Discontinue 10th, 12th Board Exams after roll out of NEP: Manish Sisodia

Going by the image and the heading, it will be an ecstatic moment not only for the students but undoubtedly for parents too :).

It makes sense to discontinue the board exams and ease the pressure off students’ heads.

Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia recommended that after the rollout of the new National Education Policy (NEP), board exams for class 10 and 12 should be discontinued.

Sisodia also suggested that the government must introduce multi-year stage-wise classes and external assessment at the end of each stage.

He made the suggestions during the 57th General Council Meeting of the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) chaired by Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and attended by state education ministers.

Sisodia pointed out that the ‘5+3+3+4’ model recommended in the NEP can attain its full potential if the existing one year per grade system is removed.

“It means, instead of an existing class system where all children of a class move together in all subjects despite being at different learning levels, the multi-year stage will help the child move as per their learning need in different subjects at their own pace. A stage-wise curriculum with a clearly stated learning goal in terms of knowledge, skills and values be created,” he said.

“Going by the logic of the stage, after the full roll-out of NEP, class 10 and 12 board exam should also discontinue. The existing board exams made sense in 10+2 model but not in 5+3+3+4. Retaining two board exams in one last stage will dilute the significance of first three stages in the school life of children,” he added.

Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s Education Minister, noted that when the mandate of the National Testing Agency (NTA) is to conduct entrance exams for admissions in higher education institutions, there is no need for class 12 board exams.

“Hence, the class 12 board exam should not be a high-stake exam anymore. It is about time that we introduce multi-year stage-wise classes and external assessment at the end of each stage replacing the existing year-wise classes and two board exams in class 10 and 12,” he said.

Transformation should be holistic and not piecemeal. Instead of existing class system where all children of a class move together in all subjects despite being at different learning levels, the multi-year stage will help child move as per their learning need in different subjects at their own pace. We recommend stage-wise curriculum with a clearly stated learning goal in terms of knowledge, skills and values,” he added.

The NEP approved by the government replaces the 34-year-old National Policy on Education framed in 1986 and is aimed at paving the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems to make India a global knowledge superpower.

Teaching up to Class 5 in mother tongue or regional language, lowering the stakes of board exams, a single regulator for higher education institutions, except for law and medical colleges, and common entrance tests for universities are part of the sweeping reforms in the NEP.

Replacing the ’10+2′ structure of school curricula with a ‘5+3+3+4’ curricular structure corresponding to age groups 3-8, 8-11, 11-14 and 14-18 years respectively, scrapping M.Phil programmes and implementing common norms for private and public higher education institutions are among other salient features of the new policy.

Article Source: TimesNow News

WHO AM I? PART-II

Photo by John Gibbons on Unsplash

‘Know your strengths and discover your potential’.

We explored our VALUES in Part-I of the ‘Who Am I’ series and tried understanding how they can be a guiding force in our life. 

Let us now focus on our STRENGTHS and understand what they are and how we can benefit from them.

We often hear from our peers and superiors to work on our weaknesses and close our gaps. But, isn’t it crucial to look at our natural abilities too and focus on turning our talents and potential into strengths?

Our strengths are the guiding forces of our lives. When we focus on them, we tend to lead more satisfying and fulfilled lives.

Strengths are nothing but a combination of our natural talents, knowledge, and skills, applied over time.

Hold on-When I say our strength is our talent, it doesn’t mean we define strength by considering talent alone. We all know, if we do not nurture and practice our talent, we may not realize our true strength. For instance, we may have a natural aptitude and skill for drawing, but if we don’t practice drawing, we may never master our craft.

The blend of talent, knowledge, skill, and practice is what creates ‘Strength’.

Very often in life, we focus on closing our gaps and working only on the improvement areas that we ignore on building our strengths. Be it school, college or workplace, performance reviews focus on the development plan on areas that need the most improvement.

While it is a good thing to improve in areas, the problem occurs when this is our only focus.

Most of the successful people have attributed their success in life to building upon their strengths rather than focusing solely only on addressing their weaknesses.

When we understand our strengths, we can channelize our energy into tasks and activities that bring us the utmost satisfaction. While it aids us in attaining our goals and gaining perspectives in challenging situations, on the personal and professional front, it also helps us to improve our relationships with others.

But how do we know or understand our strengths?

