Labour to offer at primary schools from 8am to 6pm

Labour is to offer a legal guarantee of childcare between 8am and 6pm from breakfast to after-school clubs at primary schools, Ed Miliband has announced. As figures show an increase in the costs of childcare as a proportion of average earnings in the past year, the Labour leader has pledge to provide help with the daily obstacle course faced by parents.

Labour released figures to the sovereign that show that the weekly cost of 25 hours of nursery care in England on an average basis raised from £82 in 2010 to £107 this year. In the same period average earnings have risen from £449 to £477, prompting Labour to tell the Independent that the costs of nursery care have risen from 18% to 22% as a quantity of average earnings.

The Labour party announced at its conference this year that it would use a levy on banks to provide 24 hours of free childcare a week for working parents with 3- and 4-year-olds, worth £1,500. This is an increase from the current 15 hours.

Miliband told ITV Daybreak: We are seeing fewer childcare places and we are seeing the costs rising. It is not just for the under-fives. It is also when it comes to school.

Frankly, the hours of 8.30am or 9am to 3pm don't cover the full working day. So we are also saying let's make sure all primary school offers breakfast clubs and after-school care that is there for parents, so that right across the working day, if parents need it, the care is there. Otherwise parents are in that daily obstacle course of 'how am I going to make sure I can get to my work and make sure my kids are looked after? Frankly the country is letting parents down if we are not taking that seriously.

Miliband added: Childcare costs are just going up and up and up year on year and parents are really struggling to cope. I don't just want to. I want to really help when it comes to those childcare costs. It is not just good for parents who want to work. It is good for the country as well. We can make a real difference when it comes to childcare and nursery costs.

The Labour leader defended his claim that there are now 350,000 fewer childcare places after the closure of 576 Sure Start centers since the general election. Asked whether he was scaremongering because the government said that only 45 centres had closed, Miliband said: No not at all. We have seen 100 of Sure Start centres no longer there.

University language department closures 10 things

1. The number of universities offering modern foreign languages has declined by 40% over the past 15 years. In 1998, 93 universities offered specialist language degrees, whereas now only 56 do.

2.German is the worst affected subject. The number of universities offering degrees courses in the subject has halved over the past 15 years.

3. The situation is getting worse, not improved. Since the Guardian's last analysis of language decline in 2007, the rate at which language departments are closing has accelerate.

4. Since 2007, 11 universities have closed their language departments totally. Anglia Ruskin, Brighton, Liverpool John Moors and Wolverhampton are among the universities that no longer offer language degrees at all.

5. The move to make languages optional at GCSE slashed the number of language learner. After Labor dropped languages as compulsory key stage 4 subjects in 2004, the proportion of pupils taking a language GCSE fell. Although this year's cohort shows a slight uptake, the demand for languages beyond GCSE continues to fall.

6. Academics are asked government to do something. In a letter published in the Guardian, 75 academics from institutions across the UK urged Equal to address the unfair grading of exams.

7. UK trade is losing out because of graduates' lack of language skills. The union of British Industry described the country's linguistic deficit as a tax on UK trade because it will hold back its skill to do business overseas.

8. Languages are more and more becoming a pursuit of the elite. Out of the remaining single-honours courses, Russell Group universities dominate language teaching. Three-quarters of Italian degrees, two-thirds of German and half of French and Spanish studies degrees are taught are these institutions.

9. The language teaching gulf is widening. At independent schools and state schools in rich areas, language teaching fares best. The percentage of pupils on free school meals taking a least one modern foreign language has dropped from 26% in 2007 to 14% in 2013.

10. Once student numbers fell, market forces took hold and deepened the crisis. Michael Kelly, head of modern languages at the Southampton University. Warns that because the student pool has shrunk, it has become uneconomic to teach the variety of courses required, and university managers are increasingly reluctant to continue supporting loss-making departments.

Indian students 39% takes loans and 22% win scholarship.

Nearly 4 in 10 Indian students took loans in 2011-12 to fund his or her MBA dreams, data collated by the Graduate Management Admission board shows. Many B-schools came to the rescue of students in this unsure economy.

22% cent of Indian aspirants received financial assistance in the form of scholarship. Of the rest, 17% took parents' help, 10% dug into personal savings and 13% looked for other options of funding. 

The top reservations that prospective students cite about pursuing a graduate business degree always relate to the high cost of tuition/fees and how to pay for their education. To lessen these concerns, admissions professionals at a majority of business programmed international report offering a variety of tuition assistance options ranging from 52% of online MBA programmed up to nearly all 96% full-time 2-year MBA programmes, the latest GMAC survey report noted. 

More master’s programmes (87%) offered scholarships than other specialized master's or MBA programmes, although full-time 2-year MBA programmes had the highest average percentage of student scholarship recipients (43%) across all programme types. Professional MBA programmes, such as managerial and part-time MBAs, were the least likely to offer scholarships to incoming students.

