Uttar Pradesh

Deoband seminary controversy

Darul-uloom Deoband’s students union and citizens’ groups have accused the governing council of the Islamic seminary of delaying the decision on dismissal of vice chancellor Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, who has been mired in controversy following his remarks on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

“Earlier he (Vastanvi) had decided to step down and said the Darul-Uloom authorities will convene a shoora (meeting), which will decide his fate but the shoora has now been postponed to February 23, to delay the issue,” says Maulvi Saad Jamil Bijnori, president of Jamait-ul-Talba (the student union of Darul-Uloom) in a statement issued in Muzzaffarnagar on January 30. “Stud-ents will oppose the arrival of Vastanvi at the seminary by raising slogans against him,” he adds.

However Maviya Ali, a former Samajwadi party leader says he will organise his supporters to welcome Vastanvi.

Vastanvi, a resident of Surat in Gujarat, was elected VC on January 10, but has been facing protests from students of the seminary for stating that Muslims should forget the 2002 comm-unal pogrom in Gujarat and move on.

Meghalaya

Education hub plan

Governor R.S. Mooshahary informed a media conference that a National Institute of Technology (NIT) and an Indian Institute of Information Techn-ology (IIIT) are under consideration with the state government. “To make Shillong an education hub, the state government is considering establishment of a degree engineering college under the  public-private partnership (PPP) mode and an NIT to enable qualified diploma students to enrol in engineering degree courses,” Mooshahary said after unfurling the national flag at a Republic Day function.

“A proposal to promote an IIIT under the PPP mode is also under consid-eration. The state government has been able to upgrade 445 educational guarantee scheme centres into full-fledged lower primary schools and 302 lower primaries will be upgraded into upper primary schools,” he added.

Bihar

Primary education thrust

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010, compiled by the Mumbai-based NGO Pratham, says 96.5 percent of children in the age group of six-14 are enroled in Bihar’s schools, the highest in the past six years.

The report which was released by chief minister Nitish Kumar at a function in Patna, says the percentage of young children attending pre-school (anganwadi/balwadi-plus LKG/UKG) has increased substantially to 82.7 percent in 2010 from 71.8 percent in 2009. Similarly, the percentage of 11-14-year- olds not attending school in Bihar has declined over the years and the gender gap is closing with just 4.4 percent of boys and 4.6 percent of girls currently out of school.

Nevertheless the chief minister admitted that the quality of primary education in the state is “not so good” while expressing firm resolve to improve the situation. “Now for making people literate and educated, our thrust will be on quality education. We will be appointing trained teachers and ensuring good classrooms and drinking water facilities apart from building toilets in every school,” he said.

Kerala

Malayalam learning boost

A committee set up by the Kerala state government has proposed that teaching Malayalam at all levels of school education should be made compulsory.

Chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan informed the media that a cabinet meeting held on January 25 approved in principle the recommendations of a panel headed by educationist Dr. R.V.G. Menon. The Menon Committee was constituted amid concerns of the Malayalam language losing importance in schools, with proliferation of English-medium schools in the state.

The committee’s report has come at a time when the state has been pressuring the Centre to accord classical status to Malayalam. Recently, a panel headed by Jnanpith laureate O.N.V. Kurup had said in a report that Malayalam meets all the parameters for earning classical status like antiquity and a literary tradition which has evolved through the centuries.

Punjab

Rural schools urgency

Deemed universities and private engineering colleges in Punjab have expressed keen interest to promote and manage Adarsh (rural) schools to educate poor students. Representatives of several private varsities and engine-ering colleges met with the state’s deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on January 30, and offered to promote a minimum of ten Adarsh  schools to be commissioned by June this year. To facilitate this initiative, they sought Badal’s help in allotment of construction sites.

Giving a progress report on ongoing work of Adarsh schools, Krishan Kumar, director general of school education in the Punjab government informed the meeting that of the 61 sites allotted for Adarsh schools, 31 will become operational by June 2011 and the remaining 30 by October.

Orissa

Vedanta science college

The UK-based minerals and mining corporation Vedanta Group announced the promotion of a state-of-the-art science college near its alumina refinery in Lanjigarh (Orissa), even as its proposed Rs.15,000 crore university project in Puri has been stalled. “The establishment of a science college was a long pending demand of the people of western Orissa as no such institution exists near Lanjigarh,” Mukesh Kumar, president and chief operating officer of Vedanta Aluminium informed the media on January 30. Vedanta Science College, being promoted in collaboration with the DAV education group, will start classes from the academic year July/August 2011.

“Our objective is to spread science education in interior parts of Orissa and improve the quality of life of the poorest of the poor besides developing technical manpower for the state’s industriali-sation,” said Kumar adding that the Vedanta Group has already been running a K-12 school in Lanjigarh since 2006 in partnership with DAV.