September 10, 2012

R P Sissodia,
Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education,
Ministry of Human Resource

Now, the government also believes that innovation is the latest currency of economic power

The challenges that India faces, today, are unique to the world. Huge divide exists in different parts of the country in terms of GER, and quality, etc. For instance, on the one hand there is 50 percent GER in regular urbanised group, while on the other, in remote areas there is a no question of GER as there are no institutions. Similarly, we have IITs which are accepted worldwide for employment; but on the flip side we have colleges and schools that do not have basic facilities. There is an urgent need to reconcile these disparities.
There is a pre-conceived notion that inclusion can only be attained at the expense quality. Excellence and strategies of bringing equity and inclusion have to compromise with quality. While we aim to achieve excellence but it should not be at the cost of the rural student, who does not have access to resources. These are formidable challenges, which need to be overcome.
Today India has become land of destination. Many foreign universities are setting up campuses in India. Again there is a policy dilemma on granting permission on the set up of foreign universities in India.
Further, as far as research and development and innovations are concerned, this decade has been declared as the decade of innovation. Now, the government also believes that innovation is the latest currency of economic power. India will become an emerging superpower if it really exploits the potential that exists. India would be the world leader in research and development and innovation. In ICT, there are a lot of approaches that the government is adopting and. ICT is certainly one of the most important and crucial factors that add to quality. We must utilise the ICT tools that are available at our command and ensure that the education sector utilises ICT solutions. However, it is also important to note that ICT or eLearning is not a substitute or replacement of quality classroom learning. It only enhances the teaching-learning process and supplements the quality. It does not supplant the whole education system.

Indian Talent Shoud not go Waste

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digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

N K Sinha,
Additional Secretary (TEL), Technical Education, Department of Secondary & Higher

The huge information gap between the employers and students needs to be bridged

We are deliberating on excellence, inclusion and outreach to arrive at strategies for steering the education sector. But what other improvements can we make once the targets related to Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) are achieved?
The fact is that unless quality of the higher education is enhanced, gains from higher GER will be rather limited. So how do we tackle these problems?
In 2009, a sum of one billion dollars was sanctioned for the National Mission on Education through ICT. The aim of the mission was to look at those who cannot be a part of the inclusion even through the digital resource.
Low cost access to devices is given to students who lack the financial resources for procuring them on their own. The government of India also has something similar to Coursera that many of us have not even heard of. The National Program on Technology Enhance and Learning (NPTEL) has 1, 200 semester courses across various engineering disciplines. Professors from Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Science and various other engineering colleges have developed the content. We have been doing our silent contribution using Indian tax payers’ money. SHAKSHAT portals are providing free educational content to everyone.
The cardinal principle of National Mission on Education through ICT is to provide free content to every learner and to see that Indian talent does not go waste. To ensure efficient learning, we strive to integrate efficient pedagogy and outcome-based learning into the contents.
We want to give our students (in higher education domain) a plethora of choices of learning various subject modules. We need to motivate them through continuous evaluation. Once talent has been identified in a particular area, the students have to be handed over to special mentor groups for further training.

Technology can Serve Millions

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digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

Sandeep Aneja,
Managing Director, Kaizen Private Equity

The huge information gap between the employers and students needs to be bridged

Education is revolutionising very fast. We have achieved a lot, and we can achieve even more by embracing technology in education. It is understood that most people don’t understand technology or don’t have access to it. However, the growth in companies in India that provide test, tutoring and other online services is mindboggling to us as investors.
India can not only catch up with the Western world, it can even beat the advanced countries in the digital space. For instance, there is a company called Coursera in which Stanford Professors have uploaded a lot of their courses online and made them entirely free. Hundreds and thousands of students signed up. If you take the same course in a normal brick and mortar university, it will take you decades to serve that many students. With digital technology, you can serve a hundred thousand students in a matter of hours.
An online course like that of Coursera allows one to not only test the attitude of a student, but also test their analytical ability by monitoring the pace at which one is learning.
About a million students pass out from engineering colleges and IITs each year. 85 percent of them wait for 9 to 10 months to bag a job. On the other hand, employers are also in search for employable talent. There are jobs. There are people. But there is huge information gap between employers and students. This gap needs to be bridged as soon as possible.
It is time for us to embrace the global digital revolution in education and catch up with the rest of the world. And India has a chance to not only catch up, but also beat the world in that space. We have to take the digital path, because India cannot afford to build enough brick and mortar institutions.

