digitalLEARNING July 2012

Asia’s premier Monthly Magazine on ICT in Education

volume 8

I issue 07 I july 2012 I ISSN 0973-4139 I ` 75

Tablets redefining

education

delivery Sudha Gupta Mother’s Pride School

G R Sivakumar Delhi Public School, Surat

Shalini Urs Myra Business School

Adilakshmi Chintalapati Oakridge International School

Suneel Galgotia Galgotias Educational Institutions

Ashok Mittal Lovely Professional University (LPU)

Dr Rajeev Kumar Chauhan Raffles International School

Tech focus Education ERP p-36

A K Shrivastava Asia-Pacific Institute of Management

Devang Khakhar IIT Bombay

feature STEM education p-52

k-12 Continuous and comprehensive evaluation p-52

www.digitalLearning.in

23 - 24 July 2012, Le MĂŠridien, New Delhi

Conclave of Global Leaders in Education Programme chair

Programme co-chair

Prof V S Ramamurthy Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS)

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

Programme co-chair

Prof Sudhir K Jain Director, IIT, Gandhinagar

Speakers at 2012 Government

Shri E Ahamed Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Government of India

Dr Vasant Kumar Bunwaree Minister of Education, Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Mauritius

Dr. Narendra Jadhav Member, Planning Commission, & Member, National Advisory Council, Government of India

Prof S V Raghavan Scientific Secretary, Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser ,Government of India

Dr. Sunil Nawaratne Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Sri Lanka

Dr. Shashi Tharoor Member of Parliament, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

ISSN 0973-4139

Contents volume 08 issue 07 July 2012

10 Cover story

Tablets Redefining Education Delivery

By Pragya Gupta, Elets News Network (ENN)

cover story Industry Speak

46 Ashok Mittal, Chairman of Lovely Professional University (LPU)

18 Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind

48 Suneel Galgotia, Chairman, Galgotias Educational Institutions

Rajeev Karwal, Founder and CEO, Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions

my journey

22 Abbishek Shikky, CEO, Kloudpad

32 Sudha Gupta, Chairperson of Mother’s Pride School

24 Sanjay Purohit, Founder CEO, iProf India

K-12

26 Sundi Natarajan, Chief of Strategy, PraZas

58 CCE: The Poser of Student Evaluation

Milind Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Wishtel

Ajay Shukla, Vice President and Managing Director, McGraw-Hill Education Ajit Narayanan, Founder and CEO, Invention Labs

higher education interview 30 Shalini Urs, Executive Director, Myra Business School

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52 From STEM to Innovation

50 A K Shrivastava, Chairman, AsiaPacific Institute of Management

20 Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Soumya Banerjee, CEO, Attano

feature

special feature policy matter interview 34

Dr Abhay Wagh, Deputy Secretary, Department of Higher and Technical Education

tech focus - ERP 36 ERP Manages Well!

64 Experiencing New Innovations in Education 66 Uma Shankar Vishvanath, President, Pearson Education Services Pvt Ltd 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

asia’s premier monthly magazine on The Enterprise of Healthcare Volume

08

Issue 07

July 2012

President: Dr M P Narayanan

Partner publications

Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta consulting editor: Ashis Sanyal Advisory Board Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning

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

Web Development & Information Management Team

Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Principal Secretary to Government, Public Works Department, Government of Karnataka

Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira GandhiI National Open University (IGNOU)

Associate Developer: Anil Kumar

Prof S S Mantha, Chai rman (Acting), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

Sr. Executive Officer - Web: Ishvinder Singh Sr. Executive Officer – Information Management: Gaurav Srivastava

Information Technology Team Dy. General Manager – IT: Mukesh Sharma Executive-IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed Finance & Operations Team General Manager – Finance: Ajit Kumar

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education Senior Research Analyst: Sheena Joseph Senior Correspondent: Pragya Gupta Research Assistant: Mansi Bansal

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EDITORIAL

A Tablet for Healthier Education Major breakthroughs usually happen when what is feasible suddenly meets what is a desperate necessity. We are talking about the Tablet PCs, which have taken the world of education by a storm within a relatively small period of time and we have taken it up as the cover feature for the month One of the first initiatives of the new elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh was to announce free tablets for every student who has completed Class X. Not to be left behind, Goa’s new Chief Minister too announced that all Class V and VI students in the state would be given tablet computers. Ministry of Human Resource Development has also been endorsing the Aakash tablet with an objective to close the digital divide.

Many schools, colleges and universities have begun experimenting with tablet computers and classroom integration initiatives that vary from campus-wide distributions to small-scale, single-class pilots. These programmes are designed to provide evidence of improved student learning and engagement. We have collected the views of all sections of the Tablets space – the hardware makers, the software solution providers and finally the institutes where the systems are actually being deployed.

There is no doubt that the top-quality Tablets based learning platforms could enable budget-strained institutions in the country to bring vibrancy to their classrooms.

Teachers and the students will have the ability to download the best lectures, and all kinds of interesting courseware. When you look at magnitude of the problems that we face in the education space, the Tablets seem to be very good news. Of course, lot of work needs to be done to ensure that the quality of hardware is good, and the content is conducive for better learning outcomes.

Despite the bottlenecks arising out of poor infrastructure and traditional mindsets, the impact of the digital learning industry has been rising steadily. In this issue of digitalLEARNING, we have focussed on some of the core areas of education. We have explored ERP in schools and higher education, CCE in schools, STEM education in schools. To bring out the factual position of the industry in each case, we have interacted with a host of stakeholders, who are actively engaged in creating the solutions.

We have also collected the views of the institutions where the solutions are being implemented.

There is a need to explore these topics deeper and other fields need to be acknowledged. We look forward to continue these discussions in the World Education Summit, the most prestigious education event, scheduled for 23rd and 24th July, 2012, at Le Méridien, New Delhi, where educators, practitioners, service providers, policy makers from around the world will converge on for two days of knowledge sharing and discussion. The July issue is part of the special series that is focussed on making an in depth analysis of the education space in the country. It gives me great pleasure to invite all of you to be a part of the World Education Summit, where we will be having an invigorating discussion on the best ways of improving educational outcomes in the country.

Finally, I would like to thank Professor S S Mantha, Chairman, AICTE, for being the guest editor of the entire series of issues of digitalLEARNING that have been brought up in the run up to the prestigious World Education Summit.

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

digitalLEARNING / july 2012

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guest editorial

Research and innovation as a growth vehicle Education is a paradigm that helps in acquiring knowledge. Research is the heart and innovation the soul. Together the growth vehicle would speed and in the absence of any of these, would sputter and backfire.

Research is a philosophy and needs to be practiced like we practice religion. A knowledge gathering individual would look to putting together the nuts and bolts, the data, metadata and information together and add to the body of knowledge researching and innovating as he goes along. Metadata helps in gaining the hindsight, innovation the insight and education the far sight. Research provides the vehicle to do this.

How do we explain complex concepts that are beyond the best brains? We do this sometimes through statistical, empirical, and even experimental or most of the times through standard dictionary phrases. A better way I believe could be anecdotal.

The word innovation derives from the Latin word innovatus, which is the noun form of innovare "to renew or change," We all know that any change is difficult and painful and hence innovation too needs a new thought process that constantly challenges the established norms.

Research and innovation, a vast subject, difficult to analyse within the realm of all disciplines is best to steer within the scope of IT as a discipline and hence Information Technology is my chariot to demystify Research and subsequently Innovation.

An interesting analogy that comes to mind is that of Abhimanyu: the warrior prince in mahabharata who was entrusted with the task of penetrating a Chkaravyuh (certain formidable formation) of the enemy. His advantage was that he had learnt this very critical aspect of warfare when still in his mother’s womb through his warrior father who had narrated it to his mother. However, the paradox of his prowess was to be his ignorance of how to exit the same having successfully vanquished the enemy.

That analogy is pertinent to India today. We seem to have arrived riding the wave of IT services without any clue as to the development of IT itself. It is the same way we missed the Industrial revolution. We missed the woods for the trees and today find ourselves stuck between what could have been and what is in recent times.

Even as Governance of the country is challenged, the skill development and education in IT remains firmly hinged to hardware imports and hence the operating systems imports, where no more than 10-12 million PCs arrive in the country annually, though the Country should have made giant strides in creating its own hardware brand and could have been a world leader.

We need to innovate with IT as the backbone of governance especially for a country the size of India that has nearly 18 percent of the world’s population and occupies only 2.4 percent of the world’s geography.

While we engineered the software DNA of the country, it is an apathy that we couldn’t do much with the hardware, given our brain power. IITs continue to catapult the Indian knowledge and sow it on foreign lands but that again is limited to conjoining the dots there, while the return import of that knowledge however is costing us precious revenue outgos even as corporation upon corporation in the US is thriving on the nutrition it derives from the patent laws and IP rights prevalent there and limitedness of the same here.

The hardware vendors to India whether from Japan, US, china or other countries indeed hold the lock, we may have the key in the form of our software prowess but keys dont sell without locks in India but locks sell everywhere.

Just as Mahabharata, the Panchatantra and Chankyashastra have been universally available for free, we seem to have lost the plot somewhere there when it comes to developing and encouraging enterprise.

The rate of growth today determines the almanac of an Indian Enterprise; more so; the PSUs. This requires a revisit. Profit is indeed a bad word in India and in the Indian psyche,

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guest editorial

however we again miss the woods for the trees if we have to look at profit in seclusion and not in conjunction with the right business practices with laws that protect the development and encourage the idea of its propagation through adequate and appropriate controls. Profit is definitely a bad word unless it is supported by the right means and is harvested as a process of great cultivation practices; both of which are fuzzy in India. We seem to have duplicity and a generous sameness of business models that continue to war a common turf.

The copy-paste jobs that the students in IT and technical colleges undertake when developing their projects as part of their curriculum don’t help either. Here is a solution; it is at best a case in point. With the advent of cloud, what if the Ministry of Micro, small and medium enterprise could share its data with AICTE and AICTE were to encourage colleges to occupy and script their enterprise applications on a piece of cloud that they could acquire to be used as their lab.

There is a good chance that a small nut and bolt manufacturer will turn his attention to where these nuts and bolts go and who knows he may actually end up starting a computer manufacturing unit. Yes! it says that, all that we have around ourselves today was once considered impossible; so be it, thus it shall be!!

If industrial growth is indeed vital for the Indian economy, it is a matter of time that the MSMEs will get connected to the Government, their buyers and bankers and a global marketplace and set in motion a sustainable juggernaut that would thrive on research and innovation.

I realise that the opportunity and the responsibility that this note as the guest editor imposes on me is immense and while I am at liberty to expound my views on Research and Innovation involving boiling of the oceans and world hunger and poverty, at my best, however, I can only offer a perspective.

I share the above as a small blueprint of an idea that has potential of enabling us to crank our own engines rather than remain subservient to a limited vision and as consecquence to economies of the west. We have an opportunity to learn from them!

So in a nutshell: 1. Shall we start a debate on the patent and IP laws and developing the right tools and implements to develop, propagate and protect our GDP growth. Our hardware shall grow out of that reason.

2. Study profits as both an end and a means to development and progress, given the right environment, tools and implements. There is need to revisit our rate of growth that at best rides a turnpike of inflation to at best reverse itself.

3. Let each college buy a piece of the cloud that propagates millions of nurseries with a potential to raise the MSMEs and spur innovation to deliver quicker, better and more competitive products from the MSMEs! Let me make a different pitch: Object oriented languages that form the backbone of modern computing, came out of a great innovation. Dennis Ritchie the developer of UNIX, who helped shape the digital era and a great innovator by any standard, said that though there were technical and semi-technical aspects of using C family of languages, they turned out to be well-placed both for describing things at a high enough level so that portability across hardware was feasible, but simple enough in its requirements to make it cheap to implement. The entire modern computing today is based on this one innovation.

We need innovators and innovations of that standard. Innovation comes out of empowering individuals to out beat and outperform mediocrity. We need radicals and mavericks to promote innovation and systems to identify such individuals and protect them from the mediocrity and banality around.

We need to create ecosystems that enable environments to flourish in research and innovation in our institutions. We need to define dynamic structures that bring out the best in our youth.

