School’s deal with coaching class alleged

STD XI ADMISSIONS

Shibu Thomas TNN

Mumbai: A Pune parent has moved the Bombay high court alleging that his son’s school has handed over admissions for an entire division for standard XI to a private coaching class. A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Ranjana Desai on Friday in an interim order restrained the Vikhe Patil Memorial School in Pune from finalizing the list of admissions for the division.

The court has issued notices to the school and the private coaching class FIT-JEE. The school has also been asked to submit the marks obtained by students who are proposed to be admitted to Standard XI for the current academic year.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Sandeep Joshi, whose son Shubhankar, a student of the

school, passed his standard X exams from the school this year. According to Joshi's lawyers the school has two divisions with a capacity of 40 each for standard XI. While one division was filled up with students on the basis of merit, the petition alleged that the second division was given to the coaching class and admissions to it were through an examination conducted by the private institute.

“The school has practically sold one class consisting of 40 students of standard XI to the private coaching class,” claimed the petitioner. The petition urged the court to direct the school to give admissions to both the divisions on merit and not on the basis of a “private arrangement’’ between the school and the coaching class. Joshi has asked for a stay on the final list of admissions for standard XI.

Mum team’s solution for flat feet wins award

Shreya Bhandary TNN

Mumbai: Five city students have brought accolades to the country by winning the Open European Championship of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology) Lego League held in The Netherlands earlier this week. These students came up with a simple solution for people suffering from flat feet.
Ansh Verma from Ecole Mondiale World School, Shikhar Bakhda, Anant Kandoi and Parth Mehta from Jamnabai Narsee School and Harshvardhan Raje from Singhania School in Thane got together for the first time at the children’s technology workshop in Juhu and the idea germinated in the minds of one of their parents. “Ash and Harshvardhan both suffer from the condition of flexible flat feet, whereby they are unable to walk properly, slap their feet, and due to the lack of arch, experience pain when participating in sports at school,” said Asha Sundararajan, director of the workshop. This is what encouraged them to work out a solution to this problem.

“The students came up with a simple solution of using touch to measure the foot pressure and motors to engage in the dynamic movement of the foot,” Sundararajan said.

It took the team six months to complete the project. “During school, we would rush to the workshop immediately after school and work on the solution. Once ready, the team set for The Netherlands on the first of this month.

Sixty-seven projects coming from various countries across the globe were being presented one after another at the FIRST Lego LeagueAdding a touch of Indian culture to their presentation, the entire team went on stage barefoot. The presentation was selected as the winning project on June 4.

FINDING THEIR FEET: The Mumbai team with their project for coping with flat feet at the competition held in The Netherlands