Education Insider

RNI No: 114514 KERENG/2012/41957

EXPERT INTERVIEW: CHITRA RAMAKRISHNA, NSE

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Ellen Winner Renowned Developmental Psychologist

September 2012 l `50 $5 www.educationinsider.net

COUNTERPOINT

Shaffi Mather

CAMPUS FOCUS

La Trobe University

EXPERT TALK

Prof Hema Sharda

Scan and read online

Don’t brush aside the arts

We cannot afford to isolate, ignore, or berate the Arts. Arts students can excel in other subjects, outpacing even those with the edge

Volume 1 Issue 6 | September 2012 Editor Ravi Deecee Associate Editor T N Shaji Deputy Editor Sanjeev Neelakantan Assistant Editor Dipin Damodharan Senior Reporters Lakshmi Narayanan Prashob K P Sreekanth Ravindran RESPONSE TEAM Coordinating Editor Sumithra Sathyan Reporter Tony William Design & Layout Kailasnath Anil P John

BUSINESS Head - Business M Kumar ADVT SALES Senior Managers Kainakari Shibu Rajasree Varma Anu P M Biju P Alex K S Syam Kumar Managers Febin K Francis Bipin Kumar V S MARKETING Sr Manager Sabu Varghese Mathew Assistant Managers Priya P A Mobin E Mathew Circulation Athul P M Sone Varghese

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EDITOR’S NOTE

DC Media Publication

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The relevance of learning arts

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general awareness about the arts is very significant in moulding a thoroughly developed and balanced individual who has a holistic view about life. An educated person should have skills or at least have some knowledge about art, music and drama as well, because these subjects help develop creativity and an artistic approach to life and the surrounding world.

It’s an absolute necessity to include these subjects in the educational curriculum of schools. The benefit is that by the time children complete their schooling, they develop a general understanding and basic knowledge about the arts.

Moreover, teaching of arts and related subjects helps parents in detection of hidden talents and special aptitudes of their child.Usually, parents take their children to specialised art or music schools after discovering their interest and abilities in the arts. An understanding of these subjects enriches the inner world of any child and assists in expression of his ideas, thoughts, and feelings with more clarity and strength.

Usually, people who cannot convey their feelings through words are extremely good at expressing them through music, drawing, creating sculptures, and so on. The best example is the prominent scientist Albert Einstein, who was a very good violin player.

When asked about his passion for music, he said it was the best way to express what he could not deliver in words.

It is in this context that Education Insider focusses on the topic of learning arts subjects and its relevance.

Our cover story pinpoints at the important aspects of arts and their relevance in education. The cover story features an exclusive interview with Ellen Winner, an outstanding developmental psychologist, who makes convincing arguments on the dependability of arts for all-round development of a person. Understanding of arts subjects is critical in revealing the hidden abilities of children. According to authentic researches, their transformation as complete human beings will not be possible without this. So, the policy-makers of education should make arts and arts-related subjects as an integral part of every child’s education.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

21st – 23rd November 2012

Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre Dubai, UAE

CONTENTS

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COVER STORY Caution! Do not brush aside the arts Schools around the world are known for their stepmotherly treatment to the arts. Some schools cut short the time reserved for study of the arts.

Some skip classes. Some even relegate it to make space for what are considered to be the ‘super’ subjects. But the reality is that the arts can make a person so smart that he can shine in any subject

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EXPERT TALK

Prof Hema Sharda

Director, South Asia Relations, University of Western Australia

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EDUPRENEUR

Dr Ishari Ganesh

28 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Education without the arts is empty Ellen Winner, Developmental Psychologist

Founder, Vael’s Educational Trust

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COUNTERPOINT

6

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW

Shaffi Mather

Dr Vilayanur Ramachandran

Shaffi Mather, the Economic Advisor to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, is a social entrepreneur and a pundit on education

Dr Vilayanur Subramaniam Ramachandran, a world renowned neuroscientist, says the mirror neurons may help in understanding the condition of those suffering from Autism EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

CONTENTS

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WORLD CAMPUS

La Trobe University

La Trobe University, Australia, is ranked among the best institutions in the world.

It attracts students from across the world through its transnational programmes, run in association with partner institutions

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BRAINWAVE

Rashmi Bansal

Co-founder & Editor, JAM

Columns 33 I Dr B Ashok, IAS 68 I Dr T P Sethumadhavan 70 I Sajeev Nair 75 I Snehaj Srinivas

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EXPERT INTERVIEW Chitra Ramakrishna

Joint Managing Director, NSE

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INDIAN CAMPUS Amity University

NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh

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SPECIAL STORY Startup Village

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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MAIL BOX

Include features on foreign technological universities

Scan the QR code with your smart phone to reach us online

Cover story was an eye-opener The cover story in Education Insider’s July issue, titled “Whipping boys of unrest”, was really an eye-opener, as it depicted the misery of poor students who struggle to continue their education in the face of conflicts. Unicef’s mission in these countries is highly appreciable as education is the only way to empower all societies which are prone to civil unrests, wars, and other social disasters. I thank the Education Insider team for publishing such a brilliant article.

Kavitha Nair, Thiruvananthapuram

Need more articles on career choices In line with the good traditions of DC Books, Education Insider has set a new benchmark in the field of educational journalism. However, I request you to add more content on career choices, as many brilliant students struggle to choose their life path because the present day education system is mainly market-driven. I hope you will consider my suggestion.

Dr Anirudh Mavnoor, Bengaluru

Your features on foreign campuses have been very informative. It would be more beneficial for engineering students if you could add more articles on world class technological universities, where they could pursue higher studies.

Abbas Khan, Nevada, USA

Insightful interview The interview with Biocon Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw was both insightful and thought-provoking. Such interviews can always inspire budding entrepreneurs to set ambitious goals in a country like ours, where only a microscopic minority of youths is taking up entrepreneurship as a career option. Thank you very much.

Anupama Shenoy, Mangalore

Sabriye very special The article on visually challenged social entrepreneur Sabriye Tenberken, published in the July issue of Education Insider, was something very special. It’s really an inspirational piece of work. Thank you so much for the tip. What a powerful woman and what a special initiative!

Miriam Haenen, Education Expert, Holland

E-MAIL YOUR LETTERS TO: editorial@dcmedia.in FAX THEM TO: 0484 4021 145 OR WRITE TO DC MEDIA, DC Books Pvt Ltd, 234/C, Adjacent to YMCA, Chittoor Road, Cochin-35, Kerala, India

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EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

NEWS PICKS

Improved counselling at IGNOU NEW DELHI: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) seeks to strengthen the students’ support services at the regional centres. It would concentrate on improved counselling for students.

IGNOU will offer all the available reading materials to the students and also engage experts from different colleges and universities for teaching subjects in a fixed time. IGNOU intends to give more attention to self-assessment by students.

Poor literacy numeracy rates in East Africa NAIROBI: Basic literacy and numeracy rates have deteriorated among primary school children in the East African countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. A vast majority of children are not able to acquire the basic competencies and core skills commonly expected from the national curricula. Though the access to education has expanded, there have been concerns over quality. Students in private schools have performed better than pupils in state schools in the three East African countries.

The fact is that underprivileged students across all ages are performing badly, both in terms of literacy and numeracy.

Disabled students stage protest JAMMU: Disabled students from Jammu staged a protest demonstration against the state government, demanding the establishment of more institutions of higher learning. They alleged that the government has been ignoring its promises in the higher education sector for the past 66 years and that no financial aid was ever extended to disabled students.

They claimed that the government runs the schools only on donations. At a time when the government is making tall claims of success on the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) front, many physically handicapped students in the state are faced with difficulties in pursuing education.

XLRI to open its new campus in National Capital Region KOLKATA: XLRI, Jamshedpur, will open its new campus in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi by the end of 2014. The new campus will have 120 seats. The renowned

Unapproved courses under scanner NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has directed the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to probe into an allegation that various engineering colleges are conducting unapproved courses. Disposing of a plea for direction to colleges to stop unapproved courses, a Bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw asked AICTE, the regulatory body for technical education, to carry out a thorough probe and inform it of its findings within four months.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

B-school would also increase the number of seats in its Jamshedpur campus to 360 from the existing 240 seats next year. XLRI also plans to launch a global MBA programme in partnership with Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA, and School of Economics and Management of Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

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NEWS PICKS

New IGNOU Vice-Chancellor

Protest over Chinese curriculum HONG KONG: Thousands of people took to the streets this month to protest against the introduction of the Chinese national education curriculum in Hong Kong schools, a day after the city’s education minister asserted that such demonstrations would not stop or delay the process.

The bone of contention is that many of the city’s governing elite send their children to the West or to expensive foreign-run international schools, which will be exempt from the Chinese national education curriculum.

The curriculum will be mandatory for public schools, used by most of the working and middle classes.

NEW DELHI: Gopinath Pradhan has been appointed as the new ViceChancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

Sixty-year-old Pradhan, who joined IGNOU 13 years ago, was the Director of the university’s School of Social Sciences since 2010. A Professor of Economics, Pradhan was associated with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, prior to his association with the IGNOU.

Oman’s education drive

Kuwait’s new student ban MANAMA: Kuwait has banned students from attending schools where their parents are employed as teachers or staff. The decision will be applied from the 2012-2013 academic year, according to education ministry sources.

The general education sector will take the necessary measures to ensure the implementation of the decision adequately, the official added.

Testing migrants’ English skills

MUSCAT: Oman’s education sector is set for a major expansion with the establishment of new international schools, world class infrastructure for teacher’s training and employability education, and introduction of technology-based innovations in schools. The development comes with Core Education and Technologies Ltd, a global leader in education, forming a historic joint venture with the Government of Oman.

LONDON: In a major blow to Asian students, the UK Immigration Department has decided to test the English skills of all foreign students, even if they qualify English eligibility tests such as IELTS. The decision will be implemented from the next academic year, according to UK Immigration Department officials. Ever since the UK government amended the student visa system in 2009, there has been a lot of emphasis on enforcement of English skills as a prerequisite for migrant students who wish to pursue their higher education in the UK.

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EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

NEWS PLUS

Indian education-related queries a hit on Google NEW DELHI: Netizens have made Indian education famous by making it the second most Googled item in the country. A study report released by search engine Google India reveals that, after the US, India leads in education-related search queries. “India jumped from the eighth position, held for the last four years, to the second position in search queries related to education… There has been an explosive growth in education-related searches in India in the last three to four years. It is even ahead of China,” said Rajan Anandan, Vice-President and Managing Director, Google India. The data was revealed as part of a study titled ‘Students On The Web’, compiled by Google India by combining Google search query patterns and offline research conducted by TNS Australia. The study sampled 2,229 students aged between 18 and 35 years across New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.

The study observed a 46 per cent year-on-year growth on education-related search on Google in India. “There has been 135 per cent year-on-year growth on educational queries coming from mobile, making it a source of 22 per cent of the total educational queries,” the study added. Higher education topped the study as nearly 40 per cent of the queries were based on higher education courses and institutes.

“Indian students are making a large part of their deci-

sion based on the information available on the web,” Anandan said. Interestingly, India’s premier institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) have been the “most searched institutions” between January and June. “The study shows a list of most searched institutes on Google from January 2012-June 2012,

which includes IIT-Delhi and IIT-Chennai among engineering colleges, and IIM Ahmedabad among management institutes.” Among private universities, Sikkim Manipal University and Amity University were the most searched.

Shiksha ki Asha to impart skill development training

PUNE: Hope for the Children Foundation (HFCF) has announced the commencement of its new project, ‘Shiksha ki Asha’. Under the programme, school-going children from vulnerable households, supported by single mothers, will have a chance to finish and revise EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

their textbook studies, and also learn additional life skills. The project has been designed to provide the children a safe and loving environment to study.

In addition, a dedicated segment will provide them basic training in computer skills, as well as hone their interest in dancing, meditation, art, among other hobbies. HFCF’s aim is not to restrict these kids’ education to just what is taught in their schools. It will give them a chance to discover their hobbies and interests by providing them an outlet and enough training to develop these faculties further. This is HFCF’s most comprehensive education and developmental programme so far, said a statement issued by the organisation. “The classes will be held at the HFCF centre in Wadgaonsheri, Pune. The children benefitting from the programme hail from the communities around,” said Neha Sinha of HFCF, a non-profit organisation that is improving the quality of life of orphans and underprivileged children in India.

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NEWS PLUS

IIM-A faces faculty crunch

AHMEDABAD: Professors at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have been helping students get dream jobs. But now, it seems they themselves are landing dream jobs outside the campus.

Over the last couple of years, several senior faculty members have quit the premier business school to pursue their own interests or to explore green pastures elsewhere. “Students and management programmes have doubled at IIM-A in the last 10 years, but the faculty number has been almost the same. This, despite the fact that the institute recruits actively every year,” said a senior faculty member.

In 2000-01, there was one faculty member for every five students. Today, there is one faculty member for every 10 students. Between 2000-01 and 2012-13, the number of students has gone up by 117%. As against this, the faculty strength has increased by just about 10%. In the last three academic years, senior and visiting faculty members who bid adieu to IIM-A or took a sabbatical include Dileep Mavlankar, Devanath Tirupati, M S Sriram, Pankaj Chandra, Ramesh Bhat, Pranaya Srivastava, G Raghuram and N Ravichandran.

Several other professors like Nagesh Rao, Tejas Desai, Arpita Ghosh, Smeeta Mishra, Subhashini Kaul, Sandeep Parekh and Abhishek Mishra have quit their jobs. Former dean of alumni and external relations Atanu Ghosh, who was a visiting faculty for four years at IIM-A, went back to his parent institute, IIT-Bombay, this year. Admitting the paucity, Ajay Pandey, Dean of Faculty, said: “About ten faculty members join the institute every year, but attrition is a problem - many fresh recruits say their spouses find it difficult to get attractive jobs in Ahmedabad.” However, figures suggest that attrition is not limited to fresh recruits, as senior faculty members have taken up jobs to become directors or deans at different colleges.

The institute has a minimum requirement of 120 faculty members.

IGNOU experiences decline in admissions NEW DELHI: Troubled times for the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) are far from over. The number of applicants this year has drastically come down as compared to last year - by as much as 50%. Moreover, with the withdrawal of schemes like convergence, community colleges, BEd course and face-to-face programmes, the admissions are on hold, affecting thousands of aspirants.

To make matters worse, the Board of Management (BOM) of the university in its meeting on July 28 resolved to pass on the control of the Distance Education Council (DEC) to the University Grants Commission as an interim measure. IGNOU officials believe that July 2012 admission figures will significantly fall short of the 2.5 lakh mark of July 2011 admissions. Meanwhile, admissions in the 500odd colleges under the convergence scheme and 300 colleges under the community colleges are also on hold, resulting in the loss of 25,000 to 30,000 new students.

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The admission across 26 courses under face-toface mode and BEd are also on hold, affecting about 13,000 new students. A BOM meeting in May 2012 decided to close down all these schemes. An official said procedures were not followed in these cases.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

YOUNG ACHIEVERS

McCann man is juror for Asian event

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atias Palm-Jensen, the European Chief Innovation Officer of McCann Erickson, a global advertising agency network, will head the judges’ panel for the Digital Media Awards of the newlylaunched Digital Asia Festival, a two-day event for learning, networking, and celebrating Asia’s best digital marketing communications.

A PhD in Law and Economics, Matias has studied Film at University of Stockholm. A creative genius and Founder of Swedish digital agency Farfar that had won many honours at the Cannes Lions, the global benchmark of excellence in creative communications, he joined McCann Erickson in May 2011. In the past, while working for MTG and the Swedish media mogul Jan Stenbeck, Matias had developed one of the first and biggest European web portals in 1992. For the creative professionals in the Asia Pacific region, the Digital Asia Festival, scheduled to be held in Beijing on November 7 and 8, will be a chance to meet the very talented Matias, who has served as a juror at Cannes Lions thrice in the last decade. The Digital Asia Festival offers clients, agencies, media owners, and production and design companies a platform to showcase their best work across media, entertainment, apps, gaming, and online PR and marketing.

Nigerian singer bags leadership award

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ukola Elemide Asa, one of the most popular new generation artists to emerge from Africa, has been honoured with the African Leadership Network (ALN) Award for Excellence in Leadership. ALN is the premier network of young, dynamic and influential leaders in business, public sector, the arts, and the civil society in Africa. ALN awards are given to encourage the new generation leaders, who play a key role in taking Africa to a new era of prosperity. And Asa has constantly extended the frontiers of global discourse for a peaceful world through her songs. She released her sophomore album Beautiful Imperfection last year to immense critical acclaim. The Paris-based artist is renowned for her fusion of contemporary Jazz sound, pop and reggae with traditional Yoruba melodies.

Born in Paris to Nigerian parents, Asa developed a deep liking for music because of her father’s extensive and eclectic collection of records, from soul classics to traditional Nigerian music. Asa was selected as the 2011 International Nominee for Best Female Act at Victories de la Musique, the French Music Awards.

Nicola Adams packs a punch at Olympics

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icola Adams, a 29-year-old English boxer, was certainly not a favourite in the first-ever women’s Olympic flyweight boxing final. After all, she had lost the world championships flyweight final to China’s Ren Cancan in May. That was the second time she had been beaten by Ren in the world championships final. So, with the last three world titles under her belt, Ren was obviously the favourite. But the game changed from the first bell itself, as Adams dominated the game right from the start. She won the first-ever women boxing gold by beating Ren 16-7. Experts from the Olympics desk described Adam’s performance as “an extraordinary feat of skill and courage”. Adams fought for years with no funding and little acclaim and the list of casual jobs she took in order to support her boxing included spells in front of the television cameras as well as a short stint as a tiler. Even Adams’ belated ascent to the world of a fully-funded, full-time athlete was threatened when her sport’s elevation to the Olympic Games came at a time when she was laid up with a careerthreatening back injury. But she overcame all that with her steely determination.

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PERSONALITIES Alex Kipman

Microsoft’s very own ingenious magician Microsoft has revolutionised the video gaming world and given a whole new meaning to the personalised experience of entertainment by going beyond the fingertiring push buttons. The man behind the latest gaming marvel is Alex Kipman, the General Manager of Incubation for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. He has been shortlisted by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation for the 39th Annual National Inventor of the Year Award 2012 for inventing Kinect, a motion sensing input device developed for the Xbox 360 video

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icrosoft knows how to identify and nurture talent.

