digitalLEARNING February 2013

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

volume 9

I issue 02 I February 2013 I ISSN 0973-4139 I ` 75

Bridging the gap

education.eletsonline.com

digital LEARNING

tech-enabled education in punjab

State Education Summit Punjab 2013

Sikandar Singh Maluka Education, Higher Education & Languages Minister, Punjab

K S Pannu Secratery-cum-Director General School Education, Punjab – Chandigarh

Ashwini Kumar National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology

V S Ramamurthy National Institute of Advanced Studies

Sudhir Kumar Jain Indian Institute of Technology Gandhi Nagar

S Y Siddiqui NHRDN, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd

digital LEARNING

State Education Summit Punjab 2013 7-8 February 2013, Hometel Chandigarh

digital LEARNING

world education summit 2013 23-24 April, 2013, Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi

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Contents

ISSN 0973-4139

volume 09 issue 02 february 2013

state focus - punjab 09 Pervesh Project: A Creative Learning Model in Primary Education of Punjab

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ePunjab School Web Portal Brings Transparency in Education Department

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Edusat Ensures Quality Education in Punjab Government Schools

Rajeev Sharma, Deputy State Project Director, Punjab Edusat Society

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Punjab’s Initiative towards Creating Employment

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Lokesh Mehra Director-Education Advocacy, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd

K S Pannu, IAS Secretary-cum-Director General School Education, Punjab – Chandigarh

26 Prof Sudhir Kumar Jain Director, IIT Gandhinagar

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Feature

mind the gap

Cementing Gaps to Make Tomorrow Employable

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VS Ramamurthy Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies

Sikandar Singh Maluka Education, Higher Education & Languages Minister, Punjab

Pragya Gupta, Elets News Network (ENN)

60 SY Siddiqui National President, NHRDN and COO-Administration (HR, Finance, IT & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd

higher education 59 If your organisation is in the business of climbing trees, you need to hire squirrel, not a horse

24 Tablets: Expediting Teaching-Learning Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra, Elets News Network (ENN)

Binoj Vasu, GEVP and Chief Learning Officer, Human Capital

Management, YES Bank Ltd

28 MJ Xavier, Director, IIM Ranchi

62 Learning-by-Doing and Learning-while-

digital literacy

Earning are the Ways to Bridge the Gap

Neeti Sharma, Vice President, TeamLease – IIJT

40 Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, NIELIT

63 The Principle is Buyer Beware

TR Shastri, Dean, ICICI Manipal Academy

64 Conceptualise Training Programmes Keeping the Industry Requirements in Mind

46 Dr Veera Gupta, Associate Professor,

National University of Educational Planning & Administration, Delhi; Former Secretary, CBSE

Anu Senan, Saurabh Jain & Vivek Srinivasan, XLRI GMP Class of 2013

Industry speak 20 Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head,

44 52

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policy matters

TCS iON Naveen Rajlani, Senior Vice President and Head – School Division, Pearson Education India Manish Upadhyay, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist, LIQVID; AmitavaMaitra, Independent Ed Tech Consultant

education.eletsonline.com

event report 48 Pearson Education Services, NDTV Honour Teachers

NEWS 32 Higher Education 51

K-12

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education Volume

09

Issue 02

February 2013

President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta Group Editor: Anoop Verma

Partner publications

Advisory Board Prof Asha Kanwar, President, Commonwealth of Learning

Dr Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global eSchools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI)

WEB DEVELOPMENT & IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Dr Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Govt of India

Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Executive Vice President, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment

Executive – Information Management: Khabirul Islam

Prof S S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

Prof Parvin Sinclair, Director, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)

Team Lead – Web Development: Ishvinder Singh Executive – IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed

Finance & Operations Team General Manager – Finance: Ajit Kumar Legal Officer: Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr Manager – Events: Vicky Kalra Associate Manager – HR: Sushma Juyal Associate Manager – Accounts: Anubhav Rana Executive Officer – Accounts: Subhash Chandra Dimri

Editorial Team

Admin Executive: Gurneet Kaur

education Sr Correspondent: Pragya Gupta, Mohd Ujaley Correspondent: Rozelle Laha, Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra governance Manager – Partnerships & Alliances: Manjushree Reddy Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Nayana Singh Health Sr Correspondent: Sharmila Das Research Assistant: Shally Makin, Nikita Apraj SALES & MARKETING TEAM: digital LEARNING National Sales Manager: Fahimul Haque Associate Manager – Business Development: Amit Kumar Pundhir Subscription & Circulation Team Sr Manager – Circulation: Jagwant Kumar, Mobile: +91-8130296484 Sr Executive – Subscription: Gunjan Singh, Mobile: +91-8860635832 Design Team Team Lead – Graphic Design: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Sr Graphic Designer: Om Prakash Thakur Sr Web Designer: Shyam Kishore All India Distribution by Ibh Books & Magazines Distributors Pvt Ltd Editorial & Marketing Correspondence digitalLearning - Stellar IT Park Office No: 7A/7B, 5th Floor, Annexe Building, C-25, Sector 62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, Phone: +91-120-4812600 Fax: +91-120-4812660 Email: info@digitalLearning.in

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Owner, Publisher, Printer - Ravi Gupta, Printed at R P Printers G-68, Sector 6, Noida, UP and published from 710, Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50, Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

education.eletsonline.com | egov.eletsonline.com | ehealth.eletsonline.com Write in your reactions to Education news, interviews, features and articles. You can either comment on the individual webpage of a story, or drop us a mail: editorial@elets.in

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EDITORIAL

India’s Education System – Making a Grade The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, released recently in New Delhi, shows that while the nation has achieved a lot in the field of education, mainly due to the creation of new infrastructure and deployment of digital technologies, a lot more work needs to be done to make the goal of inclusive education a reality. Many states are now distributing free laptops and tablets to students with the intention of promoting digital literacy. Akhilesh Yadav, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, has announced a scheme to distribute 50 lakh laptops and 25 lakh tablets to all the students who pass out of class X and XII. In the current issue of digitalLEARNING, we have tried to present an overview of the ways by which the rise of tablets is impacting our system of education. We have interacted with the industry leaders and also with the academia to discover how teaching systems are getting transformed. A lightweight tablet can store a large number of books; it can store every book in a student’s backpack plus every book in the school library, and support new ways of learning and teaching. There is no end to the benefits that we can expect.

In this issue, we have also highlighted the need to bridge the industry-academia gap. The figures released by NASSCOM paint a shocking reality – each year, over three million graduates and post-graduates are added to the Indian workforce. Out of these, only 25 percent of technical graduates and 10-15 percent of other graduates are considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITES segments. The country has to take adequate steps towards bridging the gap between the academia and the industry. We have interacted with some of the leading stakeholders in education to develop strategies for addressing this core issue.

We are holding the State Education Summit 2013 Punjab, in Chandigarh, on February 7 and 8, 2013. The key objective of the summit is to highlight all the achievements made by the state of Punjab in the field of education.

Key stakeholders of education from the state and from the rest of the country will be participating in the summit. As education is a universal subject, the outcomes of the summit will be applicable to all parts of the country. We look forward to seeing you at the State Education Summit 2013 Punjab, and participating in the invigorating rounds of discussion on the ways by which the reach and scope of education can be improved in Punjab and the rest of India.

Dr Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

digitalLEARNING / February 2013

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Pervesh Project: A Creative Learning Model in Primary Education of Punjab

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he sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Punjab has always been actively involved in the improvement of quality of school education in Punjab. Special focus has been on primary schools as qualitative primary education serves as a strong foundation in the academic career of a child. The main objective behind these quality interventions has been to eradicate the difference between actual learning level of the students and class specific goals. In the past years the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Punjab has done a commendable job as far as primary education is concerned.

To take the quality of primary education in Punjab to a new level, it was

strongly felt that something innovative needs to be done to make this qualitative learning creative and joyful. So, we initiated the PERVESH (Primary Vidya Sudhar) project for creative and joyful learning in primary education of Punjab. This programme attempts to build a strong base among children in learning basic language skills, mathematics and desired curriculum through Creative Learning Model (CLM) of education. In Creative Learning Model, teaching is not merely a traditional classroom process where a teacher speaks and children listen and write but also involves both the teacher and the children as creative and dynamic

participants in the process of teaching and learning.

Why PERVESH? Prior to the year 2008, a child was evaluated for all the information he possessed. It was a system of information based evaluation.

During 2008 to 2012, the Focus shifted to Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) by providing level-oriented targets for pupils. Its aim was to eradicate the difference between the actual learning level of a child and class specific goals. Evaluation was based on targets achievement.

PERVESH focuses more on process of teaching and learning than the out-

Morning assembly-meditation

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comes of the same. It is based on the CLM of education. It designs classroom activities as per the main guidelines of RTE and CCE. PERVESH encourages level appropriate learning instead of class based traditional system of learning. Following the spirit of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), students’ level of learning is diagnosed at the onset of the academic session through Baseline Test, and appropriate treatment is provided to the children to impart the required level specific skills. In the middle of the session, a Mid-Test is conducted to assess the progress, and at the end of session, a Post-Test is conducted to know the final progress made by the students. A student is promoted to the next learning level, irrespective of the timeframe, as soon as he/she acquires the desired skills of a certain level.

PERVESH aims to bring about large scale improvement in the quality of reading, writing and arithmetic levels of primary school-goers through: • Layered teacher training • Creation and distribution of colourful and graded curriculum related supplementary reading material among children • Learning by doing, discovery and exploration • Monitoring of the school activities • Sensitising the teachers towards child psychology, creative and play way methodology of teaching, use of audio-visual aids to thrust aside the rote method of learning • Holding the teachers accountable for their work

Targets PERVESH aims to achieve that every child in government primary schools should be able to:

Class I-III •

Acquire reading, writing and basic arithmetic skills.

Class IV-V • •

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Acquire reading, writing and basic arithmetic skills.

Complete the curriculum without any difficulty. education.eletsonline.com

Radio Classroom

Management of PERVESH The State Management Unit (SMU) at the top is the chief governing body comprising State Project Director SSA cum Director General School Education Sh K S Pannu, IAS, Additional State Project Director; Smt Parampal Kaur Sidhu, DPI (EE), Director SCERT, ASPD (Media); Dr Davinder Singh Boha and all DEO (EE) along with other functionaries. The SMU is responsible for chalking out the

policy and framework and is responsible for monitoring the project at state level.

The District Management Unit (DMU) is responsible for the implementation of project at the district level. It comprises of the DEO (SE), DEO (EE), Principal DIET, All BPEOs and Pervesh District Coordinators along with other functionaries. At the district level, the DMU plays a major role in making the project’s report card impressive.

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ent in primary school children.

Radio Classroom is one of the initiatives undertaken under PERVESH to provide lessons to the children of standard III to V through audio media. It is a state initiative to prepare the radio programs based on the syllabus with the help of concerned teachers and children. Radio lessons are delivered directly to the children in class through local FM radio channels. Selected topics are prepared by experts and artists with children participation. Radio lessons leave a long lasting impression of knowledge and understanding of the delivered topic in the minds of children.

Various competitions like Table competitions, Handwriting competitions, Painting competitions on various social issues like

Creativity: Sand Paper and Colours

On the pattern of the above committees at the block level, the BPEOs and Pervesh Block Coordinators monitor the project at their respective blocks. The SMU and DMU are scheduled to meet at least once a month to review the progress made and chalk out the future strategies of the project.

The support and strength is provided to the teacher at the grass root level. Pervesh Block Coordinators (PBCs) visit their allotted schools regularly to support and acquaint the teacher with latest innovations in teaching learning process, provide feedback regarding their teaching methodology and render support where required. Along with the dedicated work force of Pervesh Block Coordinators (PBC) at block levels, the Pervesh District Coordinators (PDCs) at district level is the main cog in the system of the state and lower level chain of command.

Some innovations under PERVESH Under PERVESH, some innovations are put in place to make the teaching learning process more participatory.

A mini library called ‘Reading Corner’ has been established in all the schools to develop reading habits in children and hence improving the learning in language. Equipped with an array of books, the reading corner is the main hub of knowledge for the young learners with a variety of class and level specific books to cater to the needs of young developing

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Cultural Activity

minds. ‘Pervesh Bal Pustika’ (a quarterly magazine) is a unique endeavor under Pervesh in which the creative and innovative ideas of primary school children are published in the form of poems, stories and concept based paintings.

‘Bal Sabha’ (Pupils’ Gathering) is a regular feature in primary schools every Saturday. Special activities are designed for these Bal Sabhas to develop a child’s potential on various fronts.

Various competitions at the cluster, block, district and state levels are organised in the form of sports, cultural and educational competitions, social and other important issues oriented painting competitions, math tables and handwriting competitions and rhyme competitions, etc. to provide exposure to the hidden tal-

Save Water and Environment are organised at the cluster, district and state levels.

Vision of PERVESH PERVESH envisages that in next five years, the students of Government primary schools of Punjab will be able to fully assimilate the Creative Learning Model of education not only in a classroom scenario, but also in daily life. A certain theme of the curriculum will be taught to the pupils in more than one ways to strengthen the essential understanding of that specific topic. The teacher will become proficient to impart the required education in a real creative manner. The learner will also be able to inherit the classroom Creative Learning Model in day-to-day life.

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e-PunjabSchool wins the Award for the Best Education Initiative in Schools at eINDIA 2012 state focus

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Project Showcase—Punjab

ePunjab School Web Portal Brings Transparency in Education Department

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PunjabSchool web portal is an online software implemented across about 6,250 middle, high and senior secondary government schools for managing information related to students, teachers, school infrastructure, attendance, financial transactions, etc. The information is updated every month by the school authorities. The portal will soon be imple-

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mented across about 13,000 remaining government primary schools.

Modules of ePunjabSchool web portal Infrastructure Detail: Information related to school infrastructure, building detail and school facilities are captured under this module. Information of the status of school building, condition of

each and every classroom, availability of basic requirements like writing boards, electricity, furniture in a school is also covered. Availability of toilets, drinking water, ramps, computers, etc, is also covered to some extent.

Staff Management: Information related to teaching and non-teaching staff is captured as a part of this module.

Every parameter from the date of joining

MORE INTELLIGENT. MORE MORE INTELLIGENT. POWERFUL. MORE POWERFUL. SUPERB VALUE. SUPERB VALUE. BEST-IN-CLASS. BEST-IN-CLASS.

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state focus

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digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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Details of infrastructure across schools are managed by the portal

The portal’s initiative was recognised by awarding them at eINDIA

All technical queries in schools can be registered online

All technical queries in schools can be registered online

to the retirement of a staff member, and other relevant information as required by various branches of education department has been covered under this module. This information is widely used for rationalisation and transfer of teachers and to access the future requirement of teachers and other staff.