Addressing Quality in Education

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digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

Ashok Thakur,
Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

We have overtaken USA, when it comes to number of students in higher education

This year is very crucial in terms of planning our next five years. As the 12th five year plan is being implemented, we must also look back at the experiences of the 11th five year plan. Our ministry conducted a higher education survey, which was the first ever institution based survey, in which we got data from almost 400 universities.
We have information on almost about 30 percent of the 30,000 odd colleges. Based on that, we conclude that we are on course as far as GER is concerned. Now we can say that we have overtaken USA in terms of number of students in higher education sector. USA has 19.5 million students in higher education; whereas India has already crossed the 20 million mark. China is the number one.
India’s achievement of this milestone, primarily was possible because of the rate at which our economy was growing. There was demand for jobs and students opted to go. However, the not so glamorous part is that the quality of most graduates and engineers we produce is poor. So all our efforts in the 12th five year plan by and large will go towards addressing the issue of quality. We spend about three per cent of our GDP whereas it should ideally be about six percent. Out of this 1.12 percent we spend on higher education, the target should be more than 1.50 percent.
The 11th five year plan recorded a nine times increase in the budget allocation, something that was never done before. We made eight more IITs on the top of the existing seven, we made seven more IIMs against the six IIMs that we already have. In the 12th five year plan, we need to build up on this value. To address faculty development we have to propose a national teachers’ mission and we plan to spend the sizeable amount of money on it. Sixth pay commission has greatly improved the salary of the teaching community.
As a whole, we now want to build further on that and while doing this we will engage all the institutions, we intend to engage not only the premier institutions like IITs, IIMs, but all the universities.

Inclusion and Excellence Should Go Hand in Hand

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digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

B K Chaturvedi,
Member, Planning Commission

On the inclusion part, we have 19 percent of outreach in higher education

India faces massive challenges regarding inclusion and outreach. In North-East, there are more than 60 percent of the teachers are untrained. We started digital courses and teacher training programmes in partnership with IGNOU and other agencies to address this huge degree of untrained teachers. These initiatives need expansion with infrastructure and capacity.
On the inclusion part, we have 19 percent of outreach in higher education. However, developed countries have 30-35 percent. Need for ICT and various courses are very critical. It cannot be also denied that having learnt these courses, still there is a need for good teachers, and good supplementation.
It is very important that we have an access to many of the journals for free and that can be provided centrally. Today, eBooks and journals can be proved as a strong way to expand the horizon of education. Therefore, knowledge about these journals is very important.
With respect to school education there is a huge challenge of GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio), which we have been trying to address. In every state, there is a huge number of out of school children. For them, ICT is not the solution as it is a question of financial resource and their challenges are of different nature. These challenges should be addressed differently and they should be brought under the ambit of formal education.
At the same time, it is also important to improve the quality of education. That part is a massive causality today. In our enthusiasm of expanding the outreach, we have opened large number of technical and engineering colleges. But excellence, inclusion and outreach in many of these institutions, the equipment, labs, and other facilities are temporary in nature and also the teachers. This is a great cause of worry. We have to expand, but simultaneously keep an eye on these institutions.
Today, ICT has become a very crucial component. More and more books are available in the ‘e’ form. The department should make it as easily accessible as possible. So that more and more people are able to use this knowledge.

