Annual Special Issue : January 2010 Issue

Annual Special Issue the Monthly publication on ict and education

digitalLEARNING

0 INDIA

Volume 6 issue 1

issn 0973-4139

th

6

Year of

Publication

Rs. 75

january 2010 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

• Amit Gupta • Asha Kanwar • Atul Sabnis • Jasvinder Singh • Latha Pillai • Madan Padaki • Rohit Pande • Sam Carlson • Srikanth Iyer • S S Jena • Stephen A. Dukker • Sunita Joshi • Sushma Berlia • V N Rajasekharan Pillai

50th issue special Volume 6 issue 1

digitalLEARNING

issn 0973-4139

rni no. upeng/2008/25311

Contents

event report

6

eASiA 2009: Deliberations, Dialogues, Debates and Knowledge Sharing in ICT4D

16

21

25

28

34

erajasthan report: Voicing Regional Concerns of Stakeholders in ICT

36 40

eRajasthan Awards

38

commentary

14

The Mouse has Eaten the CAT

development agenda

corporate diary

25

Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

42

Jasvinder Singh, ceo, Wordsworth elt (P) Ltd., Actuniv Group Company

28

Sam Carlson, Lead Education Specialist, World Bank

44

Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Learning Systems

Higher education

46

32

Prof. Latha Pillai, Pro Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University

Amit Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, S.Chand Harcourt (India) Pvt. Ltd.

48

34

Sunita Joshi, Director JIL Information Technology Ltd

Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University

52

Srikanth Iyer, COO, Manipal K-12 Education

36

Sushma Berlia, President, Apeejay Stya & Svran Group

54

Stephen A. Dukker, Chairman and CEO, NComputing

school track

56

Atul Sabnis, Director, Strategic Initiatives of LearningMate

38

Dr. S S Jena, Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)

50

my journey

Report: Revolutionising School Education in India

40

Madan Padaki, Co-Founder & CEO, MeritTrac Services Pvt.Ltd

57

case study: Digital Innovations: the next way to teach

digital LEARNING

january 2010

editorial

50th issue special

2010: Education Reforms in Waiting Advisory Board Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global eSchools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) Shri Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Department School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira GandhiI National Open University (IGNOU)

President Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ravi Gupta Research Analyst Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar Research Associate Sheena Joseph Research Assistant Yukti Pahwa Dy. General Manager - Marketing Siddharth Verma Sales Executive Ankur Agarwal +91-9313998750 ankur@digitallearning.in Subscription & Circulation Lipika Dutta +91-9871481708 Manoj Kumar +91-9891752931 subscription@elets.in Sr Graphic Designer Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designer Om Prakash Thakur Web Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal Editorial & Marketing Correspondence

With this issue, the digital LEARNING magazine is completing 50 issues. This is a unique feat. With this, we have become perhaps the first magazine in entire Asia, Middle East and Africa to have completed 5 years of uninterrupted print magazine publication on ICT in Education. We would like to thank all the people who have supported us: our authors, advertisers, governments, private sector, academia and civil society, and last but not the least, our readers, who have provided us their unstinted encouragement and support.

The Education scenario in India was the focus of attention of everyone in last year. With the arrival of Kapil Sibal as the Minister of HRD in the Government of India, fresh winds of change have been felt. Liberalisation of higher education for the foreign universities, changes in norms for opening new colleges and institutions, relook at the functioning of CBSE etc have been some of the important agenda items for the new minister. On another front, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has been spearheading the skill development initiative which has become an issue of national importance thanks to the massive population growth and the danger of having large scale unemployment in the country.

The education sector in India remained more or less unscathed by the global economic downturn of 2009. The private sector investment in education at levels continued to increase. Although there are legal hurdles in India on private investment in education, still the investment in happening through circuitous routes and government needs to allow private sector investment in this major area of society to let it grow with more speed.

The government is significantly increasing its investment in the education sector.

That is the good news. The bad news is that without proper human resource practices, proper monitoring and evaluation, most of the money is going down the drain. In many government schools across the country the number of officially employed teachers is more than the number of students enrolled there. In an interview in the magazine in this issue the World Bank expert on education perhaps rightly says that teachers in government schools should only be employed on contract.

On the other hand, there are several entrepreneurs all around the country who are running schools on their own, without any support from the government. The whole licensing system for schools needs major reform as it has become a hindrance to the growth of private sector initiative in the education.

Similar issues are faced in Higher Education where according to a statement of the government in Lok Sabha last year over 2.64 lakh students, who have gone abroad for studies, are spending approximately $5.5 billion (about Rs 27,000 crore) every year. This is an absolute shame and there is an urgent need for creating an ecosystem for private sector entry into the higher education. Just imagine the infrastructure and employment boost that will get created if all this money is spent here in India.

digitalLearning G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA 201301, India Phone: +91 120 2502181-85 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@digitalLearning.in

Everyone is looking at 2010 for the big ticket reforms in education from the government.

Will the Manmohan Singh – Kapil Sibal combo be able to deliver or will they just pay lip service to these issues is still to be seen.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year 2010 and a great decade ahead!

digitalLEARNING is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS).

Owner, Publisher, Printer - Ravi Gupta Printed at Vinayak Print Media D-320, Sector 10, Noida, U.P. and published from 710, Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50, Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

www.digitalLEARNING.in

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

event report

50th issue special ASIA

2009

Asia's Premier ICT Event

eASiA 2009: Deliberations, Dialogues, Debates and Knowledge Sharing in ICT4D 2-4 December 2009, Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo, Sri Lanka www.e-Asia.org INAUGURAl session eASiA is the annual International Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) event with the objective of reinforcing technology and knowledge-centric growth and needs of Asia vis-à-vis globe, through capitalisation of market economy and boosting human development.

The eASiA 2009, with a thrust on ‘Opportunities for Digital Asia’, provided the right opportunity for all stakeholders in the ICT arena to come closer and share a level-playing ground through active conferencing and networking.

Ushering in a new wave of technology in development, the eASiA 2009 Conference and Exhibition witnessed a three days of active conferencing and exhibition with ground breaking discussions on various issues of ICT4D, new and emerging technology in strengthening the various developmental models for a progressive society, standards and measures, various strategic policy frameworks, the pressing

issues in the region and need for a richness of enablers. e-Asia 2009 was held between December 2 and December 4 2009, at Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. The event brought together all the stakeholders including thought leaders, industry players, policy makers, Community of Practices spurred by their necessity, common purpose, enthusiasm and collaboration.

The event marked a need for a grand vision to manage the changes in the eeducation progress level, changes in the technology developments, and changes in the surrounding environment where technology needed to be integrated.

The three-day conference was coorganised by joint efforts of Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), Elets Technomedia, Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA), Sri Lanka and Presidential Secretariat, Government of Sri Lanka.

Centre for Science, Development and

HE Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka delivering his Keynote Address at the opening ceremony of eASiA 2009 in Colombo

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HE Mahinda Rajapaksa (centre); Dr Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, CSDMS; and Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS inaugurating eASiA 2009

Media Studies (CSDMS), a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in e-Government, ICT for Development and knowledge management issues through capacity building and media initiatives. Elets technomedia is a media and events company mandated to provide effective information on different media and ICT tools and their stake in solving social problems through premiere print publications, online portals and premier events like seminars, conferences and summits. Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka, which is the single apex body involved in ICT policy and direction for the nation.

Wholly owned by the Government of Sri Lanka, ICTA is the implementing organisation of the e-Sri Lanka Initiative.

The vision of ICTA is to harness ICT as a lever for economic and social advancement by taking the dividends of ICT to every village, to every citizen, to every business and to re-engineer the way government thinks and works. The organisations worked together to enable

50th issue special all the stakeholders to come together for briefing all about the opportunities available presently in field of Information and Communication technology.

With five seminal and parallel tracks including eGov, Digital Learning, eHealth, Telecentre Forum and Emerging eTechnologies, the three-day conference cum exhibition was attended by more than 3,000 delegates from 30 countries across globe, including a 300-strong group of IT professionals from the host country, Sri Lanka. The eASiA 2009 exhibition witnessed more than 30,000 footfalls across all the three days.

First day of the conference saw a grand inaugural ceremony consisting of launch by the Honourable President of Sri Lanka, HE Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The ceremony was followed by plenary sessions consisting of eminent experts, commenting on importance and advancements of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in fields of Learning, Governance, Health and Telecentre Forum, in addition to Emerging e-Technologies. These people consisted of Suren Amarasekara, CEO Mobitel, Sri Lanka; Jaewon Kim, Deputy General Manager, Samsung Networks Inc.; Ng Fook Seng, SVP Security Business Asia, Gemalto; Par Botes, CTO APAC & Japan, EMC; Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, VP, WiMAX Forum; Dr. Xuan Zengpei, Director ICT & DRR Division UNESCAP; Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, Founder, Chairman & CEO, WSO2 Inc., Founder, Director & Chief Scientist, Lanka Software Foundation; Florencio Cebellos, telecentre.org, International Development Research Centre, Canada; Bash Badawi, Government Industry Technology Strategist, Public Sector, Microsoft APAC; Kevin North, Business Development Executive, IBM Global Technology Services AP Public Sector Business; Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO GeSCI, Ireland; HE Prof. J.B. Dissanayaka, Ambassador for Sri Lanka in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos PDR; and Md. Abdul Karim, Honourable Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Delivering the keynote address at eASiA 2009, post grand inauguration, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa averred that Sri Lanka is moving ahead in ICT literacy with national IT literacy crossing the level of 30 % in comparison to 4% in 2004 and assured that the Government was committed to ensure that it goes up to 60% by 2012.

Rajapaksa said: ICT is the future driving force of economies. It is the tool and the

enabler that will push the boundaries of the future. Such interactions will positively socio-economic development in countries contribute to the progress of the entire such as Sri Lanka. It is with this aim that Asian region. There has never been this Sri Lanka has given priority to ICT, and much commitment and focus for ICT led mainstreamed ICT in all its development development.” activities. It is in this regard that Sri Lanka The day one ended with a Gala Night firmly pushes ahead with pioneering Celebration! initiatives such as e-Sri Lanka.

He underlined that these efforts have THE DIGITAL LEARNING ASIA resulted in numerous achievements and 2009 SESSIONS: PERSPECTIVES ON successes in the field of ICT in Sri Lanka, ICT ENABLED LEARNING given the fact that country’s percentage ranking in the Network Readiness Index Following the grand inauguration by has moved up from 72 to 53 in a span of the Honourable President of Sri Lanka, three years. Voicing his concern over the Mahinda Rajapaksa, the successive impact of Internet on young population of two days saw five parallel track the country, he cautioned, “Our children conferences, each having nine thought must be protected from the dangers in provoking sessions, in the domains the cyber space at any cost. Our culture of digitallEARNING, eHealth, eGov, also should not be harmed due to any Emerging e-Technologies and Asian advances in ICT. I am therefore appealing to all the Asian leaders to take precautions in this regard.”

He laid emphasis on the unmistakable need to urgently equip the people, especially the youth, with proficiency in the English language on the one side and Ashish Garg charing the session with the distinguished to provide them with speakers including Thushani A Weerasinghe, Dr Ravi K Mahajan, Mathias Hatakka and Prof. Robert Ramberg access to computers and internet facilities, through the rapid development of use of Telecentre Forum. The digitalLEARNING information technology, on the other. He track was spread over a period of two shared with the distinguished delegates days with a huge turnout and sought to that the government has successfully bring together experts and stakeholders implemented a unique network of from education sector working together ‘Telecentres’ known as the Nenasalas towards making optimum use of ICT for with over 600 centres He reiterated that profiting the associated beneficiaries.

ICT should be used as “ instruments of rural empowerment; as powerful tools SESSION I that could make each village in the country a meaningful part of the global The digitalLEARNING Asia was village.” He also said that the present declared open on December 3, 2009 Government recognises that “ICT is with its first session on the theme the only tool that will cross or break ‘Challenges: Planning, Managing, geographical barriers, social barriers and Standards and Quality in e-Learning’. reach out to the rural, disadvantaged and The session was chaired by Ms. Ashish vulnerable communities.”

Garg, the Asian Regional Coordinator for Dr. MP Narayanan, President, CSDMS Global e Schools & Communities Initiative. thanked the Honourable President, for The keynote speaker for the session Prof. gracing the occasion with his presence Robert Ramberg, Stockholm University, and the eminent dignitaries for their Sweden spoke on ‘Deterring Plagiarism: gracious participation; while expressing Assuming a pedagogical Approach.’ hope that the three day conference would He centered his talk around the need prove to be enriching and enlightening for addressing the issue of plagiarism experience for all participants. He said, encouraging students to know and “A conference of this nature gives understand what is expected to them. us further opportunities to share our He emphasised on the need to design experiences and harmonise our efforts for assessments and reliable means to digital LEARNING

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50th issue special

Audience intrigued by presentation in one of the sessions of digital LEARNING Asia track

methodology. He highlighted the three major design guidelines to design OLEs for learner satisfaction and learning effectiveness – a) structure and organised learning content; b) present content with multimedia; and c) designed teacherstudent interactions.

Session 1: Keynote speaker Prof. Robert Ramberg addressing the audience

discover cases of plagiarism.

Mathias Hatakka, from Örebro University, Sweden spoke on ‘A Model for a Learning Object Repository Metadata Set.’ He spoke about the metadata model that is based on need analysis for University of Colombo, School of Computing (UCSC). He highlighted on the need to have a metadata designed to optimise re-usability, searchability and user-friendliness for content stored in a learning object repository. Dr. Ravi K Mahajan, University School of Open Learning, Panjab University, India, spoke on ‘Students’ Perception or Teachers’ Profile: What restrains eLearning?’ He based his talk on highlighting the issues that restrain the growth of eLearning.

His presentation mainly focused on two empirical studies: a) mapping students’ perception on their `preferred mode of study’ with special reference to e-Learning; and b) Teachers’ profile with special reference to gauge their potential in harnessing ICT components.

Thushani A. Weerasinghe, Stockholm University, Sweden spoke on ‘Guidelines to Design Successful Online Learning Environments.’ He emphasised that design of an Online Learning Environment (OLE) can influence the success of the programme it would deliver. Therefore, it is important to design it with appropriate

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SESSION II The session ‘e-Learning in Classroom: Process, Pedagogy, and the Opportunities’ was chaired by Dr. Latha Pillai, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India.

This session included Col. K J Singh Kang, Director, Designmate, speaking on ‘Innovating through Content’; Manish Sharma, Vice President Marketing, APAC, Ncomputing, presenting on ‘Innovating through technology’; and S. Rajeev, Vice President, Strategic Alliance, Everonn, presenting on ‘Innovating through Connectivity and Content’.

While each of the industry leaders in the session spoke about the specific features of their respective products, they also emphasised on the need for a National vision on ICT and education with an articulated role of the eLearning industry.

SESSION III The session on ‘Opportunities: Moving forward in e-Learning’ was chaired Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global e Schools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI), Dublin, Ireland. The keynote address was given by Prof. Jeff Haywood, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, on ‘Scanning the Horizon of Digital Learning: Options for the Future’. He shared that last 20 years have brought enormous technological opportunities and challenges to all levels

of education. He then briefly reviewed the progress in digital learning and stressed that the various technologies available should be adopted more importantly their pedagogical potential. Adrian Hall, Okapi Consultancy Ltd, United Kingdom made his presentation on ‘New Technological Applications to Enhance Teaching and Learning.’ He talked about the work undertaken within the UK education system to embrace the usage of ICT teaching and learning to engage and motivate students through the use of a range of new technological tools and applications.