Student Management: This section captures the complete detail of each student in the school. The information is used by various departments to give incentives and other benefits to students under different schemes.

Attendance: Attendance of staff as well as students is marked online on a daily basis. Various analyses are also done based upon attendance information. Real time reports, in this regard, are available at the school, block, district and state levels.

Hardware Complaints: Various types of gadgets like computers, LCDs, K-YANs, and projectors etc. are provided to schools. In case a gadget does not function properly, a complaint can be registered on the web portal. This

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complaint is by default marked to the concerned district coordinator and the problem is monitored and resolved by the concerned in a time-bound manner.

All such problems are not considered solved until and unless it is not confirmed by the school authority.

Teacher’s Grievances Redressal System: A module has been provided with ePunjabSchool web portal where teachers can lodge their grievances.

of all the technical queries of school falls under that particular block. Similarly, the District MIS Coordinator monitors the data entry and updation process of ePunjabSchool information. All data inconsistency removal and analysis are done by the state and district MIS team.

Contact numbers and email IDs available on the web portal make communication easy among all concerned working at the state, district, block and school levels.

ePunjabSchool web portal has been implemented across 6,250 schools in Punjab for managing information related to students, teachers, school, etc Teachers can check the status of their grievances any time. All pending grievances are monitored and reviewed by the higher authority on a monthly basis.

Monitoring Unit: The MIS units with all required manpower and hardware/software support have been well established at the state, district and block levels. Block MIS Coordinator takes care

The way forward Going forward, this ambitious portal, as a move towards bringing in better transparency in the administration, plans to take teachers’ attendance through SMS, generate online bills for the salary of the teachers and other financial transactions, and also establish a linkage of GIS system with analytical reports of MIS system.

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Edusat Ensures Quality Education in Punjab Government Schools

By Rajeev Sharma, Deputy State Project Director, Punjab Edusat Society

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n a move to provide quality education, the state of Punjab, one of the large demographics of the country, was quick to adopt the virtual classroom technology on EDUSAT for its schools. Edusat was launched by ISRO in September 2004 exclusively for the education sector. With approximately, 20,000 government schools in the state, it is not only difficult to find the appropriate number of teachers for each school, but also to ensure that quality education is imparted to the students.

The Department of School Education

through the Punjab Edusat Society established Edusat Network across all the senior secondary schools of the state.

The Chief Minister of Punjab inaugurated the network in January 2008.

The concept has given access to computer labs and world-class content to students who otherwise would have never dreamt of something similar. The problem of shortage of teachers has somewhat been overcome with the establishment of Edusat.

With the Edusat hub in the premises of the Punjab School Education Board, a total of 1,016 Edusat classroom ends

have been established with 516 SITs and 500 ROTs during the first phase, and 2,807 ROTs under the expansion phase have been installed out of total of 2,950.

Portable gensets have also been provided at all locations to maintain continuous power supply. There are 2,077 Edusat libraries that have been fully established out of 3,184 in all the government senior secondary and high schools with 24 computers, independent earphones, and viewing screens, where students and subject teachers can view the content lectures for classes 6th to 12th as per their re-

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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quirements and at a convenient time, and 1,107 more are being established.

While the ROTs have only been provided to the senior secondary schools with humanity group, SITs have been allotted to senior secondary schools with science and commerce group, DIETs, in-service training centers, engineering colleges, polytechnic colleges, medical colleges, degree colleges, and ITIs. Now, students are exposed to ideas which some student in urban institution gets access to, after paying a lump sum amount.

The society has developed 1,610 multimedia episodes for 8th to 12th standard students in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Commerce and English, with assistance from subject specialists and service providers. The Punjab Edusat Society has also developed 364 multimedia episodes for students in classes 6th to 8th on computer-aided learning for the subjects of Science, English, Mathematics and Social Studies.

These lectures are like revision classes for the students. They learn subjects in the class and can ask questions through the SIT module and get their queries ad-

dressed. Special lectures on career counseling, health awareness, and personality development have also been incorporated for the students to make the teaching-

learning process interesting.

The content is updated on a periodical basis. Registering complaints has become easier.

Teaching-learning process has become a lot easier with the establishment of Edusat

Nodal officers for all user departments have been positioned for better co-ordination with the departmental institutions and the hub.

Not only are daily lectures and additional lectures in their regular subjects imparted through Edusat, but in view of those students who dream big and want to go for higher studies, special classes from preparation for entrance tests in medical and engineering are also given.

Around 1,719 students from the rural areas were selected in engineering and medical colleges.

Teaching-learning process has become a lot easier with the establishment of Edusat. Some students are not able to follow and understand various scientific processes. Previously, students in the rural areas did not have the liberty to see how things work. But, with diagrammatic representations and colourful content, the retention of what is taught has been enhanced in the students.

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Punjab’s Initiative towards Creating Employment

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unjab Infotech, the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Technical Education, have collaboratively undertaken some skill development initiatives aimed at upgrading the skill sets of the youth in Punjab. These initiatives will assist the state in creating a higher employability index. The availability of better qualified manpower in the state would provide an impetus to more corporate hiring and corporate presence in the state, which in turn would lead to increased employment options. These courses can be taken by students in their final year of graduation.

The companies that have done placement drives in colleges include Aditya Birla-Retail, Future Group (Big Bazaar), Tech Mahindra Pvt Ltd, HCL, Vardhman Pvt Ltd, Angel Broking Pvt Ltd, Tata Teleservices Pvt Ltd, Competent Synergies, Spanco, Onus Research Services Pvt Ltd, SBI-Life Insurance, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Eureka Forbes, Spice BPO, IBM, Matrix Solutions, New Delhi and Universal Solutions, and Kochhar Infotech.

Global Talent Track The main objective of the alliance with the Global Talent Track (GTT) is to provide a long-term viable solution to the problem of unemployment in Punjab, thus creating skill sets for a large group of educated youth in the state, which in turn will help them get suitable employment.

The venture has been established to train aspiring students on vocational

Punjab Skill Training for Employment Potential Punjab Skill Training for Employment Potential (P-STEP), an initiative of the Department of Higher Education, facilitated by Punjab Infotech, aims at increasing the employability of the students in the state with the IT/ knowledge industry The programme includes training on communication and soft skills as well as basic IT skills. It is a 100-hour course to be completed in about four months. The course will help in upgrading the soft skills and communication skills of the government college students who are generally not imparted with conventional education.

The project was implemented in 23 colleges. Hundred hours of training, post-assessment tests, and certifications have been successfully completed in all the 23 colleges covering 1,846 students with positive feedback.

Candidates in a training session by Punjab Infotech

Success story of P-STEP There are 670 students who have received offer letters from various reputed companies through placement activities conducted by training partners in colleges.

Attendees at a P-STEP Session. digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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Candidates attending P-STEP Session

The availability of better qualified manpower in the state would provide an impetus to more corporate hiring and corporate presence in the state skills in the areas of marketing, banking, business, insurance, etc, that will help them get adequately skilled manpower for the industry.

To narrow down the growing gap between the supply and the requirement of trained resources, GTT has partnered with Cisco Systems Inc and other leading universities in India to support the emerging growth requirements of the industry.

Out of seven colleges where GTT was

implemented in 2011-12, the batches had commenced in six government colleges. Around 132 hours of training, post-assessment tests and certification has been successfully completed in five colleges, covering 200 students with positive feedback. Sixty four students have received offer letters from various reputed companies like Shoppers Stop, Eureka Forbes, HDFC Bank, First Source Solutions Ltd, through placement activities conducted by the GTT.

National Assessment of Competency Test The state has undertaken this initiative to help build a pool of manpower, which is industry-certified and employable.

The National Assessment of Competency (NAC) test helps a student identify the skills where he/she needs improvement. The introduction of skill-specific training based on the test score can provide a great impetus to increase employability of the students.

In NAC test, students are tested on five different skills namely: analytical ability, english writing, quantitative ability, keyboard skills, and english speaking and listening.

Unleashing Change in Governance, Education, and Healthcare 20

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“Quality Education is Punjab’s Focus” Kahan Singh Pannu,IAS, is currently heading one of the most challenging positions in the state of Punjab – Secretarycum-Director General School Education. A dynamic officer who served as Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister prior to this and recommended himself for his present position to the Honorable Minister, says, “Economically poor parents look up to government schools for educating their wards”. He shares his views on the need to impart quality education in the state. In conversation with Rozelle Laha

What are the challenges and opportunities in the school education sector in Punjab?

A major challenge for the school education department is the skewed pupil-teacher ratio in schools falling in geographically difficult areas. Another issue which impacts the delivery of quality education in government schools is the emotional disconnect between the teacher and the students. As far as opportunities are concerned, government school teachers are well-qualified, wellpaid and have the potential to provide quality education. Most government school teachers are dedicated to teaching. The economically poor parents look up to government schools for educating their wards.

What is your vision for education in the state?

Our primary vision is to provide quality education to the students with the aim to promote innovative thinking which would eventually lead to creativity of mind.

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Please mention some of the projects taken up by the education department for ensuring delivery of quality education in the state.

The hallmark of quality education in Punjab is the posting of adequate number of teachers in schools coupled with their proper pedagogical training. The Pervesh Project that aims at improving the baseline knowledge of primary class students is helping us better the students’ learning levels.

Tell us some statistics to implicate the success of the Pervesh Project that was initiated to ensure interactive teaching-learning process in the state.

The Pervesh Project was started in 2012. It has helped us increase the baseline knowledge of primary class students from 27.13 percent in August to 48.81 percent in December 2012. Innovative teaching methodology coupled with the play way system of teaching has boosted the creativity of children, thus improving their learning levels.

The education department had created e-Punjab portal to make the administration process

transparent. Please share its achievement and visions.

The e-Punjab portal has helped bring in transparency in statistics related to students, teachers and infrastructure in about 19,000 government schools in the state. Apart from this, the portal has also helped map the teachers’ position in various schools leading to the rationalisation of posts.

Are there any similar projects in the pipeline?

There is the proposal to further extend the scope of e-Punjab schools portal to mark teachers’ attendance, monitor the mid-day-meal scheme in a better way, and to take care of the student health programme.

There are around 20,000 government schools in the state.

Do all of them comply with the norms of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan?

Yes, all the government schools in the state are complying with the RTE norms.

The government is considering merging a few schools which fall in the vicinity of each other with a view to leveraging the resources.

punjab

state focus

of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET). Computeraided learning will be the major thrust area of teachers’ training in the future.

What is your opinion about the implementation of the RTE Act in your state?

The RTE Act has helped improve the physical infrastructure of the schools.

It has also helped raise the number of teachers. However, the quality of education being imparted is a major challenge, especially in view of the provision of the RTE Act which says that there shall be no external testing of students till class VIII. Education Development Index (EDI) has seen a remarkable growth and it figures at number

three among all the other UTs and states. Please comment.

Although Punjab is placed favourably as far as the EDI is concerned, it needs to do much more in the field of quality education considering that it is a fairly well-developed state.

Tell us some of the steps you plan to take up to ensure better teacher training, address teachers’ absenteeism and impart quality education to the masses.

We plan to strengthen the various components of teachers’ training by building the capacities of the State Council

Please share your opinion on how technology can revolutionise teaching-learning and overall administration in the department.

Technology is the answer to the majority of the problems in the country, especially those in the education sector. The learning levels get enhanced tremendously with teaching through computer-aided technology as technology helps in better understanding of a subject. ICT-based management information system is a major step to improve the administrative capability of the decision makers.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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higher education

tablets

Tablets: Expediting Teaching-Learning Tablets are low-cost and come loaded with different educational suites to offer self-learning opportunities to students. The increased use of tablets can help battle the dearth of faculty in India

By Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra, Elets News Network (ENN)

W

orried about dropping too much on textbooks and notes? Or want to switch from smart to the smarter? Yes, we are talking about the revolution in higher education—the advent of tablets.

Youngsters seem to always be at the vanguard when it comes to the adoption of the latest technology: perhaps, the answer to the fast burgeoning tablet adoption in higher education.

According to the Pearson Foundation

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Survey on Students and Tablets 2012 in the US, tablet ownership in college and college-bound students got tripled in just a year. Also, a huge number of students plan to purchase a tab within the next six months.

The Indian market, too, expects a similar growth pattern in the years to come as tablets will cater to the problems of lack of teachers and deflate the burgeoning student dropout ratio, and ensure delivery of rich educational content to the masses.

A touch to navigate Tablets can be termed as a hybrid of a smartphone and a laptop. The content designed for these devices is more interactive than on a smartphone screen and easier to access than on a laptop. And there’s more: the touchscreen interface allows navigation using taps, swipes and pinch zooms and makes their use as easy as pie.

Although a lot of teachers would have preferred the traditional methods of teaching to tablets when tablets were a new concept, most of them today be-

tablets

higher education

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

25

higher education

tablets

Prof Sudhir Kumar Jain

lieve that the advent of computer-aided learning has made the teaching-learning process a no-sweat task as more and more students are adopting technology to make it an indispensable part of their lives. “With ICT, the emphasis is reducing on providing information to the students in the class: they can get information far more easily on their own. As a result, the classroom must focus on fundamentals of the subject, and on training the students on problem analysis and problem

• Tablets promote an interactive environment, are compact and easy to carry, and act as an e-Notebook • Their touchscreen interface makes navigation easy.

Documents and diagrams can be easily created and edited at any time • Through the thousands of apps, students can access information on their own and learn at their own pace • Colleges and universities are adopting tablets for teaching as they promote collaborative learning and better training.

• Tablets also help disseminate information and knowledge on the go • The capability of tablets to support global and Indian languages makes them the choice of HEIs and students across the world

More than 200 million tablets will be sold in 2014, and the market will account for 23 percent of the global personal computer market by 2015 solving,” believes Prof Sudhir Kumar Jain, Director, IIT Gandhinagar. Apart from this, building social media platform on tablets will also make it easy for students to engage in debates and discussions about the topics covered in the class.

Students, too, feel that tablets enhance learning process and help them perform better. The trump card: easy access, storage and retrieval of information along with an interactive user interface.

Textbooks redefined Tablet PCs make it possible to simulate paper and pencil: the user can use a stylus to write directly on the computer screen and create electronic documents.

These pictures can be easily edited using

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traditional computer applications and also shared between the student and the teachers. This functionality to draw diagrams or write mathematical formulae is not available on PCs. “Tablets have changed the way students and teachers interact. They add new dimensions to the classroom interaction by providing digital ink and drawing tools for writing, sketching, and drawing, and real-time collaboration,” says Dr Rangappa KS, Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore.

Most of the high school students today prefer to read from a digital book rather than a textbook. In this world of tech geeks, tablets are gaining more popularity also because they facilitate easy group communication, and tools like Google Docs and Dropbox help enhance the way infor-

Dr Rangappa KS

mation is shared between large groups.

