Govt plans single entrance exam for all engineering colleges from 2018

The government is considering conducting a single entrance examination for admission to all engineering colleges, including private institutions, across the country.

The proposed joint entrance examination (JEE) for engineering colleges, which is said to be human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar brainchild, could kick in from 2018.

The test, pending clearance, will be on the lines of the national eligibility-cum-entrance exam (NEET) for entry into medical colleges, sources in the HRD ministry said.

It is aimed at bringing transparency to the admission procedure, including checking the practice in some private institutions of extracting a heavy capitation fee from students.

“The aim is to make the process more transparent, standardised, and free of corruption and commercialisation,” a government official said.

India has more than 3,300 approved engineering colleges affiliated to universities, with an annual approved intake of above 1.6 million students. But only about half of the seats are filled.

The current admission process at the graduation level is dependent on performance in entrance examinations conducted by various agencies.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts the JEE-Main for centre-funded institutions. More than 1.3 million students write this examination every year.

The top-rankers from JEE-Main are eligible to write the JEE-Advanced for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). In the new system, students aspiring for the IITs will have to pass the nationwide common entrance test with high marks and take the JEE-Advanced.

These apart, a number of states conduct their own test. Others grant admission based on marks obtained in class 12.

Several private colleges have their individual entrance examinations. But “some of them, which are self-financed, charge high fees or sell seats in the name of management or NRI quota at a premium”, a source said.

Only a handful of students crack the tough exams set for top colleges such as the IITs, leaving thousands of aspiring engineers to dash for private institutions, many of which are notorious teaching shops.

These colleges have become a magnet for mostly middle-class families in a country where an engineering degree is considered a ticket to a lifetime of fat pay cheques or jobs in the US.

Some of the private colleges admit students without basic talent and aptitude for engineering, affecting overall quality, the source said.

Of the 737,000 graduates in 2014-15, only half found employment. Most of the students didn’t meet expectations of companies offering jobs.

The proposal for a single, nationwide test is viewed as an attempt to streamline the dysfunctional education system. It was discussed at a recent meeting of officials from the HRD ministry and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulator for engineering colleges.

The council will issue regulations for the examination. Issues such as the number of times the examination would be conducted in a year and the minimum qualification marks are yet to be worked out.

A source said the AICTE is planning to conduct web-based counselling sessions for admissions to engineering colleges based on students’ all-India ranking obtained in the entrance examination.

“States would be invited to join the counselling process to fill the seats in colleges under their jurisdiction,” the source said.

The states will be able to prescribe their admission criteria, apart from the score in the entrance test. The JEE score will, however, be the minimum eligibility criteria, the source said.

 Source: Hindustan Times dated 23 December, 2016.

Link: 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/education/govt-plans-single-entrance-exam-for-all-engineering-colleges-from-2018/story-0TaCjvwwd4eav8uxpqI9sO.html

The new frontiers of Virtual Reality

The new frontiers of virtual reality

Virtual reality can change the way individuals and groups interact, and for those interested in experiencing and sharing its powerful benefits

Virtual reality opens the avenues to experience places and time periods otherwise inaccessible to an individual.

Virtual reality (VR) has entered its golden age and now has the potential to help people experience episodes and incidences, across time periods, from a uniquely first-person perspective. While VR continues to make its mark on entertainment, it has immense potential to allow people to experience something ground-breaking. It equips people to experience being in two realities at once, making ‘duality of presence’—being present in two ‘worlds’ at once—a possibility. This extrapolation of VR into reality has an extraordinary potential to create greater empathy, understanding, compassion, and connection to the ‘real world’.

Virtual reality has the capability to make one feel, and the power to make one ‘know’. By immersing in a ‘real’ experience, VR provides a perspective from prime sources and acts as a representation of the real world. It has the potential to positively impact sectors such as healthcare, media and bring immersive experiences to life.

Immersive healing

High-resolution imaging and detection technologies help enable precise, swift, and timely diagnosis, can limit the number of invasive procedures, and support preventive care. As an example, VR is currently being used to help patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Utilizing Bravemind, a clinical, interactive, virtual reality-based exposure therapy tool, an immersive and realistic virtual environment as well as unique interactive scenarios can be recreated. These enable a full-body experience to help normalize the patients’ experiences, thus fast-forwarding the therapy in some cases by as much as two to three years.

Immersive discoveries

VR opens the avenues to experience places and time periods otherwise inaccessible to an individual. This feeds into man’s desire for continuous discovery of the earth, ocean and even the stars. One such example of this is the creation of Cry Out: The Lonely Whale Experience, an underwater VR expedition. It takes the viewer into the depths of the sea where they can witness the underwater life and how pollution has disrupted and injured the delicate ecosystems that create our oceans. This experience educates individuals about the implication of a mere ordinary act on climate change.

Immersive action

VR has also made an impact on journalism, bringing stories closer to life for viewers. With video content fast becoming one of the most popular modes of consumption, many media houses are significantly investing in platforms which enable a video-first content approach. With a firm foundation of traditional journalism, experiences are designed which offer viewers a fully embodied walk-around technology. This offers a virtual but “first-hand” sensation of being an actual witness as a story unfolds.

Many media houses internationally have already ventured into virtual journalism and have produced numerous VR documentaries. With the rapid technological advancements in India, VR stands at the cusp of altering storytelling forever. Indian documentaries such as Cost of Coal (India’s first documentary in VR) and Displaced, planned for release in 2016, are indicative of the potential in the technology.

What’s next?

VR can fundamentally change the way individuals, groups and organizations interact, and for those interested in experiencing and sharing its powerful benefits, it offers an exceptional opportunity, perhaps unlike any other medium. To realise the full potential of VR, pioneering VR headsets and VR-capable hardware and software are required. This is only possible through the partnerships and vision of companies and organizations that bring the most cutting-edge technology to this virtual table. And that’s the reality.

Roy Taylor is corporate vice president of alliances, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

 

Source:  http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/54t9KxcI5M5nVmThhxbVOJ/The-new-frontiers-of-virtual-reality.html