78% parents ready to skip a year of schooling: Survey

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78% parents ready to skip a year of schooling: Survey

COVID-19 continues to upend schooling around the globe, with millions of parents and children resorting to online education. According to a new survey, 78 percent of parents are not willing to send their children to school till the pandemic is over, and it is safe for them to step out, even if their children have to miss a year of school for their safety.

According to “Kids Under COVID”, a research study and survey by online edutainment company SP Robotic Works, parents in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and mini-metros are even more concerned as between 82-86 percent are unwilling to take any risk with the children. Chennai and Kolkata are the only exceptions among the major cities where the ratio of parents that are willing to take chances with sending their children to school is higher than the national average.

The study, conducted over the months of July and August, surveyed 3,600 parents and an equal number of children in the age group of 7-17 years.

The new survey reveals that parents’ profession plays a significant role in their response. Salaried parents are the most protective, with only 17 percent willing to send their children to school as soon as the schools reopen. In contrast, 30 percent of self-employed and 56 percent of freelance workers are likely to send their children to school immediately after they open.

64 percent of parents and children have no appreciation for online schooling

With a sudden transition to online learning and prolonged screen time with no outdoor play and limited social interaction, the long term impact on children’s mental and physical health remains dubious.

While most schools have successfully transitioned to online, the model is found to be less effective with over two-third of children preferring to learn in the classroom. Interestingly, children, as well as the parents in smaller cities and non-metros, seem to prefer online learning compared to those in metros, except Bengaluru.

Coding over toys

The study found that at least 29 percent of the kids are learning coding/robotics on online platforms. Though the majority of children are missing outdoor activities, new interests and hobbies have taken over. The online school takes up a good part of the day.

Loss in concentration and disturbed sleeping

Children are also the recipients of stricter rules of isolation as education can wait. They are feeling the frustration of being confined to the four walls. Nearly 50 percent are experiencing disturbed sleeping patterns. Amongst the 40 percent who are scared of the situation, 61 percent have experienced a drop in concentration levels. A deep dive into the sleep routines, screen time, physical activity, concentration, food habits, and more, say findings.

Girls dream entrepreneurship

Amongst some other interesting insights, the survey brings to light a never-before-seen affinity towards entrepreneurship among girls. Amongst the choices for dream jobs, 15 percent of girls aspire to become entrepreneurs when they grow up, a higher percentage than boys. Entrepreneurship is second only to the fancy of becoming a doctor.

6 ministers of non-BJP ruled states move SC seeking review of its NEET-JEE order

TB Team
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6 ministers of non-BJP ruled states move SC seeking review of its NEET-JEE order

Six ministers of opposition ruled states — West Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand — have jointly filed a review petition in the Supreme Court challenging its August 17 order declining to entertain pleas seeking postponement of NEET-JEE exams slated in September in the backdrop of Covid-19 pandemic.

The petition has been filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes and it contends the top court’s order to “secure the safety, security, and right to life of the students — candidates appearing for the NEET/JEE exams.”

The petition argues that the top court has ignored the teething logistical difficulties in conducting the examinations at the proposed dates.

“Failed to balance the competing but equally important aspects of conducting the examination and securing the safety of the student. Fails to ensure that mandatory safeguards are put in place during the conducting of the examinations,” said the petition challenging the August 17 order.

“The advice of ‘Life Must Go On’ may have sounded very philosophical underpinnings but cannot be a substitute for valid legal reasoning and logical analysis of the various aspects involved in the conduct of the NEET (UG) and JEE exams,” argued the petitioners.

The petitioners said the apex court failed to appreciate that the Centre had adequate time to establish at least one center for every district for NEET (UG) and JEE (Mains) rather than having several centers in one district.

“Having at least one center per district would have minimized the inter-district long travel of the students and thereby reduced the chances of Covid-19 spread,” argued the petitioners.

The petitioners contended that if the August 17 order is not reviewed then grave and irreparable harm and injury would befall on the student community of the country and it will impact the health, welfare, and safety of the students/candidates appearing for the NEET/JEE examinations.

“With regards to the second reason of losing a year, it is most respectfully submitted that this would be tantamount to putting the cart before the horse, as the submissions hereinabove have revealed.

“The Review Petitioners too do not desire for the students to lose an academic year, but wish to balance their health, safety and security and that of their family with not losing the current academic year,” said the petition.