Isuru Wimalasundera, Informatics Institute of Technology, Sri Lanka, talked about ‘MATHVIS’, which is a researched and developed software application that is capable of uplifting the educational background of visually impaired children. Damitha Sandaruwan, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘A Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education’. He shared with the audience his views on the development of a simulation system for maritime education which simulates six degrees of freedom ship motions under different conditions.

SESSION IV The session ‘e-Learning in Higher Education and Professional Development’ was chaired by Dr. Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, CSDMS. The Keynote address for the session was given by Dr Gihan Wickramanayake, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka on ‘Effectiveness of Online learning in Sri Lanka’ with emphasis on the use of commercial and institutionally developed Learning Management Systems (LMS), that produce virtual learning environments for the students. However, these environments are exploited mostly through teacher centric study centres.

Trisha Dowerah Baruah, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, India spoke on ‘Effectiveness of ICT in Enhancing the Learner Support Services in Open and Distance learning.’ She shared a regional case study of Assam on the use of ICT in providing learner support services in Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU), the premier open university of India. K. M. G. B. Nishakumari, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom presented on ‘Effective Strategies to Motivate Students in Online Discussion Fora. The highlight of her presentation was that

50th issue special the lack of student motivation to actively participate in online courses affected all types of online learning. She called for a need to identify and use different learning strategies in activities to promote motivation for student engagement. T.C. Sandanayake, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka spoke on ‘Emotional Reactions of Undergraduate in Digital Learning Environment.’

She analysed the learner’s emotional condition during the introductory session of online learning into the course study by sharing the results of an empirical study conducted by her. The highlight of her presentation was to show that learner motivation factor would enhance the seamless integration of digital content in to the conventional face to face session.

SESSION V The session ‘Empowering and Enabling’ was chaired by Rajen Varada, Resource Person, ICT for Development Community, UN Solution Exchange, India. The Keynote speaker for the session was Greg Young, CEO Sri Lanka Telecom, who spoke about ‘Enabling Digital Education via next Generation Networks.’ He spoke about bridging the digital divide between people through connectivity (broadband, reliable sources, affordable connectivity and ICT diffusion); and education (technology to be used in schools, for teacher training and providing opportunities beyond classrooms). Dr. Vikum Senanayaka, Country Manager, Oracle, spoke on ‘Cloud Computing for Distance Education.’ He discussed that there are five drivers for distance education – economic, social personal, global and infrastructural. He defined for the audience, cloud computing with discussion on ‘Hype Cycle of emerging technologies’, service and deployment model and Oracle’s Cloud Computing objectives, strategies and offerings to the Educational community. The session also marked the end of the day.

SESSION VI The session six themed ‘e-Learning in Secondary Education and Community Development’ was chaired by Dr. Shironika Karunaratne, Open University of Sri Lanka. The Keynote address was delivered by Dr Henrik Hansson, Stockholm University of Sweden on ‘Technology Enhanced Learning, Teaching and Validation of the Scientific Process and Outcomes – Sci-Pro.’ He highlighted that the major challenge in the 10

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process of learning is boredom and one developing countries are benefiting from of the suggested ways of overcoming ICT exports and there is room for new it is ‘engaging and motivating’ the entrants, b) broadband contributes to students. He gave an interesting growth and opens up new opportunities, example of how use of web games can for which it deserves a central role enhance the children’s interest regarding in development strategies, c) Publicmathematics. He emphasised the use private partnerships can leverage the of pictures, especially of the role models with illustrations of their work to make memorising process fruitful. Following Dr. Hansson spoke Dr. K.Nachimuthu from Periyar University, Tamilnadu, India on ‘ICT Enabled Teaching and Learning in Teacher Educators Enosha Hettiarachchi, Prof. Brian Hudson, Prof. M M Pant, of Tamil Nadu.’ Dr Gihan Wickramanayake and RVSPK Ranatunga He highlighted the importance of teacher education and private sector to meet ICT infrastructure shared various productive ways for development objectives, d) Cross-sector teacher training. Withanage Chaminda leadership and institutions are essential Priyashantha, University of Colombo to realise the benefits from investing in School of Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on e-government, e) Public interventions to ‘SCHOOLNET: Impact on Learning and promote IT and IT-enabled services can Teaching’ by sharing that SCHOOLNET is be good investments irrespective of the a network connecting secondary schools success of the IT initiatives. in Sri Lanka, working with support and effective use of the ICT (particularly the SESSION VIII Internet). P D Ariyadewa, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka The session ‘Certification: Role spoke on ‘Deploying and Managing of Assessments in e-Learning’ was Techno-Social Network for OLPC.’ His chaired by Dr. Gihan Wickramanayake. presentation mainly covered the five core The keynote address on ‘Educational principles – child ownership, low ages, Design to Support Technology Enhanced saturation, connection and free and open Assessment for Learning in Higher source software.

Education’ was delivered by Professor Brian Hudson, Dundee (UK) and UMEA SESSION VII (Sweden). He examined the technology enhanced assessment for learning from The session set the launch of ICT4D an educational design perspective, which Report for Asia by The World Bank. The drew on traditions within the applied session was chaired by Reshan Dewapura, educational sciences and from distance COO, Information and Communication education theory. R V S P K Ranatunga, Technology Agency (ICTA), Sri Lanka. University of Colombo School of The sectoral trends were floored in Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘An the session and it was highlighted Integrated Framework for Detecting through graphical representations that Plagiarism in eLearning Systems.’ convergence is already a widespread He proposed a framework that could and market driven reality. The panelist of accelerate and improve the efficiency of the session included Ashis Sanyal, Senior the human plagiarism detecting process Director, Department of Information called the Machine Assisted Plagiarism Technology, Government of India; Tenzin Detection System (MAPDetect). The Norbhu, Senior ICT Policy Specialist, The user is the final decision maker in such a World Bank; Priyantha Kariyapperuma, system. Prof. M M Pant, Former Pro Vice Director General of Telecommunications, Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open Telecommunications Regulatory University, India, deliberated on ‘eLearning Commission of Sri Lanka; Oleg Petrov, Assessment: Emerging Challenges Coordinator, e-Development Thematic and Opportunities by comparing Group, The World Bank ; and so on. the traditional and transformational The highlight of the report was that a) learning metrics. He also highlighted

50th issue special on the need for generic skills needed in future. He pointed out at various ideas such as GPS model of assessment, Fuzzy assessment of techniques, Data mining and Warehousing for learner assessment, eLearnability Quotient, and Knowledge Economy Readiness Index. Enosha Hettiarachchi, University of Colombo School of Computing spoke on ‘SCORM Based Online Assessment Objects for Computing Skill Evaluation.’

She described the meaning and stages of assessment – formative and summative. She discussed the features of eAssessment objects to be consisting of randomisation, monitoring interactivity and output. Peter Muessig-Trapp, Head of Information Systems and Open Source, Higher Education Information System Agency (HIS) spoke about the ‘Use of Information and Statistics in Higher Education Policy Planning’. He highlighted the Hochschul-InformationsSystem GmbH Higher Education Information System and eduSTORE (the open source data warehouse).

SESSION IX The final session of the DigitalLearning track was chaired by Dr. A. R. Ariyaratna, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. The session theme was ‘Path in “Education for All”.’ The keynote address on ‘Changes in the learning process and the impact on education’ was delivered by Bert Geers, Delft University, Netherlands.

He spoke about the resource learning process, traditional teaching process, re-orientation of the training approach, non-linear learning process, elearning environment and impact, traditional and e-Library, role of IT policy and integration of the ICT in learning. Peter Mozelius, Stockholm University, Sweden, spoke on ‘eNOSHA - Design and Development of a Learning Object Repository.’ He emphasised on the importance of building a constructive environment connecting all stakeholders in the content development process.

He discussed eNOSHA Open Source with regard to three key concepts - flexibility, reusability and userfriendliness. Niranjan Meegammana, Shilpa Sayura Foundation, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘Knowledge outside class rooms: Wisdom of Rural Sri Lanka.’

He shared with the audience that there are 150 rural Nenasalas in Sri Lanka using the Shilpa Sayura Local Language e-Learning platform. The foundation facilitates self-learning for the National Curriculum helping over nine thousand rural youth learning outside classrooms

and improving their knowledge.He mentioned that Shilpa Sayura and the Nenasala telecentre system demonstrate the importance of “Knowledge outside classrooms” as an emerging social education model enabled by Local elearning. The final talk was delivered by Ms. Ashish Garg on the ‘Role of ICT in fulfilling the objectives of ‘Education for All.’ She mentioned that ‘Education for All’ is one of the ambitious but realisable goals of the eight identified Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

She discussed the impact of ICT in Education and limitations of the current research being done by stakeholders.

VALEDICTORY SESSION Near the end of the event, the valedictory session saw closing remarks from the eminent speakers including Dr. Ravi Gupta, Mr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, Ashis Sanyal, Dr. MP Narayanan, Reshan Dewapura, Hatem El Kadi, Attique Ahmad, Anir Chaudhary and Dr. I H K Mahanama. The track chairs of all the track conferences gave a brief account of their respective tracks. The conference was well attended by more than 3,000 delegates across all the three days. The footfalls in the exhibition were more than 30,000. The conference certainly helped in generating businesses, collaborative partnerships, and institutional alliance amongst the various stakeholder participants. Many comments regarding

Harsha Wijewardana, Telecentre Forum Asia Trach Chair, summing up his track

issues and ideas away from theory. The sessions were very enduring and indeed, thank you very much for arranging this conference!” India’s Department of Information Technology Senior Technical Director Ashis Sanyal said, “I have attended all the e-India and all the e-Asia conferences and exhibitions. I say that from all aspects including hospitality from the security personnel at the entrance to the head table e-Asia 2009 is by far the best”. Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies President M. P. Narayanan said that e-Asia 2009 did not end with the final session but would continue through other modes such as e-conversations, the Internet and e-Conferences. Delegates from Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Pakistan, and Portugal etc. too were full of plaudits for e-Asia 2009. The valedictory session marked the end of the three day saga of the Asia’s Premier ICT event. The Valedictory session was concluded with the promise that discussions, debates and issues emerged in the

From right to left: Dr. Ravi Gupta, Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, Ashis Sanyal, Dr. MP Narayanan, Reshan Dewapura, Hatem El Kadi, Attique Ahmad, Anir Chaudhary and Dr. IHK Mahanama

the three day conference were shared by the speakers and the audience. Mr. Mathias Hatakka from audience said that the conference was “enjoyable, had practical sessions where we discussed

eASiA 2009 would be carried forward and deliberated upon at eINDIA 2010, Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad, India from August 4-6, 2009. \\ digital LEARNING

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Exhibition Asia's Premier ICT Event

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commentary

50th issue special

The Mouse has Eaten the CAT The recent issue on education that has grabbed most of the newspapers’ headlines and shaken the confidence of the aspiring management gurus of the future is the disruption of the online Common Admission Test (CAT) organised by the 7 Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) across the country resulting in a partial erosion of the credibility of the test as a whole. In spite of its failure, the new online model is a mega initiative possibly leading to a transparent e-governance system emerging in the education system.

Every year a large number of students opt for the test to get admission in the prestigious B-Schools in India including IIMs in their zeal to pursue a promising career for themselves, primarily in the corporate sector, both nationally as well as globally. Millions of students aspiring to clear the test go through tremendous and rigorous hard work and labour for months spending a substantial amount of money on tuitions and other preparatory work. The decision of the IIMs to move from the traditional three-decade old paper and pencil method of selection of candidates for 3,000-odd seats to the computer-based method is revolutionary in more ways. Computer-based testing is believed to have a transformative impact on education by expanding access, enhancing test development process, and producing results, which are representative of the capabilities of the test administrators.

The test, for the first time, had been organised and administered online and had been plagued by server crash on the first three days of the overall 10 days test scheduled between November 28 and December 7, 2009, with more than 2,40,000 candidates competing across 104 locations in 32 cities in India.

The process of organising the test was outsourced via a $40-million contract to Prometric, a renowned US firm with acclaimed expertise in the field. After the all-round disappointment, Prometric declared that two viruses — Conflicker 14

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File photo: IIM, Ahmedabad

Computer-based testing is believed to have a transformative impact on education by expanding access, enhancing test development process, and producing results, which are representative of the capabilities of the test administrators.

50th issue special and W32.Nimda - had crippled the systems of several test centres leading to the systems crashing. More than 18 per cent of the total applicants were prevented from completing their test. Though presently a failure, the transformation from the conventional paper and pencil method to the online method is an appreciable effort

The online CAT exam is the first baby step in application of IT beyond the private sector and will also help build a database of applicants, over years, and correlate the performance levels of successful applicants and their actual performance at IIMs.

PRESSING CONCERNS

held across the world in a staggered manner enabling users to take the test at their convenience. The backup operations for the online examination systems need to be in place. However, the online CAT exam is the first baby step in application of IT beyond the private sector and will also help build a database of applicants, over years, and correlate the performance levels of successful applicants and their actual performance at IIMs.

Experts had expressed their concerns that the test at the large scale format should be launched only after the students had enough exposure in the matter. Inadequate preparations and insufficient planning by the organisers while setting up and implementing the process is one of the instrumental factors in the entire event.

Organisations in the field of conducting online courses and tests are of the opinion that perhaps Prometric was not adequately prepared to handle the load of a large number of candidates on its servers. However, the CAT experience certainly underlines the importance of protecting the systems against viruses.

This has also brought forth the claims under question by leading anti-virus companies that they can protect any programme against virus attacks. The recent episode entails that no computer

WHAT CAN BE DONE According to experts, these cases point to a remarkable degree of determination on the part of US law enforcement to pursue wrongdoers. “It is not as if there are no cases in which they had not shown such zeal. Even then, a few convictions in court make a lot of difference to a worsening situation on the cyber crime front. It is this kind of enthusiasm that I

which determine the fate of hundreds of thousands of children, adequate safeguards be built to protect the interests of the students. “The technology for online testing is very stable.” Pande adds.

LESSONS FOR B-SCHOOLS After the confusion around the Common Admission Test (CAT), other management institutes are taking no chances with their online tests. According to the institutes the plan is to have a mock test at least a month before the actual test. The institute will work with approved testing agencies having trained and certified test administrators at every centre to enhance the quality of exam taking for a large number of candidates by providing them an improved testing environment.

Undeniably, the online CAT examination was initiated with the right intent and has set the right and progressive direction in the history of education, keeping the increasing CAT aspirant population in the age of new emerging and innovative technology.

THE REQUIREMENTS

system is one hundred per cent proof against virus attacks.

Instead of channelising the blame to the US firm and then to the viruses, the systemic structure back home is also partially responsible for the entire crisis.

Though a lot of international online tests like the GRE have been online for a while, it is a lot more complicated when it comes to doing something similar in India. CAT is executed within a short timeframe for all candidates, while the GRE is

would like to see in India,” says Madan Padaki, Co-Founder and CEO, MeritTrac.

