digital LEARNING JANUARY 2013

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

volume 9

I issue 01 I january 2013 I ISSN 0973-4139 I ` 75

education.eletsonline.com

anniversary special issue

TH

core issues in education THE DAWN of new hopes

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Contents

ISSN 0973-4139

volume 09 issue 01 january 2013

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higher education

Pouring Quality in Indian Education System Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra, Elets News Network (ENN)

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Prof (Dr) SS Mantha Chairman, All Indian Council for Technical Education

Prof (Dr) Sandeep Sancheti Director,NationalInstituteof Technology, Delhi

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Policy reforms 08

Policy Initiatives: Higher Education in 2012

school education 16

Nourishing the Roots

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Krishnakant Mane, Social Engineer, IIT-Mumbai, and a Free Software Advocate

online education

72 Hari Ranjan Rao Secretary to Chief MinisterandDepartment ofInformationTechnology, Govt of Madhya Pradesh

special feature 42

Revamping Vocational Education through Station-e Model

Dr Haresh Tank, Director, Station-e Language Lab

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Education on the Cloud

special report 45

Employability-Outlook Report 2013

event report Madhya Pradesh State Education Summit Addresses Gaps in Education Sector

Anand Nagarajan, CEO, Dexler Information Solutions Pvt Ltd; CoChairman National Council on HRD, Education & Employment, ASSOCHAM

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School Education Track

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State Education Summit Awards

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Higher Education Track

Rohit Kumar, Managing Director-South Asia, Elsevier

News

Education: Just a Click Away!

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4

36 Aravind Sitaraman PresidentInclusiveGrowth, Cisco

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20

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34

Vineet Mahajan Anju Banerjee General ManagerManaging Director, EdCIL (India) Limited Chairperson Professional Display Division, Panasonic India Pvt Ltd

education.eletsonline.com

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K-12

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Higher Education

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education Volume

09

Issue 01

January 2013 Partner publications

President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta Group Editor: Anoop Verma Advisory Board Prof Asha Kanwar, President, Commonwealth of Learning

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

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

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

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

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

Web Development & Information Management Team Team Lead – Web Development: Ishvinder Singh Executive – Information Management: Khabirul Islam Information Technology Team Executive – IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed Finance & Operations Team General Manager – Finance: Ajit Kumar Legal Officer: Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr Manager – Events: Vicky Kalra

Editorial Team

Associate Manager – HR: Sushma Juyal

education Sr Research Analyst: Sheena Joseph Sr Correspondent: Pragya Gupta

Associate Manager – Accounts: Anubhav Rana Executive Officer – Accounts: Subhash Chandra Dimri Admin Executive: Gurneet Kaur

governance Manager – Partnerships & Alliances: Manjushree Reddy Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Nayana Singh Health Sr Correspondent: Sharmila Das Research Assistant: Shally Makin Sales & Marketing Team Sr Manager – Sales: Satish Shetti Manager – Marketing: Ragini Shrivastav Manager – Business Development: Abhijeet Ajoynil National Sales Manager – digitalLEARNING: Fahimul Haque Associate Manager – Business Development: Amit Kumar Pundhir Assistant Mamager : Vishukumar Hichkad Assistant Manager – Business Development: Shankar Adaviyar Sr Executive Officer – Business Development: Gaurav Srivastava Subscription & Circulation Team Sr Manager – Circulation: Jagwant Kumar, Mobile: +91-8130296484 Sr Executive – Subscription: Gunjan Singh, Mobile: +91-8860635832 Executive – Circulation: Ashok Kumar Design Team Team Lead – Graphic Design: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Sr Graphic Designer: Om Prakash Thakur Sr Web Designer: Shyam Kishore All India Distribution by Ibh Books & Magazines Distributors Pvt Ltd Editorial & Marketing Correspondence digitalLearning - Stellar IT Park Office No: 7A/7B, 5th Floor, Annexe Building, C-25, Sector 62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, Phone: +91-120-4812600 Fax: +91-120-4812660 Email: info@digitalLearning.in

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

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

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EDITORIAL

New Year is time for New Ideas in Education This is one prediction we can safely make: ICTs will continue to lead to dynamic changes in education in 2013. The educational institutions will aptly deploy more innovative ICTs because they provide students and teachers with more opportunities in adapting learning and teaching to individual needs.

Recently, the public sector telecom operator, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), came up with an innovative scheme, that can enable science graduates to learn about telecommunication from BSNL’s own experienced faculty.

This online certificate course is a unique industry-oriented academic initiative.

The theory part of the course can be learnt online. Practical sessions will be conducted using the live equipment worth crores at the BSNL training centre. It is not only the students who can benefit from BSNL’s initiative, employees and job-seekers too, can join the course to enhance their knowledge of the telecom sector.

In 2013, we can expect other innovative educational products, which make use of ICTs, to be launched by different public and private organisations. The idea, that ICTs are a potentially powerful tool for extending educational benefits, both formal and non-formal to previously underserved communities and groups, has now taken root. The advent of digital technologies is enabling many groups that have been traditionally excluded from education to have the lamp of knowledge shine on them. This is surely a cheerful note on which we can begin the New Year.

The current issue of the digitalLEARNING magazine carries an in depth analysis of various developments in online education and other digital educational technologies in the country. There is no doubt that online education is all set to become a major phenomenon in the country. Perhaps, it has already become one. But further progress of such avenues for education also depends on the availability of basic infrastructure. Connectivity and basic things like electricity continue to be an issue.

We had the State Education Summit 2012 (SES) at Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on 19th December 2012. The event was attended by an array of eminent speakers and delegates from all areas of education. We had ministers, senior government officials, academic luminaries, principals, VCs, Chairmen, and stalwarts of private industry gathering on the SES platform to exchange knowledge and ideas on the ways by which we can have better education outcomes in the country.

In February 2013, we are having the State Education Summit 2013 in Chandigarh, Punjab. I hope you see you there along with other speakers and delegates. Despite all the progress that we have made in the education space, a lot of work still needs to be done. The SES 2013 will, hopefully, lead us towards new ideas for revamping the state of education in our country.

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

digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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higher education

Policy Initiatives

Higher Education in 2012 C

entral Universities

Sixteen central universities have been established which include conversion of three state universities in Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. All of them have become functional.

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ndian Institutes of Management (IIMs) Seven Indian Institutes of Management have been established and all of them have become functional.

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ndian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Eight new IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Orissa, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, have commenced their academic activities. The land for these has been identified and all institutes, except those at Gandhinagar and Indore, have taken up construction of their permanent campuses.

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ational Institutes of Technology (NITs) in each of the larger states/UTs The government has established 10 new NITs at Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Goa, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Puducherry. As on date, there are approximately 1,600 students pursuing undergraduate programmes.

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ndian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) under PPP mode

ndian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs)

Twenty IIITs and approximately 1,000 polytechnics are proposed to be set up under this mode. Fifteen state governments have identified land for setting up of the institute. In four cases, the state governments have also identified the industry partners.

Five IISERs at Mohali (Punjab), Kolkata (West Bengal), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) and Pune (Maharashtra) have been established with the objective of promoting excellence in science education.

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ahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace & Sustainable Development An agreement has been signed with the UNESCO for the establishment of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace & Sustainable Development at New Delhi. This is the first category institute of UNESCO in the entire AsiaPacific Region. It will serve as a platform for India to emerge as a global leader in the areas of education for peace and sustainable development.

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nternational Collaborations During the last three years, Education Exchange Programme (EEP)/MoUs have been signed with 12 countries, bringing the total number of such exchanges to 41.

higher education

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stablishment of Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada and Telugu

These research centres identify sources of classical Kannada/Telugu languages to promote, propagate and preserve.

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odernisation of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur On its diamond jubilee, a one-time special assistance of `100 crore was released for the modernisation of IITKharagpur.

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ew Polytechnics

• Out of 300 un-served/underserved districts, 281 have been provided a partial financial assistance of `1,915.99 crore till November 12, 2012.

• A partial financial assistance of `255.50 crore for strengthening of existing polytechnics has been provided to 500 polytechnics till August 31, 2012.

• Out of the 500 existing AICTEapproved polytechnics, 487 have been provided a partial financial assistance of `241.60 crore till August 31, 2012.

• 2.20 lakh people have availed training under community development through polytechnics scheme during the financial year 201112. An amount of `127.98 crore has been released till August 31, 2012.

• More than 2.5 lakh people have been given training in four regional boards of apprenticeship/practical training (BOATs/BPOT) located at Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur and Chennai during the last three years.

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aunch of Aakash 2 Tablet The low cost access-cum-computing device, Aakash 2, was launched by the President of India on November 11, 2012 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The tablet is powered by a 1 Ghz processor, has a 512 MB RAM, a 7”-capacitive touch screen, and a battery with stand-by time of three hours.

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irtual Labs

Eighty nine virtual labs were launched on February 23, 2012 for quality enhancement so that learners in the distance education system and those in remotely located and backward areas can reap the benefit of quality and relevant education through ICT.

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nterest subsidy on Educational Loans The scheme, based solely on income criteria and not social backgrounds, has become effective from the academic year 2009-10. An amount exceeding `800 crore has been released by the government for benefiting about 21,55,831 students till August 31, 2012.

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ational Book Promotion Policy The draft of the National Book Promotion Policy has been approved by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) in its 58th meeting held on June 7, 2011.

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• A total of 400 universities and 19,069 colleges have been provided with connectivity under the scheme as on October 31, 2012.

• Academies for professional development of Urdu-medium teachers have been set up in three central universities namely, Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Milia Islamia, and Maulana Azad National Urdu University.

ational Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology

igher Education for Minorities

• `61.31 crore have been sanctioned for the establishment of Residential Coaching Academics for Minorities, and Women.

• Two new campuses of Aligarh Muslim University have become operational at Murshidabad in West Bengal and Malappuram in Kerala.

• 374 minority concentrated districts/ areas have been identified for the establishment of model degree colleges. Approval has been granted to 14 colleges.

• An amount of `232.67 crore has been released as the initial grant for setting up polytechnics in 46 districts out of 57 districts.

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-LIST (National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content)

More than 74,000 e-Books from 297 publishers and 3,700 eJournals are available to 1,08,729 students in 1,512 institutions. Similarly, for university students, more than 7,500 eJournals to students in 297 institutions are available from INFLIBNET and IIT Delhi. Full text e-Thesis, numbering 2,224, is also available on the INFLIBNET network.

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ducation of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes • Coaching classes to prepare for National Eligibility Test (NET) • Establishment of Equal Opportunity Cells (EOCs) for sensitising university/ college communities on problems faced

by SC/ST students in higher education • Postgraduate scholarships to SCs/ STs and minorities • Postdoctoral fellowships for SCs/ STs measures initiated by the IITs to prevent any form of caste-based discrimination • Indira Gandhi Scholarship for single girl child for pursuing higher and technical education • Development of women’s studies in universities and colleges digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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Higher Education

Pouring Quality in Indian Education System

Accreditation of educational institutions will make it easy for students to assess the quality of programmes, courses, infrastructure and faculty in an institute

By Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra, Elets News Network (ENN)

T

o improve the quality of higher education in the country, the government has decided to make accreditation mandatory for all higher education institutions by February 2013. This means that any new university or institute of higher education will need to get accredited mandatorily by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Bangalore, before it opens, to get funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC) for its research and academic programmes. The existing colleges will be given a few years to get accredited.

The decision came after the government failed to get the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill (NARA) passed in the winter session of the Parliament. The bill has been lying in the Parliament for more than two years.

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• Less than 15 percent of the universities in India are accredited • The decision came after the Centre failed to get the NARA bill passed in the Parliament • More than 33,000 colleges and 10,000 technical institutes are likely to get affected by the decision • The UGC and the AICTE will be preparing benchmarks for the process of accreditation which will certify the academic quality of an institute • The Indian Board of Accreditation will accredit and develop quality metrics in different courses

Higher Education

Prof HA Ranganath, Director, NAAC, said, “With all this expansion etc, if higher education has to succeed, the country needs a robust accreditation process and it should be a successful venture.”

