Education Briefs

Inaugurated by well-known educationist Shomie Das on November 16 in Kolkata, the 4th India International Premier Schools Exhibition (IIPSE) showcased the country’s major international schools in 42 stalls in the city. Over the next three months, IIPSE will travel to five other destinations: Patna (December 8-9); Lucknow (February 2-3); Ludhiana (February 9-10); Ahmedabad (February 16-17) and Surat (February 23-24).

"IIPSE is India’s largest schools exhibition and admissions fair. This year the 4th IIPSE will also showcase Indian schools in high-potential foreign markets. Our international debut will begin at the Everest Hotel in Kathmandu (December 1-2), and the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok (January 26-28). This initiative is our response to the demand for high quality Indian school education in foreign lands," says Sanjeev Bolia, chief executive of the Kolkata-based firm Afairs which conceptualised and promoted IIPSE in 2003.

Following the inauguration of the 4th IIPSE, on November 17 Afairs hosted a high level education conference themed ‘Practice Global Learning Integration Innovation & Technology’ at the Taj Bengal in Kolkata. The seminar addressed by internationally renowned education experts, attracted over 100 school principals, educationists and teachers from West Bengal and neighbouring states.

Kingston University, London, which was established as the Kingston Technical Institute over a century ago, inked an twinning agreement with the Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal (SVKM), Mumbai on November 23. Under this accord, SVKM students can pursue the first two years of several degree programmes at SVKM, Mumbai, followed by the third year at Kingston University (KU). This agreement spans business management, international business and computer science degree programmes.

Kingston U has an aggregate enrollment of 19,000 students with nearly 2,700 of them from abroad. Its seven faculties are divided into 26 schools. One of the largest universities in Britain, KU has four major campuses in and around Kingston-upon-Thames in London and a faculty of 2,100. It also boasts 1,900 networked computers and 450,000 volumes, 2,655 printed and 15,000 electronic journals in its libraries.

The national finals of the 5th Texas Instruments Jack Kilby Science and Technology Quiz 2007, which attracted over 1,500 teams from over 700 schools, concluded on November 11 in Bangalore. The team of Jayadev Bhaskaran and Aaslesh Y from Vidya Mandir School (Chennai) were adjudged winners with teams from the Sri Kumaran CBSE School (Bangalore) and Blue Bells International School (New Delhi) being the runners-up. The winning team received prizes valued at Rs.1 lakh which included the Mac book, robotic kits, arcos players, scientific calculators etc.

Initiated in 2003 with the objective of stimulating the spirit of scientific enquiry among secondary (classes VIII-X) school students countrywide, the annual Texas Instruments Jack Kilby Quiz is the most popular science and technology quiz contest for students across India.

"We are delighted to provide this platform which we believe will stimulate the creation of a future generation of innovators," said Dr. Bobby Mitra, managing director of Texas Instruments India speaking on the occasion.

Named after Nobel laureate Jack St. Clair Kilby, the inventor of the monolithic integrated circuit and a former TI employee, the National Texas Instruments Jack Kilby Science and Technology Quiz is aligned with TI India’s commitment to create "leaders of the future".

Motorola Inc, the well-known US-based company which is a global leader in technology innovation and wireless and broadband communications (sales revenue: Rs.168,000 crore in 2006), hosted its first Motorola-Pan IIT Summit in Mumbai on November 5.The summit brought together leaders from Motorola and the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) based in Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Mumbai and Roorkee. The objective of the summit was to discuss ways and means to raise the bar of on-going research collaborations and define synergies to action high-impact programmes.

During the day-long summit, delegates from Motorola and the IITs debated and deliberated major industry trends in India, particularly the future of broadband connectivity and the emergence of a mobile-centric information society.

"Motorola has several on-going research programmes with the IITs. This summit highlights Motorola’s efforts in developing opportunities for deeper, higher impact industry-academia collaboration and the recognition of India’s potential as a knowledge partner," said Ms. Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer of Motorola Inc.

The Dehradun-based Selaqui World School (estb. 2002) hosted a three-day National Artfest in Dehradun on November 22-24. A galaxy of well-known artists including Kavita Deuskar, Ajoy Kumar Ghosh, Chippa Sudhakar, Jagadish Dey, Monica S. Talukdar, Prasun Kanti Bhattacharya, Sudip Roy, Deepak Mukherjee, Mohan Singh, Salil Sahni, Satiish Guptaa, Biman Das, Pradip Rakshit, Mrinmay Day, among others from across the country, created "magic on canvas" on the school premises, perhaps the first such event hosted by a secondary.

Speaking on the occasion, chief guest Sushil Tripathi, a former secretary in the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas, lauded the efforts of the school management in nurturing the guru-shishya parampara and exposing students to the finer nuances of art.

Encouraged by the enthusiastic response from artists and students to the first National Art fest, Rohit Pathak, headmaster, said that SelaQui World School intends to stage other such events in future to give a major push to nurturing creativity. "Now that we have achieved some success in engineering a huge response to our maiden foray — a workshop on fine arts — we look forward to offering platforms for the advancement of music, theatre and sculpture as well," he said.