Dl september 2013

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

volume 9

I issue 09 I September 2013 I ISSN 0973-4139 I ` 75

education.eletsonline.com

HE Gustavo de Aristegui Ambassador of Spain to India

Shaida Mohammad Abdali Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India

Navneet Anhal CEO, Zee Learn Limited

india

Global r&D hub in Making Rosy prospects for budding researchers and scientists, as multinationals expand their R&D footprint in the country

inside: PRESENTS

Event Report

ERP Revolutionising Campus Management

Contents

ISSN 0973-4139

volume 09 issue 09 September 2013

INDIA

An Emerging R&D Destination

P 16

28

31

36

P Krishnakumar Executive Director & GM, Consumer and Small Business, Dell

Termit Kaur Ranjit Singh Senior Lecturer and Lead Trainer at Universiti Sains Malaysia

HE Gustavo de Aristegui Ambassador of Spain to India

tech focus - Campus management

40 Shaida Mohammad Abdali Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India

PRESENTS

report

20 ERP: Revolutionising Campus Management 22 Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education

44 eINDIA 2013: Education Summit

24 Gregory J Dukat, Chairman and CEO, Talisma

46 Critical Role of Industry - Academia Interface in

Corporation

special feature

Making Students Employable

50 Fostering Excellence in Technical and Management Education

26 Razi Ahmed, Country Manager / CEO – India,

52 Education for All: Cohesive Efforts by Government

27 Global Discovery Academy Changing the Way of

54 Role of Universities in promoting Inclusive Education

Edmatix Information Systems Imparting Education

33 Transformation of Distance Education with WizIQ 34 Cyber security & Algo Trading Most Happening Careers in the Field of Management & IT

68 Soft Skills for Higher Education: A Station-e Model

4

Dr Haresh Tank, Director, Station-e Language Lab

education.eletsonline.com

and Private Sector

58 Preschools in India: Opportunities and Challenges 60 Creating Excellence in School Education and the Role of ICT

62 Emerging Models for Setting up New Schools 64 Nurturing School Leaders of Tomorrow 66 eINDIA Awards

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

Mahatma Gandhi

If we want our children to flourish...We need to connect them with the nature Before we ask them to save it.

B-KANAE SCHOOL GUJARAT'S FIRST GREEN SCHOOL

eINDIA Green Campus Award - 2013 Hydrabad

G

O

G USA

R

E

B- KANAE School dedicates itself to empowering the future citizens and green innovators to take responsibility for the sustainability of the earth.

National School Sanitation Award - 2012 New Delhi

N

G

E

R

G

O N

E

E

Modasa - Himmatnagar Road, At. & Post - Sabalpur, Ta. Modasa,Dist. Sabarkantha (Gujarat) - 363 315 Phone : 02774-29 19 19, www.b-kanae.edu.in, E-mail : info@b-kanae.edu.in

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education Volume

09

Issue 09

September 2013

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

Partner publications

Advisory Board

WEB DEVELOPMENT & IT INFRASTRUCTURE Team Lead – Web Development: Ishvinder Singh

Prof Asha Kanwar, President, Commonwealth of Learning

Dr Jyrki Pulkkinen, Senior Adviser, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Executive – IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed

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

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

Executive – Information Management: Khabirul Islam

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

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

information management team

Finance & Operations Team Sr Manager – Finance: Ajit Sinha Legal Officer: Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr Manager – Events: Vicky Kalra Manager – HR: Sangeeta Biswas Associate Manager – Accounts: Anubhav Rana Executive Officer – Accounts: Subhash Chandra Dimri

Editorial Team education Sr Correspondent: Pragya Gupta, Mohd Ujaley Correspondent: Rozelle Laha governance Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Nayana Singh Health Assistant Editor: Monalisa Sr Correspondent: Sharmila Das SALES & MARKETING TEAM: digital LEARNING National Sales Manager: Fahimul Haque, Mobile: +91 - 8860651632 Associate Manager – Business Development: Amit Kumar Pundhir, Mobile: +91 - 8860635835

OUR UPCOMING EVENT PIN*****

Financial Inclusion & Payment Systems 24-25 October 2013, Eros Hilton, New Delhi

Subscription & Circulation Team Sr Executive – Subscription: Gunjan Singh, Mobile: +91-8860635832 Design Team Assistant Art Director: Shipra Rathoria Team Lead – Graphic Design: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Sr Graphic Designer: Om Prakash Thakur Sr Web Designer: Shyam Kishore 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

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

Owner, Publisher, Printer - Ravi Gupta, Printed at Super Cassettes Inds. Limited, C-85, Sector - 4, 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

6

education.eletsonline.com

EDITORIAL

Innovating to Excel Addressing the concern of quality in higher education, Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (National Higher Education Mission) under the Ministry of Human Resources, has recently proposed to put a ceiling of 200 on the maximum number of colleges that can be affiliated to any university. Current figure highlights the Osmania University has 901 colleges affiliated to it while 811 colleges are attached to Pune University. Rashtrusant Tukadoji Maharaj University, Nagpur has 800 colleges with it and Rajasthan as well as Mumbai University have 735 and 711 colleges attached to them. The average number of affiliated colleges per university is 300.

There have been instances where several state universities are having large number of colleges affiliated to a single university, and this leads to decline in quality of education being offered in some of the universities, so such a ceiling is a welcome step. But, how this proposal will be implemented given the skewed college and university ratio will remain to be a tough task for MHRD. This also calls for increasing the number of central and state universities in the country. RUSA, the one lakh crore rupees scheme, when implemented will lead to setting up and upgradation of new colleges and universities.

President Pranab Mukherjee recently inaugurated a new laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) at Dehradun. He highlighted that to become a knowledge economy, India needs to revitalise research and increase its R&D spend. And the good news is that India is fast emerging as a hub for Research and Development (R&D). Big multinationals as well as international universities are seeking collaborations or off-shoring their R&D projects to India, and pumping in investment. Currently, India’s GER in PhD is less than one percent, but this can be improved if we provide better opportunities and fellowships to our budding researchers and scientists.

To contribute our share in building the knowledge economy, we had organised 9th eINDIA Education Summit 2013 on 23-24 July, 2013, at Hyderabad International Convention Centre. In this issue we have tried to present a summary of the views of various stakeholders for the overall development of education to achieve educational goals. Reading the report on eINDIA 2013, you will get a comprehensive view of the education related projects that are currently being executed in the country. The eINDIA 2013 report also sets out where proof, promise and potential lies for technology in education.

Dr Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@elets.in digitalLEARNING / September 2013

7

news

higher education

To read latest news, log on to education.eletsonline.com

Govt aims to raise higher edu GER to 30 percent by 2020: Pallam Raju

UGC to re-conduct NET exam The Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD), M M Pallam Raju has said that the government has begun efforts to enhance gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education to 30 percent by 2020 from the current level of around 19 percent.

Raju expressed confidence and added that through the sustained efforts that began in 11th five-year Plan India will be able to improve its GER. He added that it is crucial for the universities to become centres of revolution by focusing on quality of education.

UGC is going to conduct the UGC-NET again for Junior Research Fellowship and eligibility for Lectureship at Delhi on 8th September, 2013 (Sunday) only for those candidates of Delhi who could not appear in the UGC-NET held on 30th June, 2013. In addition, for the subject ‘German’ (subject code 44) NET will be conducted again for all the registered candidates at Delhi Centre only.

The list of roll numbers of all such candidates who have not appeared in UGCNET held on 30th June 2013 at Delhi centre will be available on UGC website and the official website of Kirori mail College in from 1st September, 2013 onwards. The Roll Number and Admit Card of the candidate will remain the same. However, candidates, if they so desire, may also download the Admit Card again from UGC website.

RUSA proposes a cap on number of affiliated colleges The Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) proposes to put a ceiling on maximum number of colleges to be affiliated to any university at two hundred. The proposal has been submitted following several state universities having a large number of colleges affiliated to a single university. At present, the average number of affiliated colleges per university is 300, with Osmania University having 901 colleges affiliated to it, 811 colleges are attached to Pune University and so on. This phenomenon negatively affects the academic quality of a university. States will develop comprehensive state higher education plans that utilise an interconnected strategy to address issues of expansion, equity and excellence together.

AU to soon implement concept of mobile learning Authorities of the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) at Allahabad University are all set to introduce the concept of mobile-learning. Currently, the University is finalising the needed infrastructure for this technique and it would soon start its trial run on the campus. The new technology based initiative will use mobile technology enabled learning solution for imparting English proficiency and work-place skills. The programme was launched recently at Centre of Food Technology where a joint training programme of teachers and learners was held. mEducation, enables anytime, anywhere learning through any portable device, such as a tablet, laptop or even mobile phone that provides access to educational content through mobile connectivity (2G, 3G, or 4G complemented by mobile-based Wi-Fi).

8

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

education.eletsonline.com

Canadian varsities come calling Indian undergraduates A group of nine Canadian universities are on a two-week visit to India from August 19 to 31 to woo the Indian undergraduates. The visiting universities include University of British Columbia, Carleton University, Concordia University, Guelph University, McGill University, Queens University, Ryerson University, University of Toronto and York University.

The delegates from these varsities met Class XI and XII students of select schools across five cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Dehradun, Hyderabad and Bangalore. They held information sessions on opportunities provided by Canada as a premier destination for higher education.

Cyber & Information Securities subject introduced at UG and PG levels The University Grant Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have asked universities and technical institutions to introduce Cyber Security and Information Security as a subject at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This was stated by Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr Shashi Tharoor in Lok Sabha recently.

AICTE has intimated that following the recommendations of the Task Force on National Security System constituted on the direction of the Cabinet Committee on security, it has made provisions in the Approval Handbook that out of the two divisions allotted at the postgraduate and post-diploma levels, one shall be on Cyber Security or in Cyber Security related courses in the Computer/ IT branches of Engineering/Technology.

Executive education programme in luxury business at IIMB Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore will organise a three-day executive education programme in luxury business. The programme titled as ‘Strategic Management of Luxury Business: Managing Luxury Products and Services – from Concept to Consumer’ will commence on September 9, 2013. It includes three days of classroom workshops, exposure to various case studies and work-based assessment. IIM-B faculty and senior industry practitioners will deliver the course.

Wipro kicks off ‘AppLife Contest 2013’ for engineering students Wipro Ltd has announced the official launch of the ‘Wipro App Life Contest 2013’, a 6-month long collaborative event for engineering and science graduates in India to develop their ‘dream app’. The Wipro AppLife Contest launched in 2012, is a unique crowd sourcing-cum-engagement initiative for students to showcase their creativity and expertise in developing mobile applications for consumers and enterprises.

Online registrations opened on July 11, 2013 and will continue till December 20, 2013.

Mumbai University launches virtual classroom Mumbai University has started an automated virtual classroom from August. The inauguration event was held on August 17 at the University’s Kalina campus that was live streamed across affiliated colleges through the facility. The system is supposed to be modelled on the virtual classroom at Harvard University. The room with 58 seats will also be connected to an auditorium with a capacity of over 300. All the facilities on the internet will be made available under the NME-ICT (National Mission Education through Information and Communication Technology) of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, and the A-VIEW virtual learning tool designed by Amrita University.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

9

education.eletsonline.com MOST

Latest Video on Elets TV

Read Articles on

education.eletsonline.com Emerging School Chains in India :: August 2013 n

MHRD launches National Repository of Open Education Resources n

Wipro Kicks off ‘AppLife Contest 2013’ for Engineering Students n

Mumbai University to launch virtual classroom n

eINDIA 2013 Interview –

eINDIA 2013 Interview –

Secretary, University Grants Commission

CEO, Calorx Group

Dr Akhilesh Gupta,

Manjula Pooja Shroff, tv.eletsonline.com

MOST

MOST

MOST

ELS India Launches Australia Counseling Division

Government initiates opening up of 2,500 model schools under PPP mode

Shaping Higher Education in India

Tweeted Articles on dL

Shared Articles on

+1 Gets Articles on

dl_magazine

MOST

Shared Articles on

Upcoming Event

Government initiates opening up of 2,500 model schools under PPP mode

Vice Chancellor’s Conclave and School Principal’s Conclave

Education is the Most Rewarding Sector to be in Institution Building Takes Years STIR Education launches second search for Innovative Teachers

events.eletsonline.com

For more details please contact: Fahim Haq, Mobile: +91-8860651632, fahim@elets.in

/digitallearningonline

10

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

special feature

education.eletsonline.com

Doon Public School 35 Years of Service to the Nation “Doon Public School is a hi-tech, futuristic, numero-uno school that grooms each child academically, socially and spiritually, thus, turning him out into an ethical, confident, well-balanced citizen of the world. Being pioneers in digital learning, we provide a cutting-edge technology platform for our students and believe that education can bring about a radical change in the society,” M G Vasan, Chairman

D

oon Public School is a coeducational, CBSE affiliated, senior secondary school celebrating its 35 years of service to the nation. The school aims at imparting premium quality education through a holistic and a spiritual approach in its pursuit of excellence in all the fields.

Doon Public School was felicitated with the best ‘E- School Award’ by World Education Awards 2013 at the World Education Summit held at Le Meridian Hotel, New Delhi. The reward been bestowed for the school’s stupendous initiative in the e-school programme.

The school enjoys a unique distinction of being the first school in India to have computer-aided teaching and learning through Smart Class using plasma screen with Smart Assessment System (SAS) in all the classes. The school has received the ‘Best ICT Laboratory School Education Award 2010’ for being pioneer in the field of digital learning.

To facilitate students with new modern techniques in learning, verifying and visualising mathematical concepts through educational aids, the first digital Maths Lab of India has been installed in the school. The Abacus and Vedic Maths programmes enable the students to achieve an extremely high standard of mental arithmetic and help the students excel in Bhaskara.

Amongst the other pivotal features of the school, the ‘Language Lab’ occupies a significant place as it aims at improving the students’ communication skills.

Further, the ‘Digital Library’ with more than 18000 books online is an addition to the existing library.

I am proud and privileged to be a part of a spirited and dedicated team, which has redefined school education.

Our methodology and pedagogy of imparting holistic high-value education by combining judicious use of technology and moral values makes our students globally capable, competent and efficient. We groom leaders in every field to meet every challenge,” N V Sarat Chandran, Manager The school has a lecture theatre provided with interactive board and facility for video-conferencing, a ‘Biotechnology Lab’, with the facility of ‘tissue culture’ and a ‘Fashion Studies Lab’ that trains the students in the theory and practice of garment manufacturing. There are special animation classes and an exclusive Lexile Framework for Reading for the students.

The sports faculty of the school imparts coaching in all the games and athletic disciplines and a well equipped gymnasium in the school ensures the physical fitness.

The school has extended its contribution to the social concerns such as Mother

Empowerment for Educational Development (MEED), ‘Rural Education Mission’ and ‘Hope For the Future’ and is empowering the mothers of the school children with computer-aided learning, English speaking skills and parenting skills. ‘Hope For the Future’ is a programme to empower the under privileged for their enrichment and vision in life to make them independent. The dedicated work of our competent teachers, innovative teaching methodology and the use of cutting edge technology platforms positively hold a mirror to a bright and resplendent future and ensure that we live upto the motto ‘Excelsior’.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

11

news

To read latest news, log on to education.eletsonline.com

k-12

GDA to organise all-India Android app design competition for students Global Discovery Academy (GDA), a chain of K-12 schools is organising all-India Android mobile app design competition for school students in the age group of 10-13 years. Students from schools across India have been invited to participate in the competition wherein they

MHRD launches National Repository of Open Education Resources The HRD Minister Dr M M Pallam Raju has launched the National Repository of Open Education Resources (NROER). Addressing the Conference on ICT for School Education in New Delhi, he said that the school education has in the recent times witnessed immense growth. Having promised our children the right to education, leveraging technology is important to expand school system.

The National Repository is a collaborative platform, which proposes to bring together the best of digital resources for different subject domains, across different stages of the school system and in different languages.

The Secretary for Higher Education Ashok Thakur said that the ICT initiative is not only promoting schools but teachers as well as students also. He said that at present we are connecting 400 universities and 20,000 colleges through ICT highways.

12

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

will have to create a mobile phone application that will serve a social cause. The competition has been designed to challenge and develope the thought process of the students by exploring and generating their own unique concepts. Participants will be competing in creating problem solving applications in one of the given areas of social concern like environment, education, health and nutrition, poverty and civic facilities.

CBSE-Trinity College partner to impart assessment training on communication skills The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has tied up with the Trinity College, London to train the teachers of schools affiliated with the Board for the implementation of the assessment of speaking and listening (ASL) skills.

CBSE introduced ASL in all affiliated schools for classes IX and XI in an attempt to integrate English language in the curriculum. In the CBSE curriculum document for secondary schools there is a provision of 20 marks weightage for assessing ASL in IX and X. As part of the tie-up, the school principals will identify senior teachers of English from their respective schools who will be eligible to take the online screening test to qualify for examiner trainers in the ASL. The teachers who qualify will be invited to the examiner trainers workshops scheduled in August, September, November this year and in January 2014. The examiner trainers would then be responsible for cascading the assessment training to teachers in schools in India and affiliated schools abroad.

Goa government schools to adopt the Korean model

In a meeting chaired by state chief secretary B Vijayan with the heads of government high schools and higher secondary schools in Goa, he suggested to adopt the Korean model of schooling where children are made aware of their long term goals from a young age.