Applications that come with fully-loaded customised content packages and repositories, grease the wheels.

A lot of games that fit into the education system perfectly – open-ended and challenge-based, are also being developed to allow the students to enhance their learning outside of the game.

Providing tablets to the students and the teachers will make it possible to create a collaborative learning environment. Though tablets are used in the classroom, they are also ideal for e-Learning. Students can attend online classes from their hostels, homes or offices. “Tablet PCs bring knowledge and information easily and quickly to the learner giving him the freedom towards self-paced learning anywhere, anytime,” opines Dr Swati Mujumdar, Director, Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning.

Dr Swati Mujumdar

tablets

The increasing developments in the field of digital learning have already proved their affordability, flexibility, interactivity and effectiveness as compared to a physical classroom. Indian and international universities are offering online content to help their students learn from the best of the faculty from across the globe.

A spurring market Although the market of tablets is demonstrating an upward curve, the adoption seems to be in its nascent stage in India. According to Focus.com, a source of technological expertise, more than 200 million tablets will be sold globally in 2014, and the tablet market will account for 23 percent of the global personal computer market by 2015. The growth will impact various sectors including the higher education sector.

Dr Vinay Kumar Pathak

A promising future in view Today, technology is one of the catalysts for the growth of any country.

And tablets will soon be spearheading the growth of the higher education sector in India. “Technology is still, and will be, the leading driving force of the future global economy,” opines Dr Vinay Kumar Pathak, Vice Chancellor, Uttarakhand Open University.

Osama Manzar, Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation, shares a similar opinion. Tablets are going to

be the future medium of education and communication, and not laptops. They will be mobile-like. But, the implementation is yet to come. At the higher education level, it is going to be very consumer-driven. The ownership will also be seen in higher education, he says.

The ticket to better teaching-learning In India, low-cost tablets like Kloudpad, Aakash, Go Tech Funtab, Beetel Magiq, Micromax Funbook, and Attitude Daksha, and a few of those launched by Zync, Zen, HCL and BSNL are generally used for imparting education by universities and higher education institutes. A lot of these tablets support a number of global and Indian languages. Thus, students can study the subject of their choice in their own regional language. These tabs are low-cost and come loaded with different educational suites to offer self-learning opportunities to the students.

The next version of the low-cost Aakash tablet, Aakash-3, that is being worked upon by the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, will have a slot for a SIM card, a faster processor, better memory, and will function on both the Android and Linux. The institute is also in the process of putting out a tender for producing 50 lakh units of the device. The government will also train teachers across the country to enable them to use the device effectively for better teachinglearning outcomes.

The increased use of tablets can help battle the dearth of faculty in India.

Teachers can record or write their lectures that can be made available to the students across the country as online packaged coures. Therefore, if proper connectivity be ensured in every part of the country, teachers would be able to reach out to the students even in rural and backward areas. As Dr Rangappa assures, “Tablets will transform the Indian education sector because of their reach and delivery”.

higher education

digitalLEARNING Announces its March 2013 Issue Labs in Higher and School Education With digital labs, students have the opportunity of visualising abstruse concepts in Maths, Science, Engineering in a virtual medium.

The section will focus on: • Different types of laboratories and multimedia content • Lab market analysis • Product matrix: Maths, Science, English and Robotics • Impact analysis of labs among schools and higher education institutes • Addressing skill deficit among employable youth through English labs • Government initiatives in lab solutions • Case studies and photo features of schools and HEIs • Coverage of more than 50 schools and higher education institutes Industry Academia Series Part 2 Industries in India and outside are eyeing on India to fulfill the crunch of skilled workforce. There is a complex challenge of converting a huge Indian population into skilled professionals with various geographical, economical, and physiological barriers that we have. To bring industry and academia closer, and share their ideas on how they can work together for mutual benefits, digitalLEARNING has started a series of articles where HRs from different industries and academicians are invited to share their ideas to bridge the gap.

State Focus digitalLEARNING’s State Focus section aims to highlight different challenges and needs of different states.

The March issue will focus on Odisha, highlighting the best practices and challenges hindering the educational growth of the states. The issue will be launched at eOdisha.

And many more...

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

27

academia speak

tablets

Tablets Battling Faculty Shortage in India

T

echnology in education is not a new phenomenon. Most MBA programmes have made it mandatory for students to carry a laptop to the classrooms. Many institutes use a learning management system (LMS), such as Moodle, Open Class or Blackboard, for posting reading materials, assignments, announcements and grades. LMS is used to collect feedback on courses, and to also administer quizzes and examinations. All good colleges use overhead projectors to screen PPTs and educational films. Some colleges also use smartboards in their classrooms. Others have some form of automation of their academic modules that manage class schedules and provide a 360-degree view of their students. Few others use satellites and broadband facilities to offer courses through e-Learning platforms.

So what is so special about tablets? Is it overhyped or is there really some true value in brining tablets into the education space?

Primarily, people should understand the additional functionality that a tablet brings in as compared to a traditional

MJ Xavier, Director, IIM Ranchi, tells how tablets are bringing value into India’s education system

For a country like India, tablets can be a great boon as they can also help us combat the problem of faculty shortage PC. Tablet PCs are essentially laptop computers that have the added functionality of touchscreen. This makes it possible to simulate paper and pencil: the user can use a stylus to write directly on the computer screen and create electronic documents. These pictures can be easily edited using traditional computer applications and also shared between the student and the teachers. This functionality to draw diagrams or write mathematical formulae is not available on PCs. Providing one tablet each to students

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and the teachers will make it possible to create a collaborative learning environment using networking technology.

Though tablets are used in the regular classroom setting, they are also ideal for e-Learning. Students can attend classes from their hostels, homes or offices.

What the teacher writes on his tablet’s screen will be visible to all the students who have logged into a particular class session. The teacher can selectively pass on control of his screen to a student and ask him to complete a mathematical

derivation he was doing in the class. The modifications made by the student will be visible to the entire class.

Effectiveness of learning can be maximised through tools for conducting immediate and meaningful assessment of student learning, and by providing realtime feedback and assistance. The effectiveness of this model comes from the ability of the instructor to monitor and interact with individual students while they analyse problems on the computer using an input device that allows them to write and manipulate formulas, and make sketches and diagrams. Tablets are handy for taking lecture notes, reading e-Books, conducting surveys and also giving feedback to the teachers.

Additionally, social media platform can also be built on tablets to allow students to engage in debates and discussions about the topics covered in the class. The participation can be enhanced by awarding marks for the posts and starting new threads based on how long they went and what new insights they brought to the class. This is a good way to enhance interaction and collaboration among students.

For a country like India, tablets can be a great boon as it can also help us combat the problem of faculty shortage. Recorded lectures can be delivered to a large number of students as packaged courses. Also, this will enable the best faculty to reach out to a large number of students in the country.

Studies have shown that tablet-enabled teaching leads to better learning and more interest in the subject taught. It also produces a favourable attitude towards the use of technology in learning. However, the mere adoption of technology does not guarantee improved learning outcomes or an enhanced educational experience. The key to successfully adopting tablets is to ensure that the devices are integrated into both the academic and social aspects of the course.

academia speak

Reaping the Benefits of Demographic Dividend

by VS Ramamurthy, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. He believes that India does not have too much time at her disposal to refurbish its educational system in all aspects considering that the youngsters who will join the workforce in 2020 are already in schools

W

e are on the threshold of a new era in the history of human civilization, the knowledge era. The acquisition and use of knowledge for personal and societal benefits is central to this era. Knowledge is also human-centric. The generation of new knowledge, acquisition of existing knowledge, and its use for development, is dependent on trained human resources.

India sees a window of opportunity in its development not only because it is one of the few countries in the world with a working age (15-59 years) population that exceeds its number of retirees, but also because its share of population in this age group is set to rise much faster than its overall population over the next few decades. Can India take advantage of this opportunity and garner its benefits considering that the window is fairly narrow? One cannot be too optimistic about this. After all, it is not enough to have a lot of young people, what is important is that these people need to be properly educated/trained to fully contribute to the knowledge economy.

There are serious problems with the Indian educational system, both at the primary and at the higher education levels.

More than six decades after the country came out of the colonial rule and became

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academia speak

independent, we are far from achieving 100 percent literacy. A substantial fraction of our young children in the school-going age residing in the rural areas do not even have access to schools. The shortage of teachers is known to be chronic in the existing schools. Teaching material in regional languages is scarce. There are additional problems related to health and nutrition that impact the effectiveness of education and the capacity for learning at young age.

The secondary education sector also suffers from very similar lacunae as the primary education sector: shortage of teachers and teaching materials, and poor infrastructure such as libraries or laboratories. Another major problem in our secondary education system reaching up to the undergraduate level is the absence of skill development. It is not surprising that many of the potential employers feel that a good fraction of the students coming out of our schools and colleges are, indeed, unemployable.

The situation in higher education is even more appalling. India now educates only about 10 percent of the youngsters in the higher education age group. Among these 10 percent too, the dropout rates are very high. The opportunities for research are scarce. We have been treating research positions as yet another “job” and applying all economy measures applicable to other routine jobs. The number of researchers per million population in India is much lower than that for many other developed countries. While there are a few institutions of higher learning and research that are globally competitive, the majority of them are also below global standards. Overall, India invests less on research and development as compared to other countries having ambitions of technological leadership.

We do not have too much time at our disposal to refurbish our educational system in all its aspects considering that the youngsters who will join the workforce in 2020 are already in our schools. Change from within will come not only too slowly, but will also be sub-critical for India. A disruptive, radical solution is clearly needed.

A clue to where to look at comes from the experience of many countries, includ-

ing India, showing that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can very effectively be used in education. First and foremost, India today is a “connected” country. Our communication infrastructure is, indeed, globally competitive. It is being increasingly demonstrated that it is not necessary to deploy fully-loaded, expensive computers to impart basic education. Specialised devices that can do the job as effectively can be designed at very affordable prices. Today, India hosts a fairly large talent pool of designers and application programmers who can deliver such devices.

The development of teaching materials including those in regional languages has shown significant progress in the recent years. One does not have to wait for massive institutional reforms. Of course ICT is not a substitute for teachers. It is an affordable additional tool in the hands of the teachers and the students that can very easily be targeted and individualised, and

of Science, Bangalore, offers a programme on technology-enhanced learning in engineering, science and humanities streams for students outside their own campuses.

The National Knowledge Network (NKN) provides a state-of-the-art multi-gigabit pan-India network for delivering a unified high-speed network backbone for all knowledge-related institutions in the country. The purpose of such a network goes to the very core of the country’s quest for building quality institutions with requisite research facilities and creating a pool of highly trained professionals. The NKN will enable scientists, researchers and students from different backgrounds and diverse geographies to work closely for advancing human development in critical and emerging areas. The network is also a platform to deliver effective distance education and help teachers and students interact in real time. This is especially significant in a country like India where access to educa-

“With the right training and skills, our workforce can find productive employment not only in India, but also abroad has a quick and clear feedback loop. Once a start is made, more sophisticated tools can be developed for older children and higher learning, and even for the teachers. With the right training and skills, our workforce can find productive employment not only in India, but also abroad. The role of ICT in research needs no special introduction.

India was the first developing country that experimented with Satellite Communication Technology for rural education in as early as the seventies. The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was an Indo-US programme to study the effectiveness of satellite communication on rural education well before India entered the satellite communication age.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) offers courses in the distance education mode to more than a few hundred thousand students not only across India, but also outside.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, jointly with the Indian Institute

tion is limited by factors such as geography, and lack of infrastructure facilities etc. The network enables co-sharing of information such as classroom lectures, presentations and handouts among different institutions. An early experiment, “The Hole-inthe-wall”, by Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at the Newcastle University, UK, clearly demonstrated that the acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of children can be achieved through incidental learning, provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human) guidance.

One could go on with several other initiatives demonstrating the effectiveness of ICT in education at all levels. The question is not whether ICT can deliver in education, but whether India can afford not to have ICT in education if we want to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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news higher education

Consultancy Tops Career Option List for MBA Graduates New Delhi: A collaborative survey of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Association of Management Consulting Firms (AMCF) has revealed more than 80 percent of MBA students of various age groups, gender, levels of experience show interest in consulting as a career option. About 52 percent of the students opine that the consulting companies provide global engagement opportunities, around 28 per cent of see consulting as a long-term career opportunity and 30 per cent see it as a first

step to leadership positions in not only consulting but other industries as well.

About 41.3 per cent students with prior experience in IT or consulting are more

IIM Lucknow, Powergrid Corporation of India Join Hands Lucknow: The Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Power Grid Corporation of India for a long-term collaboration in various areas of business and organisational development for the state-run utility. The MoU was signed by Power Grid Corporation of India Executive Director, Rajendra Singh.

After the agreement, IIM-L will organise management development programmes for senior and middle-level executives of Power Grid Corporation of India in the areas of leadership development, strategic management and competency development. The company can also nominate its executives to various short and long-term programmes at IIM-L to hone their skills. The MoU will benefit IIM students in terms of consultancy, internships and others. They will also sponsor research and conferences taking place at IIM-L. The main objective behind this is to share the advancements, best practices as well as learning from other leading global organisations in the industry.

interested in consulting. About 54.37 percent respondents looking at consulting as a career are interested in strategy consulting. This was an online survey conducted during November-December 2012. The survey was taken by 979 students across top 10 Indian B-schools.

They were asked about their interest in consulting as a career, what influenced their opinions about consulting, and their perceptions about specific issues, including work-life balance, and career options post-consulting.

Demand for Nalanda Varsity in UNESCO Heritage List Patna: Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, has demanded the inclusion of the ruins of the state’s ancient Nalanda University in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. The Centre should make an earnest effort to include Nalanda sites in the UNESCO list, said the CM. We strongly feel that the inclusion will attract more tourists, especially foreigners, he added.

The excavated site of the ancient university in Nalanda district is a place of national importance. Built in the fifth

Gujarat Polytechnics to have 2,500 More Seats Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Government has planned to add 2,500 more engineering seats in the polytechnic colleges of the state. The State Education Department has asked the polytechnic colleges to make applications at the earliest to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for this.

The last date of filing of application forms to increase diploma engineering seats has been postponed from January 15 to 30, officials said. The move aims at bridging the gap between vacant seats in engineering colleges and the rush for admissions in engineering diploma courses. One lakh students apply annually for the 60,000 seats in these colleges, said officials. There are 16,000 diploma seats in government colleges and 55,000 in private and government colleges.

