Month: June 2021

New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had earlier formed a committee to decide an evaluation criteria to declare the results of the Class 12th examinations which couldn’t be held due to the pandemic. The committee will be submitting its report on June 18. The 13-member panel, set up by the board for deciding the criteria, was supposed to submit its report by Monday, June 14 but they were delays as the members had invited suggestions from stakeholders from every State board. The CBSE exams were cancelled considering the “safety and interest of students” amid Covid-19 situation.

According to rumours, the panel members are seriously considering to take into account marks scored by students in Class 10 and Class 11 besides pre-board and internal exams for Class 12. A leading daily repoeted, schools have also been asked to judge students on the basis of their past performance from the last three years and to also choose the year when they did best.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has written to the Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, suggesting that the result for class 12 students, whose exams were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, should be tabulated taking into account the marks scored during class 10, 11 and pre-board exams.

The Board on June 1 cancelled the examinations for class 12 students following a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PM Modi said officials “to ensure that the Class 12 results are prepared in accordance with “well-defined criteria, in a fair and time-bound manner”.

In the meeting, PM Modi had also said, “students who remain dissatisfied with their Class 12 marks, and want to appear in the exam, will be given a chance to improve their scores when the situation becomes conductive.”

New Delhi: Kerala’s Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, has said that the state’s public examinations can now be held as Covid-imposed limitations have been lifted in the state. On June 15, the Chief Minister said that the relaxation of limitations was due to a drop in current Covid cases. Vijayan, on the other hand, has advised people to maintain and follow safety precautions in the fight against the coronavirus.

Kerala had a daily increase of 7,719 Covid cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 27,35,958, with 161 fatalities bringing the death toll to 11,342. When asked about Kerala’s Test Positivity Rate, the Chief Minister stated that all districts except Thiruvananthapuram, where the positivity rate was below 15%.

Kerala government has scheduled the Higher Secondary and Vocational Higher Secondary practical exams from June 21 to July 7. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the state administration conducted virtual reopening of schools and launched online classes for pupils through its education channel Kite Victers last week for the second year in a row.

In addition, the government is taking steps to bridge the digital divide among students. During the COVID-19 era, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan declared that internet access and digital devices will be offered to all students in the state, regardless of their financial or geographical limitations, so that they may take online lessons without any issues.

“Relaxation in lockdown will be allowed on the basis of test positivity rate under local self-government bodies. Local bodies with below 8 per cent test positivity rate (TPR) to function normally with restrictions, the opening of shops will also be allowed,” chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday while relaxing the lockdown in the State.

New Delhi: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan, said that the idea to make Common Entrance Test (CET) performance as the criteria for admission to Bachelor of Science (BSc) course has been dropped. Narayan, who is also Minister of Higher Education, held a meeting with Vice-Chancellors with regard to academic activities. His office clarified that the idea to make CET marks as the parameter for admission to B.Sc has been dropped. Earlier, it was said that due to the cancellation of the 2nd PUC examination, the department of higher education had been mulling to make CET marks as the basis for admission to the B.Sc courses.

The government had decided to cancel the 2nd PUC exams this year in view of the Covid-19 situation across the country. The release added, matters related to finding ways to accommodate the number of students and the implementation of e-Office software. The universities of the state have been asked to act towards starting the undergraduate courses from the current academic year onward, Narayan said. This year, it is expected that the number of students seeking admission will increase as the 2nd PUC examination is cancelled.

The release mentioned that if the universities start a 4-year graduate courses, that will help to accommodate more students and it is also an opportunity at the right time for varsities to initiate this. Keeping in mind the calendar of events, it has been decided to dedicate ‘The Unified University College Management System’ by July 15, and to facilitate this, a trial will be conducted. The minister also directed the vice-chancellors of the universities to do all correspondence with the government only through e-Office mode and told them that it has now made a mandate to implement it.

CM Narayan also said that Vice-Chancellors have been asked to begin admission for the first-year degree courses in the first week of October as per the calendar. He said, “It was discussed in the meeting about conducting semester exams that are pending because of Covid.”

New Delhi: If you are about to graduate in computer science, electronics or any other engineering course, you are in a bright spot. Irrespective of your elective, the prospects of a campus hiring from some of the top-notch IT companies in India is a given. But what about the thousands, who joined a course in hospitality/hotel management? The future for such students looks bleak thanks to the havoc the woolly virus has played not just with their careers but also with the industry they so desperately want to belong to.

Hiring trends continue to plunge

A report by Naukri.com in 2020 stated that the hotel, travel and airline sector has seen a negative hiring trend of 91 per cent, highest across all industries in the April quarter. The national average of hirings in this sector, as per the report stood at a dismal 62 per cent. Students pursuing a course in the hospitality and travel industry were caught in a limbo. “We were right in the midst of a campus placement when the lockdown was announced and coronavirus took over. My joining date had to be pushed last year. In 2021, they changed my contract and made me a fresher from a manager. I have a job on paper but I am yet to join. My course mates are still waiting to be placed,” says Anup Singhla, who is waiting for his placement with a popular chain of hotels in Bengaluru.

The hiring trend continues to be shallow in 2021. A survey conducted by Research Gate, found 97 per cent of hospitality students agreed that their internship programmes were badly affected due to this pandemic. 73 per cent students disagreed when asked if they will prefer online mode of education post this pandemic and about 75 per cent students said that they have not received any call for any campus placement yet.