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

Kaun kehta hai ki assman mein surakh nahi hota, koi tabiyat se paththar to uchchalo yaro!! (who says, you can’t drill a hole in the sky, have you tried lobbing a stone at it with zest) digitalLEARNING / July 2012

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cover story

s t e l b a T fining Rede n o i t a c u d E Delivery

Tablets hold great promise in delivering education more effectively as they feature innovative hardware and also interactive content both of which are key to superior learning

By Pragya Gupta, Elets News Network (ENN)

T

ablets have become the vehicle for a new trend in education, where students use handheld devices to interact with courseware. When the iconic iPad was launched, most analysts were of the opinion that this device would remain confined to the luxury segment, primarily because of its high price. But now a wide range of cheaper models have become available. For instance, there is Aakash.

Aakash has been promoted by the Government as a device that can bridge the digital divide across the country. However, it was not a great sucess but it inspired many other players to come up with their low priced tablets. Now the Government has launch its second version of the Aakash tablet, which boasts fbetter hardware features.

According to market reports, the country saw sales of about 475,000 units of media tablets in the last calendar year. Report from research firm

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Frost & Sullivan says the tablet PC user base in India has increased from 60,000 units in 2010 to 300,000 in 2011. The report further says that overall Tablet PC user base is likely to grow at a CAGR of 107 per cent to reach 23.38 million by 2017.

Adoption of tablets in education is likely to grow at fast pace. “In terms of sales, the market size in India is expected to grow to 500,000 units by end of this year. However, even with such high numbers, we will not be reaching even the Five percent of the education space and that is why this is a huge opportunity. Tablet market is set to keep growing at a rapid pace,� informs Abbhishek, CEO, Kloudpad.

Heavy bags, personalised learning, interactivity and reservation to the classroom have always been a challenge in conventional classroom learning environment, which is answered by tablet to a large extent. Still, lot more innovations and improvements are required

and these will be addressed by upgradation of tablets.

Computerisation started with heavy desktops in computer labs and then we had the advent of laptops. Now there is a unified learning wherein desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones are playing their role in imparting education. Tablet is usually a 7 to 10 inches form factor and it works on different mobile operating Systems like iOs, Android, and Microsoft Windows. It is now well accepted as platform for interactive and personalised learning.

The teacher can easily explain concepts using the digital whiteboard that is set up in the Tablet PC. Using learning tablets the students can access what was taught in the classroom and can also access the collaborative learning platform for discussions on relevant topics taught in the classroom. Students can have the benefits of studying from the best faculties fromacross the globe.

cover story Tablets

Key Players There are two segments of tablets in the market, one is high end feature rich tablet and other is low cost budget tablets. Suneet Tuli, CEO , Datawind and manufacturer of Aakash one tablet, says, “There are three different segments on how purchasing is done in the Indian education scenario. One is the high end segment, which is providing sophisticated solution, but that portion of the market in this case is small, about 3-4 percent.

The big portion is 40-45 that is government segment spending on low cost tablet. Other big market is made out of those people who buy feature rich tablets for children to provide them a support for quality education with access to Internet and good content.”

Here are the companies those have visibility in education space.

Apple Apple offers user-friendly interface and apps for education in iPad and iPhone. iPad apps are expanding the learning experience both inside and outside the classroom. From interactive lessons to study aids to productivity tools, there’s an app for every learner such as English, Maths, Science, Arts , music, creativity and much else.

Datawind Datawind is a provider of wireless web access products and services.

Datawind has launched Aakash one tablet with the MHRD and offers its tablet under Ubislate series.

They develop and license content for education.

Dell Dell is one of the leading PC manufacturer has its tablet called Streak.

Dells tablet can be utilised by the education segment.

Edutor Technologies Edutor’s Classroom Solution enables schools and coaching Institutes to leverage the power of Tablets in engaging students within the classroom and at home.

eTutor Sam Pitroda, advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has launched the cloud-based tablet solution for school students called ‘e-tutor tablet’. This can be used by students from Class 1 to 12and price at Rs 7,500

Asus

HCL

Asus has plans to enter into the education segment. Asus designs and manufactures laptops, tablets, desktops, motherboards, and mobile phones, etc.

HCL recently launched its MyEdu tab.

Based on Cloud based learning ecosystem, it brings together students, teachers, parents, institutions on an integrated education platform.

MyEduTab K12 version is priced at Rs 11, 499 and higher education version priced at R9, 999.

Across World AcrossWorld Education, the global SaaS company, offers tablet called ATab at Rs 5000.

Classteacher Learning Systems Classteacher Learning Systems of-

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fers interactive classroom technology offering digital classrooms solutions. Classteacher has launched its latest innovation Classpad for Indian education segment.

www.digitalLEARNING.in

iProf iProf offers test preparatory content for Entrance Exams. From Engineering to Medical, Civil Services to Management, iProf

content is available in multiple formats like lectures in 2D and 3D animations, e-Book and practice tests that can be accessed on any Android powered tablet. The company also provide tablets bundled with its content. Price varies with the content opted.

Micromax Informatics Ltd Micromax has launched the android based edutainment deviceFunbook. Micromax has partnered with Pearson and Everonn to make available relevant content for the students. It is available at a price of Rs 6,499.

Samsung Samsung is targeting the high end market like Apple. Samsung offers Android based Galaxy Tabs.

But at this given point of time, Samsung do not have anything more than a device for the education segment.

KloudPad KloudPad has launched its Android 4 tablet with 3G connectivity. The compa ny has tie-up with Attano for receiving educational course related content like sample test papers for Medical and Engineering , etc.

Milagrow Milgrow customises its tablet according to the educational institutes demand. Customisation is possible with the minimum order of 500 tablets.

Telmoco Development Labs Pvt Ltd Telmoco Development Labs Pvt has come out with a Tablet PC – Attitude Daksha for Rs 5,399.

WishTel Wishtel has launched its tablets IRA and IRA Thing tablet PCs.

cover story

Tabletising Learning In a very short span of time, tablets have carved a niche for themselves in the modern education space. digitalLEARNING interacted with a host of schools and higher education leaders to gain insight into the real potential of tablets in education space

Adilakshmi Chintalapati, Principal, Oakridge International School

As Head of one of the first schools in Andhra Pradesh to introduce Technology in Teaching and bring in the concept of a Smart school, I believe that tablets have helped to bring a paradigm shift in the Teaching and Learning process. The 21st century learners need to be a critical and creative thinker who can work collaboratively towards designing and solving problems. Easy access to content and information has reduced the relevance of memorising facts and figures. Students today need to connect their learning to real world situations and apply what they learn.

From desktop PC to laptop and now Tablets, the medium is only

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getting better. In a classroom where every child and the teacher have a Tablet that is connected to the WiFi, learning becomes both independent and collaborative. Teachers can both differentiate as well as teach to the group. It supports all kinds of learners and frees up a lot of space besides reducing paper. With all the content of the textbooks and more available on the Tablet, school bags will be lighter and children happier.

As students are introduced to technological tools in classrooms and beyond, the first and most important quality that we need to imbibe is integrity and academic honesty. There is always the temptation to stray away from the task on hand and get lost in the maze of the web. Most equipments designed for usage in schools have features that restrict browsing to only what is relevant for learning. School firewalls also take care of controlling visits to unwanted sites. However the quality of internal discipline needs to be built.

At Oakridge International School, we have multimedia enabled classrooms with smart boards and internet connectivity. We are currently exploring the option of introducing tablets in our classrooms. We did a pilot programme during the summer camp this year and were amazed to see how well children who are only three or four years old take to these devices.

cover story

G R Sivakumar, Principal, Delhi Public School, Surat At DPS Surat, we have tried all options over the last nine years: Projectors, Interactive boards with Projectors and a whole host of variants of the interactive board.

However, on the ground our research shows that teachers are quite comfortable with operating the television. So we have given all our teachers iPads. In our classrooms, we have 50 inch televisions, in which the teachers can plug in their input devices. The iPad makes up for the interactivity in an excellent way. This can be projected onto the TV with sound and without loss of resolution to a large extent.�

RK Sharma, Principal, Somany Vidyapeeth Public School Education is a wide term; it starts with birth and ends with death. In ancient time, knowledge was transferred from Guru to disciple verbally and it was learnt by heart. Later on text came and it underwent lot of change by revolution in print media. Twenty first century is all about e-learning, e-library, e-book, e-governance, e-news letter, etc.

Apple made a great push in to education when the company introduced text book for iPad. Tablets are no longer only a fun device, they are clearly an efficient device for education. Recently the middle school students proficiency test was measured to test the difference in abilities of students using the traditional text books and students using Tablets.

Among those who used the text book 59 percent were proficient and 78 percent were proficient. those used Tablets.

In 21st century keeping the child away from the technology is not justified. We should be logical and have pace with modern age. As an educator, I feel Tablets are essential part of joyful and creative teaching learning process. Now educational and technological links are warming up and are being rapidly backed by best academicians and top IT professionals.

Dr Rajeev Kumar Chauhan, Principal, Raffles International School, Behror Campus Tablets are most student friendly device. Through use of tablets incredible amount of interest can be brought into the process of learning. We at Raffles have developed Tablet classrooms for our students.

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Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay

Low cost tablet computers can have many uses in school and college education. For a start, all textbooks could be made available on tablets reducing the costs of printing and distribution and also reducing the weight of school bags.

Tablets would enable interactive lessons for self-learning as well as for viewing recorded lectures. They could be used to access educational content on the internet. The small size of the tablets and their low cost enables them to be carried to the classroom by each student and they could be used for conducting mini in-class quizzes.

Finally, they could be used as a computer for small scientific and engineering calculations.

It is important to have sufficient free and open source content available for wide and effective use of tablets in education. We need open repositories where such content can be shared and simple frameworks to enable teachers and students to develop the content and contribute to the repository. Equally important to creating content is the integration of such material into the teaching and learning programmes of schools and colleges. Unless this is done, even if excellent content is generated, it will not be used.

Industry Speak

cover story

Connectivity is Still a Challenge for Tablets The manufacturer of Aakash One tablet, Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind, talks about how the company has created a new market for low cost tablets in India Aakash One and UBI slate have set a new benchmark in low cost segment. It has led to collapse in pricing and that is a good thing for education in this country. The price pressure was really essential and now market is expanding. The demand is enormous. The struggle for awareness and demands is not the same.

What about applications?

The apps are broken into three areas, one of which is the area of ebooks.

The ebook content is CBSE curriculum, NCERT books, etc. and that is the big portion of the market. There are lot of video based learning tools in the market. People like the Khan Academy and

government under NMEICT, have huge amount of online video based courses which are useful in tablets. Third you need games based that are being created for interactive learning environment for students.

Challenges One of the biggest challenges is connectivity. There are lot of entry level tablets, but these tablets are connected only by WiFi. Now the problem is that in India there are 13 million broadband connection addressing 13 million families in a country of 1.2 billion population.

Majority of population does not have access to WiFi. For the dissemination of

content wide area network is essential.

Wide area connectivity and cellular connective is essential to utilise the full potential of tablets.

“Free Schooling till Grade Eight can be done through Tablets” Rajeev Karwal, Founder and CEO, Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions on education content for tablets Tablets have a huge potential in digital learning and distance learning.

These devices are uniquely capable of fostering diverse kinds of interactions between students, teachers and administrators. However, it is also true that in India internet speeds are not very good also no free roaming is available. It will take some time, before our institutions are able to take maximum advantage of the tablet technology. Tablets, which enable online education, are the ultimate educational solution for a country like India, where there is lack of quality teachers and schools.

What about Content?

We have loaded a lot of digital content, which is available for free on the Internet. We have loaded Autodesk, AutoCad, and lot of dental, medical, and online MBA content is provided with our tablet. Much of our educational content is for primary schools. Lots of people want to profit out of it. I don’t think in the same direction. If content is available online for free, then the same can be placed inside the tablet and offered free to consumers. Completely free schools till grade eight can be done in tablet.

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Industry Speak

Cover story

Low Cost Tablets on Adoption Curve Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher, speaks about the of acceptance of tablets in the modern education system In your opinion what kind of role do tablets play in education space?

We are positive that the tablet is going to play a prime role in the education space.

The most important thing in favour of the tablet is that it is uniquely capable of leading to more personalised system of learning in schools. Lot of people who are not our competitors often end up believing that we are their competitors.

We are not competitors to Aakash, Samsung or Apple, we are perhaps the collaborators, because we use those devices in the classrooms. We focus on the ‘after that’, on readability, which is various kinds of content books, on assessments which happen both at home and classroom, on the flow of assignments. So basically we have put together a virtual learning environment that can be called cloud. An important system of connectivity for us is through the whiteboard.

We have a connectivity module with the whiteboards, where the content from the whiteboard goes to the tablet and vice versa.