Their selection of potential leaders of innovation never goes wrong. This time, Brazilian-born innovator Alex Kipman is the man behind Microsoft’s latest innovation, Kinect, in the world of video games that offers youngsters a more personalised experience of entertainment by going beyond the finger-tiring push buttons.

Kinect is a motion sensing input device for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs. It enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller. A game simply responds to body movements, and the ability to accept the spoken command is another differentiating feature of Kinect.

Launched in North America initially, it is now widely used in Europe, New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan, among other countries. It bagged the title of “fastest selling consumer electronics device” with millions of users worldwide. It also won the 2011 MacRobert Award for engineering innovation, T3’s “Gadget of the Year” Award for 2011, and the “Gaming Gadget of the Year” prize.

Alex has been with Microsoft for a long time. More than a game developer, Alex is an innovator and visionary. He has been shortlisted by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation for the 39th Annual National Inventor of the Year

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Award 2012. According to an article in The New York Times Magazine, Alex’s Kinect set “a Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling consumer device ever”, selling eight million units in the first 60 days after its release. Being different from other similar kind of entertainment gaming devices, Kinect had transfigured personal entertainment with the ability to adapt human form and gestures in a video game.

Alex had realised that the greatest barrier between the consumer and gaming was the controlling system. So, Alex and his team enabled Kinect to understand the behaviour of the people and translate it into on-screen action.

By tapping into the Kinect sensor’s data stream, “hackers” can create their own universes or even re-imagine ours.

In 2011, Time magazine selected Alex as one of the 100 people of the year. Education has played a major role in Alex’s talent as an IT innovator. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology, which is famous for providing quality-oriented technological education in the US, with a degree in software engineering. “The reason I fell in love with this art form is that the only thing that holds you back is lack of imagination. In physics, there are laws you can’t bend. But in software, you can bend anything. So, nothing is impossible there,” says Alex.

Hopefully, Alex is onto something new.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Dr Ishari Ganesh EDUPRENEUR

In father’s footsteps for the sake of social justice Vael’s Educational Trust, a private, charitable educational organisation, was founded by Dr Ishari Ganesh in the early nineties. Since its inception, this trust has been effectively and meaningfully achieving its cherished goals. Striving hard to provide all possible assistance to students from the underprivileged sections of society, Dr Ishari Ganesh has defined his own method of social justice through accessible, qualitative education

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By Sreekanth Ravindran

ndia is witnessing a paradigm shift in the field of higher education, with a slew of private universities playing a supportive role in developing a knowledge-based society and transforming India into a global education hub. For two decades, the Chennai-based Vels University, under the aegis of the Vaels Educational Trust, has been making consistent efforts towards correcting social imbalances that have been denying students from the backward sections of society their right to quality professional education.

A successful educationist of South India, Dr Ishari K Ganesh is the Founder-Chancellor of Vels University and the son of Isari Velan, who was a Deputy Minister in Dr MGR’s cabinet. Established in 1992, the Vels Group of Institutions has matured into model institutions offering value-based education of the highest order.

“I started the Vaels Educational Trust in fond memory of my beloved father to broadbase education and achieve social justice through the elimination of social disparities and availability of equal educational opportunities for those who have been deprived of equality so far,” says Dr Ganesh, who runs a group of institutions that offers various programmes ranging from the kindergarten to doctorate (PhD).

A visionary with a practical approach, Dr Ganesh observes that quality education is the most important factor for any nation’s development. “I started on a low key with Vels College of Pharmacy, and as of now, Vels University offers an array of courses across ten schools of study, for more than 7,000 students.

We provide job-oriented courses in all sectors of our University and have ensured maximum stress on quality education,” he adds.

In 2008, recognising its achievements, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development ( MHRD) and the UGC conferred the Deemed-to-be-University status on Vels Group of institutions. Since then, Dr Ganesh, along with the Board of Management and EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Chhagan Bhujbal, Founder Chairman, Mumbai Educational Trust

staff, has been striving hard to upgrade his institutions as centres of global excellence. “Last month, our School of Management Studies had organised a seminar on cross-cultural awareness. This was organised intentionally to impart awareness about different cultures and societies across the world to our students.

We, at Vels University, think that cross-cultural awareness and communication are of great significance in an era of globalisation, when we are bound to deal with people from various societies across the world,” Dr Ganesh points out.

As of today, Vels University hosts different schools offering courses in multiple disciplines. The university’s centralised placement cell has been successfully facilitating the recruitment process involving several multinational corporations, including Aviva Life Insurance, Pepsico Ltd, Bajaj Capital,

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EDUPRENEUR Dr Ishari Ganesh

Vels Group of Institutions Sri Venkateswara Dental College and Hospital

This college, affiliated to the TN Dr MGR Medical University, and approved by the Dental Council of India (DCI), offers Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS).

According to Dr Ganesh, the main objective of this institution is to produce high quality dental surgeons and provide quality dental treatment to the rural population. “The focus of dentistry in the present times is not only on prevention and treatment of dental diseases, but also on meeting the demand for better aesthetics.

Thus, dentistry is emerging as one of the most progressive and challenging medical sciences,” he explains.

Venkateswara Nursing College

This college, affiliated to the TN Dr MGR Medical University, and approved by the Indian Nursing Council (INC), offers BSc and MSc in Nursing, Post-Basic BSc (Nursing), and a Diploma course in Nursing.

Vinayaga College of Education

“Good teachers are essential for the betterment of any society and we need good teachers who are capable of imparting right education to their wards,” says Dr Ganesh. This institute offers Bachelor of Education Infosys, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Accenture and Asian Paints, to name a few.

School of Maritime Studies

Situated at Thalambur, on the IT Highway of Tamil Nadu, this school offers a three-year BSc in Nautical Science and Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Marine Engineering, both approved by the Director-General of Shipping, Ministry of Shipping, Government of India.

Upon graduation, students are eligible for Second Mates Foreign-Going Certificate of Competency, issued by the Ministry of Shipping.

This is one of the best private institutes in the country for students who aspire to become navigators, or marine engineers. The school also prepares its students to pursue a career in shipping companies, or shipping-related activi-

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(BEd) and MEd programmes with various specialisations. Managed by the Vinayaka Educational Trust , the trust also offers a two-year Diploma in Teacher Education Programme (DTEd). “The mission of the Vinayaka Teacher Training Institute is to make the trainees well-groomed and professionally competent so that they could provide their best to the students,” he adds.

Apart from these, Vels Group also runs Vels Vidyashram, a CBSE school with over 4500 students, and Vaels Billabong High International School, which follows the ICSE/IGCSE curriculum with over 1500 students.

Dr Ganesh has contributed immensely to the educational sector of South India in many ways.

Vels University has produced good teachers, brilliant engineers, and other professionals. Vels students are employed with many top multinational corporations.

“The primary goal is to make our students a better human being. We make no compromise in the quality of our education. We strive to be the best University on this side of the equator,” observes Dr Ganesh, who is confident that his institutions would transform into international centres of excellence in the near future. ties ashore. Students who successfully complete training at this institute will be eligible for taking up jobs on board any ship. School of Maritime Studies has also been awarded an ISO 9001:2008 Certification by Det Norske Veritas, Norway.

Department of Engineering

The Department of Engineering is one of the largest departments under Vels University. According to Dr Ganesh, the department is well-equipped to meet the new age demands in the technical education sector. It offers under-graduate and post-graduate programmes in many branches of engineering, including Computer Science, Electronics and Communication, Electrical and Electronics, Mechanical, Civil, Robotics, Energy, Power Electronics & Drives, Computer Integrated Manufacturing,

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

EDUPRENEUR Dr Ishari Ganesh Automobile Engineering, and Construction Engineering and Management.

School of Computing Sciences

Dr Ganesh has contributed immensely to the educational sector of South India in many ways. A visionary with a practical approach, Dr Ganesh observes that quality education is the most important factor for any nation’s development

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This school offers graduate and post-graduate programmes, enabling students to meet the increasing demand for professionals in the country’s Information Technology industry.

“In order to meet the need of the hour, our School of Computing Sciences has separate laboratory facilities for UG and PG courses with the latest requirements and a well-connected local area network as the backbone.

“Apart from this, separate Unix and Windows-NT servers have been provided.

In order to keep students updated, a separate internet accessing facility has been provided.

Each student is given training during the practical hours on a one-man, one-machine basis,” says Dr Ganesh.

School of Management Studies and Commerce

The Department of Management Studies was instituted during the academic year 1998-99. The Department is now branded as the Vels Institute of Business Administration (VIBA). This school offers both Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA). Specialisations include Finance, Human Resources Management, Marketing, Systems and Pro-

duction, Logistics and Shipping Management, and Logistics and Supply Chain Management (in association with the CII) and International Travel & Tourism Management (in association with Kouni Academy). “VIBA aims to generate the next generation of great executives of corporate houses. The goal is to produce executives who can emerge as well-known industrialists, intelligent and competent administrators, and distinctive leader-managers,” says Dr Ganesh.

“The goal of the institute is further prolonged to include the developmental perspectives of the students by means of multiplicity of programmes and exercises to assist and develop the logical capability, aptitude to take rapid and valuable managerial decisions, knack to judge the decisions promptly and properly, ability to comprehend their talents and budge upon a meaningful feat for sustained development of the self and the social order,” Dr Ganesh adds.

School of Hotel Management

Vels School of Hotel Management is one of the leading catering technology institutes in India offering under-graduate, post-graduate and various diploma courses in Hotel Management and Catering Technology. There are four major departments in hotel management Food Production, Food and Beverage Service, Front Office, and Accommodation Operations.

According to Dr Ganesh, the main objective of this school is to inculcate multiple skills among the students that are relevant to the hospitality industry in this new millennium. School of Basic Sciences, School of Pharmacy, School of Physiotherapy and School of Mass Communication are the other schools under the Vels University.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

VOICES

“I studied in the light of a kerosene lamp, in a dusty village that had no power, no doctor, no school or college. I used to walk miles to go to the school” Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister

“The major problem in state-level education is that till now, they have been experimenting with ad hoc teachers, and non-formal education. That is the reason why so many posts are vacant and so many teachers are untrained” Dr Shantha Sinha, Professor in Political Science, University of Hyderabad

“Lack of required skills to find jobs in their respective areas has been leading to this situation (of unemployment). The time has come to think about this issue. Academicians and industry leaders should suggest remedies to overcome the problem” N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

“No technology can bridge the human gap. Technology should be used meaningfully for value education. It should not be misused in any way” Fr William D’Souza, Archbishop of Patna

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” Socrates , Greek Philosopher

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EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

COVER STORY What makes arts smarter?

can make you smarter even in non-arts

streams

“Cultures are judged on the basis of their arts; and most cultures and most historical eras have never doubted the importance of studying the arts. Let’s assume then, that the arts should be a part of every child’s education and that they are given serious treatment, as is the case with mathematics, or history, or biology. Let’s remember why societies have always included the arts in every child’s education. The reason is simple. The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture, and education without them is an impoverished education, leading to an impoverished society. Study of the arts require no justifications. The arts are as important as the sciences: they are time-honoured ways of learning, knowing, and expressing,” says Ellen Winner, a globally acclaimed developmental psychologist. In this edition, Education Insider reviews the state of the arts in education, its importance, relevance, and burgeoning influence on students making conventional career choices in unconventional ways

By Dipin Damodharan

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EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Will arts make you “

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smarter ?

hen schools cut short the time reserved for the arts and reallocate the time for some other ‘important’ subject, they may not just be losing their ability to produce the artistic creators of the future, but also innovative leaders who can improve upon the world they have inherited.” So echo the words of Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, two highly dedicated developmental psychologists, on the importance of the arts in today’s world. What is the role of the arts in moulding a person? The question assumes great significance today in the backdrop of a wilful encouragement to a harmful culture of cutting short the arts periods in schools because of their “unimportance” as compared to “strategic” subjects. Such a culture has taken roots in schools across the world, including India.

This trend has raised the hackles of education experts across the world, who argue that since the arts can contribute a lot to the overall development of a student, they can’t be ignored at any cost.

According to various research reports, students who study any subject under the arts develop the aptitude to perform better even in science subjects. So, the question is, do you want to make your son/ daughter a scientist, or a doctor, or an innovator? Vouch for the arts!

Why? A student from an arts background can perform amazingly in any field of activity, according to various research studies. How? Arts define identity by assuming a crucial role in shaping the character of an individual. Moreover, arts programmes only add value to non-arts academic outcomes since they basically deal with the primary goals of

The arts can help a person cultivate a way of thinking that is not possible in other disciplines.

The same might be said of athletics. What if coaches begin to claim that playing baseball increases students’ mathematical ability because of the complex score-keeping methodology? Once researchers put such a claim to test, they will only find that it doesn’t hold true. In such a scenario, would school boards take a hard stand against baseball by cutting the budget for the game? Of course not. Because irrespective of the positive academic effects of baseball on students, schools believe sports are inherently good for kids skill development and imagination.

Experts like Ellen Winner point out that it is dangerous to classify or categorise arts education as secondary or supplementary in comparison with the “super” non-arts subjects. Doing so puts the arts in a weakened and vulnerable position. “Arts educators must build justifications on the relevance and significance of these subjects based on what is inherently valuable about the arts, even when they contribute secondary benefits other than purposeful orientation. Just as we do not (and cannot) downgrade history and overrate mathematics, we must not allow policy-makers to justify the isolation or inclusion of the arts for the sake of other academic subject matters,” Winner tells Education Insider.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Importance of the arts According to Winner, the arts are the only school subjects that have been challenged to demonstrate their usefulness. If we deprioritise physical education and give more attention to science, the results will only prove to be detrimental. It is also to be noted that the arts can demonstrate their resourcefulness, eminence, and development quotient both on their own as well as in the company of other subjects. Perhaps,

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COVER STORY What makes arts smarter?

Here is a study carried out by Harvard University under Project Zero’s programme REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project), supported by The Bauman Foundation. The study concludes that arts educators must build justifications based on what is inherently valuable about the arts themselves, even when the arts contribute secondary benefits. Here are some valuable extracts from the study:

Three areas where reliable causal links were found

with more attention to the potential of the arts to foster transfer (of knowledge applicability in other spheres), we can understand how to exploit that capacity further. But even when the relationships are understood, we still maintain that the justification for arts programmes must be based on their inherent merit.

The arts can help a person cultivate a way of thinking that is not possible in other disciplines. The same might be said of athletics.

What if coaches begin to claim that playing baseball increases students’ mathematical ability because of the complex score-keeping methodology? Once researchers put such a claim to test, they will only find that it doesn’t hold true. In such a scenario, would school boards take a hard stand against baseball by cutting the budget for the game?

Of course not. Because irrespective of the positive academic effects of baseball on students, schools believe sports are inherently good for kids. We should make the same argument for the arts: the arts are good for our children, irrespective of any non-arts benefits that the arts may, in some cases, have. Just as a well-rounded education requires education of the body through physical education, a balanced education requires study of the arts.

Winner says, “Let’s bet on history. Of course, we do not know for sure what is the best education for children to ensure that they will grow up to lead productive and happy lives. But the arts have been around longer than the sciences; cultures are judged on the basis of their arts; and most cultures and most historical eras have never doubted the importance of studying the arts. Let’s assume then, that the arts should be a part of every child’s education and that they are given serious treatment, as is the case with mathematics, or history, or biology. Let’s remember why societies have always included the arts in every child’s education. The reason is simple. The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture, and an education without them is an impoverished education, leading to an impoverished society.

Study of the arts require no justifications. The arts are as important as the sciences: they are time-honoured ways of learning, knowing, and expressing.”

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Listening to Music and Spatial-Temporal Reasoning Based on 26 reports (36 effect sizes), a medium-sized causal relationship was found between listening to music and temporary improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning.

However, there was wide variation in the studies, with some showing the effect clearly and many not showing the effect at all. Moreover, the existing research does not reveal conclusively why listening to music affects spatial-temporal thinking. For education, such a finding has little importance, since it is temporary and not consistently found. Scientifically, however, this finding is of interest because it suggests that music and spatial reasoning are related psychologically (i.e., they may rely on some of the same underlying skills) and perhaps neurologically as well (i.e. they may rely on some of the same, or proximal, brain areas). Further research is needed to understand the mechanism by which certain types of music influence spatial skills.

Learning to play music and spatial reasoning Based on 19 reports (29 effect sizes), a large causal relationship was found between learning to make music and spatial-temporal reasoning. The effect was greater when standard music notation was learned as well, but even without notation, the effect was large. The value for education is greater here, since the effect works equally for both general and at risk populations, costs little since it is based on standard music curricula, and influences many students (69 of every 100, 3-to12 year old students). Of course, we must still determine the value of improved spatial skills for success in school. Spatial skills might or might not be of benefit to students, depending on how subjects are taught. For example, mathematics, or geography, might be taught spatially, and if they are, then students with strong spatial abilities should have an advantage in these subjects. Sadly, EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

many schools offer few chances to apply spatial abilities.

Classroom drama and verbal skills Based on 80 reports (107 effect sizes), a causal link was found between classroom drama (enacting texts) and a variety of verbal areas. Most were of medium size (oral understanding/recall of stories, reading readiness, reading achievement, oral language, writing), one was large (written understanding/recall of stories), and one was small and could not be generalised to new studies (vocabulary). In all cases, students who enacted texts were compared to students who read the same texts but did not enact them. Drama not only helped children’s verbal skills with respect to the texts enacted; it also helped children’s verbal skills when applied to new, non-enacted texts.

“Arts educators must build justifications on the relevance and significance of these subjects based on what is inherently valuable about the arts, even when they contribute secondary benefits other than purposeful orientation. Just as we do not (and cannot) downgrade history and overrate mathematics, we must not allow policy-makers to justify the isolation or inclusion of the arts for the sake of other academic subject matters”

Two areas of equivocal support: Reliable causal links based on very few studies Learning to play music and mathematics Based on six reports (6 effect sizes), a small causal relationship was found between music training and math.

However, while three of these studies produced medium effects, three produced either very small effects or none at all. If the two studies measuring pre-school math rather than school math had not been included (because these were measures of spatial recognition and perception), a reliable effect would have resulted. However, more studies are needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

Dance and non-verbal reasoning Based on three reports (4 effect sizes), a small to medium-sized causal relationship was found between dance and improved visual-spatial skills. Again, however, more

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

studies are needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

Meanwhile, based on 31 reports (66 effect sizes), a small to medium correlation was found between studying the arts and academic achievement as measured primarily by test scores.

