July 18th, 2006
The Physics Connection
My father retired as a Professor of Physics from Panjab University, Chandigarh in 1996, having taught Physics for 43 years. Always interested in improving Science education in general and Physics education in particular, he has served in the Board of Studies of various universities in North India, written books for NCERT, been a regular member of NCERT’s NTSE selection panel, and is one of the founding members of Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT). He’s served on the Executive Council of IAPT for years in various capacities and is currently the ex-officio General Secretary and the Chief Editor of the monthly Bulletin of the Indian Association of Physics Teachers, IAPT’s monthly magazine that goes out every month to over 4000 addresses and is read by approximately twice as many educators all over the country and many abroad.
IAPT organises two Physics exams every year:
- National Graduate Physics Examination (NGPE) for B.Sc. (Bachelors) level students of Physics, and
- National Standard Examination in Physics (NSEP) for +2 (Pre-Grad) level students.
Approximately 30,000 students registered to write the NSEP examination held in November ’05. The top 1% from those who gave the exam were selected for Indian Physics Olympiad (InPhO). The top 60 students from there went into a selection Camp in HBCSE, Mumbai out of which the top 30 participated in a 7-10 day camp from where the team of 5 was chosen to represent India in the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) held in Singapore this month.
Raghu Mahajan, one of the team members, is from Chandigarh. I remember the day he visited us to get my father’s advice on practicals (Vijai Singh, who (Update: teaches) has taught Physics in IIT, Kanpur and is the National Science Olympiads coordinator, referred him over).
Each member of the team won a medal—2 golds and 3 bronzes in all (Official IPhO results).
October 6th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Dear Avay,
I want to improve the standard of physics education at all level at ROURKELA,ORISSA.I am a life member of IAPT and knows the contribution of IAPT in improving the standard of physics education in our country.Really I trust their activity and hence needs their cooperation in improving the standard of physics education at Rourkela.
Basically the teaching methodology in all most all the schools are not appropriate.Moreover when I want to know it from the principals of the respective schools,they are not responding at all.The standard is detorating day by day.
Teacher are interested for tutions that to with out teaching fundamentals for which they are not able to qualify in national tests like IIT,AIEEE,IAPT etc.
Pl advice your as well as your fathers view what to do now and how to improve the standard? It is high time for the peoples of ROURKELA, SO YOUR COMMENT PLEASE.
Thank you.