How has been your experience with schools?

The children are excited. However, the teachers fall into three categories, some are excited, some are lukewarm, and there is the small bunch who are completely against usage of new technology.

This is a very normal state of affairs, and it happens in all the schools.

What kind of response do you receive from schools?

Schools are welcoming a new way of learning. When I look at schools, I look at them not as one thing but as three things – teachers, school manage-

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ment and parents. Here the parents are more directly involved, so people are welcoming. Yes the issues are humongous; there is a whole lot of confusion in parents’ minds. We provide a device, which is high end device, but there are cheaper devices available in the market.

So which device do they chose? We are very flexible, so we end up telling schools that no matter what is the device, you can bring your own device. But make sure that when the child enters the school there is some working device. We give our own device, but many times we work on other devices. So I think the primary issue that parents have is- ‘Don’t force anything through our throat, we have the right to make our own choices’.

Once results come out and it becomes obvious that tablets are leading to better educational outcomes, the device will be welcomed in larger number of schools.

The parents, the teachers, the school administration, will become supportive.

Can you tell us about the percentage of these three categories of teachers in schools?

At this moment the overtly excited cate-

gory might be not more than 10 percent, those in the fence might be the majority because they have heard about such devices, they have experienced some of them, so I would say 60 percent of the teachers are waiting on the fence. Once the adoption occurs, I think they will become supportive of tablets in schools. 30 percent of the teachers might be vocally opposed to tablets. But what is encouraging is that the adoption rate of parents is very high. Second point is that school managements, when they work with whiteboards, have seen the constraints of depending on a single model and that too totally dependent on teachers. So managements in schools are not sure whether this model will work or not, but they are dissatisfied with the previous model’s outcomes.

What is the ideal way of utilising Tablet in classroom?

When we say educational setting we are referring to a connect between school and the home. One powerful applications that we are developing allows teachers to keep track of what the students are doing at home. So if the student is working on a test at home, teachers will get the data through online systems and when they come to the classroom, the teachers are already aware of where the specific learning gaps are. So they are able to customise their lecture to bring fulfilment to those learning gaps. This is not a usage only in the classroom but I would say it is a hybrid. I think it is not about how to use it, but like one of our board members said, you have no child left behind in US, now it will be like no teacher is left behind where every child has a tablet in their hands.

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Industry Speak

“The tutor will be Beyond Click a Mere Facilitator Click! of the Learning Process” What kind of role are tablets playing in education space for better learning delivery outcomes?

Tablets present a unique opportunity to deliver assisted learning to students across the educational ecosystem. With advancements in mobile computing, tablets will evolve to become Abbishek Shikky the most effective learning convergence medium. Traditionally CEO, Kloudpad teaching and learning have been on tablets trend in seen through the prism of “one education size fits all” ideal. This needs to change. Modern technology is bringing vast changes in the educational landscape. An interactive touch based device can lead to better learning outcomes. There is also a huge opportunity to make education a custom experience by offering content that interacts with the learner based on his interests.

What kind of content for tablets are you offering to education institutes?

We currently partner with Attano India to deliver almost all curriculum books for CSBE, ICSE syllabus. There are model test papers available digitally for medical engineering students as well.

We are also working with state governments to digitize their educational content as well. We also offer pre-school and primary education content focusing on language learning and early concept introduction in an interactive format targeting 2-8 yrs.

Please throw some light on the latest trends and futuristic solutions for tablets in education.

Well the future is all about “adaptive learning”, no two students learn the same way.

Using technology the “eSLATE” will deliver custom lessons to students based on their individual learning patterns and in near future students will be able to control or dictate how their lesson plans are delivered.

For instance, imagine putting the power in the hands of the students about what they want to learn in the next class. The tutor will be a mere facilitator of the learning process, because all content will be digitally available, it is just a matter of monitoring the “touch” driven access to education.

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Soumya Banerjee, CEO, Attano, is of opinion that tablets can prove to be a potent tool for education of the content they carry has been optimised for the unique touch based user interface

Tell us about the ways in which tablets can serve as a tool for learning.

The tablets possess the unique power of making learning a much more immersive and personal experience. Unlike the PC or laptop, a tablet can facilitate anywhere and anytime learning. In case of tablets one can touch and rotate the content.

What are the best ways of creating content for tablets?

Moving PC content on to the tablet doesn’t make sense.

Having content according to device’s user interface is very important. It is also the uniqueness of the content that is available on the tablet that is driving the demand for these devices. Parents and students want to use tablets to further their learning. No school wants to be left behind.

Tell us about the role that Attano is playing.

Attano is engaged in introducing education applications in the tablet system. There is crunch of content that is custom made for tablets. Our belief is that the books that students use are full of huge amount of content lying with publishers. This content can easily be converted into interactive digital content. Attano specialises in interactive education.

How big is online educational content market perceived to be in India?

The textbook market in India is estimated to be at approximately 10000 crore/year. Attano is pioneering educational eBooks in India. India has an installed based of approximately 60 million PCs, the number is growing at around 15 percent year on year. The country is also the home to large number of tablets, as of now iPad rules the tablet space. Aakash, other Android Tablets and Windows 8 are bound to change the game in the coming months as these devices are much cheaper.

Industry Speak

cover story

“This is the Year of Tablets in Education” What was the response to tablets in 2009?

We had very encouraging response, everybody was thrilled to see that product.

People were impressed by the audiovisual content, because those where the days when mobile devices had very small screen, and the computers were too expensive and also too bulky to carry.

Sanjay Purohit, Founder CEO, iProf India, launched tablets much before the iconic iPad came into being.

He explains innovation that Tablets are bringing into the education space. Excerpts:

Please share the genesis of iProf India.

It was in 2009 that I saw for the first time the form factor that we call tablets. I was impressed by the 7 inch form factor with a touch screen, and I realized that finally we have something, which can help in education delivery, because it is very easy to use and to carry, so we started working on it. We were the first company in India to launch Tablets for education. The iProf tablet came into being in 2009. During those days we were also creating the content for the tablet.

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Revolution of low cost tablets started with Aakash1. What are your views on Aakash 1 tablet?

I tested the Aakash 1 tablet and found technical specifications were much lower. Today’s younger generation is habituated to much powerful device, so they are not going to accept such mediocre performance. Although the cost was cut to bare minimum it was great, but usability is too difficult with the very small processer. Specification of Aakash 2 is pretty good and is comparable to tablets like Pantel and Wistel and others, which are pretty good and are in the range of Rs 3000 to Rs 5000.

Thanks to government of India for huge publicity of Aakash, students and parents have accepted that tablet is a way to learn.

When do you see tablet boom coming in education?

I am expecting quarter four of this year to be a big, because UP government is planning to give outh 25 lakh tablets for free. They made provision for the same in budget for 2007 for 21 crore. Tenders are likely next month in July. I expect by Q4 this year, Indians will start seeing a big explosion in the market for tablets.

You have approached many schools. What kind of response have you received from them?

We are having very encouraging response from schools. About 80 percent students

have opted for tablets. We started approaching schools this year only when tablet came effective. As of now around 250-300 schools are evaluating it and 21 schools have already signed the agreement so in July 2012 we will start deploying it. In places like Maharani Gayatri Devi School, Jaipur 79 girls out 100 girls have opted for tablets. Schools in Boondi, Sawai Madhopur and other far flung towns have also started using tablets for educational usage.

How can we ensure that the educational content available on the tablet is of good quality?

There are three ways to assure the quality of content. One way is that if there can be a quality monitoring institute that certifies the content from one star to five stars. For instance, the Government of India, has developed the Shakshar website where they are putting lot of digital content, which can meet the basic requirement of students. Second way is the community driven. People can themselves comment on the content. If twenty thousand people like that content it means that it is of good quality. Market itself drives some winners. Those who are providing good content will become stronger and stronger as market is liking their product.

Please share with us your plans for offering new solutions to the learner community.

We are coming up with a new product next month called digiLibrary, which is the largest collection of tablet content in online space. So it will become a destination point. Online it is free, but download incurs charge. Lot of people have tablets, but they don’t know where to go therefore, we are offering them a destination point.

We are also launching 24X7 Teacher on Call. We are targeting to become100 crore company by 2014.

Industry Speak

cover story

“Why Classrooms of Today are Failing?�

The online learning company, PraZas, has launched its new math worksheet program called Tabtor for Tablets. Sundi Natarajan, Chief of Strategy, speaks about the need of tablets in today’s classroom The current system of multiple choice questions will tell you if somebody has got the answer right or wrong, but it will not tell you if that somebody has understood something correctly or not. To fix this problem we delved into technology, and came up with a solution that entails a mix of tablets and tutoring.

Taking teacher out of the situation will not solve the problem; a teacher is so definitely needed to ensure that the kid is benefitting from the education process.

Tabtor is tailored to meet an array of educational needs as it uses a combination of patent-pending RealPaper technology that allows sharing and review of handwritten work, automatic grading, video tutorials and adaptive analytics.

Avaj for Inclusive Education A low cost tablet, Avaz gives voice to people with cerebral palsy. Ajit Narayanan, Founder and CEO, Invention Labs talks about how Avaz caters to communication needs of children with special needs Some four million people in India suffer from cerebral palsy that makes it difficult or impossible for them to speak. Tablets provide particular advantages to children with special needs because they minimise abstraction.

Unlike computers, which require multiple levels of association with abstraction (understanding the motor movement of the mouse, and translating its movement on a screen), tablets avoid these complicated interfaces. You touch an icon, and it opens up: it is simple and easier to process.

The cognitive gap that is faced with is significantly reduced. Along with the move to tablets, there has been a parallel surge in the app ecosystem to cater to children with mainstream as well as varied needs. The boom in the number and breadth of ideas out there is highly promising. Avaz is a tablet app that caters to the communicative needs of children with autism and cerebral palsy; about 500 children are using Avaz in India. They are easily able to navigate the customised touch screen, to speak out words, sentences or paragraphs. I have seen non-verbal children around India be able to join classrooms of verbal children because they have an enabling device. By allowing children to give voice to their thoughts and feelings, Avaz has unveiled new horizons of expression and thought for them.

Tablets Bring Learning to Home Digital education platform provider, Wishtel, has launched its tablet in the Indian market. Milind Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Wishtel, speaks on tablet as a tool for education delivery Tablets are a very effective tool for education, as they reduce the number of books a student has to carry in his bag. Tablets also lead to better opportunities for search, writing, quick noting, as a feature to the child. Tablets are compact and can be easily carried in the classroom unlike laptops and desktops. The multimedia option they offer are conducive for better learning. Currently digital education has turned into projector based system, which does not allow a child to take learning to home. Tablets offer them a platform to practice everything they learn in schools.

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Enormous Opportunity Exists for e-Content Companies Ajay Shukla, Vice President and Managing Director, McGraw-Hill Education, on the role of tablets and e-content in pedagogy We see tablets, as a major change agent in the education worldwide. The key drivers for current and future growth in our view are advent of low cost tablets, falling bandwidth prices, increasing telecom network reach, growing population of technology natives. Unlike smart boards and web based learning tools, tablets will find greater acceptance and adoption within institutions and teachers, as lot of heavy books can be carried as e-content inside the tablets. Enormous opportunity exists for e-content companies like ours, as content is at the heart of the learning process, while technology is just an enabler. We are partnering with device manufacturers and technology providers for distribution, marketing and consumer insights.

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Content is a

Differentiator The most important part in a Tablet is its content. Almost every e-Content company offers content for Tablets but the interactivity and personalisation is important differentiator in tablets. Content should be so powerful that it makes learner independent of teacher. Many Tablet manufactures are going for tie ups with content providers for providing best learning experience to students

Max Gabriel, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Pearson India “Content will continue to play a differentiator whatever be the medium of consumption – books, internet or tablet. Pearson has a distinct advantage of being an education company with firm publishing credentials, both in the education and consumer space and that sets us apart from others in the education market. While content in any form ought to be a rich experience for its consumer, tablet content specifically must be interactive and in the context of education must offer a compelling learning experience.”

Free Content Resources Available Online Khan Academy [www.khanacademy.org] Khan Academy offers over 3,200 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice. Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organisation with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere. “All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooled, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely

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free of charge.” claims Khan Academy

YouTube Education [www.youtube.com/education] YouTube EDU brings learners and educators together in a global video classroom. YouTube EDU provides access to a broad set of educational videos that range from academic lectures to inspirational speeches and everything in between. It offers a learner quick lessons from top teachers around the world, course lectures from top-tier universities, or inspiring videos to spark your imagination.

cover story

Quick tips for choosing tablet for educational usage Go for right mix of 3Cs and 1P

YouTube for Schools allows access to thousands of educational videos on YouTube EDU from within a school network by signing up for YouTube for Schools.