In a presentation made to the 74 high school and nine higher secondary school heads, the school headmasters and principals were told that the Korean model of school education can be taken without any additional infrastructural spending, where the child is encouraged to explore a subject of his or her interest further by the teachers from a young age.

education.eletsonline.com

GIIS launches Global Cricket Academy in Noida Global Indian International School (GIIS) announced the launch of its Chandu Borde Global Cricket Academy (CBGCA) at its Noida campus.

The academy was launched by Chandu Borde, a renowned cricketer, who is the Vice- President, Global Schools Foundation. He was the ex-captain of Indian national Cricket team. Borde has been the Chairman of the selection committee of BCCI for two terms. In July 2007, he was appointed as the Manager of the Indian National Team. He has received various awards including Arjuna award, Maharashtra Bhushan and Padma Bhushan in 2002.

GUIDE to improve edu in Arunachal Pradesh The Arunachal Pradesh education department has launched a new scheme, GUIDE. The scheme is designed to nurture government schools and to improve the education scenario of the state. The new scheme is premised on the concept of mentoring.

For a beginning, ‘GUIDE’ intends to cover secondary and senior secondary schools in the state which would gradually be extended to the elementary and primary schools.’GUIDE’ neither involves financial expenditure nor intends to substitute the inspection mechanism of the school education system. An officer will have a choice to select a school to become ‘GUIDE’. The department has fixed a target of improving the examination performance to above 75 percent for less than 60 percent achievers in 2012-13; above 90 per cent for the remaining; raising the numbers of first divisions in class XII and bringing some students in 90 percent above category.

Govt initiates opening up of 2,500 model schools under PPP mode The process of setting up 2,500 model schools under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode has been initiated by selection of entities. This was stated by Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr Shashi Tharoor in Rajya Sabha recently. He said that, however, the estimated number of schools to be set up is dependent upon the interest shown by the private entities.

The Ministry has identified 3,203 blocks in the country, which are not educationally backward.

The private entities will acquire land and then develop, design, build, finance, provide infrastructure, operate, maintain, manage and own these schools. The Government will contribute to the recurring cost on a per capita basis for the 980 select students of a maximum student strength of 2,500 per school permitted under the scheme. Besides, a sum equal to 25 percent of such support for each sponsored student, not exceeding an amount equal to 10 percent of the capital investment in the school, shall also be provided as infrastructure grant. The initial agreement for such provision of quality education would be for 10 years for each school, which is extendable by mutual consent.

MP Govt makes Yoga Education compulsory in schools Addressing the meeting of Madhya Pradesh Yoga Parishad, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan directed to prepare the course for practical and theory for Yoga education. Yoga education will be made compulsory in schools of the state from class I to V. He also directed the school education department to prepare Yoga education course and outlines for teachers’ training within a month.

Yoga education has already been imparted to students of class VI to VIII in the state.

Students of Genesis Global School visit NASA CAMP The students of Genesis Global School has experienced a five-day graduation camp at the US Space and Rocket Centre (NASA) Huntsville, USA recently as part of the School’s Space Programme.

Escorted by teachers, 33 students got an opportunity to experience simulated space missions and experiments on international space station.

This expedition was a learning experience for the studious lot, where they learnt how to design and launch their own rocket. The students were also demonstrated how the trajectory changes in zero-gravity zones, how a space shuttle is made and assembled through astronaut simulations, adventure activities and insightful interaction with astronauts. digitalLEARNING / September 2013

13

special feature data security

Transcripts Securing the Data By

Dr Sankaran Raghunathan,

Dean, The National Management School, India

O

ne issue that is being addressed across countries in higher education is the secure generation, distribution, and, subsequent verification of transcripts. Imagine a situation where Universities can generate transcripts either on ordinary paper or electronically in a very secure format that cannot be tampered with; distribute this secure transcript without the need for sharing the data with any third party; with the transcript so issued being verifiable at any time or place via the internet without recourse to the original database or the issuing University.

The solution should meet the following criteria: • Enables generation of tamper-proof transcripts on ordinary paper or electronically • Does not require any additional spending on media • Does not require investment in any new infrastructure either for the generation or distribution of transcripts • Avoid sharing of student records with any central repository or third party • Verification of the transcript should be simple, universal, and not require access to the original database • Is less expensive to implement in terms of time, effort and money

14

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

I believe that such a solution can be found in a derivative of the bar code system or the QR code system that we all are familiar with.

In a simple format, a security mark can be used to store the student data such as grades, etc. that are normally printed on a transcript. This security mark can be printed in one corner of the transcript.

The data that is originally stored there when the transcript is printed can be read by scanning the security mark. Therefore, if the data printed on the transcript is in any way tampered, the scan of the security mark will display the true data with which the verification can be done without going to the source for verification or accessing any database.

There should be a secured process evolved for generation of the security mark using the data at the time of generation of the transcript. Similarly, the decoding of the security mark should be done by an authentic process so that verification of the data from the reader is also authenticated.

Therefore, I would suggest a modification of the generally accepted generation process. The process should involve the following: • The data that is to be stored in the security mark is first encoded using a logic

• Such an encoded data is then encrypted using an encryption key before the security mark is generated • The security mark that is printed on a transcript cannot be generated by anybody but only by the University that is generating the transcript and which has the encoding and encrypting logic Then, such an encoded and encrypted security mark that contains the transcript data, which is printed on a transcript can be captured as image by any scanner. The scanned image has to be opened only by the algorithm that may be available at a particular website or portal that accepts the scanned image to decrypt, decode and display the data that is stored in that security mark.

Such process need not access the original database. The University that generated the original transcript need not share the data with this portal. There is no special infrastructure needed for this portal to work, nor such an infrastructure needed to generate the security mark.

The security mark can be printed on any media including an ordinary sheet of paper. Thus, Universities can save a lot of money in eliminating the security paper on which the transcripts are printed now.

The security mark that contains the encoded and encrypted data is very secure since the security mechanism is only with the University that generates the transcript. Verification can be done from anywhere using the internet to access the portal that is the only one that can decrypt and decode the scanned security mark. Each University can have its own encoding and encryption algorithm. Centralisation of all the student transcripts is also completely avoided.

This system can be used not only for University transcripts but also wherever variable data needs to be secured on a document. Thus this is a document security mechanism.

Dr Sankaran Raghunathan is an expert in transcript or document security matters; he has participated in international conferences that discuss matters related to transcripts and has made significant contributions in those debates. He can be reached at sankaran@nms.edu.in

news

CORPORATE

To read latest news, log on to education.eletsonline.com

Intelivisto to assess students’ entrance test preparation

ELS India Launches Australia Counseling Division ELS International Education Pathways Private Limited (ELS India), an educational service company specialised in admissions and counseling services, has announced the expansion of their operations by launching the Australia counseling division for prospective students aspiring to study in Australia.

The launch started with the lighting of the lamp by Michael Carter, Trade Commissioner and Consul Commercial, Australian Trade Commission, Australian Consulate, Chennai followed by the “ELS Australian Brochure Release” that enlightens student pathway opportunities for studying abroad in Australia.

DLF Foundation launches 26th Skill Centre in Indore DLF Foundation, the philanthropic arm of DLF Limited, has launched the DLF Labournet Skill Centre in Indore to bridge the skill gap in India by imparting skill-based training to the youth in the informal sector and provide them sustainable benefits and generate employment. The centre was inaugurated by Mahesh Srivastava, Indore Head, DLF Limited in the presence of Anand N, Regional Manager – West, LabourNet and Nitin Seth, DGM – Placements.

Situated at Mangal Nagar, the DLF LabourNet Skill Training Centre offers courses in hair and beauty care, marketing, electrical and computer training.

Intelivisto Consulting Pvt Ltd, an e-learning solutions provider, will conduct a National Assessment Test (NAT) from October 2 – 4, 2013 through its online portal.

This exam will be conducted separately for students studying in class XI and class XII in an online mode from home, schools or cybercafes. Students shall compete for top prizes worth more than 2,00,000 and 50 prizes worth rupees 50,000. The test has been designed with an objective to provide timely assessment of students preparing for exams like JEE Mains, JEE Advance, BITSAT, IPU CET, UP SEE, etc and helps them to work upon weak areas as well before the actual entrance exam.

This exam also helps students to go through a national comparison matrix and predict their possible rankings among a wider audience.

Linc Academy to empower students through e-Learning Linc Academy (LA), a Linc initiative, is an effort towards empowering students through e-learning. Education at the Linc Academy will be imparted through a two-way virtual live class by renowned professors from IIM and other institutes.

The courses offered are PGPM (Industry Ready Program); UGC/AICTE recognised PGDM, MBA with nine months classes and 15-18 Months of Internship and placement assistance.

Sushma Berlia bags Exemplary Leader Award Sushma Berlia, President, Apeejay Stya Group & Svrán Group was recently conferred the ‘Exemplary Leader Award’ for her ‘Outstanding Contribution towards Industry & Academia’ in the fourth edition of Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2013, held in Singapore.

The award ceremony was hosted by the Employer Branding Institute and World HRD Congress with CMO Asia as Strategic Partner. It was endorsed by the Asian Confederation of Businesses.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

15

Cover story

India, till now, has not realised its full potential when it comes to research and development (R&D).

It has lagged behind western and Asian countries in terms of investment and results.

However, going by the recent trends, things are changing, as India is increasingly climbing up the R&D value chain across sectors.

Chhavi Bakaria,ENN, takes a look...

INDIA

An Emerging R&D Destination F

ew years back an Indian mobile manufacturer was not even heard of, and today indigenous brands like Micromax and Karbon are steadily eating into profits of established global brands like Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. And not too long ago, the world’s cheapest car -- Tata Nano’s launch in 2009 awed experts and carmakers across the world and bagged accolades for innovation.

These brands are an example of how India is gradually progressing in R&D and innovation,and that is not it.

16

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

From being a destination for IT and business process outsourcing, India is now fast moving to become a major center for cutting-edge research and development (R&D) projects of global multinationals as well as local firms. The overall R&D expenditure in India has doubled since 2007 and is estimated to be around USD 40 billion in 2012.

American multinational Dell recently inaugurated a new state-of-the-art Firmware Lab at its R&D centre in India’s southern Bangalore city. The new lab is the only Firmware Lab to be established outside the company headquarters in Austin.

Highlighting upon India’s R&D potential, Rudramuni B, Executive Director and Head, Dell India R&D, says, “Dell envisions India as a critical R&D and innovation hub for Dell’s global eco-system.

With the inauguration of the new lab, Dell India will look to further augment its R&D capabilities. Our investment in this facility bears testimony to the highquality talent available in India.”

Also, Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) recently announced plans to establish an integrated research & development (R&D) centre in Rohtak, Haryana.

The testing facility and the R&D Centre

education.eletsonline.com

IndiAdvantage

at Rohtak are expected to become operational within two-three years and it will help in the design, development and testing of new vehicles for the company’s African, West Asian and some South Asian markets.

More and more companies in industries ranging from IT and telecom, pharmaceuticals and biotech are taking up ambitious R&D projects, aiming to serve the Indian market, and also eyeing a piece of the global pie by innovating.

Dr A Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI, says, “India is fast emerging as a major force in the global research and development arena. A considerably large talent pool across diverse areas of science, technology and management, along with robust academic and research infrastructure and a progressive policy environment is spurring a lot of basic and industrial R&D activity in the country and increasingly making it a top choice among global corporations for off-shoring their R&D needs.”

Multinational companies have been setting up their R&D units in India since 1980’s. According to the data compiled by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), currently over 800 multi-national companies are having one or more of their R&D centers based out of India.

Most of these centers have steadily increased their capacity and headcount over the last few years.

And most companies have continued to show interest in India for their research and product development needs despite its low 2013 Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings.

Indian students are also waking up to the potential lying in the field of research and are ditching fat pay checks of corporate jobs to pursue their quest for knowledge, thereby adding to the pool of skilled talent. “Skilled workforce refers to people who have done their Masters or PhDs. Good news is that in Engineering and Technology sector the IITs, ISCs are increasing their PhD output dramatically in the last five years from 100 PhDs per IIT five to six years ago to about 200 PhDs per year now. It will go up to 400 four years from now,” informs Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras.

“This would be of mutual benefit to both- to the corporate sector it would mean cost effective solutions and newer technology while for the IITs it would bring much needed funds and enhance their research capabilities,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Industry-Academia collaboration in R&D

Key factors fuelling R&D in India:

8 Large and Developing Market: India’s young population and burgeoning middle class with their ability to spend money and aspirations to acquire new products have created a large market that both Indian and foreign companies are looking to tap into 8 Huge Talent Pool: India has a large scientific pool available for companies to employ for their research activities. With over 1.2 million students, there is also no dearth of young talent which can be trained by companies for research 8 Reduced R&D costs: As compared to the western countries, India provides the opportunity to lower the R&D costs, which is an attractive reason for many multi-nationals to outsource projects to the country 8 Strengthening intellectual property regime: Patenting, which is an important measure of innovative R&D activity, is on the rise in India. Patent registrations in the US from India grew from 94 in the year 2000 to 465 in 2010, and registrations in Europe increased from 7 in the year 2000 to 200 in 2010 8 Other factors: Fluency in English language and a strong judicial framework are other key factors that are driving research and development

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

17

Cover story

Better Policies R&D spend structure in

India - 2012 INR 60.565 (60%)

GERD Breakdown in India-212 (INR Cr.)

INR 35.330 (35%) INR 5.047 (5%) Business Enterprise

Government

Higher Education

Source: FICCI

Apart from the corporate biggies, India is also attracting large number of international universities that are partnering with several Indian universities or institutes to carry out joint research in various fields. For example, Deakin University, Australia is already working on 20 tie-ups with Indian Institutions including The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) with which they run a jointBiotechnology Centre. It is looking to expand these partnerships in future with premier institutes like the IITs for various joint projects and student exchange programmes.

Peter Hodgson, Professor, Deakin University, Australia, says, “I think India has got fantastic potential with its large human resource capacity. People prefer to invest in India than China because their intellectual property is much more secure in India and language is much easier. I also think there is more trust between western nations and India than probably China. The education system here is very much similar to the Western education systems. So there is a lot of common understanding. We are looking at expand partnerships in three areas -- biotechnology, nano-technology and anufacturing.”

18

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Till now, the overall government and industrial spending in scientific and technological R&D has remained below 1% of total GDP for more than a decade.

The government spending accounts for over three-fourths of the Gross Expenditure for Research & Development (GERD), followed by 20-25 percent spent by private sector and 5 percent by universities as shown in the graph.

According to the data provided by the Science and Technology Ministry around 500 Indian scientists working abroad have come back in the last seven years, thanks to better research opportunities and their passion to do something for their native country. The majority of the reverse brain drain has happened from the US, Germany and Britain.

Credit must be given to the several schemes run by the Indian government like the Indian The Ramanujan Fellowship, Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Programme and the Ramalingaswamy Fellowship.

Under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) the government is also looking to expand the base of human capacity for research by offering 1000 overseas doctoral and 250 post-doctoral fellowships supported by assured career opportunity.

Highlighting steps undertaken by the government, Dr Shashi Tharoor,

“The 12th Five-Year Plan seeks to create an ecosystem, which will contribute to create industrial R&D share in the national R&D expenditure, creating indigenous capacities to attract and absorb FDI” Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development

“There is more trust between western nations and India than probably China. The education system here is very much similar to the Western education systems. So there is a lot of common understanding.

We are looking at expand partnerships in three areas -- biotechnology, nano-technology and manufacturing,” Peter Hodgson, Professor, Deakin University Minister of State for Human Resource Development, explains, “The government is striving hard to create the best possible R&D structure. The 12th FiveYear Plan seeks to create an ecosystem, which will contribute to create industrial R&D share in the national R&D expenditure, creating indigenous capacities to attract and absorb FDI, raising manufacturing industries’ contribution to 25 percent of GDP, and raising technology in the value added exports from our country.”

He further adds, “The Plan’s chief focus will be to motivate and support innovation, micro, small and medium enterprises and creating a cluster of such enterprises which will be able to contribute on our national economy.

The government aims to establish 10 privately-operated industrial R&D centres dedicated for micro and small industries. Public-private partnership will be emphasised, which will create elaborate research between industries and the universities and public-funded research institutions.”

education.eletsonline.com

Government is contemplating on increasing the investment in R&D in public and 20 private sector to two percent of GDP via the following measures: • Higher allocation to scientific research • Setting up of new institutions for science and educational research • Creation of centres of excellence and facilities in emerging and frontline areas in academic and national institutes • Strengthening infrastructure for R&D in universities • Encouraging public-private R&D partnerships • Increasing grants for industrial R&D projects.

Stumbling Blocks Need for higher Government Spending on R&D: The government should increase funding to research and development projects. As per data provided by FICCI, India’s R&D expenditure is merely 2.1 percent of the total global expenditure in R&D in comparison to US where R&D spending accounts for about a third of the global R&D spends (33.6 percent) and, Japan and China account for 12.6 percent each. Increasing thrust from the government, especially, in terms of doubling public R&D spend from the current level of just under one percent to a projected two percent of GDP over next five to ten years.

Increasing Private Sector Spending on R&D: India’s private sector investment in R&D is less than 25 per cent of overall spend. While the cumulative domestic R&D output and investment in India has shown a healthy growth trend over the years, but boosting domestic private sector investment continues to be a challenge.

