South Asia region is experiencing rapid demographic transition with growing population, rising inverse dependency ratios and improved human development indicators. While the growing reserve of youth population - termed as ‘human capital’ is a good indicator for economic progression, it has not been capitalized effectively in order to realize a qualitative demographic dividend. Neither has the region utilized its manpower in spearheading its growth and development. On the basis of emerging theoretical underpinnings, this paper aims to examine existing challenges and suggest measures for progressive development of human capital - qualitatively and quantitatively. It emphasizes enhanced investments in South Asia’s young demographics and working age population to realise a favourable demographic dividend that in turn enables all round development of the region. The views are supported by current data and studies on the subject.

Information and Communication technology has been the latest buzz in modern educational setup. The enormous benefit of using computers in teaching and learning is all known to us. It is the potential of it thus which has resulted in the framing of Policy on Information and Communication Technology in School Education by the Department of School Education and Literacy under MHRD. ICT@School scheme is one such policy of Government of India to provide ICT facilitated teaching learning support to government schools in India. Bihar has been also a part of this scheme and this scheme has been implemented in more than 1300 schools of Bihar in the span of 10 to 12 years. This paper reports on the findings of the status of implementation of this scheme basically on the students. The data has been collected from 1551 students from 87 schools of selected districts of Bihar where this scheme was implemented. The findings revealed very poor conditions of ICT Lab in terms of its availability for the students. The boys and girls of these schools have equal perception and pattern of using ICT with respect to different indicators on ICT usage. The students seldom gets chance to use ICT Lab due to the factors such as unavailability of computer teachers, dysfunctional computers and accessories, lack of internet connection and theft or lost equipments.

Yoga is part of normal culture nowadays, with main medical centers, community healthcare centers, and neighborhood yoga studios offering yoga as a mind-body practice to support health and healing. In the India, so many individuals now practice yoga, Although yoga has existed in various forms for around 2500 years, the phenomenon of “yoga for health” is a feature of more modern yoga. Yoga is usually accepted as an ancient tradition that incorporates postures, breathing techniques, meditation, and moral and moral principles in spite of its growing popularity among people of all ages to promote overall health and fitness, little is known about the use of yoga among youth, especially urban youth. Preliminary quantitative studies have found support for yoga programs improving mood, decreasing anger, depression, and fatigue, improving stress resilience, and reducing problematic physiological and cognitive patterns of response to stress such as rumination, intrusive thoughts, and emotional arousal.

The present study investigates study of home environment and adjustment among adolescents of working and non working mothers. In order to conduct the present study descriptive survey method of investigation was followed, stratified random sampling technique was used for selecting the adolescents of working and non-working mothers. The data comprised 200 adolescent students of which 100 student were of working mothers (50 girls + 50 boys) and 100 adolescent students were of non-working mothers (50 girls + 50 boy). The tools used for present study were (1) Adjustment Inventory by V.K Mittal (1974). (2) Home Environment Inventory by Dr. Karuna Shankar Mishra (1989). The findings of the study revealed that adolescents boys and girls of working and non-working mothers do not differ with regards to their home environment. It was also found that adolescent’s boys and girls of working and non-working mothers do not differ with regards to their adjustment. Further it has been found that there exists a statistically insignificant impact of home environment on the adjustment among adolescents of working and non-working mothers.

It is a well known saying that a teacher is the national builder. To be able to discharge such a high responsibility, it is very necessary that the teacher must become conscious of his role towards society. His behave should indicate his attempt to do his job properly. His personality must reflect characteristics of a good citizen, dignity of the individual, rights and duties etc., so that he may transmit the same to the younger generation. The above said facts express the dire need of teacher-education. This is the reason that teacher education is considered as an integral part of education system and improvement of its major objectives. Without providing the quality teachers, free and compulsory education cannot be shaped properly. So that, after independence the importance of teacher’s education was given the sole priority. Even today after 70 years of independence, teacher’s education is a major challenge for us. Teacher education is perhaps more confronted with how to negotiate and significantly address the world of teaching-learning than merely dealing with duties, responsibilities and classroom assignments. It is now at the fork of fullness of vision in a fascinated world of immediate gain in every endeavour and worries and frustrations in fruitless teaching sans joy, sans freedom and creative adventure. As a consequence, the challenges of teacher education today for addressing tougher ones of tomorrow remains a far more thrilling adventure to be more worthily undertaken. Hence, this paper tries to explore the basic concept, professional skills, norms and regulations, Issues and problems of teacher education, commissions attempt, individual initiatives and role of various agencies.

According to revised norm of NCTE (2014), the structure of teacher education programmes were revised on different dimensions. It insisted on two years long duration of B.Ed. and M.Ed. and gave emphasis on gaining learning experiences in composite institutions. It also dealt with introduction of four year integrated B.EI.Ed and B.A.B.Ed. and B.Sc.B.Ed. programmes. At masters degree level it introduced B.Ed.M.Ed. integrated programme and brought the entire teacher education system into fold of Higher Education. The present study has focused on exploring views of student teachers towards curriculum reform in various teacher Education Programmes. Population for the study covered all the Teacher Education institutions of Odisha. The sample of the study consisted of 200 students of two teacher education Institution of Odisha such as RIE, Bhubaneswar, (40 B.A./B.Sc. B.Ed., 35 B.Ed. and 20 M.Ed.) and Radhanath IASE, Cuttack, (50 D.EI.Ed., 35 B.Ed. and 20 M.Ed.). The Researchers used self-made questionnaire for data collection of the study. Data were collected with the help of a questionnaire. The components of the tool consisted of different areas of reforms such as duration, composite institution eligibility, time table, teaching strategies, teacher and learner centered activities, project and assignment activities, evaluation and assessment of teacher education Institution. Data were analyzed descriptively. It was noticed that a large majority of M.Ed students gave high opinion about different items covering components of reform in teacher education. A large majority of B.Ed. and B.A.B.Ed./B.Sc. B.Ed. programme students gave favorable opinion about time duration. This is concluded that as a whole the student teachers perception towards restructuring of teacher education programme is favorable but critical on some point. As a whole, the teacher education students have expressed positive opinion about structural reforms in teacher education introduced as per NCTE regulation, 2014. The opinion of student teachers are supportive to strengthening reform in the teacher education institutions of Odisha state.

From the sociological point of view, education means the process of the development of the character and personality of the individual by means of the social life obtaining in social institutions. The situations that arise in society stimulate the powers of the child and this stimulation brings about his/her education. Besides being a process of bringing about certain modifications in the behavior of the child, education is also a means of bringing about certain changes in the life of the society itself. In other sense education is the process of ‘social learning’ which is the result of social interaction and which in turn produces social interaction. It is the educative process which depends on the individual learning and the changes in group behavior through social interaction. The field of education is constantly shifting in accordance with changing economic conditions, demographic data, technological advances, and political debates. These drivers change the ways in which educationists and policy makers must conceptualize and ultimately construct curriculum and assessment. Current education practices need to consider the possible ways that future educational systems can meet, address, and re-envision the concept of education into the next 50 years. This paper attempts to outline the changes in the ways we need to think about education, highlights the possible future conditions that these new ways of thinking create, and conceptualizes a future for education and testing that reconciles new realities with assessment practices.