He recommended 5 core pieces that need to be addressed when conducting online testing: a) Developing the testing software for India; b) Conducting extensive “dryruns,” c) Trained proctors at test centres, d) Being accessible to applicants, e) Robust Project Management According to Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Learning Systems, for high stake tests such as the CAT

The education system needs a fullfledged e-governance system that goes beyond handling online admissions, generating fee bills to recording attendance and posting results. The country needs to graduate to a seamless system of education that offers relevant and most up-to-date content and allows mobility of students across streams, across colleges and above all inclusion of those who have no access to education.

Additionally, tremendous training of the selected staff, proper equipping of the various examination centers and effective coordination of the exam are the three basic steps that are most imperative for implementing e-governance properly in the widely dispersed education scenario of our country. Such an efficient egovernance system will ultimately pave way for the inclusion of even those unfortunate childhoods, which are now kept far away from the main stream. \\ digital LEARNING

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event report

50th issue special

RAJASTHAN SUMMIT

Voicing Regional Concerns of Stakeholders in ICT eRajasthan Summit, 18th December, 2009, Four Points by Sheraton, Jaipur

www.eINDIA.net.in/eRajasthan Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) along with Department of IT, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India, National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), Government of India, as Co-organisers, launched the e-Rajasthan Summit, in association with UN Solution Exchange, Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) as supporting partners.

The spotlight was put on Rajasthan initiatives and efforts in bringing about a digitally inclusive society. It highlighted the role of ICTs playing the harbinger of a silent revolution in obscure towns and villages, of acknowledging the efforts and addressing the challenges, and of bringing all stakeholders with common concerns into one platform, the eRajasthan platform.

The one-day eRajasthan Summit aimed at active knowledge sharing, showcasing of existing e-Education, eHealth, eAgriculture, Telecentre, eGovernance and Municipal IT initiatives in the state, deliberated on the way forward, and sought to provide a platform to exchange ideas and promote capacity building.

After the welcome note, Dr Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, CSDMS and Convener, eRajasthan 2009, provided an overview of the efforts of CSDMS in bringing ICTs closer to the masses. He reiterated that the efforts of CSDMS have consistently been focused on making ICTs more valuable and have delved deeper into finding out ways and means on how ICTs can have an enriching and socially relevant role in society. After having established its reach in the major metros through eINDIA, CSDMS has now proposed to go local through the eRajasthan Summit.

In his inaugural address, Shri Vipin Chandra Sharma, Principal Secretary, Technical Education, Government of Rajasthan, spoke about the value and importance of ICTs in all spheres of development and governance. Economic development, he said, is propelled by 16

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the incorporation of technology and advancements and has contributed tremendously towards creating citizen friendly services. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and several other schemes have promoted social security and livelihood for the rural poor.

Land records computerization project in Rajasthan has been a commendable effort that has been implemented at the grass roots. It has proved to be a boon for the villager, citizen, and government revenue officials. Thus the State of Rajasthan has and will be using the tremendous ICT potential to move ahead in the development agenda.

Dr Sanjay Tyagi, Centre Head and Additional Director, STPI, Jaipur, emphasised on the potential of smaller cities like Jaipur to use and exploit the ICT potential to transform the State of Rajasthan into a development hub.

According to him, Rajasthan needs to recognize its strengths and weaknesses and act on it to address key concerns.

Rajasthan has tremendous potential in eGovernance and other domains. It is for the state government to be willing to exploit these potential and achieve new heights for the state.

Dr S N Ambedkar, Regional Director, Indira Gandhi National Open University Regional Centre, Rajasthan, stated that the state has a literacy rate of only 60%. Some of the reasons for the same include: Rajasthan’s population density of 165/ km2 which is half that of the national average of 313/ km2; Climate conditions and lack of transport infrastructure; and girls from traditional families with cultural restrictions who are not allowed to go to college in another city/town. One of the ways to meet the needs of the people, especially women in the state of Rajasthan is distance education delivered through ICT. Ashish Garg, Asia Regional Coordinator, Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) highlighted the role of GeSCI in providing equitable access to knowledge, and the ability and capacity to create and share knowledge for society’s overall development. GeSCI’s work has been guided by the principle of knowledge building and sharing – a principle that helps developing countries build their own knowledge and innovation institutions and structures.

Keynote address by Shri Vipin Chandra Sharma, Principal Secretary, Technical Education, Government of Rajasthan

“I am into a world of exploration�

“I get continous feedback on my assessments� “Its an enriching experience�

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“The world is our classroom�

“Its limitless learning�

50th issue special Dr Ravi Gupta was of the opinion that the mind of the learner needs to be explored to incorporate specific needs of the target group into education.

Technology in education is important but at the same time, it is important to understand the learners’ mind.

The Right to Education Bill is an important milestone, although the actualization of the Panelist at the School Education Session: (From Left) M objectives of the same D Shivankar, Safeena Hussain, Ashish Garg, Dr Manju is of great significance.

Gupta, Nitesh Mathur and Dr Ravi Gupta Implementation of education policies in all states requires School Education understanding of regional biases and Integrated Use of ICT in preferences. It has to be need specific and location specific. Sharing and Education Pedagogy: The dissemination of knowledge requires Blended Learning Approach The objective of the School Education understanding of the local ethos and was to deliberate on ways to integrate customs. technology in the education pedagogy to Manju Gupta reiterated the commendmake it more inclusive and participatory able work being done by NIOS in using for students. The participants in the technology for educating the students. panel discussion included: The Distance Education Programme is Chair: Ashish Garg, Asia Regional engaged in capacity building of educaCoordinator, Global eSchools and tional institutes in all states, such as State Communities Initiative (GeSCI) Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs), District Institutes of Panelists: Dr Ravi Gupta, Director, CSDMS; Safeena Hussain, Executive Education and Training (DIETs) etc. with Director, Foundation to Educate Girls; the objective of improving quality of eduDr Manju Gupta, Regional Director, cation at the elementary level by evolvNIOS Regional Centre, Rajasthan; ing strategies for continuous training of Nitesh Mathur, Project Manager, teachers and other functionaries.

Networking Academy, CISCO; M D M D Shivankar explained the role of Sivankar, Managing Director, Rajasthan RKCL in creating a network of training Knowledge Corporation Limited. centres in order to address the capacity building requirements. They have trained Key Discussion Outcomes more than 50000 people and has 10 Program Support Agencies and a network Ashish Garg opened the session of 1370 computer centers, named as IT by highlighting the glaring need for Gyan Kendra (IT-GK) which are fulfilling incorporating and addressing region the motive of spreading IT literacy across specific requirements in education. the state.

Rajasthan has a history of knowledge for According to Nitesh Mathur, the production. Need for inclusive education Internet and education are the great is a crucial agenda which needs to be equalizers of the next century, creating taken up on an urgent basis. enormous opportunities for people and According to Safeena Husain, countries that succeed in harnessing the reforming the existing education system power of information and knowledge. The to bridge the gap between the education advent of globalization, has juxtaposed being imparted in private schools and the prowess in IT with strong educational government schools is important. The system and networks for bringing about need is to work with local governments an ICT revolution. and parents in order to promote a Higher Education feeling of community ownership towards education. The objective has to be to Restructuring the make the schools work for girls and to Education Agenda to Make ensure that no school-age girl is out of it Digitally Inclusive school.

The objective of the session was to 18

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deliberate on the new practices that can be assimilated to ensure that students get better and affordable access to higher education. The participants at the panel discussion included: Chair: Dr S N Ambedkar, Regional Director, IGNOU Regional Centre, Rajasthan Panelists: A M Thimmiya, Member of Academic Senate, DDE, Sikkim Manipal University; Prof. Nutan Bharti, Educational Technology Department, NIIT University, Rajasthan; Dr Sharad Sinha, RIE, NCERT, Ajmer, Rajasthan; RC Chhipa, Coordinator, Doctoral Guidance Committee, SGVU, Jaipur; Anand Mani Shandilya, Manager, Morarka Foundation Key Discussion Outcomes Dr Ambedkar highlighted that the national agenda seeks to increase the present situation of enrollment into higher education to 11%. Access to higher education and quality content is important. Open courses provide an effective platform for learners, especially in states like Rajasthan, where the geographical terrain is a major factor.

Inclusion as a concept goes beyond just providing access to distance learning.

Dr Sinha highlighted that the regional centres at Ajmer have courses for capacity building and teacher education. The CII Macinkesy report has said that only 65% of the Indian graduates are employable.

Skills training is the need of the hour.

R C Chippa highlighted that by leveraging on ICT, it is possible to teach better to a wider audience, thereby breaking the geographical barriers.

Anand Mani Shandilya stated that the Morarka Foundation seeks to provide

Dr S N Ambedkar, Regional Director, IGNOU Regional Centre, Rajasthan, speaks at the Higher Education Session

50th issue special seamless, hassle free and low cost communication between the producers and consumers through an integrated IT-ICT platform has been developed, with great amount of cooperation and assistance from IT Service Providers.

A M Thimmiya highlighted the EduNxt initiative launched by Sikkim Manipal University’s Directorate of Distance Education which aims to provide students with a plethora of resources not possible in the existing physical mode so they learn through collaboration. This has been particularly useful in Rajasthan that has only 20 universities and is not able to cater to all prospective students.

According to Prof Nutan Bharti, there has always been a need to integrate technology into education. Synchronous Learning Technology allows students to be connected face-to-face with faculty from across the world.. IT can be used to add cognition and skills addition. eHealth Session Transforming Healthcare Services through ICT The objective of the session was to deliberate on the challenges, opportunities and success stories of Rajasthan in using ICT for healthcare.

The eHealth session participants included: Speakers: Group Cat. (Dr) Sanjeev Sood, Senior Medical Officer and Hospital Administrator, Indian Air Force, Jodhpur Prateem Tamboli, Deputy General Manager, Escorts Fortis Hospital, Jaipur Dr (Col) R K Chaturvedi, Executive Director, Bhagwan Mahavir Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Jaipur.

Key Discussion Outcomes Transforming health care through technology has reached a new era of promise. Through prompt and more accurate diagnosis, less invasive procedures and better treatment options, medical technology is rapidly altering the face of health care.

Dr Sood with his theme presentation focusing on latest advancements in use of ICTs in healthcare. Spoke about the need for a paradigm shift in mindset of clinicians in order to actualize the real success of eHealth. He urged the government to take proactive measures for encouraging the uptake of technology in public health institutions and leverage available ICT tools for addressing rural health services and continued medical education.

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From Left: NIC representative, M D Kaurani, Chief Information Commissioner, Rajasthan Information Commission; Dr Sanjay Tyagi, Centre Head and Additional Director, STPI, Jaipur; Arvind Sharma, Technical Director, NIC, Rajasthan, Pankaj Sharma, Manager, Morarka Foundation

Tamboli underlined the benefit of taking a holistic approach of IT in healthcare organisations. He held to the belief that a strong intent and commitment from senior management holds the key to success of any IT implementation.

Dr Chaturvedi talked about his stupendous work in using telemedicine for cancer treatment and oncology research.

Sharing his efforts in this direction, he highlighted the challenges faced for telemedicine practitioner in terms of the cost of connectivity and equipments, and the lack of sustainable business models for long term provisioning of such services. eGovernance eGovernance in Rajasthan: Vision and Strategies for the Future The objective of the session was to highlight the efforts being made in Rajasthan for the growth and development of IT and IT enabled services in the state with the objective of taking forward the development agenda. The participants at the session included: Moderator: Dr Sanjay Tyagi, Centre Head and Additional Director, STPI, Jaipur Speakers: Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Executive Director and MD, RajCOMP, Government of Rajasthan; M D Kaurani, Chief Information Commissioner, Rajasthan Information Commission; Arvind Sharma, Technical Director, NIC, Rajasthan, Pankaj Sharma, Manager, Morarka Foundation.

Key Discussion Outcomes The Government of Rajasthan has

identified IT and ITeS as a major thrust area for the growth and development of the state. It enunciated an IT policy for Rajasthan in the year 2000 for the first time and has come out with a new IT and ITeS policy for 2006-08.

The Department of Information Technology & Communications (DoIT & C) was established by the Government of Rajasthan in 1987 under the Planning Department with the key objectives of formulating IT policies, creating IT awareness and providing technical consultancy to the state government departments in their computerization activities.

Rajasthan State Agency for Computer Services (RajCOMP) was established as consultancy and project implementation agency in 1989, to cater to the increasing scope of application of IT in the Government Sector. e-Governance is a way for governments to leverage the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to provide people with convenient access and better quality of government information and services and to provide greater opportunities to participate in democratic institutions and processes.

The state of Rajasthan would benefit greatly from an overall enterprise IT strategy for achieving the collective business objectives of its departments.

An IT Strategy that is based on an overarching business strategy rather than separate, unaligned individual department strategies would allow executive department agencies, constitutional offices, the Legislature and the judicial branch to focus their energies and resources to enhance value and introduce cost-effective operations throughout the government. \\

erajasthan awards 50th issue special

RAJASTHAN AWARDS

eRajasthan Awards Felicitating initiatives in Rajasthan in the use of ICTs

The eRajasthan Awards was an integral part of the eRajasthan Summit instituted with the primary aim of felicitating and acknowledging regional initiatives in the use of ICT for Development.

The eRajasthan awards have been instrumental in promoting the most innovative initiatives in the domain of ICTs for Development and to spread awareness about the role of ICTs in addressing social concerns.

Details of the Award winners have been elaborated as below.

Digital Learning ICT Enabled School of the Year Jury Award Project: Computer Aided Teaching Implementer: Mahaveer Public School, Jaipur, Rajasthan

3639 The total

number of online voting received for eRajasthan Award Nominations

Model Of Education to include the BhartiyaVidya Solution as a Teaching Aid which uses audio visual aids to support teaching in class. This software is implemented through two JIL Labs. This software helps the teachers to present the complicated and theoretical solutions of a subject in a much simpler and easy manner by presenting them in audio/visual format.

Digital learning ICT Enabled University of the Year Jury Award and Public Choice Award Project: Edu Nxt Implementer: Sikkim Manipal University- Directorate of Distance Education Website: www.smude.edu.in

The School’s Computer Aided Teaching Software is installed in 40 classrooms right from class I till XII. The programme focuses on providing subject specific capsules of 4-5 minutes duration on various topics, which can very well be accommodated in a 40 minutes teaching period. The programme includes a 29� colour TV and a computer in every classrooms. The textbook study is well integrated with audio-visual aids.

Digital Learning ICT Enabled School of the Year Total Votes - 325 Public Choice Award

Seedling Public School - 115 votes

Project: Technologically Savvy Model of Education Implementer: Seedling Public School, Jaipur, Rajasthan Website: www.seedlingschools.com Seedling Public School has adopted a Technologically Savvy

The primary objective behind EduNxt, in Rajasthan, was to provide Sikkim Manipal University DE students with a plethora of resources not possible in the existing physical mode so they learn through collaboration. This is particularly useful in Rajasthan that it has only 20 universities and is not able to cater to all prospective students. In such a scenario technology is the right solution to deliver quality education.

Digital learning Civil Society Initiative of the Year Jury Choice Award Project: Technology Tools for Teaching and Training Project Implementer: Education Development Center (EDC) Website: www.idd.edc.org/t4india As part of its Technology Tools for Teaching and Training (T4) project, EDC implements interventions aimed at improving digital LEARNING

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50th issue special and 18 months for the core training component). Each course includes a life skills module, which runs through 10-15 days and is considered the ‘induction period’. For the next 2 months the participants break off into technical training groups in their sector of choice. The final 15 days are spent in on-site training.