More than 33,000 colleges and 10,000 technical institutes are likely to get affected by the decision. At present, because accreditation is not mandatory, only a small percentage (less than 15 percent), of the 612 universities in India are accredited. The lack of accreditation and the rising number of private varsities offering technical and higher education in the country is making it difficult for admission seekers to judge the quality of education that is being provided in these institutes. Prof Dr SS Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), said: “The massive growth in the technical education system in India has spawned the need for quality. Thus, getting courses accredited is also gaining importance.”

Accreditation of educational institutions will make it easy for students to assess the quality of programmes, courses, infrastructure and faculty in an institute. Another advantage is that students who graduate from accredited universities do not face difficulties in getting jobs and are easily chosen by potential employers who are sure that the students have received quality education.

Talking about the new system of accreditation that will add value and quality to education, Dr Mantha said: “Unlike the earlier practice of quality as a measure of inputs that are required to run an institute, the new accreditation process seeks to measure outcomes.

Across the world, outcomes are measured to ensure quality. Education has to be student-centric and hence, the value addition that a student gets through education needs to be measured.”

According to the the Minister for Human Resource Development, MM Pallam Raju, both the UGC and the AICTE will be preparing benchmarks for the process of accreditation, which will certify the academic quality of an institute.

The ministry will be writing to state governments to set up more accreditation bodies that will monitor institutions on these benchmarks.

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education.eletsonline.com

The lack of accreditation and the rising number of private varsities offering technical and higher education makes it difficult for admission seekers to judge the quality of education The AICTE is setting up another agency for accreditation, the Indian Board of Accreditation (IBA), to accelerate the process. The board will accredit and develop quality metrics in a wide variety of courses, said Dr Mantha. The board will help the existing National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in examining higher and technical education institutes. It will follow best practices from different countries across the world and come up with new processes of evaluation.

digitalLEARNING’s view The education sector in India will certainly welcome the decision of the government to make accreditation mandatory for new and existing institutions

but if the unaccredited private players that constitute a major share of participation in technical and higher education in the country, will willingly accept the move lies in ambiguity.

Parents spend huge money to ensure that their child receives good education. Therefore, satisfaction in terms of quality of education is what they must get. Continuous review of the institutes by the accreditation organisations every few years is a must.

And, in order to ensure that all the institutes are complying with the required standards and are meeting the acceptable levels of quality, every institute must be made to go through each step of accreditation every time it is reviewed.

CS I Production I VLSI

UNIVERSITY

higher education

leader speak

Measuring Outcomes is Critical to Achieving Quality the global standards of education in order to improve the mobility of engineers.

The AICTE has created the Indian Board of Accreditation to accredit and develop quality metrics in a wide variety of courses, says Prof (Dr) SS Mantha, Chairman, All Indian Council for Technical Education

Please tell us about the initiatives that the AICTE is taking towards making accreditation compulsory for colleges.

Accreditation is not mandatory at this point of time. However, it is a good idea to make it mandatory in the future. The AICTE will be exploring ways to do this as it helps in ensuring certification of a certain benchmark on standards. All the countries should work at meeting

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education.eletsonline.com

How will it improve the education system?

Unlike the earlier practice of quality as a measure of inputs that are required to run an institute, the new accreditation process seeks to measure outcomes.

Across the world, outcomes are measured to ensure quality. Education has to be student-centric and hence, the value addition that a student gets through education needs to be measured.

The Washington Accord, too, emphasises the need to measure outcomes as it helps in measuring what a student learns in a given learning environment and ensures his progress in terms of academic excellence and also a consequent appropriate employment.

The massive growth in the technical education system in India has spawned the need for quality. Thus, getting courses accredited is also gaining importance.

This surging demand has necessitated for the AICTE to create another body, the Indian Board of Accreditation (IBA), which will also accredit courses in various programmes such as engineering/ technology, architecture, pharmacy, applied arts, management, MCA and hotel management. This gives the users the access to an alternate system which is completely online, equally robust, sound and avoids delays. The board will follow similar outcome practices as the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) does, and will provide utmost transparency and accountability.

The AICTE is also pioneering the growth in vocational education in the country and it is only natural that the accreditation of vocational education and hands on skills acquired under the National Vocational Education Qualifica-

tions Framework (NVEQF) would assume importance in the near future. The IBA would be positioned to ensure that quality prevails in this area too.

At AICTE, we are also in the process of launching calibrated services in distance education. The IBA will also look at developing quality metrics at par with the world standards and like those in higher education, in the distance education system too.

How are private colleges reacting to the move?

All the institutes are reacting positively about the initiatives that the AICTE has been taking, since all of us are targeting the growth of quality technical and higher education in the country. The private sector has always been proactive and supportive in the process of implementing reforms.

How are you helping colleges in getting accredited?

We conduct awareness workshops for all the stakeholders so that the new procedures are understood and implemented properly. Doing a self-assessment will be of great help to the institutes because they will be able to see how they fare, and do a course correction accordingly.

We will conduct workshops for experts and for the institutes too, in the future.

In your opinion, why could the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill not be passed in the Parliament?

It is incorrect to say that there are difficulties in passing the bill. Various nuances and provisions of the bill need to be understood, and we believe that everyone will support the efforts to improve the quality of technical education in the country.

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school education

feature

Nourishing the Roots

School is the place that can cater to the children with special needs. Early age nourishment can give them the confidence for a better life

By Pragya Gupta, Elets News Network (ENN)

I

nclusive education is the way to address the inequalities that the country is struggling with. Differently-abled children do not receive equal treatment, and are restrained from quality education, which can ensure a good future for them.

Such children ­must be given equal access to quality education and lifelong learning so that they can participate in the society not as differently-abled, but like all the others. The children must be supported from the childhood so that their life can be improved.

Every child is unique and has his own strength and weakness. There is a need to unveil those strengths and develop them. The timely identification of chil-

dren at risk of dyslexia or autism, etc, is important to ensure better support for them.

Exploring individual strengths All children, with their individual strengths and weaknesses, have the right to education. Therefore, it is a country’s school system that must be adjusted to meet the needs of all the children.

Shyam Agrawal

“Every child is blessed with something special.

We try to cater to the needs of all the students through our special educators who teach the children and make them perform activities that suit their caliber. We believe in all the skills because intelligence does not mean that the child is good in mathematics or chess, but we consider it as a gift of god,” said Shyam Agrawal, Principal, Billabong High International School, Indore.

“In our school, there is an inclusive policy through which admissions are given on first-

Assistive Technology is must for making inclusive education a reality

Dr Uma Tuli Founder, Amar Jyoti School

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education.eletsonline.com

Today, when we talk about technology, we forget about the people with disabilities. We need to consider the ways to develop assistive technology for making inclusive education a reality. We introduce so many things, but if we do not look at their accessibility, the work remains half done. We have to look at education with a holistic approach to make vocational training a part of the curriculum. We need to have structured sports and cultural activities for the differently-abled.

The philosophy of inclusive education rests on the idea of providing equal opportunities to everyone, regardless of the fact that a person is with or without disability. In life skills education, we need appropriate policies that will lead to the development of resources, training, support services, reasonable accommodation, holistic approach and a barrier-free environment. We need involvement of parents, learners, teachers, decision makers and advocates. There should be interactive and fun-filled classrooms. The

feature

come, first-serve basis. Our aim is to nurture the skills: reading, writing or head-hand skills, of the differentlyabled. Skills produce performance and performance results in self-esteem and competence. The school converts each skill to a life skill to promote psycho-social competence,” he adds.

Teachers’ training Teachers are the ones who closely relate with children in a classroom. Teacher training programmes are essential to keep the teachers updated and knowledgeable.

Jyotsna Brar

“We do not have many differentlyabled children in our school. However, we work in the identification and support of children with minor learning difficulties like dyslexia and HDAD. Almost all our teachers have attended workshops and talks on learning disabilities and how to work with children with

curriculum has to be flexible enough to reduce academic pressure on students.

We have to develop teaching materials with technology-assistive devices, linkages between pre-schools and primary education, and provision of adequate resources and leverages.

Today, even the CBSE allows assistive devices like talking calculators, computers, talking pens and many others at the time of examination for the differently-abled. Skill development doesn’t end with just leading a life of skills; it is many things put together.

This is something we need to understand.

We need to promote the usage of

school education

Identification at Early Age

Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities that may impact nearly 10 percent of all school-going children.

Pearson Clinical & Talent Assessment, a division of Pearson, helps empower school teachers to identify children at risk of dyslexia. Due to shortage of trained psychologists and special educators in the Indian school system, children struggling with dyslexia often slip through the cracks and end up with poor academic and professional outcomes. Pearson will also shortly introduce a remediation for children with dyslexia, Launch into Reading Success, a phonological awareness training programme, that will benefit all Indian children who need to develop better phonological skills, and specifically children with dyslexia, who struggle with phonological challenges as part of their learning disability,” shared Prashant Banerjee, marketing head of the division.

special learning needs,” said Jyotsna Brar, Principal, Welham Girls’ School, Dehradun.

On the initiatives taken by the school, she said, “We assist children with special difficulties in a different way. We occasionally organise and host the Special Olympics for the state and our senior students and teachers work with challenged and street children at the Cheshire Homes every week. A professed aim of the school is to sensitise every member of our school community towards people with different needs through direct contact during their years in school.”

Engaging students Different students have different needs to remain engaged in learning. Today, with

technology, and training of trainers should be organised on a regular basis. There have to be several concessions and reforms in the examination system. Sensitisation at the university level should be done to include the differently-abled in the stream.

The media should highlight the potential of a person with disabilities and create necessary public awareness.

The bottom line is that we should not underestimate the power of touch, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment and the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential of turning life around. That is what education is all about.

ICT and other tools, schools are focusing on engaged and interactive learning.

Similarly, it is important to develop techniques that can keep students engaged in their own ways.

Shanthi Menon

Shanthi Menon, Principal, Deens Academy, Bengaluru, “At Deens Academy, we believe in giving equal opportunity to all students. We, therefore, have a Special Education Wing that caters to the differently-abled students, while they are integrated into classrooms for activities other than core subjects. Differentiated daily tasks are created within curriculums to cater to these children and opportunities for open schooling are offered to those in need.”

The school also has the mentoring system in which a mentor is provided to a student with special needs.

“We practice a mentoring system in the school. Differently-abled children have a mentor who looks after all the academic problems of the children.

In addition to this, we provide special sessions from experts exclusively for them,” informs Menon. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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school education

Foss is the Way to Inclusion In what ways can Open Source software be of help in providing inclusive education?

The solutions for the disabled have to be affordable. The available proprietary screen reader costs approximately `50,000 per license. How can a visually-disabled person buy such expensive software, when he is already underprivileged? If there are 10 students in a college who are blind, do you think the college will pay five lakh rupees to get the software for them?

Similarly, why would a corporate will spend `50,000 for a blind person? To handle this situation, we have developed free and open source software called ORCA, which is a complete replacement of the proprietary software. It works with open source operating systems like Ubuntu. With this software, the visually disabled get high-class access. It provides spoken output from word processor documents and Excel spreadsheets, surf the net, read and write emails, do programming, and much more.

Krishnakant Mane, Social Engineer, IITMumbai, and a Free Software Advocate, has brilliant ideas not only for the visually-challenged, but also for the underprivileged, who are often forced to live in poverty and fear. He himself is visually-challenged and has been working on software solutions for the blind

Please share with us the details of your association with HP. For training the visually challenged, we got in touch with HP through the LAB-in-Box project where a class can be set up at anytime and anywhere. It can also be moved anywhere. Sometimes, colleges are reluctant to add additional equipment, especially for the blind. The government is now taking interest in this project, and in the times to come, there will be great improvement in the scope of the software. Total ownership cost can be brought down further and that will have direct impact on the employability of blind students, who will have access to cheaper and better training.

In your opinion, how helpful is technology for a person with disabilities?

Technology is very important when it comes to the disabled because today, it has grown to an extent that it is capable of compensating for whatever disability a person has. I can do a lot digitally with the talking software on my laptop. I am leading a project that develops free and open source accounting in rural banking at IIT. We are trying to find a replacement for the software, Tally.

In the modern context, the basics of life would include ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan and digital technology’. Technology can help you do everything, right from withdrawing money from an ATM to communicating with someone at another location.