However, no evidence was found that studying the arts causes academic indicators to improve. The correlational findings can be explained by non-causal mechanisms.

For example, high achieving students (irrespective of their ethnicity, racial group, social class) may choose or be guided to study the arts. This would then result in the finding that students who take arts courses are also high-achieving, high test-scoring students.

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COVER STORY What makes arts smarter?

Education without the arts is empty

The world calls her a developmental psychologist, an ardent life-time researcher deeply involved in the study of psychology of the arts for nearly three decades. A PhD holder in Developmental Psychology from Harvard University and world renowned Professor of Psychology at Boston College, Ellen Winner has played a pivotal role in revolutionising the research on arts subjects. She has been associated with the much-acclaimed Harvard Project Zero since 1973, first as a Research Assistant, then as a Research Associate, and since 1989, as a Senior Research Associate. She has been a part of various projects on the arts such as Arts PROPEL, REAP etc. Author of over 100 articles and four books – ‘Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts’, ‘The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony’, ‘Gifted Children: Myths and Realities’, and ‘Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education’ (co-authored), Winner is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics. Her career focus has been on research and teaching about the psychological aspects of the arts in typical children, gifted children, and adults.

In an exclusive interview with Education Insider, Winner, who also studies about child prodigies, talks about the importance of the arts in a world dominated by science subjects.

She says that an education system without the arts is the perfect example of an uneven and partially empty learning process

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By Dipin Damodharan

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

‘‘There are different routes to mastery and creativity’’

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hat prompted you to take a complex career, a combination of developmental psychology and the arts?

I always intended to be an artist. I wanted to attend an art school and study painting, but there was a lot of pressure to first attend college and get a bachelor’s degree.

I studied at Radcliffe College (the former women’s school of Harvard before Harvard became co-educational) and majored in English literature. After I graduated, I went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After one year of studying painting, I decided that being an artist was very hard. I couldn’t do it. I, therefore, decided to become an academic instead. I planned to become a clinical psychologist, but when I discovered Howard Gardner and Harvard Project Zero, I learned about doing

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

developmental research into how children learn in the arts. I immediately realised that the psychological study of the arts would be a wonderful research career that would allow me to keep alive my interest in the arts. Thus, I went to a graduate school in psychology at Harvard, focussing on developmental psychology. All of my career has been focused on research and teaching about the psychological aspects of the arts in typical children, gifted children, and adults.

Could you explain the idea behind ARTS PROPEL and about the contribution of this project to arts education?

Arts Propel was a research initiative (with Project Zero, Educational Testing Service, and the Pittsburgh Public Schools) to develop rich and reflective arts curricula in visual arts, music, and imaginative writing at

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COVER STORY What makes arts smarter?

TWO Legends

Ellen Winner with renowned developmental Psychologist Howard Gardner

the high school level. We defined ourselves as in opposition to “Discipline Based Arts Education”, an approach which prescribed that arts education be equally divided into studio art, art history, art criticism, and philosophy of aesthetics.

We argued that there is so little time for the arts in schools for them to focus always on studio art (making). Out of making art would one learn about perceiving art and reflecting about art. We developed what we called “domain projects”, which required students to create a work of art, and in the process, look at art by great artists to get inspiration, and reflect about what they were doing and why.

Thus, everything began with making, but out of making grew perception (of great artists) and reflection (about one’s process; and evaluating one’s work). All domain projects began with making at the centre. For example, a domain project might involve portraiture. A student might be motivated to look at a wide variety of portrait styles throughout art history to understand how artists have approached the very problem that the student is working on.

Thus, the student will learn some art history, but only in the context of trying to gain knowledge to improve her own artmaking. We also developed what we called “process-folios” – portfolios in which students kept drafts of their works so that the process of making would be revealed, along with journal notes about their thinking about their process. We argued that art education should teach students to think like artists, and this involves reflecting on process. The final product is only the tip of the iceberg.

Your initial research initiatives were related to artistic development in children. How does a preschool child perceive elements such as visual arts, music…?

I will answer this by talking about making rather than perceiving art. One of the interesting things we have discovered is that very young children’s art is much like adult 20th century abstract expressionist art – playful, often non-representational, certainly non-realistic. As children

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approach the ages of 9 and 10, their art becomes more conventional, more “literal”, more realistic. No one would confuse the drawing, or metaphors, of a 10-year-old with that of an adult artist, but one might so confuse the works of a four-year-old with that of an adult artist.

One of your studies, conducted in 2011, examines the difference between abstract expressionist masterpieces and paintings by children? What had driven you to such a kind of research?

As I mentioned, there are striking similarities between the art of preschoolers and those of abstract expressionists.

My student, Angelina Hawley-Dolan, and I wanted to find out if people could see the difference. We found out that although people think that the works of abstract expressionists look a lot like the works of young children, people can tell the difference. They prefer works of the masters and see them as more intentional, less random.

You had some experience in knowing the Chinese method of arts education. What is special about the Chinese way? Can we say it is better than the Western style of arts education?

Chinese children are taught to draw by copying drawings by their teacher and in their textbooks. They are taught in a step by step fashion, one stroke at a time.

This method makes it very easy to create very complex paintings. Thus, Chinese children look very gifted even though every child can learn to paint in this manner. It is a fail-proof method. In the West, we let children invent on their own, drawing things the way they would like. We believe in letting them reinvent the wheel, discovering on their own how to represent the world on paper. In China, we saw teachers teaching children how to represent. They seemed to believe that if adults know how to do something, we should teach it to the child, and not let him struggle to figure it out on his own. They saw no value in getting the

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

child to figure it out by himself. They taught children to paint in a step by step fashion. All 40 children in a classroom thus created highly similar paintings. I would not say that the Western way is superior. The Chinese children had a great deal of skill, and this is how Chinese masters were probably taught as children. Chinese art is no less great than Western art. Thus, we concluded that there are different routes to mastery and creativity.

Do you think, in this globalised world, arts subjects face an existential crisis?

I think that in today’s world, there is too much emphasis on mathematical and reading test scores. This is shortsightedness. It hurts the humanities and the arts.

What was the idea behind your controversial REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project)?

We wanted to look scientifically at the claims that studying the arts lead to improved academic performance in other areas besides the arts, such as mathematics and reading. We reviewed the studies since 1950, testing the claim that studying the arts (visual arts, theatre, dance, music) causes test scores and school grades to rise. We found many correlational studies showing that students who study the arts do better in school than those who do not, but this finding does not mean that studying the arts causes school improvement. It could be that academically strong students choose to study the arts; or that these students come from families that value the arts as well as academics. We found very few experimental studies that test whether studying the arts actually causes school improvement. Experimental studies are ones that compare students who are and are not studying the arts over time, looking at both groups before they study the arts, and then later on, after having spent, for example, a year studying the arts. If the two groups perform the same in school prior to arts study, and if the art group does better a year later, then we can conclude that the arts are causing the improvement. We conducted meta-analyses (statistical syntheses) on ten bodies of studies. Out of these 10, we found only three areas where we could conclude that the arts actually cause improvement in a non-arts area.

We are now trying to do better transfer studies than those we reviewed in REAP. Most of the REAP studies were not motivated by an understanding of the relationship between some kind of habit of mind used in a particular art form and a habit of mind used outside of that art form. The studies simply assumed that studying the arts should improve test scores, without coming up first with a theory of why studying a particular art form might train a particular kind of thinking that might be useful in a non-art subject. Here are two examples of what we consider to be better motivated transfer

studies: 1. We are now studying whether the habit of envisioning (generating mental images, manipulating these images) is trained in visual arts classes and then spills over into geometry (which also require generating mental images). We are getting some promising evidence that this might be true.

But the study is still ongoing.

2. My former doctoral student Thalia Goldstein and I also studied the ability to understand other people’s mental states, which is practised in the art of theatre, and we showed that children who studied theatre improved in their ability to detect fleeting mental states and emotions in other people by their tone of voice and facial expressions.

But we should never justify arts education by whether or not transfer succeeds. We are studying transfer to understand the habits of mind used in the arts and how these relate to the habits of mind used outside of the arts. We are not studying transfer to try to convince people that the arts should be studied in school. We take that to be self-evident! An education without the arts is an uneven and partially empty education.

What is your comment on arts education in India?

I really cannot comment on arts education in India because I do not know enough. I can say that I visited an arts-infused government school in Delhi that I thought was doing wonderful things. There was a lot of drawing, singing, role playing. Arts education is neglected in the US, except in the very strongest schools. I am not surprised to hear that arts education is neglected in India because there is such a focus on basic literacies, and there is such an aspiration towards engineering and medicine. But I think it is very damaging to neglect the arts. Think of it instrumentally: what about all of

Chinese children are taught to draw by copying drawings by their teacher and in their textbooks.

They are taught in a step by step fashion, one stroke at a time. This method makes it very easy to create very complex paintings. Thus, Chinese children look very gifted even though every child can learn to paint in this manner. It is a fail-proof method. In the West, we let children invent on their own, drawing things the way they would like. We believe in letting them reinvent the wheel, discovering on their own how to represent the world on paper

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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Ellen Winner

COVER STORY What makes arts smarter?

Four kinds of potentially generalisable cognitive skills Envision (Mental Imagery): Students are constantly asked to envision what they cannot observe directly with their eyes. Sometimes, students were asked to generate a work of art from imagination rather than from observation. Sometimes, they were asked to imagine possibilities in their works. Sometimes, they were asked to imagine forms in their drawings that could not be seen because they were partially occluded. And sometimes, they were asked to detect the underlying structure of a form they were drawing and then envision how that structure could be shown in their work.

A reasonable transfer hypothesis: If art students in fact become better at envisioning in art class, they may transfer this skill to the study of science.

Express (Personal Voice): Students are taught to go beyond craft to convey a personal vision in their work.

As one of our drawing teachers said, “…art is beyond technique… I think a drawing that is done honestly and directly always expresses feeling.” Students who learn to convey a personal vision in their art may possibly have become better writers.

A reasonable transfer hypothesis: Art students who become better at conveying a personal vision (going beyond technique) may bring this skill to writing.

Observe (Noticing): “Looking is the real stuff about drawing,” one of our teachers told us. The skill of careful observation is taught all the time in visual arts classes and is not restricted to drawing classes where students draw from the model. Students are taught to look more closely than they ordinarily do and to see with new eyes.

A reasonable transfer hypothesis: Art students who learn to look more closely at the world and at works of art may bring these improved observational skills to science class.

Reflect (Meta-cognition/Critical Judgment): Students are asked to become reflective about their artmaking and we saw this reflection take two forms.

Question and Explain: Teachers often ask students to step back and focus on an aspect of their work or working process. Teachers’ open-ended questions prompt students to reflect and explain, aloud or even silently to themselves. Students are thus stimulated to develop meta-cognitive awareness about their work and working process.

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the students who are good at the arts and poor at math and science. These students could discover a strength if they could be exposed to the arts, and there are many careers that these students could go into that rely on artistic abilities, such as web design, architecture, book illustration, fashion design, etc.

What’s the response of the education community around the globe to the findings of your various studies so far?

People in the arts advocacy community in the US were very angry that we published our negative findings from REAP. They felt that this would hurt arts education in the US. We felt it was important to tell the truth. But as a result of the anger, we decided to do something positive, so we set out to study the kinds of habits of mind that WERE trained in the arts. We studied the visual arts and identified some basic habits of mind that we deem very important to thinking, something we saw teachers trying to instill.

We wrote about these in our book, ‘Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education’. Here is what we concluded: If you ask someone what students learn in visual arts classes, you are likely to hear that they learn how to paint, or draw, or throw a pot. Of course, students learn arts techniques in arts classes. But what else do they learn? Are there any kinds of general thinking dispositions that are instilled as students study arts techniques?

Before any non-trivial study of transfer from arts learning to other areas of cognition can be undertaken, researchers must take a serious look at the kinds of thinking skills being taught in the “parent domain” of the art form in question. Only then does it make sense to ask whether one or more of these skills might transfer to learning in another domain of cognition outside of the arts.

In order to determine the habits of mind that emerge from serious visual art study, we undertook a qualitative, ethnographic study of “serious” visual arts classrooms.

We observed and videotaped 38 visual arts classes from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and the Boston Arts Academy, and interviewed the teachers after each class to find out what they intended to teach and why. We selected these schools because we wanted to start with the best kinds of arts teaching. These are schools for students with interest and talent in an art form, where students spend at least three hours a day working in their chosen art form, and where teachers are practising artists. We elected to begin our study in the visual arts, but the same kind of study can and should be done in any art form in which one seeks to answer what is learned and what might transfer.

After coding videos of teaching (two independent coders achieved high inter-rater reliability), we found four potentially generalisable habits of mind and two potentially generalisable working styles being taught at the same time as students were learning the craft of painting and drawing.

I am not surprised to hear that arts education is neglected in India because there is such a focus on basic literacies, and there is such an aspiration towards engineering and medicine.

But I think it is very damaging to neglect the arts

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

INSIDER VIEW Guest Column Dr B Ashok, IAS

An action plan for teenage civil service aspirants This time, I have devised a simple-to-follow, comprehensive 10-point action plan for teenagers who aspire to become civil servants. It will help them gain a decisive edge much before they turn 21, an age when aspirants start trying their luck in the civil service exam. There are many things to do while preparing ourself for the civil service exam, but I have zeroed in on the ten most critical areas of focus

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ome time back, Arshad Mohammed, a teenager, won the prestigious ‘Natgeo’ talent hunt, conducted among 300,000 Indian children. He will now anchor a show for National Geographic.

When asked what he would like to become when he grows up, he spoke of his ambition to join public service through the IAS. I was happy for his conviction and the inspiration IAS still holds for this young bright boy. After all, Arshad has been captivated by the IAS only because of the good work delivered by many officers. The IAS brand stands for leadership in public affairs in India.

Had this young talented boy not seen the prospect of opportunity, to serve meaningfully, he would not have chosen it. There would be millions of talented young kids like Arshad in the country who nurse such an ambition. Here, I consider specifically what such kids should do in their teens to prepare for the civil service exam when they turn 21. There are many things to do, but I choose the ten most critical areas of focus here.

• Maintain steady reading: To keep yourself updated on current affairs, read three to five daily newspapers (The Hindu, The Times of India, The Hindu Business Line, The Economic Times etc), magazines such as Time, or Newsweek, Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly (maybe when you are in college), and Competition Success Review.

Read classics in English literature - a touch of William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Dickens – and books of contemporary Indian writers in English such as V S Naipaul, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Raja Rao, Vikram Seth, Arundhati EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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INSIDER VIEW Dr B Ashok IAS

•

To keep yourself updated on current affairs, read three to five daily newspapers (The Hindu, The Times of India, The Hindu Business Line, The Economic Times etc), magazines such as Time, or Newsweek, Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly, and Competition Success Review.

Read classics in English literature - a touch of William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Dickens – and books of contemporary Indian writers in English

•

Roy, and Sashi Deshpande.

Continue to attend quizzes, elocution, essay writing, debating, and just a minute (JAM) contests: It’s time you started if you have not done any of this so far. Do not worry whether you are winning or losing. Just come out and participate. Expression is one thing which improves all the time. The more you express, the better you are. It helps you overcome shyness and lack of confidence. It exposes you to people with talent, who can guide you. A talented teacher in English can be of great help to correct pronunciation problems etc.

Do not watch too much television: Please do not rely on the idiot box to improve your language. Most anchors in

the newsrooms speak heavily Americanised gibberish. Adopt their style, grammar, and phonetics at your own peril.

Their mannerisms and courtesies are best avoided. Try and learn from written material. While channels like History or Nat Geo,

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•

•

BBC or CNN may give a global perspective, most Indian news channels are junk. Do not waste time with this medium.

Use the internet most effectively: The internet has grown to be an anytime, anywhere resource, giving valuable information on many critical areas. But refer authentic sites only. Many a time, search engines lead you to misinformed and misleading sites put up by ill-intentioned individuals.

Most reputed news channels and newspapers have internet editions now. Be sure your sources are authentic.

Write a daily journal: Write a page daily. Do not stick to what you have already done.

‘What I learnt today’ can be the theme of your journal. If

deeply contemplated, this will improve your thinking, analysis, and writing skills. Remember, the fiercest arguments are those which are made with oneself. The hottest debates are often done with one’s own conscience. Have a space to do that constantly. If

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

•

•

•

you are the creative kinds who can write prose or poetry, publish a blog of your own.

Play a game: The human mind is a very elastic zone. The more you exercise the mind, the more it expands. However, too much studying and exercising may take a toll. I have found that the mind needs to shut down for a while as well.

Apart from sleep, which gives the brain a well-deserved exercise, the body needs an activity that does not need the brain to think. A good sweating game in the evening is the best way to freshen the brain. Play volleyball, badminton, football, tennis, or squash. Please do not play cricket for exercise. Play ball games, or contact games for at least an hour-and-a-half before you start studying again. The advantage of these sports is that they improve fitness as you go along. When played intensely, they lead to ‘mindlessness’. The body improves in ability, and the hand-eye coordination builds up. A person with ability and handeye coordination walks with better gait and poise, and his actions are in full control.

The muscles must grow with your brain.

Or else, you will become a couch potato with a disproportionate intellect.

Travel: This (civil services) career is about India. The method and syllabus of exam might change, but the constant theme in the exam is India’s past, present, and future. At no point, this exam is going to dissociate much from this theme. It is not good enough if we ‘time travel’ through books alone. Books offer one way of imprinting.

Moving around and seeing for oneself is another potent way of learning. Schools and colleges offer good opportunities to move around and witness by oneself. A visit to the state capital and the national capital, with a proper understanding of all the inlaid history, cannot be avoided. Try and join such study trips.

Study a subject you like: If you are studying a subject which does not interest you, you will not be able to give your very best. Therefore, you need to intensely like your subject. It does not matter whether it is History, or Atomic Physics. The point is, the more you read, the more you desire to read. The subject should not tire you out.

If you have made a wrong choice, as many students do under parental pressure, do

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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not be afraid to change your choice. Being caught in a subject that fails to interest you can destroy your prospects. Take good advice while changing subjects, and take people, who have interest in you, into confidence while doing so.