Public Choice Award Project: Cisco Networking Academy Implementer: Cisco Systems, Inc. Website: www.cisco.com/asiapac/academy teaching and learning in government schools in eight states in India. In Rajasthan, the T4 project launched its partnership with the Rajasthan Council of Elementary Education (RCEE) with the first of three Hindi-based IRI series – English is Fun Level 1. The objective of the project is to improve the comprehension and speaking abilities of children in English.

Public Choice Award

Total Votes - 287 Hole-In-The-Wall-Education Limited - 165 votes

Project: HiWEL Implementer: Hole-In-The-Wall-Education Limited Website: www.hole-in-the-wall.com

The Cisco Networking Academy programme aims in spreading awareness about using and applying a variety of technologies thereby helping themselves and influencing society at large. Cisco Networking Academy, by leveraging publicprivate partnerships, reaches students from virtually every socioeconomic background and region and helps individuals to compete in the global marketplace. eGov G2C Jury Choice Award

The first HiWEL project in Rajasthan was implemented in 2003 in remote villages of Khuri, Sankada and Kishangarh, near Jaislmair. The broad objectives of this project included: To create a synergistic model that leverages HiWEL’s Minimally Invasive pedagogy to provide educational services to underserved areas; and create a more directed effort regarding out of school children by improving the effectiveness of learning.

Project: eGram Implementer: NIC, Jaipur, Rajasthan Website: www.jodhpur.nic.in

digital learning Private Sector Initiative of the Year Jury Choice Award Project: Jyoti in Rajasthan – UDAAN Implementer: Microsoft Corporation (India) Private Limited Website: www.microsoft.com

The objective of the eGram project was to ensure an efficient service delivery mechanism to the citizens in coordination with the line departments. Today every department has some kind of ICT infrastructure, most of them even hooked to the world of Internet through BSNL’s broadband facilities or through other ISPs. NICNET has its footprints in all District headquarters on the state, duly equipped with High bandwidth info-highway. Where ever connectivity is available at block level, data capturing has been decentralized. eGov G2C Public Choice Award

The objective of the project is to facilitate the identification and availability of potential livelihood options for 13,500 below poverty line youth between the ages of 18-30 years, over a 21 month project duration (including 1st 3 months for groundwork 22

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Total Votes - 576 PayManager - 136 votes

Project: Payamanager Implementer: National Informatics Center, Rajasthan The PayManager is meant for the employees of the Government of Rajasthan State. It provides the common and

50th issue special technology, industry experience, technology expertise and excellent service to its customer and business partners, has invented an innovative technology- Finmate: an interoperable Financial Management System. It is an interoperable ICT enabled solution in a box to maintain all types of bank accounts at organization level. FinMate is a portable product with web camera, biometric scanner, printer & RFID integrated into it. eGov G2B Jury Choice and Public Choice Awards integrated platform to prepare the pay bills of the employees.

It is the unique software used by the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) of the State. The software is being used by the around 9500 DDOs covering around 3.35 Lakh employees. The Software not only provides the facilities for Pay bill Preparation but also preparation of DA Arrear, Bonus, Arrears and Leave encashment Bills.

Project: Rajasthan VAT – IT Implementation Project Implementer: Commissioner, Commercial Taxes Department, Jaipur, Rajasthan Total Votes - 298 Website: www.rajtax.gov.in VAT – IT Project - 98 votes

egov Private Sector Initiative of the Year Jury Choice Award Project: Preparation of photo indent cards for Rajasthan voters Implementer: Vakrangee Softwares Limited Website: www.vakrangee.in

The scope of project included preparation of voter list data for respective state, data verification, and project execution planning. The complete project was successfully executed within 12 months of operation. Vakrangee had deputed thousands of field for the project along with laptops, web camera, printer, generator, server, mobile vans, lamination machine etc. on the site. Work was executed all over India including Rajasthan. egov Private Sector Initiative of the Year Public Choice Award

With the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT) regime from April 2006, Commercial Taxes Department (CTD), Government of Rajasthan started the ambitious Rajasthan VAT – IT Implementation Project for providing the stakeholders – both internal and external, a single, integrated, comprehensive, userfriendly, IT System catering to taxation business processes. The project’s key Performance indicators and goals have included: to provide 24*7 availability of services to tax payers, daily updated dashboard and MIS for informed & pro-active decision support, holistic view of state-level transactions and health of tax revenue collection on real-time basis, reduction in errors of processed documents and proper data management etc. eHealth Initiative of the Year Jury Award and Public Choice Award Total Votes - 241

Project: Make Me Healthy Truworth Health Technologies Pvt. Implementer: Truworth Health Ltd - 155 votes Technologies Private Limited, Jaipur, Rajasthan Website: www.truworth.net; www.makemehealthy.in

Project: HCL’s & SKIT’s interoperable ICT innovation – Finmate Implementor: HCL and SKIT

HCL, with its mission to lead the financial revolution and other e-governance business in India towards payment services for customers and business accounts, provides world-class 24

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The project is a pioneering and unique venture in India in the field of Lifestyle Health & Chronic Disease Management and is taking Preventive Healthcare to the doorsteps of the people using Tele-Health Technologies. It conducts Lifestyle Health Risk Assessments for the individuals in the comfort of their home or office, in just 15 minutes. All that an individual needs to do is make a call or send an SMS to book an appointment.

development agenda LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Expanding Human Learning Through Technology www.col.org Political interventions and Policies of the country are the most important factors that influence the adoption of the new changes that ICT brings in area of education. Do you agree with the above statement?

Absolutely! Many countries have elaborated ICT policies but we need ICT in Education policies and clear implementation strategies, if we wish to optimise the benefits of technology.

There has to be a holistic approach which will incorporate train ing for teachers and a radical change in pedagogic practice.

Prof. Asha Kanwar Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

What is the focus of COL to expand human learning through use of technology with reference to Millennium Development Goals?

In 2000, the international community adopted eight MDGs to be achieved by 2015. These goals include the elimination of poverty, achievement of universal primary education, gender equity, better health, environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development.

Development depends on the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge by everyone. COL believes that technology can greatly facilitate these processes. For example, the techniques of open and distance learning give farmers the know-how to improve their livelihoods and rural women the knowledge to raise a healthy family. Using technology to train more teachers will help achieve the goal of Education for All. e-Learning and the knowledge media are gradually enriching the curriculum for secondary schools and universities. COL is an effective partner in combining knowledge and technology to advance development.

Who are the key existing stakeholders and potential stakeholders working in the are of ICT and education (including K-12 and Higher Education segment)?

These are too numerous to enumerate. However, speaking for the Commonwealth of Learning, we do work with governments and institutions in 46 of the 54 Commonwealth Member States at all levels of the educational spectrum-in the formal sector, our focus is on teacher education, open schooling at the secondary level and improving the quality of rdistance higher education through the use of ICTs. In the non-formal sector we support the use of technologies for skills development.

Please share the current global scenario with respect to integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the field of Education, highlighting the opportunities and challenges.

Globally, the new and emerging technology is the mobile device. In South Asia and Africa, basic mobile phones are being increasingly used for pedagogic purposes and this trend is expected to accelerate. Asia has 1 billion of the world’s 2.7 billion mobile users. Within this context does the future lie with mlearning? At one Japanese university, all students had mobile phones and on an

average each student sent 200 messages per week for study purposes, as opposed to seven voice mails per week. Only 43% used PCs sending only 2 messages per week.

There is also an emergence of the community radio as a learning medium.

The primary objective is to provide learning opportunities to the really unreached constituencies and we need to use ‘appropriate’ technologies rather than technology for the sake of technology.

Public Private Partnerships have been in vogue across countries around the world. What is your understanding of the same and is COL involved in any such partnerships, especially in case of Open Distance Education or Virtual University?

Distance education globally has always relied on private partnerships.

For example, IGNOU offers many face to face counselling sessions, practicals and tutorial support through credible private partners. COL is a very modest organisation in terms of avialble resources and we work primarily through partnerships. Recently we supported the development of Internet Radio for the Ministry of Education, Maldives. This was done in partnership with the Open University of Malaysia, which is a private institution.

Can you share with us some of COL’s leading initiatives and initiatives that are in the pipeline?

COL has developed Learning Through Voice Interactive System (LIVES) which aims to provide communities with a learning tool based on voice mails using mobile phones. This helps us reach out to large numbers of people in their own language or dialect.

CEMCA, our office in Delhi is developing a low-cost computing device that will have major implications for teaching and learning in our schools and colleges. \\ digital LEARNING

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SRI LANKA

development agenda leaders speak

50th issue special

Recruit Teachers Only on Contract Basis www.worldbank.org.in

Sam Carlson Lead Education Specialist, The World Bank

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into education has long been initiatives undertaken by World Bank – what has been the success so far and what is awaiting in future?

It is generally believed that ICTs can empower teachers and learners, promote change and foster the development of ‘21st century skills, but data to support these beliefs are still limited. Proponents argue that ICTs can and will transform teaching and learning processes from being highly teacherdominated to student-centered, and that this transformation will result in increased learning gains for students.

ICTs are seen to be less effective (or ineffective) when the goals for their use are not clear. While such a statement would appear to be self-evident, the specific goals for ICT use in education are often, in practice, only very broadly or rather loosely defined.

The positive impact of ICTs is more likely when linked to changes in teachers’ 28

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pedagogy, which in turn requires focused, iterative teacher professional development to realise changes in classroom practices. The uses of ICTs for simulations and modeling in science and math have been shown to be effective, as have word processing and communication software (e-mail) in the development of student language and communication skills.

It may be that more useful analyses of the impact of ICT that emerge when the methods used to measure achievement and outcomes are more closely related to the learning activities and processes promoted by the use of ICTs. Most users feel that using ICTs make them more effective and self-directed learners. In addition, there appears to be general consensus that both teachers and students feel ICT use greatly contributes to student motivation for learning.

Placing computers in classrooms enables integration with core curricular subjects and greater use of ICTs for ‘higher order’ skills than placing computers in separate computer laboratories. This can be facilitated by use of portable laptops and ‘computer labs on wheels’ which can move from classroom to classroom as needed. For me, getting the technology INTO the classroom is critical to get beyond simple ICT literacy skills and should be the objective for the future.

What is your vision for education of India in the next millennium?

My vision of education in India by 2150 is one where ALL children complete Class 12 and develop the intellectual curiosity, skills, habits and knowledge needed to succeed in the global economy. Students who want to continue on to higher education can, while those who want to enter the labour market will be able to because they will have the knowledge and skills to be productive.

This vision also includes more active participation of parents in the functioning

of public schools such that political pressure and public debate are focused on how to improve public schools and student learning outcomes, rather than on what are the rules for admission into private nursery schools, which seems to be the case today.

What has been the strategy of World Bank in drafting formulations and framing policies? Which are the states that are currently under your projects?

In India the World Bank supports the Government of India’s efforts to improve elementary, secondary, technical and vocational education. WE work mainly at the national level in support of centrally sponsored schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the recently launched Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). We also support 400 Industrial Training Institutes across almost all 35 States and UTs, and another 150odd technical/engineering colleges spread around the country. So in that sense ALL States are benefitting from the World Bank’s support. We do, however, provide some additional targeted support to a few States, such as Bihar and Karnataka, through capacity-building grants, and do some cutting-edge operational research in other States such as Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. This work is primarily designed to generate lessons which can be applied at the national level.

In education, what is the share of percentage focused only on South Asian region including India and the response so far?

India is the World Bank’s single largest recipient of support for education, which is entirely appropriate given India’s size, education sector needs and the government’s commitment to mobilising domestic resources to invest in education.

Our financing is offered on concessional

50th issue special terms, meaning at 0% interest, with 35 years to repay and 10 years of grace during which no repayment is required.

In terms of existing portfolio of projects, we have provided USD 1.1 billion for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and are currently preparing additional financing of USD 750 million to support SSA through 2012. Our Vocational Training Improvement Project includes financing of USD 280 million and our recently negotiated Second Technical/Engineering Education Quality Improvement Project will provide another USD 300 million. We are also preparing our support for Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (secondary education) for USD 600 million. Taken together, this represents about one-third of the Bank’s total active education portfolio of USD 8.8 billion in 2009.

Your comments on the Government’s initiatives in the area of education and implementing ICT in education in India.

If I had to summarise my impressions, I would say there remains too much focus on putting computers in laboratories for teachers and students to develop ICT literacy skills, and not enough focus on getting ICTs into the classroom so that they can enhance productivity and support teacher and student learning across all subjects. While a lot of teacher training has been offered, often through innovative public-private partnership models, not enough genuine teacher professional development has been provided to help teachers skillfully integrate ICTs into their classrooms. I believe this may change with the revised centrally sponsored scheme ICT@Schools and the adoption of the new Policy for ICT and Education.

Your thoughts on Public Private Partnership in education sector in India and the recent developments related to?

I am quite enthusiastic about the POTENTIAL of public private partnerships (PPP) to improve educational opportunities and learning outcomes for students who traditionally have attended only government schools. This potential lies in the ability of public authorities to craft PPP contracts to align private sector incentives with public policy objectives.

For example, the Grant-in-Aid scheme through which government finances the costs of aided private schools is a form of PPP. Unfortunately, this does not include any incentives for private aided schools to improve educational outcomes.

Personally, I am much more in favour of

The RTE Act makes it compulsory for government or local authorities to ensure enrollment, attendance and completion of elementary education.

PPPs where the public financing follows the student not the teacher. Hopefully, we will see the implementation of the RTE Act pave the way in this direction.

Your comments on Right To Education Act in India (RTE), advantages and disadvantages the Act has?

Very specific and rather demanding “norms” are spelled out in the Act regarding school-level pupil:teacher ratios, school infrastructure, and other inputs into the learning process. Furthermore, this is justiciable, meaning if this is not done then legal proceedings may be initiated against government authorities.

This is a huge additional obligation on the State. So will Indian citizens assert their rights under this Act? Will they hold government accountable to deliver?

Equally important, will Indian citizens join the School Development Committees which are foreseen under the Act and do their best to improve public schools, or will the middle and upper classes continue to exit the public system for private schools and forget about their neighbourhood public schools? Will Indian citizens whose children currently attend private schools welcome the disadvantaged students into “their” private schools without social stigmatisation, or will they try to keep them out? Lets wait and watch!

In RTE, the reservation of 25% seats for weaker sections in all private schools has stirred debate. Your comments on that, please.

The RTE Act gives an impetus to this with the stipulation that private schools will need to allocate 25% of their seats to disadvantaged students, to be reimbursed by the government at the school’s or the government’s unit cost. Personally, I am in favour of this reservation so that children from a wide range of social and economic backgrounds may attend school together. Unlike most things in life, brainpower is equally distributed among all children, regardless of socio-economic category. Disadvantaged children deserve a chance to demonstrate this. I also think this policy may introduce some degree of healthy competition between public and private schools. We would like to study this issues over the next ten years to see educational outcomes of disadvantaged

students.

Besides, the RTE Act stipulates that all schools (public and private) must adhere to the norms specified in the Act; those that are unable to comply within a period of three years will not be recognised. Unrecognised schools which nonetheless continue to function after this period may be sanctioned quite severely.