While we can do some introspection and reflection or take feedback from our family, friends or colleagues- the preferred approach should be to take an unbiased online assessment that will help identify your strengths. 

For students, this is the most crucial parameter as it also helps you in channelizing your efforts in choosing the apt subjects/career path. 

While you understand your strengths, it is good to not only ‘Reflect’ but ‘Act’ to realize the true benefit of this knowledge about yourselves.

Students should work on building a concrete plan (aim initially for the short term) -think of the actions you will take over the next month, write them down, commit to doing them. After a month, reflect on how you have performed as a result of this increased focus on your strengths. Observe the euphoric feelings of accomplishment and reward yourself for applying a ‘Strengths’ mindset.

It works as a dual advantage for students, especially budding teenagers. It helps them build focus and motivates them to attain an achievable goal that they have set for themselves-building on their STRENGTHS.

So, do you know your Strengths?

Manjula Ovalekar – Career Guidance Coach

WHAT IS DATA SCIENCE

Data Science is the latest buzzword in the industry and is the most thrilling and rewarding job role. The expertise in the field, the Data Scientists, not only enjoy high remunerations but also get the opportunity to bring a direct business impact. Data Science has applications across industries starting from consumer behavior analytics in Retail and E-commerce to computer vision applications such as detection and classification of objects and humans.

Today, the current market size for data science is $38 billion. The market size in 2025 is expected to reach $140 billion. India is the second-highest country next to the US to have generated the demand to recruit about 50,000 Data Scientists for 2020 and 2021.

So, let’s see what Data Science is all about:

In simple terms, Data Science is an amalgamation of Statistics, Computer Science, and specific domain knowledge. Data Science is a diverse field that starts with simple data reporting activities to advanced predictive modeling using Artificial Intelligence. 

Role of a Data Scientist:

• Gathering and analyzing data
• Processing and cleaning the data
• Integrating and storing data
• Applying data science techniques, such as machine learning, statistical modeling, and artificial intelligence
• Exploratory Data Analysis
• Choosing potential models and algorithms
• Measuring and improving results
• Presenting the results to stakeholders and making adjustments based on the feedback

Data Science based roles:

1. Data Scientist – Works on complex and specific problems to bring non-linear growth to the company. For example, making a credit risk solution for the banking industry or use images of vehicles & assess the damage for an insurance company automatically.
2. Data Engineer – He/she would implement the outcomes derived by the data scientist in production by using industry best practices. For example, Deploying the machine learning model built for credit risk modeling on banking software.
3. Business Analyst – Helps in running the business smoothly by assisting the management to make data-driven decisions on a day-to-day basis. This role would be communicating with the IT side and the business side simultaneously.

Again, there are a lot of other roles under the data science umbrella such as data analyst, statistician, data analytics manager, MIS professional etc.

Essential Data Science Skills:

• Statistical analysis: Identify patterns in data. This includes having a keen sense of pattern detection and anomaly detection.
• Machine learning: Implement algorithms and statistical models to enable a computer to automatically learn from data.
• Computer science: Apply the principles of artificial intelligence, database systems, human/computer interaction, numerical analysis, and software engineering.
• Programming: Write computer programs and analyze large datasets to uncover answers to complex problems. Data scientists need to be comfortable writing code working in a variety of languages such as Java, R, Python, and SQL.
• Data storytelling: Communicate actionable insights using data, often for a non-technical audience.

Tools you must master for Data Science:

• Microsoft Excel: Excel prevails as the easiest and most popular tool for handling small amounts of data.
• SQL: SQL is one of the most popular data management systems which has been around since the 1970s and has been the primary database solution for a few decades.
• Python: This is one of the most dominant languages for data science in the industry today because of its ease, flexibility, open-source nature. It has gained rapid popularity and acceptance in the ML community.
• Tableau: It is amongst the most popular data visualization tools in the market today. It is capable of handling large amounts of data and even offers Excel-like calculation functions and parameters. Tableau is well-liked because of its neat dashboard and story interface.

Data scientists play a key role in helping organizations make sound decisions. As such, they need “soft skills” in the following areas.

• Problem-Solving skills – The knowledge of statistics and computer science can be achieved by studying but it is the domain knowledge along with the problem-solving skills that will help you become a long shot. A majority of companies start their data science recruitment with problem-solving tests. You don’t need to be a master at it but a curious mind will help you in forming this skill.