Tell us about your FOSS-based financial accounting software, GNU Khata.

GNU Khata is a fully-featured, multi-user, web-based financial accounting application, built on robust open source platforms and freely downloadable by any interested user. It is released under the GNU GPL license, and is capable of customisation by any firm or individual user, as its source code is available for download under the terms of the General Public License. GNU Khata has been designed by a group of software developers, chartered accountants and users. It is a complete solution for the financial accounting requirements of most Indian firms.

We are now in the process of adding more features such as inventory and language localisation. Once this is done, GNU Khata will emerge as one of most used applications for financial accounting by any firm.

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FeATURE online education

Education Just a Click Away!

The metamorphosis of education technologies is leading to the creation of many new avenues for knowledge economy

By Ruhi Ahuja Dhingra, Elets News Network (ENN)

T

oo busy to take up an MBA, or do not want to travel to farflung cities to pursue the course of your choice? Switch on your computer, connect to the web and experience online education refine the way you learn. Welcome to the digital age!

Whether it is communication, work or shopping, people across the world are becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet. Thanks to the digital revolution. In today’s world, people can easily learn and teach too, right from elementary education to the university level, sitting at home. Reports say that the market of online education stands at $20 million today and is expected to get twice as large by 2017.

Universities in India and the world over are offering online courses that help students learn from the best of faculty and mentors from across the globe. The Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed a nonprofit partnership, edX, to offer interactive online courses for free to students. Other universities are also partnering with online education companies to provide eLearning courses along similar lines. This eliminates the need to go to a university’s

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campus and pay huge money to take at least a course that does not demand hands-on training.

“Online education can prove to be very effective for any course that does not require lab work or is not too technical like engineering and medicine. Therefore, the objective of access to education can be achieved through online education, and it will also create an equitable order, whether you can afford it or not,” says Prof (Dr) Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Delhi.

The upsurge in the demand for online education can be attributed to various factors like flexibility, ease of learning, low cost, interactivity, and multiple choices of subjects and courses. eLearning courses are also used by corporate to keep their employees abreast of the latest technology.

How effective is online learning?

“There are three important points in education: access, equity, quality. Every student in the country does not have the access or the means to come to a college. There is a huge gap between

online education FeATURE

those who can afford education and those who can’t. Online education will fill up that gap,” believes Dr Singh.

Even in the US, the eLearning market is one of the fastest growing segments. With a lot of more K-12 schools and higher education institutions (HEIs) adopting online education, the demand has risen rapidly in the past five years. Not just this, the high penetration of devices like smartphones, laptops and tablets, has also made a significant contribution in the development of online learning across the globe. A few innovative mobile learning solutions too, have been piloted.

They have very little success in pockets and still need to go a far way before they become an established solution.

One of the leading online education providers, Hughes Global Education, has tied up with a lot of renowned institutions like the IITs and IIMs in India to provide online education and training programmes to students and professionals. It offers degree, diploma and certificate programmes and connects the students and teachers through a professional studio.

Universities too, have realised the immense potential that eLearning holds and have thus begun to offer online programmes that help the students in learning themselves and at their own pace.

The winning proposition Online learning is the best way to learn important courses like Management, Engineering, Finance, Economics, English Literature from professionals from across the world even if you are working. There is a wide array of courses you can choose from and learn them from wherever you are. You can also choose which method of study you want to opt for and the time when you want to study: a different world of learning with convenience and ease. Once a student receives the course material, he can learn by interacting with mentors via chats, emails and discussion forums.

Virtual classrooms also provide instant scale of delivery. They can be very effective if used appropriately in an eLearning programme. In today’s market, there are cost effective solutions which reduce the cost drastically.

Indians reap the benefits

A huge market

A lot of Indians, who never had access to high quality education, and also the students in prestigious institutions in the country, can now learn a wide array of subjects from professors from universities like the MIT and Stanford. The videos are extraordinary and different from those in the physical classrooms in India. Students can watch these videos at any time, participate in discussions and take the tests and exercises. Online education is sure to have a lot of impact on India as a huge number of students in our country, especially those in rural areas, yearn to get access to good quality education that paves the way for a brighter tomorrow.

There are so many parts of India that do not have schools. Moreover, a lot of schools in the country face shortage of faculty. Online education can fill that gap too. You can prepare good lectures and material and put them up online.

Therefore, for a country like India, online education definitely has a lot of relevance, says Dr Singh.

A joint initiative of seven Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), aims at enhancing the reach and the quality of engineering education in the country through free video and web courses on YouTube. It had about 260 courses in its first phase and has proposed more than 1,000 for the second phase. The courses can also be downloaded for viewing offline.

According to a report by the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the sale of personal computers went up by 16 percent in 2011-12, spurring the growth of eLearning in the country. Since online education is embracing all distance education and virtual universities, there certainly is a huge market with tremendous potential. “Considering the huge expansion that is happening in India, online education can be really effective,” adds Dr Singh.

In one of its studies, the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) said that the education sector will attract an investment of a whopping $1 billion from private equity and venture capital firms. The report also said that a majority of this investment will be in technology-enabled education initiatives.

Online education providers too, predict that the online education market in India will continue to expand in the years to come. Over the next few years there will be a push to consolidate among subscale players. New entrants will continue to look at micro markets. The larger players will look at expanding beyond their current strong holds into adjacent areas.

The online education market stands at $20 million today and is expected to get twice as large by 2017

Online education: The future Let’s think about the bigger picture. Online education cannot replace a teacher in a physical classroom, but can certainly supplement the formal education system. Since all the course content: lectures, research papers, notes and case studies; is just a click away, education is sure to revolutionise. Knowledge can be gained at any anytime and from anywhere and is not confined to the four walls of a classroom.

Most of the academic leaders believe that online learning is a critical part of their institutions’ long-term academic strategy. Online education providers are also constantly exploring new ways to enhance the way education is being imparted to the masses across the world.

With one in three students opting for at least one online course, online education is growing at a tremendous pace and is here to stay. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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academia speak online education

Delivering Life-Long-Learning Support Several parallel efforts are being made to launch virtual universities catering to all types of courses

“e-Learning will soon be the key mechanism for helping us achieve the required GER, bring diversity in the nature of programmes, tailor degrees, and help learners satisfy their quest for knowledge,” belives Prof (Dr) Sandeep Sancheti, Director, National Institute of Technology, Delhi

Considering the digital divide in our country, how effective is e-Learning in reaching out to the rural or backward areas? eLearning has huge potential to reach out to the masses, particularly to those from rural and backward classes due to its potential accessibility, reconfigurability, and speed of implementation, where all other competing approaches have failed. Moreover, its low cost (virtually free in many ways), ability to mitigate shortage of quality teachers, features of

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self-learning and lack of optimal class sizes, etc, also offer an edge.

The only limitations are factors like proper awareness, adequacy and reliability of network bandwidth, and fear of use of new technology. I am sure these can be overcome easily with collective efforts from both the government and the private sector.

How beneficial is learning in a virtual classroom?

Virtual classrooms can be very beneficial

as they can operate in anytime and anywhere mode easily: the foremost desire of people from different backgrounds. In fact, this is the only possible way for delivering the needs of ‘life-long-learning’ support.

On top of this, technology-enabled learning empowers the learner with features like personalised pace of learning, language translation, repeatability, and 24x7 support. Virtual mode is a great value addition to conventional teaching-learning methods, which of course has its own advantages.

What in your opinion is the future of online education in India?

In one word, it is ‘bright’. Soon, it will be a key mechanism to help us achieve the required gross enrolment ratio, and diversity in nature of programmes, tailor degrees, and in many cases, help learners satisfy their quest for knowledge in new and emerging areas. As of now, several parallel efforts are being made to launch virtual universities catering to all types of courses including professional courses like engineering. Few hurdles like online/virtual laboratories and examinations, if overcome properly, can make it the most used method for education in the entire world.

industry speak online education

their learning around e-Learning will see higher success than those who adopt a “digital library” approach.

Considering the digital divide in our country, how effective is e-Learning in reaching out to the rural or backward areas? e-Learning is the solution to addressing the GER ambitions of the country. It can ensure that quality education is available at scale and beats the challenges of shortage of faculty and reach. Each market has different issues that need to be sorted out. Basic infrastructure challenges still pose a real threat to mass adoption. Overcoming these challenges will provide innumerable opportunities for solution providers.

e-Learning will Continue to Germinate in India

e-Learning can ensure that quality education is available at every level of society. It easily beats the challenges of shortage of faculty and reach, believes Anand Nagarajan, CEO, Dexler Information Solutions Pvt Ltd; Co-Chairman National Council on HRD, Education & Employment, ASSOCHAM Please tell us about the online education market in India.

The e-Learning market in India is still in its nascent stages, and is primarily a fragmented market on both the opportunity and the solution provider side. On the provider side, it is led by players who either provide LMS-es/technology platform or content or assessment solutions. On the opportunity side, there are focused opportunities like K-12, test prep (GMAT, GRE, IIT-JEE etc) or Financial, Management and Medical education. The diversity in the opportunities permits mushrooming players to find a place even though the market is fragmented.

Which category of students opts more for e-Learning courses?

The current trend is as follows: In professional education (retail), SAP education has established an

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e-Academy ecosystem. While the content is available online, it can be accessed only from an education partner location. The entire experience has been enhanced by providing ability for real time subject matter support.

In the K-12 segment, digital solutions like smart boards and eContent have become the norm. With a host of players, these solutions are now common in most schools.

In the higher education segment, the adoption of e-Learning is still low. certification programmes see higher acceptance than programmes with no or weak certification. This is linked to employability. There are institutions of higher education that have been early movers, while some are still skeptical about students adopting e-Learning.

Colleges that embed the courses as a part of their curriculum and design

How beneficial is learning in a virtual classroom?

Virtual classrooms can provide instant scale of delivery. If used properly in an e-Learning programme, they can prove to be very effective. Earlier solutions needed expensive and dedicated connectivity. This made them commercially unviable due to the huge cost of delivery. In today’s market, there are far more cost effective solutions that use the existing Internet connections. This reduces the cost drastically.

Where do you see the online education market in the next few years?

The online education market will continue to grow in India. Over the next few years, there will be a push to consolidate among subscale players. There have been over 300 venture capital/private equity deals in the education space since 2010. The investors will need exits soon.

Not many of the funded companies have scale to list in public markets and hence, will have to look at more strategic options. It can be assumed that new entrants will continue to look at micro markets. The larger players will look at expanding beyond their current “strong holds” into adjacent areas. For example, K-12 players will look at larger push in higher education markets, and assessment solution companies will look at offering content solutions etc.

Industry speak

online education

Growing Mandate for e-Learning in Medical Colleges Please tell us about the online education market in India? How do you perceive the growth of this market over the next five years?

Online education has become an emerging trend around the world with technology-enabled teaching-learning practices replacing the traditional blackboard and chalk method of teaching at a fast pace. Reports suggest that the online education market in India is expected to double itself over the next three years.

In a recent study, ASSOCHAM indicated that the education sector will attract a whopping $1 billion investment from private equity and venture capital firms.

A majority of this investment will be made in technology-enabled education initiatives.

How relevant are online teachinglearning practices for medical education?

India has a dismal doctor-patient ratio of 0.5 doctors per 1,000 population as compared to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended doctorpatient ratio of one doctor per 1,000 population. To achieve the prescribed ratio by 2028, India needs to set up 187 new medical colleges during the 12th and 13th plans. However, the current growth rate of medical institutions is a meager five percent, year-on-year.

An extensive research conducted by Elsevier indicated some weak links in the growth of this market. The first is the availability of trained faculty and support staff (which have a long gestation period: 11 years for faculty and up to five years for the support staff) for the new medical colleges. Secondly, there is a huge lack of adequate cadavers/ animals/patients for practical exposure.

Considering these structural problems,

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“With greater emphasis on the use of ICT-based education practices by the government and regulatory bodies, medical education in India is set to adopt technology-driven learning in a big way,“ says Rohit Kumar, Managing Director-South Asia, Elsevier Health Sciences

there is a greater need for adoption of alternate solutions for increasing the efficiency of the existing human resources by use of digital products to enhance teaching and learning of theoretical and practical skills.