The problem is that many of these schools serve urban poor children where land and infrastructure are very scarce, such that it will be nearly impossible (and perhaps unaffordable) to comply with all the norms in the Act. Simply shutting them all down if they do not comply with the norms of the Act may not serve the interests of the students attending them. I think this may need some more thought.

What needs to be planned to achieve the target of 15% GER by 2012 set by the government recently to solve school drop-out problem in secondary education?

Simply put, there is a combination of supply- and demand- side interventions at both elementary and secondary education levels which will need to be implemented. Firstly, the elementary education completion rate needs to increase. At the secondary level, there are huge supply gaps in terms of available classrooms, subject-specific teachers, learning materials, etc., especially in rural areas. RMSA is focused on filling these supply gaps over the next ten years. My two greatest concerns at the secondary level are teacher supply/effectiveness and community/parental involvement to hold schools accountable. To achieve a 75% GER at the secondary level tens of thousands of additional subject-specific teachers will need to be recruited.

Personally, I would be in favour of decentralising teacher recruitment to the school committee level, and initially on a contract basis. A teacher performance assessment system would be put in place and if teachers do well their contracts could be converted to permanent status after several years. Meanwhile, teacher effectiveness is likely to increase if parents and local community members/ political authorities are overseeing school performance. World Bank’s recent report on Secondary Education in India tried to capture the relevant points. \\ digital LEARNING

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higher education leaders speak

50th issue special

Breaking Barriers in Access to Quality Education www.ignou.ac.in

Prof. Latha Pillai Pro Vice Chancellor, IGNOU

How far has IGNOU progressed since the launch of the Associate degree programme in July, 2009 in Community Colleges?

The 51 colleges which are functional, have sent their first batch of students for examinations scheduled in the month of December-January where approximately 11000 students have undertaken the certificate course. After the certificate course programmes, now around 15 colleges have clearly articulated that they want to go for an associated degree programme and building their curriculum around the programme.

Could you elaborate on the programme called Gyan Deep and the kind of course structure that will be imparted?

Gyandeep is a bold initiative of IGNOU to educationally empower the soldiers of the Indian army by granting of 32

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degrees - a step aimed at providing the jawans with a second career option. It is based on the US system of community colleges in defence cantonments, and will benefit a majority of 1.2 million soldiers of the army.

On 4th September the programme was launched after signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor and IGNOU Vice Chancellor V.N Rajshekharan Pillai. At present we have 650 registrations for the Diploma programme for the first batch. The programmes into demand are BA, B.Com and Tourism. Infact, the army is going to set up their office in IGNOU campus very soon to coordinate the course. The average enrollment every year will be about 50,000.

Community colleges are being seen as bringing about a silent revolution in the field of education. What are the major expectations of IGNOU from this initiative?

Community colleges are functioning more into enhancing the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) that we were always talking about. Besides, through these colleges the National Skill Development Mission is also getting support. We also support existing institutes who are already into the process of imparting skill based training.

For example TVS College which was into skill development training and now have come forward to set up a community college. The specilisation that IGNOU offers is that it provides academic mobility and certification as well recognised in the formal stream.

What are the strategic areas that IGNOU is now looking forward for growth and expansion? Any new alliances that is proposed for the future?

The upcoming project is the

Telecentre Academy because IGNOU is going to host the global Telecentre Secretariat to be functional by January 2010.

IGNOU is also collaborating with UNESCO where the organisation has decided to co-certify the Journalism curriculum that we offer. And now UNESCO is interested in collaborating in many of the courses that we offer like the teacher education programme, the community radio initiative using ICTs for the training and course on culture preservations. The UNFPA has also expressed its interest to work with us in the health sector.

Now the Parliamentarians are also participating in supporting the community colleges by contributing from MP fund for the developmental cause. The School of Gender and Development Studies is also looking for collaborations to carry out its projects in addition to its Masters programme.

What are the academic programmes that are going to take off under your leadership?

I am currently coordinating a programme in ‘Rehabilitation Psychology’ jointly with the Rehabilitation Council of India which is housed at the National Centre for Disability Studies.

As the part of our Silver Jubilee celebration I have been coordinating a Silver Jubilee series of 12 lectures.

Besides, as far as the schools are concerned, the School of Agriculture is into many ventures like agriculture policy, dairy technology, sericulture etc.

Recently, Coastal Community College as an IGNOU-MSSRF has been initiated in the 5th anniversary of TSunami in which there will be a special programme for the fishermen to train them about the use of communication-technology when ever there is a sign of any disaster. \\

higher education leaders speak

50th issue special

Providing Seamless Access to Sustainable and LearnerCentric Education www.ignou.ac.in

Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University

How has the journey been so far since you joined the University?

What were the challenges that you faced and the steps that you took to overcome the same?

When I joined the University, the number of students enrolled was around 1.2 million. The University has grown tremendously over the last 20 years.

Expanding the services for students was one of the major concerns for the administration. Even though we had increased the number of services and programmes, the infrastructural facilities necessary for efficient student support services had been lacking.

One of the causes of concern was to ensure that the study material was dispatched to students on time.

Therefore, decentralizing the distribution 34

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of study material through regional offices had to be done in order to make the system more efficient. This ensured that there was less number of delays and loss.

Another challenge was that of providing access to opportunities for quality higher education. According to the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, Open Educational Resources and Open Access should be used as a means for radically increasing the widespread availability of high quality educational resources.

Therefore, e-Gyan Kosh has been launched by IGNOU as a repository of learning resources. It includes digitized and uploaded storage of over 95% of IGNOU’s self instructional print material.

Providing connectivity and technological support to all the study centres, including Internet connectivity, has been our initiatives towards strengthening the technological infrastructure.

IGNOU is now conducting examinations regularly in January and June and has arrangements for decentralized assessment and evaluation. We have expanded the number of evaluators and have included experienced teachers from across universities. We have tried to complete the evaluative work in two months and declare the results subsequently, thereby ensuring that the students get their exam results on time.

Another major issue was the submission of assignments. During the time that I joined, there was a decision to stop the process of submission of assignments. However, I have revived the process since assignments form an integral part of the student learning process.

How do you see Open and Distance Learning as capturing the aspirations and needs of the rural population

and otherwise? How important is it to use ICTs for the ODL system?

The ODL system has proved to be beneficial not just for rural population alone, but also for those in the urban areas, the migrant population, the underprivileged, and those living in difficult terrains. Similarly, there are tremendous possibilities of satellite based education to resolve the problem of reaching out to those living in difficult terrains. Therefore, we are strengthening the capabilities of satellite based education.

Satellite based communication is going to play a significant role in distance education in India. It is particularly effective in reaching out to diverse populations spread over vast geographical dimensions. By making use of ICTs, it can be used in a variety of ways both for online and offline provision of resources.

Besides providing conventional telecast of educational programmes and the live telecast of programmes with two way interaction, satellites can be used for carrying a rich mix of multi-media material and provide access to large databases, at very low costs.

There has been a concerted effort of strengthening the use of ICTs for ODL. With this objective in mind, the Advanced Centre for Informatics and Learning has been set up. The Centre aims at using ICTs for teacher education, skill development and development of subject based ICT pedagogy. Efforts are being made to decipher ways and means of improving the teaching learning process based on subject based ICT pedagogy.

For the first time in 2007, IGNOU started the Research and Teaching Assistantship (RTA) Scheme. Around 200 full time research scholars are working in the University under the programme.

Several research studies under the able guidance of University teachers have been brought out till date. The overall objective

50th issue special is to train more and more students in research and to develop subject based pedagogy. This will have a significant impact not only in the field of ODL but also in other areas of education.

The Government came up with the budget with a clear emphasis on Higher Education, allotting a promising amount. What is your take on this? What are the key issues, according to you, which remain unaddressed as far as Higher Education is concerned?

The main objective of the 11th Plan (2007-2012) is expansion of enrollment in higher education with emphasis on inclusiveness, equality and relevant education. The 11th Plan has set a target of increasing the enrollment ratio from the current 11% to 15% by 2012. Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education has to increase substantially by about 84 lakh students over a period of five years. It is estimated that ODL system will account for about 30% of the overall enrollment by the end of the 11th Plan period.

With the aim of addressing issues of access and equity in higher education, IGNOU has adopted the ‘Convergence Scheme’.

This scheme creates convergence of Open and Distance Learning and Conventional Systems. It takes into account the need to interface with the conventional system, use innovative technologies and optimize the access to physical facilities, intellectual and knowledge resources in institutions to achieve its goals.

While IGNOU has over 2000 Learner Support Centres, the Scheme on Convergence has helped in creating synergies with well endowed colleges.

This has resulted in qualified faculty and state of the art infrastructure being made available to students, in addition to providing additional mentoring on a flexi time basis.

Lately, IGNOU has been aggressively getting into various collaborative initiatives. Under your leadership, IGNOU has been very successfully established and positioned itself as a very strong entity in the arena of higher education. Could you tell our readers about these new partnerships?

As an Open University, we have to make use of the open, flexible and innovative practices in education. Many educational practices which caters to learner requirements have to be assimilated into the system. As an Open University,

Our endeavour has been to provide better learner services to the deprived and disadvantaged, particularly to those in accessible regions. we do not create the entire physical structure for classrooms. Therefore, collaborations with other universities and higher education institutes are important.

Even the content for the system has been developed through effective and long standing collaborations with teachers from conventional systems.

Thus, collaborations are very essential for starting new programmes and sustaining existing programmes. It is also an economically viable model where the existing infrastructure have been used by the educational system for the benefit of the student community. We are also trying to optimally utilise the available services by roping in part time services of teachers, educators, content developers, examiners, and academicians across the country and abroad.

Another collaboration of great significance is the Gyan Deep initiative of IGNOU meant to educationally empower the soldiers of the Indian army through grant of degrees- a step aimed at providing the jawans with a second career option. It is based on the US system of community colleges in defence cantonments, and will benefit a majority of 1.2 million soldiers of the army. The programme was launched on 4th September, 2009, after IGNOU signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor.

It is heard that IGNOU is going beyond the distance education set up, and plans to establish mainstream face-to-face courses. What are the possible reasons behind this move?

The IGNOU Act very clearly states that the Open University will not only offer a variety of programmes but assume a leadership role in promoting a distance education system in the country.

Open University System means opening the learning process by making the educational facilities available to every individual with minimal restrictions.

It facilitates optimal utlisation of the infrastructural and intellectual facilities available, wherever they are, for providing knowledge and skills to maximum people with minimum restrictions. An Open University is an institution which has to be open to ideas, open to people, open to places and open to strategies for providing education.

IGNOU has combined its pioneering role in distance learning by extending the concept of ‘open education’ to include flexible, face-to-face programmes, making use of state-of-the-art facilities oncampus as well as on other campuses.

An Open University not just relies on the distance education mode, but also makes use of open and flexible system of education.

INGOU has been offering faceto-face courses/programmes partly or fully for the last several years. All the Engineering and Technology programmes, which have their practical and project works, and also have a minimum of 20% face-to-face component, have been offered on campus. B.Sc and vocational programmes are done by direct teaching in recognised academic institutions or industrial establishments. The IGNOU campus infrastructure is well equipped with digital studios and libraries etc. and therefore, selected number of Post Graduate students are being offered these programmes in the campus. These are proposed to be model study centres.

In addition, IGNOU has several full time regular programmes with the requisite rules, regulations, ordinances, and examination manual, taught by qualified teachers in other institutions with excellent facilities.

Where do you see IGNOU five years down the line?

In the next few years, we seek to enter into a major academic expansion plan by adding 10 new schools. This effort will be in line with the University’s commitment to adapting and upgrading the resources to contemporary requirements of the student community.

We have recently been involved in the National Skills Mission particularly in generating employment in tune with the various schemes of the Central Government and State Government. The aim is to provide flexible knowledge and skill opportunities for the unemployed youth of India so as to meaningfully equip them with skills and opportunities.

The scheme of Associate Degree Programmes through Community Colleges being offered by IGNOU will aims at developing skills for self employability of the marginalized and under privileged sections of the society. \\ digital LEARNING

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higher education leaders speak

50th issue special

Effective Regulatory Framework in Higher Education - The Need of the Hour

Sushma Berlia, President, Apeejay Stya & Svran Group

The roles of the Regulatory bodies need to be reviewed in order for them to act as true facilitators, and enablers. The current process of forming regulation and policy is a one-way communication from the government to the educator providers.

Instead regulations and policy should be made in consultation and participation of all key stakeholders.

Except for funding sources and the variation of funds available, the differences between public and private universities are marginal, and those too artificial. The real distinction that needs to be looked towards is that between a good and a bad university or institution.

There are clear examples that – “not all public universities are good and not all private universities or higher education institutions are bad”.

In fact, in countries around the world such as the United States, for-profit and non-for-profit institutions of higher learning exist side by side with each other in harmony. For profit institutions 36

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need not sacrifice quality and ethics, with good governance and transparency, many of them have grown and maintain standards of accreditation, and produce excellent graduates.

The public universities are becoming ever more promiscuous in their pursuit of income. In America, ‘public university’ is fast becoming a figure of speech. At a university of Virginia, the share of the operating budget coming from the state declined from about 28% in 1985 to 8% in 2004-5. the Regulations The role of regulatory bodies should be to ensure fair-play, transparency and accountability. It should be non-intrusive and Institution-friendly.

Around the world there has been a change in the way to approach regulation, moving from an intrusive line by line prescribed rules, to a larger framework, which allows great room for innovation.

At entry level If there is adequate infrastructure and faculty for the institution to be able to deliver on its stated value proposition and are there processes in place that would ensure proper governance and keep a check on misuse and fraud.

We have seen that the current frameworks in education are not working, and are not able to provide the kind, the quality, and the quantity our country needs to continue its growth and rise. With proper checks and balances and accountability we have a thriving sector that can become the envy of the world.

Why we are still mired in the thought process today, that as if anybody desirous of setting up an educational institution, is necessarily moribund without vision and need to be regulated to ensure that nothing wrong takes place. Rather there should be a system of incentivisation and consequences - incentives for those who do well, and consequences for those who do not act in the best interests of their students. As in any industry or sector, if an organisation wishes to be successful and be there for the long run, it needs to ensure that its customers are satisfied, and it is able to delivery on its promised value proposition.

Therefore, a regulatory framework is needed. the focus area All autonomous institutions providing degree and postgraduate diploma courses should come under base regulation. Affiliated colleges should be left to the concerned university to ensure minimum standards and quality.

Institutions engaged in training and development and providing non-degree courses should be exempt. If the system is to be fair it must be applicable and acceptable to all institutions within the

50th issue special

“Education is not the filling of the bucket, but the lighting of a fire” - William Butler Yeats.

country, leaving no room for “special cases.”

Instead of one monolithic body doing regulation, accreditation as well as financing it should be divided into four separate functions with applicable organisations.

Base Regulation: A macro level nonintrusive common regulation set that would ensure That applicable disclosures and information are made to consumers of education in order to make informed decisions, That a basic hurdle in terms of capital requirements is escrowed in order to proof ability to execute.

Accreditation Agencies: A number of independent, autonomous, accreditation agencies that with the participation of all stakeholders are able to maintain quality and different levels i.e. minimum accreditation base to be compulsory with higher levels voluntary.

There can be multiple accreditation agencies with adequate representation of all stakeholders to ensure competition between them and do justice to large numbers of institutions.