The Petitioner number one is Moloy Ghatak — Minister-in-Charge, Department of Labour & E.S.I. (MB) Scheme and Departments of Law & Judicial, Government of West Bengal.

Petitioner number two is Dr. Rameshwar Oraon — Cabinet Minister of Finance, Government of Jharkhand.

Petitioner number three is Dr. Raghu Sharma — Cabinet Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Rajasthan.

Petitioner number four is Amarjeet Bhagat — Minister of Food, Civil supplies, Culture, Planning, Economics & Statistics, Government of Chhattisgarh.

Petitioner number five is Balbir Singh Sidhu — Cabinet Minister Health and Family Welfare & Labour, Government of Punjab.

Petitioner number six is Uday Ravindra Samant — Minister of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra.

Delhi HC nod for DU’s online Open Book Exams

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Delhi HC nod for DU’s online Open Book Exams

The Delhi High Court on Friday gave its nod for the conduct of online Open Book Examinations (OBE) for final-year students of Delhi University.

Justice Prathiba M Singh, while giving the go-ahead, passed certain directions to be followed by the DU and the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The court directed that the questions should be posted on the online portal as well as emailed to all the candidates.

“Students are to be given two hours for attempting the question papers. One extra hour shall be granted for uploading of the answer sheets on the portal,” the court said.

It directed that an auto-generated email shall be sent to the students to acknowledge that their answer sheets have been accepted.

The bench also directed the CSC Academy — whose Common Service Centres will be used by the students lacking in requisite infrastructure to sit in the exams — to notify all its centers to be used for the conduct of OBE.

“DU Grievances Officer shall redress the emailed complaints of students regarding the process within 48 hours. If not, the matter shall automatically be referred to the Grievances Redressal Committee,” the High Court added.

The court had on Wednesday reserved orders on a batch of pleas that challenged the university decided to conduct online Open Book Examinations for final-year students.

Initially, the varsity announced that the exams would commence from July 1, but later postponed the same to July 10 and again till August 15 without giving a specific date for examinations.

Home-schooling tips during COVID-19

TB Team
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Home-schooling tips during COVID-19

Parenting could be hard during a pandemic, especially when your child’s physical classes are on hold. If you are helping your child learn from home or home-schooling them, a few tips can make it a positive experience.

Priyam Saharia, a parenting blogger/expert at Momspresso suggests these home-schooling tips if you are feeling overwhelmed that your home is now a school.

Use time-blocks to structure children’s time

Knowing what to expect will relieve anxiety and help to set boundaries. Break the day into blocks like academic, exercise, play, chores, TV. Within each time block, give children the flexibility to choose things like what games they want to play during playtime or where they want to sit during coloring time.

Identify your child’s passion

Step out of traditional learning and help your child dive deep into a subject they love e.g. if your child likes trains, encourage her to spend some time every day making a scrapbook about trains. Helping children learn the process of identifying their passions will help them in choosing their career paths later in life.

Teach life-skills

You may not get another opportunity like this one to involve children in chores and teach them life-skills like doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning up after themselves. Make it fun by giving them some incentive at the end of the week for jobs well-
performed.

Schedule fun activities together

Whether its watching animation movie, cooking or playing board games together, schedule activities just to have fun with your children. These memories of laughter and fun together will bond you for a lifetime.

Lower expectations

Remember children are not only homeschooling but are also facing total isolation. Don’t be hard on them on days when things don’t go as planned. Allow them the space to do things they love and try to build routine again the next day.

Embrace this precious time that you get to spend with a them-the emotional connection you build with them now will give them a firmer footing in life than any academic result ever will.

Online open book examination postponed: DU to Delhi HC

TB Team
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Online open book examination postponed: DU to Delhi HC

The Delhi University on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that it has postponed the online Open Book Examination (OBE) which was slated to commence from July 10.

Advocate Sachin Dutta informed the court that after the revised guidelines of the UGC and MHRD have come in, the varsity has planned to postpone the said online examinations.

“We were willing to hold it, but the UGC guidelines came at the last moment,” Dutta submitted before a single judge bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh.

Responding to the submissions, the bench said, “There was no binding on you to postpone these exams in these new guidelines.”

The petitioner submitted that many students are mailing them and telling them that they have admission procedures of foreign universities and the same would get cancelled if they don’t submit their results by the end of July.