The Medical Council of India has also directed all medical colleges to use information technology for teaching medicine by setting up eClassrooms, eLibraries, and providing access to eContent.

There is a growing mandate for eLearning and many college libraries now have computer terminals with eJournals.

How can eLearning courses benefit medical students?

Medical students find it difficult to un-

derstand and visualise important concepts and acquire practical skills because of increasing class strengths, decreasing teacher-student ratio, and limited practice opportunities.

The integration of clinical and non-clinical topics is another major challenge. eLearning products such as Clinical Learning, launched by Elsevier, serve the students by clearing important and difficult concepts along with giving enough exposure towards practical skills. It is a one stop solution that caters to both practical as well as clinical needs of students. It also allows them to access and review credible and interactive modules anytime at a selfcontrolled pace.

news k-12

Ryan International to Hold World Scholars Cup New Delhi: The Ryan International Group of Institutions hosted the prestigious global-level event, ‘World Scholars Cup (WSC) – India Round’, for Indian students in December. The theme for the WSC 2012 was ‘A World in Flux’.

WSC is a renowned international team academic tournament with students participating from over 40 countries. More than 500 students from 40 different schools over the country participated in the tournament.

Students were provided with opportunities to practice team work, connect to diverse disciplines,

and discover and display their skills and strengths by participating in events like team debate, persuasive writing, scholars challenge and scholars bowl.

During the event, subjects like science, literature, arts, history, and current affairs were discussed.

Grace Pinto, Managing Director, Ryan International Group of Institutions, said, “The event provided the children ample opportunities to develop team work, research, public speaking, time management and collaboration in a crosscultural environment that made the experience unforgettable.”

Mumbai Schools Bag British Council Award About 15 Mumbai schools bagged the International School Award 2012 by the British Council under its Connecting Classrooms programme. The award is conferred for bringing in an international dimension to the curriculum. Over 240 schools from across the country were felicitated at the event by the British Council.

These schools are Anjuman-I-Islam’s Allana School, City International School, Dr S Radhakrishnan Vidyalaya, Narayana Vidyalayam, National English School, Pradnya Bodhini High School, Ryan International, St John’s School, The Reading Tree, Udayachal High School, Veer Bhagat Singh Vidyalaya, and Vidyadiraja High School.

Delhi Private Schools Can Run Second Shift New Delhi: Private unaided schools in the city can now run a second shift, as per the decision taken by the Delhi School Education Advisory Board (DESAB). The shift can be run after regular school hours. However, it will have to be run as a separate entity with no common teachers or other school staff, says the decision. Private city schools have been asking for a second shift, saying it would put their infrastructure to optimum use and benefit more students. The board, which includes the Education Minister, Principal Secretary and Director- Education, had been asked to give its opinion on double shifts in private schools. While allowing second shifts, the board also decided that a committee would be constituted to work out the details.

Punjab Children to Learn Through Radio Chandigarh: To bring qualitative improvement in primary education, the Government of Punjab has started radio classrooms in all government primary schools from December 20 under its Parvesh Project.

Under the new arrangement, a special 20-minute education programme would be telecasted through a regional centre of local radio stations for primary students. This new initiative is aimed at imparting education on selected subjects in a simple but interesting manner by using the strong medium of radio.

CBSE to Digitise Board Exam Answer Sheets New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to introduce digital marking system for students in classes X and XII from the upcoming board exams in 2013. The board has decided to implement the new system, aimed at minimising the scope of errors and ensure an error-free evaluation system, in two phases.

The first phase of digitalised marking of answer sheets will begin in March 2013, where online marking of class X students answer sheets will be done. Around three lakh students are expected to sit for the forthcoming class X exams.

In the second phase, which will begin in March 2014, digital marking of class XII answer sheets will also begin. Once the evaluation of answer sheets is complete, the board’s examination centres will hand over them to the software provider in sealed packets with barcoded stickers put on them under the supervision of the Chief Secrecy Officer of Board Examinations.

Karnataka Conducts Children Census for Drop-outs Belgaum: The Karnataka state government has launched a ‘special census of children’ to bring students back to schools. The campaign will identify children who

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have stopped going to schools after getting admission and failed to attend classes in the past 60 days.

The week-long campaign will include a team of primary teach-

ers, anganwadi workers, and NGO volunteers who will visit houses in their respective villages and take steps to bring dropouts, if any, back to schools.

corporate diary

“Education can put One’s Life into a Different Orbit” Anju Banerjee, Chairperson and Managing Director, EdCIL (India) Limited, believes that the job of education is to train our minds to learn, absorb and understand Please tell us about EdCIL. EdCIL was set up in the year 1982.

About 15 years ago, we started recruitment services wherein we conducted tests to recruit teachers in the public sector, autonomous bodies, KVS (Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan) and NES (National Education Society).

At one stage, we were doing counseling for admission into engineering and medical colleges in Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. Right now, we are doing a scholarship entrance exam for Nepal every year. We also introduced an exam for scholarship, which was being given by the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs for diaspora children. They do it on merit now.

We also give support to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in setting up their back offices for supporting projects like the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, Mid-Day Meal, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Literacy Mission.

How is EdCIL working to develop the education sector?

We send Indian experts to foreign universities. We have an MoU with the Dodoma University in Tanzania where we have been taking faculty from India for the last three years in various fields like Metallurgy, Mining, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.

We have also placed Indian teachers

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in countries like Burma and Mongolia.

Either these initiatives are taken by the universities or the governments in those countries or by our government. We coordinate the selection process.

Apart from this, we also give technical assistance to various ministries including our own for setting up of educational institutions. We have conceptualised various educational entities

like IIT-Guwahati, IIM-Lucknow, Kalikat and Indore among others set up by the government. We offer this service in the private sector also.

We have done a few schools as well.

Besides this, we are also into project management for setting up educational institutions. We help the client in selecting the architect and preparing the tender documents.

corporate diary

You have catered to the requirements of educational institutions and the MHRD. What are the other areas where EdCil plans to intervene?

One area we think has a future is accreditation and preparing schools and colleges to attain quality benchmark. We have already started a few pilot projects in Himachal Pradesh. Foreign universities will come in the future. We are also planning to upgrade our institutions. Right now, accreditation is not mandatory.

There are more Indian students going abroad than foreign students coming to India. There is a big confusion in our country about the quality of schools and higher education institutions and whether they are recognised or not. We have not got into it much but there is a lot of future there and we should move in that direction. If our pilot project in Himachal is successful, we are hoping to go to other states as well.

How are the higher education institutes or schools engaged? Do the schools approach you?

It is both ways. Sometimes we approach, sometimes they do. If they approach, we get an idea about the area where there is a need. There is no planned way. As part of our business development, we sometimes send our team for bagging good business opportunities. Of course it is very hard for the company to immediately come up with a core competence to take on something.

You mentioned that EdCil helps in foreign landfills. But the Foreign Education Bill has yet not been passed and a lot of institutes are looking for foreign landfills. What is your take on that?

We have not done that yet. We look at ourselves as a single-window provider.

When foreign institutions come into India, they need some handholding and we thought we would be able to do it. But it did not work out. Though, to bring value addition, we have prepared ourselves and analysed what areas they would look at when they come in. But because the bill has not been passed yet, it seems to be in cold storage. If it hap-

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There is a big confusion in our country about the quality of schools and higher education institutions pens, we would definitely be one of the people who would be trying, and being in the government sector, we will have more credibility than someone in the private sector.

A lot of the technical institutes and private colleges that are coming up are not quality institutes and do not have very good study material.

How is EdCIL helping these institutes?

We are not doing it in a generic way. For example, when we do a detailed project report (DPR) for setting up a new engineering college, we also put down the minimum standards of infrastructure. It is not easy to demolish everything of the past and build afresh. But for the new buildings that are being built, we hope that the basic minimum infrastructure standards and norms we suggest will be met.

A lot of thrust has been given over the last three years to upgrade the infrastructure in government institutions because that is important to attract foreign students. So, not only for the foreign students but for our own students as well, infrastructure is an area we really have to take care of. It need not be in terms of area so much; what matters more is the quality, lab infrastructure and classroom conditions.

How important is technology and ICT enablement of institutes and schools?

That is the buzzword today, and a lot is being done in that area. If the government’s National Knowledge Network and National Mission on Education through Information and Communica-

tions Technology projects are successful, everything will be e-Learning and ICT-enabled and I wonder if we will have classrooms in the future. Our minds are not so attuned to the new developments in technology, but youngsters understand best through a CD, an interactive session or a video conference.

This will also give a solution for the numbers. In a physical classroom, we still have a teacher-student ratio of 1:25.

Through these methodologies, it will be 1:1000. We have to make education available. We also need to reach into the interiors geographically. That should be a solution for the future.

Where does the funding come from?

We were set up as a public sector company. In fact, our authorised capital was only `2 crore in 1982 and the payback capital was `1.2 crore. There is no funding from the government. We get paid for our projects though we are not very high on profits, we have been making enough profits to cover our own expenses, pay our own employees and pay dividend to the government.

What are your concluding remarks on the education sector and the turn it is going to take in the coming years?

If the kind of interest that is being taken now and the focus that is being given to education today was done from day one of our Independence, we would have been far ahead. The kind of focus that is not coming on education is definitely the future of the country. Every other sector is so basically dependent on education, whether it is the normal education from KG to twelfth , or higher or adult education, or women- or gender-based education. If we are thinking in terms of moving ahead or building up national characters and cultures, education is very important. We have to train our minds to learn, absorb and understand. That is the job of education.

India cannot emerge as one of the top countries in the world without education. Education can put a human being’s life into a different orbit. The society has to be more focused and more committed towards education.

corporate diary

2013 to Spur Growth in Projector Market Projectors are considered to be an important tool for imparting learning, as they can lead to creation of real life experience. Vineet Mahajan, General Manager-Professional Display Division, Panasonic India Pvt Ltd, talks about the projector market in India and shares the company’s expansion plans for the Indian market Please give us an overview of the projector market in India.

The overall Indian projector market was 275,000 units in 2012. It is expected to grow by 18 percent annually in the next three years. The market has immense potential as the government is giving special focus to the education

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segment and up gradation of audio video infrastructure. The changing lifestyle of youth, decrease in technology prices, and increase in the spending on electronics has led to an upsurge in the demand for high-end products. The demand for projectors is on a rising curve due to strong buying in education, gov-

ernment, cinema, IT/ITES segments, corporate, etc. With IT infrastructure spending becoming an essential part of every business budget, projectors are on their way to become integral to any organisation.

The market is evolving as projectors are being used for advanced system ap-

corporate diary

plications like curved screens, dome projections, simulations, seamless long wall, etc. Customers understand that projectors have a lot to offer in the audio video industry in the form of special installations from high-end projectors with high brightness and advanced features like geometric correction, edge blending, etc. We also see a shift in the demand of brightness levels. The market is graduating to 3,000 lumens and above from 2,000 lumens until last year. There is also an increase in the demand for XGA and WXGA resolution models.

Is it true that the education sector has come up as one of the key demand drivers for projectors?

With the advent of growing technologies, education today has moved out of the realm of conventional methods of teaching to a smarter and digitised form of imparting knowledge to give a real-life experience of learning. It has clearly emerged as the major contributor to the growing demand of projectors and accounts for more than 30 percent of the total demand for projectors in India. The Indian higher education sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 25 percent by 2015 with increase in investment and ample of other opportunities.

Please brief us about the market segmentation of projectors.

The market can be broadly segmented into the following verticals: primary education, government, corporate, cinema, home cinema, digital signage, rental, event management, higher education and tourism.

Projectors have undergone tremendous evolution in terms of technology in the past years.

Please tell us about the latest trends in the technology used in projectors today.

On the technology front, both LCD and DLP projectors are in demand. Gradually, the market has witnessed a trend in LED lamp technology. LED lamp-based projectors are attracting demand nowa-

With IT infrastructure spending becoming an essential part of every business budget, projectors are on their way to become integral to any organisation days, but the price factor will be a challenge. A revision in prices will fetch a good demand of these projectors as their average life is 20,000 hours and the customer does not have to worry about the replacement of the lamp at regular intervals.