Sakshat [www.sakshat.ac.in] Sakshat is a one-stop education portal developed under National Mission on Education through ICT. Sakshat portal addresses the educational requirements of learners from Kindergarten to PhD. All the e-learning content will be disseminated through Sakshat portal free of cost

NCERT [ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm] NCERT has made all of its textbooks available online in PDF form.

They are in a reasonably navigable form with each chapter available as a separate PDF and a chapter can be opened by clicking through the table of contents. Kapil Sibal, Union HRD minister in the 59th CABE meeting has announced that NCERT is also working towards customising the content for tablets.

National Knowledge Network (NKN) NKN would help stakeholders transfer knowledge using specialised applications, which permit sharing of high performance computing facilities, e-libraries, virtual classrooms and huge database.

Challenges Some of the challenges are management complacency towards change, acquisition cost of the solution deployment, customisation and regionalised development of content to meet the demands of the tutors. Training of teachers and staff to adopt the solution and use it effectively as a management delivery tool can also be counted as a challenge at this point of time. Technical hardware durability in a highly task intensive environment is another challenge vendors face in educational scenario.

The ability to leverage the existing investment of the educational institution in their respective school or higher education management system also throws a challenge.

Various innovation and development in the hardware and content are coming in to answer some of these challenges. Tablets have the potential to bridge the educational divide, as they enable students from all parts of the country and the world to access quality educational content on an anywhere, anytime basis.

Tablets are available in the price range of Rs 2000 to 40,000. It is difficult to choose the right one for your institution.

It should be a right mix of 3Cs and 1P that is Configuration, Content, Connectivity, and Price. Here are some points that a procurement manager should keep in mind while zeroing on the one • Purpose or usage should be analysed for the scalability. It should be analysed if you are buying for high end function or just basic learning.

• How much money you want to put in?

• What kind of after sales service is available? In school environment with kids handling the device, frequent repairs are going to be order of the day.

• Also look for the hardware durability and accessories that can enhance its durability.

• Look for the hardware configuration like processor, RAM, graphics, various ports, etc. for seamless experience • Connectivity is most important in tablet, almost everything is offered on cloud therefore it should support connectivity options like WiFi, 3G and 2G. • Content is the king in tablet. While selecting the solution provider ensure that to know what after that hardware. Ask for the best available content not just e-books.

Check it for interactivity in curriculum they offer. Content should not be like nugget consumption.

• Ask for demo and training to your staff • Tablet should provide the content to make learners independent of teacher to greater extent

digitalLEARNING / juLY 2012

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higher education interview

Bringing Class Education to the Mass http://myra.ac.in

Tell us about the mission and vision of Myra Business Institute.

The institute’s founders, including me, have been in the academia for the last 35 years. I have also founded another institute and my husband has also been associated with the National Accreditation Assessment Council for the past 15 years. We were inspired by the idea of improving the quality of education and hence Myra Business Institute came into being. I would like to quote Mahatma Gandhi here, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So, we thought of starting and setting up of this Institute. Apart from the quality engine in it, we also have world class faculties. Today Myra is a globally recognised B-School with world class faculty and infrastructure.

Tell us about your employee training programme for companies.

We are in touch with companies like Intel, Infosys and Dell. We are talking to them in terms of their requirements and accordingly some of the programmes have been customised. The state university is collaborating with Myra School of Business to offer these executive education programmes. So these are jointly organised and jointly certified. The centre for executive education at Eastern Illinois State University (EISU) and our centre have collaborated to come up with these corporate training programmes.

What is the major ICT Initiative taken in Myra?

ICT is interwoven in all we do. For example, our admission process is completely online. So the one showing interest to

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Shalini Urs, Executive Director, Myra Business School, in conversation with Sheena Joseph Cherian, shares her vision for furthering the goals of education through her institution Myra School can apply online and submit the application. We have an online application system through which one can complete the admission process, and upload their documents and make the payments.

Secondly, for our day to day activities, like news updates we are using Facebook. Many of the students get to know what we are doing through Facebook updates. Apart from our all inclusive website, we also use YouTube channel.

Do you think regulations and regulatory bodies are hampering/ promoting the cause of education in India?

I don’t think that the regulatory bodies are hampering the growth of education sector as such. We need to have a

regulatory body. As I see it, whether it is AICTE or any regulatory body, they are basically setting up minimum standards so that every institution caters to it and ensures the provision of such minimum standards whether it is infrastructure or faculty or any other thing, in terms of library, books and other resources, like labs. So the regulatory bodies set up the minimum benchmark.

Once we have satisfied this benchmark, we can start aspiring for global benchmarks. For example, as per the regulation set by AICTE, you need to have a particular classroom size. I think the regulatory bodies set up a standard to ensure the delivery of education. I do not think that they are actually hampering education.

Are there any unique innovations going on in Myra School?

Besides the world class faculties and reasonable fee structure there is lot of innovative ideas that we use in our system of education. Based on the educational psychology concept called ‘Absolute Engagement’, which means that a person will be engaged only on one object at a time, the absolute engagement has been designed. The retention, absorption and the detention are high. The second innovation is the research based learning model. This model encourages our students to think. Beyond the classrooms, we are giving opportunities to our students to interact with industry leaders.

We are also developing a ‘Network of Mentors’. Every alternate Friday, or once in 2 weeks, we bring one mentor to Myra institute for a face to face interaction with students. This mentor spends one and a half days with the students in very informal settings.

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Sudha Gupta

Chairperson of Mother’s Pride School

The

Education

A woman of multifarious capabilities, an educationist, a visionary and also a successful entrepreneur, Sudha Gupta, Chairperson of Mother’s Pride Pre-School and Presidium Senior Secondary School endeavoured to evolve a novel definition of education during her journey through life

Diva

By Sheena Joseph Cherian, Sharmila Das, and Mansi Bansal

D

aughter of an NCERT professor, Sudha Gupta used to find solace in the NCERT campus libraries. The campus was her home for 17 long years. From there, the ardour for education came naturally to her. The entrepreneurial hat was not crown her until the year 1990, when to her chagrin she found that the standard of her son’s school was not up to the mark.

That is when she decided that she must do something in the early education space. She did some research and approached

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Vinita Kaul who was then heading the NCERT, Early Child Education Department. Benefiting hugely from the insights she got from Vinita Kaul, Sudha Gupta did her Nursery Teachers Training course and came up with Mother’s Pride in 1996.

Sudha Gupta pursued her B.Ed from Jamia Miliya Islamia (1987) and Post Graduation in Mathematics from Delhi University (1986).

Today an eminent personality in the education space, Sudha Gupta reminisces about her long journey with these words, “I

TECH journey focus WIRELESS CAMPUS my

started Mother’s Pride in Paschim Vihar in 1996 with a small setup of three rooms and a very few students. I stressed on the needs of this age group, their emotional, physical and social capabilities, how they learn, and so on. So I created something which was very different from what other play schools had”.

USP that sets Mother’s Pride apart The present early child education domain is crowded with a slew of preschools in every nook and corner of the country, but Mother’s Pride has managed to carve niche for itself and endear itself to the community of discerning parents because of its unwavering focus on quality education.

The school has a system in place for constantly upgrading the quality of learning. There is a customised teaching/learning methodology in place and the teachers are highly trained and motivated.

Mrs. Gupta says, “Very early on I realised the importance of having an extraordinary manpower. You can have dreams, you can fix a target, but to make it a reality, you need to have a team of highly talented people. You have to develop, nurture and motivate the team.

Basically you have to have the talent for managing people. We have 2500 people + 1500 helpers working at Mother’s Pride. Everybody is so well connected and we all are marching ahead togeth-

er for the transformation and for the achievement of the goals of the organisation”.

To inspire its sizeable workforce of teachers iwith the school’s vision, Mother’s Pride designed The Knowledge Tree - an in-house training academy for teachers. Mother’s Pride is the first of its kind of school to introduce a ball room and a doll room for little ones. They were the first to bring computers for toddlers as well. 16 years back this was quite an innovation; people used to ask whether there is any need for computers for three year old kids. However Mrs Gupta could see the real benefit behind this and she recalls “Children used to enjoy a lot as what they used to learn in the classrooms, could now be done with computers.”

Besides computers, bright colours and cartoons in the classroom ambiance did its magic too. An interactive learning infrastructure was also put in place.

Eventually parents too were delighted with the end result. For Sudha Gupta that was the initial milestone achieved.

The ed-entrepreneur was getting wonderful responses from the parent community and by that time she knew that Mother’s Pride can expand its footprint further. With this vision they started looking for likeminded souls to partner with and become franchisees. The entire Mother’s Pride schools are operated by the Franchise Owned Company Operated (FOCO) model.

The three mantras Mother’s Pride has three mechanisms in its curriculum. They are: life skills, academics, and talent. Mrs. Gupta believes that for the betterment of life these three components are critical for enabling the students to grow up into successful and happy individuals. She explains, “Who we are today as a successful, happy individual is not only because of the knowledge that we have, but because of the life skills as well. A positive attitude, courage, decision-making skills, good communication

and expression - each element is more important than the academic knowledge that you might have.”

Challenges A journey is not acomplished if the traveller has not overcome any challenge.

Sudha Gupta fought two such challenges. As she says in her words, “If I look back, there had been two challenges: firstly, finding the good manpower so that you are free to follow your own dreams. Second, aligning your own goals with that of the parents whose children you are teaching. Are we focusing on the score card of the children at the cost of neglecting the self expression of the child? Are we putting too much pressure on the child?Are we ensuring that the child does not feel depressed?

We need to take all this into account and create a balance. Along with the training of teachers, I have created a parallel line - parenting. I created the concept of positive parenting and me and my team work closely with a lot with the parents”.

Presidium, the school for future leaders Setting up Presidium, a school devoted to creating the leaders of tomorrow was a natural progression for Mrs. Sudha Gupta. Today in just five years, Presidium has five brances, more than 15,000 students and is the fastest-growing educational institution in Delhi-NCR.

Venturing into higher education Already known as a trendsetter in the pre-school segment of the country, Mother’s Pride today wants to enter the higher education space too. Sudha Gupta says, “Education doesn’t end with the 12th standard. Higher education is the natural progression. There are lots of institutions that are doing well. I don’t intend to compete with them;my dream is to set up an institute for creating entrepreneurs. As far as Presidium and Mothers Pride are concerned, I want to expand it to as much as I can in the country and way beyond”.

We wish all the best in her future endeavour. digitalLEARNING / july 2012

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policy matter interview

selected institutes have invested in and developed of e-learning resources, e-books, online journals and other e-content from national / international sources. These facilities are provided online and can be availed by students and faculty anytime.

Other technological solutions that we use include - Online Feedback & Students Grievance Redressal system , Online approval for educational institutions, Video conferencing systems for greater participation in administration, Online Management Information system for Technical Institutes in Maharashtra.

“Last year, 4 lakh Students Filled Admission Forms from Home” Dr Abhay Wagh, Deputy Secretary, Department of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra, shares his views on how technology is becoming the vital component of the state’s educational roadmap

What initiatives have been taken by your department to make optimal usage of technology?

We recognise the fact that technology is an important tool for achieving good governance and improving the quality of services.

In the department, there are numerous outstanding examples of e-Governance solutions running successfully. We have online admission system for technical education, through which the admission process has become fully automated. Last year, about 4 lakh students and their parents could sit at home and fill the admission form instead of waiting in long queues. It not only saved their travel cost and time, it also reduced errors associated with manual processing. Then there is the e - Library:, through which

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Are any step being taken for connecting higher education institutes to enable knowledge sharing?

Great progress has been made for connecting Institutes of Higher Learning for developing a knowledge network to share, disseminate, collaborate and generate information. High Capacity Internet Bandwidth is being provided at subsidised rates to universities and Institutes of Higher Learning and about 1400 Institutes (including Universities) of Higher Learning in Maharashtra have availed such connections under National Mission on Education through Information and communication Technology (NMEICT) till date. Further, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has been launched to provide e-learning through online web and video courses in engineering, science and humanities. Through Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), selected institutes have been provided funds for Campus Wide Networking, Networking between institutions for enhancing access to and sharing of Learning Resources available in a cluster and of course provision of Internet. Further, Information Exchange Network has been established in Non – Agricultural Universities for Information Exchange between these Universities, Colleges and State Government.

