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ANNOUNCED: Osmania University UG June 2017 exam results declared, check them here

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Osmania University on Thursday declared UG (BA/BCom/BSc/BBA) (CBCS) Semester-II (Regular) Semester -I (Backlog) June-2017 results.

Osmania University on Thursday declared UG (BA/BCom/BSc/BBA) (CBCS) Semester-II (Regular) Semester -I (Backlog) June-2017 results. The results are available for BA, BCom, BSc and BBA courses.

Steps to check Osmania University results:

1)Visit the official website for Osmania University

2) Click on results

3) Choose the desired course on the new page to go to the login page

4) Enter your 12 digit hall ticket number and submit

5) Result will be displayed on the screen

6) Take a printout

 

[“source-hindustantimes”]

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Education

ANNOUNCED: Osmania University UG June 2017 exam results declared, check them here

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Osmania University on Thursday declared UG (BA/BCom/BSc/BBA) (CBCS) Semester-II (Regular) Semester -I (Backlog) June-2017 results.

Osmania University on Thursday declared UG (BA/BCom/BSc/BBA) (CBCS) Semester-II (Regular) Semester -I (Backlog) June-2017 results. The results are available for BA, BCom, BSc and BBA courses.

Steps to check Osmania University results:

1)Visit the official website for Osmania University

2) Click on results

3) Choose the desired course on the new page to go to the login page

4) Enter your 12 digit hall ticket number and submit

5) Result will be displayed on the screen

6) Take a printout

 

 

[“source-hindustantimes”]

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Education

Manchester University accused of planning ‘clearout’ of senior staff

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

A mixture of old and new buildings at the University of Manchester.

Manchester is the latest university in the UK to announce mass job cuts, citing the uncertainty caused by Brexit as a factor. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The University of Manchester has been accused of planning a “clearout” of experienced academics in order to replace them with cheaper, junior teaching staff, after it announced plans to cut 171 jobs.

Britain’s largest university said the prospect of Brexit had created uncertainty in the higher education sector and the cuts were designed to “secure future financial sustainability”.

But the University and College Union (UCU), which represents lecturers and researchers, argued that Manchester’s finances were in good health and suggested the move had come in response to the new teaching excellence framework (TEF), which will allow universities with the best teaching to raise fees.

In an email sent to staff, the university said that despite the job cuts, it would continue to make “strategic investments”, including the creation of more than 100 new, early-career academic appointments. The faculties of arts, languages, biology, medicine and business most vulnerable to the planned redundancies.

Martyn Moss, UCU regional official for the north-west, said early assessments of the plans suggested the university wanted to get rid of more expensive, senior academics. “I think they want to shake it up and have a clearout,” he said.

“The whole question of them bringing in a significant number of early years academics at a similar time raises real questions about the genuineness of the redundancies and whether they would be fair dismissals.”

A spokesman for the university confirmed it was planning to recruit more than 100 junior academics, but did not comment on the allegation that the appointments would fill gaps left by redundancies.

Manchester is the latest higher education institution to announce mass job cuts, with many citing the uncertainty caused by Brexit as a contributory factor.

This week alone it was reported that 150 jobs were at risk at Aberystwyth University, while Bangor University warned unions that cuts were to come and the University of Sunderland said compulsory redundancies were probable as part of its cost-cutting drive.

Over the past few months, about 100 jobs were predicted to go at Heriot-Watt University, the University of Kent announced the closure of its school of music and fine art and Manchester Metropolitan University said it would close its campus in Crewe, threatening 160 posts.

The University of Manchester recorded a £59.7m surplus for the year in 2015-16, after a £19.6m deficit the year before, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. The university’s financial statement revealed it had reserves totalling almost £1.5bn, of which £430m was cash.

Manchester wants to cut 140 academic jobs and 31 professional support roles, according to the UCU. It is thought that the school of arts, languages and cultures (SALC) will see 35 posts cut. The faculty of biology, medicine and health is expected to lose 65 academic posts, and 40 jobs are to go at the Alliance Manchester Business School.