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century, the university was home to more than 10,000 students and about 2,000 teachers. Named after the Sanskrit term for ‘giver of knowledge’, the university existed until 1197 and attracted students and scholars from countries like South Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia (now Iran) and Turkey.

higher education

news

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ALWAYS LEARNING digitalLEARNING / february 2013

33

news higher education

Ricoh to Endow Research Center at IIT, Gandhinagar Bangalore: Ricoh Company Ltd has announced its financial endowment and industry partnership for the creation of the Design and Innovation Centre (DIC) at IIT Gandhinagar. The partnership is planned for three years starting April 1, 2013. As part of the agreement, Ricoh will take part in joint research projects at the center.

This co-operative effort will further the company’s aims of promoting open innovation, accelerating research and development using global resources, and studying market needs in India and similar markets. This partnership will enable the students and faculty of IIT Gandhinagar to work with the colleagues from Ricoh in an inter-disciplinary and an inter-cultural environment. The newly established DIC will have both educational and research functions. Full-time and part-time faculty, full-time technical staff, and students will conduct research in a collaborative environment.

IGNOU sets up Student Support Cell New Delhi: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has set up a Student Support Cell (SSC) to help students get and resolve their queries related to non-receipt of study material and assignments. The cell to be monitored by the Material Production and Distribution Division (MPDD) of the university will address students’ queries through emails, telephone and speed post delivery.

The course material of IGNOU is also available on spot sale for the general public.

This printed material is sold from the marketing cell of IGNOU and 15 retail agents throughout the country. Prospective learners who are not pursuing any course in IGNOU can also procure the course material from IGNOU.

`500 cr Fund this Fiscal to Boost Higher Education New Delhi: The Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) aimed to increase the enrollment across higher education institutes might get Rs 500 crore for financial year 2013-14. The allotment is also aimed at setting up of 200 community colleges in the country. It would also be utilised for setting up of research parks and innovation centres.

HRD Ministry officials are looking at a substantial five percent hike in the budget. The idea is to facilitate enhancement of quality of the teacher training programmes and improve the skill development initiatives. The HRD Ministry is also planning to propose replacement of ‘norm-based’ funds in place of capital grants to central universities so as to take care of the customised needs of the institutions rather than overall capital grants.

The budget would also lay special focus on state universities, and student financial aid programmes. The higher education sector had got `15,458 crore and the school education was allocated `45,969 crore in 2012-13 financial year budget.

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XLRI Announces Global MBA Programme New Delhi: The Jamshedpur– based management school, XLRI, has announced the launch of first ever Global MBA Programme in partnership with Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western University, Cleveland, USA and School of Economics & Management of Tongji University, Shanghai, China. The new fulltime two-year residential global MBA programme will commence from August 2013. Each of the partner schools will now begin the process of admitting its quota of 20 students from its home country.

UK Association of Colleges Ventures in India The Association of Colleges in India team will act as a hub for sharing best practice and forging ties between UK and Indian training providers and employers.

UK Association of Colleges (AoC) has established a dedicated team in Delhi to help deliver the quality vocational training alongside further education training providers in India in an effort to meet the country’s growing demand for skills.

It represents the largest collective attempt by UK colleges to contribute to India’s ambitious skills strategy.

This initiative is a partnership of 30 UK colleges and AoC in India hopes it will help, both UK educational establishments and businesses, explore opportunities, set up and expand their operations in India.

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Ushering Transformative Practices in Governance, Education & Healthcare

Eve n t s

Events Event

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digital LEARNING State

7 - 8, February, 2013 Education

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Punjab 2013

City

Hometel Chandigarh

6 March, 2013 Swosti Premium

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Towards A Digital Economy

8 March, 2013 The Oberoi

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23 - 24 April, 2013 Le Méridien digital LEARNING

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26 - 27 April, 2013 Fariyas Lonavala

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16 - 18 May, 2013 The Lalit

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June, 2013 New Delhi

PSU Summit

9th

July, 2013

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HICC Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh

30 August - 1 Sept 2013 The Leela

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india’s premier ict event

Contact : Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, Stellar IT Park, Sector- 62,

Calendar 2013 Focus

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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Authority, Government of Punjab

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16 - 18 May, 2013, Srinagar

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8 March 2013, The Oberoi, New Delhi

June, 2013, New Delhi

23-24 April 2013, New Delhi

INDIA’S PREMIER ICT EVENT November, 2013, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

6 March 2013 Swosti Premium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha

26 April, 2013, Mumbai

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KOVA L A M September, 2013, Kovalam, Kerala

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corporate diary

MP has an Edge Over Others in RTE There will be difficulty in the implementation of the RTE Act initially, but things will streamline and will yield expected result soon, says Rashmi Arun Shami, Commissioner-cum-Director, Rajya Shiksha Kendra (RSK) & Ex-Officio Secretary School Education, Government of Madhya Pradesh, in conversation with Mohd Ujaley

How do you ensure that every child gets value-based education from the elementary level?

We strongly believe that education should not be only learning concepts. Fundamentally, it should be ensuring that the values of the constitution are imparted to all children. Value-based education is very important if we want to have good citizens. Therefore, we try to incorporate it in our curriculum in an interesting way so that the children learn it at every step of their schooling.

Please tell us about the level of implementation of ICT in MP’s schools.

Since most of the schools are in remote areas, we have to adopt technology in order to ensure quality. We are starting smart classes where a good teacher from a school will address students of other schools which will be networkconnected.

We also have a system called headstart which is also working very well.

We are also looking at other technologies like satellite-based education for schools so that the shortage of quality teachers and lack of good resources is addressed.

What initiatives are you taking to enhance the quality of education?

Earlier, the government’s priority

was enrollment, but now, access is nearly universalised. Therefore, the emphasis now is on quality. We are making sure that we have more and more training programmes for our teachers’ capacity building. In these programmes, we will first make sure that they understand the curriculum well; second, we will try to build their capacity in terms of interaction in classroom; and lastly, develop leadership quality in our principals and head teachers so that they can run the institutions in a better way.

What was the major initiative your department took last year and what are the future plans for school education in Madhya Pradesh?

A lot of work was done in this regard in 2012. The most interesting was the Chief Minister’s direction to us to ensure quality in education. Therefore, we ensured that all government schools improve their quality. Now, every district is working on its own academic improvement plan based on its needs. We are implementing it from this year onward.

They will take initiatives based on their requirement while also ensuring delivery of results.

We have also started life skills education for adolescent girls. We have started Meena Radio with UNICEF that

all adolescent girls listen to in school for 15 minutes and discuss the content of the programme in the next 15 minutes. There are also a lot of programmes for school children that are aimed at keeping up their interest in academics.

Although the Right to Education Act has come into effect, the private schools have not responded the way the government expected. Does that worry you?

Madhya Pradesh can take great pride in RTE because as compared to the rest of the country, our private schools have been very generous. We are the only state in the country which got an enrollment of 1,38,000 last year, and an equal number of students have been enrolled in our private schools too in the current year.

I understand that there are problems in some schools, particularly in English medium schools, because they insist on speaking English in the school and children from disadvantaged backgrounds face problems in integrating in the initial few months.

We have made special efforts to ensure that children feel comfortable in the schools and at times, arrange extra classes for them to understand things better.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

39

Digital Literacy

Creating a Digitally Literate Nation Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), sheds light on the range of initiatives being taken by the organisation to promote digital literacy in the country

F

ormerly known as DOEACC Society, NIELIT is an autonomous scientific society under the administrative control of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India. It has been set up to carry out human resource development and related activities in the area of Information, Electronics & Communication Technology (IECT).

The organisation has its headquarters in New Delhi. It has branches in 23 cities across India: Agartala, Aizawl, Aurangabad, Ajmer, Calicut, Chennai, Chandigarh, Shimla, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Patna, Gangtok, Itanagar, Imphal, Srinagar/ Jammu, Shillong, Kohima/Chuchuyimlang, Kolkata and Tezpur/Guwahati.

The organisation is engaged both in the formal and non-formal education in the area of IECT. It also concentrates on developing industry-oriented quality education and training. It is establishing standards for becoming the country’s premier institution for examination and certification in the field of IECT. Today NIELIT is a National Examination Body, which accredits institutes/organisations for conducting courses particularly in the non-formal sector of IT Education & Training.

“Efforts are being made to transform our course content into e-content for the benefit of the masses, and to facilitate conduction of online examinations” 40

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Courses for all NIELIT Centres are conducting longterm courses at post-graduate level in niche areas such as, Electronics Design & Technology, and Embedded Systems, etc, which are normally not offered by Institutions in the formal sector. Other long term courses include Diploma in Electronics Production & Maintenance, Electronic Engineering, Computer Science &

Digital Literacy

Engineering, Masters in Computer Application, and Bachelors in Computer Applications, etc. The long-term formal courses are affiliated to the respective state university/technical board. NIELIT Centres are also engaged in short-term courses in the area of Information Technology, Electronics Design & Technology, Manufacturing Technology, and Maintenance Engineering, etc. Besides training activities, NIELIT Centres are also offering consultancy services and are engaged in development of customised software.

In the non-formal sector, the institute is implementing the DOEACC scheme on computer courses, a joint scheme of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

Under this Scheme, ‘O’ level (equivalent to foundation level), ‘A’ level (equivalent to advance diploma), ‘B’ level (equivalent to MCA level), and ‘C’ level (designed to be at M Tech level), are being offered. All O/A/B/level courses are recognised by the MHRD for the purpose of employment. Since inception, more than 8.76 lakh candidates have been registered, and about 1.69 lakh candidates have qualified the various DOEACC computer courses at O/A/B & C levels.

The centres are also undertaking government sponsored projects in the field of ICT & related activities. They are also embarking upon training programmes to develop entrepreneurs and provide ICT based services to users. The infrastructure, resources and expertise available with the centres are being utilised for the implementation of various e-Governance capacity building projects.

IT literacy programmes NIELIT has been conducting Courses on Computer Concepts (CCC) since the year 1999. The course is designed to impart a basic level computer appreciation programme. Owing to the quality of the course and centralised facility for evaluation, including online evaluation, the course has been recognised by the State Governments of Gujarat, Maharashtra and also by various other government departments for new appointments/ promo-

Courses offered by NIELIT Formal Courses • M.Tech in Electronics Design & Technology (2 years duration at Aurangabad, Calicut & Gorakhpur Centres) • M.Tech in Embedded Systems (2 years duration at Calicut Centre) • MCA (3 years duration at Calicut, Srinagar, Aizawl & Imphal Centres) • BCA (3 years duration at Aizawl, Imphal, Kohima Centres) • Diploma in Electronics Production & Maintenance (3 years duration at Aurangabad Centre) • Diploma in Electronic Engineering (3 years duration at Imphal Centre) • Diploma in Computer Science & Engineering (3 years duration at Imphal, Aizawl Centres) • Diploma in Electronic Engineering & Telecommunication Engineering (3 years duration at Aizawl Centre) Non-Formal Courses • DOEACC ‘O’ / ‘A’ / ‘B’ / ‘C’ level IT Courses • Computer Hardware Maintenance ‘CHM-O’ / ‘CHM-A’ level • Bio-Informatics ‘O’ / ‘A’ / ‘B’ level • Certification in Information Security (Level 1/2/3) • ITES-BPO Customer care / Banking & Finance • IT Literacy Programmes (Course on Computer Concepts (CCC) /Basic Computer Course(BCC)/ Awareness in Computer Concepts(ACC)) Short-Term Courses Electronics Design Technology • Embedded System • VLSI Design • PCB Design and Fabrication • Surface Mounted Device Technologies • Fiber Optics • VHDL Programming Information Technology • Computer Science and Applications • Computer Hardware & Networking

• C, C++, Core JAVA & VB programming • Internet & Web Page Designing • Basic Multimedia • Cyber Law Manufacturing Technologies • CAD and 3D Modelling • CAM / CAE Tools • Maintenance Engineering • Consumer Electronics • Telecom and Office Automation • Process Control e-Governance systems

Entrepreneurship Development Programme and Corporate Training Programmes

tions. The CCC examination is currently being conducted online thrice in a year. So far, about eight lakh candidates have appeared for the examination through online as well as offline mode (CD based) and more than 5.72 lakh have successfully qualified. The CCC course contents have been made available in all scheduled Indian Languages through a dedicated web portal for free access by the candidates.

The Ministry of Labour & Employment has made IT literacy certificate mandatory for the students of ITI/ITC from August,

2011 onwards vide their Order No. DGE&T19(19)/2010-CD dated 15.10.2010. In view of the specific demand for an IT literacy course from the Ministry of Labour & Employment and also from a few State Governments like that of Sikkim, the NIELIT has launched another basic course viz Basic Computer Course (BCC). It is expected that about 12 lakh ITI/ ITC candidates will be appearing for the BCC examination per year in addition to candidates from other areas. The Government of Sikkim has accepted ‘BCC’ as the basic computer literacy digitalLEARNING / february 2013

41

Digital Literacy

Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma certificate required for government jobs.

A scheme for computer hardware courses has been launched by the NIELIT during 2006-07 in association with the Manufacturer’s Association for Information Technology (MAIT), an apex body representing IT hardware manufacturing, training, design, R&D and associated services in India. The objective of the scheme is to generate quality manpower for computer hardware maintenance and networking by utilising the facilities and expertise available with training institutes/ organisations in the non-formal sector.

Under this scheme, Diploma in Computer Hardware Maintenance (CHM) – ‘O’ level and Advance Diploma in Computer Hardware Maintenance & Networking (CHM) – ‘A’ level courses are offered. The nodal centre for the Scheme is NIELIT’s Aurangabad centre.

NIELIT has also launched a national level scheme on Bioinformatics, which is a fast growing discipline and has emerged as a cutting-edge technology of the knowledge revolution. Under this scheme, NIELIT Centres are offering Bioinformatics ‘O’ level (Diploma Level), ‘A’ level (Post Graduate Diploma level) and ‘B’ level (M.Sc

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“We are making efforts to use the infrastructure created under National Knowledge Network (NKN) by NIC” level) courses. The nodal centre for the scheme is NIELIT Centre, Kolkata.

The IT-enabled services (ITES) industry in India has grown rapidly in the recent past. NIELIT has launched courses in the Customer Care and Banking Sector to equip the students with the knowledge required to function as professionals in the ITES-BPO industry. NIELIT Centres in the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir are offering ITES-BPO Customer Care training programme.

NIELIT Centre, Aurangabad has launched a scheme on ITES-BPO courses for the banking sector in association with the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance (IIBF), Bombay.

NIELIT has launched a national level certification scheme in Information Security with the support of DeitY under which certification at three levels are offered. NIELIT Centre, Gorakhpur is the nodal centre for this activity. Level 1 and level 2 of the scheme viz Certified System Security Analyst (CSSA) and Certified System Security Professional (CSSP) has been launched in July 2010 and January 2011 respectively. So far a total of 367 students have registered for Level 1 and 62 for level

2. Level 3 viz Certified Computer Forensic Professional ‘CCFP’, Certified Information Systems Security Auditor ‘CISSA’, Certified System Security Solution Designer ‘CSSSD’ has been launched in October, 2011.

