National Education Policy 2020 - Mentoring of Faculty Members towards Excellence in Higher Education Institutions

A mentoring approach towards excellence is proposed in this paper. This approach should be followed to develop educational leaders and faculty members to prepare HEIs to build capacity and capability to implement the provisions of the national education policy (NEP) 2020. The approach includes designing the mentoring programme at the institute level, selection and orientation of mentors, selection and orientation of mentees, mentoring process, mentees and mentors’ outcomes, and ultimate outcomes of the mentoring programme-academic, research, and excellence. The authors have noted recommendations to make the mentoring programme successful.

Fostering Epistemic Curiosity in School Children by Instructional Teaching Design: Classroom Realities of Indian Schools

The study attempted to answer two basic questions of classroom teaching: a. what were the most common teaching practices at the elementary school level? And b. did teachers foster curiosity in children during teaching? Classroom proceedings enfolded various teaching activities that might lead to a knowledge gap in students. 137 primary and middle schools (altogether 411 classes) were randomly selected to measure a pattern of questioning and answering during classroom teaching. Findings revealed that a large number of teachers adopted lecturing followed by writing on the board, dictating, and ignored some important teaching techniques such as explaining, demonstrating, and experimentation; though they were familiar with all these. Hardly any student asked questions to the teachers. Teachers missed to generate a gap of knowledge in them, showing hardly any use of curiosity-led instructional teaching design. Throwing any question to class or a group of students was an unplanned teaching behaviour. It was a limitation of an in-built education system that prioritised rote learning, exam scores, and grades that measured more static knowledge rather than understanding knowledge. The findings discussed limitations of the in-built education system and mindset of teachers that discouraged epistemic curiosity in children.

Roadblock on the Way of Disabled Students in the Higher Education

The development of any nation depends on its citizens. Every citizen has their contribution to the development of a nation even the disabled person. They also have an equal rights to get a higher education. Higher education increases the chance of employability, thus, affirming dignified life for persons with disabilities. As per Census 2011, in India, out of the 121 Cr population, about 2.68 Cr persons are ‘disabled’ which is 2.21% of the total population. But it has been seen that very few of these people reach higher education. According to census 2011, 61% of the disabled children aged 5-19 years are attending an educational institution, 12% attended educational institutions earlier while 27% never attended educational institutions. That makes the author think and ask about how our higher education institutions are accessible for disabled students. How inclusive are our higher education institutions? In the light of the above-mentioned problems the present paper has discussed the education of children with special needs in higher education specifically with respect to visual impairment, hearing impairement, locomotor disability, and speech-related impairment. The discussion starts with what all kind of legal provisions and reservations which are there for them in higher education and how many are utilized and used by them. What all things are there in the new education policy for them specifically in higher education, whether their needs have been realized in detail or it has been just touched superficially and at the end, few suggestions related to all these issues have been discussed.

Assessing Social and Emotional Competencies of Undergraduates: A Cross-Cultural Study

The study was conducted to assess social-emotional competencies among Indian and Ethiopian undergraduates. A total of 400 (200 each) participants, with an equal number of 100 male and female were selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure from Punjabi University (India), and Wollega University and Ambo University (Ethiopia). The participants were tested with the Social Skills Inventory (SSI: Riggio & Carney, 2003), which consists of two super-dimensions, i.e. emotional competence and social competence each having three sub-dimensions: emotional expressivity, emotional sensitivity, emotional control, and social expressivity, social sensitivity and social control respectively. Obtaineddata were subjected to t-statistics. Significant mean differences in social-emotional competence were observed between the Indian and Ethiopian young adults;male and female samples of the two countries. The Indian sample was greater in Social-emotional competence than the Ethiopian sample. Similarly, male and female participants from the Indian sample were greater in social-emotional skills than that of the Ethiopian sample, except for emotional sensitivity with the female participants, where the mean difference was non-significant. Further explorations are recommended to consolidate or refute the result of the present study.

The Level of Psychological Burnout of Vocational Education Teachers Compared to Ordinary Teachers in Jordan

The purpose of this study was to determine the psychological level of combustion of education teachers’ professional compared to ordinary teachers in Jordan, with a sample size of 160 teachers including (80) vocational education teachers (40) males and (40) females, and (80) teachers and teachers ordinary (40) males and (40) females in the classroom semester first of the academic year (2019-2020). And, in order to achieve the objectives of the study, the two researchers devised a study tool, which is a measure of psychological burn out appropriate for the purposes of the study. As the result of the study, after conducting the necessary statistical treatment, it was observed that there were statistically significant variations in the level of psychological burnout between vocational educators and conventional teachers, favoring vocational educators.

