. Moreover, IGNOU which has been offering bachelors and degree programmes to jail inmates in Gujarat is set to offer them Ph D programmes as well.  Odisha Exam strike averted Over 500,000 students across Odisha (formerly Orissa) who wrote the Matriculation examinations free of disruption in late February, had a close shave when the standoff between the state’s Board of Secondary Education (BSE) and the Orissa Secondary School Teachers’ Association (OSSTA) over education reforms, was resolved on February 18 following intervention of the state government. Simultaneously a relay hunger strike called by OSSTA before the BSE office the same morning, was called off in the evening. “We will cooperate with BSE authorities during the conduct of examinations from February 25-March 9. We will also participate in evaluation of answer sheets subsequently,” confirmed OSSTA president Indumadhav Mohanty speaking to media personnel in Cuttack a day after the resolution. Mohanty said a delegation of OSSTA office-bearers under his leadership met  Odisha’s school and mass education minister Rabinarayan Nanda in Bhubaneshwar on February 19 together with BSE officials. “The minister assured us that instead of college teachers, retired school teachers will be deputed as members of special squads to ensure smooth conduct of school examinations,” he said. Kerala EDU City taking shape Addressing newsmen in Thrissur on February 6, T. Balakrishnan, executive director of INKEL (Infrastructure Kerala Ltd), said “20 concrete proposals’’ for providing national and international education services in EDU City have been received. Initially promoted as INKEL-KSIDC Projects Ltd, an education hub on 168 acres in Malappuram district, 25 km from Calicut International Airport, but now known as EDU City, Balakrishnan said the response from local investors in Thrissur, Palakkad, Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts is encouraging. According to him, the EDU City project will be completed in five years with an aggregate investment of Rs.2,000 crore. Related projects cleared include an international school, institutes of technical education, engineering and technology, schools of science, commerce, law and media, and an international B-school. Arunachal Pradesh Higher ed development grant plea The government of Arunachal Pradesh has applied to the Centre for a one-time grant of Rs.281.17 crore for infrastructure development in all higher education institutions in the state. In a memorandum to Union human resource development minister M.M. Pallam Raju, chief minister Nabam Tuki cited a resource crunch for the state government’s inability to provide basic infrastructure to…