Future Belongs to People with Original Ideas

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digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

Dr Narendra Jadhav,
Member, Planning Commission, Government of India

Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development

A plethora of untapped opportunities stare back at our faces from every direction. It is pretty clear to most of us that India and many other developing countries are grossly under-invested in education. This will matter enormously as human numbers and appetites crest in the next few decades.
Due to rapid transformation in school education, changing the patterns of teaching and learning have become a primary need. In today’s highly competitive world, children have to be endowed with the ability of developing original ideas. The educational process must facilitate and encourage such students. The future belongs to those who have original ideas.
Ideas and innovations, it is said emerge not out of luck but out of mankind’s need. Be it the wheel, Facebook, Hotmail or the cell phone, each and every innovation that we take for granted in our life has begun its journey with the identification of a particular need in the society.
Teachers and school leaders, who bravely grasp emerging opportunities, will be able to re-imagine their teaching methodologies and will be in a better position to serve their pupils. However, we have not prepared ourselves for the rate of change or the consequences of change.

India’s demographic dividend
Much has been said recently about India’s demographic dividend. The fact is that a vast majority of our country’s population is in the age bracket of 15 to 34 years. High number of youth means that the country can grow more rapidly, than most other countries, including China.
China, because of its ‘one-child’ policy over the past several decades will soon begin ageing and, as a result the country might become less competitive. In the next 10 years, the nature of education will change. People across the globe are communicating with each other seamlessly, universities are collaborating digitally. Due to the Internet, now there is no territorial boundaries to hold back the mind. We are working on the concept of a meta-university, which should hopefully be in place in the next academic session.
When India’s average age is about twenty nine in the year 2020, the average age of the rest of the world particularly the developed country would be much higher. For instance, in USA the average age will be 36 years in 2020. In China, the average age will be 37 years by the year 2020, the average age of western Europe will be 42 years and the average age of Japan will be 48 years. It is obvious that India has a tremendous advantage in terms of having large and growing young population. In the age group of 10 to 35 years, we have 563 million people, and in the age group of 10 to 19 years, we have 225 million people.

The anomaly of jobless growth
The ‘talent gap’ explains the anomaly of rising growth and relatively lesser amount of fall in employment. But there is another factor that might be behind this slowing rate of employment. This factor might have something to do with the system of contract employment in our factories. The use of temporary labour is taking a toll on regular fixed employment.
Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. For the economy to grow at 8 to 9 percent, it is required that the secondary and tertiary sectors grow at 10 percent to 11 percent, assuming agriculture grows at 4 percent. In such a scenario, it is obvious that a large portion of the workforce will migrate from the primary sector (agriculture) to the secondary and tertiary sectors.

India’s Education Goals, Developments and Achievements

Magazine

September 10, 2012

Shigeru Aoyagi

Shigeru Aoyagi,
Director and UNESCO Representative to India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka

The issue of gender equality in education is not being adequately addressed

UNESCO is dedicated to pursuing the goal of promoting education amongst every section of the society. The organisation is as focussed in India as in other parts of the globe. In India there are as many as 300 million people who cannot read and write and yet we are discussing ICT, access to the computer, mobile phones and the high budget gadgets. For the progress of education it is important that we have a sustainable development programme, which can enable larger sections of the population to pursue quality education. The education for sustainable development will end in the year 2014 and ‘Education for all’, which is a Millennium Development Goal to be achieved by 2015. Looking at these deadlines and obligations, UNESCO has organised a very interesting regional meeting to reflect on the status of ‘Education for All’ programme.
Many reflections and deliberations were held to access the shape of education in the coming years especially by the year 2015 and further on. One of the most interesting discussions had to do with how we can utilise ICT for education. The second important discussion was on non-formalisation of formal education. India, for instance, enjoys a high enrolment ratio of 97 percent, but the retention rate is only 69 percent. This means that more than 30 percent of the enrolled kids will become drop-outs. Why? It was discussed that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor when it comes to addressing this drop-out issue and the low attendance ratio.
The universalisation of primary education in India will be completely achieved by the end of 2015. However, the issue of gender equality in education is not being adequately addressed. The education system has only 0.87 percent of girls against boys. These are major challenges that need to be addressed in order to bring about advancements in the education system in the country.