Accreditation agencies would check the process and the outcomes to the objectives of that particular institution, and not to accredited a programme per se.

Professional courses would come under the accrediting agencies purvey as well. But accreditation by the professional councils should be voluntary. Full disclosure of the status of these courses should be made.

Funding and grant agencies: These would be established and encouraged at levels, and would be either public or private. For example, in the case of public, they could be agencies established at the state and local level, and in the private sphere they could be sponsored

by commercial banks or philanthropic foundations. They would either provide funds and grants to institutions based on pre-established criteria or to students in the form of scholarships, fee subsidies and loans. a) Each agency would develop its own criteria and norms for giving out funding and grants, based on the recommendations of its constituents (public, private or both) and the source of its funds. b)Public agencies would be setup for different purposes, for example, the government could setup a education development bank along the lines of NABARD, or an agency setup to govern state directed funding to all public institutions. c)Regardless of being private or public, agencies should be able to choose which institutions and students get the benefit of funds. For example, a public researchfunding agency should be able to award grants to private institutions based on the merits of the proposals.

Independent Test Providers: There should be the flexibility for multiple test providers to emerge, with a view that the entrance testing does not require extensive coaching and does not interfere with the school education of students.

These test providers could be both public and private, and institutions should be free to choose which test providers they accept. Institutions will arrive at a common set of accepted tests for each level, and test providers would be forced to maintain the quality and standards of their tests in order to preserve their reputation with the institutions.

The Hard Questions 12.5% of the population between the ages of eighteen to twenty-three opts or has access to higher education. The investment by the government, Rs.

40,000 crores can only support 2.5% of this population, which means the 10% funds education without public funds, and the rest, i.e. 87.5% have no access.

Where are the funds, the infrastructure and the institutions going to come from to education the 87.5%? Now, imagine the sheer number of institutions that need to be setup, and sheer numbers of people that need to be employed, to bring basic higher education to these ignored citizens of our country. Naturally, some of these issues come from a lack of primary and secondary education, but even then it would require several times the institutions we have today to prepare for our country’s tomorrow.

The government clearly does not have the funds or the resources to be able to pay for this vast expansion, and under the current framework, with huge hurdles and obstacles, and little incentive, private players are also unlikely to come in large enough numbers to fill the gap.

The supply and demand problem is not dissimilar to a few decades ago, where access to basic telecommunications and transport was abysmal. Just as vast amounts of capital was required to truly deliver on the promises of an industrialised modern nation, similarly to fund the education needs of our nature capital must be raised from every possible source. To take an example, for-profit accredited education institutions in the United States are allowed to list on the stock exchange and raise money from the public to provide quality customer driven education.

Hence there is a need for an alternative model especially to have scalability. The solution can only come in a complete reform of the regulatory framework that governs the education system in our country, and a rapid and urgent move away from the license and quota raj attitude and practices not have hobbled the sector. We owe it to the future generations of our nation, and we owe to ourselves, without education our country will not have the foundation to reach the aspirations of its citizens. And of course, when it comes to regulation, “If in doubt regulate less and not more.” \\

Sushma Berlia The author is a leading woman entrepreneur of the country, has made outstanding contribution to the cause of women empowerment and education in India. She is the President of the Apeejay Stya Group – a leading business house in India with several alliances and foreign collaborations abroad. The Group also has a large social commitment under the aegis of the Apeejay Education Society. digital LEARNING

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school track LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Open Distance Learning: A Progressive Learning Method www.nios.ac.in

Development, Government of India under the Plan grant.

Dr. S S Jena Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)

How does NIOS ensure the quality of academic support to its students?

NIOS offers academic programmes not only at the levels of Secondary and Sr. Secondary classes but also offers vocational courses primarily devoted for skill development of the work force mostly engaged in the un-organised sectors.

It also offers equivalency programmes for neo-literates through its Open Basic Education programmes.

NIOS reaches out to its learners through its Accredited Institutions (study centres) for its academic programmes and through Accredited Vocational Institutions (AVIs) for its vocational programmes to support academic components of the programmes. It basically uses multichannel and multi-media delivery modes of course contents for its learners NIOS generates funds by way of collection of admission and examination fees, sale of publications, etc. Budgetary support to NIOS is also provided by the Ministry of Human Resource 38

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What role is NIOS playing in reaching to the disadvantaged sections of the population?

The NIOS provides an opportunity for learning to all those who wish to resume or continue their studies. Special efforts are being made to reach out to rural population, urban poor, women, scheduled castes and tribes, differently abled persons, handicapped youth, unemployed or part employed persons and school dropouts.

NIOS has been identified as a lead institution by the National Monitoring Committee for Minority Education (NMCME) for providing linkage of minority educational institutions such as Madarsas, Maktabs and Darul-Uloom with the educational mainstream.

Please share the vision and prospective plan of NIOS. Our focus in recent years has been a transition from print based instruction system to e-learning mode of knowledge dissemination. For this, a system needs to be developed to reach the target groups using multi-mode and multi-channel delivery mechanism suited to the varied needs of the learner groups in different contexts.

NIOS took a significant step of providing the facility of On-line registration for admissions and examinations under the NIOS Online Ni-On Project. NIOS envisages providing to the learners the facility of education through virtual classrooms.

Can you mention some of the initiatives of NIOS? • The NIOS Online (Ni-On) Project offers admissions to interested learners through its website.

• The HUNAR Project is a path breaking initiative of the NIOS in collaboration

•

with the Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) to provide training and upgradation of skills for Muslim girls. Skill training is provided in seven courses namely Gram Sakhi, Jute Production, Cutting and Tailoring, Early Childhood Care and Education, Basic Rural Technology, Bakery and Confectionery and Beauty Culture.

We conduct two public examinations in a year. In order to introduce more flexibility in its system, we conduct On-Demand examinations at the Secondary and Senior Secondary levels enabling learners to register and appear in the examination whenever they feel prepared.

Have you entered in any PublicPrivate Partnerships in the field of vocational education and training?

Yes, most of our partner institutions for our vocational programmes are established under PPP model. Recently, we have signed an MOU with CISCO for offering hardware courses on electronics with the support of training institutions of CISCO. In fact, we are in the process of evolving a workable model with the help of many specialised institutions for the skill development process under the vocational education programmes targeted mostly for those in the unorganised sectors.

Please share the strategies undertaken by NIOS. ‘Learner Satisfaction’ is a thrust area on which one has to give considerable thought. The student support services, therefore, needs to be strengthened further. Apart from the government institutions, the resources available with the NGOs and civil societies need to be tapped for changing the direction of the present open education movement towards the rural and disadvantaged segment of the society. \\

my journey

50th issue special

Success doesn’t come to you…you go to it!

The road to success is a long journey infused with stumbling blocks and difficult terrains. It is a path which few have the courage to tread, and these are the few who have, through their steadfast commitment to achieve their goals, left an indelible mark in this world.

MY JOURNEY...the refreshing new addition to the digitalLEARNING Magazine highlights the life and journey of some of the known leading personalities in today’s world.

They will tell us their stories and accomplishments, give us insights into life turning moments that have the power to inspire others, and provide us with a sneak peek into those obscure events that have turned their life’s course. This enlightening and enriching segment will be an enthralling new addition to our magazine, specifically meant for those looking for inspiration and wanting to explore the enigmatic life and times of the achievers.

Madan Padaki, Co-Founder & CEO, MeritTrac Services Pvt.Ltd

My Diary: 5th July 2000 “ Woke up to a bright sunny morning – which is quite unusual in this season. Quite disoriented - the fact that I have quit my “job” yesterday and started-off on my own to do something in testing, is yet to sink in. “Unemployed” is the word that keeps buzzing in my head - even though I know that I am stepping into a new life where I am creating my “own employment”. This sounds both exciting & scary at the same time…

I get ready and lock myself up in my bedroom - a makeshift office with my old battered computer. I call up Murli & Mohan (my would-be co-founders) trying to figure out what I should be doing - now that I am full-time into this. The things on the agenda are - to pick a name for this venture, put a full fledged business plan in place, run after some prospects trying to generate some business and also try to raise some money to get the venture going. Seems like quite a lot of things to do …

Lunch at home (Ah! the small pleasures of being on your own…) and the bed looks pretty inviting for an afternoon siesta.

I fight off this urge and get to work on the business plan. I call up some contacts at Wipro & IBM and bingo! - I have got my first meeting with the Head-Recruitment of IBM! Not a bad first day - managed to get some semblance of a start-up…I hit the sack with a prayer on my lips…

God: help us !”

These are the actual excerpts from my diary on the day I started out on this dream called MeritTrac. Even now, from a detached perspective, the only sense I get out of this posting is hope, belief and a sense of adventure: pre-requisites for any entrepreneurial venture. And given this start, let me share my story and some experiences of balancing dreams and reality!

I stumbled onto the idea of providing assessments & testing services quite by accident; the thought was triggered by a comment from a friend who was running a financial software products company – and he had got this request from an IT company to develop a question bank management software. The need from this company was that they were recruiting large number of software engineers and wanted to test all applicants – and hence the requirement of a question bank management software. This set me thinking that such companies would probably require assistance in the entire process of testing – right from developing scientifically validated tests to administering these tests in a secure environment across the country. This thought was also backed by the fact that knowledge services economy was slated to grow exponentially – and the core asset of any knowledge-led economy is quality of manpower. Therefore a service to measure “quality” of manpower objectively will be very valuable. And so was born the idea of an assessments-only company!

A belief in the idea is essential but it has to be backed by cold and solid math. The most important part of starting off on your own is in developing a business plan for your brainchild. Simply put, it is the ability to make money out of your idea and the way of doing it. Every future step will depend on a business philosophy and a way of doing business- “why will someone pay you for this service/product?” will be the most important question that you need to convince yourself on. All other things like create/outsource, delivery mechanisms, costs, etc. are the next set of relevant questions that need to be answered.

We shut ourselves in a room for 3 days to build our first draft of the business plan and I still have that sheet with me- I am amazed at how true the model that we envisioned has played out. After building the business plan, the feeling was that we will get funding immediately and we can subsequently quit our jobs to start off full-time. I still remember the day when I realized how wrong we were! We had gone to meet with a Venture Capitalist (VC’s) office with our business plan.

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50th issue special He only asked us one question: “how many of you are in it full time?” When we told him that none of us are, he was furious – “how dare we try to convince him to invest when none of us are convinced enough to quit our jobs??” I resigned from my job the next day to start off full-time on MeritTrac!

Next is the grueling hard work that one needs to put in to get the start-up off the ground - and it is linked again to your belief and hope. Getting your first client and realizing the first rupee of sale is a realization of yourself as a person. There are tough markets & easy markets, but the most difficult ones are pioneering markets - like when MeritTrac was started.

In the first few months of starting MeritTrac, we managed to get an angel investor to invest into MeritTrac – but the 9/11 event changed everything! The nascent IT/BPO industry stopped hiring, the stock markets crashed, our investor went bust and we almost had to shut down! It is only the sheer support of all our employees who stopped taking salaries for several months, that MeritTrac survived through this rough patch.

After surviving 2002, things started improving rapidly. Between 2002 - 2005, our revenues grew 12.5 times and we started thinking about the future. We re-casted our business plan and started looking for investors to raise around US$ 4 million. Given our unique positioning in India and the prospects, we attracted significant interest from various investors.

In October 2005, we raised US$ 3.8 million from HSBC Private Equity. In 2007, we started looking at diversifying into the educational assessment sector and we brought on board Manipal Education Group as Strategic investors into MeritTrac.

While there are quite a few stories about “vulture capitalists”, we have been very fortunate to have extremely supportive and positive investors all through our journey!

As an entrepreneurial entity, we have been tested in every possible way; running out of cash, economic downturns, losing a large client, very tough/demanding customers and making tough calls on people. But we have looked at every problem as an opportunity and tried to search for the silver lining in every dark cloud.

In my journey over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur, I have been through three stages of evolution; phase one of “I’ll do it” – where you take up every task upon yourself and execute it, phase two of “ I’ll get it done” – where you direct and rely on your team to deliver, and phase three of “ It’ll happen” – where there are robust organizational systems and processes to make sure that client promises are delivered.

Today, MeritTrac has delivered over 9 million exams till date - both in a paper-pencil mode and online mode. With 300+ full-time employees, we are headquartered in Bangalore and have a presence in 16 cities in India, including a network of company-owned testing centres. With our own test research & test development teams, we have created a battery of 300+ validated tests spanning areas like communication skills, general abilities, domain and behavioural skills. Our test delivery teams have delivered tests in over 250+ cities in the country – with the distinction of having delivered 1 million exams in a period of 10 days across 175+ cities. MeritTrac has created India’s largest test center network of 50,000 terminals with Authorised Pariksha Centres being activated in 185 cities in India.

In the Education sector, we have worked with several prestigious institutions like Gujarat Technological University, JIPMER, IIIT-Bangalore, Manipal University & Sikkim Manipal University. Some of its clients in the Government/PSU include Govt. of Orissa, Govt. of Gujarat and over 12 large Public Sector Units. HP, Microsoft, Accenture, Cognizant, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Titan, Axis Bank, Jindal Steel and over 100+ organisations use our assessments for pre-recruitment & employee assessments. We are also the exclusive assessment partner to NASSCOM for its NAC-Tech certification Program and an accredited Assessment body for the Modular Employable Skills (MES) program by DGET, Ministry of Labour & Employment.

We have been an acknowledged leader and pioneer in the field of testing and has been bestowed several awards & recognitions like the eIndia ICT Award & Manthan South Asia Award for the online Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET) project and NASSCOM IT Innovation Award 2007 We are also a full-member of Association of Test Publishers (ATP), US which is one of the prestigious associations of test publishing companies - the first company from India to be admitted to this association.

In all, the road to entrepreneurship is one of sweat, toil and occasionally tears but it is also a path of supreme satisfaction.

Setting up your own enterprise and running it successfully is a thrill few have experienced and a league inhabited by people like Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani, Narayana Murthy and other legends. And I am proud and privileged to be treading on such a path in a small, but significant way!

Madan Padaki is the Co-Founder & CEO of MeritTrac Services Pvt. Ltd. An Engineering Graduate from University of Mysore and an MBA from SP Jain, Mumbai - he has worked with Wipro, Infosys and BFL Software (Japan), before starting off MeritTrac. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in Aug 2000, he conceived and co-founded MeritTrac as a pioneering idea in skills assessments. MeritTrac is today India’s Largest Skills Assessment company and was recognized as a winner of the NASSCOM Innovation Award 2007 & Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award.

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leaders speak

50th issue special

Digitalising Language and Learning: An Outlook to New Age Technology www.wordsworthelt.com

Can you speak about the products and services that you offer to the beneficiaries?

Our products are developed to meet the diverse audiences, both urban and rural, at their level and environment.

Segments include School, College, Higher Learning institutions, Vocational & Professional training and adult learning initiatives with organisations. Words Worth programmes have also been implemented by some Government, semi-government and local governing bodies to provide training programs with international certification for the masses.

Words Worth has also introduced ‘Papyrus’ that may be implemented with the minimum of hardware.

Jasvinder singh ceo, wordsworth elt (p) ltd., actuniv group company

Tell us about the underlying vision of ACTUniv.

Our vision is to provide effective and affordable instruments for the development of learners at every level.

