The experts on counselling and psychology from SkillingIndia and Peakmind.in addressed the students in these workshops. The sessions covered why & how stress happens, causes of stress, signs of being stressed out, coping strategy, awareness and relaxing techniques to deal with stress. This helps in building skills not only in personal but also in professional life. “Mental Wellbeing, Resilience and Stress Tolerance” is one of the Top 10 future skills identified by SkillingIndia research. As the students get into the workforce, they will encounter various other forms of stress as well as demands on their emotions, time and resources, and such skill will be essential for them to navigate the world.  

In the words of Manish Chowdhary, Founder & Director SkillingIndia, “In India, parental expectations and too much perceived importance of marks creates a lot of undue pressure on a student. Ability to understand and manage this stress is an important skill every student should learn. I would advise parents to provide a supportive role and understand the emotions which the child is going through at this juncture. They can enable the child to make their emotions work for them rather than be affected by them. I would also advise children to take regular breaks, to exercise, play and indulge in co-curricular activities. This would help in positive outcomes in a child.”

According to a study conducted in February 2021, the academic stress and mental health of Indian high school students varies on various psycho-social factors and academic stress. Nearly 63.5% of the students reported stress due to academic pressure, about 66% of students reported feeling pressure from their parents for better academic performance. Moreover, the research concluded, about 32.6% of the students were symptomatic of psychiatric issues and 81.6% reported examination-related anxiety.

Meera Edna Coelho, Associate Professor – Department of English, Besant College quoted, “The session was excellent and mind-blowing with the presenter ensuring all students were relaxed and participative. I am sure the students would agree with me on this. Such sessions are the need of the hour as a lot of new and exciting concepts were discussed which will help the students in their exam preparation and success.”

The post SkillingIndia Organises Exam Stress Management Webinars appeared first on Startagist.

As schools, colleges and other educational institutions yet again face prolonged and indefinite shutdown amid a recurring disruption in the physical-setting continuity, e-learning has gained momentum with deeper penetration of the internet in the remotest areas. Most educational institutions wish to continue with their exams while preventing cheating with the same integrity as in the traditional setup. This urge is augmenting the need for a safe and secure way to conduct exams online while also establishing the credibility of the exam process. Mercer | Mettl’s set of new and robust features cater to this growing demand in the academic circles.   

Reflecting on the development, Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer | Mettl said: “We are thrilled to add some advanced anti-cheating capabilities to our online exam platform that will shape the future of education. The online exam platform is already enabling institutions in the country’s remotest areas to shift their exams online with utmost integrity and credibility. And we seek to further enhance our platform’s efficiency with these new-age features, to ensure exam sanctity and security for institutions, by eliminating all instances of cheating.”

Some of the newly added features to the online examination platform include Speech Sense. It is an AI-based Audio Proctoring Engine that inspects a candidate’s audio feed for the presence of human speech and can identify “Who spoke When.” It also flags speech segments, identifies the count of unique speakers in the audio feed and tags each speech segment to a particular speaker. Speech Sense spots cheating scenarios based on the exchange of verbal information.

The Super Proctor feature assures that the examination process is not compromised at any step, through the supervision of the entire drive remotely by the University or college administrator or the controller of examinations. Any other individual can also act as a Super Proctor, invigilating the proctors and the entire exam process. It provides end-client visibility in a live proctored drive for enhanced control. This smart proctoring technology is a valuable addition to Mercer | Mettl’s already credible online proctoring.

By introducing the one-click LMS Integration, Mercer | Mettl has enabled exam administrators and faculty to customize and initiate proctored exams without leaving their Learning Management System’s environment with the click of a button. It is done either by leveraging LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability) extensions or deeper API integration, both of which add a layer of human or AI-assisted remote proctoring to any LMS, ensuring that exams, even within LMSs, are cheating-proof. Mercer | Mettl has successfully covered more than 90% of the LMS market worldwide and is compatible with globally leading LMSs, such as Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard.

Mercer | Mettl’s enhanced solutions cater to the entire examination cycle, enabling faculty and administrators to create question papers, schedule exams, invigilate using a mix of AI and human-led proctoring, assign answer sheets to evaluators and reviewers, and finally declare the results. The digital solution does all this without compromising students’ exam-taking experience.