In the current scenario, we do not see drastic emergence of Pico projectors. However, we believe it will witness a demand in the years to come. Further, these projectors have the capability to overcome screen size limitations that exist in mobile electronics devices. Hence, they are capable of projecting large images, irrespective of their size. Thus, the usage of such projectors is best suited for small spaces, and for people who are constantly on the move and need a device to project a presentation to a group of customers.

Secondly, with the shift for better viewing experience, third dimension (3D) technology in projectors is catching up very fast in India. These projectors aim at bringing pictures which are life-like and might just be conned into thinking that the images of people that on the screen are actually real.

Please share your marketing plans for the projector segment.

The fiscal year 2012 has been excellent for Panasonic with 180 percent sales growth over last year in the projector segment. The growth is 250 percent in quantity. Expanding its existing range of projectors with 28 new exceptional models in the last six months, Panasonic now has an array of 53 breakthrough projectors. With plans to keep up with its bullish performance and the wide expanse of projectors catering to the masses as well as the niche segments, we are targeting a market share of 20 percent in Indian market by end of FY2012.

In the near future, you can expect a more robust and higher line-up from us. We will continue our investment in high-end models with advanced features and will encourage special installations that will enhance the top line.

At the same time, we will launch more price sensitive volume zone models for the education and government segments. We aim to maintain right balance between high-end and price sensitive models. We shall continue our dominance in cinema/home cinema and corporate market and will enhance our share in the education vertical.

Please comment on your expansion plans for the projector segment.

This expansion will enable Panasonic to reach out to a wider array of consumers while also achieving consumer satisfaction. Panasonic has in its portfolio, an extensive variety of best-inclass projectors ranging from 2,200 lumens to 20,000 lumens within the price range of `28,000 to `35,00,000.

These include LCD/DLP projectors, targeted specifically for the corporate, educational institutions, and government organisations; home cinema projectors meant for the premium individual users; and high-end DLP projectors for multiplexes. The portfolio of 53 models is capable enough to satisfy the dynamic needs of the market for diverse applications like presentation, video conferencing, digital signage, rental and e-Cinema. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

35

special feature

Sowing the Seeds of Inclusive Education Cisco’s CEED platform has been started with the objective of imparting quality remote education to students living in remote and rural areas

A computer scientist with over 25 years of work experience, Aravind Sitaraman, President Inclusive Growth, Cisco, has done pioneering work in several start-ups and high tech companies in the US. He is regarded as one of the leading innovators of Cisco with 54 US patents. He has led and been part of several international standard bodies

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special feature

How does CEED work?

• Teachers sitting at a remote location are connected via the Internet to the classroom using the CEED platform. The remote teacher needs a computer with Internet connectivity, webcam and a digital notepad/electronic whiteboard.

• Remote classrooms need a computer with Internet connectivity, webcam, mic, speakers and a projector.

• The remote teacher and the students in classrooms, to whom the subject/topic is to be taught, log-on at the pre-appointed time to the CEED platform. Several remote classrooms can simultaneously connect to the session at a specified time.

• Students at the remote classrooms can be assisted by their teacher who is on-site. The remote teacher conducts the class. Just like the traditional classroom, students listen to the instructor and raise queries, which the instructor is able to respond to, in real-time.

• Basis the feedback of the teacher on the ground remedial/coaching classes, mentoring etc. can be scheduled as per requirements of a school/ cluster of schools.

I

nclusive growth means an economic growth whose fruits are broad-based and leads to the upliftment of a population that is not a part of the mainstream economy. Economic growth is a crucial component of poverty alleviation, and therefore, if there is inclusive growth, there is rapid transformation of all sections of the society. The poor, illiterate and other disadvantaged sections can have equality of opportunity only if there is a time-bound plan for inclusive growth that can bring in transformation.

India has witnessed rapid economic growth in the last few years, but at the same time, it is taking inordinately long for the benefits of this growth to trickle down to the larger population. Most of the rural areas in India lack proper infrastructure for education and healthcare.

Hence, inorganic means are required to ensure that the capabilities of all sections of the society are enhanced so that they are able to partake in the overall economic development. These methods of inclusive development contribute to the economic, political and social stability and further accelerate the growth of the nation.

Inclusive education Cisco has started the Cisco Education Enabled Delivery (CEED) platform to enable access to quality education to one and all. The initiative aims to provide quality remote education, both supplemental and interventional coaching,

to students living in remote and rural areas. The students are connected with qualified teachers based in the cities. Using the network as the platform, CEED uses Cisco’s collaborative tools and security technology delivering content out of the cloud and over the video.

A part of a comprehensive, integrated, and open learning platform, CEED is designed to bring collaboration and video to the heart of teaching and learning.

In this platform, the power of networking, Internet, video and collaboration tools developed by Cisco get leveraged to create a real-time interactive environment between the remote teacher and the students. It preserves every aspect of a traditional classroom, except for the fact that the remote teacher is not in the same classroom as the students. The main focus is on ensuring that students

What are the advantages of CEED? •

• • •

CEED requires no special setup. A computer with Internet is all that is needed.

Teachers and students can be connected from multiple locations (including from home).

Scales up easily and is great for small-to-large education environments.

Simple scheduling and registration and click “Join Class” from the home page.

are provided high quality teaching.

In CEED, students can interactively raise and answer questions using the equipment (screen, projector, speakers, mic and electronic whiteboard). This system of teaching ensures that the same remote teacher is able to teach several classes in different locations.

The curriculum is developed specially to ensure that it is easily disseminated through the use of the educational tools and aids that are being used.

In case a teacher or supervisor is present at the rural school, a special instructor is assisted by the teacher in the classroom to increase interactivity in the class, and also so that the instructor can attend to the specific needs of the class. This will ensure that all rural schools offer all subjects with the same level of expert teaching, that a child in a city or a metro gets access to. Along with its ecosystem partners, Cisco is responsible for development, creation and delivery of the coursework which is based on the regular curriculum or syllabus.

Implementations of CEED The CEED programme from Cisco was initiated as a pilot programme in the villages of Raichur. The success of the Raichur pilot led to remote intervention coaching using CEED deployment at two boys’ hostels in Shimoga and other two in Raichur.

Over 1,000 students have benefited from using the platform. Children of class seven and eight are taught English, Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences across four schools, three times a week by a teacher (remotely from the city), using local vernacular language (Kannada) as the medium of instruction.

Recently, approximately 30 Indian army soldiers in Jabalpur graduated from Cisco’s basic computing and networking skills programme offered through CEED. For training purposes, Cisco’s expert engineers located in Bangalore volunteered their time to train and mentor the retiring soldiers based in Jabalpur in basic networking technology. The employees also donated their personal copies of books for several advanced courses such as Inter-Connecting Cisco Network Devices 1 and 2 (ICND) and CCNA. Cisco set up a practice lab of networking and computing devices. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

37

STATE SUMMIT 2013 p u n j a b

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towards Transformative

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Kahan Singh Pannu Director General School Education (DGSE), Governmentt of Punjab

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Special Feature

Education on the Cloud The implementation of technology in the administration process is the perfect panacea

E

ducation has always been a catalyst for evolutionary changes in the society. But today, with the support of technology, the changes have become revolutionary. It started off with the digitisation of teaching content that popularly got known as ‘e-Content’. The objective was to supplement the traditional teaching process of ‘chalk and talk’ with multimedia interactive presentations. Somehow, its sudden spurt and excess usage led to the debate if it was impinging on the human touch of learning. In this state of conflicting thoughts, the stakeholders of the education ecosystem were looking for a new idea that could revolutionise the education ecosystem management, and simplify their complex operation tasks.

The management of content is not a challenge for schools and colleges. The real challenge is the management of operation in delivering that content. For instance, the teachers spend around 30 percent of their time in preparing and delivering a topic to the students. Seventy percent of the time goes in organising, computing and managing the information for the administration of assessment.

Similarly, the admission staff spends less time in interacting and engaging with the parents and more in the administration of enquiry for the admission process.

The management that needs access to the right information at the right time to take vital decisions is in search of a smart tool to solve its problems.

In such scenarios, the implementation of technology in the administration process is the perfect panacea. But, it has to be the right technology at the right cost. Unfortunately, every institution that has taken the initiative to build and operate an IT system in-house has not been able to sustain it. The issue is not about the capability of the institution, but the focus on an aspect which is not their core competency. Also, the rapid

change in technology has led to high development and maintenance costs. On top of this, retaining technology talents is a very costly affair, with IT companies paying hefty pay packages.

In the process, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a technology solution for an institution in the long run becomes prohibitively expensive, especially when a major chunk of its time goes into managing administrative processes rather than adding real value to the academic processes.

Hence, “Outsourcing” of technology management has emerged as a powerful alternative to mitigate the challenges faced by the institutions. With the advent of cloud computing, the Software as a Service (SaaS) model is replacing the concept of outsourcing. This very a powerful model of application usage as required by the institutions and reduces both the Capex and Opex significantly.

At the same time, giving a very high return on investment on this model led to the genesis of the concept of “Digital Campus”, or putting education on the cloud.

Cloud ERP has developed as a revolutionary approach to deploy an ERP solution. It provides flexible, adaptable, scalable, efficient and affordable solutions.

Cloud ERP is providing huge success in delivering data critical to businesses. It

helps institutions on cloud have reduced ongoing hardware costs while maintaining greater control over the software.

The concept of “Digital Campus” (Education on Cloud) aims at converting the physical campus into a virtual and knowledge campus – taking administration, information, communication & management to a whole new world.

Similarly, the administrative staff of schools and colleges does not need to search through volumes of registers to compile and consolidate multiple reports on attendance, examination and fees. They can spend more time on constructive and creative tasks to improve their administrative processes. This entire process of simplification of tasks through automation and integration, to maintenance and up gradation of technology for an institution comes free of cost for any educational institution: school, college, university or coaching centres.

Ultimately, parents reap the benefits of the Digital Campus. In normal circumstances, a parent visits his child’s school/college at least 5-6 times in a year, and spends around Rs 4,0005,000 on fuel. With Digital Campus, parents can avail all these services online without visiting the campus for a small subscription fee of Rs 500 per student per year: one-tenth the cost. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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special Advertorial feature

Revamping Vocational Education through Station-e Model

By Dr Haresh Tank, Director, Station-e Language Lab “In order to produce technicians of world standard, Government proposes to launch a programme in the Central sector to upgrade 500 ITIs over the next 5 years at the rate of 100 ITIs a year.

Appropriate infrastructure and equipment will be provided, the syllabi will be upgraded and new trades will be introduced. This is an area where I welcome Chambers of Commerce and Industry to join hands with the Government and create a public-private partnership model for designing and implementing the scheme,” says P Chidambaram, Union Minister for Finance, Govt of India

T

he vocational education sector is the most neglected area and is the weakest link in education and the economy. The Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) across the country are monuments of this neglect. With this mandate ‘to produce technicians of world standard’, India finds itself completely inadequate to meet the match and hence the call for the upgradation of ITIs into Centres of Excellence. After eight years of that speech, things have not improved a great deal.

The quality of the ITIs in the country has always been a cause of concern and more so in the last few years, because of the fact that the industry is clamouring against the blatant disconnect between the skills imparted in these institutions and the skills demanded in the market.

There are several challenges that ITIs face, but they cannot be understood or addressed unless one understands the ground reality.

Training the youth The ground reality has its direct relationship with the international competitiveness that companies aim at in the present era of globalisation, and rightly so, they require a skilled and competent workforce that is attuned to the market requirements and is equipped with knowledge of right skills and advanced technologies. Unfortunately, the ITIs in the country do not have any of the expertise or resources to train the youth

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for that. In countries like Finland and South Korea, vocational education is at par with mainstream education and half of the student pool opts for vocational education because there are excellent facilities, up-to-date syllabi and advanced tech tools to support their training.

Students passing out of such a system would naturally obtain good jobs as ‘technicians of world standard’. Compared to this, India has never taken its vocational education seriously and hence, students never considered it to be a path to employment. However, the fact remains that the world of business badly needs skilled technicians and the irony of the situation is that the sanctioned seats in ITIs across India remain unutilized as the youth do not opt for education imparted in ITIs. For those who opt for it, the employment opportunities are not easy to come by.

