Andhra defers class 10 board exams due to Covid surge

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Andhra defers class 10 board exams due to Covid surge

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to postpone the tenth standard state board exams, on account of the Covid second wave.

The decision follows a review meeting on Thursday that chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had with education department officials.

With partial curfew imposed in the state since May 5 on account of the pandemic, and several schools functioning as Covid isolation centers, the state’s education department had suggested the examinations, scheduled to begin from June 7, be deferred, officials said.

Despite pressure from several sections of society, and opposition parties, particularly Telugu Desam Party, to cancel the examinations and promote all students, the state government has remained firm on holding the board examinations.

During the High Court hearing, Thursday, on a petition seeking deferment of the state board exams till such a time when teachers are vaccinated, the state government submitted that it is postponing the exams and will decide upon the issue, after reviewing the situation in the month of July.

Centre to decide on conducting Class 12 exams on Sunday

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Centre to decide on conducting Class 12 exams on Sunday

To reduce uncertainty among students, the Central government will take a decision on Sunday over proposals for the conduct of exams for Class 12th and entrance examinations for professional courses.

The decision will be taken in a high-level virtual meeting with Education Ministers, Education Secretaries and Chairpersons of State Examination Boards and all stakeholders of the States and Union Territories (UT), Ministry of Education said on Saturday.

The meeting will be chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in presence of Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.

In view of the prevailing situation, almost all the state education boards, CBSE and ICSE have postponed their Class 12 examinations, 2021. Similarly, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other National exam conducting institutions have also postponed the entrance exams for admissions to professional courses.

As the conduct of Class 12 examinations impacts upon state board exams and other entrance exams across the country, and to reduce uncertainty among students it is desirable that a considered decision based on inputs of different state governments and UT administrations is taken about Class 12 CBSE examinations in the interest of all the students across the country.

In a letter written by the Union Education Minister to states and UTs, he has stated that the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education and CBSE are exploring options regarding the conduct of examinations, keeping in mind the safety and security of the students and the teachers.

The Department of Higher Education is also deliberating upon the finalization of the dates of examinations for institutions of higher learning.

The letter has noted that Covid-19 pandemic has affected various areas including the education sector, particularly the board exams and entrance exams.

67% Indians prefer US for higher education: Report

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67% Indians prefer US for higher education: Report

About 67 percent of Indians prefer the US for higher education, reveals a new report by fin-tech platform Prodigy Finance.

The report on the State of Higher Education in Study Abroad Market showed that besides the US, Indian students prefer the UK and France at 8 percent each for pursuing their master’s degree abroad.

Most students who went abroad for higher education were from Maharashtra (20 percent), Karnataka (15 percent), Delhi (12 percent), and Telangana (8 percent).

Almost 70 percent who traveled abroad for higher education last year were male and 30 percent were female, the report showed.

The study further found that for engineering courses, Northeastern University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Stevens Institute of Technology were the most preferred universities, whereas for MBA programs Georgetown University, University of Toronto, and the University of Rochester have been most popular.

There has been severe uncertainty among the students traveling abroad for higher education as most of the families went through a financial crisis amid a nationwide lockdown last year.

Regardless, there was a growth of 41 percent in applications in 2020 when compared to 2019.

This is quite significant if compared with the 55 percent loan disbursements in 2019 after the 108 percent growth witnessed during 2018.

In 2020, Prodigy Finance disbursed approximately Rs 30 lakh to each student in terms of loans for higher education.

“The year 2020 posed several challenges for students, parents, and educational institutions around the globe. It even forced the financial markets to condense, which in turn limited the amount of capital we could supply promptly to students last year.

“As international borders start to reopen gradually in 2021 and campus learning looks promising in the next quarter looking at the vaccination drive, we can expect a 30-35 percent growth in 2021 as compared to 2020,” said Mayank Sharma, Country Head India, Prodigy Finance, in a statement on Tuesday.

Prodigy Finance has also recently partnered with six international colleges, offering a global portfolio of 800 colleges and 1000 post-graduate courses to Indian students.

The company has, so far, financially assisted 20,000 students across the globe, it now aims to disburse loans worth more than $1 billion to over 20,000 deserving Indian students in the next three years.