Future developments
Shri Kapil Sibal, the Honourable Minister in Indian Government, and Irina Bokova, the Director General UNESCO, have signed an agreement on 9th July 2012, to establish a new UNESCO institute in Delhi. This institute will be named Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. Education for peace and sustainable development will be a very critical area for education in the coming years. In Sri Lanka, a ten year National Action Plan for education for sustainable development has been launched. All these encouraging events are addressing the requirements of the future generation.
India will also organise, chair and host a meet by inviting the ministers from 9 countries to debate and reflect on what kind of tasks are required for fulfilling ‘Education for All’ goals. The theme of this ‘E9 ministerial meeting’, which will have representatives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Sri Lanka and others, is ‘Inclusive Quality Education’. Prof Mantha talked about National Qualification Framework for Vocational Training which is in line with non-formalisation of formal education system and addresses the learners’ needs in terms of place, time and pace. This flexibility will be one of the key factors that can lead to a paradigm shift in education.
Improvements in education system need not only the efforts from supplier’s side, it also needs a thorough study of the needs and demands of the market. The bottom line is that the approach which is focused on delivering learner-oriented and need based learning will give most beneficent outcomes as far as the agenda of furthering education is concerned.

Sri Lanka is Set to Become a Global Education Hub

digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

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

Young population needs to be endowed with knowledge of Modern Science

We have the vision to turn Sri Lanka into Asia’s hub of cost effective and quality education. The people of the country, and its leaders understand very well, that without comprehensive knowledge in every vertical, the country will be unable to achieve its long term development goals. The key to prosperity lies in human capital development, and higher education plays a bigger role.

Improving the quality of graduates
Sri Lanka intends to have top-class higher education institutes, which are devoted to enriching society by producing a long line of highly educated graduates. The universities must have understanding of the needs of the global industry to inculcate the job winning skills in their graduates. Currently, the country is working on a mission of upgrading 7 out of its 15 universities into world class universities. We also aim to come up with educational policies to ensure that 100 percent of the graduates are employable.

Most important skills
The most important skills and capabilities required while recruiting new graduates are communication skills, team work, integrity, intellectual ability and confidence. While the students are being taught in the college, it is also important to incorporate these skills in them. A programme of leadership skill development has been introduced at certain universities, under which the students are given three weeks of training to mould their mindsets and inculcate in them leadership skills and other skills.
To improve IT and communication skills, English and IT training is given to all students before they enter the university. A professional graduate programme has been introduced wherein students doing their graduation can obtain professional qualifications like accounting, smart chartered, marketing or human resource management, etc. while they are completing their graduation in the university itself. To develop globally accepted graduates, we have introduced a KSAM model. KSAM stands for Knowledge, Skills, Attitude and Mindset.

Bringing Diversity to the Classroom

digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

Dr Pascal Chazot,
Member of Parliament in France for French Overseas; President,
National Commission of Employment and Training, France

Diversity in the classroom is the best possible asset

In 1988, I had spent a day in Paris with a very famous director Steven Spielberg. He wanted to persue a course in cinema and prepare for his Bachelors. But the University found that he was not qualified enough for that course. And now after 25 years, the same university has awarded him an honorary degree in cinematography. This clearly shows how the education system runs. So basically the problem is total inadequacy between the real world and the education system. We have to change the system, to make it good enough for the needs of the real world. Because we are basically looking at human beings, and through education we are contributing to society, to a human world.

Components of change
When we say that we need to change, what are the main components of this change? Basically when you talk about education, often we look at the big picture, the numbers and the figures are important especially in India, where we have hundreds of millions of students. However, instead of looking at large masses, we have to distil education down to one human being, one child who has grown around the years. To understand education, we should really remember this child, and do everything possible for this child. As far as I am concerned, I consider that education is what is happening in the classroom, the methodology, the relationship between the teacher and the child. This is very important. And it goes through from preprimary level to the high school level. I think that is the most important factor because basically we are looking at the development of human being.
Textbooks, memorising, and content centric education are totally obsolete in today’s context. Content is available in any of the instruments like iPad, tablets of other make or mobile phone. You have all the contents that you need for your work. I don’t think you need to memorise anything. There is some other knowledge, which is much more important. There is knowledge that helps us develop the skill, the one that allows us to grow, to succeed in life and basically be happy in life. So that is why when we look at necessary change in education, we look at the change in methodology, the change in the pedagogy, on what is happening inside the classroom.