Transforming NIELIT into an institution of national importance The committee constituted for adopting appropriate pedagogy for metamorphosing NIELIT into a central university has prepared the Act and a roadmap for NIELIT University. The NIELIT Management Board has approved the constitution of a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Prof NJ Rao, IIIT, Bangalore, for preparing etailed Project Report (DPR) of the proposed NIELIT University.

The Sub-Committee in its first meeting held on 19 September 2012, recommended that since NIELIT is carrying out education and training for the last 20 years in specialised areas of Electronics and Information Technology, it would be prudent to submit a suitable proposal seeking special status as institution of national importance through an Act of Parliament in line with IITs/NITs.

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industry speak

tablets

The Rise of Tablets Naveen Rajlani, Senior Vice President and Head â&#x20AC;&#x201C; School Division, Pearson Education India, talks about the increasing role of tables in K-12 education in conversation with Pragya Gupta, ENN How do you see the role of tablets in augmenting the delivery of education in the classroom and beyond?

Technology is playing a decisive role in the future of education today. As technology is advancing, it is being deployed to benefit students of all ages in the learning process. Technology used in the classrooms will help students understand and grasp information better. For example, some people are visual learners and projection screens linked to computers allow them to see and comprehend study material instead of simply listening to a teacher delivering a lecture.

Tablets are the future of smart learning and have been able to capture a significant market share amongst the school-going children. They offer a platform that gives school children access to more effective, personalised and collaborative digital learning with rich digital content, 3D animations, quizzes and videos. Software can be used to supplement class curriculum.

The digital programmes provide study questions, activities and even tests and quizzes for a class, thereby helping students continue learning outside the classroom.

Please share your experience with the schools with their hands on tablet?

Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s school-going children are smarter and sharper than ever before.

They want phones, laptops, tablets and other devices that are snazzy, cost-effective, eco-friendly, and in a way read their minds and understand their needs well.

Our latest product, MX Touch, has the curriculum framework at its core while being a platform that offers interactive learning to students. It is a flexible combination of graded content and exciting

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new digital resources. Its assessment module personalises learning and analyses progress. It also helps reduce the burden of schoolbags as textbooks will now go digital.

With MX Touch, we have brought the best of our global capabilities as well as our own ability in content development to India, thus living up to Pearsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s principle of efficacy and top-notch standard of education. This product has been used as a pilot in several schools and the experience and enthusiasm among the children has been overwhelming.

In the course of the pilots, we realised that children found the process of learning from tablets quite enjoyable and felt that the variety of media resources, like presentations and animations, helped them understand better. The classrooms became more interactive through the use of tablets, and even at home, children could easily recapitulate what they had learnt since they could access digital resources over and over again.

The mobile expe-

rience of learning was enjoyed by students everywhere while teachers and the school administration admired the ease at which assessments could be conducted and analytical reports could be generated and shared.

What are the five things schools can expect from tablets in the year 2013?

First, schools can expect a userfriendly device that will help teachers personalise the learning process for students keeping in mind the diversity of learning types in any classroom. Second, they can expect smoother processes of evaluation, thanks to the assessment

tablets

industry speak

module that allows teachers to generate pop quizzes and home assignments as well as test papers for groups of students and individuals. The assessment module will also help teachers generate reports that analyse a student’s performance in comparison with his own past assessments as well as in perspective to the rest of the class. Third, they can expect classrooms to become more interactive and focussed as tablets take into account the needs of large classrooms, and allow teachers to lock students’ access to anything but the text or the resource in discussion. Fourth, they can expect tools that facilitate administration like message boards that allow parents and teachers to interact, records of attendance and calendar of events.

Last, they can expect a cost-friendly, ecofriendly mobile learning experience.

Please share your plans for the Indian education segment? What kind of products are you planning to launch for the education sector?

The Indian education industry is very versatile. Information and communication technologies are playing a pivotal role in transforming the method of imparting education today. Interactive whiteboards have become common in school classrooms and the popularity of online courses is helping improve access and quality of education. Indian education space has surely embraced technology with unbridled enthusiasm and will continue to do so in the times to come.

Pearson is at the forefront of technology and innovation.

Pearson has come to be perceived as an agent of change, thanks to the pioneering products we have launched over the last many years. We were the first to integrate technology in a pedagogically sound fashion. Starting with e-Books that acted as audio-visual aids to teaching, we moved on to ActiveTeach, which introduced blended learning at its best to Indian schools. Our latest offering is MX Touch – pedagogically sound textbook content loaded on a tablet with digital resources strategically embedded so that the teacher in the classroom, and the student

Left to Right: Max Gabriel, Senior VP and Chief Technology Officer, Pearson India; Genevieve Shore, Chief Information Officer and Director of Digital Strategy for Pearson; Meena Ganesh, CEO & MD of Pearson Education Services; Anil Kumble, Former Captain - Indian Cricket team; Naveen Rajlani,Senior VP and Head – School Division, Pearson Education India at the launch of MX Touch tablet

Digital programmes on tablets provide study questions, activities, tests and quizzes to students, thereby helping them continue learning outside the classroom while studying at home, is aware of how to progress in a logical fashion from one topic to the next without getting lost in a sea of content.

Please tell us more about MX Touch.

MX Touch-ActiveTouch variants are available in 7- and 10-inch tablets from our preferred tablet manufacturers, Samsung and Micromax. These tablets have been affordably priced keeping the interest of the learners at the forefront.

It is available in the following versions: MX Touch – ActiveTouch, MX Touch – DigitALly and MX Touch – Ultimate.

MX Touch – ActiveTouch has pedagogically sound, graded digitised textbooks already loaded on the tablet. ActiveTouch is available in four subjects — English, Science, Mathematics and Hindi — for classes 3 to 8. Engaging animations, captivating

videos from BBC Motion Gallery, and a host of interactive activities and worksheets will help the teacher add to their lessons. ActiveTouch instantly cuts the environmental impact of printing multiple textbooks and helps avoid the hassle of carrying a huge number of books to school.

MX Touch – DigitALly is loaded with DigitALly Student Edition, another edition of Pearson’s patented and award-winning teaching tool. DigitALly includes animations, videos, self-explanatory diagrams, worksheets, quizzes and several hours of experiments for different subjects designed to make the learning more engaging. MX Touch – DigitALly SE (student edition) can house an entire curriculum of a grade on a device and offers access to it not only in the classroom, but also outside and at home.

MX Touch – Ultimate is a bundled version that includes MX Touch – ActiveTouch and MX Touch – DigitALly SE.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

45

policy matters

National Academic Depository of India

By Dr Veera Gupta, Associate Professor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi; Former Secretary, CBSE

T

he National Academic Depository is a unique idea floated for the first time in India. The idea was initially floated to check fraudulent academic certificates and degrees. It also encompassed the idea that such a depository would help in consolidating an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s academic qualifications which the student may have earned throughout his life. The depository would be a storehouse of a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s academic credentials. The credentials would also specify the level of qualifications and the quality of awarding institutions.

The need for a depository is magnified in the present context of skill development and National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework (NVEQF). The NVEQF proposes to draw parity between academic versus professional, and pre versus in-service qualifications offered by different recognised institutions. In case such a system is established, an individual can earn recognised qualifications all through his/her life through a formal or informal mode of education.

As per the information available, such a depository of academic qualifications does not exist in any country.

The data with respect to the academic results of a candidate is generally stored in the respective awarding institutions. The qualification is verified by the awarding institutions and a certificate is issued on a unique watermark paper by the awarding institution. The number of institutions is so large that unique watermarks of all the institutions cannot be recognised by the potential employers. As

The academic depository would be a recurring store of the qualifications earned by an individual from school to college level, and pre to in-service level at one place. This will facilitate the employers to verify the credentials of the potential candidates. It would also facilitate an individual to accumulate, preserve and list all his/her qualifications at one place. A smart card of qualifications will also help the individual in present ing his credentials with just a swipe.

For the first time, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has floated an expression of interest for establishing a depository of academic credentials. At the same time, it was thought that a bill on academic depository would help establish such a system in the country, which can mandate organisations as well as the processes of the depository. The data security is of paramount importance for such a depository. Therefore, it was decided to issue a tender to only two government financial depositories, which are regis-

The academic depository would be a recurring store of the qualifications earned by an individual from school to college level, and pre to in-service level at one place

Veera gupta

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a result, the employer communicates with all the concerned institutions to verify the respective qualification of the candidates. At the same time, an individual also has to preserve his paper qualifications for five or more decades to be able to submit at different times of his/her working life.

tered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). These are the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) and the Central Depository Securities Ltd (CDSL).

The pilot project was conducted with the results of class XII and Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) conducted by the board. There was data of more than ten lakh students.

policy matters

The school principals were asked to use the depository and provide feedback. The pilot was successful with both the agencies. The feedback of the project was given to the MHRD as an input to the draft bill on National Academic Depository.

The bill proposes to make it mandatory for all the academic institutions to upload data in the depository. It also provides for safeguards for security of storage, access, and retrieval of records. It has added a few more functions such as issuance of duplicate certificate by the depository. There would be more authorised institutions other than academic institutions to act as agent on behalf of depository. Also, there would be stringent punishments if data is tempered with. The bill is yet to be finalised.

The bill is silent about cost recovery method by depositories. During the various discussions with NSDL and CDSL, it was suggested that the service could be free for students and academic institutions. The charges should be levied on employers and others who may use the service for

verification purposes. The depositories would work on Build, Own and Operate (BOO) model.

The NAD has a few challenges to overcome. The first challenge is of number of accounts. In the present scenario where elementary and secondary education is going to be made compulsory, the number of students graduating from these institutions is going to be more than ten million. It is desirable that the academic depository may have to depend on UID/Aadhar for opening of new account.

The second challenge is the number of institutions in the country. The Knowledge Commission has recommended opening of 3,000 universities as against existing 400. The vocational mission recommends opening of one lakh vocational centres in the country during twelfth plan period.

All the institutions eventually need to get registered with the depository.

The third challenge is parity of qualifications. At present, there are many training programmes offered outside the formal education system by the respective organisations for their em-

The MHRD instructed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to carry out a pilot project with both the agencies. The CBSE assigned the task to NSDL and CDSL with the following functions to be performed: • Provide access to CBSE to the database of the depository • Facilitate CBSE to efficiently lodge, in the database, the academic qualifications awarded by it • Train CBSE in the process of lodging and retrieval of records of academic qualifications from the database • Provide efficient online verification of any specific academic qualification lodged in the database, if required • Verify and authenticate any specific academic qualification in the database when so requested by any person • Provide an authenticated copy of content of any specific academic qualification in the database when requested by any person • Maintain the authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of the database • Ensure that the national database is, at all times, accessible online to the authorised persons • Inter-operability mechanism • Any other function which the depository wants to demonstrate in its solution

ployees. Recognition of all such programmes would benefit the individual and the educational planners.

There are many challenges related to hardware, software, logistics and acceptance of depository. It needs collaborative efforts of the IT, education, planning, legal and media professionals. If planned meticulously and established successfully, the NAD would lead the world. digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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event report

event report

Pearson Education Services, NDTV Honour Teachers Dr Shashi Tharoor, Union Minister Of State for HRD, inaugurated the Pearson Teaching Awards in India

P

earson Education Services, the leading educational products and services provider, along with partner NDTV, hosted the first-ever teaching awards show on 22nd January, 2013 at New Delhi. The awards ceremony was presided over by Dr Shashi Tharoor, Union Minister of State for HRD. The gathering witnessed support from individuals belonging to various walks of life; from

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teaching professionals and academia, to knowledge leaders and education policy makers. Among other celebrities who attended were actor and social activist, Shabana Azmi, and legendary cricketer and Pearson brand ambassador, Anil Kumble. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The response to the award ceremony has been overwhelming and encouraging. The awards have displayed the value and importance of teachers in

our society. I would like to congratulate Pearson for their commendable effort in recognising teachers who give so much to the society and shape the minds of children, and in more ways than one, help build our future. I think this is just the beginning and we have a long way to go, but we have made a great start,â&#x20AC;? said Kumble.

Nominations were invited under 20 categories: Excellence in Teaching in Gov-

event report

Speaking on the occasion, Meena Ganesh, CEO, Pearson Education Services, said, “What began as an initiative to recognise and acknowledge the teachers who have dedicated their lives to inspiring and transforming our lives forever, is today the country’s largest gathering of teachers, thought leaders and decision makers, under one roof. In its very first year, the Pearson Teaching Awards have enjoyed an overwhelming response and participation from across India and we are thrilled to be that much closer to felicitating and recognising teachers who are taking that extra step towards delivering extraordinary content through innovative, inspiring and path-breaking ways to maximise the engagement of their students and elicit their inherent as well as creative potential.”

ernment Schools, Excellence in Teaching in Private Schools, Best Pre-Primary/ Kindergarten Teacher, Outstanding Contribution to Special Children, Special Teacher, Innovation in School Teaching, Outstanding Performance in Social Contribution through Teaching, Teacher of the Year – Male, Teacher of the Year– Female, and Jurors’ Distinction Award.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

49

event report

•

• The background The Pearson Teaching Awards were conceptualised to celebrate the best of the teaching profession; the true heroes of the classroom who work tirelessly to teach, inspire, nurture and shape the future of not just students, but the entire nation.

•

• The journey • In July 2012, the idea was born.

Pearson partnered with NDTV Profit to plan and execute the idea

In July 2012, the Digital Empowerment Foundation, the founder of Manthan Awards, came on board as the Process Partners to handle the entire backend process of receiving applications and shortlisted the finalists In August 2012, Intel joined hands with the initiative as the Technology Partner and digitalLEARNING as the Print Media Partner In September 2012, the awards were announced at the press conference in Bangalore in the presence of Pearson’s brand ambassador, Anil Kumble, addressing the media and declaring nominations open In October 2012, panel discussion on the topic “Is India ready to push the envelope on education?” aired on NDTV, which served as the curtain raiser to the awards on television

•

•

The nominations were closed on 15th December, 2012. There were 1,900 applications received from across the country Finally, on 22nd January 2013, the Grand Finale was held with Dr Shashi Tharoor, MoS, MHRD, gracing the occasion as the chief guest

The process Call for entries began on 15th September, 2012, and was supported by activities like press conference, promos on NDTV, and on-ground outreach to more than 20,000 schools via posters, EDMs and through tele calling. Applications accepted online through the NDTV website.

There were 1,900 applications received at the end of the nomination period.

An eminent panel of pre-jurists sifted through all the nominations and selected 75 finalists under 20 categories.