Academics whose jobs are under threat said the decision to cut 140 academic posts in certain departments was because of worries about university league tables and the ability to increase tuition fees.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an academic at SALC echoed USC’s claim that the university was seeking to get rid of experienced staff in favour of cheaper, “hungrier” young ones.

“This sort of practice may be common in the corporate world but it is extremely rare in universities,” he said. “They have broken an unspoken moral contract that it isn’t going to act like a corporate firm. It is going to change the tone very markedly. Manchester University never used to be a business.”

The academic said the university was “paranoid” about theintroduction of the TEF this September, which will mark institutions on teaching quality, learning environment, as well as student satisfaction and post-study employability. Universities and colleges with a successful TEF award will be able to increase fees for full-time courses, in line with inflation.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the TEF would leave academics who are neither judged to be excellent teachers nor excellent researchers vulnerable to job cuts.

“In the past, universities have only really been held to account for the quality of their research, they haven’t really been held to account for the quality of their teaching,” said Hillman, who worked as a special adviser to the former universities minister David Willetts.

“Universities aren’t going to be getting rid of top notch researchers because they bring prestige and money. They’re also going to be very unlikely, in future, to get rid of people with a very good track record of teaching.”

Hillman said he could not speak specifically about the situation in Manchester because he was one of the university’s governors.

T[“source-theguardian”]
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Education

University applications ‘depends heavily on where you live’

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Students in library

Teenagers’ likelihood of applying to university depends heavily on where they live, according to new figures.

The study, by the Press Association (PA) news agency, showed London had the highest application rate of 47%, while the South West had the lowest at 32%.

It found four times as many teenagers in Wimbledon, south London, applied compared with Havant in Hampshire.

Universities UK acknowledged institutions should do more to boost social mobility within their regions.

Sir Peter Lampl, chief executive of the Sutton Trust education charity, said the “massive difference… reflects the fact that the chances of getting to university are very much dependent on where you live and where you go to school”.

‘Massive difference’

The researchers analysed data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) on 18-year-olds applying this year.

According to the calculations, 55% of 18-year-olds in the top 10% of parliamentary constituencies in terms of university applications, had applied for a degree course by the main 15 January Ucas deadline.

But only 24% of those in the bottom 10% had applied by the same date.

In the Conservative seat of Wimbledon, south London, 70.3% of 18-year-olds applied.

But in Havant, Hampshire, also a Tory seat, the application rate was just 17.4%.

Sir Peter said work by charities like the Sutton Trust, running summer schools and providing extra support for able pupils in poorer areas, was crucial.

Research last year by the Universities UK Social Mobility Advisory Group urged universities to become “anchor institutions within their local communities to promote economic, social and cultural regeneration”.

“There are no quick and easy solutions,” said UUK chief executive Nicola Dandridge.

She said the report had recommended universities work “even more closely with schools and colleges” to boost young people’s uptake of higher education in areas where it is lower than expected given their attainment at GCSE.

‘Social factors’

Overall, young people in Tory seats are slightly more likely to apply than those in Labour seats.

The average application rate in 328 Tory seats was 38%, compared with 34% across 231 Labour seats.

  • Northern Ireland had the highest application rate, at 48%
  • In England the average was 37%, with London the highest region at 47% and the South West the lowest at 32%
  • The average rate for Wales was 32%.
  • In Scotland UCAS data only gives a partial picture as many students apply direct to colleges.

Schools and colleges in challenging areas were “working incredibly hard to close the attainment gap and support pupils who do not have the same advantages in life as their wealthier peers”, according to Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

“However, the education system cannot solve the impact of significant socio-economic inequality on its own,” he said.

“There are a range of social factors which must also be addressed in disadvantaged areas, such as improving the provision of secure, well-paid employment, and good-quality, affordable housing.”