Lack of Skilled Human Resource: While the sheer numbers of India’s talent force favour outsourcing R&D to India, but bridging gaps in skills remains to be a tough task. India must continue to emphasise the development of high quality scientific and technological skills.

Industrial R&D spending in India - 2010 Company

R&D Spend (USD million)

R&D Spend (% Revenue)

Tata Motors

397.8

1.50 %

Prithvi Information

246.3

60.50 %

Polaris Software

228.0

67.60 %

BHEL

176.3

2.50 %

Mahindra & Mahindra

157.2

2.50 %

Lupin

112.7

9.30 %

Infosys

112.0

1.90 %

Reliance Industries

110.0

0.20 %

Bharat Electronics

67.2

5.90 % Source: FICCI

Poor R&D Infrastructure: According to a McKinsey report commissioned by the USA-India Chamber of Commerce, problems like poor policy and infrastructure still cloud the R&D growth in the country especially in the Indian healthcare sector.

Quality Research: There is a greater need to increase quality research in science and technology. There are also concerns about none of the Indian universities making it to the top 200 universities globally because of lack of or substandard research. Research (in terms of volume, income and reputation) accounts to 30 percent of the total evaluation. Recently, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has urged universities to put more money into research.

Bridging the Industry-AcademiaPublic Gap: At present, the R&D ecosystem is segmented with a lack of lab linkage between industry- academiapublic that is leading to low competitiveness. There is a need for open

collaboration between all R&D stakeholders. The government should facilitate exchange programme between researchers and academia and public to create better synergy in public-private.

Need for Applied R&D: Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh emphasised the need for private sector participation in scientific research and also urged the scientific community to ensure that the research is converted to technology or products that will boost India’s development goals.

For long, India has enjoyed a vast and strong intellectual tradition yet it has lagged behind countries like Russia and China in terms of R&D. It can build upon its academic lineage with further innovation and research. As government and private investment increases in higher education, science and technology the future of R&D in India is bright. Through path breaking R&D, India has the potential to realise its dream of becoming a knowledge economy.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

19

tech focus

campus management

ERP: Revolutionising One of the essentials for efficient campus management in this age is enabling seamless Planning ERP has a vital role to play in this. Right from managing administrative functions faculty management, attendance, examinations, etc, ERP solutions have the potential of By

Pragya Gupta,

ENN

The Indian ERP market experienced CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 25.2 during the period of 2004-2009. Industry experts forecast that the companies providing software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) to educational institutions are expected to see 13%-15% growth in the next four years. ERP demand is rising among the institutions seeking its benefits.

ERP Why ERP has become a necessity at school and higher education • Increasing requirement for centralised access to data • Need for optimisation of resources leading to better scheduling of staff members • Need for a communication platform that seamlessly connects school with students, parents and staff members through email or SMS • Need for reducing administrative costs due to increasing competitiveness • Need for a platform that provides quick scalability to manage growth • Need for reducing the clerical and administrative tasks of the faculty • Need for overcoming people dependency and to build a process oriented system.

• Need for a platform that provides collaboration tools across different departments and functions in a school.

• Need for customised reporting of various data points for effective management decision making

20

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

education.eletsonline.com

Campus Management connectivity, whereby processes and information run across all departments. Enterprise Resource such as human resources, accounts and inventory; to academic functions such as student enrollments, taking campus management to new heights.

We are poised to increase our intake and rollout “newer programs for our increasing student base and we are seeking solutions that align to our vision of academic excellence. Campus Management’s offerings met our needs which made them the right fit for our institution, Janat Shah, Director, IIM-Udaipur

”

Opportunities for ERP developers in India The opportunity for ERP developers in India especially in the Education sector is tremendous as there is a growing demand for products that meet the customer expectations not just in its features but also in the quality of the service being rendered.

Advantages of ERP on Cloud over Traditional ones

Best ERP practices for Institutions Here are some of the best practices for better ERP implemetation: 1. Choose the right ERP Product: Opt for a product that runs on the latest technology and also assures you of free product upgrades.

A cloud based ERP solutions scores higher than an offline solution on any given day.

2. Build a Project Team: Building a project team by appointment members from these respective functions (Examinations, Accounts and Communications etc) and structuring it around one highly resourceful ERP Coordinator will ensure that the transition is smooth and painless.

3. Set Realistic Expectations: Setting a realistic time frame that has been mutually agreed by all the stakeholders in the project ensures that there would be minimum resistance from the users.

• The most critical advantage of a Cloud based ERP solution is that it provides enhanced data storage capacity, security and control.

• Real time access of data from anywhere helps in quick yet well informed decision making.

• Cloud-based solution means you don’t have to make expensive upfront investments in IT hardware and servers, nor worry about dedicating significant personnel resources to managing it.

• Cloud-based implementations are usually much faster and easier to deploy than on-site deployments, and maintenance is much easier since the cloud-based ERP provider is responsible for keeping the technology up to date.

• Most importantly, with cloud technology, product enhancements are painless—customizations and integrations automatically update with system upgrades—so you can always be assured that your business is running with the most advanced capability.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

21

tech focus

Q& A

campus management

Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education talks about the critical role of ERP in Campus management. In conversation with Pragya Gupta

Next ERP for

Institutions How does Education ERP revolutionise campus management?

The advent of Education ERP will usher in efficiency, transparency and quick scalability in campus management. It will redefine the way the schools are managed by making it easier for them to perform their day-to-day school management activities. However, its most revolutionary impact lies in the fact that it will unshackle the school management and the teachers from the day-today administrative tasks so that they have more time in hand to focus on their core objective of imparting knowledge to the students.

creasing pressure that the schools face these days from the new generation of parents and students who are themselves technology savvy and expect the schools to have systems and process that makes it easier for them to communicate, access information or track the performance of their wards without having to make a physical visit to the school to meet the teachers.

According to the latest report by Gartner, SaaS based ERP solution is expected to grow at 28 percent CAGR in India and with NextERP solution we will be providing a comprehensive yet customizable solution that meets the expectations of the education sector in India.

How is the market for Education ERP in India?

There is a growing need across all institutes to use technology not just in delivering education through digitised content but also in implementing an ERP solution that helps them manage the campuses in a cost-effective and efficient way. With the increasing number of big corporate houses entering in the education sector, the school management process itself has undergone a paradigm shift in the last few years. Most importantly, a lot of the best practices are being implemented to optimise the resources available at the school and implementing an ERP solution is one of these best practices.

Further, we observe that there is in-

What are your USPs over others existing players in this domain • NextERP is a Cloud-based ERP solution that provides anytime, anywhere access and also unmatched data privacy and security features unlike the other offline ERP solutions present in the market.

• Highly customisable and flexible solution to meet the exact requirements of the school.

• Well researched implementation process and a dedicated support system.

• A product that is supported by the strong fundamentals of the Next Education group, which is solely focused on the school education sector and drawing from its experience of having its various products installed in 5000+ schools and used by over 10 million students in India.

22

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Using ERP has been a great difficulty for education sector and this is the reason many have discontinued the use. How do you address this challenge?

We agree that despite the strong aspiration of the schools and colleges to implement an ERP system a lot of them have failed to do so. Our experience has also taught us that implementing an ERP solution in a school is very different than implementing it at enterprises in any other sector. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the transition is tough for members of the school staff who have been following a particular system for years (even decades in some cases) and have got used to a particular way of functioning. Further, some schools have the aspiration but not necessarily the infrastructure to implement ERP effectively in their day-to-day operations.

We recognise these challenges and have also successfully overcome in a number of schools across India.

education.eletsonline.com

Some steps that we have taken to overcome this challenge are: Feasibility Study: Just 50 percent of all schools that come to us with their inquiry about an ERP solution pass our NextERP Feasibility Test that we conduct before we begin any implementation project. For schools those are not able to meet our strict parameters that define the school’s readiness for a SaaS-based ERP solution we provide the feedback and request them to get back to us once they fulfil the requirements. This honest approach ensures that our conversion ratio and longevity of the relationships is far better than our peers and also the schools receive a clear feedback on the pre-implementation requirements of an ERP solution.

Return on investment

it offers to institutions We are now in an age of tight budgets and reducing overheads. Gone are the days when one could run large labour intensive systems and hope to deliver substantial results. NEXTERP is an ERP solution, which helps you get the best results from existing processes. As it is a webbased application, it can be accessed from anywhere and you can effectively manage your workforce to increase productivity.

Little or no capital investment to get started Very high return on investment, increases year-on-year Eliminates 80 percent of the paperwork No extra administrative overhead for maintenance of NEXTERP Cut downs unnecessary and extra manpower resources Saves a lot of time for each and every stakeholder (administration, staff, students, parents) (Effective utilization of time = More productivity) Streamlines the entire operations and functions thus increasing the overall productivity and efficiency (More productivity=More value to your money) Enhances the brand value of your institution thus resulting in higher enrolment of students

Sound Implementation Process: The first three months are critical and we take every care to ensure that we make the transition as smooth as possible for the schools. Our ERP consultants are dedicated to the schools during this phase and they are well trained not just on the product and technical skills but also on soft skills to be able to manage and overcome conflicts, resistance and fear that sometimes besot the end users when migrating to a new system. Even after the implementation there is a weekly followup by ERP consultants for two months.

What are the type of the ERP solutions available for schools and Higher Education. How do you customise them?

We currently provide ERP solutions just for the K-12 sector. Our functional team interacts with the key stakeholders and users in the school to understand the requirements and create a project plan which gives detailed scope, estimation on manpower, commercials and delivery timelines. Once the project plan is approved by the customer, we start the customisation process. The complete process will be managed with a detailed project tracker, escalation matrix, defect reporting process, QC reports and User Acceptance process.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

23

tech focus

campus management

Q& Technology A

solutions to benefit

Students and Institutes alike

Having partnered with leading international institutions like Indiana University, the University of Illinois, and several others, Talisma Campus Resource Management (CRM) for Higher Education, is now making inroads into the Indian market. Gregory J Dukat, Chairman and CEO, Campus Management, highlights opportunities and challenges in the domain. In conversation with Chhavi Bakaria…

Please share with us key points that differentiate Talisma from its competitors?

The education market in India has become more competitive. Students have more choice about which university or college they are going to. Thus, the institutions across the country are looking at tools like our technology to improve students’ experience, as technology brings in higher transparency, and improves governance and efficiency.

If we look at education specifically, Talisma is among the few end-to-end technology platform providers operating on a global scale. Admission process is the number one problem in India given the sheer numbers, but our admission process management is a lot more streamlined. We offer other services like digital marketing, alumni management, learning services, etc. Also, the flexibility that is inherent with our system to deal with multi-campus operations and to deal with different types of course curriculums being offered has been one of the hallmarks that distinguishes us from others.

Also from students’ point our tools like Smart Card, wireless network for campus, student self-service portal, student portal applications and an interac-

24

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

tive website are becoming quite popular.

Now the students can decide how they want to communicate with the institute whether that is an e-mail, chat, social media etc.

Can you give examples of Indian educational institutes who have benefited from Talisma’s CRM? Premier institutions like Manipal University and other private and government universities are using Talisma CRM. We are also the technology platform provider for National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). So, the skill-based education is one of our core strengths that we bring to the table from a systems stand point.

How has the adoption of technology been in higher learning institutions across the country, and what are the challenges?

Educational institutions across the country are implementing technology to streamline functioning and improve students’ experience. The adoption of technology in India is growing, but I think the big problem in Indian institutes in general is their receptiveness to

technology. Even if there is intent at the top level, but at the lowest level you do not have the same level of receptiveness in implementing technology. The teachers or professors are interested in technology and we have imparted trainings on biometric, Smart card access, etc. So yes, I would say, it’s getting better and there is a large untapped opportunity in that ecosystem of education.

What is your product strategy to penetrate the Indian education market?

India is a complex market. Each institution has its own level of complexity. We have come up with two product strategies. First we have an SME product that addresses the colleges including engineering colleges and we call it the SmartCampus. We have different financing models to lower the upfront investments of the institutes. In the SmartCampus offering institutes can come in at as low as Rs 1000 per student, per year. Another segment is the university sector for our enterprise product called CampusVue. So we have clearly distinctive products for each of these categories and that’s how we are going ahead from a strategy stand point.

Old cars are classics.

Old SIS are obsolete.

CampusVue® Student

CampusVue® Portal

Talisma® CRM

If your SIS vendor built its system before the Internet, it’s not vintage — it’s a liability. With the right innovations for higher education engineered into CampusVue® Student, institutions are winning the hearts and minds of constituents on a more efficient centralized system. So, before overhauling your old system again, test drive the

Talisma® Fundraising

most proven brand in the industry. Experience the Student Information System that’s serving leaders in higher education worldwide.

CampusVue® Finance

www.campusmanagement.com CampusVue® HR & Payroll

Campus Management Corp.

214/6, Ramanamaharishi Road, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore-560 080, Karnataka, India Tel: +91 -80-4039 4400, Email: info@talisma.com © 2013 Campus Management Corp. All rights reserved. Campus Management Corp. and CampusVue are registered trademarks of Campus Management. These marks may be registered in the U.S. or other countries. All other registered trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.

Information is subject to change.

CampusVue® Performance Analytics

Special Feature

Q& Education Management with ERP A Razi Ahmed, Country Manager / CEO – India, Edmatix Information Systems, a subsidiary of Mazik Tech Solutions, talks about how the company is helping educational institutions to achieve their academic goals by removing the artificial barriers between parents, teachers and students Please shed some light on Edmatix Solutions.

Edmatix is the education ERP division of Mazik Tech solutions which provides multi lingual educational solutions and services. Our products are built on latest Microsoft, Web 2.0 technologies to make it more user friendly and cater the education needs of various school boards such as state SSC, CBSE, ICSE and several others that exists in India it also caters colleges, training institutes and universities.

How is Edmatix helping Education Institutions across India?

Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals and set standards. We are totally committed to helping education community; reinvent education system to improve their education standards and student achievements to outperform in several state and central aptitude tests. Our education products are designed to help you support the lifecycle of active learning, inspires student success and create technology enabled environment.

Our products are built to allow seamless customizations to meet the needs of every school in the education community.

Edmatix has been committed to providing the best software solutions for education industry and helping schools maintain their competitive edge with their

Razi Ahmed

26

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals around the world. It helps management to easily manage various entities of their institutes in 360 degree view using MIS reports, Teacher analysis, Student analysis and many canned reports Key achievements

Key implementation challenges

• 65 + satisfied customer Groups

• Collecting Data as per Standard Education System-overcome using ‘Custom-made’ Data Migration Tools

with a volume of 1,00,000 + Users • ITIL Process based Customer Service Support • Supports International and Local curriculum pattern (State, CBSE, ICSE, IB etc) • User friendly and Microsoft Certified User Interface (UI) design • Integrated with various Financial Accounting ERPs such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Tally

counter parts in the education market.

Our mission is to provide schools a very comprehensive, easy to use and most cost effective solutions. We help schools and institutions to achieve their education goals by improving education standard, student grades, achievements and ofcourse achieve their target revenues to help them expand their services. Improvement in student grades and education standards will help schools to send more students to colleges and universities where they can be selected for the most demanding courses and programs to support Indian growth in technology and sciences.

How do you manage support to existing customers when you are adding schools almost every week?

Along with our local support, we are constantly monitoring the industry and

• The communication between User-Implementation Team – Educating Users to Communicate Using e-mail approach • Implementing SaaS Model – Educating The Customer about Data Security and Advantages of SaaS Model

working with our customers who are driving the functionality of our software.

We are committed to exceeding our customer’s expectations. We completely understand that the software you buy today needs to last for decades, grow and adapt with your school’s changing needs and requirements. We follow a strict change management and control for every release of each new enhancement. Our implementation and support teams are very well connected with all our customers, they keep all customers very well informed about our new features and enhancement to existing features in our releases. We believe in training our customers that to reduce the number support calls that we receive and help us use our valuable time to further build the software. We value each of our customers irrespective of their size and revenue.

special feature

education.eletsonline.com

Global Discovery Academy

Changing the Way of Imparting Education Foundation Concept

The GDA Process

Take a group of global Indians that are prospering in their adopted countries, add a generous dose of burning passion to give back in a substantial way to India, stir in some of the best minds in education worldwide, and throw in a dash of some of the most cutting-edge innovations in education. Let the dish marinate for half a decade, and then flash fry it in the ground reality of actually operating in India. What you get is the Global Discovery Academy network of schools.

These successful graduates from the world’s best known universities and holding senior positions in the corporate world were passionate about shaping the future of Indian education.

The founders dreamed of schools that would serve the masses rather than classes. It took substantial research for the Global Discovery Academy to join the dots on these seemingly incompatible goals. This included benchmarking against some of the best school systems in the world.

The USP of Global Discovery Academy is that they aspire to help children discover their strengths and play to them for the rest of their lives. Doing this well, even on a small scale, is challenging. GDA is attempting to do this for 400 schools pan India. A medical metaphor is followed in how this is achieved. The dominant strengths of each student (Diagnosis) are observed, a development trajectory for them (Intervention) is chalked out and their progress on that trajectory (Monitoring) is continuously checked.

“The innovation that GDA offers is in our pedagogy, our learning space design, our technology and finally, in the way we brand the entire product,” says Vipul Redey, Chief Product Officer, GDA. “As far as quality teachers are concerned, we draw a lot of our inspiration from the Rocketship Education model for running schools in the US. We hire the best, train them thoroughly, give them quality mentoring and performance feedback continuously, reward them for outstanding work, and show them a long term personal growth trajectory,” he adds.