The winners Best Pre-Primary Teacher - Govt School G B Padamavathi, Govt Higher Primary School, Karnataka Best Pre-Primary Teacher - Private School Rajul Haresh Mehta, Pravrutti Vidyalaya Bal Bhavan, Gujarat Innovation in School Teaching Venkata Raghavendra Rao Rachuri, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Andhra Pradesh Outstanding Contribution to Special Children Sumathi Ramjee, Deepika School, Karnataka Outstanding Performance in Social Contribution through Teaching Vasant Rathwa, Vidya Programme, Gujarat Special Teacher (Differently-Abled) G V S Nageswararao, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Andhra Pradesh

Teaching Excellence in a Language - Govt School Raju Vitthalrao Dhoke, Z P Upper Primary School, Maharashtra Teaching Excellence in a Language -Private School Sumandeep Thakur, Prakash Private School, Haryana Teaching Excellence in Mathematics - Govt School Dr Donnipad Manjunath, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Maharashtra

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Teaching Excellence in Mathematics - Private School Hira Prasad, Birla High School, Junior Section, West Bengal Teaching Excellence in Science - Govt School Karunaidoss, Government High School, Viswanatham, Tamil Nadu Teaching Excellence in Science - Private School Harshala Raghuram, The New Cambridge High School (ICSE), Karnataka Teaching Excellence in Social Studies - Govt School Sujatha Hegde, Govt High School, Karnataka Teaching Excellence in Social Studies - Private School Fr Dr Mathew Thengumpally, K E Carmel Central School, Kerala Teaching Excellence in Sports - Govt School Ramu, Calve College Government Higher Secondary School, Puducherry Teaching Excellence in Sports - Private School Kalidasan, P S Senior Secondary School, Tamil Nadu Teacher of the Year - Female G B Padamavathi, Govt Higher Primary School, Karnataka Teacher of the Year - Male Fr Dr Mathew Thengumpally, K E Carmel Central School, Kerala Jurors’ Special Award Sumathi Ramjee, Deepika School, Karnataka

Industry Speak

The Right to Misinform, an Obligation to Keep Secrets, Frittering Away 10,000 crores, and Other Such Tales!

By Manish Upadhyay, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist, LIQVID; AmitavaMaitra, Independent Ed Tech Consultant

B

etween us, we have more over 30 years of experience in the field of technology aided and enabled education. Fuelled by the desire to see and evaluate the application of technology in the school and higher education in the government owned and operated schools and institutes in India, we decided to look for data on the efficacy of ICT interventions.

Though we searched long and hard, we could find nothing on the MHRD websites. To add to our agony, we found many crucial links did not work. We then decided to use the “brahamastra”, an RTI application. We thought that a simple application would do it. Enthused by the idea we looked up the process – it was simple – a `10 postal order and the list of questions to be sent to the Public Information Officer. But that is where things got complex. The MHRD website left us clueless as to whom to send the RTI application. There seemed to be a lot of divisions within the MHRD that seemed to be having something to do with school and higher education and ICT interventions. It was not clear as to who exactly did what. We decided to bite the bullet and thus, sent RTIs to all, hoping that our respondents will do their bit.

And thus began the next phase, the wait and the watch game. Some weeks later, we received the first shock. From most of the people, we got answers saying that we had addressed the postal

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order to the wrong person. It was to be in favour of the Pay and Accounts officer (PAO) and not the PIO. Apart from polite, terse and very official sounding letters, we did not get any relevant information save for the communication about our errant ways. The notable exception was a PIO who bucked the

tion, Department of School Education & Literacy”). The PIO stated that evaluation reports for ICT interventions exist for four states in India and that by large these reports indicated the results were satisfactory or good. Intrigued and fascinated, we then sent an RTI report asking for copies of the four evalua-

The world over, educational interventions, ICT or otherwise, are judged by forming two groups – one an experimental group and one control group involving statistically equivalent populations, and then objective measures on student performance as assessed through standard tests are used as key parameters to judge the efficacy of interventions trend and actually answered some of our questions (even on an inaccurate postal order). We even had the privilege of receiving a letter from a PIO in the PMO telling us that he was forwarding our RTI application to someone in the MHRD, even though we had not sent any RTI to the PMO. Anyhow, undeterred, we sent postal orders in favour of the PAO and waited with baited breath. However, from all but one PIO we paid glowing tribute to, we got terse messages telling us that ‘no such information exists’ (the only response we got was from a mysterious sounding part of MHRD called “Schools-5 Sec-

tion reports. We were then told that the reports did not exist in electronic form and so we would have to pay `292 to get xerox copies of the same. Again, we remained true to the cause and sent the Indian Government the money to photocopy the pages. And finally, six months later, we were in the possession of some relevant, concrete information. Curiosity had landed on Mars and we gave each other high fives.

For those of you who are befuddled by the sequence of events here’s the upshot. The Indian Government has planned to spend over `10,000 crores** on ICT in schools and higher educa-

Industry Speak

In Europe and many other developed nations, in addition to student performance in standard tests of achievement, ‘inspectors’ observe and evaluate school processes and procedures impartially to determine how a school is performing on parameters such as ICT implementation and integration tion institutes with the belief that this would benefit teachers and students (we presume rightly or wrongly that other people were not the intended beneficiaries of these projects). Now, to verify this conjecture, the government decided to test it doing impact assessment or evaluation studies in four states only across approx 120 odd schools. The evaluation of ICT initiatives in Punjab was conducted by a leading engineering college there and that in Sikkim was conducted by a regional engineering college there.

The two reports were essentially hardware audits and informed the reader what hardware was procured in contrast with what was ordered and in the various stages of disrepair they were in. * * `5,000 crore is being provided during the Eleventh Plan for providing ICT infrastructure in schools and another provision of `5,000 crore has been made in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for ‘Education Mission through ICT’ for

higher education institutes.

The evaluation report of schools in Meghalaya was conducted by a leading government institute in Shillong and was a voluminous one which covered everything from the history and geography of Meghalaya to the tribal nature of the population there. With over 90 percent of this large report (for which we had paid money) devoted to esoteric trivia, the last 10 percent or so declared that all was, by and large, well in the state of Meghalaya with minor points of improvement. Another leading private institute in Manipal conducted the evaluation of ICT interventions in schools in Kerala. This report also relied totally on qualitative opinions based on self-assessment based questionnaires. Overall, the four reports were well below par. While the world over educational interventions, ICT or otherwise, are judged by forming two groups – one an experimental group and one control group involv-

ing statistically equivalent populations, and then objective measures on student performance as assessed through standard tests are used as key parameters to judge the efficacy of interventions.

In stark contrast, the reports made no such attempt.

In Europe and many other developed nations, in addition to student performance in standard tests of achievement, ‘inspectors’ observe and evaluate school processes and procedures impartially to determine how a school is performing on parameters such as ICT implementation and integration. As opposed to that, the reports looked at self-reportage – answers to questionnaires populated by the very people whose performance was being studied. Very dubious, to say the least.

We started off by examining the rigour of evaluation studies in ICT projects in school education. Though we must admit that we were dismayed at the state of affairs, we are far more disappointed at the process of finding data and information. From the difficulty in getting information through RTIs, to the fact that though we got photocopies of obviously neatly word processed documents, we could not get hold of electronic versions of the same, the situations looks rather bleak. And even more critical, while all this information could have been proactively put online by the MHRD as part of the ‘Duty to Publish’ charter of the RTI which mandates the Indian Government to proactively publish information on its websites, we had to wage a long battle of sorts to get relevant information (the word relevant is loosely used here).

Much hue and cry has been made over corruption in the government machinery. But, little attention is given to the colossal inefficiencies in the system as our experience with both the RTI process and the rather inferior quality of evaluation reports indicates. There is obviously a correlation between inefficiency and corruption, but we believe both need to be fought with equal zeal.

As ordinary, concerned citizens, we have a duty to keep up the pressure.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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digital LEARNING

world education summit 2013 23-24 APRIL 2013, Le MĂŠridien, NEW DELHI

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Kartikay Saini Chairman, Scottish High International School

Dr Pascal Chazot Head of School, Mahatma Gandhi International School

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Cover feature Story Industry-Academia Industry Academia GapGap

mind the gap

Cementing Gaps to Make Tomorrow Employable

By Pragya Gupta, Elets News Network (ENN)

W

hen students enter the job market entire reality gets changed for them from what they had studied throughout life. In India there is a major mismatch between the demand and supply of skilled workfore, creates unemployable youth and barriers in the country’s growth. Some of the reasons for this mismatch are said to be curriculum mismatch, and untrained trainers. We have trainers teaching from many years, but they have never had industry experience.

According to NASSCOM, over three million graduates and post-graduates are added to the Indian workforce every year. However, only 25 percent of technical graduates out of these and 10-15 percent of other graduates are considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITES segments. These figures reflect the major skill gap that we have across the country. India has the potential to be-

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come a global marketplace for the world to provide competent, talented and innovative workforce.

To acheive the objective of skilling India a lot of work and focus has been given by the government, private sector, and academia. The government has formed various alliances with the private sector and devised many policies, framework, and bodies to address the issue. Industries in India and outside are eyeing on India to fulfil the crunch of skilled workforce. This is a complex challenge to convert huge Indian population into skilled professionals with various geographical, economical, and psychological barriers that we have.

To bring industry and academia closer and share ideas on how they can work together for mutual benefits, digitalLEARNING is starting a series on inviting ideas from industry and academia people to bridge the gap. We have people from the industry and academia speaking on solutions to create an employable tomorrow.

•

If your organisation is in the business of climbing trees, you need to hire squirrel, not a horse, says Binoj Vasu, GEVP and Chief Learning Officer, Human Capital Management, YES Bank Ltd • Learning-by-Doing and Learning-while-Earning are the Ways to Bridge the Gap, says Neeti Sharma, Vice President, TeamLease – IIJT • Manage Industry-Academic Alliances like an Investment Portfolio, Says Lokesh Mehra, Director-Education Advocacy, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd • The Principle is Buyer Beware, says TR Shastri, Dean, ICICI Manipal Academy • Conceptualise Training Programmes Keeping the Industry Requirements in Mind, says Anu Senan, Saurabh Jain & Vivek Srinivasan, XLRI GMP Class of 2013

Industry academia gap

cover story

“If your organisation is in the business of climbing trees, you need to hire squirrel, not a horse,” Says Binoj vasu, GEVP and Chief Learning Officer, Human Capital Management, YES Bank Ltd

I

am sure most people in the industry as well as academia are aware of this reality, but unfortunately, there is still a majority of institutions that are trying to produce the skill sets of a horse and then trying to place them in industries that are looking for squirrels.

In other words, there still exists a wide gap between what the industry needs and what the academia produces, and while both the industry and academia suffer because of this gap, unfortunately the ones that are most affected are the students themselves.

After spending the best part of their lives trying to secure seats in the best academic institutions, students would be rightfully hoping that the academic guidance from their institution would help them land their dream jobs, and give them the skills to build a brilliant career.

Reality, unfortunately, is far from this ideal scenario for most campus job aspirants.

However, good the educational qualification and highly reputed the institute is, these factors will only help students get their first entry level job. What matters even more is what happens after you get the job. Do institutions help stu-

We want our executives to nurture an innovative spirit, take calculated risks, assess and forecast strategic business actions

Binoj Vasu

dents get the necessary awareness, skill sets and the aptitude to embrace success in the corporate world?

Educational institutes are incubation centres where the leaders of tomorrow’s corporate world are being nurtured. But the big question that academia needs to ask themselves is: are we delivering what our customers (the corporate world) need?

Academia needs to work extremely closely with industries to ensure that not only students get the right amount of knowledge, but they

also get the other critical aspects that will complement their knowledge and help them succeed in their roles.

Corporates on their part (especially new age Corporates) are more than willing to invest time and energy to help bridge this gap. For example, as an aggressively growing young organisation we at YES Bank have strategically identified right at the onset that the real game changer for us will be our ‘People’. The executives that we are looking for in our campus recruitment programme are not just the ones who have the ability to read, write and compute but people who can develop new skills quickly, communicate effectively and interact cooperatively with others.

In keeping with the organisational ethos, we want our executives to nurture an innovative spirit, take calculated risks, assess and forecast strategic business actions, adapt to the ever dynamic business environment, take ownership of their roles and responsibilities and walk the extra mile when it matters.

These are the skills that can spring out only from an entrepreneurial mindset.

At YES Bank, we consciously decided to take the bull by its horns by instilling this essence through our initiatives directly on the campuses that we partner with, namely YES-USRM (YES University and School Relations Management) programme.

Bottom line, there is enough opportunity for both academia and industry to help bridge this gap if they work in unison. The fact is that there is indeed a critical and wide bridge that lies between the skills learnt on campus and the realities of the corporate world. This bridge needs to be crossed smoothly and effectively and the crossing has to start when the student is on campus itself.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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feature

Industry-Academia Gap

“Annual Rating and Accreditation of B-Schools will Help,” Says SY Siddiqui, National President, The National Human Resources Development Network (NHRDN) and COO-Administration (HR, Finance, IT & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd

D

espite the mushrooming B-schools offering management education in India, the standard of professional education in the country is not consistent across in terms of quality. From our interactions with various B-schools and corporates, the concept of a professional and comprehensive rating of B-schools has emerged as a specific need in India for the benefit of prospective students, their parents and also the employers. With this background, it seemed quite appropriate that rather than leaving B-school ratings only to the magazines and quasi academic setups, it was better if a professional body like NHRDN, representing industry professionals, took the initiative of rating these schools.

Business schools rankings will not only facilitate a student to find the right institute to join, but will also enable prospective employers to choose the right talent for sustainable competitive advantage in a world where there is a war for the right talent. Therefore, the NHRDN, in association with a media company, has started the rating these B-schools.

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This initiative would be driven by an advisory committee of eminent professionals from the industry and academia. The validation process will be carried out by our expert panel of professionals coming from various streams of management across the country. I am confident that the rating of B-schools will be an important step towards identifying the gap between the industry and academia. The NHRDN will not only rate and rank the top 50 B-schools in India, but also go beyond and work towards bridging the gap with the next step of accreditation of these B-schools. This would be done by providing consulting and mentoring to business schools that are emerging to be among the top 50 to help them grow and become better.

Initiatives to bridge industry and academia gap There are various other initiatives being taken up NHRD to bridge the industry and academia gap.

Strengthening professional HR education: After the success of the MDINHRDN PGHRM Programme, where the NHRD is supporting Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, with designing of course curriculum, mentoring students, providing them with industry interface like summer internships, live projects, etc during their stay in campus, we have started a similar initiative with IIM Ranchi.

National Professor: India has more than 3,000 B-schools where students study, hoping to find their dream career after completing their programme. But due to the mismatch between the available skills and industry expectations, all the students are not placed in corporate and other sectors.