Challenges for ITIs The biggest pointer to the abysmal state of vocational education is the under utilisation of seats as reported by more than 51 percent of the ITIs. It is hard to argue with the fact that the trades presently being offered by the ITIs in the country fail the test in terms of the industry and market needs at the national and local levels and that many of the old fashioned trades limit the scope for job opportunities after completion of the course.

How much a country spends on a sector/segment is a rough indicator of how much significance is attached to it.

Of course, the problems lie usually in the implementation, but in the case of ITIs, nearly 77 percent of the budget is, on an average, allocated for salaries, leaving very little for other expenses. Imagine the situation of an ITI with very little to spend on equipment, infrastructure and instructor training, when it has very budget to do it.

What this means is that our ITIs are operating on old machines, average infrastructure put in place years ago, and instructors who do not receive any great training opportunities to upgrade themselves. Another facet to this is that while nearly 95 percent of the budget is that of all the funds allocated for the purchase of raw material used in the machines and equipment, the average proportion allocated under this head was a meagre six percent of the budget.

These ITIs spend very little on staff training and development, which is a significant area for any educational institution. Only 30 percent of the ITIs had allocated budget for staff training and development in the year 2003-04.

But since then, the scenario has only marginally improved in the case of only some of them. The rest still lag behind in the same way they used to a decade ago.

The more fundamental evil is the availability of staff – shortage of staff has been a serious cause for concern for the ITIs in India with a whopping 80 percent+ of the ITIs functioning with staff strength less than what is sanctioned for them by the NCVT, DGE&T.

special Advertorial feature

There is, of course, the almost non-existent monitoring system prevailing in the vocational training system in the country, which tells us the grim story regarding the number of inspections during the last several years in these institutes. There are ITIs where no inspections at all has been undertaken in many years, with so many of them where very few inspections took place over the years. When one places this with the fact that these are the institutes poised for becoming centres of excellence in the future, points towards an even more frightening picture of the overall scenario in this regard.

What all of it spell for the students is that their skills training is affected in a significant way and the trades they learn may not be of great use to the world anymore but they discover this only after passing out. Students passing out of ITIs do not belong to the skills-oriented world of business and industry where cutting technology defines new age innovations everyday. In order to upgrade and enhance the quality of ITI students, we propose a model envisaged and implemented in Gujarat by Station-e.

Station-e Model for ITIs

in the SDC. There are several ITIs today which have Station-e SDCs and which have narratives of transformation to tell us with a focus on skills upgradation and employment opportunity. The industry has taken note of this transformation and is entering into agreement today with these ITIs to employ these youths.

As a model of skills enhancement and employment generation, Station-e Skills Development Centre has proved its mettle and the record is improving with the passage of time. The time is ripe to consider its national implementation with some solid policy initiatives.

To address and cater to the need of ITIs, Station-e has evolved a unique model for the enhancement of the student competency and employment opportunities. Station-e model is a high tech language lab facility that caters to the students’ need for skills training for the employment today. It works in several ways to serve the cause of students of ITIs. It is a unique mix of components which make skills training an art and science both.

Firstly, Station-e has developed training modules which emphasise on the soft skills that can prove crucial in getting a job in today’s scenario. These modules are based on the years of research at the global level and national level to upskill the youth. These modules are what average education is not- it is customised to meet student needs, activity based to the core and defined by contemporary pedagogy. To add to this, there is advanced technology playing a pivotal role in the transaction of these modules for upskilling the youth.

Every aspect of the modules and every activity to be carried out by students is interwoven into a technology-led process so that students are trained into a culture of the 21st century workplace where technology is the ultimate unifying factor of all business and industry processes. Mix this with very high standard of trainers which are missing in the ITIs and we shall have the perfect combination of skills up gradation for the youth. This model operates through the establishment of Skills Development Centre to be established and interwoven in the processes of an ITI. With a scientific pre and post-test, results are as concrete as one can get from a scientific experiment. To complete the cycle, Station-e Skills Development Centre serves to link ITIs with local and national industry so that the youth are absorbed as soon as they pass out.

When implemented, there were pleasant surprises for both ITIs as well as us, because the results have been astonishing to say the least. It is profoundly significant to note that all these Station-e Skills Development Centres (SDCs) are established across the rural parts of Gujarat and not the urban areas which is a measure of its success and efficacy.

Take for instance, an ITI like Rajula in the remote part of a district like Amreli has grown manifold in terms of skills training and employment opportunities. Students have reported unrivalled growth and their stories of employment and good salaries float across the small town of Rajula today.

The experience of the instructors of technical subjects after the establishment of Skills Development Centre at Keshod ITI, Junagadh district, is a case in point. These instructors saw a marked difference in the competency level of students after their training digitalLEARNING / january 2013

43

CONFERENCE | EXPO | AWARDS 6th March 2013, Swosti Premium, Bhubaneswar

Towards A Digital Economy

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Madhusudan Padhi Secretary, Dept of IT, Government of Odisha

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Special report

EMPLOYABILITY-OUTLOOK REPORT 2013 Delhi and NCR The report intends to help organisations and enable organisations to take informed decisions on manpower planning, hiring and resource allocation

Wheebox and PeopleStrong HR Services Employability Outlook Report is intended to help organisations and enable organisations to take informed decisions on manpower planning, hiring and resource allocation. Wheebox and PeopleStrong HR Services Employability Outlook Report is based on an independently conducted online assessment, carried out with a total sample of 7,380 Students of Bachelors of Engineering in 53 Campuses across Delhi and NCR India. (Invitation was sent to 90 Selected Campuses) The data and claims are based the online assessment on core engineering domains, Cognitive Abilities and English Comprehension Skills conducted across Bachelors of Engineering. Individual number of student rating for employability index varies depending on number of students in each domain.

On the basis of the assessment study, the report tries to map the available skilled resources to various demographics. This will help the employer know exactly whom and from where to hire.

Methodology The report is a culmination of a Domain Based, Cognitive Abilities and English Comprehension Skills Assessment for 60 minutes using Online Assessment Platform of Wheebox. These tests were conducted on invitation and 7,380 students from final year of Engineering Colleges in Delhi and NCR participated in different streams of the test. Students registered online for the test at their respective college venue before taking the test. The assessment used an adaptive testing system and was conducted in a proctored environment.

A cut-off had been assigned at 60 percent for the graduates to qualify for employability. Graduates meeting or exceeding the cut-off scores are the ones eligible as employable in the report. Six different streams from Engineering were tested, where students from their own streams undertook their respective test domains. The window was open for 90 days and it was mandatory to register before taking the test.

The streams were: Electrical, Electronics, Mechanical, Information Technology, Computer Science and Civil Engineering.

digitalLEARNING / january 2013

45

Special report

Outcomes Top 5 Colleges In Delhi and NCR on Employability Index (Bachelors of Engineering) Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engineering and Technology Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology Dronacharya College of Engineering B S Anagpuria Institute of Technology and Management Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engineering and Technology clearly came out as the Engineering College that had maximum employable students in the tested profile followed by Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology.

Domain Wise Available Resources in Delhi and NCR who qualifies as Fit for Employability is depicted in the chart below: 35 30 25 20 15 10 05 0

Electrical Engineering

Electronics Engineering

Computer Science

Information Technology

Mechanical Engineering

Civil Engineering

The chart depicts that 30% of the graduates who took the assessment from the electrical and 28% of the graduates from electronics engineering stream scored above the cut-off of 60% and qualified as employable by the corporates. Graduates from the Civil engineering stream were least employable as only 9% of the graduates taking the assessment qualified.

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Special report

Stream Wise Top 3 Colleges in Delhi and NCR are depicted in the figures below: English Comprehension Skills

Cognitive Abilities

Mechanical

Electronics

Electrical

Civil

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Radha Govind Group of Institutions

Meerut Institute Bhagwan Mahaveer of Engineering Institute of Engg and Technology and Tech

B S Aanagpuria Institute of Technology and Management

Bhagwan Parshuram Institute of Technology

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology

Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology

Bhagwan Parshuram Institute of Technology

Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology

Apeejay College of Engineering

Meerut Institute of Technology

KIIT, Gurgaon

Lord Krishna Group of Institute

Raj Kumar Goel Bhagwati Institute of Institute of Technology and Technology Science

Information Technology and Computer Science

Apeejay College of Engineering

Stream Wise Top 3 Colleges to hire for most employable Male students in Delhi and NCR are depicted in the figures below: English Comprehension Skills

Cognitive Abilities

Mechanical

Electronics

Electrical

Civil

Information Technology and Computer Science

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Radha Govind Group of Institutions

Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology

B S Aanagpuria Institute of Technology and Management

Meerut Institute of Technology

Ghaziabad Institute of Management and Techonology

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Apeejay College of Engineering

Inderprastha Engineering College

KIIT, Gurgaon

Apeejay College of Engineering

Inderprastha Engineering College

KIIT, Gurgaon

Ghaziabad Institute of Management and Techonology

Meerut Institute of Technology

Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology

digitalLEARNING / january 2013

47

Special report

Stream Wise Top 3 Colleges to hire for most employable Female students in Delhi and NCR are depicted in the figures below: English Comprehension Skills

Cognitive Abilities

Mechanical

Electronics

Electrical

Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Meerut Institute of Technology

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

B S Aanagpuria Apeejay Institute of College of Technology Engineering & Management

Bhagwan Mahaveer Institute of Engg and Tech

Bhagwati Institute of Technology and Science

KIIT, Gurgaon

B S Aanagpuria Institute of Technology & Management

Bhagwan Parshuram Institute of Technology

Radha Govind Group of Institutions

B.S.Aanagpuria Institute of Technology & Management

Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Apeejay College Bhagwati of Engineering Institute of Technology and Science

Lord Krishna Group of Institute

Dronacharya College of Engineering

Meerut Institute Meerut Institute of of Technology Engineering and Technology

Civil

Information Technology and Computer Science

Top 6 Domains with Available Resources in Delhi and NCR are represented below: Electronics

Information Technology

Computer Science

Electrical

Mechanical

Civil

0

5

15

20

25

30

About Wheebox Wheebox.Com is the Fastest Growing Talent Assessment Company that allows enterprise and academia to assess skills in Language, Cognitive and Core Domain Skills to benchmark talent. Wheebox operating out of India, South Africa and The United Kingdom is an affiliate member of “International Test Commission� and an ISO 9001:2008 company.

About PeopleStrong HR Services PeopleStrong is a leading HR Outsourcing company, specializing in HR Shared Services, Recruitment, Payroll & Compliance Management, and HR Technology Solutions. With a pan-India presence, PeopleStrong services global players across industries and is one of the first movers in BFSI, IT/ITES, Auto, Pharma, and Education Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) in India.

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

event report

Madhya Pradesh

State Education Summit Addresses Gaps in the Education Sector The summit discussed various issues, challenges and best practices that prevail in the education sector

R to L: Shri Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dr Veera Gupta, Lokesh Mehra, Ritu Ghosh lighting the lamp at the inauguration of the State Education Summit 2012

“T

he Madhya Pradesh government is committed to give a technological boost to the education sector with the objective of helping students passing out from different institutions in the state, stand solidly in the competitive world,” said Shri Kailash Vijayvargiya, Minister of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh, while inaugurating the Madhya Pradesh State Education Summit 2012 at Indore 2012 on 19th December, 2012.

Shri Vijayvargiya said that the state

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has been emerging as a destination for education. The summit was convened with the objective of deliberating on regional concerns and challenges in diverse areas of education.

The state has the potential to fulfill the future requirements of the knowledge economy. Its youth can become the fountainhead for boosting the Centre’s agenda of creating 200 million skilled workforces by the year 2020, the Minister added.

For this, various educational programmes have been undertaken. The state is witnessing significant growth

in engineering, telecom networks, and other industries. Yet, the challenges and gaps in industry and academia persist.

However, achieving quality and universalisation of education remains a challenge for the state. We are adopting a multi-dimensional approach to improve the quality and inclusion in higher education. We are starting a large number of colleges in rural areas to make higher education accessible to people there. We have opened about 20-25 colleges in the past one year, and have about 15 more in the pipeline, he said.

event report

MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

“Conferences like the State Education Summit act as a platform for knowledge exchange, and sharing of the best practices and ideas to address the gaps and challenges of the state’s education sector,” the minister said.