The technology used by our instructors includes Smart boards, prototyping tools, educational software to teach Mathematics and foreign languages.

GDA’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Lab initiative will offer our students a multitude of avenues to pursue their interests through the effective use of technology, whether it is in the creative arts or in commerce or in solving a specific multi-faceted problem that intrigues them.

Diagnosis Intervention

Monitoring

We have been offering a few certified needy students with the assistance to bridge the gap between what we charge and what they can afford. However, with the low standard fees, this is usually unnecessary as we make sure that the fee charged from a student stays highly affordable.

At GDA the basic CBSE curriculum confirms to the CCE standards. However, we have an additional remediation layer on top of it called Aha Packet by us to teach • Difficult topics • Foundation topics and • Extra-curricular topics like those related to technology, entrepreneurship or other careers.

With the changing times the role and responsibility of the teacher has also undergone a drastic change. This can best be illustrated by how we use the reputed Khan Academy Mathematics model that turns the traditional role of teachers on it’s head - Students learn concepts by watching Khan Academy videos and then practice problems under the watchful eye of their teachers in class.

This makes teachers infinitely more useful and effective as facilitators for APPLYING knowledge rather than being a person that offers a sterile administering of meaningless data.

The entire GDA education hinges around our “Roadmap to my Dreams” philosophy that seeks to ensure that every child plays to his or her strengths throughout their lives. This involves, first of all identifying that child’s strengths, accentuating them through our unique education process and then monitoring the child’s progress.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

27

corporate diary

Q& A

The shrinking world “With technology penetrating in the remotest areas, people understand the need of connectivity. Therefore the acceptance of technology among the citizens is increasing,” says P Krishnakumar, Executive Director & GM, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India. In conversation with Sruti Ghosal

P Krishnakumar

28

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

How do you look at the role of technology in the growth of education sector in India?

We should look at it from the perspective of technology, how evolutionary technology is playing a part. We should also look at people who have access to good quality education and people who don’t. The way the education system is spread across the country it enables a child to learn a lot of things on his own.

But at the same time it doesn’t enhance the curiosity of the child, it does not enhance the abilities that a child possesses. But today we have the Internet, which allows the child to be curious about exploring the world. A lot of children in Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and becoming aware of what is going on around the globe and are not confined to their cities. They are not restrained by the knowledge that the teachers have. Therefore, from the teaching perspective as well as from the teacher’s side, technology has bridged the gap that was causing a hindrance in access to quality information. The second part is that few people in the Tier-3 and Tier4 cities have access to information, but not the right kind of education, which will actually help them achieve their dreams. If we see the penetration in Indian household, its only 7 to 8 percent as compared to the developed countries. Therefore, we as a country are not harnessing the potential of the child. In Dell our vision is to deliver technology that will enable a child to dream and emerge as the future leader. Last year, we launched a programme called Study Buddy through which we have over 300 schools. We invited students from

education.eletsonline.com

Future of education technology market from the consumer viewpoint is exceedingly promising

forefront. They have implemented projectors and other electronic devices through which they can conduct these virtual classrooms, and Dell which produces projectors, laptops and other devices has played a vital role in making these implementations successful. But in the public sphere we have less participation, as government decision is a time consuming and lengthy process.

How do you customise products as per the requirement of education verticals?

It varies from institution to institution.

If an institution has laptop requirements we can give it. There are a lot of institutions that want to set up their own data centres; in that case we have to look at different aspects like connectivity, feasibility etc. Therefore these are large scale projects in which we work with them and therefore we talk to them internally. So we can customise that depending on the requirements of the institutions.

these schools for an interactive session with the computer and thus giving them an opportunity to explore.

Please shed light on Dell Champs 2013 School Programme.

The Dell Champs School Programme was launched recently, where we invited 20 cities, purely Tier-2 and below.

Here we are running a city school-level contest, which focuses on students from class V to XII. In this contest, children and parents participate as a team and from each school we pick up two winners. After the contest is over we are carrying out an interactive session where we will be discussing about the usage of Internet and the safety issues.

This interactive session is purely from the parental perspective and this also educates them about the pros and cons of Internet usage. After this, we pick up a champion from each city and take up to the national level where the national winner is given a scholarship amount of ` 25,000. The winning school will

“As we go to the Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities we find that the Internet penetration has reached up to 34 percent and most of the Internet activity is happening through the mobile devices�

get a customised computer lab. That is the way we have broadly structured the programme and through this we will be able to help the students to achieve their dreams.

Indian education is an $85 billion opportunity for business. How is Dell tapping into this vertical?

Education as a vertical looks into two parts, private education system and government education system. Private education can be further divided into college and school education. Most of the private colleges have already started implementing distance classrooms and have put technology in the

What were the initial hiccups when you approached the institutions?

The institutions themselves wanted technology, but the most important factor is how the students will seize this technology. We have come up with different levels of power which makes it more accessible to the students and gives a better learning experience. Nowadays technology has grasped the entire community and is now approved across the society. So in Dell our motive is to help students explore the world of quality information through technology and not remain stuck with the stereotype and traditional notions of technology.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

29

Global LEADERS Perspective SPEAK

Q& Teachers are no A

Longer Gurus but Knowledge Facilitators

Advent of ICT has altered the role of teachers. Teachers should not just be trained on how to use the ICT tools, but most important is the technological, pedagogical content knowledge. Dr Termit Kaur Ranjit Singh, Senior Lecturer and Lead Trainer at Universiti Sains Malaysia, shares her experience and views with Shahid Akhter, ENN There are various challenges faced by teachers for successful functioning of ICT in the educational scenario. What are the concerns and what should teachers do to overcome these challenges for successful ICT integration in education?

A major concern would be the mindset of teachers who fear that ICT implementation may eliminate the role of teachers in the classrooms, thus creating a resistance to the digital revolution in educational technology.

Teachers need to accept the major challenge of re-thinking and re-framing their roles and competencies from that of knowledge-generators to knowledgefacilitators. This is a huge step away from the traditional role of teachers especially in India, where teachers are gurus, and are beyond questioning. Given the type of learners we have today, teachers should also be competent enough to employ particular applications and be proficient with technology. They have to be confident to integrate ICT into existing curricula and understand all about technology with pedagogy integration. Teacher anxiety over being replaced by technology or losing their authority in the classroom as the learning process becomes more learner-centered can be lessened only if teachers have a deep understanding of their changing role.

There are various efforts made by UNESCO Bangkok in addressing the urgent need to educate teachers on their

30

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

changing role from guru to facilitator. One of the many efforts in integrating ICT in teaching and learning, UNESCO Bangkok ICT in Education Center, has created various ICT in Education Resource Distribution Centers (RDCs) in the region. One of the main tasks of these RDCs, is to get teachers to understand the new role as a facilitator. Lead Trainers for these RDCs run workshops with teachers on ICT integration and use of appropriate pedagogies as part of professional development for teachers. These workshops have proven effective in eliminating the fear that teachers have in losing their jobs! UniversitiSains Malaysia, being the top research University in Malaysia was the first in the region to be UNESCO Bangkok’s RDC. To date, we have carried out professional development not only in Malaysia but also in other countries such as The Republic of Maldives. Using Peer Coaching, a huge number of teachers have benefitted from these workshops. Sharing of practices on education ommunity networks can also contribute towards eliminating that fear of using ICT for teaching and learning.

Various competencies must be developed throughout the educational system for ICT integration to be successful.

What capacity building should be focused on?

Capacity Building of Educators should focus on the teachers, the training and the type of technology needed for the teaching and learning process. Capac-

ity building should be about pedagogical strategies utilising ICTs for teaching and learning instead of how to use the ICT tools. Often, many schools tend to focus on the tools. Teachers should be trained on not just how to use the ICT tools, but most important is the technological pedagogical content knowledge.

The need of the hour is to integrate training for ICT use into pedagogical training, and not simply training them to use ICT tools. Teacher training and continued on-going relevant professional development is essential if benefits from investments in ICTs are to be maximised .

Fostering an environment that is supportive of learning how to teach effectively with technology is important.

In your opinion, what are the incentive systems and motivational strategies that could be of support to teachers.

Teachers generally are reluctant to change their teaching styles and habits.

They are cautious of time-consuming activities. Providing teachers with access to technology resources within the school post training and having them to work with colleagues in technology-supported instructional design projects are important motivational strategies.

Teachers need to be given time to participate in training activities and they need to be given time to try out what they have learned in the classroom. This means that teachers should not be overloaded particularly with extra-curricular assignments — although perhaps this is easier said than done in the majority of

education.eletsonline.com

public schools in developing countries where there is a shortage of teachers.

Teachers who successfully complete professional development programmes should be given public recognition to give them a sense of achievement and encourage them to continue.

What are the challenges that need to be addressed in the areas of language and content development in ICT Integration in education efforts?

Though the telecom-revolution in the form of mobile technology has successfully pioneered SMS-communica-

tion, this has only faintly increased the multi-cultural Indian citizens inclination for English usage. The average Indian student is the one who receives training in educational institutions in his or her native language from teachers who are also more comfortable in knowledge-dissemination in the vernacular medium. English language proficiency is not high, especially outside urban areas and this represents a serious barrier to maximising the educational benefits of the teaching materials produced. In this regard, it is very important to focus on the need for content-development in regional

Dr Termit Kaur Ranjit Singh

languages, as well as in English. The availability of e-content development in the various languages will motivate the teachers to use it.

Given the large population in India, educational inequity has been a problem. What and how should this be addressed?

To address the issue of inequity in India, all aspects of the educational system will have to be considered; the curriculum development, technology, school infrastructure and teacher training.

Having put any one aspect in isolation will certainly not help in solving the problem. In my opinion, many attempts have been made to solve the problems on affordable schooling and textbooks, by providing low-cost textbooks and low-cost tablets such as the Akaash tablets. While all these efforts are all highly commendable, but the issue of teacher training has to be addressed.

In my opinion, a fundamental problem that India is facing is the need of more trained teachers. Until there are teachers who effectively impart knowledge to students in their classrooms, the mission of improving education inequity in India will not be fully achieved.

Continuous support for teachers as they undertake their day-to-day work.

This Teacher Professional Development continuum requires that there be closer coordination between those involved in pre-service and in-service teacher education. It also implies the need for capacity-building in ICT integration for teacher educators in pre-service teacher education institutions.

A model that integrates the various dimensions of building the capacity of teachers to teach effectively with technology is UNESCO’s ICT Competency Standards for Teachers (ICTCST).

These new guidelines are intended for teachers and Teacher Professional Development providers, including Ministries of Education, as a planning tool that can then be used to assess levels of attainment during Teacher Professional Development programme implementation.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

31

The 4th International Conference

Agenda of Conference The pace of change has become blisteringly fast. There is technology in everything and everywhere. Every now and then a new technology pops up in the market. Computer Science and Information Technology have a profound influence on all branches of science, engineering, management as well. Recent technological advances in computing, software and hardware and our heavy dependence on various digital infrastructures have increased the need to reconsider various issues.

Confluence 2013-“The Next Generation Information Technology Summit” is the 4th International Conference focusing on mega trends in IT – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. It is a two-day event jointly hosted by Amity School of Engineering & Technology and EMC Corporation. The event is dedicated to technical symposia, tutorial and workshop sessions. Technical symposia include oral or poster presentation of research papers grouped into parallel tracks. Workshops, tutorials, keynote talks from experts, panel discussions are also included in the program schedule of the conference.

Confluence 2013 will be held in Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Noida Campus on 26th - 27th September, 2013.

The idea of the conference is to bring the scholars, scientists, industrialists from all over the world in the IT industry to a common platform and achieve the following: • Compliance designed to empower information technology professionals and students in order to make them understand smart technological trends.

• To offer a strong combination of educational content, a dynamic exhibition of technology providers, and peer networking to IT professionals,

32

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Theme: Mega Trend of IT: Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud Organized by Department of Computer Science & Engineering and IT Amity School of Engineering & Technology Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Sec-125, Noida, (U.P.), India Email Id: Confluence2013@amity.edu www.amity.edu (26th - 27th September, 2013) Industry Professionals, Academicians, Students, Research Scientists & Scholars and Consultants are invited to attend the Summit.

For more details about Registration, please visit at : http://www.amity.edu/ asetau/confluence2013/ Best Paper Award: 20000 INR/500USD. Best Poster Award: 10000 INR/250USD

so that they can investigate and discover transformative technologies and ideas to put to work across their own domains.

To get familiar with new challenges, trends and opportunities emerging in Bussiness intelligence and analytics.

To identify organisational adaptability and capability to harness new solutions.

• •

Academic Partners

Professional Partners

Technical Partners

Sponsors

Media Partners

special feature

distance education

education.eletsonline.com

Transformation of Distance Education with WizIQ “WizIQ is the best online virtual learning environment equipped with features designed for one-onone, group and class interactions. One does not need to download any special software for using WizIQ. It is absolutely user friendly and comfortable for teachers to conduct online classes,” Prof Mandar Bhanushe, IDOL, University of Mumbai The Beginning Treading on the path of innovative transformation of distance education by tapping the revolutionist nature of technology is Professor Mandar Laxmikant Bhanushe. With a double masters in Mathematics and a PG Diploma in Operation Research, all from University of Mumbai, and currently working as the Assistant Professor-cum-Assistant Director in the Institute of Distance Learning (IDOL) of the University of Mumbai (UoM), Prof Bhanushe has nine years of rich academic experience.

The Change One of the chief initiators of mobile learning project for First Year B Sc students of the University, Prof Bhanushe

has conducted and organised several workshops. Currently in progress is his major project to create mobile educational apps for android.

He has initiated the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube as a tool for learning for the students of IDOL, UoM for various courses.

He has also pioneered the initiation

of the hour to adopt the 21st century pedagogies in Indian Education, Prof Bhansuhe has helped design the model for Open learning with his education webinar series. The award winning, live webinars are conducted via the WizIQ virtual classroom. Learners attend these sessions from anywhere, from the comfort of their study or office. It’s a unique

“The WizIQ team not only provided support but relentlessly maintained interactions with me and my team at IDOL,” Hemlata Chari, Deputy Director Academic, IDOL, University of Mumbai of online lectures for the first time ever in the University, for courses in Mathematics as well as Artificial Intelligence, via the WizIQ Virtual Classroom.

The Award Recognizing his efforts to make learning more easily accessible to the distance learning students, Indian Education Congress 2013 awarded Professor Mandar Bhanushe with the Indian Education Award 2013 for his online course in Mathematics {for Second year BSc(IT) course} in the Best Webinar Series category.

The Now Professor Bhanushe continues to play his dynamic role as an ambassador for change. Understanding the Prof Mandar Bhanushe need

opportunity for learners in India, where knowledge transfer is rare or comes at a very high cost. Imagine a high school teacher sitting in Boston and learning from an expert in Banaras.

The Technology With WizIQ coming into picture in 2006, establishing an e Teaching Business in India, meeting students online in real time for virtual classes/webinars, teaching asynchronously through tutorials and online assessments, is no more a distant dream. WizIQ Virtual Classroom aims to democratise education too in the largest democracy of the world. More premier institutes like IITs, VIT Vellore, ISB, ISM Dhanbad and NIOS are opting for integration of Information and Communications Technology in higher education.

And with WizIQ being almost infinitely scalable, the education sector in India is undergoing a paradigm shift.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

33

special feature

career

Cyber security & Algo Trading

Most Happening Careers in the Field of Management & IT

T

he ongoing process of globalisation has made it imperative for us to encourage the development of new talent in myriad areas of IT. There now exists an immense need for professionals who can contribute by making the IT system secured without compromise on efficiency.

EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants) is one of the world’s largest certification bodies for information security professionals.

EC-Council is a member-based organisation that certifies individuals in various information security and e-business skills.

India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years due to lack of infrastructure and investment, an official of security firm EC-Council said.

Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council said that the country is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare that has adopted innovative ways to attack governments and organisations causing huge financial losses.

The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend `1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks, according to a person familiar with the development. The Plan, which entails setting up of new agencies and coordination cells to improve response to cyber threats, is awaiting Cabinet Committee’s clearance, the person said.

At an event, Cyberfort Technologies, President, Amit Kumar pointed out that China is estimated to have 25 million cyber security experts while 1.25 lakh are from the local government. The US has

34

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Career in cyber security • The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend ` 1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks • India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years • Indian needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015

91, 080 experts in the government while India has just 556 experts.

“While the data points show that we are losing the fight, it is clear that the solution to the plague will happen when we will inject the vaccine. It is evident that the best way to solve the cyber plague is by introducing a cyber-vaccine programme at all levels of society through combative education plans,” added Jay Bavisi.

He said that the US, which has put in a lot of resources to create cyber security professionals, sees an annual growth of 15 percent in trained workforce.

“There is a need to involve academia like universities, impart training, setup labs and foster competition to deal with cyber security issues, which are entirely missing in the country,” highlighted Amit.

India is ranked ninth on Kaspersky’s list of countries with the highest percentage of computer attacks. However, the number of cyber security professionals in the country is very low.

Many government websites are still exposed to threats as proper investment has not been made to find a long-term solution. This has lead to security breach

education.eletsonline.com

of government data and record. According to official data, more than 1,000 government websites were hacked in the last three years.

“When a government website is getting hacked they call professionals to fix the problem. But they have no budget to continue. They have no budget to hire the right people, to train them and defend their websites,” Amit said.