Ujwala Sonawane, dean of ITM Institute of Hotel Management in Mumbai, agrees that the pandemic has hit placements in the Hospitality industry real hard. “Most students were placed in 2020, but then came the lockdown, which changed things around. Hotels did not take students on board or kept them benched. This happened because the sector found it impossible to retain their employees and thus did not want additional recruitment which they would not be able to support financially. The trends in 2021 do not look promising as well,” Sonawane said.

“A sorry state”: The industry POV

“The first wave was far more benign. The second wave has been brutal and we are not too sure how the future will play out,” says one industry source. As the industry confronted the first phase, it decided not to hire fresh hotel management/hospitality sector graduates and despite the second wave on a decline, this stance is unlikely to change in a jiffy.

“We don’t know when the hiring will start but that’s conservatively at least 18 to 24 months away. Nobody wants to get more hands. It was clearly a wrong time for these students to enter this field of study. We can only sympathise with them but are equally helpless,” said one office bearer of FHRAI to TV9 Digital.

How the industry manoeuvred around?

The industry was forced to cut back on expenses and employees were the ones who were at the receiving end. Currently the industry employs barely 50 per cent of its total number of employees. “We have spoken to numerous people be it in the Union ministry or bureaucrats. Everyone is sympathetic but no help is forthcoming,” warns another hospitality sector expert. The industry is pegging its hopes on faster roll out of the vaccination process but fears of an imminent third wave is causing the industry sleepless nights.

Way forward… 

It will take a holistic approach to make hirings and placements in this sector come back to normalcy. Institutes have started doing their bit by tweaking course structure. The Indian School of Hospitality, for instance, launched a postgraduate programme in Service Operations Management last year in the middle of the pandemic. The college added more elective, specialisation options into the programme keeping the pandemic in mind. Similarly, Amity Institute of Travel and Tourism in Noida has re-done their curriculum to meet the current needs and introducing courses on digital marketing of tourism-related products and services.

The Indian School of Hospitality in Haryana, predicts “they will see 25-30 per cent students get into the startup space”. But is the placement scene going to revive anytime soon? Only time will tell.

1. MHT CET Could Be Held By 1st Week Of August: Maharashtra Minister

Higher and Technical Education Minister, Uday Samant, said on Tuesday that the CET, or Common Entrance Test, for professional courses after Class 12th in Maharashtra, could be held in the final week of July or the first week of August. In an interview with reporters, he stated that due to the pandemic scenario, in-person classes in institutions will not begin right away. “The CET can be held in July last week or the first week of August,” he said. “The state government had already filled up around 1,200 of 4,084 college teachers’ posts which a high-power committee had recommended but the process halted due to COVID-19,” he added.

2. First Computerised Draw For Entry-Level Class Admissions In Private Schools For EWS Children Announced: Delhi Govt

According to the Directorate of Education, the first computerised draw for admission to entry-level courses at private schools for seats earmarked for the economically weaker part, disadvantaged groups, and children with special needs was announced on Tuesday. “The first computerised draw of lots for admission to EWS, DG and CWSN category for academic session 2021-22 was held today,” a senior official of the directorate said. According to the RTE Act of 2009, at least 25% of seats in entry-level courses (nursery, kindergarten, and Class 1) must be designated for children from the EWS and DG (22%), as well as children with disabilities (three per cent). The EWS admissions application process began on April 7 and the first draw was scheduled for April 30. However, due to the second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, it was postponed. Due to the pandemic, the general admissions process for entry level classes was also delayed by more than two months this year.

3. Tamil Nadu Sets Up Commission To Study Enrollment Ratio Of Government School Students In Professional Courses

On Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu government authorised the formation of a commission chaired by D Murugesan, a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, to investigate the enrollment ratio of government school students in professional degrees such as engineering. The panel would recommend appropriate remedial actions if the number of students admitted to disciplines like as engineering, agriculture, veterinary sciences, fisheries, and law from state-run schools is smaller. An official release said Chief Minister M K Stalin had issued an order appointing the Justice D Murugesan Commission, and that the panel would deliver its report to the government within a month. There would be ten members, including Justice Murugesan.

4. NIT Team Develops WiFi-Mounted Microcontroller To Integrate Sensors For Smart Rainwater Harvesting

Students from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), AP, have created a “WiFi-mounted microcontroller” with sensors for smart rainwater collecting. According to the team which has developed an end-to-end software stack that provides an easy interface to manage and control in-house water resources, the system can automate the process of water storage, reduction in water-borne disease and efficient storage. “The system monitors wastewater and supply systems such as rainfall recorded, water remaining in the storage tank, water quality index and water supply in a given area. “The students have also designed an underground storage tank with a material capable of holding the water for a long-term basis and its treatment process being monitored on a feedback IoT system,” said CSP Rao, Director, NIT Andhra Pradesh.

5. Telangana Extends Summer Vacation In Schools, Colleges

The Telangana government declared on Tuesday that summer break for the state’s schools and institutions will be extended until June 20. After examining the state’s Covid situation, the decision to keep the schools and DIET colleges closed was made. From today, June 15, the state’s schools and institutions were set to reopen. “All the Heads of Departments, Regional Joint Directors of School Education and all the District Educational Officers in the state are informed that.. Government has carefully reviewed the situation and it is decided to extend the holidays for all the Schools and DIET Colleges in the state till June 20, 2021,” an official statement issued by the Director of School Education of Telangana said.