Offline exams in higher institutions postponed across the country

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Offline exams in higher institutions postponed across the country

Due to the second wave of Covid, the Union Ministry of Education requested to postpone all offline examinations scheduled in the month of May, 2021.

This decision will be applicable to all central higher educational institutions across the country. Apart from this, such higher educational institutions will also have to postpone offline examinations, which receive financial support from the central government.

In a letter addressed to all heads of centrally funded institutions, Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare has urged these institutes to postpone all offline examinations to be held in the month of May, 2021. Although online examinations may continue.

Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare has also said in his letter that this decision will be reviewed in the first week of June 2021.

Institutions have further been advised to ensure that if anyone in an institution is in need of assistance, it should be provided at the earliest so that it comes out of crisis soon.

All educational institutions must encourage eligible individuals to be vaccinated and ensure that Covid norms are followed properly.

At the same time, Delhi University has also postponed the online open book examination to be held in May. The examination was to be held from May 15. Senior officials of the university have taken this important decision to postpone the examinations with the caretaker vice-chancellor. According to the university administration, now these examinations will be held from June 1.

Telangana to recruit 755 healthcare workers in 5 days

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Telangana to recruit 755 healthcare workers in 5 days

The Telangana government on Sunday decided to recruit 755 healthcare workers on war footing in 114 hospitals amid surge in Covid-19 pandemic.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has taken the decision to appoint adequate staff in 114 hospitals to bring proper and quality medical care to the people.

He issued the orders in this regard.

The CM sanctioned 755 posts including 144 doctors, 527 nurses and 84 lab technicians. This will have a financial burden of Rs 9.02 crore on the state’s exchequer.

He instructed the District Collectors to organise a special recruitment drive due to the emergency situation, conduct interviews, and finish the appointment process in five days.

54% of Indian students comfortable with online learning: Survey

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54% of Indian students comfortable with online learning: Survey

Nearly 54 percent of students in India now feel comfortable with the online learning model, according to a survey by Brainly, an online learning platform.

The survey titled ‘Lockdown and Learn-From-Home model’ was conducted on 2,371 students across the country to understand how the past year has changed the education and learning patterns of students across India.

With the recent surge in Covid-19 cases, most of the students were apprehensive about going back to school at present. About 56 percent of students preferred continuing with online learning in the current scenario. More than half of the surveyed students preferred the blended learning model over others.

Moreover, students felt more empowered with online learning platforms. About two-thirds of the students said that they were now more ‘flexible’ and ‘self-reliant’ than before.

Nearly half of them also felt more ‘confident. A large chunk of students even claimed that such platforms helped them learn at their own pace, something which is otherwise not possible.

“Never in the history of academics were online learning channels used so extensively at a global scale. Now, more students, parents, and teachers have learned how to use online tools for education and we believe that the blended learning approach will be the way to go forward for the industry,” Rajesh Bysani, CPO at Brainly, said in a statement.

Brainly has a community of more than 350 million students, parents, and teachers who drive collaborative learning. The platform has a total of more than 55 million users from India, and also from the US, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Poland amongst others.

Sonu Sood tweets in support of postponement of board exams in Goa

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Sonu Sood tweets in support of postponement of board exams in Goa

Panaji, ,April 21 (Telugu Bullet)  Bollywood star Sonu Sood on Tuesday tweeted in support of students in Goa who are demanding postponement of Class X and XII exams in the wake of the steep spike in Covid-19 related cases.

“When all over the country the exams are postponed there is no way it should be held in Goa and other states, I request @EduMinOfIndia to kindly requests the remaining states not to put lives of all these students at risk. We have a bigger battle to fight now. #postponeexams2021,” Sood tweeted on Tuesday, after a student, Shreyash Desai, tweeted to him urging the actor to take up the issue with Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.

“Sonu sir please talk to GOA cm and postpone the 12th GOA board exams, it starts on 24th April 2021. Corona is out of control here in GOA. It got its highest single day cases on 17th April. Please please please very urgent,” Desai wrote in his tweet to Sood.

The National Students Union of India in Goa, which has been demanding the postponement of the exams, has thanked Sood for his gesture.

“Thank you to my dear friend @SonuSood for extending his support to our movement demanding to postpone exams. #postponeexams2021,” state NSUI president Ahraz Mulla said in a tweet.