This is really an issue of concern.

Management education in India has not changed as per the industry needs and before this gap widens enough.

The NHRDN board has launched a new initiative, concept of National Professor, which is an honorary position instituted by the NHRDN where we will invite senior academicians and practitioners to voluntarily contribute 12 man days in a year to build the capability of HR students at not so established business schools. This will help us bridge the gap between industry and academia and provide inputs to budding managers aligning with industry requirements.

Udai Pareekh’s Student Scholarship: The NHRDN has started a scholarship for HR students. The objective of the scholarship is to encourage and recognise promising HR students.

Capability building: The capability building workshops, conferences, seminars, webinars organised by the network offer HR professionals and students a unique opportunity to sharpen and build their HR competencies.

Industry Academia Gap

feature

“Manage Industry-Academic Alliances like an Investment Portfolio,” Says Lokesh Mehra, Director-Education Advocacy, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd

Lokesh Mehra

Recommendations for bridging the gaps

I

ndia faces two basic educational systemic problems at different levels: achieiving quantity along with quality. About 50 percent of our children at the primary level are at the risk of not entering or not completing secondary education due to lack of access to institutes.

The system expects teachers to “complete the curriculum” regardless of whether students have actually been able to learn. What our examination system actually examines with credibility is probably rote memorisation. Secondly, how do you ensure that a first class student in Andaman and Nicobar has a higher or equivalent competency opposed to his peers in Delhi or Meghalaya. Possibly, the need of the hour is a standardised test for all– which could act as an indicator as the first step to arrive at learning gaps.

Some basic challenges that we are facing today include: • Low investment in higher education was a paltry 1.25 per cent of GDP as per the UGC report on Higher Education at a glance.

• Faculty crunch: With nearly 33,000 colleges and over 600 universities in the country today, it estimated that even the IITs face a 25 percent shortage.

• Research inclination: Forty percent of Indian researchers are emigrating to pursue their research abroad

At government level • Set short, mid, and long term outcome oriented goals at the policy level • Expansion of research support – government should open up existing CSIR labs, leverage existing resources • Public Private Partnerships for capacity building and teachers training – Train teachers on improving pedagogical practices. Corporates like Microsoft, Autodesk, Intel, Cisco, etc. have lesson plans and curriculum. But can the government creates a portal that streamlines all these efforts at a single location?

• Assessment mechanisms should be modified keeping how and what should be tested account. These mechanism should focus on maintaining quality standards that ensure global acceptance and not India alone At institution and corporate levels • Institute should upgrades laboratories and technology interventions with the assistance of corporate via collaborations, endowments and donations • Adopt technology assisted learning in education, joint certifications to improve the efficiency, timeliness and transparency of the system.For example remote delivery of education for scale – Cloud/Continuing education to build material and curriculum repositories in a co-operative fashion • Build technology incubators, chairs and have a consensus on patent regulatory perspectives

(Source National Bureau of Economic Research US). In 2011, of the 14.6 lakh people who graduated from the colleges in India, only 12 percent pursued post graduate degrees and an abysmal one percent pursued research in the country. India has 7.8 scientists per 1,000 population compared to 180.66 in Canada, 53.13 in Korea and 21.15 in the US. The government has set a target of achieving 30 percent gross rnrollment ratio by 2020, which translates into more than 40 million students in higher education. This challenge requires radical new thought process and innovative solutions.

Surprisingly, in India there are only a handful of institutions, which have a clearly defined mission. Majority of the private institutions are driven by a

singular focus on profits or surpluses, which means that they have corporate style leadership with focus on the bottom line. Such approach may work well for this segment of profit oriented schools, but will fail miserably for institutions that seek excellence and quality.

If institutions are headed by promoters as leaders, the faculty has almost no say in the governance of these institutions. But in public institutions, the challenge is that faculty lacks business acumen and perceives administration as clerical work. The need is to strike a fine balance between academic perspicacity and business efficiency.

In short manage industry-academic alliances like an investment portfolio–the more you nurture it; the better will be the fruits– this would enable us to bring back the era of Nalanda and Takshila. digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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Industry-academia gap

“Learning-by-Doing and Learning-while-Earning are the Ways to Bridge the Gap,” Says Neeti Sharma, Vice President, TeamLease – IIJT

A

lthough India’s higher education system contributes about 350,000 engineers and 2.5 million university graduates annually to our workforce, yet, at any given time, about five million graduates remain unemployed. A survey done by the McKinsey Global Institute shows multinationals find only 25 percent of Indian engineers employable, and according to NASSCOM, there are over three million graduates and post-graduates added every year to the Indian workforce. However, 58 percent of our graduates suffer some degree of unemployability and formal on-the-jobexposure is absent.

Industry, on the other hand, has had its share of challenges in getting its positions filled. Not only has it lowered its hiring standards at the bottom of the pyramid in order to be fully staffed, but it has also established training programmes to make hires productive. But this situation is unsustainable because it wrecks productivity and there is not viable model for employers to ‘manufacture’ their own employees.

This shortage of appropriately skilled labour across industries is being termed as the most significant challenge India will have to find solutions to.

We cannot predict the kind of jobs that would be available in the future, however, there is no stopping us from preparing for them. In the short term, we can create models that would work for job creation in industries such as Healthcare, Education, Hospitality, Sales, IT/ITeS, etc. However, in the long run, we need an ecosystem that effectively blends education, employability and employment frameworks.

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There are few ways we can develop skilled labour through our education system.

Increase the enrolment ratios in higher education: Part of the skills gap problem is that only a very small percentage of India’s youth go on to higher education. No more than seven percent of Indian youths between the age group of 18-25 go to college. Also, 40 percent of the people over the age of 15 are illiterate.

On the other hand, we have universities not being able to keep up to the demand in hand. The best and the most selective universities generate too few graduates, and new private colleges are producing graduates of uneven quality.

Curriculum to match industry requirements: The current pace of industry and labour market changes mean that some curriculum is outdated much before a student completes his/her education. Besides the domain skills, industry also looks at soft skills, team building, values and attitude of an individual at the time of hiring. Upgrading curriculum and keeping up with the changes is required of the institutes. Also, the curriculum needs to be made in collaboration with the industry, and if possible, joint certifications/degrees between the academic institutes and industry.

Apprentices that give workplace exposure: Students would ben-

Employers would be happy to contribute to developing a shared model with teaching institutions for jobs and their requirements Neeti Sharma

efit greatly if higher education faculty either had prior work experience or would be required to spend some time on short-term assignments with employers. But students would also hit the ground running with employers if part of their programme had apprenticeships with employers. Even if these apprenticeships are not in the industry or function where the students find permanent jobs, these stints will give them an appreciation for the realities of the workplace. The lack of organised apprenticeships in India (we have only three lakh apprentices relative to Germany’s six million and Japan’s 10 million) sabotages employability by undermining an effective vehicle of learning-by-doing and learning-whileearning.

Industry-Academia Gap

feature

“The Principle is Buyer Beware,” Says TR Shastri, Dean, ICICI Manipal Academy

T

he purpose of education has been discussed at length from time immemorial. In 1947, Martin Luther King wrote that education has both utilitarian and moral functions. The utilitarian function enables education continuing as an arm of the global economy. Higher education, though its purpose is still considered a contestable issue, should aim at equipping the learners to be practical and hence, ‘employable’. Different disciplines of education are expected to enable the students to graduate themselves seamlessly into appropriate branches of work life without any gestation period. However, there has been constant criticism from the industry that the present style of education does not meet that requirement and the user industry still needs to skill them upfront before putting them onto the workstation or shop floor. The general complaints of the industry include: the educational institutions concentrate on pure knowledge without emphasising on the applications, therefore, they do not build the requisite

human skills and do not keep pace with the changes in the industry practices. The concept of industry-academia initiative to mould the outputs of education therefore assumes importance.

Some of the engineering colleges and management schools attempted to attune their course coverage to specific corporate requirement. While the academic institutions aimed at the commercially popular requirement of getting jobs for its students, the specific corporate had its requirements, and not the industry’s requirements in mind. Hence, such attempt was more college-corporate tie-up rather than industry-academia initiative. Since industry in general continued to find the new entrants inadequately equipped, some corporates started backward integration by setting up their own entry-level training academies where the aspirants partly unlearnt the theory and fully acquired skills and specific corporate practices. Such initiatives are observed in industries such as banking, software, engineering and air travel. The user corporates

T R Shastri

Corporates are now setting up higher learning centres, a step towards bringing out skilled workforce required by the industry find this initiative highly rewarding.

The success of such individual attempts points out that what the education system presently produces is not fully what the industry wants. The isolated attempts by corporates aimed at repairing the preparedness of the candidates by infusing the specific skill sets. It was not an attempt to align the learning in the academy abinitio to what the industry wants. Thus, clearly, there is wastage of the initial academic learning due to its irrelevance and disuse. This is a colossal national wastage in view of the large numbers.

The challenge is how do we eliminate these unusable studies and instead build

specific usable skills. Next, how do we spread out this practice across the industry so that the benefit is received by all. Both the industry and the academia have to move more than half the way to bridge the gap. The legal principle is ‘Buyer Beware’. In other words, the industry should take proactive steps to get what it wants. Industry associations should interact with universities and education regulators to give inputs on what the expectations are. This should not be a one-time effort, but a continuous one to keep the academics updated.

The academia should invite industry leaders, who may not necessarily be academically qualified, on the boards of studies and such governing committees which decide the curriculum. Some of the dogmatic principles in academies need revisit. For example, for arriving at credits which reflect the depth of coverage, faculty-led teaching hours have a greater weightage presently in the academic world, whereas, industry will consider self-learning or hands-on experience as more effective. Universities should agree to ‘academise’ such corporate learnings. Academies should calibrate skills development for certification. Movement of industry professionals to academic positions and vice versa should be encouraged. Sufficiently experienced industry professionnals should be equally recognised like a doctorate holder for a professorial position.

Deputation of educationists to industry initially for limited period will embolden them to occupy industry positions.

During the last several years, teaching position is no longer a low-paid job, which is a very positive step in this integration. Many corporates are setting up higher learning centres, a step towards bringing out skilled workforce required by the industry. The government has started supporting skills development financially which will go a long way in bridging the gap. digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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industry academia gap

“Conceptualise Training Programmes Keeping the Industry Requirements in Mind” Says Anu Senan, Saurabh Jain and Vivek Srinivasan, XLRI GMP Class of 2013

T

he great Indian growth story runs into 2013 with the sense of optimism intact even after a mediocre past year. With the renewed urgency in national policy decision making by the Central Government, the world is looking at us with trust and hope. India makes a great business destination for the West due to its capacious middle class customer base, ever increasing disposable income and the low-cost skilled labour force. Moreover, globalisation will continue to transform India’s economy and will provide exciting career opportunities to young professionals who possess market-driven skills.

As we continue our long strides towards the dream of a developed economy, there is still a long way to go in terms of filling the gaps in various sectors due to poor employability.

Today, while the demographic data supports the Indian expansion and investments plans of the world players, unemployability poses a greater challenge than unemployment. India Labour Report 2012 has brought out some remarkable if not unsettling findings.

One million people will join the labour force every month for the next twenty years without adequate training. Employability is a matter of great concern as firms hire young graduates every year only to find them grossly under-skilled.

This can lead to lower hiring standards at the entry levels of the organisation and increased salaries for top management in order to retain talent. Both these strategies will only lead to poor productivity in the long run.

Most industries like Information Technology, Biotechnology, Healthcare,

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Energy, etc demand a few basic features from the higher education system. These include English literacy, digital literacy, soft skills, industry relevant skills, certifications etc. According to the latest findings, at least 12 million students take the class 12 examinations every year. But only five million end up going for higher education. Measures have to be taken to understand the reasons behind it and encourage more students to pursue learning.

Institutions providing evening courses are a good way to implement this.

Students who are already enrolled for regular courses can avail of these opportunities without jeopardising their existing academic courses. Evening courses are also a great way to save on time and money – two variables that are very crucial to the Indian youth. To attract students to these courses, industries must provide grants or scholarships to deserving candidates who otherwise would be unable to fund these programmes themselves. Industries should also tie up with relevant certification bodies to provide certifications at a discounted price to the students. Certifications are a great way to increase the employability of a student and many of them including the Six Sigma certifications are cross functional – they are favoured by different industries.

Vocational training courses should be designed to equip a student with skills not only required for the job in his prospective industry but also to help him appreciate the importance of competencies and soft skills. Currently, vocational training is provided at the school level but it should be extended

to higher education level too. The challenge lies in encouraging the industry to be the primary driver in designing courses for students. In this fast changing world the involvement of the industry at the grassroot level will ensure that students learn more than what is available in the textbook. The Ministry of Education must step in and take measures to improve the already deplorable condition of these courses. They lack good infrastructure and qualified teachers. Industry can fill in this gap easily.

By incorporating appropriate courses at the university level, the vocational training courses can be mobilised and rebranded.

There also have been attempts to develop customised training solutions for companies that the students can go through at the time they are still studying or waiting for the joining dates.

In the recently held HR conference in XLRI Jamshedpur, Mohan Bala, VP at Excellere, shared the developments to conceptualise training programmes keeping the industry requirements in mind, which help prospective employees utilise their wait time effectively, thereby reducing the training time substantially.

In the area of talent, India has to strengthen its technical and management resources as these are crucial to knowledge-based industries. An industry-driven approach to higher education must evolve that will not only solve the problem of employability but also encourage innovation. This revolution will be the key differentiator in the next generation innovation wave.

k-12 news

Geospatial Tech to be Part of CBSE Curriculum New Delhi: The CBSE is mulling expansion of Geospatial Technologies (GST) course with the aim to expand the reach of the course across the nation with effect from the academic session 2013-14.

The course till now was launched on pilot basis in a few schools effective 2010-11. It trains students on the basics of geospatial technology. The curriculum endows skill development in students for further studies and thereby, helps them contribute towards the country’s economic growth.

Offered as single vocational elective in class XI and XII, the course will be introduced by the CBSE in collaboration with Geospatial Solutions Company Rolta India Limited.

The students can choose this subject as an elective with a combination of other subjects at the senior secondary level. The CBSE, with inputs from Rolta India Limited and other relevant organisations, has prepared the textbooks and practical manuals for the course.

Girls’ Enrollment in Higher Classes Dips: NCERT Survey New Delhi: According to the 8th All India Education Survey (AIES) for 2002-09 by the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT), enrollment at the primary stage stood at 48.13 percent, however, it came down to 42.56 percent at the higher secondary stage.

The AIES is considered to be the most comprehensive national-level survey covering the school education system with respect to access, enrollment, retention, participation in school processes, equity, teachers and availability of basic facilities.