Don’t cultivate the if-I-do-not-make-it attitude: To an extent, the IAS exam is a game of chance. About 300,000 candidates try their luck every year. You need to be within the top 100 ranks to make the grade.

Most of the first 30-40 ranks have identical marks. It takes only one wrong answer, or poor response, to be out. However, please remember that the exam offers four chances. It is also advisable to appear for general competitive exams. Many of these exams share core principles, especially with the prelims and the personality test.

I was picked by NABARD the same year I was selected for the IAS. A second competitive option must always be at hand, considering the fact that luck is a factor, but not the only one governing success in the exam. You are only building a safety net. It is your fall back option. If you are academically-minded, join teaching, or research, since these careers also offer steady association with knowledge.

Act and leave the rest to the Almighty: Believe that your efforts will be rewarded.

Trust the Supreme One to be fair to your efforts. He sees all and rewards on true merit. I have not come across a candidate with true merit losing consistently. True effort always yields, sooner or later. God tests, so be patient and try again. Success will be yours, and your dreams of serving the country with honour will be fructified.

The human mind is a very elastic zone. The more you exercise the mind, the more it expands.

However, too much studying and exercising may take a toll. I have found that the mind needs to shut down for a while as well. Apart from sleep, which gives the brain a well-deserved exercise, the body needs an activity that does not need the brain to think

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COUNTERPOINT Shaffi Mather

In an interview with Education Insider, Shaffi Mather talks about a variety of issues that concerns the youth

‘No stress on subject expertise in India’ Shaffi Mather, the Economic Advisor to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, is a social entrepreneur and a pundit in matters on education. An alumnus of Harvard University, Shaffi is a visiting professor at London School of Economics (LSE). A man who has deftly blended business and social service, Shaffi is known for his community initiatives such as ‘Dial 1298 for Ambulance’, ‘Education Access for All’, and ‘Moksha-Yug Access’.

‘Dial 1298 for Ambulance’ is India’s largest private sector ambulance service with operations in six states. ‘Education Access for All’ is an initiative aimed at empowering rural India, and ‘MokshaYug Access’ is a microfinance institution catering to the needs of people living in the hinterlands. A law graduate from the School of Legal Studies at Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala, Shaffi had completed his higher studies at globally renowned institutions, including University of Bridgeport, University of Pittsburgh, and LSE. Back home, the examination-oriented education system and the uniform tuition fee scheme continue to baffle him

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EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

The concept of education is learning in different ways

By Dipin Damodharan

On entrepreneurship

Our society is very unforgiving about failure. To cultivate the spirit of entrepreneurship, firstly, we have to accept failure. Society, family, and friend circles also have to accept failure beyond the individual. The failure of a business is not the end for one’s entrepreneurial life, but our society thinks about it that way and behaves accordingly. In the West, it is not so. There, life moves on, irrespective of the failures in businesses. Therefore, one should have the courage to accept failures. Our families’ principal concern is to secure jobs for their children. Children should show the courage to break out of this ‘protective’ shell. Change can happen only that way.

On education

The concept of education is learning in different ways. Structured learning is only one way of educating oneself, learning from life experience is another way of education, learning from doing things is yet another way. There is a fundamental difference between the West and India in the field of education. In countries like the US, people study the practical aspects of subjects, but in India, we study only to pass the examination.

In the west also, one has to pass the exam, but that happens through comprehension of subjects at the application level. In India, we have to study in a specific manner to pass the exam, and most students do not have an idea about what the subject is all about.

It has to be noted that in the US, the courses are driven by professors. In India, it is not like that. Another thing is that there are two types of scholarships in the US: one is purely merit-based scholarship, and the other is need-based scholarship. Both of these schemes are alien to us.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Uniform tuition fee system is not the way

Peer pressure is very important in raising the standard of education. When you are in the company of students who are striving hard to attain something, you are also structured that way. The same way, we have to build competition among institutions for them to excel.

For that, a little bit of autonomy should be granted to the institutions. I think the uniform tuition fee system is totally a negative idea. Let us look why? For instance, X College wants to provide a world class infrastructure. At the same time, Y College provides only bare minimum facilities. If both colleges charge a fee of Rs 10 from students, it is simply unfair. Besides, should there be an incentive for any management for taking its institution to a higher level of growth and success?

Looking ahead

Within colleges, the authorities need to be granted a lot more autonomy. The other most important thing is that the country should depend on private universities for a sound and secure future.

I think the uniform tuition fee system is totally a negative idea.

For instance, X College wants to provide a world class infrastructure. At the same time, Y College provides only bare minimum facilities. If both colleges charge a fee of Rs 10 from students, it is simply unfair 37

CAMPUS FOCUS La Trobe University, Australia

Qualitative education in a transnational system La Trobe University, Australia, has been strongly committed to internationalisation since its inception. It has an enviable reputation, reflected in its coveted positioning in international rankings in recent years. Attracting students from across the world through its transnational programmes, the university’s association with partner institutions in a range of locations has only enhanced its profile in several other countries

By T N Shaji

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stablished in 1964, the Australian government-funded La Trobe University has a worldwide reputation for academic excellence and innovation. La Trobe’s courses are highly respected by employers and academic institutions internationally.

La Trobe University has more than 30,000 students, including about 6,000 international students from over 100 countries, and more than 2,500 staff.

The university offers an exceptional student-to-staff ratio, ensuring that students receive the academic support they need to succeed. It also provides a safe and supportive environment for all international students.

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Areas of study

La Trobe University has five faculties, which offer more than 450 under-graduate, post-graduate and research programmes. Some of the popular courses offered by these faculties: • Faculty of Education: primary and secondary education • Faculty of Health Sciences: public health, health administration, nursing • Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences: global communications, international development, journalism, international relations • Faculty of Law and Management:

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business, financial analysis, accounting, marketing management, international business Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering: computer engineering, civil engineering, telecommunications, electronic engineering, information technology, information systems, biotechnology, nanotechnology.

Academic excellence •

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La Trobe University is strongly committed to internationalisation and its worldwide links provide students and staff with access to a global education network.

The University is a founding EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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member of the International Network of Universities (INU), which encourages internationalisation through student and staff mobility, research collaboration and cooperation in university management.

La Trobe University has a significant number of international links in research, teaching and exchange, and these collaborative activities are invaluable to its success in learning, teaching and research.

Career development

La Trobe career and employment advisors help students determine and achieve their career goals by providing advice and preparing them for the job market. The career website also contains a number of resources, including a database of casual, part-time and fulltime job vacancies.

Library facilities

The La Trobe University Library houses some 2.2 million items, including

books, journals, electronic and audiovisual resources. Students from all campuses have access to the full range of library resources. The Borchardt Library on the Melbourne campus is recognised as one of the leading university libraries in Australia.

Retail outlets

Both Melbourne and Bendigo campuses have retail outlets. At the Melbourne campus, students never need to leave the campus at all. Banks, travel agents, hairdressers, bookshops and a post office are at their disposal. Bendigo also has cafés, the La Trobe Bookshop and Runes, the Student Association Shop.

Information Technology

La Trobe University has strong wireless internet coverage at all campuses.

All campuses have computer halls for students and services for teaching and research activities. Once students have enrolled at La Trobe, they are provided with a free email account.

Counselling & medical services

La Trobe can provide help and support with any concerns or issues students may have, from dealing with exam stress to financial worries, depression and relationship difficulties.

Medical services are either on or nearby the campuses to help students stay healthy and safe while enjoying university life. On-campus medical services are located at: Melbourne campus: • La Trobe University Private Hospital • La Trobe University Medical Centre • Bendigo campus Medical Clinic

Accommodation

In keeping with its concern for student welfare, La Trobe offers a wide range of accommodation options, including on-campus residential accommodation, homestay, and offcampus accommodation.

Scholarships

There is a wide range of scholarships open to global students studying here.

‘We allow students to work while studying’ Prof John Rosenberg, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President of La Trobe University, Australia, is responsible for the internationalisation agenda, including international student recruitment, student mobility and internationalising the student experience, and marketing and engagement, which covers domestic student recruitment, brand management, corporate marketing, alumni and events. Prof Rosenberg is also responsible for the La Trobe University International College and the China Studies Centre.

In an interview with Education Insider, he talks about the facilities that La Trobe University offers to students Why should students choose La Trobe over other Australian universities?

La Trobe University is a research-intensive university with over 45 years of experience in strong research and training. We are located at one of the largest campuses in the country. We have one of the finest campuses and provide an ideal atmosphere for learning and social interaction.

On the academic side, we have strong programmes with a great emphasis on research in EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

the area of biotechnology, nanotechnology, health science, humanities and social sciences as well as excellent programmes in business, law and management.

What are the most popular programmes offered at La Trobe?

• Master of Biotech & Bioinformatics (A two-year course work programme with the second year dedicated to research) • MBA

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CAMPUS FOCUS La Trobe University, Australia

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Students can work while they study in a wide variety of jobs either on or off campus.

Such jobs not only provide a student with an income, but also a valuable training

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Initial Registration for Overseas Nurses (A short-term programme meant for registered nurses in their home country to be able to practice as a nurse in Australia) Master of Financial Analysis (This course facilitates entry into a wide range of challenging and rewarding careers in the financial sector as well as provides a pathway to the Chartered Financial Analysis (CFA) designation, the recognised designation of professional excellence within the global investment industry.

Double degrees across different

faculties such as MBA with Master of Electronic Engineering or Master of Telecommunication Engineering • Master of International Relations How should students apply for admissions (UG/PG)? Is it directly to the university or through the Australian Consulate?

Students can apply for programmes at La Trobe University in one of the two ways – (1) either directly through our website (2) through our vast network of credible and well-trained student recruitment partners across the country, a list of which is available on our website as well.

What is the admission procedure?

Based on the programme of interest and its own entry requirements, students are required to submit their previous study and/or work experience documents along with La Trobe application forms. These documents are assessed by our admission staff or faculty, and students are granted the programme of their choice if they meet the requirements. Certain courses also have personal interviews.

What is the minimum qualification to enter into La Trobe University?

To study an under-graduate programme, students must have finished their final years of school, and for a postgraduate programme, students must have done an under-graduate degree.

What are the documents need to submit at the time of admission?

• La Trobe application form • Academic documents (Final year school results, university/college transcripts) • Work experience proof (where required) • Referee reports (where required) Are students allowed to work while studying?

Students can work while they study in a wide variety of jobs either on or off campus. It not only provides a student with an income, but also proves to be a valuable training ground in the area of time management, customer relations and a general experience of working. These skills will surely come in handy later on in life.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Many universities all over Australia have experienced a significant drop in the number of applications from Indian students. This is after the attacks against Indian students. Does your university provide any security to Indian students?

Nothing is more important to us at La Trobe University than the safety of our students. We were appalled and, I have to say, ashamed at the attacks that took place on Indian students in Australia. I can tell you that the Victorian government and the police force have invested heavily and worked hard to ensure the safety of students, particularly on public transport, and this appears to have been successful with a nearly 30% drop in assault crimes in the city area in the last three months compared with last year.

The police are also working on safety briefings for students.

La Trobe has also implemented a comprehensive plan to improve safety. This includes: • 24-hour security on all campuses and a 24-hour security telephone number • A campus bus and security escorts after hours on the Melbourne campus • Extended library hours

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Excellent co-ordination and communication between the University, police and government • A supportive and welcoming Indian students club; and • A detailed safety briefing for all students Melbourne is still voted every year as one of the most liveable cities in the world. The overall crime rate is very low compared to both the UK and the US, and we have an excellent community-minded police force. Of course, prevention is always better than cure and that is why we undertake the extensive student briefing I mentioned earlier. With a few simple precautions, students are extremely safe at La Trobe University.

You have an IT background, do you find it useful in your current role at La Trobe?

La Trobe has been a leader in the adoption of Information Technology towards learning and programme development. We have recently implemented a new student administration system and I was the chair of the steering committee. We have also implemented a new learning management system, MOODLE, and I have been able to contribute to that project as well.

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EXPERT TALK Prof Hema Sharda

‘Indian education system requires massive overhaul’ Known for her grounded views on entrepreneurship and education, Prof Hema Sharda, Director, South Asia Relations, University of Western Australia, has been forging meaningful strategic teaching and research partnerships with premier Indian educational institutes, universities, and research organisations, including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). An alumnus of IIT-Delhi, Prof Sharda is an expert in engineering education.

She thinks that the education system needs to focus more on producing quality graduates, whose adaptability, analytical skills, and fundamental knowledge will help them embark on a journey of lifelong learning. In an exclusive interview with Education Insider, she talks about entrepreneurship, the challenges before the Indian education system, and the need to restructure it

By Dipin Damodharan How do you view the prevailing education system in India?

The education system in India is primarily modelled on the British style of education. There is a strong need for modernisation and overhaul of the Indian education system to meet the challenges of a constantly changing world.

What do you think is the fundamental difference between the education system in India and the

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West?

India and the West have entirely different education systems. India has adopted a mass education system due to the size of its population and lack of money and good infrastructure. There is a strong emphasis on exam-based assessment.

There is little emphasis on actual knowledge or true learning. As a result, our graduates struggle to deliver and get employment. In the West, the EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

emphasis is certainly on the learning outcome and the knowledge gained as a result of a study programme. The curriculum is regularly revised in the West, owing to a flexibility in the system.

Theoretical study is adequately supported by laboratory and hands-on tutorial work and assignments. Their method of student assessment is progressive since the emphasis is on professional outcome rather than marks.

There is a strong criticism that the Indian education system fails to produce employable students. What is your comment?

The Indian education system, especially technical education, has been lacking in producing employable graduates who have adequate analytical and technical skills. This is because

of the inherent flaws in the pedagogy and assessment systems, and failure to infuse professionalism among graduating students. We are following an age-old system of pedagogy in a fast-changing world, so there will always be a gap.

You are the Director of South Asia Relations at University of Western Australia, which has an objective of establishing sustainable and meaningful strategic teaching and research partnerships with Indian Institutes, universities, and research organisations. Can you describe your activities?

As the Director of South Asia Relations, my commitment is to establish relationships with only premier Indian education partners, which are compatible and interested in joint academic activities.

There is definitely a link between entrepreneurship and education. One can see that most successful entrepreneurs have come from Ivy League universities, although there are many who never went to a college. I believe a good education and a wholesome experience, along with absorption of technical knowledge and business skills, will make a person more equipped to succeed

What India should do?

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Modernise the education system to meet the needs of a changing world There should be emphasis on practical learning More co-operation between the industry and educational institutes Focus on producing quality graduates, whose adaptability, analytical skills, and fundamental knowledge will help them embark on a journey of lifelong learning

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EXPERT TALK Prof Hema Sharda

Prof Hema Sharda Education is increasingly becoming global and borderless. Future graduates can expect to sit with students from different cultures and nationalities. They can also expect to be taught by staff who may have a different ethnicity and culture.

It is very important to provide cross-cultural training for both staff and students

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Prof Hema Sharda, Director, South Asia Relations, Faculty of Engineering Computing and Mathematics, University of Western Australia, is on a mission to establish sustainable and meaningful strategic teaching and research partnerships with premier Indian institutions. She migrated to Perth in 1984. A PhD holder in micro-electronics from University of Western Australia, Prof Sharda began her academic career at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) University as a Professor in the field of Computer Systems Engineering. Prof Sharda has played an instrumental role in formulating the India Strategy Programme at RMIT. She is an alumnus of Hindu College, Delhi University, and the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi. She was awarded the ‘Distinguished Alumnus’ Award in 2008 by Hindu College in recognition of her efforts to strengthen Australia’s relationship with India.

We have several prominent partners in India, such as IIT-Delhi, IIT-Madras, IITKharagpur, and Indian Institute of Sciences. We have carried out cutting edge research in the areas of Nanotechnology, Physics, Agriculture, and Environment and Climate Studies.

Is there a need for multicultural teaching in today’s environment?

Education is increasingly becoming global and borderless.

Future graduates can expect to sit with students from different cultures and nationalities. They can also expect to be taught by

staff who may have a different ethnicity and culture. In this regard, it is very important to provide cross-cultural training for both staff and students.

Australian universities have a very diverse cohort of students.

Our staff is used to dealing with challenges on multiple fronts.

Experience and training helps them overcome many of these impediments.

Is there a need for promotion of entrepreneurship in the Indian education system?

A whole book can be written on this topic. I think the education system does not need to focus on producing EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

entrepreneurs. But Indian institutions should be able to produce quality graduates, whose adaptability, analytical skills, and fundamental knowledge will help them embark on a journey of lifelong learning. Secondly, they need to be given enough global exposure and options to undertake challenging projects. This will enhance their motivation and make them entrepreneurs in the real sense. We should also bring about a change in our environment, both at home and external, to ensure that the learning process doesn’t get disrupted. It is a theme that needs to flow at all levels. It is not an overnight process.

What’s the link between education and entrepreneurship?

There is definitely a link between

programmes. A massive overhaul is definitely required. Rapid privatisation has also created some quality issues. Corruption and a poor accreditation process are equally to be blamed. The industry and educational institutes should co-operate with each other and work towards creation of a modern curriculum. There is too much focus on degrees, whereas good diploma programmes are also required to generate a skilled workforce. Therefore, vocational training in India also needs a real check.

What are the challenges in the Indian engineering education sector?

I think poor infrastructure, lack of trained faculty, and old syllabus are the fundamental problems. Now, teachers in India are paid well.

Yet, we have so many teachers who are in need

entrepreneurship and education. One can see that most successful entrepreneurs have come from Ivy League universities, although there are many who never went to a college. I believe a good education and a wholesome experience, along with absorption of technical knowledge and business skills, will make a person more equipped to succeed.

As you are an expert in technical education, what is your take on engineering education in India?

As an experienced engineering teacher, I have had constant interaction with India. I have a lot of concern for the competency gap of our graduates and their employability potential. This again goes back to the point of rigidity of our curricula and irrelevance of some of what we do in our degree

of training and personality development. What worsens the scenario is the fact that many teachers are just not prepared to change. This is causing a big digital divide between the old and the new staff.

The bureaucratic red tape is also hindering reforms in the education sector. So, the government, the industry, and education providers must together arrive at a better understanding of all these growthstunting factors in order to move in a positive direction.

What’s your vision on education?

