EDUCATION

SCHOOL BUZZ
Papa, don’t flunk the admission test this time!
Smriti Kak

Gone are the days when parents would spend sleepless nights thinking about their child’s admission. It is the children who are losing sleep these days thinking whether their parents would prove to be up to it. It’s a role reversal.

Thanks to the modern-day procedures, children are facing an ordeal parents used to face in earlier days. That is clearing the admission tests. Now, since it is the parents who have to stand the test to get an admission for their small kids, they are getting butterflies in their stomach in the previous nights of the tests.

With reports of parents flunking the admission tests gripping attention in the Capital, the kids seem to have the last laugh. According to reports, some children were denied admissions in some of the leading schools because their parents, who incidentally happen to be working in the IIT and AIIMS, premier institutes which are renowned for taking only the best, could not pass the school tests.

For those of you who took pride in your exhibited feat at various levels of the academic roller coaster, it’s time for a bit of self-assessment. Can you clear that admission test?

Gifts for ‘Prayas’

Uti executive vice president with kids at Prayas.

For the 150 children of Prayas, an institute of juvenile justice, Wednesday brought a whole lot of happiness. UTi Worldwide, a global logistics and supply chain management company based in California, presented the children here books and stationery. The visitors who went around the juvenile centre appreciated the various vocational courses like tailoring and screen printing being run by the centre.

The Asia-Pacific president of UTi Worldwide, Mr Alan Draper, the vice-president, Mr Brian Dangerfield, the Managing Director of UTi, Mr Rajiv Bhatnagar were present on the occasion. Mr Alan Draper said he was happy to associate UTi Worldwide with such a socially relevant voluntary organisation like PRAYAS. The visitors also expressed their readiness to support some of the projects being run by PRAYAS.

SOS kids

The SOS Children’s Villages of India (SOS CVI) has announced the launch of greeting cards in association with the ITC Greeting Cards Business.

The cards will be available in over 1,500 retail outlets in almost 100 cities of the country. Of the 195 designs on offer, 157 have been earmarked for the New Year, 19 for Divali, 19 for Christmas and New Year. The cards are priced at a modest range from Rs 4 to Rs 11.

The designs include vivid imagery from the National Museum in Delhi depicting the 18th century Mughal era. Apart from this, works of famous artists like Phalguni Das Gupta and Gopal Gosh have also been chosen for incorporating on the greeting cards.

During the past 37 years, almost 32 SOS children’s villages have been set up in India. With their three-pronged mission statement – to give homeless children a mother, brother, sister and a family, to give the child complete education, and a loving home to live in — the SOS CVI has certainly come a long way.

The cards are being hailed as a statement that would instantly link two people living in two parts of the globe. With this tie-up, they want to create an additional dimension for both the sender and the receiver to participate in a cause that has been successful so far.

Debating prize

DPS R.K. Puram has reasons to be happy. Well, maybe we should replace happy with euphoric. The school has been on a major winning spree. You name the prize in debating and they have won it.

They won the first prize at the All-India English Debate organised at Birla Vidya Niketan, Pilani. The school was represented by Ridhima and Nikhar. In another all-India debate held at Maharani Gayatri Devi School, Lucknow, they again won the first prize. Hemal Sethi and S. Suraj represented the school at the competition for IPSC schools and came back with the highest tally.

Mohaimin Altaf is all set to represent Delhi at the national finals of the L. N. Birla English Debate to be held in Kolkata on the December 1, 2001. He was earlier adjudged the best speaker at the Delhi finals of the competition.

There is more good news for the school. American Embassy School has selected DPS R. K. Puram as its partner in introducing American Senate style debating. Four students, Nikhar Gaikwad, Ridhima Sud, Nandini Gandhi and Mohaimin Altaf, will represent DPS R. K. Puram and participate in an Exhibition Debate this month during the Inter-School Forensics Tournament at American Embassy School.

The students are currently having interactive sessions in American Embassy School. Only these two schools will participate in the Debating Exhibition/Competition. Other schools will be invited to watch the event.

Saving earth

Ecology and its conservation have gripped everyone’s attention. From poster making competitions to round table conferences, citizens world over are racking their grey cells to come up with solutions.