The consortium brought together thought leadership from across the country to focus on the development of the state.

Speaking on the occasion, the Information Technology Department Secretary of the State, Hariranjan Rao said, ICT has become an integral part of our education system and new solutions are coming up to keep the education sector updated. He said virtual classrooms can play an important role in bridging the digital divide in our country, and in making quality education accessible to students living in remote areas.

The summit had parallel sessions on higher and school education and was attended by eminent personalities in the education sector, thinktanks, academicians, policymakers, educational institutions’ heads and students, and others, discussing the various issues, challenges and best practices in the education sector.

In the inaugural session, a host of speakers including Lokesh Mehra, Director-Education Advocacy, Microsoft; Dr Veera Gupta, Former Secretary, CBSE & Associate Professor, National University for Education Planning & Administration (NUEPA); Dr Michael Harnar, Mosaic Network, US; Ritu Ghosh, Head-Education Initiatives, Hewlett Packard; Suresh Mhatre, Vice President, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); Vikram Kant Upadhyay, President, Team India & Board Member, Indian Angel Network; and Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach, Country Director, TESS -India, Open University, UK, expressed their views.

The parallel pre-lunch sessions on school education and higher education enlightened the education stakeholders where a large number of domain experts participated. All those who have excelled in different areas of the education sector were awarded the Shiksha Ratna during the concluding ceremony of the event. digitalLEARNING / December 2012

51

MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

School Education

Vocationalising Education, and Capacity Building of Teachers Vocational education and training is an important element of national education initiatives and has been given special emphasis in the 12th Five-Year Plan. The session delved upon the importance of vocational education and capacity building if India has to reap the benefit of population dividend

Rashmi Arun Shami, Commissioner-cum-Director, Rajya Shiksha Kendra (RSK) & Ex-Officio Secretary-School Education, Govt of MP The perception is that vocational education is low paying needs to change in the country. The notion that only engineering and medical is high paying needs to be revisited. The belief that vocational education produces low quality workers for ourselves and for the rest of the world.

This approach is fundamentally wrong. We should be looking at vocational education of higher quality that not only gives people basic skills, but also polished and higher skills. To be the best in the world, we need to produce more people with higher and better skills. This is a challenge because we do not have enough quality vocational training teachers. However, I am hopeful we will be able to overcome this in the future.

Dr RB Shivagunde, Joint Director, PSSCIVE, Bhopal The Ministry of Human Resource and Development has introduced NVEQF and it is expected by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan. It will make mandatory for all post-secondary schools to introduce vocational education as a part of regular education, which will allow us to impart skills to 55 crore people by 2025.

The government has also set up the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC). They have scanned the entire universe of vocational education and divided into 21 sectors and prioritised them.

The challenge is quality education and perception that vocational education is for unemployed people.

However, like the Koreans or the Chinese, we should all be adequately skilled before getting a job.

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Harvender Khalsa, Principal, Himalaya International School It is very important to understand that vocational education does not mean emphasising only on practical or theoretical knowledge, rather it has a deep focus on providing an environment and training to a student in such a manner that he can easily earn for himself.

Sunil Pandya, Administrator, Vidyasagar School & College There is a strong need to identify creativity and convert it into innovation, enhancing logical and interpretational skills, and providing better career opportunities. The time has come that we should accept that along with primary-secondary education, we need vocational training also as everyone cannot become an engineer, doctor, etc. Vocational education plays an essential role in an individual’s growth which in turn, results in the economic growth.

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

School Education

Alternative Assessment Strategies and Innovative Approaches in Evaluation Alternative assessment is a form of student performance grading that allows for a more holistic approach for student assessment over the traditional form. With this kind of assessment, students are enabled to provide their own responses rather than simply selecting from a given list of options.

The session delved upon best practices and innovative ways of assessments in classrooms

Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach, Country Director, TESS-India, Open University, UK The Open University, UK, works with different organisations in many ways, by providing courses, collaborating on new curriculum, validating programmes, and sharing expertise to help other distance learning ventures become established. The focus for all our collaborative ventures is on finding new ways to fulfil our mission of opening up educational opportunities to more people at more places.

Mohit Yadav, Director, Annie Besant School, Indore In the times to come, the evaluation process will have to have more of assessment so that examination does not become scoring just a grade or marks, but a tool for teachers to understand students, and for students, a better way to understand themselves.

Rajesh Awasthi, Principal, Choithram School, Indore At times, evaluation becomes more qualitative as compared to assessment. So, if we add quality to the assessment it will lead to evaluation, but ultimately, the focus should be on attaining some basic skills, which will help a student in expressing his ideas and work. Grading and giving marks to the student should not be the only criteria to evaluate a student, we must also focus on skills development.

Dr Michael Harnar, Mosaic Network, US Evaluation does have some sort of participatory element, participatory process has three major dimensions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; selection of the people, depth of their involvement, and control over evaluation.

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School Education MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Creation of Inclusive Learning Environments in Classrooms Inclusive teaching means recognising, accommodating, and meeting the learning needs of all students. The session focused on strategies and methods to make learning more holistic, while also trying to make it inclusive, not just within classrooms, but in the society as a whole

L K Kandpal, Principal, New Digambar School, Indore An inclusive classroom is one where students and staff alike recognise, appreciate, promote the diversity, and try to enrich the overall learning experience. In order to make a class inclusive, the system must encourage all learners, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, socio-economic status, and personal beliefs to develop skills to understand and face the challenges of life.

Prakash Choudhury, Principal, Prestige Public School, Indore As teachers, we should be like researchers and find whether a child is able to learn the way we teach him. And if he is not, we must find ways to help him learn the way he wants to.

Sarita Manuja, In-Country AdvisorCenter for Assessment, Evaluation and Research, CBSE Effective inclusion improves the education system for all students, regardless of their learning ability, race, linguistic ability, economic status, gender, learning style, ethnicity, cultural background, religion, family structure, and sexual orientation.

Pradeep Pandey, Principal, Pioneer Convent School, Indore We should make learning interesting and technology can be leveraged to achieve this goal. Inclusive learning is beyond giving equal opportunity to all. Inclusion is no longer a problem as all students are being enrolled in education. But, we have to make sure that they integrate well with each other. For better integration, the learning experience needs to be made interesting.

digitalLEARNING / December 2012

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

School Education

Right to Education and its Implications for Schools RTE provides a ripe platform to reach the unreached, with specific provisions for the disadvantaged groups. The session deliberateted on the implications for RTE in schools in India and strategies for addressing the opportunities and challenges for the same

Sangeeta Sood, Principal, J J Public School, Indore The Right to Education Act is forward looking, but I hope it does not become like the other acts, which are only applicable on paper. Just giving admission and paying fee is not sufficient. How can the wide gap in the economic status be bridged? RTE children canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t afford the luxuries which their counterparts studying in private schools have.

The consequences could be drastic. Such children may either adopt unfair means or develop inferiority complex and negativity.

Ruchira Ghosh, Head Business Development Schools, British Council Division As an organisation, we would like to work with the government as well as the private sector. Our international school awards provide global benchmarking projects that recognise schools for their outstanding work.

Suchitra Dutta, Principal, Maharashi Centre For Educational Excellence Education is a fundamental human right, without which capabilities for a decent life and effective participation in society are less likely to be developed. The RTE Act has provided us the tools to provide quality education to all our children. It is now imperative that we, the people of India, join hands to ensure the implementation of this law in its true spirit. The government is committed to this task, though real changes will happen only through collective action and we must come forward willingly for the same. At the grassroot level, realisation of the intent of this historic legislation cannot be solely left to the government machinery. Civil society and all stakeholders in education must step forward to implement the RTE Act.

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Higher Education

Employability Skills and Proficiency Levels amongst Youth Best Practices and Next Practices Finding a job-ready workforce that can deliver quality continues to be a worry quotient for employers across the globe. This session not only brought out a comprehensive summary of what ails the employers and the institutes, but also gave some specific solutions that can benefit the two stakeholders

Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT University Higher education institutions need to develop capacity in employer involvement, build flexibility in training programmes, and embed the entire concept of employability, but not as an adjunct for one or two semesters. They need to invest in professional development of the staff, bring in activities and action learning into the curriculum, and engage the participants in a more qualitative and meaningful manner.

Lokesh Mehra, Director-Education Advocacy, Microsoft India We need to develop the skills on 5Cs and 3 Is: Creativity, Critical thinking, Collaboration, Communication and Computing; and Innovativeness, Intuitiveness, and Incremental.

As of now, we are focusing too much on the professional side. An impetus needs to be given towards arts and humanities.

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Manoj Bhatia, Director, Sanghvi Institute of Management & Science The complete integration of employability skills in our education and training system is yet to come. The proposal is to have a developmental model wherein different skills can be brought together to deliver something more than skills, that is, employability skills.

Dr Prashant Rajvaidya, President, Mosaic Network, US The IT set up in India is usually impractical and there is a lack of competent teachers and trainers. In order to change it, you have to work bottom up which also includes enhancement of employability skills. The goal should be to treat those as assumptions and then create solutions that work around these assumptions.

MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Higher Education

Changing Dynamics of Higher Education

Envisioning Strategies for the Future This session delved upon the changing patterns in the education sector and the ways to maintain quality standards in education. It also emphasised on the need to motivate students to make them lead and not merely get employed to earn a livelihood

Dr V K Verma, Vice Chancellor, AISECT University Both quality and quantity are required to meet the national goal of economic development. At present, we have 18 million students in higher education, and by the end of 12th Five-Year Plan, we will have 25 million students in higher education. But, we are still lacking in the quality part.

In a country of millions of students and lakhs of teaching force, why cannot we have a cadre for administration of the technical education system? Why cannot there be a forward thinking of our rules and regulations? Why cannot the regulatory body take the role of a mentor, counselor and a facilitator?

Prof Satish Sharma, Maharaja Education Campus, Udaipur Why to serve others to make people serve you? We should prepare real workers for the nation. Why do we prepare them to work for others? They should work for themselves, to make the nation more and more prosperous.

Dr Appu Kuttan K K, Director, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT) Innovation will keep going. We need to motivate and promote the students. We should always have a positive attitude and positive publicity of things. Small things done by the students should be appreciated in the media.

G C Sharma, Head-Financial Education, National Stock Exchange (NSE) Financial literacy should become an essential life skill for the masses.

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Dr P K Sen, Head, Dept of Applied Physics, Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science In India, we talk more than we do. When it comes to implementation, we divert our attention. The time has now come for us to start criticising ourselves.

Knowledge is no more segregated. We have to gather knowledge from all the sectors if we want to create good quality engineers, technologists, and scientists.

Higher Education

Ritu Ghosh, Head-Education Initiatives, HP We have villages without schools, schools with no classes, classes with no teachers, and teachers with no books.

The root cause of this problem is that all our resources are not integrated. To cover this up, such schools have ghost teachers to sign their attendance and get paid. And, in reality, these teachers live in the cities and consequently, there is a high student dropout rate, which is evident. The question is if we are creating this youth to add to the economic growth.

Dr R K Khandal, Vice Chancellor, Gautam Buddh Technical University (GBTU), Lucknow Based on the technologies required, you need to decide how you are going to frame your strategies, devise plans, develop policies, and put them in place to match what is required and where gaps exist.

Technology can put you in the leadership position. But, it cannot lead you. It will always be your assistant. The leadership role has to come from the human factor and that is from the teacher. The teacher has to play the role of showing the student the way to go forward.

Emerging Trends in use of Technology in Education About 95 percent of all business education uses technology in some way or the other. With a panel formed of representatives from the industry, the government sector, universities, private institutes, entrepreneurial development centres, and investors, the session took us through the emerging trends in the education sector

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HIGHER EDUCATION

MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Suresh Mhatre, Vice President, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) The dearth of quality faculty, keeping consistency in quality across all spheres of education, and leveraging technology for meeting volumes are the three reasons why we need to rely more on ICT.

Vikram Upadhyay, Board Member, Indian Angel Network Besides the basic parameters of a team: the market space, need, and demand and supply, investors look for scalability of the business. In the business model of the education space, the fastest and most proven stability and scalability comes from the use of technology. A technology which can reduce the time and increase the space is given high weightage by the investors.