The court then said, “Do you (DU) see how you are playing with the future of the children?”

The matter has now been adjourned for the second half of the day as some new petitions have come in and the said documents could not reach the court.

Unacademy acquires PrepLadder to boost presence in medical entrance

TB Team
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Unacademy acquires PrepLadder to boost presence in medical entrance

Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy has acquired Chandigarh-based PrepLadder, a leading post-graduate medical entrance exam preparation platform, for $50 million (approx Rs 375 crore).

According to Unacademy, the acquisition will strengthen its presence in medical entrance examination categories. Unacademy recently acquired Kreatryx and taken over the custodianship of CodeChef.

Founded by Deepanshu Goyal, Vitul Goyal and Sahil Goyal in 2016, PrepLadder prepares students for medical examinations and provides access to education services and preparation material for exams such as NEET PG, AIIMS PG, NEET SS, and FMGE.

Currently, PrepLadder has expert educators teaching over 85,000 active subscribers.

“The exponential growth in Unacademy’s subscriber base is a testament to the increasing demand for quality online education and our consistent efforts. I look forward to working with the PrepLadder team as they become a part of the Unacademy Group,” Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder, and CEO, Unacademy, said in a statement.

In the last three months, Unacademy has recorded a 100 per cent increase in its paid subscriber base.

The monthly watch time minutes has also reached an all-time high of over 1 billion. Additionally, over 525,000 learners attempted various mock tests on the platform for competitive examinations such as UPSC, NEET-PG, and CAT, among others, during this period.

“Unacademy and PrepLadder are working towards the common goal of making quality education accessible to all. We believe that the synergies between both products will truly create a mark in the industry,” said Deepanshu Goyal, Co-Founder, PrepLadder.

Founded in 2015, Unacademy currently has over 10,000 educators, more than 30 million learners and caters to over 35 exam categories.

The acquisition comes on the heels of news reports that Think and Learn, the parent company of Bengaluru-based edtech unicorn BYJU’S, is in talks to acquire Mumbai-based startup WhiteHat Jr for Rs 300 million.

Hiring activity improves 33% in June: Naukri.com

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Hiring activity improves 33% in June: Naukri.com

In a silver lining amid the growing Covid-19 cases, the hiring activity in India saw 33 per cent improvement in June compared to May, a new Naukri.com report said on Wednesday, adding that the hiring activity was still down by a massive 44 per cent (year-on-year) when compared to the same period last year.

The key sectors like FMCG (58 per cent), accounting (53 per cent), BPO/ITES (48 per cent), IT-hardware (37 per cent) and IT-software (19 per cent) drove the surge in June, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index.

In addition, functional roles in education/teaching (49 per cent), pharma/biotech (36 per cent) and sales/business development (33 per cent) saw an uptick.

Hiring across experience levels also grew by an average of 28 per cent in June as compared to May led by the entry-level executives’ band.

“It is encouraging to see that the announcement of Unlock 1.0 in India has resulted in the month on month progressive growth in hiring. We are hopeful that the hiring activity will bounce back in the coming months,” said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com.

When it comes to decline, Mumbai saw a decline by 56 per cent, followed by Delhi (-54 per cent) and Chennai (-52 per cent).

There was an across the board decline in hiring at varied experience levels with the entry-level experience bands (0 to 3 years experience) witnessing the sharpest decline of 47% followed by a 44 per cent decline in hiring for senior-level executives. (4-7 years of experience).

Hiring in hospitality, retail and auto sectors has been the most impacted due to the lockdown.

The June decline in hiring is led by industries like hotel/restaurant/travel/airlines (-79 per cent), retail (-68 per cent), auto/ancillary (-76 per cent), and BFSI (-55 per cent).

Key industries like pharma/biotech/clinical research (-28 per cent), BPO/ITES (-42 per cent) and IT-software (-42 per cent) were less affected (YoY).

UPSC allows Civil Services aspirants to change exam centres

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UPSC allows Civil Services aspirants to change exam centres

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has decided to allow candidates for the Civil Services (preliminary) examination, 2020 scheduled to be held on October 4 to change their exam centers in view of coronavirus pandemic.

The opportunity to change the centers will also be applicable to Indian Forest Service (preliminary) examination, 2020 which will also be held along with the Civil Services examination all over India on the same date as per the revised schedule.