Do you think technology can be used to enhance access in higher education?

Technology can be used to increase accessibility to higher education, especially to the vulnerable and disadvantaged sections of society who couldn’t join regular education. In Maharashtra, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) has launched EduSat-based education, supported by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The university has established several Virtual Learning Centres (VLCs) in the State, each having two-way audio and video communication facilities. The students registered for programmes at the VLC attend lectures there. The experts deliver their lectures from the main hub at the university headquarters or from the substudio at Pune.

What are the future plans of the department?

One of the most important initiatives being planned by the department is integration with Aadhaar project. The financial disbursements like salaries of teachers, scholarships of students. shall be linked to Aadhaar, ensuring guaranteed and targeted delivery of services to unique and genuine beneficiaries. It shall greatly help in weeding out duplicate and fake beneficiaries from the system.

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erp

ERP Manages Well!

To make the education infrastructure more aligned towards taking care of the best interests of the students, the education institutions have marched an extra mile and adopted Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

With ERP the game has changed a lot

E

ducation in today’s world has become highly competitive. In order to be different and ready for action the institutions need a central resource planning that can manage the entire information and operations of the institutions.

How does it work?

ERP brings cohesion to the administrative culture of the education institutes, by creating a system for management of data in a seamless and efficient manner. The information can be stored and retrieved in different ways. Whether it is keeping attendance of student, teacher and administrative staff or informing the student about the date of new session to be started, ERP does it all.

Benefits of Education ERP The future integration of Internet technologies, Application Service Provider (ASP) hosting services, and expanded ERP systems can help transform the way

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education institutions operate in the 21st century and move closer to realising the goal of anytime, anywhere computing.

Here are some benefits of using the Education ERP solution.

• Publication & circulation of reports • Saving man hours for productive work

Benefits for Students

• Easy access of all records at one place • Channel to interact with staff, teachers, parents, students • Saving man hours and increasing productivity • Unhindered, smooth management

• Platform to interact • Share knowledge, experience, views • Access library • Online exams • Participate in projects • Contribute to school in out of school hours

Benefits for Faculty

Benefits for Parents

• Manage class reports, attendance, and performance • Making online exams • Interaction with parents • Effective planning • Online projects and forums for students

• Reports & Updates regarding ward • Effective and Timely communication of school activities • Knowledge Interaction with other guardians

Benefits for Management

Benefits for Administration • Easy access to reports • Getting accurate and timely data

To make our readers aware of the actual scenario of education ERP deployment in India, we contacted some of the ERP solution providers and have noted their excerpts in the following pages.

erp

tech focus

Smooth Working with ERP Sanjeev Phatak, VP, Training and Assessment Solutions Practice of Aptech Computer Education shares his insights on ERP in education infrastructure.

What benefits do you think education institutes can have in embracing ERP solutions?

These ERP systems are totally automated, they come with inherent benefits such as transparency in operations, seamless integration of discrete processes, database management and archive facilities, admission to alumni management systems, to knowledge management. The single most challenge so far is a mind set of schools from the investment perspective. Hence, services model can be the best fit to start

with. Schools are reluctant to invest in systems; infrastructure. Also skilled resources to manage these systems are also a challenge faced by schools.

What is your opinion on the level of ERP adoption in Indian schools?

Currently the penetration is too low. Only few schools with international tie ups have adopted such systems, but in such cases also adoption has not been done across all the modules. Government schools are far away from such systems.

ERP for Better Management Ajay Sakhamuri, CEO, MyClassboard Educational Solutions Pvt Ltd feels the country’s education ecosystem has started getting the benefits of utilising ERP

Who forms the largest group of ERP adopters in schools?

When it comes to adopting an Educational ERP Software to run the day to day operations, the private schools are way ahead of government schools. From my understanding as on date the usage of ERP is primarily limited to the schools in the urban areas and large chains of schools.

What ERP solution do you give to schools?

MyClassboard Fully Online School Management System is an end to end web-based School Management System that can be deployed for single schools or groups of schools without the need for a great deal of configuration. The application has a vast amount of built-in functionality and can handle everything including student records, elementary and secondary student report cards, fee collections, daily attendance, timetable scheduling, budgeting and accounting needs (Tally integration), admissions, library, learning management, online examinations, transport management and much more.

What is the investment required in deploying the solution in any educational infrastructure?

MyClassboard works on the cloud model,

the initial investment on purchasing software or hardware that the client needs invest is absolutely zero. The client needs to pay a monthly subscription charge of ` 5999 and MyClassboard will take care of the rest.

What is your opinion on the level of ERP adoption in Indian schools and higher education institutes?

We feel that until now only less than 5 percent of school and colleges actually use ERP in their organisations. And currently we can observe that the usage of ERP solutions in the India education sector is increasing rapidly. I believe with the next three years Indian education system will see considerable amount of changes and it will become mandatory for every organisation to go for ERP System to manage all their academic and administrative operations.

However, schools generally tend to make wrong choices while picking an ERP solution provider. Before picking an ERP solution the educational institution must do a lot of analysis and then pick the vendor. The primary reason for this could be that there are very few players across India who has the funding, long term vision and passion to work in the education technology space. digitalLEARNING / juLY 2012

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ERP Makes You Work Faster Lawrence Zacharias, Founder Director of Entab Infotech Pvt Ltd sees that ERP utility in education will grow expediently.

Who forms the largest group of ERP adopters in schools?

Private schools are the major adopters of ERP. This is because the private schools are more concerned about the systematic accounting of 3Ms(man, money and material) and activities (students, staff, fund, exam and co-curricular, inventory and the library). There is a competition prevailing among the private schools to perform better to bring out best results, hence they are willing to accept technology to automate their day to day activities.

What ERP solution you give to schools?

Our software products name is Campuscare. We provide solution starting from enquiry for admission to arrange transfer certificate of the students. Assessment of the students to preparing report cards, fund accounting, purchase order to material handling to scrap- inventory, taking care of daily transactions as well.

do not have all the documents properly maintained, and there is lot of duplicity in admission number. The fees collection never gets tallied, and those who are not authorised for concession some time enjoy concession. The tabulation mistakes are also there in report cards, salary sheet. PF returns are a tedious task and we are depending on external agencies for accuracy, library does not have proper records, library books stock check is a tedious task.

What is the investment involved in deploying the solution in any education infrastructure?

A full-fledged ERP implementation ensuring high level of automation can be achieved by 15-20 lacs expense and recurring expense of leased line to host the web server.

What benefits do you think education institutes can have embracing ERP solutions?

As we all are aware many institutions

Solution: ERP software can resolve issues at institutions by: 1. Automating the repeated process by simple steps.

2. Providing provision for verifying the inputs 3. The dependability on staff has reduced for the management for information.

4. Enhances work flow, increases the efficiency, reduce the reliance on paper.

Institutes Work Better With ERP Vinod P John, Senior Director (Sales), Ellucian feels the 21st century education infrastructure must include education ERP in its work management infrastructure What are the challenges associated with implementing ERP solutions, please tell us from yours and your client’s point of view.

At Ellucian our key forte lies in deploying ICT solutions for higher education.

From our point of view, we take pride in the fact that we focus on a solution based approach tailored to suit our customer needs. Our success lies in communicating the value proposition of Ellucian’s ERP solutions enabling our customers to migrate from the paper based legacy systems to the new system.

This would be the major challenge for ERP vendors at the beginning of every customer journey. Apart from this familiarizing the staff and student with the new system will be challenging. Estab-

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lishing a unique set of best practices by leveraging our international and local expertise is what we consider the biggest challenge.

What is your opinion on the level of ERP adoption in Indian higher education institutes?

IT now is considered as a strategic element to make changes & growth in associated policies across all segments in India Inc., and education is not far behind. Earlier, majority of Indian Institutes deployed software solutions on a very small scale but we are witnessing a gradual change in this approach. Indian universities are now open to the idea of adopting ERP for procedures related to admission, teaching, examination, and interaction with students.

tech focus

erp

Education ERP Streamlines Management Rajendra CM, MD, APAC and EMEA, Talisma, talks about the ERP solutions they offer Tell us about the investment involved in deploying the solution in any education infrastructure?

There are two types of investments that will be needed. One is monetary and other is in terms of resource allocation.

Institutions need to have a clear idea of their expectations from technology investments and a clear road map defined in association with a consultant or a vendor will help.

What benefits do you think education institutes can have from embracing ERP solutions?

Today, campuses are operating in an immensely competitive environment.

In order to attract, retain and nurture talent, universities need to offer flexible and engaging distant education courses, enriching student services, smart class-

on students and the student eco system without worrying about competition.

ERP helps reaping the benefits of technology in areas such as revenue growth, brand equity management, student lifecycle management, faculty and administration management and operations.

rooms, learning analytics, comprehensive placement service, alumni relation management etc. Talisma can help campuses in all these areas. We are already partnering education institutions in various parts of the globe in their endeavour to become agile campuses that are powered by benchmark student services. In a hyper competitive scenario, our ERP and CRM solutions can help campuses focus

What is your opinion on the level of ERP adoption in Indian schools/ higher education institutes?

We are seeing plenty of traction in the Indian market. Many institutions have already defined or are in the process of defining an IT roadmap for transforming into agile campuses. The adoption rates are low as of now due to a variety of reasons. But the next few years will see many Indian campuses turning agile and emerging into role models for campuses in the Asia pacific region.

Work Smart with ED-ERP Anil Goyal, Director-Strategy & Business Development, Mexus Education Pvt Ltd offers education ERP for education institutes processes from enquiries to staffing and marksheets with various user access levels.

Our Iken ERP platform connects 8 core school activities. It felicitates inquiries, admissions, student information and records, fees, subject planning, student performance and progress, payrolls and staffing.

Over 150+ schools have adopted Iken ERP across India.

Who form the largest group of ERP adopters in Schools?

Private schools especially tier I city schools are major adopters and active users of ERP solutions because of the easy access to information.

What ERP solution you give to schools?

We offer complete school automation

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What benefits do you think education institutes can have embracing ERP solutions? What are the challenges associated with it?

Iken ERP is designed to ensure – • Data Security with pre-defined user access levels • Grade-wise Subject and Exam Planning • Synchronize all information for better planning & resource management

• Scalable to match growth of the schools The concept of ERP is novel to Indian School, thereby, connecting with the schools and educating them on the potential benefits of using technology for organising processes and resources is a roadblock that is holding back the realization of full potential of this demand.

Automation of existing physical data is constantly a challenge for deploying the software and the systems. A complete support cycle of training, monitoring and refresher training brings in the necessary understanding and acceptance of the software, at a macro level.

What is your opinion on the level of ERP adoption in Indian Schools?

With the scope of education widening, there is a strong underlying need to align the process and manage resources optimally. Yet the adoption levels of Iken ERP remain abysmal till date.

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erp

Offering Seamless ERP Hemant Sethi, President, School Learning Solutions (SLS), NIIT Ltd says his company has been offering seamless ERP solutions to education institutes over the years

Where do you see the need of Education ERP? Schools of today are complex organizations with hundreds of people working in tandem to create an ever-evolving institution. One of the keys to the success of a school is in the way it manages the deluge of information amongst other things.

Most schools use information management one way or the other, whether it is Excel or function-specific information systems like Library Management

System, Fee Receipt Generation etc.

These are mostly stop-gap solutions rather than scalable, comprehensive and long term solution. Since most of these systems are outdated, the generic school staff (Teaching and Non-Teaching) waste their time on mundane tasks and the school management lacks a decision support system. The education ERP solution comes handy to address these issues.

Who form the largest group of ERP adopters in schools?

The major adopters of ERP are private schools. Private schools adopt ERP to streamline their functions like fees collection, report card generation, payroll, admissions, inventory management, transportation etc. However, in new IT initiatives all state governments are coming up with requirement for ERP in the state schools.

What ERP solution you offer to schools? So far how many schools/higher education institutes have deployed ERP solution from you?

Quick School is integrated and comprehensive education resource planning software developed for schools to manage information spanning all functional requirements like fees collection, report card generation, payroll, admissions, inventory management, transportation etc. It also has the unique feature of modules that facilitate the implementation of CCE guidelines. It addresses the needs of all stakeholders within the education realm

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– students, teachers, principals, school management and parents. The product empowers schools to strengthen their services to students and parents, thus enhancing their competitive advantage many fold. NIIT has implemented Quick School in 6000+ government and private schools.

