Indians are No. 2 online searchers for education

A recent study by Google has found that Indians are second in the world, behind only the Americans, when it comes to searching online about educational institutions and courses. According to the survey, the details of which were released by the online search giant on Wednesday, over 60% Indian students use the internet to research on education.

The study, covering the period from January 2011 to June 2012 and titled Students on the Web, revealed that education-related queries from India were growing at over 46% year-on-year and of the total questions asked online, 40% were for higher education courses. The use of mobiles to send queries has grown by 135% year on year, accounting for 22% of the total education-related searches.

Rajan Anandan, VP and managing director of Google India, said, "With over 60 million internet users in India being in the 18-35 age group, education-related search queries are exploding on Google. Our core objective behind compiling the study was to understand the impact internet is having on this young population with regard to education-related decision-making."

Despite an array of courses available, Indian students seem to stick to the tried and tested ones, with IT/vocational (44%) courses inviting the maximum hits, followed by engineering (40%) and management (16%).

"Students opt for whatever assures them a good job. Engineering and IT are still the favourites as students start opting for bifocal subjects like computer science in junior college itself," said Suhas Pednekar, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College in Matunga. According to him, most students now go for a management course after graduation. "Since our graduation courses are majorly theoretical with very little of skill-based subjects, students prefer doing an MBA after graduation," Pednekar explained.

The study was compiled by combining Google search query patterns and an offline research by TNS Australia. According to the offline survey which was conducted in seven cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Ahmedabad, 56% students said job placement was the most important criteria while researching/selecting institutes/courses. Faculty (49%), course content (48%), reputation of the institute (43%) and fees (41%) followed behind. The study also found that students research for 5-6 months on an average before zeroing in on a course and an institute.

AIEEE exam: No ‘right’ answers on website has students in a fix

Even as the Central Board of Secondary Education has uploaded the OMR answersheet of each student, who had appeared in AIEEE offline exam, on its website, the absence of right answers on it has left many candidates baffled. As, 'right' answers uploaded by various coaching centres across the country on their websites vary.

"In IIT-JEE too, the answer keys were uploaded that helped resolve some goofs. With various coaching centres uploading different 'right' answers, it has caused much confusion among candidates," said Sangeeta Khanna, who runs a coaching institute in Sector 24.

Divankar Sharma, who gave the offline exam, said, "I am still not clear about the right answers."

Rashmi Sehgal, who too wrote the offline exam, said, "The board should have given the answers, so that we know about our performance." The answersheets have been uploaded to enable students to challenge the board in case any of the answers differ from the one they marked during the offline test.

Online examination candidates do not have the option.

The scanned images of answersheets can be checked on its website www.cbse.nic.in and www.aieee.nic.in. If a candidate wants to challenge the uploaded answersheets, he can submit an application at any of the CBSE regional offices or at AIEEE unit at Patparganj, Delhi-92, on or before June 6 till 12 noon, along with the prescribed fees of Rs 500 per recorded response challenged.

Students go for printed Delhi University forms over virtual option

On the first day of Delhi University's undergraduate admission for 2012-13, students seemed to have preferred the printed centralized forms over the online option introduced this year.

A large number of students gathered at the 22 venues across the city, braving the heat on Monday, and bought 30,250 forms, with Arts Faculty at North Campus selling as many as 4,100 forms. DU witnessed 18,000 online registrations as well.

Long queues were seen at centres like Arts Faculty and Miranda House in North Campus, ARSD and deputy dean, students' welfare office, in South Campus; Gargi College and several post offices from 8 in the morning, two hours before the sale started. Gargi College, Ashok Vihar and New Delhi GPO ran out of forms and had to fetch more copies later. Delhi GPO fell short of the prospectus and asked aspirants to wait for it, leading to a huge crowd gathering inside.

While the colleges and other DU venues sold 15,500 forms, the 12 post offices sold 14,750 forms. "There is a greater rush than before," said Dinesh C Varshney, deputy dean, students' welfare, South Campus.

At Gargi College, aspirants started queuing outside from early morning and all forms were sold within an hour. "We had got around 1,000 forms in the first lot, but that got over within an hour of the counters opening at 10am. We got a second lot by 12.30pm and the distribution continued till 1.30pm and we could distribute around 500 more forms," said vice-principal Shashi Tyagi.

Over 700 forms were sold in the first two hours at ARDS while over 1,000 forms were sold at South Campus. Another 420-odd forms for the SC/ST category were also sold at the campus. A large number of outstation aspirants were seen queuing at North Campus.

Aspirants at South Campus was happy with the counselling facility available there. "Most of the students are enquiring about the best college and the best course available. A number of queries for English and commerce have been seen today," said Brij Lal, supervising officer, admissions, ARSD College.

No browsing after midnight for IIT Delhi Students

Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi has restricted the use of internet after midnight for students in hostels

IIT Delhi has recently taken a decision to prohibit its students from using the internet in the hostel premises between 1am and 6am. The institute, during these five hours, disconnects the internet facility available to students in their hostel rooms.

The reason, according to Shashi Mathur, dean, students , IIT-D , is to ensure that the academic performance of students does not suffer. He says, "The internet connection, which was available to students during the midnight hours earlier, would disrupt their studies. Students would watch videos or be busy on social networking sites; download movies or play games till late in the morning. Hence, waking up late and getting delayed for classes."

However, the internet facility will still be available to students 24x7 in libraries, labs and research rooms on campus. "Students, who need to use the internet for their studies or project work, etc, can use these facilities . Also, we have not restricted students from using their own wireless internet connections in their rooms during the night," adds Mathur.

Students, however, are not convinced. "We already have a restriction on the amount of data that we can download using the internet connection in the hostel. With the new restriction, we can't use the internet late at night. There are many students in the hostels who use the internet to study at night. We put forward our point of view to the authorities, but to no avail. Since the institute has not put a restriction on personal internet connections, I have to use one," says a second year student rooms, it's difficult to download e-books , which a lot of students use. The research rooms are located about 1.5 km from our hostels and are generally occupied by seniors , so it is inconvenient."

The decision to curb the Ravi Kumar, first-year student of mechanical engineering , says, "We understand that the institute has our best interests in mind, but without internet in the usage of internet in hostel rooms after midnight was first taken by IIT-Madras . Students of IIT-Madras are not allowed to use internet in the hostel from 1am to 5am. IIT-Bombay , too, followed suit.