Leading universities and institutions globally, including IIMB, IIML, IIMC, ISB, Ashoka University, Christ (Deemed-to-be-University), AIMA (All India Management Association), BITS Pilani, Concord College and Amity University, use Mercer | Mettl’s online examination tools.

About Mercer | Mettl:

Mercer | Mettl, provides an Online Assessment Platform which delivers efficient, cost-effective and technology-driven skill assessments that help organizations to build winning teams by taking credible people decisions across two key areas: Acquisition and Development. Mercer | Mettl is currently partnering with over 4,000 global companies, 31 sector skill councils and 150+ educational institutes across 90+ countries.  Mettl has been acquired by Mercer in 2018, a global consulting leader in advancing health, wealth, and career, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC), the leading global professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people.

The post Mercer | Mettl launches version 2.0 of its ‘Online Examination Portal’ to foolproof online exams appeared first on Startagist.

“When we opened centres after a time gap of 8 months, in January 2021 we realised that our kids living on the streets and slums had already forgotten basic concepts; book knowledge was far behind,” says Dr. Geetanjali Chopra, Founder & President of Wishes and Blessings NGO.

“Last year when the pandemic hit, all our centres had to abruptly go on hold and there wasn’t any way to continue the education for our kids. This year again, due to the rise in cases the centres had to be shut, however, we decided to continue the training, guidance and counselling through online modes. The shift was executed keeping in mind the need to ensure that the education of these children should continue as smoothly as possible, even during the pandemic,” adds Dr. Chopra.

The NGO, which operates its day care centres in Okhla and Vasant Vihar, Delhi enrolled the children for online education and divided them into groups of 3 on the basis of age, and each group was assigned a teacher in charge. Currently, modules are shared via Whatsapp groups and cover all formal subjects as well as art and craft activities. The teachers of Wishes and Blessings share videos explaining the lessons and then worksheets are assigned to the children, which the students fill in and then send back via the groups. “In cases where children do not have access to the internet, the questions are either shared by children who do have access, or sit in groups and complete the assignments together”, further added Dr. Chopra.

The Wishes and Blessings team coordinates with the teachers to formulate educational modules that ensure that the children are engaged while studying. This involves continuously adapting and evolving the curriculum to capture the students’ attention. At the same time, the teachers are undergoing training of their own so that they are equipped to cater to the needs of their students. The teachers also ensure to hold one-on-one sessions with children who require additional guidance and counselling during these tough times, and support them emotionally as well.

Currently, there are 85 children who are being guided towards brighter futures through the ‘Street to School’ Programme. They primarily belong to two locations: Vasant Vihar and Okhla, Delhi.

Wishes and Blessings NGO launched the ‘Street To School’ Programme through its physical centres in Delhi and NCR in the year 2016 and has been able to successfully send its children to formal schools. The students have excelled not only in academics but have proven their capabilities in other extracurricular activities as well.

The post ‘Street to School’ Programme Goes Online appeared first on Startagist.

• The platform aims at bringing equality in non-academic learning, by blurring the boundaries of availability and reach of celeb mentors

• Targets small town aspirants – Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities which have negligible access to hobby learnings

• Promotes creative training and wants each person to realise their strength by nurturing their hobbies, interests and passion in various fields
• Now tune into your Unluclass and invest in yourself by staying entertained and learn in the process too

After a magnanimous success, the homegrown fan engagement platform Unlu announced the launch of a celebrity powered Learning and Entertainment platform Unluclass.

A platform that makes it possible for everyone to learn from celebrity experts. Unluclass, offers lessons from these industry veterans who have made it big in their respective fields. The platform is set to go live by January end.

Sharing his vision for Unlu post the announcement, co-founder, Vipul Agrawal said, “The idea of Unluclass was more from the concept of connecting dots. We are thrilled on how Unlu has successfully reached out to millions of audiences out there and has been applauded for the services it has to offer. The next question was – what else can we do? And Unluclass was an instant answer.”

They plan to come up with classes taught by world-renowned instructors in various fields like comedy, music, writing, design, photography, fashion, film and TV, sports, entrepreneurship, lifestyle, and much more which starts at just INR 400.

“There is a void when it comes to non-academic learning especially for those who do not belong to metro cities. Reaching out to celeb mentors is like a dream far away for them and with Unluclass, we have bridged the gap to learn from the best wherever you are” says Himanshu Periwal, Co-founder.