Cyberfort Technologies points out the recent study that revealed 5.39 million local malware threats were detected on computers in India. According to the organisation, India is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare. Any attack will result in financial loss, no matter how sophisticated the attack is.

On the government’s Cyber Security Policy 2013, Amit said the policy seems to be great on papers, but there should be greater focus on the implementation. While on the Indian cyber security awareness, he commented that the country needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015. In line with this requirement, Cyberfort Technologies will train through its channel partner 1000 cyber expert professional to combat the need of cyber professional.

Algo trading is another lucrative career in now days. It is going to swipe the entire market and help in creating entrepreneur professionals as well as white collar workers for banking and other diversified sector.

Cyberfort technologies has tied up with Modrika for providing niche financial technology equipped with ample job opportunites in the upcoming days. Algo trading is an automated facility where trading is carried out by computer driven algorithms designed by traders. Instead of the traders manually doing so, it is these algorithms that determine which orders - to buy or to sell - get booked. The high speed transactions can take as little as 18 microseconds - at which such trading takes place, gives it a competitive advantage over conventional manual trading. While a single trader can manually handle at best a portfolio of around Rs 5 crore, an algo trader, working alone, can cope with Rs 50 crore to Rs 55 crore.

e-India Award, 2013

Career in Algo Trading • Algo Trading uses computer driven algorithms to decide which stocks to buy and sell • Offers Opportunities for candidates with Engineering and Computer Science backgrounds • Professionals Start at Rs 1520 lakh per annum • Rosy Future as Algorithmic trading could account for 6070 percent of tradingin equity markets in next 3-4 years Source: BT Research

Algo trading started in India in 2005, but it was only in 2008 this facility started gaining wide acceptance after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed Direct Market Access, or electronic interaction with the order books of exchanges. Today, around 16 to 17 per cent of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange is algorithmic, with about 80 to 90 companies engaged in it. But many believe that in the next three to four years, the proportion could rise to 60 to 70 per cent.

“We have a six-month certificate course. So far, 500 candidates have enrolled,” says Vipin Kumar, Head of India

operations of financial technology solutions provider Modrika.

A broad range of brokerage firms, investment services, financial consulting firms, foreign and private banks, global insurance companies, taxation service providers, equity firms and other banking companies now expanding their operations across the globe. For young candidates there are bright lucrative opportunities in the fields of financial advisory services, insurance and banking services, investment management, financial analysis, stock-market consultants, broking agents, financial planners and economists. Over a million jobs in financial sector available by 2020 in India alone, as per report by Mc Kinsey has done for GIFT. Modrika is primarily training and technology solutions provider for capital markets, and has been operating internationally for over half a decade. We provide technology driven wealth management solutions. We develop custom software and financial market technical analysis systems for financial technology firms, retail brokers, market makers, exchanges and individual trades. Leveraging nearshore or offshore outsourcing allows our clients to optimise project budget, reduce expenses and minimise both fiscal and organisational goals.

For establishment of cyberfort study center contact - Dr Rajesh Kumar Mobile- +91 9031489275, 9973195996 email-rajesh@cyberfort.org

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

35

Global Quick perspective Chat

Q& A

Spain: Marking Excellence in

Higher Education

Spain is transitioning towards a new, more sustainable growth model and endeavouring to build a knowledge economy and society grounded on education and R&D. The country has presently embarked on an ambitious reform of the education sector, underlining the culture of effort, and fundamentally aimed at raising efficiency and quality of education. HE Gustavo de Aristegui, Ambassador of Spain to India, shares his insight with Shahid Akhter, ENN on the quantum changes aimed at strengthening instrumental knowledge, more competency-based learning approaches and adaptation of graduates to the workplace.

What are the educational changes taking place in Spain?

Aware of some weaknesses of the Spanish education model, the Government has put forward a new Draft Constitutional Law to improve Education quality (Spanish acronym: LOMCE).

The future legislation aims at strengthening instrumental knowledge, making education more flexible and providing education centres a greater degree of autonomy. A new system of external evaluations at the end of each cycle of education has been proposed, so as to evaluate student learning and hence be able to adapt it and adjust the demand for higher education studies to the possibilities of supply.

It is essential to reinforce the links between education and employment, and pointing to that direction, the new legislation strives to foster and modernise vocational training, making it better oriented and more focussed on employability. I feel private companies should work closer with the education sector with the

36

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

common objective of training and adapting graduates to the workplace.

Any special provision that refers to foreign languages and the role of ICT? Teaching of English as a foreign language in Spain starts earlier than in other EU and OECD countries. The new legislation will entitle the Government to define in consultation with the Autonomous Regions the bases for multilingual education. Larger use of ICT in the education sector will be promoted by expanding the concept of classroom in space and time, creating virtual learning environments, and thus, promoting e-learning education system.

Spain has the highest secondary school dropout rate in Europe.

What educational reforms are going to be introduced to tackle this?

Yes indeed, this is of utmost concern to the Government, and that is why the profound reform of the whole education

system in Spain is considered urgent and fundamental.

Few of the proposed reforms are to: Anticipate to an earlier moment first election of students between academic and vocational training. European countries with lower school dropout rates allow students to opt for academic or vocational training before the age of 16. Foster and modernise Vocational Training.

Introduction of external evaluations throughout the country at the end of each cycle of education.

Improve Personal counseling to students in primary, secondary and transition between education cycles.

The Spanish government claims to be working on the improvement of education quality but at the same time introduced severe cuts in education. How do you intend to achieve positive changes?

As per the PISA results in 2009, Spain scored 481 points, 12 points below

education.eletsonline.com

Fact File

Six Spanish Universities are in the World University ranking 100 under 50 published by the Times Higher Education in 2013. Furthermore, three Spanish Business Schools, IE, IESE and ESADE are amongst the world top 20 in the MBA ranking.

Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and the primary, official or co-official language of 21countries.

The Spanish University system has been the preferred destination for postgraduate students and researchers from Latin America, and Spain is also the 3rd country in the world with most students from the United States.

Spain ranks 4th in Europe in students with post-secondary education in scientific and technical areas. It has gone from playing a minor role in the international science scene (ranked 30th in the early 80s) to become 10th scientific power in the world and 5th in the EU in 2011.

A report by the European Commission reveals that 39,300 Erasmus students came to study in Spain in the 2011-12. This puts Spain ahead of France (28,964), Germany (27,872) and the UK (25,760).

Granada University received more exchange students than any other in Europe in 2011-12. Four other Spanish institutions – Madrid’s Computense University, Seville University, Valencia University and Valencia Polytechnic – were in the top 10.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

37

Global In Conversation perspective

Fact File the OECD average; results were worse than in 2000, when Spain scored 493 points. These negative results have been produced in spite of the investment in education standing far higher than the OECD and EU averages.

Spain allocates 10,094 dollars per year of public expenditure per student in public education, 21 percent higher than the OECD and EU average; investment has doubled in the last decade from 27 billion to 53 billion euros. As per the latest figures available for 2011 public spending in education in Spain stood at 50,714.2 million euros, representing a 4.77 percent of the GDP. Reduction in the school dropout rate and improvement in vocational training of young people are the main objectives of the European Social Fund and hence, this could be counted as one funding source for the implementation of the new Education Act. Please share the MoUs between Spain and India in the field of research, innovation and higher education?

Collaboration in STI between Spain and India is gaining momentum, having been lately a very important area of

Certain performance indicators of Spain’s education model such as high exam failure rate and levels of school drop-out , have drawn the attention of the Government to some weaknesses of the system, and as a result inspired the new Draft Constitutional Law to improve Education Quality understanding between both countries.

Spain has entered into alliances with different Indian R&D funding agencies, namely the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy with the objective to promote and finance academic and industrial research and technology development co-operation projects between research centres, universities and companies of both countries.

On the scientific co-operation front and since 2010, 43 joint research proposals in areas such as renewable en-

“The impact of the current global economic crisis has affected Spanish economy and thus, the country is reinventing itself and transitioning towards a new, more sustainable growth model. We are endeavouring to build a knowledge based economy and society solidly grounded on education, competitiveness and R&D 38

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

ergy, ICT, health and medical research and nanotechnology between Spanish and Indian research groups have been selected for funding and are generating short visits and exchanges.

Similarly during the period 20122013 under the innovation-driven programmes a total of 7 joint projects have been selected for funding in biotechnology, renewable energy and manufacturing technologies.

Collaborations between universities from both countries are gradually increasing in number and importance.

Few examples are: Ongoing collaboration between Alliance 4 Universities of Spain and a consortium of 6 leading Indian educational institutions (IIIT Bangalore, IIsC Bangalore, NIT Hamirpur, IIFT New Delhi, Birla Institute of Management and Technology and the Jaypee Education Foundation) for internationalisation of higher education.

Research Excellence Programme of the Universidad Santiago de Compostela, Spain (USC) - India (PEIN).

Post-doc, professors and researchers exchanges between Universidad Rovira i Virgil, Spain, IIT Madras, and Anna University.

There is an MBA scholarship programme of Fundación La Caixa, Spain and Casa Asia for Spanish nationals interested in pursuing MBA studies at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Recently a new agreement for exchange programmes between the School of Economics and Business Administration (IESE), University of Navarra, Spain and the Institute of Management and Technology Ghaziabad has been concluded. Another example is the collaboration between the University of Valladolid, Spain and the University of Ahmedabad in tourism and heritage management. S&T co-operation and Higher Education exchanges are registering an exponential growth. I am fully convinced that in the coming years they are called to become an essential pillar in our bilateral relations with India.

global perspective

Q& Creating World Class A

Education Infrastructure

Despite many challenges, education sector in Afghanistan is gradually improving. How satisfied are you with the achievements made so far?

Education in Afghanistan is making exemplary progress. Rather, we should say achievements in education are beyond our imagination. In last eleven years, a revolution has taken place in education.

Large pool of students are moving for education within Afghanistan and beyond. For example, over 7000 students are currently studying in India and there are 10.5 million children who are attending school in Afghanistan. But, I understand that we need to strike more to make further progress in terms of quality and quantity. You also have to take into account the fact that no country has gone through the kind of trouble we faced.

We have started from scratch and I am proud to say that by now we have made substantial progress. We are a country of 30 million people; about 75 percent of population is below 25 years of age, which means we have the youth energy to take our country far ahead.

doing and where they went to school. I was quite surprised to know that despite all the problems of the security, he was sending his kids to school. And, when I asked him - are not you afraid? He said, he wants his son to be dead rather than uneducated. That is the kind of mood about education in Afghanistan and this is leading to increased enrolment.

Channelising the energy of young people in right direction is a challenge. What initiatives are you taking to ensure development in terms of equity, inclusion and quality?

Equity, inclusion and quality are big challenges for the developing countries of the world. In Afghanistan, we are in the process of making seminal improvements. Every year we are making new progress; there is improvement in quality, capacity and new infrastructure is being created. Equity and inclusion are directly related to availability of venue for education for each and every individual. We are coming up with new schools and creating in-

“India is playing a highly constructive role in Afghanistan.

Other countries in the neighbourhood should look at the kind of relationship that exists between India and Afghanistan and learn a lesson from it,” says Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India, in conversation with Mohd Ujaley

75 percent of our population is below the age of 25 years and over 7000 students from Afghanistan are studying in India” What kind of enthusiasm for education do you see in the Afghan people when you meet them?

Let me tell you a real story, when I was the Deputy National Security Advisor and Special Assistant to the President of Afghanistan, I met a man from rural part of Afghanistan who was totally under the influence of radical groups. I asked him how he and his children were

40

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

stitutions for higher education. As far as, quality is concerned, we are focusing on teachers training. Earlier, we did not have enough qualified teachers but now the trends are changing. Our teachers are being trained in Afghanistan and elsewhere. For me, the most important thing is that these initiatives have raised the interest of the people in bringing their children to schools.

The proportion of girls’ enrolment in Afghanistan has risen from zero to 42 percent. Most interestingly around 35 percent of teachers are women. What are the reasons behind this achievement?

It is the inspiration of the people that has led to this achievement. Young population of Afghanistan has, during

education.eletsonline.com

“Equity, inclusion and quality are big challenges for the developing countries of the world”

India is playing an important role in re-building of Afghanistan.

How do you look at Indo-Afghan relationship?

I am very pleased with what India has done in Afghanistan during the last 12 years. India has contributed immensely.

I am thankful to India and Indians for the way they are sharing their own bread and butter with the Afghan people. We are grateful to India for helping in devel-

Shaida Mohammad Abdali

the last few years, witnessed the consequences of lack of education due which they did not progress, did not have their own voice and did not have the potential to shoulder the responsibility for developing their country. After the bitter experience of the last two decades, they want our people to be fully equipped with education.

oping new infrastructure in Afghanistan.

India is building the Parliament, Salma Dam and other important infrastructure projects. I think, in the long run, the biggest impact of the help that comes from India will be in the area of education.

Currently, we have around 7000 students studying in India. They are very bright, very happy and highly

motivated. We would like to have more scholarships especially in medical, engineering and professional education.

It is highly probable that after the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, the dynamics of the region will change. What kind of changes do you see in the foreign policy of Afghanistan?

If you look at the past history of Afghanistan, you will realise that this is a nation whose foreign policy has never been dictated from outside. Those who try to influence Afghanistan’s foreign policy are always defeated. My advice is to learn from the past, whether it is Pakistan or any other country. Afghanistan is not going to succumb to any pressure from any country. We have a mutually beneficial strategic partnership with India, and that we hope will continue in future.

Afghanistan wants to have a good relationship with all its neighbours and with every other nation. Other countries in the neighbourhood should look at the kind of relationship that exists between India and Afghanistan and learn a lesson from it.

Is there any plan to develop a deeper collaboration between universities in India and Afghanistan?

We are keen to develop relationship between the universities of India and Afghanistan. Recently, I met Dr P R Trivedi, the chancellor of Global Open University.

We discussed in detail about the ways by which we can revive the relationship in the area of education. We need more exchange programmes for students and professors. We are planning to open Global Open University in Kabul; eventually more such institutions will be opened across Afghanistan. We also had a very productive meeting with Dr Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development. During the meeting we decided that a consultive body must be created to improve collaboration between the two nations in higher and school education.

We are also in discussion with many other countries including USA for improving the quality of education in our country.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

41

PRESENTS

eINDIA 2013 Convened with the theme of ‘Building a Knowledge Society,’ eINDIA 2013 Summit was held on 23-24 July, 2013, at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad. The Summit was divided into three parallel thematic tracks on Governance, Education and Health.

The eINDIA 2013 was inaugurated by the N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

It provided a platform for discussions between key government officials, industry experts, stakeholders, and private players on the issue of ICT implementation in governance, education and healthcare. Inclusive growth can only become a reality when the government takes some significant initiatives for deployment of ICT in all the major areas - this is the clear message that emerged from the eINDIA 2013 Summit.

44

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

eINDIA 2013

Education Summit With eight separate sessions on government policies in education, school education, management education, technical education, private universities and industry-academia interface, the summit became an effective congregation for all the stakeholders in the education community.

education.eletsonline.com

Information technology has evolved much in the past 25 years. It is very important that technology must be cheap and affordable. It should be within the reach of common man and must change their life.

For a government, it is very essential that any citizen of the state must get government services which he requires in an easy, accessible and corruption free manner.

The concept of Mee Seva was initiated in a review meeting where I expressed the need for a system which could deliver services to the citizens in just 15 minutes.

N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

Youth is the biggest power and asset of India. Talent has wiped out the barriers between the rich and the poor. I want to make Hyderabad a synonym for letter H. We want to make Hyderabad a global leader in Information Technology. World Bank rated Hyderabad as the best metro city in India.

Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister - IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh Mee Seva, from a very modest beginning of 100 centres, 10 services, and one district, has now got 7000 centres, 150 services across the state of Andhra Pradesh. We have covered more than 2 crore 35 lakh transactions in the last one year.

Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Information Technology & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

45

PRESENTS

Critical Role of IndustryAcademia Interface in Making Students Employable Staggering data about the dearth of employability skills among Indian graduates has raised concerns about the need to foster Industry-Academia collaboration. Such collaborations can prove a win-win situation for all the parties including – Students, Industry, and the Academia

Amarnath Reddy, CEO, Jawahar

Dr Sreerama K Murthy, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Teqnium

We have lakhs of students coming out from various engineering and degree colleges, but the job market is fluctuating. It is not just dependent on the local or national economy. There are so many factors including global factors, new technologies coming in, and thus students have to get equipped with a lot of new skills to get employed. Students must understand it is not only about the syllabus or passing through your exams. They need to develop their social skills, communication skills, innovate, visualise and add value to themselves. Learning beyond textbooks is the key.

I would like to approach employability from the angle of educational analytics. Analytics is basically looking at data and trying to find patterns in data and then acting on those patterns. What you can measure, you can improve. So in our institutions, if you can measure what you know and what you have learnt so far, what is the best thing to learn next then you will be able to learn in a faster, more effective way. Apart from personalising education to individual student, data analysis can help in matchmaking between the student and the industry.

So the quality institutions of the future must be data driven, it means the decision maker in any institution should have the right data to support him in making a rational decision. They need to have enough data about themselves and about the environment to make the right decision.