Education should be a means to enhance knowledge not only in a chosen field, but also in the social arena, through the cultivation of good values and responsibilities. It should not be restricted to learning and earning. That is too narrow an outlook.

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CAMPUS FOCUS Amity University

Promoting amity between corporates and students Amity University is one of the largest private universities in the country that has been successful in attracting a large number of students from across the country with its all-encompassing graduate and post-graduate programmes

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By Sreekanth Ravindran

f you ever visit any of the Amity Campuses that are spread across the country, the first thing that would probably strike you will be the amicable relationship between teachers and students, making you realise at once the idea and purpose behind “Amity”. Amity University is one of the top Indian private universities, which is frequently searched for on various search engines, according to a study

by Google India on ‘students on the web’.

With more than 95,000 students and affiliated centres across the country, Amity University is one of the most rapidly growing private universities recognised by the University Grants Commission.

Established in 1999 by the Ritnand Balved Education Foundation, Amity Group of Institutions offer a number of under-graduate and post-graduate programmes, ranging from Nanotechnology, Business Management, different branches of engineering, Applied Sciences to Food Technology, Horticulture, and Organic Agriculture.

At Amity, the faculty members are either from the best academic institutions or the corporate community. Besides carrying out industry-oriented consultancy and applied research, Amity faculty members have authored numerous books and published research papers. In addition to the most modern pedagogical system, Amity also facilitates interactions between its students and many adjunct

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faculties. Apart from these arrangements, leading professionals from the corporate world regularly interact with the students in the classroom as well as their workplaces. This enables the students to get deep insight into their subjects of learning. The faculty members also encourage the students to look beyond the books and explore subjects with experimental learning.

Amity University provides state-of-the-art infrastructure and learning resources that helps in creating a conducive learning environment for the professional development of students, with an intention of transforming them to full-fledged professionals capable of meeting the demands set by the industry. Well-equipped classrooms, along with other modern facilities, provide the right support systems for effective learning. An auditorium and a conference room are provided for holding seminars and various symposia at Amity’s various campuses. All Amity centres provide large libraries that are very well-equipped and have a number of titles and books. Students can access several international magazines and journals related to their subject of interest. Amity campuses also have a well-maintained sports field for both outdoor and indoor games.

Leading companies from across the industry come for campus placements at Amity. Since its EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

beginning, about 30,000 Amity students have got on-campus placements in several multinational corporations and top organisations of India.

According to the placement cell, more than 4,000 students have already been placed this year, with a record1,309 recruitments on a single day by Accenture, a US-based Fortune 500 company and one of the world’s largest software service providers.

All engineering departments under Amity University have successfully placed almost all students, even a year before completion of the course in some

cases. This achievement has been facilitated by a 60-member team of dedicated members of the Amity Corporate Resource Centre that constantly interacts with the corporate world and helps prepare students for their careers.

Besides, the industry-specific Career Advisory Boards, comprising leading members of the corporate world, guide students on creation of a clear employment plan, a list of appropriate employers, realistic career goals, and a planned time-table on professional development.

‘Tie-ups with many foreign universities on the anvil’ Sanjay Srivastava, Director-General, Amity Business School, remarks that all faculty members frequently strive towards making learning a continuous engagement, which helps generate fresh ideas and exudes enthusiasm What makes Amity Business School one of the best B-schools in the country?

Ranked as one of the top B schools in the country by several reputed magazines and publications, Amity Business School offers MBA with various specialisations, including Marketing, Finance, Human Resource Management, Entrepreneurship and Family Business. The school also has a PhD programme in management. What makes Amity University the best and unique is its world class infrastructure, along with the faculty members who focus on every student to bring out their full potential and empower them with a winning attitude. Despite immense intellectual wealth at its disposal, Indian universities have been unable to utilise it well. This is mainly because of shortage of trained and experienced faculty members. In EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

India, we have been unable to keep talented youngsters fruitfully busy. At Amity, we have been striving hard to attain a definite balance between students’ talents and abilities. We train students in such a way that they render best service, and many organisations offer them employment because of their abilities. We strive towards making learning a continuous process which helps generate fresh ideas and exudes enthusiasm. Besides latest academic inputs, students are also given full-fledged industry exposure through various projects, industrial visits, port visits, and guest lectures, and this keeps them in sync with the practicalities of the corporate world.

What are the objectives of the Amity Group of Institutions?

The mission is to lay supreme emphasis on the most

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CAMPUS FOCUS Amity University

modern and sophisticated learning environment and value system. The academic activities at Amity Business School provide a platform where all students come together to explore the individual and group talents as well as resources. The faculty and the management possess a high degree of integrity and knowledge that transforms students into efficient human beings. At Amity, emphasis is placed not only on making students academically brilliant, but also on creating leaders and team players. The seven-day compulsory Military Training Camp is an integral part of the Personality Enhancement Module. Our main objective is to groom students who are confident of confronting any challenges both in their professional and personal life. Taking this into account, we have introduced special sessions on personal grooming, business etiquettes, and negotiation skills, imparting leadership, teamwork and analytical skills.

Do you have industry interface programmes and placement services?

Amity students have more interaction with the corporate world than any other institution. The Amity Corporate Resource Centre acts as an interface between the students, the faculty and the corporate world to initiate continuous interaction with the industry. Amity students have interacted with over 1500 CEOs and over 50 Global Gurus through unique modules, such as CEO Dinner Series and CEO Forum.

Students’ participation in all major areas is emphasised upon to build in them managerial and leadership traits from the very onset. CEO Forum, our weekly session of experiential learning, has been a unique platform for an interface with the corporate world. Eminent personalities from the industry have sought this platform to share their experiences with our students.

Thousands of Amity alumni are currently working in top organisations across the world. Over 5,000 students

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have got on-campus placements this year, with over 800 being placed even one year before graduating.

The industry has sought and utilised the intellectual capital of Amity Business School by participating in the final placement process.

The real proof of the quality and effectiveness of any business school lies in the acceptance of its graduates in the industry. Thus, the placement of the graduating batch marks the culmination of the rigorous two-year MBA programme. The institute can justifiably boast of an impressive and a consistent placement record since its inception.

Do you have special scholarship schemes for students from poor backgrounds?

At Amity, we believe in rewarding the hard work and excellence achieved by meritorious students in their academic endeavours. As part of this ongoing initiative, in 2011, over Rs 50 crore worth scholarships were awarded to students on need or merit basis.

The Amity Scholarships have been initiated to encourage the talents of students and strengthen the roots of our future generation. This is a small step towards the collective goal of making India the knowledge superpower of the world.

We offer cent per cent scholarships to students who have 93% aggregate and above (excluding Physical Education, Fine Arts and Performing Arts) in CBSE/ ICSE Board of Class XII, and 80% in graduation (subject to change with every academic year).

Students securing 88% aggregate and above (excluding Physical Education, Fine Arts & Performing Arts) in CBSE/ICSE Board of Class XII, and 75% in graduation (subject to change with every academic year) are eligible for 50 per cent scholarships.

Are you exploring any new areas in education through tie-ups with foreign universities?

We have student-exchange programmes with Loyola Marymount University, College of Business Administration, Los Angeles, which is ranked among the top US Business Schools. We also have partnership with Beijing Institute of Technology, China. We are also in the process of establishing strong tie-ups with many reputed universities, including Arizona State University, Ball State University, Columbus State University, Dickinson State University, Dowling College, Georgia Southern University, Hofstra University School of Law, LeTourneau University, Life University, Long Island University, Montana State University, Savannah College of Art and Design, Southern New Hampshire University, Stevens Institute of Technology, University of HoustonClear Lake, University of Illinois Springfield, West Virginia University, University of the Incarnate Word, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, and University of Oregon. Strategic partnerships with many Asian and European universities are also on the anvil.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Rashmi Bansal BRAINWAVE

‘Management education

system should undergo

a total revamp’ Rashmi Bansal is a successful entrepreneur, Co-founder and Editor of JAM (Just Another Magazine), and an eminent novelist who has penned notable works like Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, Connect the Dots, I Have a Dream, and Poor Little Rich Slum. An Alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad, Rashmi thinks India’s current management education system is in need of a total revamp. Her first novel, Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, features stories of 25 MBA graduates who left their lucrative jobs to follow the rough road of entrepreneurship.

The book created a new record in the Indian publishing industry by selling over 300,000 copies. It has been translated into eight languages. In an interaction with Education Insider, Rashmi talks about the problems in the Indian management education system

By Lakshmi Narayanan

Management education loses sheen

More than 2,000 management education institutions have been established in India within a short span of time.

Most of them are running like a business organisation with a focus on money creation.

These institutions neither impart knowledge nor develop the management skills of students.

That’s the main reason why MBA has become more like a ‘modern MA’ that looks good on the resume, but not good enough to impress anyone.

About IIM passouts

While the quality of management students has gone down several notches in the past few years, the industry demand for MBA graduates, especially IIM graduates, has been increasing. Though a let-up EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

in demand is unlikely in the near future, management graduates will be faced with the challenge of adaptability in the times to come since jobs in the financial sector and MNCs may be fewer in number as compared to the core corporate sectors.

Revamp the curriculum

The present curriculum for management studies should be changed in accordance with the present economic and entrepreneurial conditions.

The syllabus should be more focussed, with emphasis on case studies, enabling students to stay abreast of the current trends in the industry. The curriculum should also give importance to soft skill development and faculty training programmes. Only with wellqualified, talented faculties can institutions generate a better crop of management professionals.

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CAMPUS SCAN Liverpool Hope University

The only ecumenical university in Europe

With a history of 168 years, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK, offers more than 40 under-graduate programmes and 38 post-graduate programmes in various disciplines

By Dipin Damodharan

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bout two hours from London on the train, you can reach Liverpool Hope University, the only ecumenical university foundation in Europe. With a history of 168 years, Liverpool Hope University has a strong value system based on Christian principles; at the same time, the University has the virtue to embrace all faiths.

“It is an old institution, founded in 1864. At Liverpool Hope, we are relentlessly working towards providing the best teaching and learning experience to our students,” Nancy Donna Cooke, International Recruitment Manager, tells Education Insider.

The college campus is surrounded by stunning grounds and architecture, which is a blend of modern and historic designs.

Nancy says, “The peaceful

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atmosphere, combined with pastoral care and community feel, makes Liverpool Hope a wonderful place to study.” The institution has about 7,000 students from different parts of the world, including India, who are engaged in more than 40 under-graduate programmes and 38 post-graduate programmes. The institute is blessed with world class faculty members, who are completely devoted to serve the students at any time. “We have faculty members from the Americas, Italy, China…

An international culture prevails on the campus of Liverpool Hope,” says Nancy.

The college has two main campuses for teaching: one is Hope Park, situated in the leafy suburb of Liverpool, and the other is Creative Campus in Liverpool City Centre. “The latter is the home to our creative and performing arts

subjects,” Nancy explains.

What’s on offer?

Under-graduate courses: The institution offers more than 40 undergraduate courses in various disciplines such as Accounting, Art and Design History, Biblical Studies, Business Management, Biology, Christian Theology, Creative and Performing Arts, Dance, Drama and Theatre Studies etc.

Liverpool Hope also offers undergraduate degree programmes in specialised subjects like Education (Childhood and Youth), Education (Early Childhood), Education (Special Educational Needs). The full list of undergraduate courses is available at http://www.hope.ac.uk/coursefinder/.

Post-graduate courses: Students can join more than 30 post-graduate courses in disciplines including EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

It is an old institution, founded in 1864. At Liverpool Hope, we are relentlessly working towards providing the best teaching and learning experience to our students, Nancy Donna Cooke, International Recruitment Manager, Liverpool Hope University

Academic Practice, Art History and Curating, Biblical Studies, Christian Theology, Contemporary Popular Theatres, Creative Practice etc. The full list of post-graduate courses is available at http://www. hope.ac.uk/coursefinder/.

Research

The institute has been according great importance to research. The research projects of the university are aimed at enabling the students to develop into well-rounded employable graduates

who can take their place confidently as global citizens in the 21st century. The faculty of Liverpool Hope University believes that research sustains and renews intellectual vitality within the staff and student community. It also plays a significant role in the formation of a lively learning and teaching environment.

Liverpool Hope University also collaborates with prominent industry partners and other global universities to attain excellence in research. The institute offers research across a range of disciplines - in humanities, sciences and social sciences, education, liberal arts, business, and computer science.

Part-Time Study

• More than 40 under-graduate courses • Over 30 post-graduate courses • Find course details at http://www.hope. ac.uk/coursefinder/

How to apply?

• Find the application details at http://www. hope.ac.uk/undergraduate/howtoapply/

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Students have the opportunity to do parttime courses at Hope. They can study most of the under-graduate programmes on a parttime basis. Part-time study normally extends an Honours degree programme to twice its full-time duration, i.e. six years. It is possible to change from part-time to full-time study at the end of the second or fourth year of the programme. Most part-time students opt to study for a BA/BSc Combined Honours degree programme and take their two pathways in alternate years.

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VC SPEAKS Dr B S Dhillon

‘Time is ripe for fusion and mutualism’ Dr B S Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, says the Indian higher education system is flawed from many angles. He says Indian institutions are yet to arrive at a uniform system of quality education. In an interview with Education Insider, Dhillon talks about various issues of concern in the higher education sector

On education

Education helps in transformation of information into knowledge for creation of a knowledge society aimed at welfare of the self, of society, of country, and of humanity as a whole.

On the role of universities

The primary role of a university is creation of human resource through adequate provision of expertise and infrastructure. Human resource development must be oriented to the needs of institutions, industry, R&D establishments and other demanding areas for creation of a knowledge society that ensures overall development of individuals. The aim of a university should be to ensure access to education for students from economically and socially underprivileged sections.

On foreign universities

The time is ripe for fusion and mutualism.

Inviting foreign universities is not a bad idea, but regulations should be framed in such a way that substandard foreign universities do not open their teaching shops in our country. Strict academic standards should be ensured for any foreign university opening its campus in India.

There should also be a provision for constant monitoring of such universities.

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On quality

In the new globalised society, quality is still more important. Unfortunately, the quality of education imparted in different academic institutions in India is highly variable. In many traditional Indian universities, a Master’s degree is awarded with a project work, while in others, including all the State Agricultural Universities, a thesis is a prerequisite for a Master’s degree. There is an annual examination system in the majority of higher educational institutes, while in others, it is the semester system.

The extremely dismal state of higher education in our country, especially that of PhD programmes, can be gauged by the fact that like a commodity, the PhD dissertations are saleable even at a cost as low as Rs 8000 -10,000.

On inbreeding

Inbreeding in our education system has attained cancerous dimensions. The majority of faculty in any institute/university comprises those teachers who have done their graduation, post-graduation, and doctorate from the same university/institute with little exposure or experience in other national or international laboratories.

As told to Shani K

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

SPECIAL STORY Startup Village

First-ever telecom incubator says hello to the ideators

By Lakshmi Narayanan

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very new entrepreneur dreams of becoming a Google, Hewlett Packard, or Apple some day, and consoles himself saying that even these media and technology giants had made modest beginnings in garages. But is it easy as it sounds? They need to come up with sound survival plans to wade through until they either manage to rope in cash-rich financiers or venture capitalists, or dazzle the market with their innovation in a big way. That’s a tough call indeed for someone who’s got a mighty idea but no capital. That’s where business incubators can help you. India has just delivered the first-ever telecom incubator, called Startup Village. Established at Kinfra Park of Cochin, Startup Village is the brainchild of Sijo Kuruvila George, who is part of MobME, a value-added services company founded by his engineering juniors.

The concept of Startup Village The idea for Startup Village is rooted in Kerala’s potential to become a technological hub in the country and in its profile as the state with the highest literacy rate and a commendable student passout ratio, especially in the technological field. The state, which is among the key IT-BPO hubs

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Necessity is the mother of all invention. The development of a creative business idea requires the support of an ecosystem that can provide the wherewithal for experimentation. So, sensing the emergent need of budding entrepreneurs for a vibrant, innovative, well-networked, interactive platform, a young engineering graduate-cum-MBA established a Startup Village in Cochin with help from the government and the who’s who of the industry. Of course, only after convincing them the potential of his simple idea. This groundbreaking initiative that has come to be known as the country’s first-ever telecom incubator has already caught the attention of young minds across the country in India, has also been producing talent pools of technically brilliant, innovative engineers who are raring to make it big in the industry with their entrepreneurial spirit. But funding for their innovative startups has been a constant hiccup. Now, there’s hope.

At least in one sector – telecom. After a thorough study of the emerging economic trends in the state, Sijo hit upon the idea of Startup Village, an incubator for budding technological embryos.

“Startup Village is an extremely different idea of entrepreneurship…

It will help thousands of budding entrepreneurs by providing them all kinds of primary facilities that are required to kickstart innovative telecom projects. The only requirement for being a part of Startup Village is simple: entrepreneurs should have an innovative idea that has the potential to create a future market. If the idea is genuine, we will provide them a suitable atmosphere to shape their dreams, which includes air-conditioned office space with front office, reception, lobby, telephone facilities, 4G internet access, EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

electricity, conference rooms, and other security facilities. Startup Village also provides the access of angel fund for the needy entrepreneurs. It will provide up to Rs 2.5 crore as loan for entrepreneurs,” Says Sijo, CEO of Startup Village.

Talented entrepreneurs, Sijo says, should not miss the opportunity to showcase their innovative ideas on the global stage because of economic instability.

Startup Village began operations in April this year, and since then, it has received a favourable feedback from all over the country. Now, it plans to widen its wings by creating 1,000 successful entrepreneurs within the next 10 years.

Ideal atmosphere for startups

Startup Village has been established under a public-private partnership model. The Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India and MobME invested Rs 2.5 crore each in the project as the initial capital. Startup Village was launched on April 15 this year, along with the Kerala chapter of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. Sijo and his crew initiated the Startup Village project in Kerala in order to stop the brain drain to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Before the project was given the go-ahead, it underwent a long journey through various technical and financial committees of the government. The Central government had finally given a green signal to the project in 2011.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, and Ravi Pillai, an NRI businessman are the Chief Mentors of Startup Village. Other mentors include Rajan Mathews, Director-General of Cellular Operators’ Assocation of India, Kiran Karnik of NASSCOM, Ganesh Lekshminarayan, Chief Executive Officer of Dell India, K K Natarajan, CEO and Managing Director of Mindtree, Sasha Mirchandani, investor, InMobi, and Abhishek Goyal, investor, Flipkart, along with a host of successful businessmen from Kerala, like Nanda Kumar, CEO of Suntec, Navas Meeran of Eastern Group, Jose Thomas of Choice Group, and Murali Gopalan of UST Global.