Learning can be easy
I have spent lots of time trying to teach my cat to speak French, it never spoke French. But to my daughter I never taught anything, but she learnt Hindi, because we are in India, she learnt Gujarati, she also learnt French, because I talk to her in French, she learnt English, because we are communicating in English. So we need education that is exponential, we need education that is useful.
The system has to change, we need to find solution. The immensity of the problem needs immensity of solution. In order to progress, we need to have contradiction, debate, different ideas and that is why we need diversity. Diversity in the classroom is the biggest possible asset in education. It was a crazy idea back in 1998; today in 2012, it has become a national reality. Right to Education has been voted by both the houses of the Indian Parliament and it is progressing slowly because there is lot of resistance, but the idea is going on. And I think that was a very important step ahead.
Creating lot of networks, collaboration is very important. In my work in the National Commission of Employment and Training, travelling is extensive. We have to also look at this possibility of exchange between different countries, different communities, different paths, accepting the different systems of education, giving value to them. I think sharing, collaboration and putting networks into place are the key to holistic development.

Innovation Central

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

September 10, 2012

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

With panchayats playing a significant role in education, there is strengthening of democracy in the country

The education policy in this country stands on three pillars – access, inclusiveness and the quality. In my concerned view, technology could play a very major role in meeting the challenges on all these fronts. The 12th Five-Year Plan envisages to promote several projects that will maximise the potential of access, equity and quality in our education system.
There were only 20 universities and 500 colleges with 0.1 million students when India gained independence. Now, we have 611 universities and university level institutions and 31,324 colleges as on August 2011 making it one of the largest education systems of India. We have also been devoted to ensuring that even the deprived sections of the society are able to reap the benefits of higher education.
The Right to Education Act, which binds the State governments to provide school in every neighbourhood has now become a major force in helping us tackle the issue of access to quality education.
De-centralisation has been opted as the best possible method for effective implementation of this Act. Being consistent to the 73rd and the 74th amendments of the Constitution of India, the Panchayats have now been given the responsibility of managing the school system. As decided, the school management committee shall comprise of 75 percent of local community members. Today it is the state governments are supposed to provide most of the funding needed for education. Since independence, it is the central government that has assumed the cost of educational development through the system of Five Year Plans.
Education is vital for human resource development and empowerment. While the Government is committed to providing primary education and certain facilities/subsidies for higher education, given the higher cost involved in the establishment of higher education institutes, we are witnessing the entry of private sector to run educational institutions.
The immediate task is to find the solutions for teacher availability, especially in the rural areas and to fill in the gap of five lakh teachers that the country is in need of. Technology can play an extremely enabling role in providing access to mentors all over the world.
Similar challenges exist in the higher education sector also. According to a report presented to UN by the UGC, India currently has only half of the required strength of faculty for higher education. It needs around 3 lakh more professors. The Indian Institutes ofTechnology and the National Institutes of Technology face faculty shortage of 30-35 percent. The central universities face at least 30 percent shortage of teachers.
To meet these challenges, the Government of India has proposed to launch a National Mission on Teachers. This mission will address comprehensively all issues related to teachers’ training, teachers’ preparation and the professional development. This will be the major thrust area of action during the 12th Five-Year Plan.
In the past couple of years many colleges and universities have been actively engaged in integrating technology in teaching and learning. The institutions must make necessary human and financial investments, as well as faculty investments for existing and future faculty. When it comes to new technology, there are challenges galore. The teachers who are used to traditional teaching methodologies have to be trained to use the new system. But new educational technologies are the wave of the future, and it is in our best interests to imbibe it to the fullest extent.

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