Everonn or Off? Founder arrested for bribery!
Mr P Kishore, CEO of Everonn, an education providing company, was arrested by CBI on charges of bribing an income-tax official with Rs 50 lakh.
A CBI statement said that during a search operation of Everonn early this month Income Tax official Andasu Ravindar found Kishore concealing a taxable income of Rs 116 crore. Kishore is alleged to have requested the Income Tax official to "suppress" Rs 60 crore of the concealed amount. It was toward this that a bribe of Rs 50 lakh was sought and paid. However, it was at the removal of the money to an "unknown place" that the CBI, acting on a tip-off, came into the picture, followed through and made the arrest.
Everonn's (a public company) stocks hit a 52-week low over the last two days after Mr Kishore (founder of Everonn) was arrested. This arrest has also led Mr J J Irani, to step down as the chairman of the board of directors of the company.
The question is will Everonn be able to inspire potential customers / students to be in one of their schools when basic integrity is a problem with its core? How would a parent be assured that they will not be fleeced, cheated or that their children will not learn just the wrong things?
KOOLKSOOL launches worksheets
KOOLSKOOL worksheets - for different ages, across different concepts and complexity
KOOLSKOOL has launched its own set of worksheets for students. The first set is designed for pre-primary students in Nursery, LKG and UKG classes.
These worksheets cover a wide area from helping children learn the basic motor skills, to shapes, fine tune colouring, to basics of the alphabet, numbering and even the basic writing skills.
Designed by instructional designers, KOOLSKOOL worksheets are designed with young ones' ease of use in mind and categorized by subject and the specific target age. Each of the set of activity worksheets is a compilation of 15 or 26 work sheets that works through a specific concept in various formats. This makes cognition, learning of concepts fun. Worksheets are organized in increasing levels of complexity, so that the young learner moves from one stage to the next with ease and finally masters the concept.
You may want to check them out, and buy them at a discount here
Children are starting to get addicted to the Internet!
- Your child might be getting addicted to the net
A recent Yale University study of over 3,500 school students in the the American state of Connecticut has found that one in every 25 teens reported an “irresistible urge” to be on the internet, tension when they weren’t online, or said they had tried to quit or cut down on internet time.
In addition, the study found that those students with “problematic internet use” were more likely than their peers to be depressed and aggressive, and to use drugs. However, study leader Timothy Liu, and his colleagues said they couldn’t prove a “cause and effect” link between the Internet habits, depression and drug use. “It may be associated with depression, substance use, and aggressive behaviors. High school boys, though, may have heavier internet use and may be less self-aware of the related problems,” they wrote.
The study asked more than 150 questions about health,risky behaviors, and impulsiveness — including seven questions on internet use. Out of 3,560 students, 4% met the criteria for problematic internet use. Asian and Hispanic students were more likely to qualify, although the majority of students in the study were white.
Playing video games increases food intake in adolescents
A recent study conducted, concludes that playing video games has a direct impact on the food intake of adolescents and teenagers. Although experts agree, that change in type of food and lack of physical activity among children in urban areas causes increase in weight, they have been unable so far to come out with concrete solutions. Now, the new study (results of which were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) has documented a positive association between how much time a child plays video games and his or her chance of being obese.
However, correlation does not necessarily imply causality, and controlled intervention studies are necessary to test whether playing video games causes children to increase their food intake and/or decrease their energy expenditure. In the first such study of this kind, Canadian and Danish researchers tested their hypothesis that video game playing is accompanied by increased spontaneous food intake.
The researchers considered healthy, normal-weight male teens (mean age: ~17 y) studied in this crossover intervention trial consisting of two 1-h periods. In one period, subjects rested (control period); in the other, they played video games. For both periods, the youth reported to a research laboratory after an overnight fast and were provided with a standardized breakfast. During the intervention periods, blood samples were collected every 10 minutes, and energy expenditure was assessed by using indirect calorimetry. Immediately thereafter, each participant was offered full access to a spaghetti lunch. Food intake and measurements of hunger, satiety, fullness, and appetite were assessed.
The study by Jean-Phillippe Chaput et. al. found that the, blood glucose concentrations were found to have increased more when playing video games than during the control period, but there was no differential effect on insulin or ghrelin (a hormone thought to signal the sensation of hunger to the brain). Energy expenditure was higher during video game play than during the resting condition. However, subjects ate after playing the video games than they did after the control period. This resulted in a net positive energy during the entire day when video games were played compared with when subjects rested, despite the fact that the subjects reported similar appetite ratings during these periods.
Inculcating the reading habit
CBSE has issued a circular earlier this month, directed at heads of institutions with the aim of inculcating reading habits among school students. This circular is in continuation of CBSE's earlier circular from October 2009, and also provides a list of recommended books.
As one would expect, the list of recommended books covers a wide range of subjects and areas, and are from various publishers and authors. The list has many of Children's Book Trust books (thus keeping the prices low), and there are some authors who have seen more than one of their books being included in the list. However, again akin to any other government organization's work, low amount of research has gone into the availability of the books in the list. Many of the books are out of print, or at least not available in the market.
You will find the list of recommended books here.
Consumer behaviour insights
Our exhibitions gave us some interesting insight into consumer behavior. At a high level:
- Environment makes a difference
- Fathers buy differently from mothers
- Technology awareness is still low
- Customer discretion plays an important part
- Customer centric assortment and merchandising is more important than ever
- Television influences purchasing patterns
Click on the slide (below) to read and know more from our preliminary findings.