Startup Village will seek to change the attitude of students from that of ‘job seekers’ to ‘job providers’.

It has been conducting student-entrepreneurship enrichment programmes at colleges to attract and encourage more student startups. Following positive responses from other parts of the country, the Startup Village management is planning to widen the project to other cities, especially Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru in the near future.

As of now, more than eight startups have started operations with help from Startup Village. The startups include Mind Helix, a mobile application company, and Wowmakers, a mobile design studio.

Recently, Research In Motion, the company which produces Blackberry phones, set up their first innovation centre in India at Startup Village. The EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

innovation centre, known as Rubs Labs, will serve as the development platform for BB10. The lab will help students develop their ideas in mobile application and production.

Today, small and medium scale business firms account for 17 per cent of India’s GDP. This figure is expected to touch 22 per cent by 2020. With projects like Startup Village, the ratio of entrepreneurs below the age of 25 years will undergo an upward revision soon. Incubatee companies that are accepted by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board of the government’s Department of Science and Technology will be entitled to service tax exemption for three years with a revenue limit of Rs 50 lakh. This incentive will help budding entrepreneurs to break even in a lesser period of time.

Brain behind incubator Twenty-eight-year-old Sijo Kuruvila George, an engineering and management graduate, is the master brain behind Startup Village. He is also part of MobME, a value-added services company founded by his engineering juniors in 2006.

MobME is listed in the table of NASSCOM as one of the most innovative startups.

MobME has been promoting the dream of a Silicon Coast from 2007. Sijo, along with his friend, moulded this project out of their experience in college. Finally, their hard work uplifted the company as one of India’s top 10 emerging IT companies within a span of six years.

Now, at Startup Village, he is aiming to achieve 1,000 product startups. Through this project, he is in the process of tapping startup talents from the 164 engineering colleges of Kerala, which are known for producing highly talented innovative engineers.

If new talent pools can create breakthrough technologies for the global telecommunications industry, Kerala can generate more job, investment and revenue growth opportunities in the near future.

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EMERGING STUDIES Neuroscience & Autism

Vilayanur dwells upon the role of mirror neurons Padma Bhushan Dr Vilayanur Subramaniam Ramachandran, a world renowned neuroscientist, is the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Distinguished Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Programme at University of California, San Diego.

In 2005, Dr Ramachandran received the Henry Dale Medal and was elected to an honorary life membership at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (joining the ranks of Michael Faraday, Thomas Huxley, Humphry Davy, and dozens of other Nobel Laureates). His other honours and awards include fellowships from All Souls College, Oxford, and from Stanford University (Hilgard Visiting Professor); the Presidential Lecture Award from the American Academy of Neurology, two honorary doctorates, the annual Ramon Y Cajal Award from the International Neuropsychiatry Society, and the Ariens-Kappers Medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. Dr Ramachandran, who earned the moniker ‘the Marco Polo of neuroscience’ from Oxford University Professor Richard Dawkins, has several books to his credit. His acclaimed work Phantom in the Brain has not only been translated into nine languages, but was also featured by top US and British TV channels. His book The Tell-Tale Brain was on The New York Times’ bestseller list. In an exclusive interview with Education Insider, he speaks about the possible role of mirror neurons in understanding the condition of Autism, the usability of his invention, called the mirror box, and his theories

By Sanjeev Neelakantan and Sreekanth Ravindran Is Autism mainly related to the dysfunctionality of mirror neurons?

Possibly, yes. There are two reasons for thinking so - theoretical plausibility (and absence of competing neural theories) on the one hand, and empirical evidence on the other.

In 2000, we listened to a lecture by Giacomo Rizzolatti, who discovered mirror neurons in monkeys. Most “motor command neurons” in the front of the brain fire when, say, monkey A reaches out and grabs a peanut or pushes a stone. Some of them will also fire when A merely watches monkey B perform the same action. The neuron was in effect adopting B’s “perspective”; so A’s higher brain centres were saying, “The same neuron is firing in my brain as WOULD fire if I were to grab a peanut; so THAT’S what B is up to. “The neurons allow you to adopt another

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person’s view of the world for empathy and for constructing a model of that person’s behaviour. Which, in turn, is required for imitation and pretend play (“I’ll pretend that action figure of superman is me”) We were struck by the fact that these are precisely the abilities that are dysfunctional in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD); adopting another’s point of view, empathy, imitation, pretend play etc.

The empirical evidence comes from brain imaging studies, especially EEG and fMR. A recent meta-analysis

by Lindsay Oberman showed that five studies found evidence for mirror neuron dysfunction, whereas one did not.

We must bear in mind that in some ASD individuals, the mirror neurons may be normal, but their target zones might be abnormal.

It’s important to note that even if the empirical eviEDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

dence is inconclusive at this point, the THEORETICAL reasons outlined above would still stand. Science is about generating testable ideas; and the mirror neuron system (MNS) theory is better at explaining the symptoms of ASD than any other candidate theory.

At this point, however, I would say that the evidence is suggestive and not conclusive.

Is there a way to repair or rehabilitate the mirror neurons and bring about a change in treatment of people suffering from Autism?

There’s a group in Australia that’s using transcranial magnets to directly stimulate dormant mirror neurons.

There are hints that the proceThe mirror box, an invention of Dr Vilayannur Subramaniam dure works.

Ramachandran Why has your theory of mirror neurons on Autism How successful is the mirror box in rehabilitating come under attack? patients suffering from trauma?

“Attack” is a layperson’s word. Einstein didn’t “atThe mirror box has been used for four conditions: tack” Newton or Bohr. phantom pain, pain in an intact hand that persists with a We presented the MNS theory only as a possibility for vengeance after trivial injury (Complex Regional Pain testing; it may fall or it may stand. It wouldn’t bother me Syndrome - CRPS), stroke paralysis, and rehab after hand if it falls because it would have anyhow served its purinjury. There are dozens of case studies and brain imaging pose of stimulating discussion. As Charles Darwin said, studies confirming its efficacy and a few double-blind “It’s fine if a clever theory is disproved because in the placebo controlled trials. A “gold standard” Cochrane process of doing that, you will often have simultaneously data base study reported by Dohle demonstrates efficacy opened another path to the truth.” for stroke. A paper by Chan, Tsao and others reports efAlso, some philosophers have argued that there’s fectiveness for phantom limb. And Cacchio et al showed no direct evidence that mirror neurons exist in humans, striking recovery in 48 CRPS patients. which is a bit like saying there’s no DIRECT evidence I would add two remarks. There is a great deal of varithat the Sun is hot unless you take a thermometer up ability in response as is true for any procedure (cornonary there. bypass, knee surgery, spine surgery, prozac treatment etc.)

There’s fmR evidence that the “simulating other and the reasons need to be determined. Second, given the minds” module in the brain is distinct - although adjacost (five dollars), non-invasive nature, and ease of use, cent - to the area with mirror neurons (MN). In evolution, I would encourage patients to try the procedure for a few an area such as the conventional MN area for MOTOR weeks first, subject to approval from their primary care simulation might have split into two with the second area physician and under medical supervision, before resorting subsequently evolving to perform novel but analogous to costly, risky, surgery or drugs. functions (“mental” simulation). The latter “second order” What’s your message for the youth who want to purmirror neuron system might be dysfunctional in some sue a career in science and technology? types of Autism.

Read widely - not just books in your discipline. Read But as I said before, the shattered mirror theory of Auabout the history of science and biographies of scientists. tism is at this point merely suggestive and not conclusive.

Hang around senior scientists who are passionate and exApart from Autism, how has the discovery of mirror cited about what they do; there’s nothing more contagious neurons benefitted the scientific community? than passion. Avoid bores, curmudgeons and nay-sayers It is a new way of looking at many seemingly unrewho haven’t themselves done original work; they can lated aspects of brain function. stifle your imagination. At the same time, learn to be genuinely sceptical; although some, usually non-creative How does your invention, the mirror box, help people people, cultivate scepticism for its own sake, avoid that. with amputations overcome the phantom limb pain?

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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EXPERT INTERVIEW Chitra Ramakrishna

Cash in on career opportunities in the capital markets Chitra Ramakrishna is the Joint Managing Director of National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India Ltd, the country’s pre-eminent bourse for trading equities, currencies, and derivatives. Chitra has been with the NSE since its inception. In 1991, she was part of a core five-member team selected by the Government of India and tasked with the creation of a modern screen-based pan-Indian stock exchange that would offer domestic and institutional investors a state-of-the-art marketplace for trading and settling Indian equities. Chitra, a Chartered Accountant by profession, cherishes her association with the NSE and calls it the biggest turning point in her career. The hand-picked team changed the equity trading paradigm in India forever. She is also the CEO of National Settlement & Clearing Corporation of India Ltd, and a member of several boards & policy committees. In an exclusive interview with Education Insider, Chitra Ramakrishna, one of the most powerful women in the Indian business scene, talks about the various career opportunities in the capital markets. Excerpts:

By T N Shaji What are the career opportunities in the stock markets?

There are a number of career opportunities in the area of capital markets. On the stock broking side, there are opportunities in back office operations, risk management, product management, compliance and surveillance, IT and technology support services, research and sales.

Other areas in capital markets where one can pursue a career are investment banking, treasury, research and analysis, wealth management, asset management and private equity.

Describe the specific skills one needs to enter stock trading?

Firstly, anyone who wishes to trade in the stock markets on a regular basis, should have the product knowledge, on which he is trading, whether it is equity, derivatives, or bonds. He should be aware about the various rules and procedures for trading on the stock exchange. He

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should also possess a good amount of knowledge about the economy and its prospects. He needs to thoroughly study the fundamentals of the stock that he wishes to buy and should monitor his investments regularly.

Lastly, experience is something for which there is no substitute. In case an investor does not possess the time or skill to do all this by himself, then it would be better for him to take the mutual fund route to invest in the markets.

Why is stock market a good example for perfect competition?

Millions of investors are bidding for a stock online on a real-time basis in the stock market. They are all competing with each other to quote the best price at which they can offer or acquire shares. This real-time process of information aggregation leads to better price discovery and liquidity in the markets. Investors benefit from this efficient price discovery mechanism,

which is a result of competitive pricing in a free market.

Is there any specific course to make a career in the stock market?

NSE offers a wide range of courses right from the school to college levels, depending on one’s interest and location. We have tied up with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Delhi, for launching a financial management course for students in 10+2. Various universities have also tied up with us for the MBA/BBA programmes. Recently, the National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM), an institution promoted by the Ministry of Finance, tied up with us for a one-year full-time and weekend post-graduate programme in financial markets. This course is a combination of classroom training and training to trade on simulated market software, specially designed by NSE, called NSE Learn to Trade or NLT. Besides, NSE’s Certification EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

in Financial Markets (NCFM) is an online certification programme catering to the skill development needs of students and working professionals to make them more eligible for jobs in the financial sector. So far, 14 lakh students have taken the NCFM tests.

There is another such course called the NCCMP - NSE Certified Capital Market Professional, which is a short-term course of about 4-6 months, specifically designed for students seeking professional knowledge of capital markets. Students can visit www.nseindia.com for more information.

Do you think our graduates are industry-enabled?

While India has a large number of universities and colleges, from where thousands of students graduate every year, most studies have shown that only a small percentage of them are employable. This is mainly because the education system in our country is knowledge-centric and not skill-centric.

Therefore, a lot of efforts are needed to help these skilled graduates. Keeping this in mind, we have specially framed our MBA/BBA/PGP courses in financial markets.

What are your suggestions to improve the employability of graduates?

Our graduates must go through courses that are skilloriented and not simply knowledge-centric. They should have the exposure to both the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject. During the course, they should have an opportunity to go through an internship to gain firsthand working knowledge of the industry and get a chance to apply their skills that they

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

have learnt at their institutes.

What measures should be taken to mould a career in stock trading?

It is essential for one to go through a professional programme such as an MBA, or CA, or a post-graduate programme on the financial markets and then join a reputed financial organisation. He or she should identify one such area in the capital markets that interests him and accordingly focus on developing skills on the same, like risk management, back office operations or treasury management. As he climbs up the ladder, he should have a general understanding of all the various aspects of the business. With so many changes taking place so rapidly, one needs to be updated on the latest rules, regulations, product and technology. One can also think of starting his own business as there are many entrepreneurial success stories in the capital markets.

How many people are employed at the NSE? Today, the exchange has close to 520 employees. This includes NSEIL, NSCCL, NCCL, IISL and DOTEX. What is the role of industry in academics?

Industry has an important role to play in building a trained pool of industry-ready manpower. They should join hands with academics to come up with industry-relevant courses and lend its expertise to identify the gaps between existing academic courses and the needs of the industry.

They should also assist academics to undertake research in areas which are of importance to both industry and academics. Relevant courses should be recognised by the industry and students undergoing such courses should be given internship opportunities and final placements.

Could you shed some light on the staff requirement in the coming years?

Over the past few years, the Indian economy has grown rapidly and its GDP growth rates have been impressive. In order to continue maintaining this steady rate of growth, it needs a large number of skilled and qualified manpower.

While the financial sector has grown over the years, there is a huge potential since a large part of the population still needs to be brought into the financial system. Essentially, there is a need for trained manpower in this sector. Some of the studies conducted have shown that the requirement of manpower in the financial sector is anywhere between 60 lakh and one crore, over the next 10-12 years.

Do you think Indian capital market is a lucrative area for employment generation?

There are a lot of career opportunities and potential in some of the areas like investment banking, stock broking, treasury, research and analytics, wealth management, asset management and private equity, which are growing rapidly. Individuals who are young, dynamic and energetic can make a successful career in the financial markets.

What’s your advice to fresh graduates who opt for stock trading as a career?

Firstly, read and keep yourself updated on the rapidly changing market conditions. Keep in touch with the developments on the latest technology that are relevant to the markets. Be transparent and maintain complete integrity in your dealings. Try your hands in entrepreneurship.

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CAREERS & COURSES NIFE

Firefighting careers on

fire

Fire and safety engineering has emerged as a popular career course in recent times, mainly because of the splendid employment opportunities it offers in construction and hazardous industries, both in India and abroad. Now MNCs have also come to realise the importance of a fire safety officer in the wake of a rise in freak fire accidents. There are many specialised courses in this field, and institutes with international recognitions and approvals are on top of the game. In an exclusive interview with Education Insider, M V Thomas, Managing Director, NIFE, describes the opportunities in the fire and safety engineering sector

By Prashob K P What is India’s current requirement of fire and safety engineers?

The openings in the field of fire and safety are mainly related to Safety, Fire Protection System, and Fire Fighting. Safety is further divided into two specific areas of application: industrial safety and construction safety. As far as industrial safety is concerned, right from the 1960s onwards, the Factories Act, enacted by Parliament, has been insisting on the appointment of safety officers and development of safety departments in industries across the spectrum. For instance, the safety department at FACT may consist of nothing less than 100 people. The Central and state governments had realised the need for adequate safety measures for people working in the construction industry because of the high likelihood of accidents. As a result, Parliament passed the Construction Workers Safety Act in 2000, which made appointment of safety personnel at construction sites mandatory. This led to a plethora of openings for safety professionals. Now, installation of fire protection system is compulsory for

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every multistoreyed building beyond a height of 15 metres. A huge workforce of technicians and engineers is required for installation of fire protection systems.

Considering the number of multistoreyed buildings all over India, the services of thousands of technicians and engineers are required today. The need for firefighters can be categorised into two specific areas: fire stations run by the state and Central governments; commercial and industrial premises. While the state and Central governments have their own training centres, institutes like ours provide firefighters to private organisations.

What all hazards and accidents can be handled by students graduating from your institute?

As far as hazards and accidents are concerned, our students can handle any accident or hazard in any industry and any type of premises. Our students have been working in the industry for the past 20 years, both in India and abroad. The syllabus for our programme covers the entire gamut of fire and safety.

Do you have a placement cell and industry

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

A huge workforce of technicians and engineers is required for installation of fire protection systems. Considering the number of multistoreyed buildings all over India, the services of thousands of technicians and engineers are required today M V Thomas, Managing Director, NIFE

interactive programmes?

We have a powerful placement cell operating from our office at Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, and Dubai. We hunt for every possible opening arising in the field and bring them to the attention of our students. However, we do not guarantee jobs to any of our students. Industries and concerns from all over India have come to our various centres and recruited our students through campus interviews.

What are your popular courses?

Fire and Safety is our most popular course. We are also running job-oriented courses in the area of Lift Technology and Fibre Optic Cable Technology.

Do you have any international certifications that helps your students in getting placements abroad?

We provide international certifications like NEBOSH and IOSH from the UK. Do you have any tie-ups with universities/ institutions?

We have tied up with Sikkim Manipal

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

University for providing our students universityapproved diplomas. We are also offering BSc in Safety, a unique programme in India, in collaboration with Sikkim Manipal University.

What all training facilities do you have?

We have all the major equipment required for practical training in Fire and Safety.

Do you plan to expand your operations?

We are currently setting up our centres all over Central and Northern India. We have about 80 centres in India as of today. We hope to increase this to 150 centres in one year.

Are you planning to introduce any new courses?

We recently introduced a course in the area of Fibre Optic Cable Technology, which is the first of its kind in India.

Which sectors have high employment potential?

As far as safety is concerned, the construction segment has high placement potential. Similarly, the Gulf region, with its huge construction sector and oil industry, is a big employment destination for our students.

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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES Lakshadweep

High demand for higher institutes of learning People in the 11 inhabited islands of Lakshadweep are desperately looking forward to new institutions of higher learning. As of today, the BEd college in Kavaratti is the only professional educational institution in the Union Territory.

There is also a demand for short-term job-oriented courses

By Lakshmi Narayanan

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n increasing number of people are turning educationists by setting up primary and higher institutes of learning in keeping with the growing demand for quality education. However, not everyone is as successful as the ones who had done the spadework before venturing into this sector. So, one needs to undertake incisive research, make adequate data analysis, check availability of funds for infrastructure development, and zero in on an area that urgently requires a thrust in education. At times, prospective investors may come across places that are quite advanced in terms of literacy, but lagging in terms of the total educational outreach and access. Lakshadweep is a case in point. In this Union Territory, a sizeable section of young aspirants do not have proper access to educational avenues, especially in higher education.