For example, the Arizona State University has built a campus wide data collection and data reporting system. So anyone will be able to go on the campus intranet and for example it is a professor looking to

Knowledge Centre

46

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

decide a class time, and so he will be able to see the data about the students, other classes and take a decision appropriately based on the available data.

Data does not come out of nowhere. The visionary institutes need to make a move for creating a data infrastructure for themselves.

Also when your students are ready to take up a job this data along with students’ studying data and patterns can be made available to the industry and the industry can seek the right candidate based on the data. This will increase the employability as it will inform the employers about the relative strengths of the students.

education.eletsonline.com

M P Pillai, Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Chennai

Tamil Nadu higher education department has taken a lot of steps by increasing the input for higher education sector and the input in engineering colleges has gone up by almost 800 percent that has led to a decline in the quality of education entering into these colleges and thus leading to unemployability.

Most of academicians, including myself, do not support the stats that

Amit Sharma, Additional Secretary, Government of Jammu and Kashmir

only 25 percent of our engineering graduates are employable. It has also to do with the fact that industry expects from day one the recruits to be productive, and that as soon as you are employed you should deliver that day onwards.

There are three categories of skills that the industry expects are – Core employability skills, Professional skills, and Communication skills.

This core employability and communication or soft skills it is common to all industries. To develop the professional skills in the students, which are industry specific, requires an industry input. Thus, unless we involve the industry in curriculum making or teaching it is not possible to impart the professional skills.

VSN Raju, Chief Operating Officer, Globarena Technologies When we develop skills among our students, we are building our country as 54 percent of our population is under 25 years of age. Employability skills are the skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to an enterprise. However, education imparted in majority of institutions is examoriented and not skill-oriented. At the college level, the academia should be able to provide basic communication skills, soft skills, aptitude sector specific skills through professional trainings to ensure that students perform better at the employment space. Apart from these some fundamental problems for employability skills development are the lack of industry exposure, outdated curricula and methods, dearth of trained and qualified teachers, and inability of the academia to keep pace with changing technologies and latest developments.

As a result, education is not resulting in proper employment for a large number of students. There are two kinds of un-employability -- lack of fundamental skills resulting in unsuitability for any job and lack of technical and soft skills resulting in under-employment. There is also a huge disparity in the student-teacher ratio leading to pushing of semi-finished talent to industries.

Some of the possible solutions to the lack of employability include: effective career counseling, create awareness about traditional and emerging jobs, train faculty to leverage technology, evolve mechanisms for industry-academia partnerships to provide practical exposure to students, using internet technologies to provide access to learning resources and collaborate with academicians, industry experts, HR and peer institutions/ universities for specific skill training.

I believe that the fire within is very important. All the youngsters should strive to know what they are made for and the various lines available to them. In J&K we have a lot of initiatives as far as providing employment opportunities are concerned. For example, the J&K overseas employment corporation, which was started with the objective that our youth which is educated and skilled should find ways to access markets like the Middle East. This corporation came into existence three to four years back and we are coordinating with different ministries, overseas corporations and departments and we are trying to send skilled workforce outside also. I only request students to not have a typical mindset about employability in terms of job seekers. Try to go a step further and be job creators.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

47

PRESENTS

Dr Pankaj Gupta, Director General, Jaipuria Institutes of Management No student is a bad student and no teacher is a bad teacher. It is all a matter of situation and perspective.

There are students who think that in the three-four years after completion of class XII they would have a lot of fun, whereas there are many who are focused and clear about what they would do during these years. The most important thing is that we need to be aware of who we are and what kind of possibilities and potential is lying within us. Talking about communication skills, nobody is weak in communications; it is all a matter of igniting your inner confidence. Lot of learning, unlearning and re-learning is the need of the hour. The students should know the purpose of their life and what they want to do in life, at least in the next five years or may be during the whole day. You should also maintain a KASH (Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits) diary for yourselves to be able to rate yourself on your learning from life at the end of the day.

We talk about how much industry input should be there in our curriculum and we also claim that our curriculum has been vetted by the industry. But, how much of that industry curriculum is relevant for a student and how is it been taught in the classroom?

So, you cannot depend on the system. Good make good students teachers and not the other way round. You need to be responsible for yourself. Be ahead of the professor, do your own study before you come to the class.

Dummy Numbering Data Capture Automatic Dummy Numbering System

Barcode OMR / OCR / ICR

MUST FOR INDIAN UNIVERSITIES

Eliminates Manual process and related errors Heavy Duty and less Maintenance Dropout Colors (RGB) Proven System User friendly and easy to use Accurate and fast turnaround of results TM

TRS Forms & Services “eNumbering Scanners�

48

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

sales@trsforms.com Phone:91-44 2472 4565 91-44 2372 4031

3Power

Packed magazineS ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON e-GOVERNANCE

Asia’s First Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

asia’s first monthly magazine on The Enterprise of Healthcare

Subscribe to digitallearning now

Subscription Order Card Duration Issues Subscription Newsstand Subscription Savings (Year) USD Price INR Price INR

1 12 300 900 900 - 2 24 500 1800 1500 `300 3 36 750 2700 2000 `700 *Please make cheque/dd in favour of Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd., payable at New Delhi

I would like to subscribe: egov

digitalLEARNING

eHEALTH

Please fill this form in Capital Letters First Name...................................................................................... Last Name. ...............................................................................................

Designation/Profession . ................................................................ Organisation ............................................................................................

Mailing Address ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

City .............................................................................................. Postal Code ..............................................................................................

State . ........................................................................................... Country . ..................................................................................................

Telephone...................................................................................... Fax ...........................................................................................................

Email ............................................................................................ Website . ..................................................................................................

I/We would like to subscribe for

1

2

3

Years

I am enclosing a cheque/DD No. ................................................ Drawn on ............................................................................. (Specify Bank) Dated .................................................................................................... in favour of Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd., payable at New Delhi.

For `/US $ ............................................................................................................................................................................................ only

Contact: Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd — 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: subscription@elets.in Subscription Terms & Conditions: Payments for mailed subscriptions are only accepted via cheque or demand draft • Cash payments may be made in person • Please add `50 for outstation cheque • Allow four weeks for processing of your subscription • International subscription is inclusive of postal charges.

you can subscribe online

http://www.eletsonline.com/subscriptions/

PRESENTS

Fostering Excellence in Technical and Management Education Dwindling quality is a matter of concern in technical and management institutes across India. But fostering excellence and quality in higher education institutions presents a range of challenges. These include developing excellent pedagogical practices and attracting quality faculty to implement them

Prof K Lal Kishore, Vice Chancellor, JNTU, Anantapur We have had a history of educational institutes like Takshashila and Nalanda where the spirit of inquiry was encouraged.

Even though we expanded education as such, the spirit of inquiry is not being encouraged so that’s why we find the quality is not satisfactory at the higher education level.

India has the largest higher education system in the world in terms of the number of institutions as compared to the USA and China.

The numbers are attractive but it is not proportionate as per the population and there are some state-wise anomalies and progress is not uniform. A lot needs to be done to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER). The undergraduate enrolment is highest at 86 percent followed by post graduate which is only 12 percent, but it is less than one percent for research or PhD programmes. Thus, the quality also depends on this particular factor particularly the postgraduate education and PhD programmes.

The numbers are less even in terms of faculty i.e. the studentstaff ratio. Potential faculty should be attracted and existing institutions with active research

50

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

programmes should be supported by the government. Updating faculty members through workshops, courses or teacher training in the industry should be encouraged.

Financial innovation is also one of the important aspects because when we say a large number of institutions have to be established

then the government alone cannot do it. Therefore, the private sector has to be encouraged, but with certain restrictions so that degrees are not sold or it will not become a commodity. The government spend on higher education is very less as compared to the other countries and we must increase it.

education.eletsonline.com

Chandrashekhar Kumar, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Employment &

Dr K Sarukesi,

Technical Education & Training Dept, Govt of Odisha

Vice Chancellor, Hindustan University

The whole system of higher education stands on the edifice of school education. We cannot suddenly talk about quality at higher education level. If good quality is maintained through the school or senior level then probably we will have better quality at this level, but if there is a huge gap then that is a matter of concern. Also, we have to educate in such a manner that a student is employable after next four to five years of college. These are the two biggest challenges. Another big challenge is that we have to create teachers for future, for both in higher as well as school education.

There should be inspiring teachers in technical education because only 25 percent of the technical content is imparted under classroom teaching and the rest of the 75 percent the student has to learn on his own. So we need to impart a different type of training to the teachers so that they make lectures interesting and inspiring.

Today, the faculty development programmes are needed in all the fields and not just IT and the conceptual understanding has to be imparted. For this, the universities and the technical institutions need to have improved industry-institute interaction and the student must visit industries.

The teacher should go to the industry first, come back and share the experience with students and tell them about the relevant matter as per their subjects. The net result

Anbuthambi B,

Associate Vice President, ICTACT, Tamil Nadu If you go to a campus hiring manager of any big company, they point out that the students are good technically, but they lack communication or soft skills like conversing in English, ability to present themselves, teamwork skills or are unable to adapt to the company culture. So these skills should ideally come right from the school. Today, that can change only when the success measure of the school changes.

Another important factor is the faculty in engineering colleges. Nobody checks where the teachers are coming from. There are certain teacher training institutes but it is not compulsory and many new teachers are last year pass outs from the same or other colleges without any prior training.

So the solution to the problem of skill development will have to start from schools and the problems of good teachers can be addressed through one or two week training programme where they can be taught classroom and pedagogy techniques.

The student life will depend upon his faculty around whom he is going to be for the next four years and faculty will only make the difference in engineering education where we are facing a big problem of the skill-gap between industry and academia.

of this exercise is reflected in the campus placements. Another positive impact of sending the faculty to the industry is that industry gets to know that there is potential in the institutes and they start giving consultancy projects.

Thus, the interaction grows into research partnerships between industry and the institutes. digitalLEARNING / September 2013

51

PRESENTS

Education for All: Cohesive Efforts by

Government and Private Sector India is progressing towards building a knowledge economy and making ICTs available to all is imperative for achieving this goal. The government and private sectors are putting in dedicated and consistent efforts in this direction.

Yet it is the public delivery of services that remain the ultimate benchmark of success K Sunitha, Commissioner,

Directorate of Collegiate Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh

In Andhra Pradesh we have around 179 colleges are funded by government. We also have private colleges in which around 3,00,000 students studying. From our experience, we have found that the aided colleges are the best performers because they have a mix of government infrastructure, financial help as the whole faculty is funded by the government and they have autonomy in working their management and academic policies.

52

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Secretary,

University Grants Commission (UGC) From 1953 to 2000, the higher education in India was growing at a slow pace. But then onwards there has been a sudden jump in the growth that was possible due to rising number of private institutions and universities.

We are targeting to achieve about 25 percent GER by the end of the 12th Plan and 30 percent enrolment ratio by 2020.

The enrolment ratio can be increased by the co-operation and involvement of the private sector.

Our carefully planned schemes address issues related to increasing access and equity. We are trying to include the underprivileged class and communities like SC, ST, minorities, and women so that all of them get their share in higher education.

We are introducing a large number of fellowships. Moreover, it is not only about the number of schemes, but also about increasing beneficiaries of each scheme. We recently started the Rajiv Gandhi fellowship for disabled students so that they also get the opportunity to pursue studies.

We started this Special Assistant Programme and a number of universities and colleges are participating in that. In order to bring teachers’ excellence we have set up academic staff colleges in 66 locations. We will increase that number to 100 by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan. Currently about 450 autonomous colleges are present in the country and we will increase their numbers and provide them more autonomy and additional funds.

We have launched two interesting initiatives – Joint Appointment and Student Entitlement. We are also trying to encourage teachers from universities to go and work in the research labs and the research scientist to come and teach.

So, we have brought out new API norms and it is going to be helpful for many teachers in the country. We are forging several collaborations at the international level and several support systems have been created. We are bringing several institutional improvements and systemic changes, and new ICT programmes like electronic repository, etc.

education.eletsonline.com

We have had a legacy of the phenomenon of divide whether that is rich or poor, digital divide or the government and private sector divide. In the first Five-Year Plan education was discussed only at the elementary level. Even then we did not talk about education for all, due to lack of resources. There was no target for secondary education and certainly none for higher education, which are part of our Five-Year Plans now. In the past decade we have aimed at universalisation of elementary as well secondary education and we have improved our GER in higher education even though it is still below the benchmarks.

However, now the private sector has also started talking about the national agenda or national targets and is helping especially under the PPP mode.

We also need to take up education and skill development for adults. At the government level, we need to have cohesive bodies that look after educational needs of a segment of population. For example, in the UK there is the Ministry of Young People, which is responsible for schooling or vocational training of population between 6-18 years of age.

Dr Nisha Mendiratta, Scientist ‘F’, Director, Climate Change Programme (CCP), Department of Science & Technology (DST)

At the Department of Science and Technology we are looking at two missions - The National Mission on sustaining the Himalyan Ecosystem and the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.

We are trying to capture the knowledge available with all the institutions. In this the institutions and universities play a major role and we are trying to target the knowledge gap areas so that we can create a knowledge platform. Thus, this knowledge generated system should be utilised for possible policy directions, for adaptation and mitigation actions to combat the ill-effects of climate change.

Here the capacity building for the education sector plays a major role. We

have already launched a centre in IITBombay and another one in Hyderabad.

These centres are dealing with the climate change science and another one is in the area of plant protection.

There are two more centres, which we have supported -- Divecha Centre in Bangalore and Indo-German Centre for sustainable development at IIT-Madras.

Major coordinated programmes which we have already launched include InterUniversity Centre of Glaciology in which four major universities are partners.

Under the Indo-Swiss capacity we want to train 25 young scientists and we may provide them a career opportunity after successful completion of this course.

The National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) is about building and creating capacities specifically for Himalayan ecosystem and here we want to target 12 knowledge institutions for their strengthening and data collection.

It is one of the important area in sharing for policy generation. So we are going to come up with a very big programme in which 25 or 50 universities, scientists, professors will be working for us to give a shape to the NMSHE deliverables.

Dr Veera Gupta,

Associate Professor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA)

Prof Darlando T Khathing, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Jharkhand

The government has given a lot of autonomy to new central universities and expects us to be model universities and that’s why we are rather flexible in our approach. We are open to undertake partnerships or programmes like adjunct faculty or we can use ICT for faculty to deliver lectures, we can have joint

research work or programmes. We are starting B Sc, B Ed four-year integrated programme from this year itself and it is targeted mostly for school teachers. We have also been asked by the government to start Community Colleges. We will train Class X and Class XII dropouts and enable them to come to a degree level at anytime in their life when they would like to. They can also take a break and come back after a couple of years and there is no age bar for that. digitalLEARNING / September 2013

53

PRESENTS

Role of Universities in promoting Inclusive Education The idea of a university comes from universality of education, which means providing education to all and giving equal opportunity to students across cultural, demographic or economic barriers.

Although there is widespread willingness and support for inclusion, but there are some challenges on how to implement it a policy level Pradeep Chaturvedi, Director (IT), Rajya Sabha Secretariat, Government of India

I believe school is a place where tomorrow lives and thus the concept of inclusive education should start right from schools. Also, from Ayurvedic era i.e. the Shruti (listen) and Smriti (remember), we have come to the new dimension now i.e. technology, so we need to expand it across the country to attain inclusivity.

54

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Dr Gautam Bose, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre, Dept of IT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

A knowledgeable population can play a better role in the democratic process and economic progress of the country. The government has some definite policies for inclusiveness like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Sakhshar Bharat, EFA goals, etc as far as school education is concerned. We try to include every child into the school system, but in higher education many things still need to be done.

It should not be limited to social or economic inclusion only, but the differently-abled population should also be included. It should be part of our national as well as state policy to include everyone. In addition to this, all the services rolled out by the government should be accessible to all and people should be aware about various schemes or services and how can they be availed.

We do have reservation policies or admission criteria but as more and more private institutions or universities are coming up, they should have some definite policies as far as their admission criteria are concerned so that they become all inclusive. The fees in these private institutions are very high, so there must be large number of scholarships to include the students from economically weaker sections of the society.

Inclusion should also be devoid of any discrimination like separate classrooms, as there must not be a feeling of inadequacy among the students who are being included. There has to be a right curriculum, examination system and appropriate teaching methodologies. There must be specialised tuition and coaching like some of the IITs do, but such practices need to become more popular and that’s part of the policy. Proper examination and evaluation systems should be made for the differently-abled people and other weaker sections of the society.

education.eletsonline.com

Prof B P Sanjay, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Tamil Nadu

With the aim of expanding inclusive education to the states that hitherto did not have a central university, a common Omnivous Act was introduced in the parliament and 12 new universities came up in different parts of the country and Tamil Nadu was one of them. The first dimension of the policy of the

Government of India towards expanding inclusivity has been achieved by setting up of these new universities.

Similarly, IT policies should also look at the country as a whole and have an inclusive expansion of its resources so that every corner of the country gets integrated into what we call the national knowledge grid.

Unless our country becomes inclusive with regard to expansion of the ICT sector on a broad and an equitable basis, the goals of inclusive education are not going to be achieved.

Moreover, there has to be an inclusive perception of higher education. For instance, people in Tamil Nadu and southern states have a parental and

aspirational perception that higher education means engineering and medicine courses. The number of such institutions in these states is evidence enough to understand that there is a skewed perception. But in this context it is important to make the aspiration more inclusive by having many other disciplines so that a university is set up in a liberal framework.