England’s Department for Education said applications from 18-year-olds, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, were at record levels.

A spokesman said the government was spending £120m on outreach, while further reforms would “mean even more people can benefit from a university education”.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Fake university degree websites shut down

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Graduates

More than 40 fraudulent websites have been shut down in a major crackdown on the sale of fake degrees.

The sites closed included those selling authentic-looking certificates using the names of real British universities.

Others were providers offering distance learning courses but were not valid UK degree awarding bodies.

An agency set up to investigate the issue, Higher Education Degree Datacheck(Hedd), said it had reports of more than 90 bogus institutions.

It follows a BBC South East investigation which found fake University of Kent degree certificates on sale online in China for £500.

Jayne Rowley, the higher education services director at Prospects which runs Hedd, said last September was its busiest month so far, with the closure of four bogus university sites and three websites selling fake degree certificates from multiple UK universities.

“One of the institutions we shut down in September was Stafford University. Now, of course there is an entirely genuine Staffordshire University, so they are piggy-backing on a name,” she said.

“There are some sites where they’ve actually taken the name of a real university – Surrey for example.

“There was a bogus provider shut down by us a couple of months ago calling itself Surrey University, and we’ve had ‘Wolverhamton university’ without the ‘p’ in the middle.”

Other fake certificates have purported to have come from Salford and Anglia Ruskin universities, while degrees from the University of Manchester were sold on the auction website eBay.

The government announced a crackdown on bogus providers in June 2015, with the aim of prosecuting and taking down fraudulent websites.

Ms Rowley said Hedd had taken action against offenders both in the UK and overseas.

She said: “Under UK law you are not allowed to call yourself a university unless you are entitled to do so and that requires an order from the Secretary of State.

“If you are using the name of a real university that is breaching trademark laws, you are not allowed to trade on somebody’s good name.”

Hedd has now asked new graduates not to take photographs with their real degree certificates in case they inadvertently aid fraudsters.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “Degree fraud cheats both genuine learners and employers so we’ve taken decisive action to crack down on those seeking to profit from it.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

University lowers entry grades for disadvantaged

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

graduation at Bristol

A leading university is to increase its intake of disadvantaged students by offering places with reduced grades.

The University of Bristol is to accept lower exam grades from disadvantaged local pupils and applicants from schools with poor A-level results.

Vice-chancellor Hugh Brady said this would be a “step change” in admissions.

The project is launched as admissions service figures show young people from poorer families are much less likely to apply to university.

The Bristol project, to be launched by Education Secretary Justine Greening, is an attempt by the university to drive social mobility and attract a wider range of students.

‘Potential’ not exam grades

The university, which gets eight applications for every place, will make offers two grades lower than the standard offer for applicants who have been at schools in the lowest-achieving 40% for A-level results.

For every local school, there will be five places for disadvantaged pupils, based on head teachers’ assessments of “potential” rather than exam grades.

The university says it wants a more diverse intake of students – as Ucas figures show that youngsters from wealthy backgrounds are almost four times more likely to apply to university than their poorer counterparts.

Despite campaigns to widen access to university, the Ucas figures show that groups such as working class white boys are still far behind in university entry rates.

Many universities, including Bristol, take into account whether students have had to overcome barriers in their education.

But the pilot schemes in Bristol will see some places directly awarded on the basis of the background of applicants.

‘Bold measures’

It will encourage applications from disadvantaged students such as those who have been in care, eligible for free school meals or those who will be the first in their family to go to university.

The Bristol Scholars project will be launched at St Bede’s Catholic College in Bristol.

A student at the college, Marbel Chawatama, will take up a place in Bristol this autumn, as part of a pilot year for the scholarship scheme.

“I know a lot of people want to go to the University of Bristol but don’t get the opportunity. I felt really blessed,” said the 18 year old, who will begin a law degree.