As per the 2011 Census, Lakshadweep ranks third in the country in terms of literacy, with 92.3 per cent

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literates. This includes 96.1 per cent literacy among females and 88.25 per cent literacy among males. This is a quantum leap, considering that the rate of literacy stood at 15.2 per cent in 1956, when Lakshadweep had gained the Union Territory status. But if you look into the finer aspects of literacy, a grim picture will unfold before you: Lakshadweep is among the laggers with a low passout ratio and a minuscule percentage of modern professional education opportunities against a student ratio of more than 54 per cent of the population.

Existing educational ecosystem

Lakshwadeep consists of 36 scattered islands, of which only 11 are inhabited. The majority of Lakshadweep’s student population study in the schools and colleges of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, given the inadequacies in the education sector back home. “Lakshadweep islands have plenty of resources, both human and economic, but we are not cared for by the EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

authorities. Students from this Union Territory are pursuing higher education by going out of the islands. So, we are looking forward to private investments in the education sector,” says Sabira, a student from Lakshadweep, who is pursuing her Masters at Calicut University, Kerala.

If the education sector is improved in accordance with the current needs, it will also lead to industrialisation and generation of employment. A survey conducted by the Industrial Development Bank of India has revealed that the islands have tremendous scope for industrial development.

Kavaratti island, the capital of Lakshadweep, is the only place in the Union Territory which has the maximum educational institutions.

On the professional education front, Lakshadweep has one BEd college. That too, in Kavaratti. The admission process is very competitive since only a few seats are available at this institute.

Where to invest?

Lakshadweep’s educational system supports the public private partnership model from the primary to secondary levels. Islands like Minicoy, Agathi, Kavaratti, Bitra, and Kadamath have a large number of students aspiring for modernised school education. So, it is the most opportune time for investors to look at the school education sector.

A number of primary level institutions being run here are owned by private players. Yet, there is space for more such schools. CBSE schools are in high demand at these islands; Currently, the Union Territory has only two CBSE schools, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya

This is the age of privatisation.

Lakshadweep also needs active private sector involvement in the education sector.

Only if they set up new quality institutes can this Union Territory produce a better generation of intellectuals Irshadkhan K M, Teacher, Jawahar Nagar Senior Secondary School, Kadamat island

and Kendriya Vidyalaya, both in Kavaratti.

On the teaching front, new entrants in the education sector can easily find teachers from this Union Territory since many of them who have completed their BEd from other states are awaiting suitable employment opportunities. “This is the age of

privatisation. Lakshadweep also needs active private sector involvement in the education sector. Only if they set up new quality institutes can this Union Territory produce a better generation which is intellectually and educationally competent. The people here and the prevailing circumstances favour new educational as well as industrial startups,” says Irshadkhan K M, a teacher at Jawahar Nagar Senior Secondary School in Kadamat island, who completed his post-graduation and BEd from Kerala.

Need for more colleges

The Union Territory is direly in need of more higher educational institutions, especially vocational colleges. Currently, there are some study centres of Calicut University offering graduation and post-graduation courses in the islands. But the courses are limited to arts and science subjects.

Colleges with more study options in various disciplines are the need of the hour. Also, investors can set up study centres at the islands in collaboration with the government. The Department of Education under the Union Territory of Lakshadweep is the authority that runs the education administration. Students of Lakshadweep are known for their inclination towards science streams, a good enough reason for investors to start institutes that offer graduation, post-graduation and research studies in science subjects.

“Students of Lakshadweep are highly motivated and ambitious. Their interest of study has been changing in accordance with the popular trends.

These days, most of the students are interested in engineering and management education. Only with more educational institutions and well-trained students can Lakshadweep match the development matrices of other states,” says Irshadkhan.

Scope for job-oriented courses

There is tremendous scope for the introduction of job-oriented courses, especially IT-oriented courses. Though many such governmental institutions have come up in recent times, not all islands have been covered. Institutions with short-term courses are much in demand in the Union Territory.

Hopefully, Lakshadweep will make way for an excellent higher education system in the near future and add more value to its literacy tag.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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MAKE YOUR CHOICE What is food technology?

Food technology is a vital branch of scientific food management.

It deals with the application of scientific methods of preparing, preserving, processing, packaging, and distribution of safe, flavoured, healthy and nutritious food. Food industries use multiple technologies.

Field of expertise

Preservation of food for future use, reduction of post-harvest losses, generation of food choices, clever utilisation of unwanted food products, production of value added foods etc.

Got the hunger to be a food expert?

What to learn?

• • • • • • •

Providing quality food in compliance with safety measures and earning the trust of the consumer are not an easy task.

But if you have the hunger to be part of an industry that takes care of food items, here’s your chance What is dairy technology?

A newly-developed division of engineering, dairy technology mainly deals with the processing of milk and milk products. It pertains to the scientific methods applied in processing, storage, packaging, distribution, and transportation of dairy products. It also includes the science of bacteriology, nutrition, and biochemistry.

How to join?

For BTech in dairy technology, one has to finish Plus Two with Biology, Maths and Chemistry. If you are aiming for the IITs, you have to qualify the Joint Entrance Examination. For Masters, one should have BE/BTech, or any other equivalent degree in engineering.

Specialisations • • • • • •

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Dairy Economics Dairy Chemistry Dairy Engineering Dairy Microbiology Animal Biochemistry Animal Biotechnology

• • •

Plus Two in science stream is a must for a degree course. For PG,

Job prospects

A food technology expert can find best placements in hotels, soft drink factories, food and food packaging industries, hospitals, distilleries and rice mills as quality controller, safety manager, production manager etc.

Pay scale

Talented graduates can expect a pay scale of Rs 15,000-25,000.

Where to study in India?

• •

Food products and processing Inorganic products Water treatment Organic products Responsible industrial operation (Food) polymer technology (Food/chemical) process technology

How to join?

a candidate must have Bachelor of Science/ BTech in Food Science.

• •

Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore D Patel Institute of Technology, Gujarat Anna University, Chennai Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad

Study abroad • • • • •

Cornell University, US University of Kent, UK University of Leicester, UK Ohio State University, US North Carolina University, US

Dairy Cattle Breeding Dairy Cattle Nutrition Dairy Cattle Physiology

Job prospects

There are immense job opportunities for dairy technologists in India.

There are more than 400 dairy plants in our country. You can become a dairy technologist, microbiologist, nutritionist, dairy scientist etc.

Pay scale

Graduates can expect a pay scale of Rs 15,000 -20,000.

Where to study in India?

• • • •

College of Food & Dairy Tech, Allahabad Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Chhattisgarh Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur Maharashtra Animal & Fishery Sciences University, Nagpur

Study abroad • • •

City University, London Kingston University, UK Imperial College, London

The milch cow calls out for you It’s the perfect time to milk the opportunities in the global dairy industry, which has recovered from the economic shocks of the past few years EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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STUDY DESTINATION United States of America

Learning from the best in the world With flexible courses in professional and general disciplines across 4,900 accredited universities and colleges, the US has one of the finest education systems in the world. The federal government, too, never underestimates the power of education in sustaining the streak of leadership, innovation, and excellence in all spheres of life. This undying spirit of America to reinvent itself time and again continues to amaze people across the world. That’s one reason why many students from across the world arrive in the US, hoping to be among the global leaders by imbibing the best from institutions of repute

By Our Correspondent

A world-class education is the single most important factor in determining not just whether our kids can compete for the best jobs but whether America can out-compete countries around the world. America’s business leaders understand that when it comes to education, we need to up our game. That’s why we’re working together to put an outstanding education within reach for every child US President Barack Obama

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s the American economy is gradually reinventing itself in a resilient manner and making persistent efforts to shield itself against future economic shocks, the Barack Obama administration has been ensuring

that the US regains and retains its economic edge over the major world powers by strengthening the source of its power to dominate—a qualitative education system.

Being a hub of modern industrial revolution, scientific research and invention, the US provides its youth the best

avenues of growth and innovation once they pass out of universities.

In all, the US has 4,900 accredited universities and colleges. As for quality, nine of the US schools were placed in the top 100 universities of the world in the May 2012 Times Higher Education rankings. More importantly, two of these schools are among the top 10. This doesn’t mean that the other universities are not in the league of the best global institutions. The quality of education in the US universities is such that it has been consistently attracting a high number of foreign students.

According to surveys conducted by various international education consultancies, 53% of the total students in the world are migrants pursuing higher studies in foreign countries. In the case of Indian students, more than 96,000 students are pursuing higher education in the US. This number is shooting University of Chicago up at an increasing rate of 10% Yale University over the year. According to the Cornell University statistics of Global Education University of California, Los Angeles Digest and UNESCO Institute of University of California, San Diego Statistics, the US is the best study University of Pennsylvania destination in the world, with University of Washington more than 600,000 international students. More than 42% of the

Valued universities in the US Harvard University University of California, Berkeley Stanford University Massachusetts Institute of Technology California Institute of Technology Princeton University Columbia University

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students are from East Asia and Pacific.

Why study in the US?

The US has one of the finest education systems in the world, with excellent programmes across all disciplines, from Russian history to nuclear physics. At the undergraduate level, outstanding programme options are available in conventional subjects as well as professional fields. At the Masters and PhD levels, students can avail of the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the best researchers in the world. Besides, US universities are world leaders in terms of technology, research and scientific techniques.

Uniqueness of US education

The US has the largest number of higher learning institutions in the world.

It also has the best academic bodies.

Universities are well-known for the quality of their teaching staff. Many of the professors are leading authorities in their field. Certificates from US colleges and universities have worldwide recognition.

Colleges and universities in America are given professional accreditation by different governing bodies, which ensures that there’s no dilution in the quality of education.

Significantly, the class size in US universities is small. Such a system of education enables professors to give speEDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

cial attention to each student. As a matter of fact, the student-teacher relationship in the US universities has inspired other institutes to take to such a system of engaged learning.

Post-education scenario

After completion of their higher education, the majority of international students settle down in the US, as the industry provides plenty of employment opportunities to freshers. What’s more, most universities/colleges have established affiliations with employers and researchers in different fields of study, thereby creating an avenue for students to obtain hands-on experience. It is mandatory for students at many of the US universities to gain practical training in their respective fields in order to graduate.

Earn while learning

The colleges follow the credit system and allow students to work during the course of their studies to earn an extra income and become self-reliant. Students have the freedom to choose their class time, and decide as to how many classes they need to attend in each semester or quarter, and go in for elective or optional classes.

Gaining the edge

Through 4,900 accredited colleges,

the US provides more than 900 fields of study. Students usually learn under the direction of world renowned faculty members, ranging from Nobel Laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners. As the state accords top priority to research and development in the field of science and technology, students can easily acquaint themselves with the latest innovative practices.

Major courses

The US is a hot destination for medical as well as engineering students. Business management and accountancy are also popular courses across colleges.

Visa process

Recently, the US student visa process was liberalised, though it is still considered to be complex as compared to countries like the UK and Australia. Students preparing to go for higher studies in the US need to apply for student visa soon after their studies in their home country.

After that, they need to pass the language test for smoothening their entry to the US universities. A first-timer who wants an earlier entry into the US (more than 30 days prior to the course start date), must qualify for, and obtain a visitor visa. But continuing students may apply for a new visa at any time, as long as they have been maintaining student status and their SEVIS records are current.

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GREENER PASTURES GUEST COLUMN Dr T P Sethumadhavan

More Indians going abroad for education In this era of globalisation, the concept of a global village is gaining wide acceptance in the country. Higher studies in a foreign country is the surest way for Indian students to break free from the cocoon of domesticity

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hough the global market is reeling under recession, it appears that the international education market is witnessing spectacular growth. A recent survey has revealed that there has been a significant rise in international students across various countries with an annual growth rate of 6.4 per cent.

Eighteen per cent of students still prefer the US for higher education, followed by the UK, where students constitute 10 per cent of the international population. Australia, which has seven per cent market share, is trying to liberalise the visa norms.

Among European countries, Germany and France have seven per cent contribution in the international market. Though the process and eligibility conditions are flexible, student intake in Canada is nearly five per cent. Growth is being noticed in Japan, Russia, Spain, New Zealand, Austria and Korea as well.

China is sending the maximum number of students for overseas education.

With the inclusion of higher education as a sector in the General Agreement on Trade in Services, we are committed towards four strands of trade in education services - consumption abroad, cross border supply, natural and commercial presence. Of these, consumption abroad calls for presence of Indian students in developed countries. Due to robust growth in science and technology, India has achieved global recognition as a country which could provide skilled manpower capable of contributing to the economy of different countries.

The status of Indians as skilled workers and migrating brains has changed as innovators developing linkages with other countries by establishing institutions abroad. Though everybody is aware of the growing importance of international standards in higher education, a major handicap in

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realising this objective is the absence of relevant information about the scope, opportunities, choice of institutions etc in foreign countries.

One of the founding principles of the USEFI (United States Education Foundation in India) is that when Indians and Americans study together, conduct joint research and engage in educational exchanges, they lay the foundation for better relations between the US and India. The stagnation of employment in developed countries and apparent recovery in developing countries after recession have renewed perceptions of a global shift in employment to the developing world, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

In this era of globalisation, the concept of a global village is gaining wide acceptance in the country.

Higher studies in a foreign country are the surest way for Indian students to break free from the cocoon of domesticity. The overseas education market has changed beyond belief. A large number of universities and schools from different countries are considering India as a potential recruitment centre. Apart from the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Switzerland, even countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, China and Italy have started recruiting students from the country.

Even though the basic objective of education is to attain knowledge, develop skills, and change the attitude, the main goal is to acquire a better job.

Overseas education has always been considered as a sure shot ticket to a better career. Selecting the right course or the right country for study abroad is really a difficult task. Some of the key questions like where should I go? Which course is best for me? How do I process everything? often confront every aspirant.

Academic excellence, global edge in faculty and students, better facilities and resources, variety of EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

options, flexible curricula, cutting edge technology, hands-on training, better support services for international students, financial assistance, challenging research opportunities, and adaptation to different social environment are some of the major advantages.

Good academic merit, individual capabilities, including analytical skills, suitability to course/ college, and proficiency in English language, require more consideration before proceeding for study abroad programmes. Innovative teaching makes a class room interactive and interesting, thereby igniting and inspiring the minds of students.

A green job is employment in any industry contributing to preserve or restore environmental quality and allowing sustainable development. It could be in research, construction and monitoring of power plant, industrial efficiency, including cogeneration, plant efficiency and carbon sequestration.

There exists a huge gap in curriculum, teaching methods, research resources, and pedagogical issues between India and developed countries.

Study abroad: Prospects, prerequisites and procedures

Of late, an increasing number of Indian students are interested in pursuing education abroad. Even though their preferred destinations are the US, the UK, Germany, France and Canada, some of them prefer Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

Overseas education offers better career prospects, but one needs to go through a series of processes for getting admission abroad. It can be termed as requirements for education abroad. It is a fact that in developed countries, our graduate programmes are undergraduate programmes. Likewise post-graduate programmes are considered as graduate programmes.

Sixteen years of education (from first standard EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

onwards) is the basic pre-requisite for graduate programmes abroad.

Overseas education systems differ from the Indian education system in teaching and learning situations. While the emphasis is on theoretical teaching and exams in India, foreign education systems lay emphasis on skill development, group discussions, practicals and presentations. Continuous evaluation of students, based on their performance, is given top priority abroad.

A good academic record is essential for admission to a reputed foreign university.

Extracurricular activities would be given weightage.

Proficiency test scores, statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation are equally important.

Consider your suitability to the course and college and adaptability to the culture of the country as well. It is also advisable to collect information about the country, education system, language, food and lifestyle, etc.

Studying abroad might not be expensive, if you plan well in advance. Financial aid for overseas education is limited to deserving meritorious candidates. So, it is advisable to start the search for financial aid early, if you want to seek admission to a programme that is beyond your budget. A number of universities and colleges offer financial aid in the form of awards, scholarships, fellowships, tuition waivers, teaching and research assistantships.

Moreover, various agencies and institutions offer loans, loan scholarships, and gift scholarships.

(Dr T P Sethumadhavan is working as Academic Consultant & Officer on Special Duty at the Directorate of Entrepreneurship, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University)

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EMERGING YOU Guest Column Sajeev Nair

For success, know the driving force within I don’t know how to keep myself inspired and maintain the drive for success all the time? How do I keep myself motivated? How can I move forward in the face of insurmountable challenges? Entrepreneurs and professionals across industries often confront such mental challenges and morale-sapping questions of self-doubt and self-discovery. Maybe it’s high time for you to engage in an introspective session and regain composure

I

have done thousands of motivational sessions, covering lakhs of people.

I still do it. After the sessions, I have received unbelievable feedbacks from participants. “This was an unbelievable session… I am totally charged up now… Your session has changed my life… What a magical spell!”

At times, the tenor of the reactions overwhelms the motivator so much so that he is forced to believe that the participants have finally learnt the art of self-discovery. But the sad thing is that only a very few people ever make a significant difference in their life after attending such motivating sessions. The rest of them forget about the session in two to three weeks’ time. I have heard and read about many trainers and authors making tall claims like, “Anybody who has attended my sessions is changing his/her life in a massive, positive way… My books have helped readers make a 180 degree U-turn in their lives and move towards success.” I am sorry to state that I don’t believe in these kinds of statements. I don’t think any speaker can motivate his audience to take some strong decisions and move on to become successful; no author can motivate his/her readers to make a life-changing decision and move towards massive success in life. At the same time, I am not making a statement that all trainers and authors are ineffective. I still believe that some motivational trainers and authors are helping millions of people change their lives in a positive way. I myself am a typical example. For whatever I have achieved in my life over the last 10 to 15 years, I heavily owe it to the training programmes I had attended and the books that I read.

I myself have received many strong, positive feedbacks for my motivational pieces, with reactions ranging from an end of a depressive spell to sheer elation… “These articles have opened my eyes… I am now experiencing a whole new perspective towards life… I am getting better results in life as my attitude towards people has changed after reading your columns.”

Motivational trainers and authors are definitely helping a lot of people change their course and achieve better results in life. But my point is, not everyone makes positive changes in life after reading a book, or reading such articles, or after attending a motivational training session. Had it been solely the effectiveness of the trainer, or the author, everyone should have made significant, positive improvements in their lives. The impact on the life of a person is the verdict on how good a trainer you are, or how good an author you

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are. Motivating isn’t easy.