By the end of next year the number of private universities is going to surpass the number of state and central universities. There may be criticism for corporatisation of education, but I think it also helps in increasing inclusivity because it provides opportunities for those who are willing to pay.

Mohammad Akbar Ali Khan, Vice Chancellor, Telangana

Prof G L Datta, Chancellor, K L University

At our university, we have different socio-economic background based students, almost 95 percent of them coming from the rural or agriculture backgrounds and belong to the economically weaker sections. They have special needs particularly in which English language communication is a big problem.

Andhra Pradesh nearly spends `6000-6500 crores annually on scholarships being given to students at higher education level. In our university 95 percent students get scholarships i.e. tuition fee, examination fee, hostel mess charges from the government as such. All this has been done to improve access and inclusivity.

From 1950 to 2012, there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of universities and colleges in the country but when we look at the meager GER of around 18 percent then we realise the inadequate institutional development in India.

As compared to the contribution of central universities to the GER, the state universities have done a better job in promoting inclusivity.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan particular focus has been given to reflecting upon the disparities not only in terms of poor and middle class, but also on caste, ethnic, religion and gender lines and how to improve access to higher education.

We have students from different languages, communication skills, barriers, diverse academic preparations, etc.

More importantly there are students with different motivational levels, intellectual calibers and learning styles that makes the whole thing very complex and hence inclusive education has a meaning in this particular aspect as well. To cater to students with low level of academic preparations, we have bridge courses at first year level. We have remedial classes because we have a system that monitors progress of the students, their academic performance, and participation in the classes, etc, regularly. Again at the end of the year we have summer quarter organised for those students who otherwise find it difficulties during the course. To identify students for these courses we have student councils and mentors and we have a system where these mentors identify the students who require special attention.

We find that inclusive education at university level especially in professional courses has a very different relevance and this has to be done with respect to integrating the entire community of students into one level.

University

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

55

PIN*****

A Global Conference on

Financial Inclusion & Payment Systems

FIPS 2013

24 - 25 October 2013, Eros Hilton, New Delhi Restoring the very essence of inclusive growth is at the radar of Financial Inclusion and Payment Systems, 2013, Conference. At the Conference, we will have vibrant round of discussions on the various challenges that are being faced in having effective financial inclusion in the country. The Global Summit comprises of three chapters: the Conference, Exhibition and FIPS Awards.

Key Speakers

Professor M S Swaminathan Former MP, Rajya Sabha, MSSRF, Chairman, Conference Advisory Committee, FIPS

M Narendra Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Overseas Bank

Sudhir Kumar Jain Chairman and Managing Director, Syndicate Bank

Chandrasekhar Ghosh CEO, Bandhan

Ela Bhatt, Chairperson, SEWA & Founder Chairperson, Women’s World Banking

Shuvalaxmi Panse Chairman and Managing Director, Allahabad Bank

S S Mundra Chairman and Managing Director, Bank of Baroda

R K Dubey Chairman and Managing Director, Canara Bank

A P Hota Managing Director & CEO, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

Archana Bharagava Chairman and Managing Director, United Bank of India

Ramnath Pradeep EX-CMD, Corporation Bank

Mehboob Chowdhury Chairman, Citycel, Bangladesh

SG Anil Kumar CEO, IFMR, Chennai

Ari Sarker Head -South Asia- Mastercard

John Owens USAID, MBAP, Philippines

Emmanuel Okewagle Chief-Mobile Money Africa, Lagos, Nigeria

Sunil Chandiramani Partner & National Director, Ernst & Young LLP

Lucy Muchoki CEO, panAAC, Kenya

Key Sessions _ Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme of

_ Prepaid cards, Virtual cards , Loyalty

Government of India _ Aadhaar Initiatives _ Acquisition of ATMs, White- label guideline for ATMs _ POS Acquisition policy, Specs, Interoperability

and Cash cards _ Automated Clearing houses _ Mobile based services – remittances, banking & VAS _ Biometrics and capturing faultless database

fips.eletsonline.com

_ Banks & new banking Licence; Post Banking

_ Insurance & Mutual funds for the Masses

_ Agency Banking or Business Correspondent guideline including operations streamlining

PIN*****

FIPS Awards FIPS Awards aim to recognize the seminal role that various organizations have been playing in the areas of Financial Inclusion, Banking Technology, Payment System, Mobile Banking, Health Insurance and other verticals

AWARDS

Award Categories Financial Inclusion

Payment Systems

Banking Technology

Mobile Banking

• Organisation of the year • Access to banking and financial services • Capacity building and financial literacy • ICT based innovation • Health Insurance • Financial Inclusion in Health Sector

• Online Payments Solution • Mobile Payments Solution of the Year • Multi-Channel Payments Solution • Contactless Payments Project • Cashless Health Payments • Online Health Payments

• Industry Infrastructure Initiative • Institutional Infrastructure Initiative • Internet Banking Service • Security Initiative • Health IT • Technology in Rural Health

• Overall Mobile Banking Application • Mobile Application Design • Multiplatform Service • Tablet Application • Health Services on Mobile • Online Health Services

many more...

Nominate Now

Conference & Award Queries:

ORGANISERS

fips@eletsonline.net Kartik Sharma, +91-8860651635, Nayana Singh, +91-8860651642 Partner Publications

Sponsorship Queries: Ragini, ragini@elets.in, +91-8860651650

fips.eletsonline.com

PRESENTS

Preschools in India Opportunities and Challenges The preschool sector in India poses great opportunities, but at the same time there are the challenges too. Leaders from Preschool gathered and discussed on various opportunities and challenges in Preschool in India

Navneet Anhal, CEO, Zee Learn Limited

Amol Arora, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Shemrock and Shemford Schools

The biggest opportunity for those who are interested in pre school segment is to increase the awareness about preschools in the parents’ mind. Of late there are three segments of people first segment who think that pre school is a place where they can park their child for a while, second set of people think that it is important for their child to be in a pre school just to get into a good school, third segment of people,which is small but increasing, think and believe that by putting their child into pre school will help their child in learning and development. In all our communication, in our effort to design the curriculum and in our effort to counsel the parents if we can stress on the on the role of pre school in their child’s life it will help in the active participation of parents. There is a challenge of safety of children, which is under the bucket of non-regulation or absence of governing body in this segment. There is a challenge of finding qualified staff that knows what is right for the child. If we work on all this it can flourish into a good business opportunity and more importantly early development of a child.

58

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Perception of parents is changing gradually and with RTE coming and banning of interviews in school, the role of Preschool have become even more important to lay a good foundation for the child. Lot of unlearning needs to be done in order to make staff more effective. It is a chicken and egg situation since industry does not pay that well so we do not attract the best of the talent. Market forces will ensure quality. If regulation aspect has to come it should come in the safety aspect not for increasing the paperwork. All good Preschool would want regulation to ensure that good quality Preschool sustain in the market because sometimes parents are not aware about good and bad pre school and end up sending their children to wrong pre school.

For now, let us have self-regulation and let market forces determine quality. It is a reality that if we have to educate a country it has to be a dual effort of government, PPP and profit making private sector.

education.eletsonline.com

Dharmesh Kapasi, CEO, Shanti Juniors Pre School Chain

A S Ganesh, Managing Director, Smartkidz Educare India

Until the last decade there was the dilemma of declaring that whether pre school education should be considered as a part of education. We are still expecting an answer from the government of India. Today Preschool have become a point of start of child’s educational career. We need to create lots of awareness among parents to make them understand that pre school is the most important part of child’s educational career and how the need to take it seriously for a child’s growth.

Talking about population as a threat I am taking it as an opportunity. I find population as an opportunity for business. Another threat of no governing body can be taken as opportunity as it would give us freedom to offer the best quality education to children. Untrained human resources is a challenge for which we have started teachers training programme. We are working on technology and research to create good quality content, which is digitally enabled.

Vittal Bhandary, Founder and Managing Director, Liitle Elly Play schools There are three models of preschool prevailing in India. The majority of preschools are in the unoragnised sector with 70-80 percent market share.

The second model is organised preschools that are relatively small in number.

Another model that exists in India is a school feeder model. A lot of K-12 school has preschool inbuilt in their campus itself.

The preschools in the organised space are making a total difference in the spectrum as they offer a scientific basis for their execution model and offer personalised and professional approach. These schools have a research-based curriculum, which is constantly upgraded towards better delivery of education and development.

These organised preschool chains have standard operating practices (SoP) and business practices and that is where they make a difference.

Today opportunities in preschools are increasing due to the increasing awareness of parents about the need of preschool in a child’s development.

Another reason is shrinking families that are looking for the options for their children. Also, the ability to pay for quality education has improved in India in the last few years. Now there is a demand for better facilities and trained staff coming in. Earlier preschool means parking the child when you do not have anyone to look after them.

Now parents are looking at preschool beyond this.

The Indian pre school market is one of the most upcoming markets in India. It is highly under-penetrated.

Only one percent of children are enrolled in Preschool currently in India whereas in France and Scotland 100 percent children go to Preschool.

Only 17 percent of the Indian pre school market belongs to organised sector. So there is a huge potential available. This segment is attracting investments from private players as entry barriers are very low. Parents have started to understand the importance of pre school to enhance their child’s emotional and intellectual growth but still there is much more to be done in this regards. We conduct positive parenting workshops in all our branches to bring about awareness about the importance of Preschool.

Also Increase in disposable income has led to more spending on education. The challenges in this segment are lack of awareness amongst parents and non-availability of quality teachers. Retention of quality teachers is another challenge that the industry is facing.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

59

PRESENTS

Creating Excellence in School Education and the Role of ICT Anjum Babukhan, Director, Glendale Academy,

Hyderabad

As an educator we need to keep in mind that there are certain windows of learning, which we need to optimise. Also we need to avoid pushing down the curriculum. In India we have tendency of introducing things ‘earlier the better’, which is not necessarily brain compatible. We need to keep in mind the age and stage of development. ICT has created a world of opportunities for children to utilise the technology by sharing what they are learning. We have Internet, teleconferencing, audio visuals, webinars, etc all types of digital learning tools. Living in the information age there is an abundance of information, we just need to know what is comfortable to use.

Virender Rawat, Coordinator- India, Director,

Bkannes School,Gujarat

In green school concept we believe that if we want our children to flourish we need to connect them to nature before we teach them to save it. The environment is only guiding us to go further. We follow Panch Mahabhuta i.e. Prithvi, Agni, Jal, Vayu, and Akaash practice for sustainability.

We have a green teacher programme in which we have merged CBSE programme to the Green Teacher Programme. We have also transformed CBSE curriculum to Green Curriculum. Our goal is to reduce, reuse and recycle all the resources. The Government of Gujarat has planned to open 70 green schools in the coming year.

60

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Kalpana Mohan, Principal, Vidyashilp Academy, Bangalore

Globalisation cannot happen without introduction of ICT into education. In today’s world students are expecting them to be taught in a different way. In a child centric education we need to take the perspective of the child into consideration. If education can not keep pace with today’s children who are tactfully, technologically and information ridden, it will become less appropriate and significant. ICT should not take over the teacher rather it should be supplementary and complementary to the teachers.

education.eletsonline.com

B A Wahid Newton, Programme Manager Education, BRAC Technology integration is an endeavour to make text content easier, interactive and stimulating by adding visualisation. Technology allows teachers’ to access good resources for better planning of classroom pedagogy. Technology helps in increasing the level of enthusiasm among students to attend classes.

We have seen some encouraging results after implementing ICT in our schools.

Usha Reddy, Principal, Meridian School If the brain has to retain it needs novelty. Joint productive activity as instructional pedagogy in the classrooms to enhance quality is a joint effort of teacher and student and aimed at enhancement of learning outcome. It is not the teacher driving the classroom but it is the partnership between teachers and learners. The teacher apparently turns into a learner but at the same time she will also become silent spectator and a motivator. To carry out such activity they need to have joint goals and outcomes that are clearly indicative. Children along with the teacher are going to design how they are going to implement about it. When children are left in the free atmosphere to learn that is when maximum learning happens.

G Prabhakar Reddy, Principal & Administrator, Bhadrachalam Public

School, Hyderabad

Definitely there are more reasons than one that ICT has an integral role to play in teachinglearning process. Reasons for the use of ICT in education are continuous learning, digital and informational competence of students, communication action in cyberspace, increased productivity of a person and group, and methodical innovation. ICT has an impact on students, teachers as well as parents.

Introduction of ICT in teaching-learning and administration has proven valuable. ICT has made the learning process more interesting and easier.

Using ICT effectively is more important than changing resources.

Seetha Murthy, Principal, Silver Oaks School, Hyderabad Excellence in school by emphasis on maximisation of learning is an excellent approach. Technology is merely a tool to assist the cause. Learning is the ultimate purpose in any school. Sustainability is the need of the hour. I had visited the green school in Bali, which is a wonderful concept. In the digital age, we are the digital migrants using ICT tools to teach students who are digital Natives.

ICT can help teaching-learning to happen in remote and difficult situations.

Nagendra Goyal, Deputy Commisionar , Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan

It is not that before the emergence of ICT teaching-learning was not happening. There were wonderful students, good learning and excellent teachers or results. It is not about the results or learning but it is about the experience of children in the classroom, it is all about the experience of the teacher in the school where ICT is making an impact. ICT has made things easier and simpler for teachers to elaborate things better. KV has made lots of attempts in this regard. KV has got into e-classrooms. Every KV has at least one e-Classroom, interactive device.

A lot of e-content has been developed

by KVs for students which is available online and offline. We are going to inaugurate a portal for the e-content soon.

Mona Mehdi, Principal, Orchids The International School

We have a total e-campus in our school. When you enter the campus Wi-Fi provides Internet access in the campus and all of our classrooms are digitised. We have a curriculum based on CBSE and Cambridge.

Teaching methodology is entirely digitalised. ICT has been proved as a boon for all the stakeholders. We would definitely like to think about the Green School Concept.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

61

PRESENTS

Emerging Models for Setting up New Schools Starting a private school is a time consuming and complicated process. The panel having the industry veterans discussed emerging models of setting up new school.

It also highlighted the importance of marketing in today’s scenario

Vipul Redey, CPO, Global Discovery

Ryan Pinto, Ryan Group of Institution

We are network of affordable K-12 schools and targeting families in middle income group who have very ambitious goals for child’s education but are not necessarily able to find a fit for them. For example International schools because of price points associated with those schools.

We have a platform called Roadmap to my Dreams, which differentiates us in terms of what we are actually offering to them. One thing what we offer is end to end accountability for the schools that we build.

We do actually go with partners in terms of funding the schools, the growth of the company and network of school. But do take accountability and hold ourselves responsible for everything that goes into school whether it is hardware, software, building, people, process, and training. At this point of time we have seven schools in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. For this academic year we are in the process of setting up more schools for the next academic year, which we will announce in the future. If we do things right we do hope for change.

In today’s times as the need is changing and the aspirations of youth are also changing. What we really need in the country is changing. Earlier we had to build brick and mortar school building, but today with technology advancement, we do not really have to have that. Yes, we need them but we can leverage the use of technology to reach out to a number of students, educators, and parents.

We have emerging models like Public Private Partnership to build schools. Now there are different segments of school like we have pre schools, K-12, pre college centres and that itself is the new emerging way of setting up new school or centres of learning. So innovative thinking is required as there is ample need for good institutions. There is a lot of interest from all sectors of society and everybody has its own motto of getting into education.

As an educationist, I personally believe that education is the best sector to be in. Today in India people talk about education and health care being sunrise sectors. Yes, they are as whatever you invest in school means you are not investing into building or land but investing in children, life and future. The return we get out of that is immeasurable. You can measure it on graph not on papers. I welcome everybody in this sector. If you are coming into education I really encourage you to check your motives and passion. Education really requires sacrifice, dedication, commitment and patience. It is not easy where you can sit and plan but here execution is to be on the ground, be in the classroom and deal with children on a daily basis along with the issues that we have today.

Academy

62

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

education.eletsonline.com

Chandrashekhar, CEO, Jain Group of Institutions

In India we have an additional requirement of 200 thousand schools and it makes absolute sense that we are discussing the emerging model of establishing schools. The Indian

education system always focused on two Es. First is the Expansion. When we got independence in 1947 our literacy rate was 17 percent and today it is said that it has expanded to 74 percent.

We have expanded from a handful of colleges to 33,000 colleges and 30 universities to around 700 universities.

The Next ‘E’ is Equity that is reaching out to every nook and corner of the country irrespective of caste, creed, religion and gender. The literacy rate during the independence period had only 8 percent of literate women. Now that figure is 65 percent. So the Indian Education system has come a long way from 1947 till where we stand.

Manjula Pooja Shroff, CEO, Calorx Group There are some emerging models of building schools and there is a lot of private equity money flow in the sector. That is an asset like model. Some people say ownership of land is very important, but private equity would like asset model, which means lease is becoming widely accepted. The CBSE, ICSE laws are also flexible. They allow you to take land on lease for 30 years and give you affiliation.

The manage model is basically if school is not doing well, you want to change it from vernacular medium to English medium or state board to national board here private players come in and manage the school. The COCO or COFO are the model completely accepted in the market.

Creating a good quality K-12 school costs more than 20 crore and no individual can pump in this much money so money has to come from some external source.