In all, 43,547 students in Goa are qualified to appear for Class X and XII exams which will begin from May 13 and April 25, respectively.

Maha cancels SSC exams as ministers call for total lockdown

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Maha cancels SSC exams as ministers call for total lockdown

Amid a clamor by all the Maharashtra ministers on Tuesday to impose a total lockdown, School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad announced that the upcoming state SSC Board exams for 2021 have been canceled.

“Earlier we had declared plans to conduct the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education Class 10 exams in June. However, given the current Covid-19 situation, the state cabinet has decided to cancel the state board SSC exams this year,” Gaikwad said in a statement.

She added that her ministry will soon decide the process to be followed for promoting all the Class 10 students to Class 11 (Junior College) based on internal assessment and other criteria.

The development comes days after other boards also decided to scrap the SSC/Class 10 exams in view of the worsening pandemic scenario in the country.

Gaikwad’s announcement came as all state cabinet ministers of the ruling Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress combine unanimously demanded that a complete lockdown should be imposed in the state in view of the galloping Covid-19 cases and deaths, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said here.

“We have all requested CM Uddhav Thackeray to impose a total lockdown from Wednesday 8 p.m. Now the final decision will be taken by the CM after further consultations,” Tope told media persons after a cabinet meeting.

The ministers’ demand came in the wake of the continuously worsening Covid-19 situation in the state and hours after the government announced a daily 20-hour curfew, with essential buying restricted to only 4 hours daily from Tuesday.

Besides the huge daily spike in cases and fatalities, the state is also grappling with the shortage of essential medical supplies, hospital beds, Remdesivir injections, oxygen, ventilators, and other requirements to treat the patients, especially the critical ones.

Maha HSC/SSC Board exams postponed to May-June

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Maha HSC/SSC Board exams postponed to May-June

In a significant move amid zooming Covid cases, the state government on Monday announced that it has decided to postpone the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) final examinations for the current academic year.

Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad said that while the HSC exams are now likely to be held in May-end, the SSC exams may be conducted in June to ensure the further education prospects, like various entrance exams for professional courses, of the students are not affected.

The fresh dates and timetable for both the exams shall be announced soon, she added.

The announcement followed a series of meetings by the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, an all-party meet over the past few days followed by sittings with the State Covid-19 Task Force, various tech giants, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders in the academic world.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was given a detailed assessment of the situation by the School Education Ministry after which it was decided to postpone the board exams this year.

“Considering the current Covid-19 situation in the state which is not conducive to conduct the exams, we have postponed the Class X SSC and Class XII HSC exams. It appears to be the most pragmatic solution since the health of the students is our priority,” Gaikwad said in a statement.

US adds 916,000 jobs in March

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US adds 916,000 jobs in March

US employers added 916,000 jobs in March, with the unemployment rate edging down to 6.0 percent, the Labor Department reported.

Job growth was “widespread” in the month, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, and construction, according to the report released on Friday by the Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 280,000, as pandemic-related restrictions eased in many parts of the country, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.

It, however, noted that the figure is still down by 3.1 million, or 18.5 percent, since February 2020.

In March, employment increased in both public and private education, reflecting the continued resumption of in-person learning and other school-related activities, according to the report.

Construction added 110,000 jobs in March, following job losses of 56,000 in the previous month
that was “likely weather-related”, the report said.

President Joe Biden on Friday called the March jobs to report “good news”, while noting that there are 8.4 million fewer jobs today than there were last March after “a year of devastation”.

“We still have a long way to go to get our economy back on track after the worst economic and job crisis in nearly a century,” Biden said.

“Too many Americans who have been unemployed for longer than six months. Too many women have been forced out of the workforce. Unemployment among people of color remains far too high.”

The President urged Congress to debate his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, touting that it would create millions of well-paying blue-collar jobs.

The BLS report also showed that the unemployment rate is down considerably from its recent high in April 2020 but is still 2.5 percentage points higher than its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.

The number of people who permanently lost their jobs stood at 3.4 million, was little changed in March, but is 2.1 million higher than a year earlier, the report showed.

Amid widespread shutdowns in March and April last year, 22 million Americans lost their jobs.

US unemployment is expected to decline to 5.0 percent by year-end and 4.4 percent by the end of 2022, still higher than the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics’ semiannual Global Economic Prospects.

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