• Structured Thinking – The ability to structure your thoughts and map out each of them is certainly a must-have skill. Structured thinking is made of use in the initial steps of the project where the problem statement and hypothesis are to be formulated.

• Storytelling Skills  – A key skill that all the data science and analytics professionals must have is the ability to express the data in a format that is understandable by the stakeholders – a story. It is this step that requires creativity and human skills.

According to Glassdoor, the average pay scale of a data scientist is Rs. 900k per year in India whereas the average salary of a computer programmer is Rs. 400k per year.

Data Science is evolving at a lightning speed and that’s what makes the role of a data scientist so exciting. 

Reference: Analytics Vidhya

New Age Learning: Coding

Coding is considered as most desired skill of the 21st century and is one of the highest paying and stable careers. Traditionally Coding is opted by many college students. There exists a general perception that coding is the forte of the ‘Gifted learners’ and cannot be taken up by average students.

What is Coding
It is a way to make software and hardware act upon your instructions. It is logical in nature, and hence learning to code enhances the logical and problem solving ability of students. In addition, it teaches how to solve a problem by breaking its complexity to a simpler structure and making deductions from it.

According to the National Education Policy (NEP), introducing Coding and enhancing the exposure to technology at a young age will show the students a path to a new world of innovation and creativity. The current curriculum is not enough to prepare our students for a market which is going to be completely dynamic in the coming years.

Coding is a game changer in the education system. We will see a new generation that will be using analytical thinking to solve problems. In India, it is the perfect time to teach the children about new age learning which will help them tremendously in the job sector.

Students with Coding skill generally get a higher score in Mathematics, better abstract thinking and confidence. Recently, newer and effective means to teach coding have come up, especially for school students.

With so many options available for these courses, it is difficult to choose the correct institute or learning center for young children. It is important to consider key factors before choosing a platform which include an institute offering an updated curriculum, skilled faculty with hands-on practice and enjoyable learning.

Popular courses
Some of the popular courses in Coding include Visual programming (Scratch/Code.ORG), Python, Web development, Robotics and Data Sciences. Many websites are teaching coding to kids through Blocks, popularly referred to as Block or Visual programming.

The competition is increasing up day by day and newer jobs and businesses in future would demand many more skills with creativity. With automation, more and more people would be required to learn coding so that growth and progress is achieved. It is henceforth required that we train our students into coding. It is not necessary that everyone should take up Coding as career. However, learning the skill would equip them with a new technological skill.

(The author Mr. Manmohan Gupta is founder, Coding Blocks)

Source: EducationTimes

Once Upon A Lockdown

Photo by luizclas on Pexels.com

It has been more than six months since the CoronaVirus Pandemic came into existence and it has been quite a frantic experience for most of us. Since the board exams were going on, I was in a swirl of mixed emotions. I was happy but irritated, waiting in anticipation of what the Board had to say about this. Happy because I had extra time to study and irritated because, well, I wanted to get done with the exams as soon as possible. The first couple of months were a continuous cycle of only studying and revising until I received the news of exam cancellation that made me jump with joy. By this time, I had moulded myself to the lockdown life: working out, reading and listening to music and meeting up with my best friend. I utilised this time to work on furnishing my badminton skills. I watched a lot of videos on strategy building and other fitness techniques. I started doing more intense training to develop specific muscles of my body. 

About how I felt about the lockdown, I guess it was inevitable. To avoid the contagious spread of disease, social distancing has to be maintained. On the other hand, we can look at it as an opportunity to learn. It is a well-deserved break that everyone needs amidst their hectic schedules, away from all the frantic running and away from the constant work pressure sitting on their heads. Instead of fretting about this and that, I feel self-reflection is one thing that is most is essential for everyone. 

Setting aside the concerns, one should focus on a tranquil mind and adapt to the current situation. Consider this as a lesson, learn from it and move on. As the great visionary, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam rightly said, ‘Every pain gives a lesson and every lesson changes a person’, we should also make the most of this time and learn from it. 

So, in short, the main highlights of this pandemic are the chapters of adaptability and change. Sure, we go through a change in daily life but never of such magnitude. This period has subconsciously increased our ability to adapt to any situation presented in front of us. Staying calm, positive and not giving up on hope for better times to come is the need of the hour.

Akshaya Ramakrishnan – Grade 11 student