According to the AIES, there was a 26.77 percent increase in the total number of schools in the country during 200209. Maximum growth rate was witnessed in upper primary schools followed by higher secondary, secondary and primary.

A similar trend was observed in percentage of girls’ enrollment in schools in rural areas. Officials said it was difficult to attribute specific reasons contributing to this trend.

The survey covered more than 13 lakh recognised schools across the country. More than 84.14 per cent schools were in rural areas.

RTE Quota Admissions in Maharashtra to be Delayed Mumbai: The schedule for school admissions under the RTE quota in the state will be revised, said a State Education Department announcement.

The education department will announce new admission schedule for schools after the government resolution on the RTE reservation clause is released, the Deputy Director of Schools stated.

Schools, which were supposed to start distributing admission forms from January 10, have been held back for at least a week.

The education inspectors of the state have also made it a point to explain about RTE and clear doubts of all the school principals related to the same.

During the past weeks, the school principals attended sessions on conducting admissions under the 25 percent RTE quota. According to feedback from different schools, the admission forms have already been prepared and they will be released following government’s declaration of the new schedule.

Uniform Class 12th Question Papers Pan-India from 2014 New Delhi: The Council of Boards of School Education (COBSE), a common platform for all educational boards in the country, is planning a common syllabus and common question papers for Science and Mathematics exams for class 12th across all educational boards from the academic year 2014-15.

The COBSE has instituted a subcommittee comprising of state board members from Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala and Rajasthan to work on it.

The common exam paper design will

be pilot-tested in five states: Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Kerala, for class XI. Based on the experience, it will be introduced in class XII from 2014 with necessary modifications.

The common design of the exam papers will ensure even difficulty levels and marking systems across all the boards, thus bringing in uniformity in the education and evaluation process. This uniformity would offer equal opportunities for all students when appearing for centralised entrance examinations like the JEE and NEET.

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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MHRD Slashes School Education, Literacy Budget by 7% New Delhi: The Human Resource Development Ministry has imposed a seven percent cut in the `45,969 crore allotted in this fiscal year for school education and literacy budget.

The move has been taken in view of the economic slowdown, a ministry official said, adding that the decision to slash the budget was taken even when the resource utilisation by the School Education and Literacy Department was quite satisfactory.

After the reduction, the SSA programme will get hit by about 20 percent.

Sources also said that the budget for the higher education sector too, that had got `15,458 crore, has been reduced by 13 percent.

The budgetary allocation for the education sector for the next fiscal got a hike of about 18 percent with a plan outlay of `61,427 crore. In this, a 22 percent increase was announced for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

New Chairman for Punjab School Education Board Chandigarh: Dr Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal has been appointed as the new Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Chairman.

She is the first lady from the education department to be appointed as the Chairperson of the State Education Board.

Dr Dhaliwal is currently serving as the Principal of Guru Nanak College for Girls, Muktsar Sahib (Punjab). She has a vast experience of over 25 years in the field of education to her credit.

She has also served as a senate member, Punjab University, Chandigarh, for two terms. She has also remained a member of the Syndicate, Punjab University, Chandigarh, member of Punjab University Sports Executive Committee, Scientific Advisory Committee, Krishi Vigyaan Kendra, Muktsar Sahib, Panjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana and many more.

Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme Launched in Chandigarh Chandigarh: The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, facilitated by Aadhaar, has been launched in Chandigarh with the aim to bring in better transparency in the distribution of funds under the Centre and UT administration sponsored schemes.

The UT administration has recognised eight schemes of Director-Higher Education, and Director-Public Instructions, in schools.

Out of the 34 schemes that are sponsored by the Centre, some of the schemes included here are: UT merit scholarship, UT merit scholarship and pre-metric scholarship for SC students, post-metric scholarship for SC students, post-metric scholarship for OBCs.

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Goa Mulls New Plan to Bring Orphans Under SSA Panaji: The Goa Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is planning to collaborate with NGOs to set up residential services for ‘children in difficult situations’, with special emphasis on orphans and street children, to provide them a safe shelter to receive education.

The process has looped in select registered NGOs working for children in distress to set up residential facilities and to apply under the scheme before January 15, 2013.

The department said that it will provide a one-time non-recurring grant to select NGOs towards the purchase of necessary infrastructure. The students will also be given vocational and skills training to make them independent.

e-Learning solution for Maharashtra schools launched Pune: Amrita University’s e-Learning Platform A-VIEW (Amrita Virtual Interactive E-Learning World) has been formally launched by former UGC Chairman, Arun Nigawekar, at Amrita Vidyalayam, for schools in Maharashtra.

The award-winning A-VIEW platform has already been successfully deployed at more than 2,000 higher educational institutions across the country. Now, this platform will be rolled out in the country’s schools too.

Speaking on the occasion, Maharashtra Education Society (MES) President, Dr Ravindra Wanjarwadkar, said, “We will integrate A-VIEW with our Digital Campus system to further enhance the quality of education.”

Dr Hemant Darbari, Executive Director, CDAC Pune, Indrajeet Deshmukh, Maharashtra Deputy Commissioner for Regional Development, and Pushplata Pawar, Education Officer, Pune Municipal Corporation, participated in the event.

The solution is supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT of the HRD Ministry.

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Smt. Sonia Gandhi Chairperson, UPA

Over 1 crore pregnant women benefitted

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Prime Minister

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28,000 primary schools and 6000 upper primary schools opened

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Scholarships to about 63 lakh minority students and 48 lakh SC students in 2011-12

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Realising Dreams Building Futures

industry speak

Why 2013 is the Most Defining Year for Education

By Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON

S

martphones have been in the mainstream for three years.

And, according to a global study, 40 percent of the college students carry smartphones today. The number may be a little less in India, considering its demographics, but it is sure to rise. Students are habitually using social media and carry online connections in their pockets. Tweeting and micro-blogging have become a common lifestyle.

For education institutes, this becomes a new channel of communication with students – not to say a different methodology altogether in teaching. No longer would courses be like the classroom “broadcasts” as we have seen in our times. Institutions would leverage the new channels to render courses on demand to the students, and enriched by community. The fine line that ironically existed between teachers and practitioners would get blurred in the new connected classroom, where students and industry experts collaborate.

Classical education would remain a relic if it does not change soon. To understand how far-reaching the changes are, let me pick five trends and trace their impact on education.

the threshold of ubiquitous membership. If any other social media has to survive, it has to find a niche. It happens in any form of monopolistic competition. Twitter found niche in being a fanfare broadcasting channel; Linkedin chose to be a purely professional network. Others have struggled to find a niche. Soon, there would be bridges connecting many niche networks to compete with Facebook. This lesson has deep implications in the adoption of social media in education.

For an education institute to form a social network through its students and teachers, it has two choices: either carve a social site within Facebook (which provides many options to do that), or build a network by itself and bridge it with Facebook and other networks to gather mass. By ‘mass’, I mean memberships by experts, alumni, and knowledge communities that already exist. These are

crucial to the success and growth of any social media. Else, why would a student or a teacher tweet on a confined social network when he finds the other person more active on Facebook or Linked in?

One has to follow the ethnology of social media to use it effectively.

At the same time, the openness of Facebook could be botheration when it is susceptible to the violations of content copyright laws. The social network by an institution would require some moderation to avoid misuse or abuse. Considering this, the choice of a privately held social network seems more prudent.

I advise that every university should not only build its own social network, but also bridge it with public networks like Facebook and Linkedin. It may employ a policy regime over the bridge to govern the exchange. Today, there are technology and standards to do so.

The online campus, therefore, knows no boundary. A student can rope in an expert from a public community and find like-minded people in his subject of study. Education then becomes more of a function of curiosity and less of any injected curriculum.

The spell of Facebook

LMS—Now a Learning Moderation System

Facebook is a dominant social medium today. Its popularity and vast membership has prevented other social networks from being the media of common choice. The medium is a monopoly in the social media class called folksonomy, where friends and folks share messages and events. The failure of some of the other social networks that sprung up in recent times tells an important lesson – Facebook would continue to be the dominant medium as it has crossed

Even before the advent of social network channels, educational content could be digitised into online content. There are well-accepted standards, Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) being the foremost, which allows multiple publishers to render content into software used by the campus. The software is usually called Learning Management Systems or LMS. With it, the faculty can publish curriculum to different batches and reading content within

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Venguswamy Ramaswamy

industry speak

those. An advanced LMS also allows ondemand prep test and scheduled examination, which could be assessed online.

A feedback too, could be made online for the student to know how he can improve on specific subjects.

Although this sounds exciting to institutes yet to adopt technology, this method of teaching has become obsolete. LMS is now embracing many of the social media concepts and Web2.0 features. This changes the whole method of learning.

One change is in how the course content is rendered. Class notes can now become online in blogs with many students tweeting over it. Debates and refutes are exchanged regularly, which in turn are moderated by teachers, and

ent. Instead of the traditional broadcast, we now have multiple public and private channels in play to enrich the subject.

The definition of curriculum changes as well. One is not taught what is scheduled but what is acceptable to his curious mind. Any statutory propaganda, which is usually a part of regulated education, is moderated into favorable schools of thought.

The key question is not how much the student has learnt, but how much more he can absorb. This even questions the old methods of assessment.

Assess before teaching As a consequence of the modern education system, assessment has become the main method of qualification. Whether

Made tot Studen s Course

Self-enriching content platform, with dynamic assembly to a curriculum

M F ad Co acu e to ur lty se s

Content Administration Learning Self-Paced Learning

Flexible Course Calendars

Social Learning

O Pronjeline cts

On Demand Faculty

t Conten tion istra Course Admin Administration

Course Administration

sometimes by experts outside the campus. Research can be produced and enriched online like on wiki, and can be put to test by different disciples commenting on it. It is the revival of the age old Socratic Method that would have got lost after mankind commoditised education into universities and colleges.

The nature of content in this new LMS is therefore, very different. There is no definitive source of authenticity of content (other than online plagiarism checks) but only communities who democratically debate and add credence.

The nature of interaction is also differ-

a candidate has to be qualified for admission to a course or awarded a degree, assessment is the prime basis. The method of assessment, however, has always remained questionable. There is neverending debate on whether examinations should be objective or subjective, curriculum-bound or idea-provoking, open book or by memory, and so on. Irrespective of each side having its merits, the logistical convenience of the exam has remained the prime deciding factor.

Exams scarcely got conducted to be directional to the career of the candidate, rather they have been mere attempts

to be deterministic about the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s knowledge retention, even though the matter may not be strictly so. We have to accept this reality in a world where education is not a matter of indulgence and practice, as it had been when the Greeks started it, but indeed, a matter of one making a career in a competitively hostile world.

However, with technology, we change the very purpose of assessments.

Assessments would turn out to be formative â&#x20AC;&#x201C; directional to the learning of the student, instead of being some kind of tollgate. Many assessments would happen even before the learning on the subject has stated, to define what should be taught. We already see this trend in the form of prep-tests. However, such services have remained in the domain of commercial publishers selling books to prepare for competitive exams. We would henceforth, see preparation tests happening in schools and universities, which would be followed up with an instructional process. We may also see curricula devised specifically for the student on the basis of his results in the formative assessment.

All this is possible due the recent developments we have seen in assessment technology.

Online assessment paradigm Online assessments have been here for a while in vocational courses. However, for mass exams, like in universities, offline exams are still common. There are a few reasons for this. One is the lack of computer infrastructure. The other is the subjective nature of the exams requiring students to answer in written content instead of selecting from given choices.

Also, the exams have to be conducted in a highly secured environment where questions papers are distributed simultaneously avoiding any leakage.

Today, technology allows us to overcome these challenges. Question papers can be digitised and transferred to the exam centers in a secured fashion. The transfer can be in complete control of the examiner. Exams can be taken in computer labs in colleges. The answers

digitalLEARNING / february 2013

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can be compiled in minutes to produce results. Different question papers can be produced by parameterising the questions. Exams may not need intensive proctoring—each student can be given different question papers, with measurable difficulty levels. The logistics of the exams are significantly simplified.

Computerised assessments open up new vistas in the education system.

Each answer sheet can be digitally processed to pin point areas of improvement. It can detect psychometric patterns to determine the candidate’s behavior during the exam. It can produce reports to improve the candidate both academically and behaviorally.

Class exams can be conducted more frequently and made candidate-specific.

Each student can have his own education agenda depending on his learning capacity, where classes and exams are taken in tandem with regulated topics and difficulty levels.

We see that the education is becoming more personalised. Each student, with his learning pattern and personality, can follow his own pace of learning. This can be facilitated more closely by using a student information system, which combines his courses and exam records. Such information system may include important stakeholders like mentors, teachers and parents, each providing necessary guidance and supervision. The student pulls knowledge, while the rest facilitate and spur his learning. We are moving into another paradigm that we may call ‘student self-service’.

Student self-service I generalise that at the initial age, student learning is driven by curiosity and later by a mission. In each of the states of mind, the role of parenting and teaching is subtly different. A child requires provocations to spur creativity, which in turn, would drive his curiosity. For an adolescent, a sense of mission and discipline is fenced by proper values.

The values come from society, family, and institution. The job of teaching is then that of regulation and facilita-

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pus ent Cam agem n Ma n

Ope

Pervasive

Assessment Lifecycle Management

tion. As long as a mission is instilled in the student, he can be left on his own to pace his learning, of course within the framework of regulation.

Learning technologies sensitive to student-driven learning on different frameworks of regulation are evolving.

It has already influenced campus management practices. Campus ERP is turning into systems where student avail services by themselves. The services are governed by policies set by the campus.

For example, a student can opt for an optional course online, pay the fees in installments, book a room in the hostel, subscribe to books in library, and even choose his food menu from the cafeteria – all online. On the academics side, he or his parents can make an appointment with the teacher or even schedule his exams based on his preparation. Here, we are looking at a campus which is managed by policies, and students are empowered to plan their learning and time without the physical intervention of any administrative staff.

Campus 2013 and beyond We first saw that the campus today is not confined to any boundary. With

nt ng rni eme a Le nag Ma Socialized

social media and Web 2.0, much of the student learning and networking happens online. Campuses need to embrace this reality. There would scarcely be a difference between campus education and distance education. Campuses should redefine their learning management system. It should run on a social media platform and not be confined to the campus. Assessment should become formative, with the only purpose to explore the student’s mind and instill what he learns best. It should be used as a method to spur a learning habit.

Assessments need to be conducted frequently and may even be personalised to the student. Today, there are assessment technologies to do this scientifically. Students would be empowered to choose their path of learning but with well-designed policies. The student should feel a mission and smoothly walk his way in the campus, without the intervention of any administrative staff.

The campus should define a catalogue of services, both in academics and facilities, which the student can choose in a self-service fashion. That is the campus of tomorrow. That is where we are headed, thanks to technology.

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