Why is it so? The basic rule, I believe in, is: “Nobody can motivate anybody.” Why? Because motivation is internal. It is a feeling that comes from within. A trainer, or author, can only inspire others to look within for motivation. They cannot get inside your mind and change the way you approach life. In short, an affective trainer, or author, can only inspire others to get motivated. And only very few ever get motivated. Do you know why?

Do you have any idea who may be the people who get motivated?

Motivation is formed from the word ‘MOTIVE’, which means aim, goal, or intention, in life. Hence motivated means driven towards a motive. If there is no motive, there is no motivation. No one can build or create motive for you. You need to figure out your motive as to what you want to accomplish in life.

Most people who are failures in business or life never have any idea about what they wanted to accomplish.

I was making a keynote address to the premium account holders of one of the leading banks in our state.

Premium account holders mean ‘those who have taken the maximum amount of loan’, or ‘those who are in big time debt’. I had about 120 businessmen sitting in front of me. I asked them a question, “What is your vision in

Motivation The basic rule, I believe in, is: “Nobody can motivate anybody.”

Why? Because motivation is internal. It is a feeling that comes from within Some people think that the only motive behind doing business is to make money. This is wrong. Money is a definite outcome when you work on a good business idea If there is no motive, there is no motivation. No one can build or create motive for you life?” No one answered. Then, I picked one gentleman and repeated the question, “What is your vision for your business?” He replied in a sarcastic tone, “Vision? What is that?” I said, “In simple terms, why are you doing the business which you are doing now?” The answer was spontaneous, “To pay off bank debts.” Everyone laughed, but I think most of the businessmen were in the same stage. When one starts a business, he starts it with a lot of hope, ideas, and excitement; but over a period of time, he loses focus while fighting the day to day challenges. It reaches a level where the business becomes an inevitable evil; you cannot run it because you have no resources, you cannot close it because your money, which is floating in the market, will never come back. You simply get stuck.

The scene could have been much liberating if only there was motive. Some people think that the only motive behind doing business is to make money. This is wrong. Money is a definite outcome when you work on a good business idea. But your motive should be much bigger than money. In my business consulting company, Bramma Business Insights, whenever a client approaches us, we ask them this question repeatedly, “Why are you doing this business?”

Unless and until he is not clear about his purpose, no consultant can help him.

(Sajeev Nair is a successful first generation Entrepreneur, Life Coach, Author, and Business Consultant. He is the Chief Mentor of Bramma Business Insights, a training and business consulting company working with a mission to create 1,000 successes in small and medium businesses.

Your suggestions and comments can be mailed to mail@sajeevnair.com.

Visit www.sajeevnair.com and www.facebook.com/iamsajeev) EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

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MEDICAL STUDY DESTINATION Curacao

A Caribbean touch to medical education Ever been to Curacao? Situated in the southern Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan Coast, this is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, famous for its coral reefs and scuba diving destinations. In Portuguese, the word ‘Curacao’ means the state of being cured. During the earlier times, a group of Portuguese sailors suffering from scurvy had landed in Curacao and cured themselves by eating a fruit containing vitamin C. Since then, it came to be known as the “Island of Healing”. Apart from being a picturesque tourist destination, Curacao is emerging as a major medical study destination in the Caribbean Islands. Among the institutes here, St Martinus University Faculty of Medicine, recognised by the World Health Organisation and the Medical Council of India, provides quality education

Bureau

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constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Curacao is famous for the Curacao Dolphin Therapy and Research Center (CDTC), where patients suffering from physical or mental disabilities such as cerebral palsy, autism, and down’s syndrome are given a chance to interact with dolphins under a unique programme.

The therapy offered at CDTC uses the principles of behavioural therapy.

Research has shown that interaction with

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dolphins can bring about improvement in the concentration capacity, or the ability of a patient to focus.

Curacao’s association with healing doesn’t end there. Today, it is emerging as one of the major medical study destinations in the Caribbean Islands.

A scuba diver’s paradise and a tourism hotspot, Curacao has some beautiful coral reefs that makes it a progressive wellness destination as well. The cost of living in Curacao is comparatively low, so there’s no pressure on foreign students

to take up part-time jobs while pursuing studies here.

The only medical college in Curacao to be approved by the Medical Council of India, St Martinus University Faculty of Medicine (SMUFOM) offers students quality education. It is one of the two private medical schools in the Caribbean that offers a two-semester-per-year system, consistent with the Liaison Committee on Medical Educationaccredited US, Canadian, and most medical schools around the world.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

St Martinus College was established in 1842 as the first school of the Netherland Antilles, run by the Nuns of the Catholic church, the Sisters of Roosendaal. In the 1990s, the Sisters decided to hand over charge to a team of professionals with the objective of turning this institution into a medical and health sciences university. After a complete renovation, the campus was transformed into SMUFOM. At SMUFOM, students are exposed to clinical settings at a 300-bed regional hospital in the island from the first semester itself. SMUFOM’s mission is

to provide a well-balanced instructional programme, enabling students to achieve their full potential and become qualified physicians and exceptional leaders in the field of medicine.

Programmes Offered

SMUFOM offers a rigorous programme that integrates the basic sciences with the clinical practices of medicine. The Programme in Basic Sciences is offered over four semesters of 20 weeks each. There is a scheduled mid-semester break after mid-term exams. There are 35 contact hours of teaching per week in each of the first

four semesters. After completing this, students have to pass the entire course with a GPA of 2.0. Clinical sciences are taught during the third and fourth years.

There are two semesters of 24 weeks each in the third year. Core clerkships are delivered in the third year. There are two semesters of 16 weeks each in the fourth year.

SMUFOM students with OCI status (Overseas Citizenship of India) and Indian citizens are eligible for the screening test conducted by the Medical Council of India. St Martinus University students are eligible to practice in India after completing their degree.

Aiming highest level of academic success In an interview with Education Insider, Priyam Sharma, Managing Director, St Martinus University NV, talks about the vision that drives the institute What’s your vision plan?

At St Martinus University Faculty of Medicine (www.martinus.edu), our vision is to create the best global medical school, where students from various countries can receive education and become respected citizens of any country they choose to live in. We strive to provide a well-balanced instructional programme that enables students to reach their highest level of academic success.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Our staff is committed to creating a student-centered educational environment that stresses on high expectations. Our goal is to maintain an active partnership, involving students, teachers, community, and staff, and develop a love for learning while embracing our diversity and unique talents in a safe, challenging, respectful and supportive environment. Our faculty, staff and students accomplish our mission by providing student assistance inside

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MEDICAL STUDY DESTINATION Curacao

and outside the classroom. Teaching assistants are available to help fellow students succeed. We acquire the best equipment and staff. We have developed a curriculum which will aid students in preparation for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), and clinical rotations. We provide the skills and knowledge that will lead to a successful and rewarding career. Our aim is to help students reach their full potential and become qualified physicians and exceptional leaders in the field of medicine.

What exactly are you looking for in a candidate seeking admission in your institute and what’s the yardstick for assessment of skills and leadership traits?

We are looking for candidates who are not only excellent academic achievers, but are able to help the community around them by having other talents. Music, art, sports and games, debates, theatre etc. are some of the disciplines we look into. In addition to passing an entrance examination, we ask them to submit a detailed application form and also write an essay about themselves.

For the session starting on January 7, 2013, the entrance examination is in September 2012.

What has been your contribution to the world of medicine? Has the university undertaken any state-funded scientific study or research project

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that adds value to your educational system?

Our contribution to the world of medicine has been one of the best one can have – producing world class physicians! The university has several research projects that are underway with medical institutes from the USA, Belgium and Holland.

What kind of research is your university into?

Do the students get enough opportunities to work on interesting projects?

Students get ample opportunity to work on diabetes, arthritis, genetics, and cardiology-related projects. We also sponsor our students and faculty members and encourage them to work with their counterparts in the US medical institutes.

Do you have plans to broaden your curriculum/ courses by including new subjects?

Yes, we are going to open a branch to confer Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctor’s degrees in Physiotherapy. In addition, we have plans to open a dental college and a nursing college in the near future.

What’s the profile of your students? Do you have any students from Asia?

The majority of our students come from the USA and Canada. About 10% of our student population is from India. We had launched a promotional campaign in India this year. We have three intakes every year – in January, July, and September.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

Snehaj Srinivas EX QUIZ ME

1. With worldwide sales of over 300 million, it is said to be the world’s best-selling toy. It was invented by a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno _____ in 1974. It was originally called something else, but it was renamed to the current name by Ideal Toys in 1980. Name it.

2. If it is Nishan-e-Haider in Pakistan and the Bir Shreshto in Bangladesh, what is the Indian equivalent?

3. He was raised by his wealthy uncle, Philip, after his parents were killed by a small time criminal, Joe Chill. Julie Madison was his fiancée. He is an honourary member of the Justice Society of America. Identify him.

4. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim are former PayPal employees who developed this website that was later bought by Google. Which website is this?

5. The Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics carries a portrait of him, along with his proof concerning the sphere and the cylinder. The state motto of California is an exclamation attributed to him. Identify him.

6. According to a famous remark made by HG Wells, who is the only military monarch on record who abandoned warfare after victory?

7. In 1803, Pazhassi Raja and the British Army waged war for control of which estate, reputed to be Asia’s largest cinnamon estate?

8. Which musical instrument is related to the mythology of Ravana? He is said to have designed this instrument for awakening his brother Kumbhakarna from deep sleep?

9. Popularly known as ‘Krishi ka Rishi’ (the Sage of Agriculture), he is a famous exponent of natural farming and a tireless promoter of the concept of “Zero Budget Natural Farming”. Identify him.

10. We get this fruit from a tree in the family Anacardiaceae. The name Anacardium refers to the shape of the fruit, which looks like an inverted heart.

Which fruit is this?

Answers

Questions

1) Rubik’s Cube, 2) Param Vir Chakra, 3) Batman, 4) You Tube, 5) Archimedes, 6) Ashoka, 7) Anjarakkandy, 8) Thavil, 9)Subash Palekar, 10) Cashew

(Snehaj Srinivas, Chief Coordinator, Dreamz is a Reader in Biochemistry at Annoor Dental College, Moovattupuzha)

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Knowledge economy Karnataka

Knowledge boom to boost job avenues In the near future, the torchbearers of India’s knowledge economy will match the dynamism and growth models of the most formidable global players in the technological skill-intensive sectors by establishing what may be known as the mother of all projects, the IT Investment Region (ITIR) Project in Karnataka. With states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu also taking giant strides in the knowledge sector, employment opportunities in the IT and ITES sectors will certainly treble in the coming years.

For now, Education Insider focusses on the ITIR Project as well as some parallel moves of the Karnataka government in the knowledge sector. With receipt of investment commitments totalling over Rs 40,000 crore, the Global Investors Meet2012 of Karnataka has given a fresh impetus to the IT sector. The much-touted ITIR Project, expected to bring in an investment of Rs 90,000 crore, is also picking pace.

The IT growth story doesn’t stop there, as the state government is now planning to develop IT hubs in Mangalore, Gulbarga, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Shimoga as well. In an interview with Education Insider, M N Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary to the Karnataka government, Department of IT, Biotechnology, Science & Technology and Commerce & Industries, shares the finer details of the state’s plans to give further fillip to the knowledge sector

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By T P Prasanth What are the new projects to boost the IT sector in the state?

The growth story of the IT sector in Karnataka has not paused. New projects are certainly entering the state, while existing industries find the state to be very friendly and are therefore expanding. This is very much true about the IT sector. At the recently-concluded Global Investors Meet (GIM)-2012, MOUs/EOIs in respect of 108 IT projects were signed, out of which 30 are mega projects.

Ascendas has signed up for Electronics Hardware Park, Sun Forest City for Aerospace Hub, Infosys and Wipro for Software Parks etc. In all, over Rs 40,000 crore worth investments have been committed for the IT sector during GIM-2012.

Do you have any concrete plan to implement the IT Investment Region (ITIR) Project in the near future?

The ITIR Project, proposed to be developed between Devanahalli and Doddaballapur, is gaining pace. As it is a green field project, the land acquisition process, set in motion, is taking a little longer. Land is being acquired through the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012

(KIADB). The ITIR Project is proposed to be developed in two phases over a period of 20 years, covering over 10,000 acres of land. In the first phase, KIADB has notified 2,072 acres of land in six villages of Devanahalli and one village of Doddaballapur.

While the internal infrastructure will be provided by the state government/private developers/consortium of developers, the external infrastructure will be provided by the Government of India.

Power, water, IT infrastructure and the social infrastructure, such as residential, educational, commercial facilities will be provided under the Project. The Government of India has been requested to help in developing the external infrastructure, such as widening of National Highway-207 and Metro Rail connectivity from Bangalore International Airport to ITIR. In a demand survey conducted by the Department in the year 2010, 58 IT companies evinced interest in the ITIR Project. Four reputed developers have shown interest in developing the Project. The ITIR Project is expected to bring in an investment of over Rs 90,000 crore and create over a million jobs.

Reports point out that investors are sceptical about Karnataka because of non-availability of land and poor industrial infrastructure. What’s your reaction?

It is not true. Karnataka is one of the best industrial states in the country. The state is receiving continuous investments in steel, energy, automobile, infrastruc-

ture development, tourism, aerospace, IT and BT etc. GIM-2010 witnessed a commitment of Rs 3.98 lakh crore worth investments. GIM-2012, which was held on June 7-8, saw a commitment of Rs 7.6 lakh crore worth investments.

There are minor hitches in matters of providing land, which have almost been sorted out. The state has created a land bank of about one lakh acres of land for allotment to the industries. The state continues to be an attractive destination for investments.

Could you describe the investorfriendly policies of the Karnataka government, especially in the IT sector?

Karnataka has the most attractive Industrial Policy. The state has also announced sector-specific policies, such as the ICT Policy for the ICT sector, Biotech Policy for the Biotech sector, Semiconductor Policy for the ESDM sector, Electronics Hardware Policy, Tourism Policy, Infrastructure Policy etc. The aim of these policies is to aggressively promote the respective sectors. Karnataka was, in fact, the first in the country to announce the IT Policy. The state is also the first in the country to announce an Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics Policy. There is no dearth of policy initiatives.

How will you convince the investors on the state’s potential for higher growth in the light of the growth slowdown in the last fiscal?

File photo of Karnataka’s Global Investors’ Meet-2012.

As stated earlier, the investors are convinced that Karnataka is the most investor-friendly state in the country.

The state has a booming services sector, namely, IT, Real Estate and Retail, accounting for over 50% of the state’s economy. The service sector growth rate during the last fiscal rose to 10.6% from 9.1% in the previous year. During the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012), Karnataka is estimated to have had growth at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8%. These statistics reveal that the state has large potential for higher growth even though there is global economic slowdown.

Do you have any action plan to create more IT hubs in Karnataka other than Bangalore?

Around Bangalore, areas such as Devanahalli, Doddaballapur, Chikkaballapur, Tumkur, Ramanagaram, Kolar, and Mysore, have seen substantial industrial growth over the past few years.

The state is keen to develop IT hubs in Mangalore, Gulbarga, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Shimoga, to begin with.

Keonics, a Government of Karnataka undertaking, has been entrusted with the task of building IT Parks in these places.

The IT Parks in Shimoga and Gulbarga are ready for operations. Over 50% of the built-up space has already been booked in these Parks by the IT investor, particularly in BPO and ITeS. The Hubli IT Park is almost full. The Aryabhatta IT Park in Hubli has over half-a-dozen IT companies.

MOTIVATION PURSUIT OF PASSION

Music activates her inner eye Modern medical practitioners have acknowledged the power of music to heal the mind. A 26-year-old visually impaired musician from Calicut, Kerala, is inspiring those faced with disabilities with her own extraordinary success story

By Lakshmi Narayanan

I

mmersed in the world of ragas and thalas, Carnatic vocalist and Veena player Sajina K K is a composed and contented person. Her creative expressions have not only endeared her to a young bunch of music learners, but also set her on a soulfulfilling path of self-discovery. Sajina’s visual disability has never stopped her from being ambitious in life.

Her day starts with the mellifluous tunes of Carnatic music and ends with captivating instrumental music, produced from the Veena. Music is the breath of her life. This 26-year-old charming lady from Calicut, Kerala, is gracious, confident, and courageous. Her steely determination towards life can charm anyone. “I am blind, so what? Blindness is not a hurdle for any achievement in life. Dedication and confidence are the only vital things that we need to overcome hurdles and make accomplishments.”

Sajina’s extraordinary life story can move you to tears. She started taking part in stage performances and musical programmes at the age of five.

A distinguished Veena player, a celebrity performer in reality shows, album artist, and competent songster, she finds enough time to teach music to youngsters.

Sajina’s blindness has never depressed

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her. Rather, she views her disability as an opportunity to be thoroughly able.

Sajina was born into a family of three children.

The youngest among her siblings, she was visually challenged since birth. Visually impaired from the left eye, her right eye gave her 40% visual ability. From childhood itself, Sajina showed extraordinary courage towards the obstacles of life. With that partial sight, she managed to study in a normal school system. It was at the age of five that her parents realised her passion towards music. So, they encouraged her to undergo training and take part in stage performances.

After her schooling, Sajina enrolled for the graduate programme in music at Government College, Chittoor, Palghat. From there, she learned Carnatic music and Veena and graduated with a first class. She then completed her post-graduation with flying colours.

It was in the middle of 2009 that she started losing visual ability in the right eye as well. Her nerves from eye to brain were growing weaker with the passage of each day, and by the month of October, at the age of 24, she had become completely blind. Instead of slipping into a depression, she started preparing herself for complete blindness. She had learnt how to operate computers. Now, she is preparing to learn the Braille system of learning. She also plans to do an MPhil and a specialisation in Veena.

She has participated in several reality shows, and won the first place in a show called ‘Mappilappattu’ at Jaihind TV channel. She even reached the third stage of ‘Idea Star Singer’ on Asianet. She has also been honoured with several state awards for her musical performances.

Every day, she keeps herself busy. If she is not at the recording studio, she would be taking part in stage programmes, channel shows, or teaching music. Music activates her inner eye, giving her the power to be a fully able person.

EDUCATION INSIDER I September 2012