The best way to grow that anybody can tell you is debt management-take a bank loan. Mortgage your property and then build but the bankers will not give you money when you need it, they will give you money when you have money. So it becomes difficult for people to start with debt but it is the cheapest way with cost of finance around 10-12 percent. If you go through equity you get the money much faster through angel funding, venture capital, or equity funding are options for entrepreneurs. These are the funds that will come to you when do not have it because they trust you as a promoter, they trust your capabilities and they want to see growth. But it will enhance your cost of finance from 16 to 28 percent depends on what they can negotiate with you.

In conclusion I will say education is the sunrise industry and going forward in next 5-10 years they is no looking back. But I will suggest you to check your intentions because it is not the field, which will give you quick return. It is capital extensive and has a high gestation period. However, it is extremely gratifying if you love children and have a passion for the job. If your intention matches with the industry intention or the growth of the industry this is the great place to be in.

There are two Es that we are neglecting. First among two is employability. Outlays have to match outcomes. We are investing lots of money, resources, and energy in educational institution but what is coming out is not what is needed by the society.

We do not need degrees we need education. Is the education propelling employability we have to work upon?

The next E is excellence. This is very easier said than done. It has been said that if the rate of change inside the institution is less than the rate of change outside then end is inside. It is time for us as an educator to sit back and think that are we focusing on excellence.

Herve Merchet, Group Chief Technology Officer, GEMS Education

What is the use of promoting devices and technology where there is no access? We have a mandate at Gems to make sure that in any location around the world when we will build the school we will build technology around the bandwidth available at that area. If the bandwidth is poor we will build something that can work in poor bandwidth. If device are difficult, expensive, or unaffordable we will build a school with our own device. May be it would be one device to but if the usage is good that is not the real issue because they will have real access. There are a lot of people who want to just copy paste what is working in one place. You need to make sure that the solution is adaptable according to the location.

Not only we have the device but also we have to good content, right usage, and experience.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

63

PRESENTS

Nurturing School Leaders of Tomorrow The session highlighted organisational leadership and management skills for principals. It also threw new perspectives on the role that ICT can play in school management

Swami Swaroopananda, Director In-Charge, Chinmaya International Residential School, Coimbatore

Leadership is something that people say is inborn. Yet all are not born leaders and yet everyone is leader in their own space. Best leadership is always through example. To create leaders out of people all we have to do is make them people of some values.

People find something in them which they are inspired by. Common answer given by students on asking as what they are missing in the education system is that they do not have role models. It became a task that at least that they look up to their parents and teachers as role models. It has become a challenge to make teachers as role model. We began to empower people in order to make them leaders.

Recognising the talent and allowing them to express freely whatever they are good at. Discipline, which is selfdeveloped, is always constructive.

64

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

A Murali Mukund, Chairman, Jubilee Public School, Hyderabad A good institution should have four things those are vision, strong leadership, good teacher effectiveness and good student learning. A good teacher need not be a good school leader but a good school leader essentially has to be a good teacher. A School leader should have a clear vision to lead the staff, to implement the management policies for delivery of quality education to the children.

Passion and commitment are two key aspects to become a good leader. Teacher, trainer and team leader are the key roles of a leader.

Dr Kiran Singh, Principal, Mandsaur International School, Mandsaur Nurturing the future leaders in such a way that they get enough time and space to cultivate the values and required qualities to pass it on to the next generation. We need to reduce the gaps between school and parents, parents and teachers and students and teachers.

Leadership is an action not a title. It is a promise, which we make to the people. HR development is very important aspect in nurturing leadership.

education.eletsonline.com

Sameer Bora, EVP, Research & Development, Next Education

Digital learning has to blend with conventional way of learning. It is not a substitute to conventional learning.

We look at the teachers as catalysts and we do not seek to replace teachers when we are designing tools. Educational data mining is an important activity, which helps in making big decisions regarding students. It is important to figure out how the teacher views the technology.

It can not be the case that you built a technology and force teacher to a very steep learning curve, which makes them uncomfortable in front of the class. Content must be such that the teacher must add value rather than replacing teachers.

Dr Nripen Kumar Dutta, Founder and Principal, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati

There is a transformational change over the last 20 years because of the technological change, innovation, globalisation, migration, the landscape of school has changed where the old model of administrative style has been replaced by the new public management style of learning. A paradigm shift from that of intervention to prevention is happening.

This shift has made the role of principals different, which is based on action and behaviour. Instructional leadership has become more relevant. Old system and new system can blend and club together in attaining goals. Teacher quality, rigour of content and students as learners are the core of the system and there should be an interaction in the system.

Lt Col (Retd) A Sekhar, Principal, Atul Vidyalaya, Valsad

The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teachinglearning process.

Shivananda R Koteshwar, Director, The Amaatra Academy, Bangalore Leadership is all about getting into a state of a resonance. With resonance I mean that gets created when staff’s aspiration, institute’s requirement and learner’s interest intersect. This state of resonance is a real leadership.

Difference between a manager and a leader is that manager says go and the leader says lets go, which means the leader is involved in things. Manger knows how to do things where as leader knows what things to do. The manager gets others to do and the leader gets others to want to do. A principal requires a coach, a structured plan and absolute management support for implementation of planning.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

65

PRESENTS

3 2

1

eINDIA

4

Awards 2013 1.Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur, Karnataka being presented the Public Choice Award for Green Campus Initiative by Higher Education Institute 2.SAL Institute of Technology Engineering Research, Ahmedabad, Gujarat being presented the Public Choice Award for Industry-Academia Collaboration Initiative

5

3.Department of School Education, Government of Punjab being presented the Jury Choice Award for Government Initiative in Education

4. UP Electronics Corporation Ltd being presented the Public Choice Award for Government Initiative in Education

7. KiiT International School, Bhubaneswar, Odisha being presented the Public Choice Award for Use of Technology in Teaching-Learning

5.Aditya Birla World Academy, Mumbai, Maharashtra being presented the Public Choice Award for Use of ICT in School Management

8. Ryan International School, New Delhi being presented the Public Choice Award for School of the Year

6.Hindustan University Green-Yuvatharang being presented the Jury Choice Award for Green Campus Initiative by Higher Education Institute

6 7

66

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

8

9

9. PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu being presented the Public Choice Award for Use of Technology in Teaching Learning

education.eletsonline.com

10

10. Edmatix Information Systems Pvt Ltd being presented the Jury Choice Award for ICT Initiative in Education

14. Indian Institute of Banking and Finance being presented the Public Choice Award for Solution for Testing & Assessments

11.B-KANAE School, Modasa, Gujarat being presented the Jury Choice Award for Green Campus Initiative by School

15. Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab being presented the Jury Choice Award for IndustryAcademia Collaboration Initiative

12.Vidyashilp Academy, Bangalore, Karnataka being presented the Public Choice Award for Innovation in Global Collaborative Learning

16. Kushal CREDAI Pune Metro being presented the Public Choice Award for ICT Initiative in Education

13.National Institute of Science and Technology, Berhampur, Odisha being presented the Jury Choice Award for Use of Technology in TeachingLearning

11

18. Orchids International School, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh the Jury Choice Award for Use of Technology in Teaching-Learning 19. Glendale Academy, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh being presented the Jury Choice Award for Innovation in Global Collaborative Learning

12

13

14

17.O P Jindal School, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh being presented the Public Choice Award for Green Campus Initiative by School

15

17 16 18

19

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

67

special feature skill development

Soft Skills for Higher Education:

A Station-e Model By

Dr Haresh Tank,

Director, Station-e Language Lab

T

he statement from the World Bank says that only 10 percent of the country is employable may sound like a cliché but the truth is that lack of employability related skill is a very serious issue. Higher education is still in a state of turmoil because of changes like Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), semester system, etc that can go either way. Traditionally, the youngsters passing out of higher education are absorbed in the services sector. But if only 10 percent of our youth is employable, then one marvels at the future of the youngest country in the world and what the rest of the young people whether unemployable and unemployed will do to sustain themselves especially in the era marked by inflation and stiff competition. It is not something that policy makers can overlook because it is a question of the validity of the system of higher education that we have created and what it is supposed

68

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

to contribute to the society in terms of the training and education of our youth.

If it is failing to deliver like other public institutions, it is time to contemplate over its ills and rectify it on a war-footing. It is not only a question of employability of youngsters who pass out. It is a matter of concern because it affects several other aspects and realities of the society and the nation. For instance, on the front of nation-building, if only 10 percent of our youth is employed, then the rest are effectively excluded from contributing to the country’s development. The ‘demographic dividend’ has remained frozen and has not yet transformed into the human capital that creates knowledge and accelerates the growth of a country like it has happened in countries like China and South Korea. It is beyond dispute that India is the youngest country in the world and it also beyond dispute that it is one of the fastest growing economies in the

world. Post liberalisation, multi nationals came to India and the economy began to grow in a remarkable manner. Since then, India has been one of the favoured destinations for some of the world’s largest corporations to set up their plants and units. These companies cannot bring manpower from the country of its origin.

They depend on our youth, but our higher education system dumbs them down.

Hence, we have a scenario of classic contradiction-on the one hand, employers on the constant lookout for skilled manpower, particularly in services sector where the general graduates are to be absorbed, and on the other hand, the graduates fail to get a job and remain unemployed despite the degrees and qualification.

The reasons behind this debacle of higher education are many, but they

Dr Haresh Tank

education.eletsonline.com

are all interconnected. It all begins with policy on higher education. Our higher education policy lacks clarity and vision about what kind of graduates we wish to see at the end of the process of higher education and what higher education should do in order to ensure that the youth are able to find suitable employment after they spend a substantial amount of time and money in obtaining a degree. Secondly, higher education has limited itself to subject knowledge and all-round and holistic development of our youth has never been a priority of policy makers. We have also not considered the needs of the market, considering which we may devise policy measures to address what is lacking. Thus, soft skills like communication proficiency are missing from the education and training of our youth in higher education and when one investigates, it is easy to find that we have done little to integrate these skills in the core of higher education. Policy makers are ignorant of the fact that this little shift in policy paradigm is the difference between India and countries like China and South Korea. For instance, China makes it mandatory for its youth to pass two subjects-- English and computers -- with a certain degree of proficiency.

It may well be remembered that China which is the closest to India in terms of the size of population is way ahead of India in terms of education. India has failed on both counts that China has capitalised on- technology and English.

We have made communication skills in English, a subsidiary subject that mostly gets a step-motherly treatment in our higher education institutions. In some of the programmes, it is conspicuously missing. In case of South Korea, it could have the economic progress because it had the vision, way back in 1967, to institute the Vocational Training Act to provide a skilled workforce for industrialisation. It is an important example for us because it was a government-led skills development drive. Later, Korea created Skills Development Promotion Fund in 1976 for creating public institutions for skills training. A small

We are yet to see the policy regarding skills development of our youth. It amounts to being callous to the needs of our youth when a country does virtually nothing, even while being aware of the World Bank data which highlighted that being fluent in English increases the hourly wages of a person in India by 34 percent country like Finland that is just a dot on the world map literally rules the world of education on almost all parameters because they have developed the policy they need in the context of their country. We are yet to see the policy regarding skills development of our youth. It amounts to being callous to the needs of our youth when a country does virtually nothing, even while being aware of the World Bank data which highlighted that being fluent in English increases the hourly wages of a person in India by 34 percent. Even being able to speak a little English raises the salary up to 13 percent. In the light of all of this, when our youth face the interviews conducted in crisp English, and they fail to articulate the knowledge they have acquired, there is nobody else to blame but ourselves as a nation.

Station-e Model In all, Higher Education faces the issue of accountability because of the unemployability of general graduates. To address the issue of soft skills deficit, particularly communication proficiency in general graduates, Station-e envisaged the concept of Skills Development Centre. It is

a unique construct, aiming at upskilling the youth of the country in terms of soft skills. We have established several Skils Development Centres at various educational institutions – college campuses across the country. Skils Development Centre serves as the training wing of the university/college for soft skills, operated in a digital learning lab and powered by highly sophisticated technology. Skils Development Centre comes with in-built training programs on soft and life skills, integral to the theme of skills development and empowering the youth. Customised to the core, these modules have astonishing transformation value as they produce remarkable results in virtually no time. The youth across the country have benefitted by the innovative Skills Development Centres and carved a niche for themselves in their chosen area of endeavour. What it means for a university/college is that it proves its worth, demonstrates its relevance through the skills training that the youth passing out of the system will be equipped with the best of soft skills and competencies required to operate in today’s world. The time is ripe for recognising the role of soft skills in higher education.

Dr Haresh Tank is Director, Station-e Language Lab. In the capacity of Director, he is in charge of conceptualizing and operationalizing initiatives with a special focus on Skills Development. He holds a doctorate in Statistics and is a noted Statistical Analyst. He was also nominated for Young Scientist Award. With a passion for teaching and contributing to the society, he continues to serve as Associate Professor in Statistics. As a Director, Station-e Language Lab, he has initiated several projects in the realm of Skills Development with Government and private companies.

digitalLEARNING / September 2013

69

industrycollaboration collaboration industry

Pearson, Village Capital partner to fund ‘Eduprenuers’ Pearson has partnered with social investor Village Capital to support and fund education entrepreneurs in India who are focused on serving the bottom-of-the-pyramid market in the country. Select education start-ups will receive up to USD 75,000 (`45 lakh) in funding and will be selected through peer review by fellow entrepreneurs.

HCL to offer break-fix support to Educomp HCL Infosystems Ltd has announced business collaboration partnership with Educomp. As per the agreement, HCL Infosystems will provide life cycle services for existing and new Educomp classrooms across India. This will include providing break-fix support and field repair services along with managing new installations of Educomp Classrooms. The service and support to Educomp classrooms would be provided by HCL Infosystems through a nationwide network of field engineers, regional repair centres and a centralised repair factory.

English Edge ties up with the Essar Foundation EnglishEdge, the provider of technology based English language learning solutions in India, has tied up with Essar Foundation, the CSR wing of construction and manufacturing company for providing training in the English language in Hazira district in Gujarat. This initiative has been taken to introduce children and youth towards different facets of spoken English.

70

September 2013 / digitalLEARNING

Virtusa, ICFAI Sign MoU for Talent Development Programmes Virtusa Corporation, a global business consulting and IT outsourcing company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, to engage in talent development programmes aimed at creating a pool of highly skilled Business Process Management (BPM) professionals trained on Pegasystems’ technology platform.

Tech Mahindra announces Industry – Academia Programme for IT Infra Management Services Tech Mahindra Ltd has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with select Indian universities to impart industry ready skills in IT Infrastructure Management Services (IMS). The programme aims at creating a pool of resources to meet the demand across various facets of the IMS segment. The courses under this initiative cover the entire spectrum of IT operations, network operations and cyber security. ‘Megh’ has a designed capacity to train over 5000 associates.

Intel hosts interactive session on‘Toddlers and Technology’ with Educomp Intel India and Educomp held an interactive event to connect with young parents about introducing technology to children at an early stage. The programme has shared a perspective on how in addition to being the epicenter of information, a personal computing device can also support positive interaction between parents and their children.

NIIT, Autodesk ink partnership NIIT is set to ink a significant partnership with Autodesk, 3D design, engineering and entertainment software and services company, to evangelise design and promote design literacy, design skilling and research and innovation in design, in India. Given the dynamism in work roles, design thinking today is being recognised as one of the essential skills for a successful career in any industry.

Announces its 5th Annual Resource Guide digitalLEARNING, a premier monthly publication from Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd on current practices in ICT and education in India and across the globe, is coming up with its 5th Annual Resource Guide in October 2013.

India is witnessing a big leap in education sector and technology is playing a seminal role in achieving its multiple objectives. With the increasing number of solution providers in the space there is a need for a specialised issue that can guide institutions for choosing the right solution to dig out maximum benefits.

in

er b m co to 3 1 oc 20 g

in

Get Featured to Get Noticed

With its annual resource guide digitalLEARNING offers education solution providers to present their solution to education institutions that are looking for expansion and development. Being ‘one–of–its–kind’ for the Indian market, this annual issue is a comprehensive compilation and showcase of latest solutions in education and technology space. The issue will serve as a quick reference guide for everyone in the domain of education. There will be a spotlight on the companies, which are playing a seminal role in developing and implementing innovative systems and solutions at the educational institutions.

If You have

Digital classroom solution, Security, campus connectivity, networking solution, publication, course content, teacher training modules, ERP, student assessment solution, Skill development solution, courses, platform, sports, Lab equipment, furniture, etc, This is for you

For editorial queries, contact: Pragya Gupta, pragya@elets.in, +91 8860651648 For advertising queries, contact: Fahim Haque, fahim@elets.in, +91-8860651632

education.eletsonline.com

up

Highlights • The Yellow Pages of education solution provider • One year shelf life • Wider reach among key decision makers • Strong brand presence and strategic positioning • Maximum return on investment Read by key decision makers in schools, higher education institutions and other places of learning, digitalLEARNING magazine provides unparalleled access to key people who research, recommend and purchase your products and services.

The magazine is uniquely positioned to create impactful print, digital and event opportunities that will deliver maximum benefits for your brand.

The reach of the Annual Education Resource Guide • School principals, chairmen, directors, senior functionaries • VCs, directors, deans, at higher education institutes and vocation training centres • Ministers, senior officials at education ministries at centre and state levels • Important functionaries at funding agencies in education space • Important functionaries from the corporate sector, banks and PSUs, including CIOs and CTOs • Public Administrators looking after regulation in education sector • Heads of Academic think-tanks and other institutions • IT vendors • & many others