Violent cartoons like Shin-Chan leading to bad behaviour amongst Indian school children
The cases of violent behavior amongst children is increasing by the day due to violent cartoons on TV.Note Cartoon Watching has become a favorite past time for children in India .This is due to a number of reasons like the busy life of parents,nuclear families,lack of safe open playgrounds etc.
In July 2006, when Shin Chan first appeared on Indian television screens, there were concerns regarding language, the behaviour and the mannerisms of the character Shin Chan. Due to this, the government banned Shin Chan in India till all such objectionable content was edited out.
This is leading to the harmful development of school children who try to repeat behaviour of cartoons in real life at schools.Bashing up classmates and objects becomes justified in children's mind as they see them on TV.Using abusive language and bad behaviour are some of the other harmful mannerisms being learned by children.
In our opinion children need to be encouraged to go out play with peers as this provides both exercise and a chance to develop interpersonal skills. It in a way is also the parents’ duty to censor what their children watch.
Right To Education (RTE) awareness created by CRY organized Bangalore festival
India recently passed a Right to Education (RTE) legislation which ensures various measures for betterment of children and their rights.However Awareness remains low which CRY has tried to ameliorate by organizing a Festival in Bangalore. Children from different schools will act in various plays in different parts of Bangalore to raise awareness about the clauses of the Act amongst the citizenry
Beginning from Sunday, the theater festival will see children staging street plays in every nook and corner of the city and act out the importance of RTE Act. Busy thoroughfares and malls will be the target of the children’s campaign. The plays will also be performed on November 27 and 28 at three different places of Bangalore. About 90 children in the age group of 11-18 will be participating in the festival.
The schools participating in the festival include Bishop Cotton Girls’ School, Cathedral High School, CMR High School, Frank Anthony Public School, Genius Kids and Royale Concorde International School. “Though the RTE Act came into force on April 1, 2010, it is yet to be implemented. Many parents and teachers are not even aware of the Act and its clauses. Through the plays, we will highlight how the Act has to be implemented to change the very face of the Indian education system,” said Sahaya Teresa
Collaborative Learning – II
Students learn rapidly when collaborating with peers
You read in the previous article about students /children learning rapidly when they collaborate with their peers. Research says that "People learn best when they participate in activities that are perceived to be useful in real life and are culturally relevant.1" The question to ask would be if that is understood by the people who design the students’ curricula in our country. Being the parent of a four year old, I have seen group activities being conducted for Montessori kids. I can’t remember and neither could other folk (including my nieces) recollect enough instances of the schools getting students to collaborate enough and learn. Getting children together for just a regular activity or a project is not enough, and neither is getting 40 children to sit together in a class room. However, if you were to compare this to what happens in higher education (business school for instance), the difference is stark. But, then again we are dealing with a different ball-game altogether. One would think it would help to teach problem solving skills to students.
The other interesting thing that I discovered is the findings of another study published in the Journal of Developmental Psychology. This study2 was conducted across 44 children aged between three and four by Dr. Hannes Rakoczy of Max Planck institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. The children were showed a video of an invented game being played by a boy, and a man. When asked to imitate the actions showed in the game, the children imitated the adult’s actions more often than the boys. Dr. Rakoczy concluded that children chose to learn more often from adults than from children when it came to rule-governed activities like learning a new game. Besides the fact that children rely on adults in framework based, and competitive situation, the study very clearly tells us that this could have wider implications in learning social (good or bad) behavior.
1 Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Heath, 1983.
2 British Psychological Society (BPS) (2010, February 23). Children don't trust each other when learning the rules. ScienceDaily. Retrieved
Collaborative Learning – I
Learning cycle for a child needs to be holistic and include the parent along with the teacher
Something that I noticed recently between my three nieces (in class XI, XII and freshman year) triggered a thought, and then led of a bit of research and finding out. One rather warm afternoon, my nieces were spending time trying to crack puzzles published in puzzle books and newspapers. One of them started on her own, the second one joined in. Gradually the eldest one got bored of watching TV and joined the younger ones.
The progress that the made together was remarkable compared to the slow start that the first young one made. It is also not as if the first one is less sharper than the other two. Very clearly three heads working together are better (you knew that), and three heads working together learned the mechanics of cracking the different types of puzzle schemas rapidly as well.
They moved from one puzzle type to the other, and cracked through rapidly. It also was evident that each of them excelled in a particular type. The gaps in understanding were filled in by the other two.
In the usual school education system, students interact with their teachers and parents. Parents and teachers interact with each other periodically, but there is hardly any formal education related interaction that students have together even sitting in a school.
This led me to do the quick search and research on the web, and not surprisingly plenty of research has been done in the past on collaborative learning. While, I read through research work, I also asked myself if children would collaborate as much if what they learned gave them a competitive edge over her/his peers.
To be continued...
Weblinks
.
.
.Recent Posts
- Effective Grammar Books and CDs
- Top 5 Things to Consider while Buying Toys
- Press Release: KOOLSKOOL’s Step towards Corporate Social Responsibility
- How to publish a book in India
- Indian Comics…
Recent Comments
- Dinesh Sapkal on Effective Grammar Books and CDs
- kanatalresort on Delhi CBSE Govt. (English medium) schools
- ks on Lucknow CBSE School List
- Aabha Kapoor on Manreet Sodhi Someshwar talks to KOOLSKOOL
- Aabha Kapoor on IIT JEE new format, double the burden
Archives
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010