What is the investment involved in deploying the solution in any education infrastructure?

Although it depends on the school requirement, the student strength and what all functions that school wants to automate, the price ranges from `1.5 lakh to ` 7 lakh.

What benefits do you think education institutes can have embracing ERP solutions?

Quick school standardises and streamlines the various processes in the school through the following: Support For Evaluation a) Evaluation plan, b) Multiple evaluation types, c) Scholastic, d) Co-scholastic, e) Formative, f) Summative Data Management a) Students data, b) Teacher’s data, c) Examination data, d) Health Status, e) Attendance data Reporting a) Report card generation, b) Analysis that can lead to remedial action, c) Information to parents, d) Involving parents in the teachinglearning process.

tech focus

Academia Speak

erp

ERP on Board Forward looking Higher education institutes have adopted ERP solution as it leads to improvement in performance.It brings efficiency and transparency to the sphere of operations. Higher education leaders in India share their ERP experience

Dr Elizabeth Verghese, Chancellor, Hindustan University Our ERP solution is an in-house development of the Hindustan Group, and is tailor-made for our purposes.

The complete solution is in various stages of development and implementation and we are reaping the benefits of the system. The biggest challenge is user acceptance and change management.

Dr Upinder Dhar, Vice Chancellor of J K Lakshmipat University The ERP solution at JKLU comprises of various modules that cater to the needs of academic and administrative staff. The ERP is going through the implementation and customisation phase and the results are satisfactory.

The biggest challenge was to strike a balance between customisation and adopting standard industry practices.

Balance has been struck with mutual agreement and heavy involvement of all stakeholders. Periodic review meetings have been a great help in the most trying times.

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Santanu Mishra, Co founder and Executive Trustee of SMILE foundation The current ERP system functions under two broad subjects. The most important one is operation of all the institutes along with their progress.

The second area is the recruitment system for all the alumni. This recruitment system helps us to keep a track of all our students and also the students are updated about the recruiters.

Brig Grewal, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University We have also developed our own ERP package for the university, where every aspect of the students activities whether it is attendance, his medical sickness, his performance & evaluation, his end term tests etc, everything is put up on this thing. So a father sitting in US, by login user id and password can come to know about the activities of his son or daughter studying in India.

Akhlesh Agarwal, VP - Learning Technologies, NIIT University We had been using an industry strength ERP for our accounting and financial functions. In the forth coming academic year, we are going to start using a student information management ERP product also.

This ERP will cover complete information in student lifecycle, from admission and registration process to management of academic records, library, hostel, mess, placement and Alumni. We, at NU have very specific processes for several academic functions and we wanted to get an ERP package that could be fully customized and configured to suite our process requirements. This ERP package is being developed and customized by NIIT LTd.

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higher education interview

The Education

Successor

www.lpu.in

Ashok Mittal, Chairman, Lovely Professional University (LPU) is a visionary who wants to bring back the traditional education values to modren pedagogy. In an interview with Sharmila Das, he talks about role of ICT in filling the gaps in education

What was the inspiration behind the launch of the Lovely Professional University?

India had been the epicentre of learning thousands of years ago. Taxila, Nalanda, Vikramshila enjoyed the status of premium seats of knowledge and education and attracted scholars from far and wide. Unfortunately, we failed to retain the knowledge as these Universities faded into oblivion. The pivotal inspiration behind the launch of this University is to bring back the glorious past of India in the realm of higher education, and recreate the magic of Taxila University in context of present times. We are inspired by the great heights of learning achieved by these Universities in various disciplines like medicine, mathematics, astronomy etc. and want to bring back the status that India enjoyed as the “Knowledge Capital” of the world. On an optimistic note, I declare that we are well on the course to establish ourselves as higher education giants, and will break into the top 50 Universities of the world in next 10 years.

What steps has the institute taken to embrace ICT in its education system? What benefits has the institute experienced?

The University has arranged a multi-faceted digital podium that features an IT-based University Management System, Learning Management System, Wi-Fi Campus, Electronic Surveillance System and many others. We have an extensive ERP programme put in place which is used as a common platform for almost all of the official communication and interactions – whether administrative or related to teaching (between the

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students and the teachers). Every single student and teacher has his/her own intranet account in the University, where all the information of his relevance is dispensed. Right from the morning, the students and the teachers hook on to the ERP pedestal – the daily attendances are registered online, notes are uploaded (by teachers) and downloaded (by students), the students post their queries online to which the teachers respond via the same software. Not only this, the performance of all students is assessed online as their scores are displayed on the intranet, all important notices and information is also shared online. Records such as availed/pending leaves, salary, daily assignments, work progress chart, etc. are recorded online. This helps the students/employees/management to have crystal clear, transparent and easily decipherable information to plan for their charted work and execute their duties and responsibilities in a more efficient fashion.

How ERP is indispensable for the overall functioning of your institute?

Given the scale of operations of the University (25000+ students and nearly 600 faculty members), and a deep penetration of ITC deployment in majority of working domains of the same, ERP becomes more than just being indispensable. ERP is the backbone of lion’s share of execution and monitoring undertaken by various level of management hierarchy and we feel that it is virtually impossible to run not just special projects, but daily affairs of the University in the absence of ERP solutions that we have put in place.

What do you think about STEM Education in India?

In India, we are fortunate to have an academic culture in schools that helps in providing a constant supply of good students with high aptitude in academic disciplines of Science, Technology, engineering and mathematics. But to be fair in all means, we still lack the required level of inputs at the end of education providers or for that matter, say entire education system that can help us to extract the benefits to their potential. STEM Education in India has taken roots, but it has not penetrated that deep.

40 EXPERIENCE: 40 years delivering education technology and services

2,300 CUSTOMERS: 2,300 institutions from 40 countries around the world

13,500 COMMUNITY: 13,500 customers share best practices at regional user groups

20,000 COLLABORATION: 20,000 customers participate in a vibrant online community

1,000 ADVISORY BODIES: 1,000 customers provide direction about products and services

9 SOLUTION CENTERS: 9 global solution centers for addressing localized needs

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Ellucian: 40 Years of Success in Delivering Exceptional Education Technology Solutions and Services The recent combination of two leaders in education technology, Datatel and SunGard Higher Education, has a new name: Ellucian™.

Ellucian delivers sound, strategic guidance and a broad portfolio of powerful technology solutions to help educational institutions provide exceptional service for their constituents.

Helping institutions thrive. Because educational attainment is a global priority, the work of educational institutions has never been more important. At the same time, the need to re-imagine education has never been greater. Technologies are reshaping how people learn.

New platforms for delivering education are evolving rapidly. In this dynamic environment, Ellucian is dedicated to helping educational institutions thrive.

Insights to help education move forward. Ellucian provides expert guidance and innovative, flexible solutions that help institutions fulfill their missions effectively and deftly navigate change.

Helping you deliver exceptional service. Ellucian’s extensive array of products and services help you provide your colleagues and your institution’s students with the tools they need to succeed. We strive to deliver solutions that can help you deliver a level of experiences that can set your institution apart.

Seamless solutions. Ellucian delivers integrated solutions to help you blend information, services, and communities seamlessly—knitting academics and student life into a single network of people and services, improving productivity, and creating interactive, collaborative learning communities.

Serving your students. Ellucian helps you discover innovative ways to deliver the support every student needs to succeed. Our tools and services help you find new students, get them engaged in your institution, and help them stay on track to achieve their academic goals.

Managing for efficiency. From implementation support to cloud-based solutions, from application hosting to technology management, Ellucian provides an array of strategic and technology services that can help you manage operations more effectively, adapt new solutions as needed, and build the foundation you need for a more sustainable institution.

Ellucian: 40 Years of Success Today, education institutions around the world look to Ellucian for ideas that will help individuals discover their future through learning. Ellucian helps institutions by investing in the primary solutions that clients rely on, including Banner and PowerCAMPUS administrative systems. We provide a broad portfolio of solutions that give clients more choices and capabilities to address their evolving needs.

Ellucian’s history of service and solutions in education technology means that we have knowledge and experience you can count on. As you work to manage your responsibilities, we will be there to help you strengthen your institution and the learning experience it delivers.

interview Higher Education

Shaping Finest Minds

Suneel Galgotia, Chairman, Galgotias Educational Institutions, in conversation with Sheena Joseph Cherian, provides his views on the university’s initiatives in shaping the nation’s educational landscape www.galgotiacollege.edu What differentiates Galgotias University from other universities?

Galgotias University has been founded with a vision to create and perpetuate a thinking ecosystem for the education of outstanding students so as to enlarge their thinking and imagination, so that they emerge intellectually, socially and spiritually as evolved global leaders.

When we started Galgotias Educational Institutions, we had one clear objective: that we would create institutions, and not mere organisations. While both institutions and organisations need great human and physical infrastructure, what distinguishes an institution from an organisation is that an institution is an edifice built on the foundation of a better thought and deeper value system.

The mission of Galgotias University is to enable the finest student and faculty bodies to learn together, through the most evolved education processes in an atmosphere of rigour and discipline. Every effort is made, to evolve a culture of learning excellence, which emerges from and integrates with real life industry, science and commerce processes.

What global advantages is Galgotias University bringing to India?

We have put a number of global level academic building blocks into place to ensure that Galgotias University serves as a beacon of excellence for all to emulate for generations to come.

First, we firmly believe that only the finest minds can shape the finest minds of the future, for life. That is Galgotias University’s global-level faculty comprises

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why o f

Higher Education interview

finest academic minds drawn from top international universities, like Purdue University, Georgia Tech, Oakland, Arkansas State University & National University Singapore.

Secondly, to augment our quest for academic excellence, we have put in place a basket of international pedagogies right from the beginning. These bring out the best in every student and enable students to maximise their potential. One of these is the Fully Flexible Credit System that enables Galgotias University students to pursue liberal arts subjects like music, fine art and theatre along with disciplines such as engineering and management, in line with students’ talents and interests. This makes sure that students are able to pursue their ambitions as well as their passions in a balanced manner, so as to develop as complete human beings.

What building blocks enable Galgotias to get 100 percent placements?

Continuing with the academic building blocks, Galgotias industry-led syllabus enables comprehensive student training, industry-relevant project support, industry visits and internships, handson technical and soft skills training. Extensive interaction with domain experts ensures the absolute job-readiness of each student. The power and relevance of industry-led syllabi drive academic excellence among the Galgotias faculty and students thereby enabling industry leaders to recruit at Galgotias year after year. Industry and media surveys reveal placements of 100 percent every year.

Key recruiters like Infosys are recruiting in ever-greater numbers every year because of their huge growth in the quality of Galgotias students.

How important is research and development at Galgotias University?

We have empowered our students with the power of thinking quotient, the art of experiential learning and skills to learn continuously for life. This is supported with Galgotias University’s research-driven education, huge laboratory infrastructure and dedicated

We have put a number of global level academic building blocks into place to ensure that Galgotias University serves as a beacon of excellence for all to emulate for generations to come

Suneel Galgotia

Chairman, Galgotias Educational Institutions

research-oriented faculty with a proven track record of instilling a research culture in the students body right from year one. Stress is laid upon producing cutting-edge innovation and applying learning practically, to serve industry and society. NASA has recognised Galgotias’ talent by selecting the Moon-Buggy designed by Galgotias student for permanent exhibit at the NASA Marshall Space Centre, Huntsville, Alabama, USA. What is even more credit worthy that NASA has selected Galgotias among five Universities from across the globe and Galgotias is the only private university to be selected from India.

How do you ensure quality in terms of student enrolment as well as quality faculty?

Galgotias University has emerged as the institution of choice for high calibre

students pursuing higher studies. We are working today, so that through each student, the thought seed of our tomorrow is nurtured well to ensure that tomorrow’s India realises its potential, to become a great nation state. To ensure this we take students of good merit only, like in the case of engineering, students with less than 85 percent in PCM do not qualify for admission at Galgotias University.

High quality intake applies to the faculty too. The basic qualification for teaching here is a PhD, so that even first year students are taught by PhD level faculty who have studied and taught in institutions of excellence across the world. All faculty have to be the best in their respective fields and from the finest academic institutions of the world, so as to embody world-best educational practises and a never-before learning experience for the students. digitalLEARNING / july 2012

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“Our Classrooms are Designed Keeping ICT in Mind”

www.asiapacific.edu

Asia-Pacific Institute of Management (AIM) intends to provide cutting edge knowledge to students. A K Shrivastava, Chairman, AIM, in conversation with Sheena Joseph Cherian, provides his views on various methodologies that the institute is adopting to stay ahead in a highly competitive education domain Asia-Pacific Institute of Management is ranked amongst the top Business Schools in the country. What are the most significant achievements of the institute?