Prof Brady said: “We want to recruit the most able students, regardless of their background.

“These are bold measures designed to address a problem that is seen across the education sector,” said Prof Brady.

The university has spent £18m trying to recruit students from poorer backgrounds – and he says this more direct approach will represent a “step change”.

“We’re confident that, in time, we will achieve a more diverse student community at the University of Bristol; this will be a change which will benefit everyone, and something we hope other universities will consider replicating.”

Mayor’s backing

The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, backed the project as helping to create a “fairer city”.

“We must reach a place where opportunities in life are not defined by your background or economic circumstances.”

Les Ebdon, director of Fair Access to Higher Education, backed such “innovative” approaches to recruitment.

“But there is still a long way to go before everyone who has the potential to go to university has equal chance to do so,” said Prof Ebdon.

“I would like to see more universities thinking creatively about how they support talented young people.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

University rents out New York campus with no students as events venue

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Glasgow Caledonian University's New York campus and transformed into Le Marche Bleu pop-up

A Scottish university is renting out its New York campus for pop up events to raise much-needed cash.

Glasgow Caledonian University has spent £9.6m on an American offshoot that has struggled to generate revenue.

Three years after opening, GCU New York is still unable to enrol any degree students because it does not yet have a licence.

A union convener said the campus should be closed. But university management insisted it will eventually pay off.

At the moment, Glasgow Caledonian University has financial problems.

BBC Scotland has learned that it has recorded a deficit of almost £2.7m for the 2015/16 financial year – the first time it has gone into the red for at least nine years.

This figure is expected to be confirmed when the university publishes its annual financial statement.

It is understood that it will blame a drop in the number of international students because of “toughened changes to the student visa regime”.

In the document, GCU’s principal and vice-chancellor, Prof Pamela Gillies, is expected to describe “a downturn in the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for international students”.

But union officials at GCU argued this explanation ignored the millions of pounds spent on the loss-making New York campus.

Without that burden, they believed the university would still have an overall surplus.

‘No public money’

Union convener at GCU, Dr Nick McKerrell said: “I’d like university management to hold their hands up and say ‘look we made a mistake, this was not a venture that was going to succeed.'”

GCU New York is funded by a loan from the main university of which £5.6m had been drawn down by the end of the 2014-15 financial year.

That figure rose by almost £4m to £9.6m over 2015-16.

The university has always said the project is entirely funded from its own resources and not from public money.

Professor James Miller, deputy vice-chancellor of GCU, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the university had enjoyed a healthy balance sheet since 2007.

He said: “Over the past nine years Glasgow Caledonian University has made surpluses and that has allowed us to make the investments that we make, not just in our transnational and international ventures but also in relation to the investments that we make here in Glasgow.

“And the £9.6m that was identified for New York is dwarfed entirely by the £32m that we have recently spent in the heart of Glasgow campus, that we’ve undertaken and completed, so it is a little simplistic to suggest that because we are investing money in New York that we wouldn’t have run this deficit this year.”

Prof Miller insisted that the New York campus would turn out to be a productive investment but acknowledged delays in admitting students had been frustrating.

He added: “Of course we are slightly frustrated at the fact that we don’t have our licence yet. That sits with the New York State Education Department.

“We are the first university to have gone through this process so that’s why it’s probably taking longer than we were initially led to believe was the case. But we continue to work with the NYSED.”

In the meantime, the campus in lower Manhattan is being hired out as a venue to generate some income.

Last weekend it was used by the model Julia Restoin-Roitfeld for what was publicised as a Le Marche Bleu holiday pop-up shop.

It appears to have been designed to promote a French vodka brand.

Non-degree courses

University flags and logos were removed for the occasion.

Union convener Dr McKerrell said: “We are not a pop-up shop, we are a university of higher education. We shouldn’t be selling foie gras, caviar and Champagne to the wealthy of Manhattan.

“We are a higher education institution. To do such a thing demeans us academically, and I think we need to look at why we have not got the licence and how we can get out of this without losing more money for staff at Glasgow.”

The venue’s website suggests it has previously been used by Nike and Banana Republic and for an art exhibition.

GCU New York has also generated some money by offering short non-degree courses to businesses.

The university sees internationalisation as a key to its future success.

The New York State Education Department said “no decision has been made” on Glasgow Caledonian’s application for degree-awarding authority.

If such a licence is granted, the university is expected to offer specialist courses in fashion and risk management.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Canadian authors in university firing row

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Canadian author Margaret Atwood

Canada’s literary community is tearing itself apart over unspecified but “serious accusations” against one of its own.

The seeds of the literary row were planted a year ago, when the University of British Columbia (UBC) suspended author and lecturer Steven Galloway.

He was later fired after a month-long investigation.

This week, over 80 of Canada’s brightest literary talents came to his defence in an open letter to UBC.

In the letter released on Wednesday, writers including Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Madeleine Thien and David Cronenberg demanded an independent investigation into how UBC handled the allegations against the creative writing professor and bestselling author.

The university has never revealed the substance of the accusations against Mr Galloway or the results of the investigation conducted by a former BC supreme court judge, citing privacy for both Mr Galloway and his accusers.

But media reports have uncovered accusations of bullying and sexual harassment.

The authors now face accusations that, in their criticism of the lack of due process they saw afforded to Mr Galloway, they are turning a blind eye to “rape culture”.

On social media, they were accused of failing to take into account the impact the flawed process had on complainants and in participating in a “court of celebrity”. Two withdrew their names from the letter.

Sierra Skye Gemma, who filed a complaint against Mr Galloway for behaviour she says she witnessed, told the Canadian Press wire service: “I wept when I read those names because I truly believe those writers have no idea the silencing effect this letter has on victims, both of the past and of the future”.

Ms Atwood defended her actions in The Walrus magazine on Thursday.

“My position is that the UBC process was flawed and failed both sides, and the rest of my position is that the model of the Salem Witchcraft Trials is not a good one,” she said.

For its part, UBC said in a statement that it reached its decision to fire Mr Galloway after a “thorough, deliberative process” that followed all labour laws and university and union standards and agreements.

They said a review of the university’s decision is already under way.

Mr Galloway, who faces no criminal charges, has not spoken publicly about the allegations and an ongoing grievance process is keeping him from doing so.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Oxford University to launch first online ‘Mooc’ course

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Oxford University

Oxford University has announced its first “massive open online course” – or so-called Mooc – in a partnership with a US online university network.

These free online courses have grown in popularity with hundreds of universities and millions of students.

But until now Oxford has not offered such Mooc courses.

It is going to run an economics course partnered with online platform edX, set up by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The emergence of Mooc courses in recent years has been a major phenomenon in higher education, particularly in the United States.

Their supporters argued that putting courses online would make them more accessible and affordable – while sceptics doubted that teaching and the exchange of ideas in seminars could be replicated on the internet.

They also warned of the high drop-out rate from Moocs and that students were unlikely to get a full degree.

‘Beyond the classrooms of Oxford’

Oxford has offered many resources online, including through the iTunes U service and also its department for continuing education.

But until now it has not engaged in the type of Mooc courses offered by the big online networks, such as edX and Coursera in the US and FutureLearn in the UK.

These provide free mini-courses, which can be accessed by students anywhere in the world.

Oxford has now announced that it will begin enrolling students for a course starting in February 2017 called “From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development”.

It will be part of the edX online platform, which has nine million registered students and runs more than 900 online courses from universities including Harvard, MIT, Berkeley in the US, Peking in China and Sorbonne in France as well as Edinburgh and Imperial College London in the UK.

The course will examine the role that governments play in boosting economic development and will be led by Sir Paul Collier, professor of economics and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government.

What is a Mooc?