IPTV for Education to use 10 Ways

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and its numerous uses are little by little becoming accepted by every person as a force to be reckoned with. Its various revolutionary uses span many markets including: hotels, healthcare, digital signage, hospitality and general management and business use.

Education is just not a business that you would consider is at the cutting edge of technology, but more and more means of employing IPTV for education are showing up constantly.

With many pupils spread out over important areas, all with the requisite to access vast amounts of study material, and also with teachers time and again on the lookout for less complicated, better and faster options for teaching these students, it is easy to see where IPTV has a role to play.

So how closely is this extremely Current Technology being utilized inside our educational system? Below are 10 ways that illustrate exactly this:

1. A very good way to deliver information, news, foreign language TV, entertainments.

2. With the availability of this technology it is very simple to stream live classroom sessions to any Computer or TV attached to the school’s network.

3. College students can be provided with radio channel and TV access profile for their pursuit, particular home country and personality education demands.

4. Teachers may easily prepare lessons utilizing the flexible stream technology, conserve precious time that may then be used in various ways.

5. School TV channels could be created playing output from any Video Recorder, DVD or Camera directly into the college network.

7. Video is of a continual HQ regardless of the number of scholars across the school implement devices to view channels.

8. Teachers can simply record onto their own individual laptop computers and PCs for likely future use or onto a shared Video on Demand server which will store recorded material.

9. Offers foreign language and local TV stations to compliment teaching.

10. School events or messages may be relayed throughout the school, as an example an assembly or message from the head teacher.

Not only are there the above mention examples of superb uses of this technology in schools, universities and colleges, but the full system can be reasonably straight forward to set up and run. It's possible to make use of the same communications no matter how many viewing devices or stations are attached to the network.

22 lakh children without basic education: Said Shashi Tharoor

Nearly 22 lakh children in the nation are yet to receive Elementary Education and it is the duty of state governments to bring them to schools, minister of state for HRD Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday. 

We are certainly anxious to catch the remaining 22 lakh children in our country who still are not in school. These are largely tribal children, children of migrant workers and the begging children. These are students we need to catch and take them to the school, Tharoor said.

He was speaking at the launch of the Right to Education anthem video. HRD minister M Pallam Raju and Rajya Sabha MP Javed Akthar were also present on the occasion. It is the job of the state governments to look out for them. Even if a refugee worker child is in a place where the language is not of his family or the state, the child should acquire basic literacy. It is the blame of the state to get him into the school and not of the family, Tharoor said. 

The lyrics of the RTE anthem has been written by lyricist Javed Akhtar while the song has been sung by noted singers Sonu Nigam and Sunidhi Chauhan. The video also features Bollywood actors Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. The video will be dubbed in English and 15 regional languages to make alertness among the stakeholders for implementation of the RTE. 

the RTE came into existence in 2010 and since then it has showed remarkable success, said Raju. "The anthem and the video will help increase the message of RTE." Under the RTE, it is compulsory on government and local authorities to provide basic education to all children in the 6-14 age groups.

NGO Filed Petition on NEET judgment

NGO has filed a petition to review the decision made by the apex court for disposal the NEET. NEET is the single window exam for getting admission to MBBS and BDS seats of government and private colleges both.

In the decision issued on 18 July 2013, NEET has been canceled stating that the Medical Council of India that had the authority to specify the standards of medical education discard the single-window admission test that defiled the rights of private college to continue business and the right of alternative institutions to set up and manage educational institutions.

The petition filed by an NGO stated that the NEET is mainly conducted to keep check on the extensive corruption and the back door entry of the undeserving candidates to this highly appreciated and skilled profession. According to the recent string operation conducted by a TVchanel, no complaints formal-administration in the private colleges has been filed.

It said that from many years, seats of these private colleges were sold in cores, to reduce this depressed of money, MCI decided to this common test.

Government to review University Education System on Tuesday

Four years after the government restore its central university system by bringing in numerous such new centers of higher education to provide access with excellence, there is little to show in outcomes and a worried government is set to appraisal its growth strategy.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will evaluation the bottlenecks in infrastructure, research, and curriculum and teachers crisis on Tuesday, according to officials in the human resource growth ministry and central universities.

“Both the high offices of Indian government may put in place a apparatus to advance their interface with the central universities,” said an official of the HRD ministry, who refuse to be named. “The quality of our recent education system leaves much to be preferred. During the 12th Plan (2012-17), the focus is on excellence, the review gathering will dwell on it in detail.”

There are 42 central universities in India, as well as 16 set up in 2009-10. All the new universities have poor infrastructure and don’t have enduring campuses, the program is not contemporary and attracting the faculty is a challenge. As a result, they are not attracting adequate number of students. Most of the new universities don’t even have 1,000 students each and the faculty deficiency is as high as 30-50%, executive data show.

“None of the universities in India right now are in top 200 catalogs of best universities in the world and this is a disturbing point. The universities need to change their approach and develop into contemporary, from just knowledge to investigate and be industry-ready,” said Abdul Wahid, vice-chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir.