Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages
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Role of Education in Social Inclusion of Muslims of Nepal
Get PDFThis study examines the social exclusion situation among the Muslim communities and
the role of education in their social inclusion in Nepal. In Nepal, the concept of social
exclusion and inclusion has gained prominence in public and development policy
discourse following its inclusion as one of four pillars of the Tenth Plan (2002-2007).
In recent years, the inclusion has become a policy agenda and the most populist
political agenda for development and social change among various groups in the
country.
Muslims are one of the highly disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded minority
groups with distinct religious and cultural identities in Nepal. They have been excluded
from social, economic, educational and political institutions; which, is reflected in their
low literacy and high poverty rates and low representation in the civil service, police,
military and other decision-making levels of the state. Historically, they have been
ignored by the state and excluded from mainstream development processes due to their
origin, religious minority status and territorial/regional identity.
Though, Muslims in general have themselves to blame for their low literacy rate and
the consequent exclusion from mainstream yet, it is a fact that the state has
substantially remained oblivious to the demands and requirements of the Muslim
communities.
Nepal’s social structure (i.e. Caste system), social discrimination, social inequality, the
government’s melting pot policy and non-recognition of Madrasa education has
become the most crucial impediments against inclusion. More importantly, the nature
of centralized state governance structures and other discriminatory practices in the
country have contributed to the exclusion of these communities in the past. During the
Rana regime (1848-1951), only family members and loyal supporters were entitled to
socio-economic opportunities; their power was further strengthened by social exclusion
in Nepal. During this feudal regime, any dissent, in the form of alternative ‘institutions’
or ideologies, was brutally suppressed, and the privileges of the dominant group were
further reinforced by the state.
After major political changes in 1951 there has been a centralization of power largely
within three caste/ethnic groups (hill Brahmins, Chhetris and Newars) who constitute
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only 35 percent of the population in Nepal. The minority Muslims have largely been
excluded from decision and policy making levels in the government. Therefore, they
have been deprived of the opportunity to articulate their needs and priorities through
forming government policy in their favor. Thus, due to their exclusion from decisionmaking
and policy making frameworks, they have remained poor, illiterate and
exploited in Nepal. The adverse effects of unequal opportunities and political power, on
development, are even more damaging because the educational, economic, social and
political disadvantages are reinforced repeatedly over generations.
Muslims have lower values in all the indicators of the Human Development Index
(HDI). The lower HDI for Muslims derives largely from their very low educational
attainment compared to other components of the HDI. Their low human development
or capability hinders their representation and participation, which, in turn, perpetuates
their low level of human development.
In the Muslim communities, women have higher illiteracy rate and lesser access to
higher education. Discriminatory attitudes or evident when we consider the rate of
attendance of boys and girls in the various schools. The majority of Muslim children
attends Madrasas rather than the government schools. In schools, the girl’s dropout
rate is higher than the boys. The main reasons of low literacy, high dropout and low
attainment of higher education among Muslims and particularly among girls is the
prevalence of poverty, religious orthodoxy, early marriage, lack of awareness,
conservative feelings and a general abhorrence towards mainstream education, lack of
accommodative syllabus and textual material on cultural aspects of the Muslims in
schools, lack of Muslim-friendly environment, lack of mother tongue education, lack of
incentives and scholarships in schools and lack of employment opportunities for
Muslims in the country.
In Nepal, Muslim children facing the cumulative impact of poverty, social
discrimination and social exclusion are severely restricted from enjoying their basic
rights including education. Poverty has pulled out many Muslim students from school
to work and/or compelled them never to enroll. Social exclusion has pushed them out
of their classrooms because of the culturally built-in caste or other types of taboos.
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In this context, the education system is unable to address the multiple challenges that
children bring to school. Many Muslim parents and children are not finding the current
education, curriculum, school environment relevant for them as per their needs. There
is no inclusive education system, no feeding provisions for hungry children, no social
exclusionary issue discussion forums in the school, no pedagogical practice to promote
the morals of the socially excluded children and no Muslim culture-friendly
environment in the school.
There is no provision in the local government to support the runaway and marginalized
children. In this situation, children themselves are responsible for their own and their
family’s survival. Poor quality and rigid education in this situation has no meaning. If
by chance these children enter education, they either end up in resource-poor schools or
Madrasas which still have not been fully recognized as an educational institution in
Nepal.
In the modern world, education is the basic source of knowledge and one of the main
agents/vehicles for social change and social inclusion in society. Educational
attainment influences other indicators of human development and opportunities in
many ways. It has been perceived as a force of enhancing the capability of the people in
terms of enhancing appropriate life skills, knowledge and experiential wisdom to
acquire economic and social prosperity. Realizing that fact, the Government of Nepal
has made a commitment to Education for All and Millennium Development Goals.
Social inclusion of Muslims and other minority groups is the major issue in the present
context of Nepal. However, the issues and problems of Muslims are still relatively
unheard and remain unresolved. In the given context, this study helps to understand the
socio-economic, political and educational situation of Muslims from the perspective of
social exclusion and inclusion. The study provides insight into the mindset of
minorities and the majority who have to deal with them directly or indirectly. The study
will also provide an opportunity for the minorities to reach out to the public creating an
atmosphere of goodwill and better understanding. Similarly, the study also helps policy
makers to formulate inclusive policies regarding education, government employment
and politics, which ultimately help to bring Muslims into the nation building and
mainstream development process of the country
Isolation Identification and Characterization of some Penicillium Isolates for Alpha Amylase Activity
Get PDFAninvestigation was carried out to determine the presence of amylase producing Penicillium species in the soils of Harwan area of Srinagar city. Two study sites were choosen from the area.Soil samples were collected from the study sites for the isolation o of Penicillium isolates. Pour plate method involving serial dilution was used for the isolation of fungi. The media used for isolation were Potato Dextrose Agar(PDA), Rose Bengal agar (RBA) and Malt Extract Agar (MEA). A total of 4 Penicillium isolates were obtained during the study, which showed positive alpha amylase activity, all belonging to division Ascomycota of kingdom fungi.The highest colony forming unit(cfu/g) of 3.5×103 was found for P.chrysogenum at site II in the month of August.Certain agricultural wastes like mustard oil cake,lin seed oil cake and wheat bran were used as crude ingredients in the submerged fermentation process for the production of amylases. The carbon and nitrogen sources were also altered in the culture media for the production of alpha amylases from the isolated Penicillium species. The results of this investigation show that P.chrysogenum has maximum activity of 550.4U/ml in medium with lin seed oil cake at pH 6 and incubation period of 6 days. P.purpurogenum showed maximum activity of 883.93U/ml infermented medium with mustard oil cake as crude substrateat pH6 incubation period of 6 days. P.caesi colum showed maximum activity of 834.8U/ml in medium with glucose as carbon sour ceat pH 9 and incubation period of 18 days. P.funiculosum showed maximum activity of 4254.4U/ml at pH 6 and incubation period of 18 days with mustard oil cake as crude substrate in the medium.The optimum conditions in the medium which were found best to promote the production of alpha amylase from Penicillium species were, when medium was maintained at pH 9 and incubation period of 18 days with glucose as carbon source followed by medium maintained at pH 9, 6 and incubation period of 18 days with yeast extract as nitrogen source and medium maintained at pH 6 and incubation period of 18 days with mustard oil cake in the medium
Design of Interactive Feature Space Construction Protocol
Get PDFMachine learning deals with designing systems that learn from data i.e. automatically improve
with experience. Systems gain experience by detecting patterns or regularities and using them for
making predictions. These predictions are based on the properties that the system learns from the
data. Thus when we say a machine learns, it means it has changed in a way that allows it to
perform more efficiently than before. Machine learning is emerging as an important technology
for solving a number of applications involving natural language processing applications, medical
diagnosis, game playing or financial applications. Wide variety of machine learning approaches
have been developed and used for a number of applications.
We first review the work done in the field of machine learning and analyze various concepts
about machine learning that are applicable to the work presented in this thesis. Next we examine
active machine learning for pipelining of an important natural language application i.e.
information extraction, in which the task of prediction is carried out in different stages and the
output of each stage serves as an input to the next stage.
A number of machine learning algorithms have been developed for different applications.
However no single machine learning algorithm can be used appropriately for all learning
problems. It is not possible to create a general learner for all problems because there are varied
types of real world datasets that cannot be handled by a single learner. For this purpose an
evaluation of the machine learning algorithms is needed. We present an experiment for the
evaluation of various state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms using an interactive machine
learning tool called WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis). Evaluation is
carried out with the purpose of finding an optimal solution for a real world learning problemcredit
approval used in banks. It is a classification problem.
Finally, we present an approach of combining various learners with the aim of increasing their
efficiency. We present two experiments that evaluate the machine learning algorithms for
efficiency and compare their performance with the new combined approach, for the same
classification problem. Later we show the effects of feature selection on the efficiency of our
combined approach as well as on other machine learning techniques. The aim of this work is to
analyze the techniques that increase the efficiency of the learners
Occupational Stress And Role Commitment Among Teachers Working At Secondary Level In Relation To Gender And Length Of Service
Get PDFEver since the dawn of civilization, teachers have been considered as
the core of any educational system. They act as the reformers of education and
rescue the world through education. As an educator, mentor and guide, they
play a pivotal role of being a harbinger and facilitator of social change in the
society. The skill and expertise of the teacher as a professional visualizes the
future of learners and prepares them to be the good citizens of tomorrow
(Kandu, 1988). It is recommended that teachers must be trained to become
“reflective practitioners”. A teacher occupies an important and unique place in
the system of education. He is the heart and soul of this system and leads the
students from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge and
understanding. He acts as a pivot for the transmission of intellectual traditions
and help to keep the lamp of civilization burning. Thus, the importance of a
teacher for the community and educational system is very much evident.
Although teaching is profession, yet people do not think of a teacher as a
professional worker like other professions such as medicine, law, engineering
etc. Many consider it not a profession but a mission.
The successful teacher must possess the ability and an academic
competence for teaching. In this scientific age, the teacher must possess the
ability to appreciate and understand the changing needs of the society and
must understand the psychological bases of education which influence the
education. Teacher education has led to some innovations in its various
aspects to work out strategies for planning and implementing innovative
programmes by making themselves familiar with the areas for innovations,
process and skill of innovating new ways and methods of teacher education. In
teaching profession , a teacher has to perform multiple activities like teaching,
evaluating, communicating , guiding and counseling the students, organizing
co-curricular activities etc., together with activities which are intrinsic to teaching and learning. This needs perfection in academic and professional
preparation of teachers and teacher educators. It has found that teacher stress
is related to high rates of absenteeism and turnover (Borg and Riding,
1991).These employment-related effects of teacher stress make it a potentially
important issue for school administrators and educational policy makers.
Occupational stress is taken as any characteristic of the job
environment which poses a threat to the individual, either excessive demands
or insufficient supplies to meet his needs (French et al., 1976). Any challenge
that exceeds the coping abilities of the individual becomes stress. There is no
doubt that teaching has become a more demanding and intense job. Not
surprisingly, teaching has been identified as one of the professions associated
with high to very high levels of occupational stress (Acirrt, 2002; Punch &
Tuetteman, 1996). Teacher job satisfaction has also been the subject of
considerable literature (Dinham & Scott, 1996; 1998; 2000; McCormick,
1997a; 1997b; Woods & Weasmer, 2004). The relationship of job satisfaction
to job stress and other negative factors such as intention to leave teaching has
been studied in various contexts (De Nobile, 2003; McCormick, 1997; Woods
& Weasmer, 2004). Job satisfaction has been defined as the extent to which a
staff member has favourable or positive feelings about work or the work
environment (De Nobile, 2003). It refers to the positive attitudes people may
gain from work or through aspects of work (Furnham, 1997; Locke, 1976).
Conversely, job dissatisfaction refers to unhappy or negative feelings about
work or the work environment (Furnham, 1997)
Mental Health, Emotional State and Coping Strategies: A Study of Orphans of Kashmir Valley
Get PDFMental health encapsulates the emotional well-being and behavioral repertoire of an
individual. It likewise effects his other behavioural and cognitive function (his
intelligence, autonomy, self concept and the way he copes with any taxing situation).
Therefore this facet of an individual if neglected will lead him to a perplexed situation.
The orphans comprise such individuals who are assumed to suffer from poor mental
health due to their ineffective coping mechanism and less developed cognitive capacity
to process trauma (Fivush,1998; Schneider,2000). According to Margoob, M.,(2006),
orphanhood has a psychological impact on the child. The present study entitled as
“Mental Health, emotional state and Coping Strategies: A study of orphans of Kashmir
Valley”, was aimed to understand the Mental Health, emotional state and Coping
Strategies used by the orphans of Kashmir. The available literature revealed that these
variables have been studied individually on different populations. However, no such
study was found in which all these variables have been taken together and especially on
orphan population. The objectives of the study were to examines the level of mental
health, emotional state and the different coping strategies used by orphans of Kashmir
valley. Besides the other objectives were to examine the relation between mental
health, coping strategies and emotional state of orphans of Kashmir valley. The study
also aims to compare mental health, emotional state, and coping strategies between
institutionalized and non institutionalized orphans and between single orphans and
double orphans of Kashmir valley. A total of 200 orphans were selected for the study,
in which 100 orphan children were selected from orphanages and the other 100 from
different areas of Srinagar. The Mental health scale developed by Alpana Sen Gupta
and Arun Kumar Singh (1983) was used to assess Mental health. Emotional state was
assessed by Eight state questionnaire (ESQ) devised by Cattle (1983). Ways of coping
questionnaire (WCQ) developed by Folkman and Lazarus (1986) was used for
assessing their coping strategies. Apart from these tools a self developed personal data
sheet was also used to collect certain personal information from the respondents which
include information about their name, age, parentage, residence etc. Techniques used to
analyse the data collected were central tendencies, standard deviation, Pearson’s
product moment correlation and t-test. The results revealed that 54.5% of orphans show
low level of mental health, and a small percent of orphans i.e., 23% show high level of
overall mental health. Regarding the Emotional state of orphans the results revealed
that 30.5% and 28% of orphaned children show high level of stress and depression
respectively i.e., they felt a lot of pressure, were unable to take time off to relax and
constantly on the go, the orphans were unhappy, pessimistic, in poor spirits, and
disappointed. The results also showed that the orphans mostly used positive reappraisal
coping strategy (mean score=11.92), followed by planful problem-solving (mean
score=8.82). The correlation analysis of the study revealed though insignificant but
negative correlation between Mental Health and six Coping strategies viz. Confrontive
Coping (r=-.029), Distancing (r= .056), Self-Controlling (r=-.106), Seeking social
support (r=-.056), Accepting Responsibility (r=-.049) and Planfull problem solving
(r=-.019). However, the correlation coefficient was found insignificant but positive
between Mental health and other two coping strategies viz. Escape Avoidance (r=.028)
and Positive Reappraisal (r=.001). While comparing institutionalized and Noninstitutionalised
orphans on Mental health dimensions, it was found that there is
insignificant difference between Institutionalized and non-institutionalized orphans on
all dimensions except on overall adjustment dimension, where institutionalized orphans
were found having better overall adjustment than non institutionalized orphans. Results
further revealed that Institutionalized and Non-Institutionalized orphans differ
significantly on various dimensions of emotional state viz. Anxiety,( t=2.555, , p
≤0.05), Stress ( t=2.234, p ≤ 0.05), Regression (t=4.073, p ≤ 0.05) and Extraversion
(t=2.251, p ≤ 0.05). The results also showed Institutionalized and Non-Institutionalized
orphans differ significantly on Positive Reappraisal coping strategies (t=7.913, p≤0.01).
Single and Double orphans showed significant difference on one of the dimensions of
mental health i.e., Emotional Stability (t=2.486, p ≤ 0.01). However the difference
between these two groups on emotional state and coping strategies was not found
statistically significant. Poor Mental and Emotional well-being, less constructive and
problem focused form of coping was found among the orphans in the present study.
The results have been discussed thoroughly in the light of available studies. The
investigator has also pointed out the limitations of the study and the suggestions for
future research on such population
Synthesis Of Naturally Occuring Carboline Alkaloids
No full textTetrahydro-β- carboline ring system is an important pharmacophore found in a
number of biologically important targets. Development of synthetic routes for
preparation of these compounds is important in order to prepare a range of analogues
containing the carboline heterocycle moiety. A mild and convenient method for
synthesis of 1-substituted-Tetrahydro-β-carbolines via Pictet Spengler reaction
employing green methodologies- microwave irradiation, solvent free and catalyst free
conditions and using water as solvent is described. The condensation of Tryptamine
hydrochloride with various aryl aldehydes bearing both electron withdrawing and
electron donating substituents using these methodologies furnished the products in
good yields. Moreover, a practical application for the synthesis of natural 1-
substituted-β-carbolines, 1-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline (Eleagenine),
Harmalan and Harman were also successfully carried out utilizing these
methodologies. The use of these green tools greatly improve the reaction performance
and provides additional benefits like reduction in cost and waste besides replacement
of hazardous chemical