The AIM is ranked amongst the top Business schools in the country. There have been many significant achievements in the past few years at AIM. The institute has been graced with visits by distinguished leaders like Dr Pranab Mukherjee, Dr Kiran Bedi, U K Sinha, Lord Meghnand Desai, Ela Gandhi to name a few. Our corporate network has been strong enough to facilitate 100 percent placement of our students. The alumni are well-placed at

top-notch companies with excellent paypackages. AIM has been successful in driving its 3Is (Institute, Industry, Interface) initiative. The CCR team has been a hub of corporate activities, it maintains a close relationship with corporates through Guest-lectures, business-meets, conclaves etc. The faculty of AIM is called “Think Tanks and Assets”, who hold diverse and rich experience both in industry and academia. The students have been actively participating at various fronts, both national and international. Our recent addition: Takshila-the MDP Centre of Excellence, has been a significant move in the direction of trainings and development for the corporate sectors.

Our new addition, Takshila-the MDP Centre of Excellence, has been a significant move in the direction of trainings and development for the corporate sectors

The Centre for Corporate Relations (CCR) is the hub of activities, which drive the 3-I (Institute-Industry-Interface) initiative. Can you elaborate on the companies that the college has been associated with?

The Institute has maintained its linkages with many corporate giants like NTPC, Powergrid, IFFCO, Indian Oil, IRCTC, IDBI, ICICI Bank, NHPC, NMDC, BHEL, SAIL, Muthoot, Federal Bank, CITI, VIP Industries, Hero Moto Corp, etc. Many corporates from diverse industries have employed our students, including IDBI, ICICI Bank, American Express, Federal Bank, CITI Bank, Reliance Securities, Safte Express, Daink Jagran, DCM Textiles, VIP Industries, ExtraMarks, Edu-

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comp, Indag Rubbers Ltd, IndiaBulls, Magma Fin Corp., Kotak Mahindra Bank, Contract Logistics Pvt Ltd, Hero Moto Corp, Balaji Telefilms, Neurometrix India, Practo technologies, Oxfam, etc.

In terms of student training and placements, what are the companies that the college has been associated with?

AIM has signed agreements in recent past with IDRAC’s International School of Management, France, which broadly covers: Student Exchange Programme and faculty Exchange Programme. AIM has also recently made a major impact for globalising the education by signing MOU wide Grant MacEwan University, Canada. The students from IDRAC France visit AIM every year to spend an academic term in the programme.

PGDM-International Business and our students have also been visiting IDRAC, France, every year.

What have been the measures taken to ensure that the course material being imparted at the Institute is updated with the latest requirements?

AIM is one of the very few institutes, which revise their course-curriculum, every year. The expert-review meeting for every year is held, where the panel of experts from Industry and Academia and the faculty members, brainstorm, in order to review the course-curriculum,

higher education interview Higher Education interview

for each year. The revised curriculum is then presented before the BOG, who finally approves it. Each course outlines are designed and developed keeping in mind the diverse industry requirements and updating.

How has ICTs been incorporated into the educational system at your college? What are your views on the importance of ICTs in education?

During past few years, the use of ICT has fundamentally changed the working of education system. The ultramodern classrooms at AIM have been designed, keeping the significance of ICT in mind. The faculty members use one or the other associated tools for imparting education. The use of LCD projectors, video-conferencing, Simulation techniques etc. is very common. The use of Management games etc. is also a common practice at AIM. The IT-Lab of AIM is the largest in Delhi/NCR. All the students are linked with each other and every faculty members using WiFi facility at campus.

The ICTs play very vital role in education sector these days. Education as a qualitative development is not confined with the classroom structure. The modern tools of ICT, such e-learning, online practices of learning, etc. are in huge demand, keeping in mind the versatile requirement of the corporate world.

A K Shrivastava

Chairman Asia-Pacific Institute of Management digitalLEARNING / july 2012

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feature

From STEM to

Innovation

An innovative mind is every country’s asset and to build this asset STEM helps in a big way

By Sharmila Das, Elets News Network (ENN)

S

TEM or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education provides that environment to think beyond ordinary. To use scientific investigation, knowledge and practices in understanding the whole world.

The progressive educationists of the world have come to the conclusion that STEM education should be encouraged in the early education of a child. Only through STEM we can have the wherewithal to develop an innovative mind.

This approach to education is designed to revolutionise the teaching of subject areas such as mathematics and science by incorporating technology and engineering into regular curriculum by creating a meta-discipline. STEM Educa-

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tion attempts to transform the typical teacher-centred classroom by encouraging a curriculum that is driven by problem-solving, discovery, exploratory learning, and requires students to actively engage in a particular type of a situation in order to reach a logical solution.

Does it fill the bill?

Letting students explore ideas in science and watching them learn is truly a passion that most teachers share. It is inspiring to watch a student work through a science investigation and get to the “aha” moment of understanding, seeing their eyes light up, the smile broaden across their face, and the explosion of energy as they rush to explain to

someone what they have just discovered.

As a nation we should capitalise on the “aha” moments and work hard to help students not only understand science, but also foster a lifelong learning in science. Why is this so important? Science is the one subject that encompasses everything in life and helps students be curious, ask questions, and make connections as to why the world exists as it does. It is the backdrop for understanding our world, and helps us to explain and appreciate it in new ways. A successful STEM education provides students with science, math, and engineering/technology in sequences that build upon each other and can be used with real-world applications.

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STEM education creates critical thinkers, increases science literacy, and enables the next generation of innovators.

Innovation leads to new products and processes that sustain our economy. This innovation and science literacy depends on a solid knowledge base in the STEM areas. It is imperative that as a nation, we make STEM education a top priority.

Roadblocks As with any educational initiative, there will be noted barriers to the successful implementation of STEM education into education systems. Developing a curriculum to include STEM as fully integrated requires funding that may presently be unavailable. In order to provide all students with STEM education, funding would be needed not only to develop the curriculum to support STEM, but also to expose students to STEM careers, provide on-going and sustainable STEM professional development, provide STEM preservice teacher training, provide mathand science-related competitions, include mentoring and internship programs, provide hands-on science activities, and recruit and retain STEM teachers.

Another area noted as a barrier to the successful implementation of STEM into a school’s curriculum is the lack of necessary leadership to infuse STEM approaches into a current educational Jaganathan. C Director, Education Technology of Texas Instruments, India

system. Studies of various school curriculums suggest that while curriculum appears to include science and math, all too often, engineering is missing from the curriculum. There may also be school policies around credits and curriculum that may hinder successful implementation of STEM. School systems may feel that the school’s curriculum is already too crowded with classes/studies.

Another factor that hinders the high-quality STEM education in K-12 is the lack of qualified teachers. The most successful implementation of STEM education would require professionals to instruct classes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics or at least provide good role models for students to inspire them to pursue careers in STEM. Beyond educational obstacles, there may be barriers that include cultural perceptions on the part of parents and students that may hinder students from becoming involved in science and mathematics. According to Mary Ann Wolf, Executive Director, SETDA, societal attitudes and perceptions do need to change regarding careers in engineering, science, and mathematics. She emphasises the need to change the mind-set of people and the stigma attached (often called “geek”) to those excelling in the areas of science, mathematics, and engineering.

Research suggests that a strong emphasis must be placed on STEM education to inspire our students to seek careers in STEM so that we may continue to compete globally for jobs and prepare our students for the 21st Century.

To create such ambiance the role of private players offering STEM solution is crucial. To understand their role, we got in touch with Jaganathan. C, Director, Education Technology of Texas Instruments, India. He says, “Texas Instrument (TI) is working with the govern-

Texas Instrument (TI) is working with the government and private education entities to inculcate one-to-one learning practices using TI Nspired Learning solutions for classroom teaching and learning 54

www.digitalLEARNING.in

Ashish Kesharwani Chief Learning Officer, UEI-Global believes

Future holds great hope and scope for Maths, Science & Engineering background students.

Thus the need to create interest amongst the student fraternity to take up this stream is required ment and private education entities to inculcate one-to-one learning practices using TI Nspired Learning solutions for classroom teaching and learning, real time experience of concepts in the lab and beyond, and classroom assessment. Our solutions are implemented in the market for CBSE schools through partners like CORE Education and Technologies who specialise in education services. We have run pilot programs in 2010-11 on TI Nspired Learning in nine schools in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai including two Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan schools and our solution is being considered by schools”.

STEM in early education State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) 2008 says states and school districts should begin the development of a plan in kindergarten to implement STEM education and develop specific targets to achieve these goals.

Based on past indicators, little emphasis is placed on science as a major subject

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area, often being taught once or twice a week at the elementary level.

Experts Speak Ashish Kesharwani, Chief Learning Officer, UEI-Global believes, “Future holds great hope and scope for Maths, Science and Engineering background students.

Thus the need to create interest amongst the student fraternity to take up this stream is required. It is evident right from school education that these are dreaded subjects and teachers use traditional/ conventional methods to teach them.

Being innovative and practical orientation / application will help generate interest in this field. This will increase the creativity and analytical ability, thereby enabling students to use their knowledge in real world environment. There is dearth of technical graduates. Also the graduates that pass-out lack application skills since the current education system lacks practical learning. Thus the IT and Engineering companies need to spend more time and money on training fresh graduates. At the moment it does not cost much since the wages are low and manpower is available in abundance, this will not be the case in future thus, not only from education but from industry and economy point of view STEM education will help in creating interest and upgrading skills”.

Kartikay Saini, Chairman, The Scottish High International School says, Amit Rana Pro-Vice Chairman of DPS-Panipat

Vandana Lulla Principal of Podar International School

Stem education will empower students and teachers enabling them to address some of the bigger social challenges around the world and in their communities “There are definitely few aspects of STEM which are currently been followed by the Indian education sector in different forms. With the ever changing innovation in education, the Indian education sector may be interested to research and implement the same in the near future”.

Prof Shanath Kumar, Head, ELearning, SMU-DE of Sikkim Manipal University says, “STEM Education is the foundation for development and progress for any country, more so for a developing country such as India. Proof has come in the form of thousands of Indian youth migrating and serving abroad in information technology and several other engineering and science fields. The country has also grown rich in terms of high quality educational institutions of STEM imparting professional education to millions of students every year.

Technology offers an excellent opportunity to scale up this education system

The STEM system is a good start. Proper training and continued usage will lead to competence and then to innovative techniques using STEM technology in education 56

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and to carry the efforts into the remotest corners of the country. This will provide the much needed Human Development effort for India. India has also produced hundreds of entrepreneurs from the STEM education. Increased thrust on entrepreneurship will provide the impetus for innovation and thus propel the country towards high growth rates and into the league of developed countries of the world. The sign of this happening is already visible.

However, excellent technology infrastructure, consistent faculty development efforts and adequate number of faculty, newer pedagogical methods to enhance employability and increasing industry connect will be the challenges which we should overcome and change into opportunities”.

Jaganathan C of Texas Instruments says, “In India, we have been witnessing a significant improvement in the infrastructure in primary, upper primary and secondary schools in the last 10 years and more so with respect to public schools. Though there are some important issues that call for attention both in the infrastructure and professional teaching areas, enrolments in school are on a gradual rise”.

Vandana Lulla, Principal of Podar International School (IB and CIE) says, “Stem education will empower students and teachers enabling them to address some of the bigger social challenges around the world and in their communities. It will help institutions and students to think out-of-the-box for solutions and ideas that are both collaborative and creative”.

Amit Rana, Pro-Vice Chairman of DPS-Panipat comments, “The STEM system is a good start. Proper training and continued usage will lead to competence and then to innovative techniques using STEM technology in education. Our education system needs a thorough revamping and technology cannot be ignored”.

End Note Last but not the least, inclination towards a more scientific approach of education is required from the education eco-system and it is not restricted to schools and higher education institutes alone.

k-12

CCE: The

Poser

of Student Evaluation A problem identified is often a problem solved. However is CCE the right tool for enabling educationists to identify myriad issues in education?

By Sharmila Das, Elets News Network (ENN)

C

ontinous and Comprensive Evaluation (CCE) helps in improving student’s performance by identifying his/her learning difficulties at regular time intervals. It also employs suitable remedial measures for enhancing their learning performance. The CCE system was formulated by Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development Government of India.

