EDUCATION NEWS – APRIL 2009

Wednesday, April 01st 2009
New visa rules for students going to study in the UK
On 31st March , Britain launched a new set of visa rules for Indian and other students of non-European Union countries to prevent the incidence of fraud and also to ensure stringent immigration checks. The new rules will be a part of the Tier 4 points based system. All British education providers like schools, colleges and universities who recruit international students need to be registered with the UK border agency from March 31st,2009. The new visa regime will make the visa process simpler, more objective and more transparent for applicants.

Wednesday, April 01st 2009
IISc students to get nano lessons from the French
The Indian Institute of Science and the 'Universiti Joseph Fourier' of the French city of Grenoble have come to an agreement on IISc students being able to take courses in nano sciences. The agreement was reached during a live cyber-conference between the institutes who were also joined by research teams from INSA Lyon and the Polytechnic University of Tomsk in Russia. The first of its kind cyber-conference was part of a large cyberuniversity project between IISc and a number of French universities. 

Friday, April 03rd 2009
IIM B to hike fee
The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore(IIM B) has decided to hike its fee for the PGP course from Rs 5 Lakh to 5.25 Lakh for its 2009-2010 batch, the fee will further increase to Rs 5.75 Lakh for the 2010-2011 batch. The decision has come about owing to the additional cost-wage increase and increase in pension because of the sixth pay commission. The cost per student has gone up to 20% more than last year.

Saturday, April 04th 2009
Fee hike at IIM L
Following suit with the other IIM s A, B and C, the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM L) has announced a decision to hike its fee for the two year PGP programme by Rs 3 Lakh . Students will now have to shell out Rs 8 Lakh instead of the earlier fee of Rs 5 Lakh. The 60% hike in fee was announced after the finance committee of IIM L gave its nod to the proposal.

Monday, April 06th 2009
ISB hikes its fee
The IIMs did it and now the Indian School of Business(ISB) Hyderabad which is ranked 15th among the top B Schools globally has hiked its fee by Rs 1.5 Lakh for the academic session 2009-10. Students who now aspire to do their one year postgraduate programme (PGP) will have pay a total amount of Rs 19.16 Lakh which would include accommodation, books, laptop, alumni association membership fee and meal expenses. The academic fee will be Rs 16.5 Lakh for the 2009-10 batch. Students of the previous batch had to pay Rs 15 Lakh as academic fee. The increase in fee will also accompany a increase in student intake from 440 to about 600 from 2009-10. The fee hike has been marked as minor cost adjustment.

Tuesday, April 07th 2009
Placements extended at ISB
The Indian School of Business, Hyderabad has extended its placement season owing to the global downturn for the first time. According to unconfirmed reports, out of its total 440 students of the 2009 batch, only 250 have got placed so far. The placement season had started at ISB in January. As observed in most other B Schools, this year the average salary has seen a drop from last year.

Thursday, April 09th 2009
IIMs agree to support six new B Schools
After being at loggerheads with the government regarding the six new IIMs proposed by the government, the year long tussle came to end on Wednesday at a meeting with the higher education secretary. IIM directors agreed to provide all kinds of support in establishing the six new B Schools. Earlier, the IIMs had expressed their reservations to the idea of mentoring the new IIMs after which the government set up a committee to evolve a suitable module to start the new IIMs. The government has decided to set up six IIMs in the states of Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. These new B Schools are expected to start functioning from the next academic session.

Thursday, April 09th 2009
Colleges will not be affiliated to universities anymore
The idea to set up a new board to administer colleges in the country may soon be approved which means that the system of affiliating colleges to universities will be done away with. Universities can then focus on research and post graduate studies. Several states have responded positively to the National Knowledge Commission's proposal to have a central board set up to administer colleges. The states who have responded positively are Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan and the union territory of Puducherry.

Monday, April 13th 2009
IIM-B sixth on employer's list says global survey
According to the QS Global top 200 business schools survey 2009, the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM B) is among the top 10 preferred B Schools in the Asia Pacific region. It has been given the sixth position. According to unconfirmed reports IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Calcutta and ISB Hyderabad hold a close 11, 12 and 13th rank. The factors that went into the survey are quality of students, specialization, success of alumni and activities of alumni network. The report lists 200 business schools currently preferred by most international employers for hiring MBA graduates. 

Saturday, April 18th 2009
IIM C wins Tata Crucible 2009
The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta emerged the winner in the first ever international Tata campus Crucible 2009 . The Tri-nation quiz event saw 3,000 teams from some of the top universities participating at the outset. The finals had teams from London Business School, Oxford University, Singapore Management University, Singapore Institute of Management, IIM C and MICA Ahmedabad. C Ram Shankar and Shobit Bhatnagar from IIM C won the quiz. 

Friday, April 24th 2009
CAT may be contracted out to a foreign agency 
The Common Admission Test (CAT) of the Indian Institutes of Management may be outsourced to a foreign testing agency. The deal is yet to be sealed , which is likely to happen after all directors meet in May. The Indian bidders seem to have lost out in the race to get the CAT hence the move to outsource the contract. The CAT would go on line from next year and it was in 2008 that the committee invited tenders from different agencies.

Tuesday, April 28th 2009
CAT will go online this year
As per unconfirmed reports the Common Admission test (CAT) will finally find itself as a Computer Based Test (CBT) for this year. The test may be conducted sometime at the end of this year. The CBT-CAT is said to be candidate friendly. There would be flexibility in terms of the selection of test date, ease of registration, better physical environment and enhanced security measures for the test. Most of the institutes have agreed to the CAT going online from this year. As per sources at IIM K the CAT may not be modeled like the GMAT which is an adaptive test starting this year.The test structure is still being worked out.