On the World Ecology Day, one such roundtable on the Earth Charter was held in the Capital. Among those present at the function organised by Amity School of Governance were the Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, and the Member of Parliament, Dr Karan Singh.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms Dikshit said: “The world is going through a traumatic experience when its very existence is under threat… If we want civilisation, as we know it, to flourish, we have to talk of existing and letting others exist.”

Dr Karan Singh, who heads the People’s Commission on Environment and Development India, pointed out: “Time and again we have seen that building a civilisation purely on material is not sustainable. The Earth Charter which is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century is a significant document for democracy, non-violence and peace for the simple reason that without that there can be no ecology.”

The Earth Charter is a document that seeks to inspire in all a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well being of the human family and the larger living world.

Heritage meet

The month of October saw the spirits of students from Apeejay School lifted. The reason was the third Inter-Apeejay Cultural Meet for primary students held in Apeejay Pitampura on October 20 and October 21. The meet was used to serve as a platform for the students from various metropolitan cities to exchange ideas.

"Dharohar", the Indian heritage, was the theme of the meet and it was brought out in more than one ways with the students displaying the myriad richness of our cultural heritage through folk dances and songs.

PG teacher vacancies to be filled soon: Selection Board
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 4
The Subordinate Services Selection Board of the Delhi Government has informed the Delhi High Court that the recruitment process of postgraduate teachers (PGT) in the city administration and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi-run schools is in the final stages and is likely to be completed within a month.

In an affidavit before a Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Devinder Gupta and Mr Justice S. K. Kaul, the Delhi Deputy Secretary, SSSB, Mr Amar Singh, said the recruitment of trained graduate teachers (TGT) was also likely to be completed in three months.

The affidavit stated the board would require 12 months to complete the selection process as and when the state government or the MCD notified fresh vacancies. It, however, clarified the SSSB could start a new process only after December this year.

The high court had directed the Delhi Government, the MCD and the SSSB to prepare a time-bound schedule for filling vacant teaching posts in schools.

The directive was given following a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO, Social Jurists, through its counsel Ashok Aggarwal .The PIL stated that there were about 3,000 vacancies for teachers in MCD-run primary schools and nearly 5,000 vacancies in Delhi Government schools.

The petition claimed that vacant teaching posts in Delhi Government and corporation-run schools had not been filled since three years, thus adversely affecting studies of more than 2.5 million students.

Counsel Ashok Aggarwal also alleged that there were about 200,000 disabled children in the Capital. Most of them were not able to attend school because of lack of educational facilities and infrastructure for handicapped children, including the requirement of specially trained teachers.

In its reply, the MCD Deputy Education Officer, Mr B. C. Narula, in an affidavit, said special ramps had been constructed in 56 schools in the first phase of a special drive to make these institutions more suitable for physically challenged students.

It submitted the corporation had provided special toilets in 73 of the 268 model schools and work was in progress in the remaining.

The Bench, however, directed the state government and its agencies to also consider providing specially trained staff in the schools for the benefit of mentally challenged children.

The court issued notices to the Delhi Government, the MCD and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), among other agencies, on a petition alleging irregularities in the selection procedure.

The judges asked the CVC what action it had taken on the representation of the petitioners and other similar complaints.

The court asked the state government, the MCD, the SSSB and the State Council for Education Research and Training to take action on the basis of the complaint. The judges also said if no inquiry had been conducted it should be done and a report submitted by December 7,the next date of hearing.

The petition alleged certain candidates had been selected for the posts of assistant teacher (primary level) in government-run and MCD schools in gross violation of the eligibility criteria.

Some were chosen because they were known to somebody or had paid money, some even after they had got poor marks or failed the preliminary tests. It also alleged that there were instances of mass copying at some centres and that the question papers had been leaked.

‘Make History come alive’

Ask a middle-school student what History means to them and you are bombarded with a variety of reactions ranging from “it’s a big bore”, “why do we have to study it”, “who wants to dig up the forgotten past”, to “it’s fine as long as we don’t have to study it for exams”. Such reactions would fill the pages of a book. Amusing or interesting, as they may seem, they are increasingly a source of worry for parents, teachers, students and educationists alike.

(This article is contributed by Anjali Khullar, Rita Bhatia and Chitra Johri, History teachers at Cambridge School, Srinivaspuri)