Dr Sanjiv Tokekar, Director, Institute of Engineering and Technology, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya Our enrolment ratio has scaled three times from about 49 lakh in 1991 to about 1.5 crores at present. This is a problem created because of massification, a term given by the UNESCO. Massification has also given way to unethical practices in the system.

Education runs as a business these days.

Prof Jagdish Bhagwat, Faculty for Operations, Supply Chain and Marketing, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world, technology is readily available to us and sometimes, students are a step ahead of us in technology.

Technology is indeed, a boon to all of us and we need to leverage it to develop better managers for tomorrow.

Sumeet Ponda, Chairman, M K Ponda College of Business and Management Technology is opposed to the basic concept of education. It is not an ingredient to complete a more effective education. Technology desensitises us. The more technology we use, the more insensitive we become.

Technology is only a facilitator.

The idiom of technology has gone so deep into our lives that students from nursery to research are put almost on a conveyor belt. The teachers and parents have become insensitive to their toddler, infantile and teenager needs. Technology can be a good slave, but, we are making it become a master.

Dinesh Khare, Regional Coordinator, Centre of Entrepreneurship Development The BA, MA, BSc and MSc courses in our country are not up to the mark. Doing these courses is not good enough to make a student employable. A student may be having a first class degree. But, the curriculum is still based on mugging and rote-learning system. This process does not make a student competent enough to take effective decisions. The improvement of the quality of teaching-learning process of these courses will facilitate betterment of the overall education system. digitalLEARNING / December 2012

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MADHYA PRADESH STATE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Higher Education

Technical Education in India

Challenges, Opportunities and Insights The session opened on the note of several challenges in one of the fastest growing sectors of our country.

It brought into light the fact that employability is the biggest challenge in the technical education sector in our country. It pointed out some of the phobias and assumptions made by the industry, academia, parents and students

Dr Mukesh Pandey, Dean-Industrial Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya The principal challenge with the massive expansion of technical education is maintaining the quality. The premier institutes in our country like the IITs, NITs and even the RGPV, have failed to inspire or nurture innovation, entrepreneurial skills, and path breaking technological ideas as generated in foreign universities like the MIT or Stanford.

We need to reposition our institutions and universities in response to the global changes that are happening on a day-to-day basis.

Dr Lovi Raj Gupta, Vice Chancellor, Baddi University The major challenge in technical education is getting a good job. Factors like employability, quality of teachers, and less practical exposure are associative. The need of the hour is to think out-of-the-box. We need to define the box today and the rest will be done.

The society has already taken in the privatisation in school education and senior secondary education. Most of us send our kids to private schools. But still, the society has not gulped in the privatisation of the higher education sector.

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Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Vice President â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Strategies and Alliances, Mosaic Network, India Twenty five percent of the population of India is still illiterate.

Only 15 percent of Indian students actually go to high school. Out of those 15 percent, only seven percent are able to make it to the graduate level. Population is not a challenge for us; it is an opportunity. Even though about 3.5 lakh engineering students graduate in our country every year, we are unable to optimise on the existing talent pool that we have.

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policy matters

ICT in Education “As government officials, it is our duty to work in such a way that we can achieve the right results in the most cost-effective manner,” says Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

T

he challenges in the education sector are huge, and we should avoid the tendency of getting bogged down by numbers as it makes it challenging to reach the ultimate objective. As government officials, it is our duty to work in such a way that we can achieve the right results in the most cost-effective manner. When it comes to education, we have a cause to worry, and also a cause to be optimistic. We are working with better goals in mind, but the task before us is so huge that we have to strive to do even better.

When teachers are guides There is no doubt that IT is going to bring about a paradigm shift in education. In June this year, Shri Sam Pitroda was in Bhopal and we had a very good interactive session with him. One very pertinent pointthat he said was, “Let’s not presume that kids these days need teachers. Actually, children don’t need teachers anymore; they only need guides, enablers, and mentors. Give the modern kids an opportunity and they will learn things themselves.” This is a very profound statement to be made by man of Shri Sam Pitroda’s stature.

In a class, the teacher asks the kids how Lord Hanuman managed to find Goddess Sita. One child raised his hand and innocently replied, “Very simple, through Google search.” Solutions to many of the questions that arise in the child’s mind are found on Google search.

The kids of today are computer savvy; they know how to look for answers on Google. So if we give them an opportunity, they will look for solutions.

All of us who have children at home know very well that whenever a new gadget comes to the house, it is the youngsters who are the first to master the nitty-gritties

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policy matters

of running that gadget. You don’t need to teach a child how to operate a remote. The kids know that automatically. They don’t go to any classroom to learn how to operate a gadget. All we need to do is provide our kids with an enabling IT environment and they will be able to learn on their own.

This is very easier said than done.

The problem is that so far, we have not been able to create that IT backbone that can reach out to majority of the children who are in need of education.

In villages, the IT infrastructure is yet to make a mark in a significant manner.

It is not in tier-I and II cities and towns that we are facing the crunch of IT infrastructure for education. The crunch is being felt in the remote villages, towns and districts. All the PPP projects in education that we have launched are unable to reach the remote areas, as we don’t have network in those areas.

Building digital networks A vast majority of our education applications need the network to run in a proper manner. So, digital education can take the root only when the network is able to expand to each and every part of the country. We have a State Wide Area Network (SWAN) in place in Madhya Pradesh that has now reached up to the block level. We are strengthening SWAN by the use of lot of technological innovations. We are also trying to expand it to our primary schools. Under this project, virtual classrooms are being set up in different parts of the state. In phase one of the project, we are connecting 313 block headquarters. In each block, we have picked up at least one school. About 100 colleges have also been picked up.

Each school or college is being provided with a virtual classroom with the entire set up consisting of a projector, an LCD screen, computer, microphone, etc.

A studio has been created in Bhopal. The best teachers will be teaching in the studio and the lessons will get digitally transmitted to all virtual classrooms located in different parts of state. Through this, a much larger number of students will be able to tap into the teaching skills of the best teachers. It is possible that all the 313 virtual classrooms could be simultaneously attending the same lecture. As the

system is interactive, the children will be able to ask questions and get answers from their teacher.

There are lots of challenges that we have to overcome to bring perfection in the digital system of imparting education. The primary challenge is to connect all the virtual classrooms with the studio. In about a month’s time, the system will be in place to cater to the needs of the few schools and colleges that we are connecting. However, it is not as if we have achieved the ultimate objective in education with this initial step.

The truth is that the number of schools, which require this kind of technological solutions, is really large. About 4000 institutions require virtual classroom in government institutions.

Connecting schools One good thing that has happened is the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN).

For laying the fibre optic cables, the government of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a number of states. The Government of Madhya Pradesh was one of the first states to sign the MoU with the Government of India.

The Government of India has approved on 25th October 2011, the setting up of the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) to provide connectivity to all the 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the country. This would ensure broadband connectivity with adequate bandwidth.

There are lots of challenges that we have to overcome to bring perfection in the digital system of imparting education. The primary challenge is to connect all the virtual classrooms with the studio

This is to be achieved by utilising the optical fiber existing up to block level and extending it to the Gram Panchayats.

If an optical fibre network is reaching the Gram Panchayat, many of the villages en route will also get connected.

Madhya Pradesh has around 23,000 Gram Panchayats, all of which will be connected. Surely, this represents a landmark opportunity to revolutionise the education sector in the country. The concept of virtual classrooms can simply be replicated in 23,000 Gram Panchayats. This is a very cost-effective way of ensuring that children in even the remotest villages have access to quality teaching material.

Can you imagine the state’s best mathematics teacher can be sitting in classroom located inside a studio in Bhopal and he would be teaching students in 23,000 classrooms located across the state? This is the kind of revolution that ICT will lead us to.

A dedicated IT cadre To bring efficiency in actual implementations of e-Governance, the state government has started creating a dedicated IT cadre. Now at every block and tehsil level, we have Assistant e-Governance Managers, and at every district level, we have District e-Governance Managers.

They have been recruited through a process of online examinations that entail very little paperwork and many of them have already joined the jobs.

The private sector, too, has a lot of talent. But as a government official, how do I take advantage of that talent? If a private company comes to me with a very efficient model for virtual classroom, I cannot straightway take that virtual classroom and start deploying it. The scales at which the government works are enormous. We need to go through a transparent procurement process. So, it is much better if the private sector, instead of bringing their products directly to the government, get their products tested with the private schools. Once the application gets popularised, a demand for the product will get created and then the government machinery can create an ecosystem and procure the solution through a transparent mechanism. digitalLEARNING / january 2013

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news Higher Education

Indian Education Standard Deteriorating: Amartya Sen West Bengal: “Qualitative development of education in India is not up to the mark,” said Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen. The standard of education in India is deteriorating day by day. We have to provide scope and ensure quality education.

A number of Asian countries cutting across their political ideology have advanced a lot in the education sector, Sen said, addressing a meeting organised by Pratichi Trust here.

“The political leaders’ attention towards quality education is an important factor. On the other hand, the common people must demand for it,” he said. The Pratichi Trust organised a two-day discussion on ‘Innovation in School Education’ which was attended by school teachers, social workers and education department officials from West Bengal, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Bangladesh.

Dr Amit Kapoor Receives Competitiveness Hall of Fame Dr Amit Kapoor, Honorary Chairman, Institute of Competitiveness, India, was presented with the Competitiveness Hall of Fame award for his exemplary contribution to the study and evolution of the concepts of competitiveness for India, and internationally. The award was presented by founder Professor Michael E Porter, Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, on the occasion of successful completion of 10 years of the institute.

Indian Youth Can Bring Change in System: Kalam “India needs sustainability in the value system. The youth of India can bring a change in the value system of our country,” said Dr APJ Abdul Kalam at Penguin Books Annual Lecture Series.

Penguin Books India, the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent, hosted the Penguin Annual Lecture Series 2012 in the city. Dr Kalam was speaking at the event on the occasion of Penguin Books India’s 25th year anniversary.

Speaking on the topic, “Beyond 2020: Sustained Development Missions for the Nation”, Dr Kalam shared his well-founded beliefs on the need for sustainable development of the nation and visualised India as an economically developed nation by the year 2020.

The job profile of the future was furthering of the technological nature of business and market aspirations for sustainability that would provide continuous income and growth assurance in such a situation.

“The generation user connectivity pyramid should be implemented in order to integrate solutions needed for technologies and applications to be sustainable,” he added

Haryana to Have National Defence University New Delhi: The Union cabinet has given approval for setting up an Indian National Defence University in Haryana. It will be set up at Binola in Gurgaon, Defence Minister, AK Antony, said.

Declaring this in a written statement in the Lok Sabha, the minister said the Haryana government had acquired land for the university.

The Educational Consultants India Ltd (EdCIL) had been asked to prepare a detailed project report for it, Antony said.

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Private Varsities not Following UGC Norms Only five of 53 private universities inspected recently by the UGC have been found to be in order.

Fifty-three of the total 145 private universities had been inspected and out of them only five were in order, HRD Minister, MM Pallam Raju informed the Rajya Sabha.

“Once we get some complaint, we inspect the university. We give them some time to rectify, but if even after that they do not follow regulations event after that they are asked to close,” he said.

The minister added that the UGC, which looks after all non-technical education, had no power to shut down private universities. The UGC can only direct them to close courses against which complaints have been received, he explained.

Raju added that the passage of two pending bills in the Parliament, Educational Tribunal Bill and the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill, would help in further regulating private universities.

Hike Fees to Hike Salary: Rajasthan Engineering Colleges Rajasthan Engineering Colleges Society has expressed its inability to give revised pay scales to teachers in the existing fee structure.

The private engineering colleges have provisional uniform fees of `60,000 which they claim is the lowest charged by any engineering college in India.

The society has sent a letter to the Rajasthan Technical University (RTU) explaining them the need to hike fees to enhance the quality of education and expand facilities. The move came after the RTU asked the affiliated colleges to submit affidavits stating that they are giving revised pay scales to their teachers.

Nitin Talesara, joint secretary of the society, proposed the fee hike of at least `80,000, which is required to meet the sixth pay commission, maintenance of laboratories, annual increments and further developments.