“The twist of providing learning through celebs will prove to be critical in redefining and aligning the thoughts of how people seek the new way of hobby learning,” adds Vipul Agrawal calling it as the ‘New Normal’ of Learning + Entertainment.

He adds, “you can binge-watch just like you’d do with Netflix and other platforms, but with Unluclass you’ll end up learning so much more than you ever could through simple TV binging.” Meanwhile, the officials shared no information on celebs who are a part of the platform but sources state that the company has already signed and is actively working & shooting with many top celebrities.

The post Unlu announces the launch of Learning & Entertainment platform – Unluclass appeared first on Startagist.

With some of the strongest partnerships with the most reputed Institutions in the higher-education sector, Talentedge has one of the largest array of industry-relevant courses across various disciplines and is one of the most respected organizations in the higher education and executive education space in India.

While there has been a lot of noise in the Ed-tech sector this year, Talentedge has been driving growth and democratization of higher education and executive education under the radar. While the company has been showing rapid growth over the previous years too, this year, Talentedge added 15 new course offerings to its portfolio, taking the total number of learner centric courses to over 250. Among them, some of the most preferred courses included HR, Analytics, Leadership, Strategy and Marketing. Additionally, the company added over 8 premier institutions to its existing list of highly-reputed academic partners and surpassed 17.5 million learning hours which stands testimony to the quality of learning imparted through its business model.

To position itself as the most trusted higher-education and executive education partner to the learners across various age-groups and at various stages of their careers, Talentedge is constantly adding various value-added services to its platform. As an organization that believes in “outcome based learning”, it offers placement support so that the learners’ careers get a new lease of life as they earn their certifications. An earlier report titled “National Employability Report”, published in 2019 showed the dismal level of employability of our engineers and hence interventions that Talentedge has been quietly making to drive greater industry-readiness for India’s demographic dividend has indeed hit the sweet spot.

Through its proprietary research-led methodology, it has been crafting its courses in partnership with the academic institutions as well as the industry together. That has helped Talentedge to create a niche for itself through its offerings which help learners all across the country access the finest learning opportunities from the most reputed institutions. This Industry-Academia partnership has truly been a game changer for the company. Rapid internet penetration along with a greater focus on E-learning has led Ed-tech to accelerate in India over the years. While the Tier l or metros cities have traditionally had a greater response to Ed-tech, the non-metro cities have also seen a spike in 2020 whereby for Talentedge, 45% of its learners come from Non-Metro cities. This is a trend that seems to be getting stronger as learners across age-groups and across geographies look at adding high quality learning and certification to their repertoire.

Talking on the subject, Aditya Malik, CEO and MD, Talentedge said, “We have already witnessed a shift towards digital learning by aspirational learners looking to widen their horizon through reputed institutions and our industry mentors. While replicating the classroom learning environment in the digital world, we enable the students to have live and interactive sessions which allow active engagement and make the experience a fulfilling one. Our focus has always been on offering the most relevant courses in partnership with the premier institutes in the country as well as the industry and all these factors cumulatively have made above 95% of our learners achieve better in their careers and their roles. My aim is to build a larger Ed-tech ecosystem with the highest education standards that drive outcome based learning and we are on the path to achieve just that.”

To continue to offer a superior experience to its learner, due the surge in inquiries and admissions, Talentedge has added 250+ employees and also bolstered its leadership team for its journey ahead in 2021 and beyond.

About Talentedge:

The first to bring ‘Live & Interactive’ anywhere learning in the digital format, Talentedge is an Ed-Tech firm which is changing the way India learns. It offers over 250 courses from over 70 premium Indian and International institutes. Talentedge enables working professionals to plan their future course of action and fast track their careers by offering courses jointly with world leading institutes such as e-Cornell, IIMs, XLRI, MICA, SPJIMR, amongst other reputed institutions.

Talentedge recreates classroom type interactions in the virtual world and has already struck a chord with over 450,000 individuals and corporate learners. It is one of the first Ed-Tech organizations to be credited with an ISO: 9001-2008 certification.

The post Ed-tech Firm Talentedge doubles revenue in 2 years and crosses 17.5 million learning hours appeared first on Startagist.