In 2012, the New York Times declared that this was “the Year of the Mooc” – suggesting that the internet would revolutionise higher education in the way that the digital world had shaken up business and the media.

Moocs – or massive open online courses – were intended to tackle some of the big challenges in higher education, such as the high cost of fees and that universities remained out of reach for people who could not spare years out of work.

They would be free and everything would be delivered online, so that large numbers of students, anywhere in the world, could be reached by a single course.

Hundreds of universities began to experiment with these short online courses, which are often delivered through online platforms, such as edX, Coursera and Futurelearn.

These courses have attracted millions of students, but so far they’ve been very unlikely to give students any formal qualification.

There might be a certificate to show a student has completed the course, but these are not degrees. You can’t take a Mooc and say you’re a graduate of that university.

But since the dawn of the Moocs there has been an expectation that these online courses from top universities could develop into fully-fledged degree courses.

So far this has been a cautious process. Leading universities are offering some fully online postgraduate courses and there have been experiments with Moocs being used as credits counting towards degrees.

But there has been less enthusiasm to offer fully online undergraduate courses, with concerns about how you could teach and supervise over the internet.

Of course distance learning specialists, such as the Open University, have been doing this for years.

There has been some scepticism about how traditional universities could move online.

But the arrival of the University of Oxford will be seen as adding to the credibility of the Mooc movement.

Ngaire Woods, Blavatnik’s dean, said the online course would be “an effective way to expand access to knowledge beyond the classrooms of Oxford”.

Prof Woods said the school was dedicated to improving government and that depended on “better educated public officials, teachers, entrepreneurs, journalists and citizens”.

The head of the Coursera online network, which has more than 20 million students, recently predicted that within five years many top universities would be offering fully accredited undergraduate degrees taught entirely online.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

London University condemns Israeli government after senior lecturer ban

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

dr-adam.jpg

The Director of SOAS University has condemned a move by the Israeli government to detain a senior lecturer and ban him from entering the country for ten years.

In a letter to the Israeli Embassy, former UN official Baroness Valerie Amos called the decision to deport Dr Adam Hanieh “an arbitrary breach of academic freedom”.

Dr Hanieh travelled to Israel in September in order to give a lecture on social sciences at Birzeit University in Palestine. He was due to deliver three classes to PHD students at the university, but was detained upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport.

According to the university, Dr Hanieh was questioned for ten hours and taken overnight to a detention centre before he was returned back to London the following day.

A representative of the Israeli Ministry of Interior informed him that he was banned from entering the country for ten years.

Writing to embassy representatives in the UK, Lady Amos expressed “serious concerns” about the academic’s treatment, demanding an explanation into the reasons behind the ban.

In an update on Monday, a SOAS university spokesperson said: “Unfortunately no satisfactory response has been forthcoming, thus confirming our belief that this is an arbitrary breach of academic freedom.”

Dr Hanieh is one of a number of academics who are said to have been denied entry to Israel, according to the London university. In 2015, a research student was said to have been deported under similar circumstances.

Officials from Birzeit University have also spoken out against the action.

A spokesperson said: “This policy represents an attack on Palestinian academic freedom, and is routinely practiced at the two entry points, the airport in Tel Aviv and the Jordan valley crossing from Jordan.”

“Birzeit University is not surprised by this latest instance of the policy, and hereby draws attention to its destructive effects.”

An Israeli source said Dr Hanieh was an “ardent hater” of Israel and had previously spoken out against the government through his work.

The source said: “It’s ironic that a man such as Dr Hanieh who has not only called for Israel to be boycotted and isolated, but also rejects the very idea of peace between Israel and its neighbours, including the Oslo Accords, should be so upset at not being able to visit Israel.”

According the university, which specialises in the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, research access to a country like Israel is “of vital importance” to its teaching and research.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in London said they had received Lady Amos’s letter and that the matter was being looked into.

[Source:- independent]

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