Words Worth Digital English Language Lab offers a blended approach to benefit the learners, provides empowerment of the teacher with technology tools and self paced learning with ample opportunity to practice for enhancement of the student’s skills. The resources and material provided are a composite system to deal with English language training for the Indian scenario and is based on an extensive research.

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Please share with us the details of the collaborative partnership you have with any specific state Government, if any.

We are the largest training partner of the Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English (SCOPE) that trains the youth with skills in the English language through our 350+ centres across Gujarat. We are also the training partners of Gujarat Knowledge Society (GKS), an initiative that provides vocational training, offering as many as 38 courses in IT and Non IT domains through 40+ centres in Gujarat. Recently we have been appointed as the education partner for Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation to provide the digital training content, both digital and in print media. The Training of Trainers programme has been conducted by the company to induct all teachers of all training centres.

Kindly highlight the features of Words Worth, the digital English Language Lab.

Words Worth provides the teacher and the learner with individual digital multimedia content and materials that include courseware for the learner; trainer manuals, flash cards and a comprehensive ‘Train the Trainers’ programme for teachers. Words Worth offers graded levels of learning each with a structured study plan that uses blended learning methodology, with the integration of the specially designed tools that provides an edge over other products today.

Words Worth is based on ALTE/ CEFR framework for languages. Kindly elaborate on the same.

The CEFR framework is the standards accepted by most professional institutions and governments globally for employment, immigration and others.

Three full day training is provided to the trainers on the use of the product and delivery techniques. The trainers are evaluated at the end of the programme and certification is provided. The duration of the learners study plans is of around 60 hours and includes ILT and CBT sessions following which the learner can attempt the examination.

What is the mechanism for judging the progress and what kind of certification is available to the beneficiaries at the end of the course?

ACTUniv is honoured to be associated with international testing bodies of repute like Cambridge ESOL, Pearson language Assessments and Trinity College for certification.

The examinations are independently conducted by the third party and appropriate certification is awarded to the candidate at the end of the course by the examination body. \\

corporate diary LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Innovative Technological Solutions in Education: A Perspective www.classteacher.com realize a powerful 21st century learning paradigm.

Rohit Pande CEO, classteacher learning systems

Please highlight the aims and objectives of Classteacher solutions.

Technology is shaping the world and the relationships between humans as machines replicate ceratain aspects leaving the mind free to creatively engage in higher pursuits. In education, technology shapes not just the curriculum but also the way it is transacted. It allows for a transparent knowledge transfer across time and distance and also empowers unique peer learning models.

Large scale reforms in the education sector ( both in public and private space ) shall be accelarated through the use of technology. Classteacher aims to use technology as enabler to bring out wide ranging enhancements in the educational delivery process for K-12. We have worked with and shall continue to work with the educational community to 44

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To what extent has digital technology and interactive learning techniques revolutionised education in the school level? How far has your company been successful in this direction?

Can you provide us with some illustrations regarding your company’s achievement in this field?

Classteacher has over a decade of innovation in educational technology.

We have served about a million students in over 500 schools. Classteacher has pioneered models for Interactive Whiteboards in classrooms, personalized assessments and web based learning support systems. The company believes that the impact of technology in education has only seen the “tip of the iceberg” and a lot more needs to be achieved by engaging the entire school community.

One of classteacher’s key offering is arguably the largest digital curriculum resource with more than 50,000 visual interactive lessons.

Please elaborate on the innovative key patent pending technologies you have developed for classroom teaching-learning process in schools?

We have developed intellectual property in the following domains : classroom teaching across Science, Social Science, Maths and languages, web based learning and collaboration tools, personalization of learning delivery.

Our understanding is borne out of our experience of multiple implementation cycles and we lay a lot of emphasis on teacher professional development. Our products are an open Lab where we listen to the needs to learner and eduactors to build powerful tools of learning.

Can you elaborate on the Skill Assessment Programme developed

by Classteacher Solutions for the students? Is there any such programme for the teachers as well? Additionally, is there a need to develop the faculties of critical thinking in both the students and the teaching community?

The skill program is for students from grades 3-12 and tests skills which are related to the curriculum but beyond rote memorization. We have another assessment program for teachers which measures the effectiveness of our teacher trainign programs. We shall be launching India’s first and only web based teacher trainign program in 2010.

Can you ensure the reliability and accuracy of the skill assessment tests conducted by your company?

We are continuously measuring our assessment resources and assessment algorithms to improve the reliability and accuracy of measurement.

Since our tests are taken by hundreds of thousands of children, our analytical engine churns a massive amount of data to create benchmarked performance reports.

Can you also throw some light on how some of your innovative tools and learning methodologies be employed in higher education sector?

A lot more needs to be done in the higher education sector to improve the quality of delivery and to increase the reach of delivery while maintaining richness. We have tools for Digital Classrooms, assessments, online delivery systems and language learning available for higher education. \\

corporate diary LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Innovative Educational Software Solutions for K-12 Students www.schandgroup.com

Amit Gupta Chief Executive Officer S. Chand Harcourt (India) Pvt. Ltd

Could you tell us more about S. Chand Harcourt (India) Pvt. Ltd? S. Chand, since its inception, 70 years back has maintained no. 1 position in academic textbooks in the country. In a unique combination of K-12 and higher education segment. We have a repository of almost 7000 titles to our fold. HMH being the world leaders bring with them the complete understanding of emerging needs, have invested close to 15 million dollars in developing interactive content and also building a holistic solutions of print and digital aids and solutions for schools. HMH brings its experience, content, products and investments to the company which are complemented by S. Chand to meet local needs and carry out joint development.

S. Chand Harcourt targets to provide innovative educational software solutions in different subjects to K-12 Students. Can you elaborate on these products?

The success of any technology 46

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based education solution is based on the engagement, comprehension, retention, assessment and visible enhancement of learner. The fundamental learning starts with literacy and numeracy skills. Unless & until, you do not have command over a language to express yourself properly, the learning remains incomplete. That is why we have a focus on English and Maths. Regarding Science, it is a subject which need support of technology to illustrate various dimensions and concepts. Since in India, at this stage, the use of technology is limited in schools, just dumping content would not help the school and would not be sustainable. The demands of K12 content are difficult, expensive and demanding for digital media. It requires very strong pedagogical and instructional design inputs and that is where this joint venture brings unmatched strengths of both S. Chand and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

What do you opine about the Public Private Partnership for integration of ICT in area of education?

The public-private partnership for computer aided learning is yet to take proper shape. The present system is not favourable at all for content providers and understanding of quality content is very limited. Presently, the companies engaged in computer literacy programs with state governments are dominating this domain as the tendering process is totally inclined towards them. Till the time the government establishes content and assessment requirement as key to success of computer aided learning in core subject areas and establishes quality parameters, the PPP is not going to be sustainable.

We have done successful projects for developing products for Uttarakhand & Chattisgarh governments so far.

Talking about the Teacher Training Programmes, what is the procedure you follow for evaluation of the training provided to the teachers?

The most important factor for success of these programs is for the teacher to appreciate and understand that these programs and solutions are to support them and make their job simpler and enriching in long run.

The teachers presently feel that if such programs are implemented, they would add to their present workload. We follow a very systematic approach of preimplementation assessment, orientation, guided practice and measurement which has been highly successful.

Can you highlight your efforts taken in area of ICT integration with education imparted to Children with Special Needs? Please give details.

Some of the shelf products of HMH meet requirements of children with special needs. These products would be made available in Indian market in a phased manner. We will have to build developmental skills for such products as presently these are not available on large scale in country. HMH experience and technology transfer would surely support the joint venture.

Kindly share with our readers some of your success stories in terms of effective use of the educational solutions you provide.

Our products have an universal appeal and are modular. They offer multiple solutions to schools which are at threshold to schools which are digitally empowered. Our focus is on support and making every school work not promising the moon and not delivering it. The present market is confused with multiple players and few takers. The market would consolidate around quality, support and measurable results. So this is where companies like us would emerge. \\

Reaching the Unreached NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OPEN SCHOOLING The Largest Open School in the World Courses offered • Secondary • Senior Secondary • Life Enrichment • Open Basic Education • Vocational Courses in Agriculture, Technology, Health and Paramedicals, Home Science, Business & Commerce Openness of NIOS • Open entry and no upper age limit • Open Choice of subjects • Choice of medium • Self paced study Learner Support Services • Specially designed self-instructional materials • Audio and Video programmes in subject areas • Face to face tutorials and practicals during Personal Contact Programmes (PCPs) • 24x7 counselling through IVR services Delivery Mechanism • 2144 Accredited Institutions, 1126 Accredited Vocational Institutions, Over 650 centres for Open Basic Education • Study Centres in Nepal, Middle East • 13 Regional Offices in India Achievements • International excellence award on distance learning at school level • National award for e-governance • Hunar project for skill development of minority girls in vocational areas • On-Demand Examination Scheme (ODES) • Adolescence education programme • Partnership with international organisations such as COL, UNESCO,UNFPA etc. for promoting ODL system.

National Institute of Open Schooling A-24/25, Institutional Area,Sector - 62, NOIDA, Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh - 201 309 www.nios.ac.in

LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

IT Enabled Education: A Road Map to Fruitful Learning www.jilit.co.in

IT to the teaching learning process is disconnected with access to it.

Access in our country with nearly two lac government secondary schools will continue to depend on investment by government in the area of technology and further it dependence on availability to the teachers.

Sunita Joshi Director, JIL Information Technology Ltd

Giving education a global perspective is a concern now, what do you have to say on this?

This is a competitive world.

Therefore, the education system in any country should be able to develop skills and intellect of students to compete at global level. For this the use of latest technology is a must and there is an urgent need to integrate IT with education to fulfil this need.

Do you think that advanced application of IT enabled teachinglearning process will open the way of seamless access to it?

As far as the IT application in teaching learning is concerned, no doubt the pedagogy is getting transformed, and the learner is being facilitated by more advanced means of communication of information. Yet, this change is putting pressure on all too constantly acquire and apply new skills. Application of 48

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According to you, what are the challenges being faced by the education sector currently in introducing ICT and online application as a whole?

The key issue is to ensure availability to the economically challenged section of our society. Internet penetration in India as per statistics available is 81,000,000 Internet users as of Nov/08, 7.0% per ITU and that of education is much below the internet penetration figures. Especially in India and countries where education still hasn’t reached all and where the basics facilities vis-à-vis infrastructure, resources are lacking. The priority will have to be fixed in such a way that it does not create a wide gap but bridges the prevailing gaps and creates opportunities for those made most vulnerable by globalisation.

What are specific products in the teaching-learning solutions in information and communication technology innovated by JIL Information Technology Limited?

Some of our solutions/ products for the teaching-learning segment are: Bhartiyavidya – India’s First Digital Classroom Teaching Aid. A pioneering endeavour offering high quality, well researched digital content, adaptable to any syllabi. It’s an ingenious programme which increases and accelerates students’ interest in the subjects.

Qgenie - A web enabled question paper generator solution for Teachers, Tutors, Parents, Students, Schools and Coaching Institutes.

Power Class – JILIT provides complete turnkey solutions to schools.

Online Test – – A web based unique software solution designed with an objective of eliminating paper based exams and associated costs.

Our solutions have been customised to lessen the burden of the teachers, they are user friendly and allow the teachers to control the pace of teaching based on their understanding of the learner.

Could you please tell us about the collaborative partnerships that JILIT is currently holding?

JILIT has been awarded ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 9001:2000 Certifications and today it is partnering with leading IT companies such as IBM & CISCO. The company has set up and operates the largest private network of VSAT’s and mix of terrestrial links in Northern India. In an effort to improve on technology and look at new products available across the globe JILIT has moved on to collaborating with MNCs in order to make education accessible to all. We have ventured into collaborations with organisations in South East Asia and in South Africa.

Please give us an idea of Corporate Social Responsibility that the group is taking forward to ensure access and quality in education.

Education ignites motivation to do better and move up the social strata triggering all round growth in all spheres of society. The education initiative of the Group is undertaken through Jaiprakash Sewa Sansthan, a ‘not-for-profit trust’.

JSS is not just helping children, but also encouraging adult education with prime focus on strong careers and employment.

“By 2014, we are committed to touch lives of two lac students to ensure the well-being of greater numbers”. \\

event report

50th issue special

Revolutionising School Education in India The mission and vision of the 21st century education agenda

Education has to be for all and that too quality education with more and more be seen heading for higher education – the issues voiced in the sessions of 11th National Conference on 21st century education and Grading Framework and Class xth Exams organised by Independent Schools Federation of India, an association of Central Board of Secondary Education and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination Affiliated Schools in cooperation with S. Chand Harcourt (India) Pvt. Ltd (an association of S. Chand & Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, USA) on 13th December 2009 at Ashoka Hotel New Delhi.

The major issues discussed in the conference were the grading system, the issue of 10th Class exams being made optional, the provisions and the issues of implementation of the Right to Education Act 2009 and discussion on structures on establishing independence at different level of the education system.

The objective of the conference focused upon the matters like implications of the various recommendations for schools, the role of Boards with regards of teachers training and the role of schools to implement recommendations as well.

In the occasion, Destination Success Solution from S Chand Harcourt was also launched by Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India.

The session was inaugurated by Himanshu Gupta, Joint Managing Director, S. Chand Publishing Group.

S. Chand has launched a joint venture with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt of USA being the World’s number one K-12 school publishing. The outcome of this partnership is S Chand Harcourt (India) Pvt. Ltd. which is why first time in India they have got interactive content, map of the C.B.S.E curriculum, integrated teacher training and hardware tools. This 250 years of joint experience also for 50

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Public Private Partnership can be seen as the best possible way to reach out to maximise the access to education the first time in India the goal of bringing technology in education. It is our privilege to launch definition success, interactive classroom with interactive content of today.

Shri Sibal was the chief guest of the conference. Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE had also chaired the sessions.

Besides the luminaries and dignitaries, principals of schools from across India attended conference, participated in the sessions and contributed their ideas in the issues.

In India, currently about 220 million children go to schools everyday. Out of that 220 million children only 26 million that is 12.4 per cent reach class XIIth and the rest of 87.6 per cent of the total could not make possible which counts around 194 million in number. We assume that the goal for development for us is that India should achieve a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of above 40 per cent. In UK the GER is 43 per cent and in US it is

63 per cent. So the big challenge that India faces is how to increase the GER from 12 per cent to 40 per cent. Even if we achieve the target of GER of 30 per cent by 2020 only 76 million children will go beyond class XII. Government is really looking forward to increasing the access to education to the people of India at all levels.

A proper implementation of the Right to Education Act is also one of the challenges in front of the Government. Reforms at the level of quality in education, increasing the horizon of a teacher’s role, encouraging creativity in the thoughts of the child so that real learning can take place should be emphasised on the need of bringing a change from the learning through rote memory to qualitative learning.

Shri Sibal also presented awards to the principals and Directors of several institutions for their distinguished services in the field of education.

The sessions also emphasised on

50th issue special

meeting the aims and objectives of the new education system by devising more parameters to broaden the scope of education in India and make the system more effective.

According to H.S Hanspal, Member, National Minority Commission, without the help of privatisation Government of India cannot provide education to the masses but there is a need to place the right proposal before the government with the right recommendations.

Further to that, Dr Anoop Swaroop Vice Chancellor, Shobhit University added that the most important issue is the access to education and to improve that access to masses the government has to involve the private sector invariably.

