Attention Kashmir college students! Expect curriculum changes as per NEP for greater employability


Srinagar: Vice-Chancellor University of Kashmir Prof Talat Ahmad and Commissioner/Secretary to Government Higher Education Department Talat Pervez Rohella on Tuesday batted for “substantially increasing” the employability of college students in Jammu and Kashmir and frame the additional vocational courses of study accordingly.


Addressing a meeting to discuss formulation of modules for undergraduate/post-graduate programmes for running additional vocational programmes under one-year certificate/two-year diploma and degree courses as per the UGC guidelines and the New Education Policy-2020, Mr Rohella said: “Now that the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is here, we are in the process of finding ways and means to evolve and find-tune our system as per its guidelines and catch up with it at the earliest.”


“We need to prepare our institutions to evolve and diversify them in tune with what the system desires. That’s why we are here to discuss if we can have the additional vocational courses, which eventually evolve into certificate and degree courses, started. The whole idea is to increase the employability of the college students by imparting them full practical training, alongside imparting them the theoretical education,” Rohella said.


Addressing the participants, Prof Talat Ahmad underscored the need to offer skill-based and market-oriented courses at the college-level to increase the employability of the students. He assured all help from the university to formulate such courses with the help of experts from different fields of study. 

 


Rohella said the curriculum, wherever required, can be fine-tuned such that students get practical education.


He said these courses can be launched in the fields of agricultural sciences, music and fine arts, information technology etc.


“We will create skill workshops in colleges wherever required. We will put in place the necessary infrastructure and human resource to make it a reality. We have to create an atmosphere where students learn skills through practical training with the objective of increasing their employability,” he said.


He said the higher education department intends to decongest the existing colleges by having traditional courses offered in the new colleges.


“Alongside, we will be improving infrastructure in the existing colleges to offer courses there having high potential of employability,” he said.


The meeting held at the University of Kashmir, among others, was attended by, Dean College Development Council, UoK; Director Colleges J&K; Dean Cluster University of Srinagar; Director EMMRC University of Kashmir, representatives and officers from NIT Srinagar; IUST Awantipora, SKUAST Kashmir, Principal Amar Singh College Srinagar; Principal School of Fine Arts, University of Kashmir; Principal Islamia College of Science and Commerce, and others.


Now, Islamia College students protest hike in exam fee.

Students pursuing bachelors program in computer application at Islamia College of Science and Commerce here have accused the authorities hiking the exam fee arbitrarily.

The students said the ongoing COVID19 pandemic has hit every person economically, but the authorities at the College were insensitive towards the situation and were overcharging the exam fee.

A student said the educational institutions remained closed for the past five months. “In such a situation there has been zero maintenance cost and other expenses incurred by the College,” the student said.

He said they did not use laboratories, libraries or participated in any workshop but were forced to pay for these facilities by the College authorities.

“We paid the exams fees for our 4th semester despite the fact that we didn’t utilize any resource of the College,” said another student

The students demanded 50 percent curtailment in exam fee on humanitarian grounds, citing majority of the students were not able to afford the fee owing to the prevailing circumstances.

“If our fee is not curtailed then we have no other option than to stage protest,” said the students.

Principal of the College, Prof Sheikh Aijaz Ahmad said they have received requests from their students for curtailing exam fee. “However we have been charging the fee as per the government order and there was no concession announced by government,” Prof Ahmad said. “We have told them (the students) that they can apply for scholarship on National Scholarship portal.”

Earlier, students pursing B.Ed at Cluster University Srinagar (CUS) and Directorate of Distance Education in Kashmir University also staged protest against the hike in exam fee.

Following the protest, Cluster University authorities decided that no student will be charged anything on account of examination development fund, IT charges, hot and cold charges.

The notification in this regard was issued by Controller examination CUS. “The students have to pay Rs 325 per subject as examination fee,” the notification reads, adding that the candidates who have already deposited the fee and have paid money for examination development fund, IT charges, hot and cold charges will get it adjusted in their subsequent semesters.

Also, the University has extended the date for submission of online B.Ed exam forms till August 16. The dates have been extended for the students of regular batch-2019 and backlog candidate of 2018-19 and regular students of M.Ed, second semester batch-2019, who are set to appear in the exams. (GK)

 COVID-19


Intensive Red Zone Testing Strategy being prepared

Asymptomatic patients not to be Home Quarantined in Jammu province

The Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam today chaired a meeting to take stock of the efforts toward mitigating COVID-19 pandemic and review the related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and policies.

Administrative Secretaries of departments of Health & Medical Education, Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction and Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM) participated in the meeting.


Divisional Commissioners of Jammu, Kashmir and Director, SKIMS, Directors of Health Services, Jammu/Kashmir, Principal, GMC, Srinagar along with other HoDs attended the meeting through video conference.


Chief Secretary complimented the divisional administration of Jammu province for effectively implementing hospital referral policy to ensure optimal utilization of resources, wherein the tertiary hospitals would only admit critical COVID patients being referred from district hospitals. Directions were issued for daily monitoring of COVID admissions, testing, discharges and bed occupancy across the COVID care institutions.


While reviewing the discharge policy, Chief Secretary informed that the policy has been successful in lessening the burden on the tertiary health care system in Kashmir province- which has seen a recent surge in critically ill COVID patients. Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir was directed to strictly implement home quarantine guidelines for asymptomatic patients and ensure that they are free of co-morbidity and provided with Government sponsored oxymeters, before being sent to home quarantine, besides using Arogya Setu app to monitor their status.


Observing that the patient load in Jammu province has remained stable and in view of the recent spike in cases as a result of contacts with COVID positive patients, Chief Secretary directed Health Department to modify the discharge policy and allow institutionalized quarantine for asymptomatic patients in Jammu province.  


Chief Secretary underscored the importance of aggressive testing for early medical intervention and asked the concerned to work out a ‘Red Zone testing strategy’ focusing on vulnerable patients including children, old aged, pregnant ladies, patients with Influenza like Illness (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI), co-morbid conditions, service providers, drivers and healthcare professionals. “The Rapid Antigen Test in addition to RTPCR can be used for cleansing and securing a red/containment zone by testing all probable contacts of patients and vulnerable population in the area”, he said.


Directions were issued for close monitoring of COVID trajectory with special focus on spread of infection through travelers, primary and secondary contacts. Health department was asked to conduct serological surveys to ascertain spread of infection in both the provinces. 


Chief Secretary also directed Health department to issue advisory to all private health care institutions to compulsorily test all their symptomatic patients including those with Influenza like Illness (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) and co-morbid conditions.


In view of expected resumption of religious pilgrimage, directions were issued to ramp up the testing capacities at all arrival points including airport and railway stations.(GNS)