CCE is introduced to decrease the accumulated stress of board exams on

Vineet Joshi Chairperson, CBSE Board

the students and to introduce a more uniform and comprehensive pattern in education. The scheme of CCE has inbuilt flexibility for schools to plan their own academic schedules as per specified guidelines on CCE. In CCE system the student’s marks is replaced by grades, which get evaluated through a series of curricular and extra-curricular systems. The aim is to reduce the workload on students and to improve the overall skill and ability of the students by means of evaluation of other activities. Grades are awarded to students based on work experience skills, dexterity, innovation, steadiness, teamwork, public speaking, behaviour, etc. to evaluate and present an overall measure of the student’s ability.

This helps the students, who are not good in academics to show their talent in other fields such as arts, humanities, sports, music, athletics, etc. This is a new term to assess all round development of a child, irrespective of individual differences.

The CBSE has introduced a number of reforms in the school education sector.

Our focus for the coming decade is on effective implementation of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation 58

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Marks and Grades It also has its own demerits. A child with 92 marks will get the same grade, as the child with 100 marks and their talents cannot be recognised by anyone else other than their close ones. Also, with this system, students find it difficult to study many chapters, because of its so called semester system, which lead to the students being engaged mostly in projects rather than in actual studying. Although this system might have some drawbacks, it instils this value that students need to compete with themselves to get a better grade and not with others.

The grading system is9.0-10.0 A1 8.0-9.0 A2 7.0-8.0 B1 6.0-7.0 B2 5.0-6.0 C1 4.0-5.0 C2 3.0-4.0 D 2.0-3.0 E1 0.0-2.0 E2

Experts Speak The assessment has been made easy by splitting up the whole year into two semesters. After completing a semester, a test called ‘Summative Assessment’ is held by CBSE directly (90 marks for class IX and 90 marks for class X).

k-12

According to the notified scheme, every aspect of extra-curricular activities like sports, club activities, are given prior importance.

Kartikay Saini, Chairperson, The Scottish High International School, says, “According to me it is a fine and effective assessment system which helps the mentors/ instructors to track the performance through regular evaluations.

It enables educationists to take immediate corrective measures for the students.

We follow continuous assessment such as formative, summative, parent assessment, peer assessment, self assessment at regular intervals to study the performance of the students, to help them self evaluate their performance and work an action plans for the same. So according to me every evaluation method helps in knowing the areas of improvement leading to effective results”.

Vandana Lulla, Principal, Podar International School (IB and CIE), says, “Change is inevitable. As a school, we need to constantly upgrade and update ourselves. If improving the continuous and comprehensive evaluation systems in school benefits students, so be it”.

Mamta Gupta, Principal of Shiksha Bharti School, says, “I welcome CCE and through CCE, I came to know that every child is special. Through CCE I realised that if any student is not good in studies it does not mean that he/she is good for nothing”.

Rajat Gupta, Director, Ramit Technologies Pvt Ltd, (CCE software solution Provider Company), says, “Till now, our education system was academics oriented, but with the introduction of CCE, students are now evaluated both on scholastic (intellect and brain) and co-scholastic (heart and hand) attributes. Such kind of system leads to the change in the attitude, life skills (emotional and social) and confidence level of our children and helps in their overall personality development. This is very important for them to survive in today’s competitive world. Some critics say, it is not apt for the country like India, but if implemented properly, its advantages completely outweigh its disadvantages”.

Norina Fernandes, Principal of Smt. Lilavatibai Podar High School, says, “Introduction of CCE has bought about a

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Suggestions to Improve CCE System in Schools from Rajat Gupta of Ramit Technolgies Pvt Ltd 1) Adequate training to teachers on different parameters like CCE evaluation, its benefits etc.

2) Workshops for parents should be conducted to explain the benefits 3) School management should focus on improving the student-teacher ratio.

CBSE can also issue mandatory guidelines w.r.t the minimum studentteacher ratio.

4) It is better to be without CCE than having the CCE without the basic infrastructure. This is more applicable in rural areas.

5) CBSE has to understand the reality & revisit implementation of CCE so as to strike a judicious balance between scholastic and co-scholastic outcomes.

Rajat Gupta Director, Ramit Technologies Pvt. Ltd

On the Flipside Teachers are going to play a very important role in the implementation of CCE, which is why a comprehensive plan to upgrade teachers teaching skill through different training is required. Secondly, the introduction of CCE does not advocate less emphasis on academic achievements. Students will still be required to do well in studies. CCE in no way dilutes the emphasis on academics. In fact, while the assignments and projects assigned by teachers have to be interesting, they also have to be challenging for students.

Fernandes says, “The one off area of challenge in this system is dealing with student absenteeism, especially with long sick leaves where the student has missed out on a whole concept”.

CBSE has to understand the reality & revisit implementation of CCE so as to strike Investment required a judicious balance Gupta of Ramit Technolgies Pvt between scholastic and Rajat Ltd says, “To achieve fair assessment, co-scholastic outcomes proper student to teacher ratio is resea-change in the classroom. The main aspect of this change is the fact that assessment has become an integral part of the teaching-learning process.”

CBSE Chairman Speaks on CCE System Vineet Joshi, Chairperson, CBSE, says, “The CBSE has introduced a number of reforms in the school education sector.

Our focus for the coming decade is on effective implementation of CCE for which the board aims to provide continuous training and engage in discussion with our teachers to build effective monitoring processes within the system.”

quired, Proper training to teachers is a pre-requisite to achieve proper results.

In rural areas, CCE can be a burden where even the desired primary objective of basic academic teaching is not properly achieved.”

Rajat Gupta goes on to say that the investment required to have the CCE assistive software in education infrastructure can vary from ` 15, 000 to ` 50, 000.

To sum up we all know that every new policy is bound to have its own pros and cons - the CCE is too seems to be plagued with as many cons, as it is blessed with pros. In the final reckoning, it is up to the education masters to bring out the best of it and use it wisely!

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Product Launch

Texas Instruments Launches New Range of Scientific Calculators

T

exas Instruments (TI) has announced the launch of its new range of scientific calculators in India – TI 36 XPro, TI-36X II, TI-30XS MultiView and TI 30XII S. Participating in the programme, “Promoting Mathematics using Technology,” organised

by TI, Dr D Purandeswari, Minister of State for Human Resource Development (Higher Education), Government of India, formally released four models of TI’s advanced line of scientific calculators in India. Dr Peter Balyta, General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Education Technology, Texas Instruments Asia, was also present at the occasion.

TI announced that Statworks India Pvt Ltd will be the distributor for scientific calculators in India. An agreement to

Dr. Purandeswari, Dr. Peter Balyta, General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Education Technology, TI Asia and Mr. Maheskantha Balasubramaniam, Managing Director, Statworks India

this effect was signed by Dr Peter Balyta, General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Education Technology, TI Asia and Maheskantha Balasubramaniam, Managing Director, Statworks India. The TI scientific calculators feature a high quality

MultiView display, MathPrint capability and enhanced analytical functions, all of which are best suited for the needs of engineering, science and commerce students. From basic calculations to sophisticated 2-variable statistics, conversions, regression analysis and scientific data plotting, TI’s scientific calculators provide a range of functionalities for subjects like engineering, general mathematics, algebra, trigonometry and statistics.

With these calculators, students will have more tools for learning and exploring mathematics and science concepts. They will also enable students to determine the numeric derivative and integral for real functions. Users can also perform oneand two-variable analysis, and display six different regression models.

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special feature

Experiencing

New Innovations in Education T

he Pearson chain of schools was established in 2008, with the aim of delivering world-class education at an affordable price. Pearson Schools manage, operate and build high quality schools that focus on quality control and standardisation. Started off with an ambitious target of having 100 schools within 5 years, today Pearson Schools is the fastest growing chain of schools in India, with over 27 schools in India and Nepal. Pearson School offer complete solutions to schools. Different schools in India using Pearson solutions share their experience with new innovative tools in education.

Saroja Rathnam , Principal, Amanora School, on use of modern teaching tools We at Amanora School believe that learning happens most naturally through developing, listening and visualising skills. Solutions from ICT are of great help in developing the cognitive aspects of the learner and hence learning happens most effectively with higher retention.

Judith Singh, Principal, Cambridge Public School, on digital teaching tools We are planning to add ICT boards, introduce tablets, implement Power School solution with the view of attaining the following objectives: • Guide my students to success, designing maximum activities for them to work on the topics as ‘class projects’ with ICT integration.

• Equip MATH lab with e-activities for enrichment.

• Encourage and exchange ideas with colleagues / teachers about ICT integration and quality of education.

• Students get connected to teachers via Skype / video talk or are able to discuss with experts wherever and whenever needed.

We use Edurite DigiClass, which is an interactive, ICT based classroom solution.

Ahanjith Chandra Routh, Principal, Pailan World School, on CCE model A learner with CCE model of assessment stands to benefit, as assessment is in fragments. CCE brings lot of transparency to the system of evaluating various students, and hence it is of great benefit.

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Prabha Balasubramaniam, Principal, Amara Jyothi Public School, Bangalore, on CCE system and assistive software We face challenges like lack of instructional tips, lack of support material, and creative aids.

Solutions from ICT provide teachers with excellent resources for creating their own lessons (stateCBSE-ICSE syllabus). These personal lessons can include mind mapping of concepts, introduction, previous knowledge links and animations from digital sources, drawings, pictures drawn on e-white board, interesting related facts, lesson notes with highlights, summary of the lesson, evaluation pages.

Rekha Shiralkar, Principal, Jnanasarovara International Residential School, Mysore, on training of teachers Working in a school managed by Pearson is a reward for us, as the teachers are given maximum support and encouragement. We are provided with excellent infrastructure, ICT resources, timely training and teacher development programmes and have ample opportunities to achieve the target of excellence in education.

special feature

“The Future Belongs to Personalised Education” Pearson Education Services aspires to seamlessly combine its international standards in education with India’s traditional methodologies, and bring to us teaching techniques that can propel education into a higher plane. Uma Shankar Vishvanath, President, Pearson Education Services Pvt Ltd, speaks to Pragya Gupta about the ways by which Pearson schools are re-inventing pedagogy What initiatives have been taken by your company to make optimal usage of technology? Please share the idea behind launching Pearson Schools in India?

Pearson schools have been launched in India with the aim of enabling majority of students to access quality education at an affordable price. One of the major concerns we found was when we enter into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities there is a dearth of branded schools offering quality education. There are many missionary institutions traditionally which have been there in lots of these towns, but there is no single large player in these markets. So we felt that we wanted to provide branded education at affordable price by leveraging the vast resources of Pearson. Looking at technology, as the price of technology keeps coming down, the usage will increase in education. We are focussed on ensuring that classroom learning will become better by use of technology.

What are the solutions offered at these schools?

We have considered a 360 degree development programme in these schools.

The common challenges that any school faces today is that of good quality teaching staff.

Perhaps teaching is not con-

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sidered a noble profession anymore. There is a need for making teaching an attractive profession. There are many regulations and restrictions, therefore many schools are not in position to pay high salaries to the teachers. As a school manager I have to ensure that good quality of learning is happening in my classroom. Today it is a trend that number of higher education institutes are not growing at a pace that is in tandem with the way the demand for these are growing and the world is becoming very competitive. As new courses arrive in the education sphere, parents have to condition their child to be better prepared on these upcoming topics and at the same time I have to reduce my dependency on good quality teachers that I am unable to avail toady. So, that is where technology and ICT play a key role.With use of technology, good content, animation, graphics, I am able to supply much better quality of education to the child. ICT and technology play a very key role.

As the cost of educational technology acceptance keeps coming down, the popularity of such solutions goes up.

Tell us about your tie-ups and partnership plans for Pearson Schools?

We are currently working with our own companies, including Edurite. All our classrooms are enabled using Digiclass solutions.

We also have Edxcel working with us, so our teacher training programme is currently certified by Edexcel. We also have a competency test on the use of IT that is accepted worldwide.

Is technology playing a role in re-inventing pedagogy?

Children today are getting more accustomed to the visual media.

There was a time when regular TV was not considered educational, however, with wide variety of educational content becoming available today on the TV and Internet, students are getting hooked to the screen. The methodology of teaching has to take into consideration the fact that content is now not limited to the confines of a teacher’s mind, ICT is leading to universalisation of content. A blended approach is best way forward, moderation and best-suited combination should be used. It depends on the teacher and how she uses it. The government itself is promoting tablets and promoting personalised learning. This will pave the way for teacher-independent learning and dependence on good teachers will come down.