The goal of the Prime Minister is to open

1500 universities by 2020 to cover all the gaps in the higher education but at the same time the schools will also have to contribute at their own level to reach out to the masses. At the background of these issues is the National Youth Policy and the National Education Policy were also discussed in brief. A lot was also spoken about the grading system – the achievements and the pitfalls.

But to inculcate values in the education system, grading system has to introduced.

D.V Sharma, Secretary, Council of Boards for School Education (C.B.S.E) in India spoke on how C.B.S.E as a central institution is playing a vital role in bringing about a positive change in the examination system being a crucial

Key outcomes of the conference •

• • • • • •

Introduction of the Grading system in the Xth examination by CBSE in place of a numeric system replaced by Continuous Comprehensive evaluation throughout the learning session CBSE and ICSE boards need to come together to evolve a uniform standard with a common syllabus for students without impacting quality Making of class Xth examination optional in near future.

Introduction of Aptitude test for deciding the future course of study for the students.

Emphasis to be laid on the development of both the scholastic and nonscholastic domain of the students Private participation to be encouraged and private players should be given incentive for running schools.

Launching of inservice training programmes for imparting proper training for the teachers.

element of the educational structure of the country. C.B.S.E is trying to come up with a module in which learning does not happen through examination rather it becomes a comprehensive, continuous and a motivational process for the students. It is high time now that the teachers are also involved actively in the new teaching-learning process to meet the expectations of current educational demands. For this the Board is going to conduct inservice training programmes so that learning becomes an integral part of the teaching process.

It is also important to adopt to the methods of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the latest tools into education and that should be probably the rightest choice, commented Amit Gupta, CEO, S. Chand Group in his presentation in one of the sessions.

According to Vineet Joshi Chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the board along with Management Development Institute, Gurgaon had organised for a research report based on the feedback from the students, guardians, school authorities, principals and thousands of individuals at all levels across the country to arrive at the conclusion about the issue on the 10th Class exams being made optional or not. The report says that the students undergo examination stress and principals of schools are worried about the image of the schools. There is too much weightage that is given on the Xth examination because of which the teachers are forced to adopt unfair means and ineffective pedagogy. There is also enormous amount of pressure on the teachers to complete the syllabus. But it is also required to look at the positive aspect of the class Xth examination which motivates the students to perform better that gives him an understanding of the amount of stress which is needed to move forward in life further. But the report has also clearly mention that the stress should not be so much that students and teachers lose interest in studies. Mr. Joshi highlighted some of the key features of the new scheme of Xth examination that the Board has planned to adopt. It includes evaluation to be done in the schools with the implementation of the formative assessment thoroughly. Through these reforms the Board aims to make today’s examination system as a great social equaliser, confirmed Mr. Joshi. \\

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corporate diary leaders speak

50th issue special

iClassroom Makes the Process of Learning Objective and Collaborative www.edurite.com

Srikanth Iyer COO, Manipal K-12 Education

Can you elaborate on the foundations and philosophy of Edurite Technologies?

The foundation of the company rests on the desire to create a comprehensive education environment catering to diverse requirements. Our objective was to create new initiatives and opportunities for teachers and students.

Manipal K-12 Education (Formerly Edurite Technologies) today is one of the leaders in the field of technology-enablededucation having carved a niche for itself in this space over nine years. Over time, it has strongly established itself across different educational verticals - and has been fulfilling diverse learning needs.

From Schools to after School Tutorials, Higher Education to Learning Aids like ICTs, CDs and DVDs to Spoken English programs, Manipal K-12 Education provides an across-the-board learning experience to students and encourages progressive learning.

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The school going population is going to increase drastically from 220 million to 540 million in the coming years. There are only 10 lakh schools to cater to the school going population. What role do you see yourself playing in the current scenario?

The focus of Manipal K-12 Education has been on promoting new schools under the Manipal School brand name across the country.

Manipal K-12 Education has a very high quality management team which works on providing standardised teacher training, technology-driven English medium curricula and guaranteed learning outcomes affordable to the middle class, which aspires to high quality English medium education.

What sets these schools apart are their affordable annual tuition fees, excellent and trained technology-enabled teachers and best corporate practices.

In all, our K-12 schools development model renders scalable, affordable and capable response to the above scenario.

Can you elaborate on how your company is serving the cause of integrating Information and Communication Technology in education?

The USP of our supplementary multimedia tools is that they are balanced and do not impose what is known as ‘cognitive overload’ on teachers or students. Moreover our curriculum mapped content is thoroughly indigenous and designed for Indian classrooms within the local contexts. Right from identifying difficult learning areas, creating storyboards, designing graphics and animation to voice-overs, recording, video-shoots and teacher- training, we have developed impressive in-house capability.

Our iClassroom (ICT) solution has been conceptualised keeping in view the educational setting of the future.

The iClassroom makes the process of learning, Objective and Collaborative.

It offers school and higher education students and teachers a rich collection of new and interesting animations, facts, diagrams and more. This interactive dimension immensely aids in achieving the objectives of a subject and makes learning a truly engaging, enjoyable and illuminating process.

How successful have you been in providing interactive classroom solutions to schools? Can you share with us some of your success stories.

In January 2008, we introduced ICT-driven “open, multimedia database and customisable” services package, under the brand name DigitAlly, offering mapped classroom content of the ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and IBO examination boards, together with its fully-wired iClassrooms installed in schools under the BOOT (build, own, operate and transfer) model. Our new i-Classrooms, equipped with DigitAlly software, received with great enthusiasm by more than 250 K-12 school managements across the country other than 3000+ schools who uses our content.

Are there any Public Private Partnerships in which you have indulged in or you wish to enter in the future? Are you looking at acquiring schools and come up with your own brand?

After the successful activation of the first Manipal School in Mysore (Manipal Sharada Public School) in the academic year 2009-10, we recently launched Manipal School at Mangalore. We are certainly open to acquire more schools in the coming years. \\

corporate diary LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Technological Innovations to Address Needs of Growing Economies www.ncomputing.com

Stephen A. Dukker Chairman and CEO, NComputing

What has been the primary philosophy of NComputing in India?

NComputing technology is about reducing and economising on cost. We have worked towards bringing down the purchase cost and operating cost by 75%; the electricity cost by 90% and thereby reinventing the computer. In essence, we understand technology and and have found out that the full potential of computers have not been used.

The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer’s capacity.

Could you elaborate more on NComputing’s V space technology?

V space is the software which can be used by any Linux or windows PC to large servers. I would first like to emphasise that 75% of our intellectual property is V space. There are three 54

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parts to the NComputing solution: first is the vSpace software, which allows standard Linux and Windows PCs to be shared by multiple simultaneous users.

With vSpace, each person runs their own applications, just as if they had their own PC. Software and updates can be found in our Software Download Center (must be a registered user to access).

Second is the UXP communications protocol. UXP is the method by which the desktop images and audio are sent to the access device and how the keyboard and mouse data is sent back to the PC. UXP is highly efficient, and excels at multimedia and audio/video synchronization.

Third are the access devices.

They are inexpensive, small, low-power, reliable, durable boxes. On one side they plug into the users’ peripherals (such as the keyboard, monitor and mouse). On the other side, they connect via cables to the shared PC. Could you explain the benefits of the desktop virtualisation technology?

The NComputing devices only use 1 watt of electricity, so the entire 10-seat computing lab uses 90% less electricity compared to an all-PC lab. Most virtualization technologies are expensive to acquire, implement, and maintain.

NComputing is different because we help save money from day one. Our desktop virtualization technology allows up to 30 users to simultaneously use a single computer—at a very low cost.

Could you tell us about the markets that NComputing is catering to?

Our largest market is US and our second largest market is in India. Our third market base is in Brazil and fourth in Mexico. These are dynamic new economies that have discovered that our technology is perfectly aligned with their needs. Our technology is specifically

made for the growing economies and that is the reason why over 65% of our sales are not in the US, but in the G-20 nations. NComputing has invested in creating office locations in different parts of the world because over 100% of our business is done by our channel partners.

The only way to sell our product in local markets is through local companies since their presence is important to serve the customer requirements. The biggest market for us is in the field of education.

Could you tell us details about the initiatives of Ncomputing in India?

The Government of Andhra Pradesh evaluated various computing models, including virtual desktops to implement their project of bringing computer access to 5000 government schools in Andhra Pradesh.. After an extensive evaluation, the government was convinced that a shared computing solution would meet their performance requirements, cost less to purchase, and use a fraction of the power. The government of Andhra Pradesh would save 18 crores of rupees because of shared computing.

We have also collaborated with Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited with whom we have completed the first phase of the project to promote adult computer literacy. MKCL provides governing softwares or the training disciplines and they have selected Ncomputing technology to be the heart of the computing labs.

Wipro, in Bangalore, has recently announced that they have chosen NComputing technology for their largest commercial, healthcare, e-governance and insurance projects in India. This is the biggest miracle record system that is being created here. It is going to be the largest and most efficient computerization of a public organisation. \\

corporate diary LEADERS SPEAK

50th issue special

Holistic Approach Towards Online Education www.learningmate.com At times, it is unfortunate that educational institutes look at options available in the market and need to choose the closest fit, rather than look for a perfect fit. We believe this approach limits the solution to the capacity of what is available in the market. The situation is further compounded by the lack of comprehensive solutions or options readily available in the market.

Atul Sabnis Director, Strategic Initiatives, LearningMate

LearningMate aims to provide instant and seamless knowledge to people at any time, anywhere. Could you elaborate on the same?

In the last six years, LearningMate has made real and tangible solutions in education and benefitted hundreds of thousands of learners around the world. Online is often confused with digitising content. At LearningMate, an online experience comprises digital and interactive content, including means of informal learning as well as learning within a community that is geographically dispersed, yet learning together. All this is guided by our philosophy to provide a useful and a pedagogically relevant experience.

What do you opine about the ICT application in field of education?

In the Indian context, appropriate use of ICT in education overcomes quite a few challenges that Indian education faces, like the lack of physical infrastructure, scarcity of quality instructors and their ability to reach out to a larger audience.

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How are your products different from other similar products in the market?

LearningMate is a full-solution provider of education solutions with a key focus on online education. Solutions that LearningMate delivers are at the intersection of content, technology and services. This allows us to have a holistic view towards education problems.

At eIndia 2009, LearningMate launched Learning eXchange - our product that accumulates all our experience and expertise in a single platform. Our thoughts behind building Learning eXchange were three-fold: application, access, and affordability.

The application covers all learning and teaching processes for an educational institution, the access ensures that institutes have access to world-class content from providers around the world (the eXchange), and affordability ensures that you can have your institute online within two weeks, without incurring any capital expenditure!

LearningMate works towards creating effective learning products. How can these resources enhance teaching and learning amongst teachers and students?

A textbook is a passive form of learning and has limitations due to its static format. LearningMate works to solve these issues around a textbook and allow for increased interaction for the students, better activity tracking for the teachers and allows for distributed and collaborative communication between students and teachers alike. Another way

to look at this is to consider all the activities that occur in a physical classroom, make them available online and build in the tools to enhance student as well as teacher performance. Examples would include multiple assessments, instant results, remediation content for learners, archival, and performance MIS (for students and teachers).

LearningMate has gained significant experience in working with popular VLE products around the world. Our focus primarily is to extend the functionality of such systems for customer requirements.

In the process, LearningMate has developed various frameworks that work with such off-the-shelf VLE products like LearningMate ACE (Assessment & Content Engine) and specialised assessment modules like adaptive, algorithmic and diagnostic testing.

Further, we have used instructional design paradigms to enable easy authoring of content for such VLE products.

Can you share with us your opinion about Public Private Partnerships in education?

LearningMate is completely open for Public Private Partnerships; we are working in a similar situation outside of India to develop online products for special education needs. Public Private Partnerships are very useful to get the best of resources and technology in a sector that needs rapid growth.

LearningMate will continue building on its existing strategy to get affordable state-of-the-art products out into the market. Since the last six-months, we have focussed on bring the best-in-class solutions to the Indian market through (a) comprehensive online learning and collaboration platforms like Learning eXchange and (b) partnerships with leading content providers from around the world. Our key focus will continue to be flexibility, customisation and affordability.

Good solutions don’t necessarily have to be expensive, neither do they need to take years to implement. \\

case study

50th issue special

Digital Innovations: The Next Way to Teach www.teachnext.com New-age classrooms The last decade and a half saw a change silently sweep through Indian classrooms – in form of digitisation.

Indian schools have come a long way from the first hesitant ‘computer classes’ of the ‘90s to the current scenario where students, teachers and administrators, all recognize the powerful impact of modern technology on the educational process.

Why digitise?

There are two reasons behind the enthusiasm for digital classrooms: 1. Computers and technology are now an intrinsic part of our lives. Digital classrooms provide this much needed exposure in the formative years.

2. Digital classrooms take away the limitations of the traditional classroom by allowing teachers to display and demonstrate lessons in a manner that until now seemed impossible.

This need for change has also been accepted by the Ministry of Education even as it recognises many new boards and curriculums. This encouragement has given schools the confidence to digitize their teaching, taking Indian Education to a world-class level. Such digital classrooms capture the students’ imaginations in a way that chalkboards and textbooks never did, and encourage them to actively participate in the learning process rather than be spoon-fed.

What is an appropriate age for digitisation?

Children these days are comfortable with computers from a very young age.

Also, the new e-learning technology gives the flexibility to use age appropriate content to give each child an effective learning experience. In fact, our studies show that children tend to learn faster and retain better from digital aids than from conventional textbook learning.

Educator’s dilemma Schools are increasingly shifting to a digital platform, considering the benefits of such a solution. However, many schools still remain worried about the actual need of such a solution and difficulty of usage, while many are alienated by the prohibitive costs of most digital learning packages.

Supplement. Not Substitute.

Helix Technology Solutions believes that e-learning should supplement the existing system rather than replace it. Nothing can replace, for instance, the careful, patient and subjective responses of a teacher – but she can optimize her own performance immeasurably with the help of an affordable and intuitive programme such as TeachNext.

Teacher’s friend TeachNext is a digital solution that has been specifically crafted to meet the needs of the Indian classroom. It makes allowance for the needs of the teacher without compromising on the requirements of the students. Teachers will not need to prepare the content before every class because each chapter and topic has already been divided into a lecture-ready format, preloaded with a comprehensive set of questions, relevant experiments, activities and revision tests

at the end of every lesson. This allows the teacher to allot her time to her students rather than spending it on lengthy lesson preparations.

TeachNext comes in the form of a simple operating unit that can be directly plugged into any audio-visual device such as a projector or TV monitor to instantly create a digital classroom. There are no additional assistants or expensive central server rooms needed.

Administrator’s ally TeachNext is currently the market leader in single classroom digitization of classrooms. It is extremely friendly on the pocket and allows you the freedom to digitize a single classroom as well as the entire school. TeachNext is also a convenient & cutting edge product in its field.

Far-reaching benefits TeachNext is a result of the unified vision and collective efforts of over 400 academicians, hardware experts and technology professionals who have researched exhaustively to produce a cost-effective and user-friendly solution designed exclusively for Indian schools.

It effectively optimizes the time that both spend in the classroom. For schools and teachers looking to expand their horizons, the solution is at their doorstep – TeachNext. \\ For details, contact 022-61594007 digital LEARNING

january 2010

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