Impact of Training on Perceived Stress of Parents with Intellectually Disabled Children

The present study focuses on the perceived stress in 353 parents, whose Children with Intellectual disability underwent training in special education schools of (Bavitha Readiness Centres), Chittoor dist., Andhra Pradesh. The overall perceived stress (scale) score was measured through family assessment scheduled (FAS) developed by NIMHANS. The concerned mean scores were computed and compared at two stages of special training given to children i.e., at the time of joining and after two years of training with a paired t-test of significance. The overall findings reveal that the overall score, as well as its four sub–scales score of parent’s perceived stress, have been reduced after providing 2 years of special training to their Children with Intellectual disability as compared to joining the school (training).

Contemporary Relevance of Bertrand Russell’s Views on Early Childhood Education

Bertrand Russell’s educational thoughts significantly deal with reforming education for school going children and he also supported pre-primary education. He favored early childhood education for physical, intellectual and character development. His emphasis on character development of a child shows the significance of early years of life for development of an individual. This paper aims at exploring Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on early childhood education. It is an attempt to understand the significance of early childhood education for the holistic development of the children. Though there are early childhood education is prevalent in our country, but it was not mandatory to get early childhood education till the approval of National Education Policy (N.E.P., 2020). It has included early childhood education in compulsory school education for promoting better learning and well being of a child. It is a qualitative research in which historical method has been used where data has been collected from primary and secondary sources. The finding of the study shows that Bertrand Russell’sthought on early childhood education is relevant in present Indian context for developing good values, physical and mental development as well as in future learning. This shows that the encouragement to early childhood education and Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on early childhood education would be helpful for holistic development of children.

Empowerment Influence on Turnover Intention of Public Secondary School Teachers in Katsina State Nigeria

Background: Secondary school teacher’s turnover is one of the problems bedeviling education sector in Katsina state. The sector can hardly be improved unless the situation is changed. To change the situation the stakeholders should focus on the need to enhance secondary school teacher’s satisfaction, commitment and empowerment.Purpose: The study examines the influence of empowerment on turnover intention of teachers of public secondary schools in Katsina State Nigeria. In addition the study examines which dimension among the dimensions of empowerment best influences turnover intention of teachers of public secondary schools in Katsina state, Nigeria. Methods: Empowerment and Turnover Intention questionnaires were used to get the needed data. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data gathered using SPSS version 20.0. Results: The results show that the dimensions of empowerment significantly and negatively explain 40% of variance of turnover intention. Additionally, among the dimensions of empowerment namely; perceived control, perceived competence and goal internalization, perceived competence makes the largest contribution followed by perceived control; beta -.35 and -.31 respectively. Conclusion: the study establishes that empowerment significantly and negatively relates to turnover intention of teachers of public secondary schools in Katsina state Nigeria.

Financing of State Universities in India: A Case Study

The fiscal crisis facing the economy has led to withdrawal of the state from major sectors of the economy including education. With the advent of the liberalized economic policy the private sector has been playing a pivotal role in the economic development. Higher education ceases to be the‘merit good’ and the universities are encouraged to mobilize resources by their own efforts rather than depending on government grants. This has impacted the financing of state and central universities across India. Actually, this paper evaluates the funding of state universities in India through a case study, taking into consideration the changing contours of financing higher education. The core idea of the study is to analyse the resource mobilization as well as its utilization by the selected university. The study is based on secondary data. The discussion on the funding pattern reveals that the university is highly dependent on state grants for their day-to-day functioning. Though the efforts to generate internal resources is picking up, the university has failed to address the long run financial crunch of the university. The study concludes that unless the universities explore alternative channels of resources mobilization, it would be difficult to offer quality education in this era of globalization.

Academic Involvement in Children’s Education: An Investigation into the Lives of Domestic Worker Parents of Kolkata

Parenting holds tremendous significance in today’s world as quality parenting facilitates the development of social and emotional competence in a child. The present study explores the dual role of domestic workers as workers and parents. Domestic Workers work from dawn to dusk to take care of their employees’ families. The obvious question arises: who takes care of their children, back home? As a parent, Domestic workers with their odd working hours and low or no literacy rate are nowadays trying to overcome the socio-economic challenges as well as handicaps of the profession by getting involved in their children’s academics. This paper investigates the effects of the length of working hours and education levels of domestic worker parents on their academic involvement with the children. The present study uses a descriptive survey research design to find out the relationship between academic involvement and work hours. The data was subjected to appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate a negative relationship between work hours and academicinvolvement. It is also revealed that higher education level to be associated with better academic involvement. The study thus calls for further intervention by schools and the government to motivate parents. Parent-teacher meetings may be of help in this respect along with workshops and government-sponsored programs to educate the parents to support them to climb up the socio-economic ladder through their children.