Keeping in view a large number of candidates and requests received for change of exam centers, the Commission said it was decided to give them an opportunity to submit a revised choice of centers.

“The option to change the centers for Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2020 and Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination, 2020 is also being made available to the candidates,” the Commission said.

The requests for change in exam centers will be considered against an additional or enhanced capacity intimated by the respective centers for accommodating additional candidates.

The time window for submitting revised choices of centers will be operational in two phases — July 7-13 (till 6 pm) and July 20-24 (till 6 pm) on the Commission’s website https://upsconline.nic.in.

The candidates are advised to visit the website and submit their choices of centers for the above examinations if required.

The UPSC also clarified that requests for change of centers will be considered based on the principle of “first-apply-first allot” basis and once the capacity of a particular center is met with, the same will be frozen.

The candidates who cannot get centers of their choice due to the ceiling will be required to choose centers from the remaining ones, it said.

All the conditions and eligibility mentioned in the examination notice issued on February 12 of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2020 and the Indian Forest Service Examination, 2020 will remain unchanged.

The Commission will also make a withdrawal window available to the candidates on the website from August 1-8. “Candidates must note that once the application has been withdrawn by the candidate, it cannot be revived in future under any circumstances.”

SC to ICAI: Don’t be rigid, show some concern for students

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SC to ICAI: Don’t be rigid, show some concern for students

The Supreme Court on Monday told the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to be flexible and consider allowing students to opt-out of the exams amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari, and Sanjiv Khanna took up the matter through videoconference and told ICAI during the hearing: “Don’t be rigid, be flexible. Show some concern for the students.” The ICAI counsel sought time to issue fresh guidelines in connection with the current cycle of the CA exams slated this year.

The bench noted that the option to change examination centers should be made available to students/candidates to help avoid traveling and that things cannot be rigid as the coronavirus situation in India is still evolving.

The ICAI counsel contended that it has 567 test centers that are properly sanitized and that it cannot change the exam centers now.

In response, the bench said that the option to change the test center should be available in case a particular area becomes a containment zone. “This option should be kept open till the last week as the situation is not static. It is dynamic,” noted the bench.

The ICAI counsel argued that a standard operating procedure is in place, and the authorities will shift the exam center in case there is a containment zone.

The bench asked ICAI that if a candidate in a containment zone is forced to appear in an exam only in November, could it be counted as an appearance in July.

The ICAI council said that the concerns of the petitioner are “unfounded” in connection with the opt-out option and the ICAI was bound by the Chartered Accountants Act.

The ICAI counsel also submitted that if a candidate sends an email saying he/she is unable to sit in the exam due to Covid-19, it will not be questioned. “It is a group of 4-4. They can choose to appear at a later date if they are Covid-19 affected,” the ICAI counsel maintained.

ICAI general secretary Rakesh Sehgal submitted before the top court that they will permit an “opt-out” to all candidates wherever the situation has deteriorated, and the only difficulty is in the change of exam centers.

The bench said that whatever notification ICAI issues must clarify about the opt-out option. “You are a professional body. Must take care of your candidates. There could be a case where one candidate is appearing in two sets of papers,” said the bench.

The bench then asked ICAI to issue fresh guidelines by incorporating the suggestions made and posted the matter for further hearing on July 2.

“The ICAI counsel may take instructions and file the modified draft notification setting out the changes,” said the top court.

The India Wide Parents Association had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court to seek quashing of an ICAI notification in order to allow CA aspirants to opt-out of the exams to be held this year.

Hyderabad: OU degree exams from Nov 19

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Hyderabad: OU degree exams from Nov 19

HIGHLIGHTS

The Osmania University is conducting exams for first, third and fifth semester of degree (regular) courses — BCom, BSc, BBM. Exam controller professor Sriram Venkatesh said that the date for exam fee payment has been ended.

The Osmania University is conducting exams for first, third and fifth semester of degree (regular) courses — BCom, BSc, BBM. Exam controller professor Sriram Venkatesh said that the date for exam fee payment has been ended. The OU backlog exams which were supposed to held on October 17, 18, 19 have been postponed due to the bandhs and TSRTC strike. The exams will be conducted on December 7 and 8. For further details, the candidates are asked to visit the official site of the Osmania University — osmania.ac.in.

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