Next Education Likely to Accumulate Rs. 150 Crore PE Funds

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June 18, 2012

With the objective of fostering its growth path, Next Education Pvt Ltd, education technology solution provider is planning to raise Rs. 150 crore funds through private equity this year.

Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education said, “We run on an up front-capital model where we invest 20 per cent equity and 80 per cent debt. We require Rs 150 crore as growth capital. Currently, we are under discussion with some PE firms but nothing has been finalised yet. It may happen during the July-October period this year’.

The company, which was started in 2007, has so far invested Rs 300 crore in research, content development and in rolling out its pan-India operations. It had risen the initial funding from Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of PartyGaming, and ranked among the 40 richest Indians according to Forbes Magazine.

Next Education offers innovative learning solutions for the K-12 segment across CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE and 23 other Indian state boards in eight languages. Its in-house developed products – TeachNext, LearnNext, NextStudio, NextLabs, and NextERP – cater to 7,000 schools across the country.

“We target to reach 10,000 schools over the next three years. Currently, more than 30,000 students use our LearnNext, and another 10,000 students are expected to be added this year,” he said.

The company has implemented TeachNext in over 4,000 classrooms across India.Currently, there are roughly 75,000 private schools in the country, and the number is growing at 30-40 per cent year-on-year.

“The adoption of digital curriculum has hugely taken off across private schools in the last three-four years. Being an end-to-end solutions provider, we are seeing a good market opportunity in this segment,” Ralhan said.

The company has grown 200 per cent over last year, and expects to grow at around 40 per cent in the coming years, according to him.

Next Education, in association with 500 technology and educational professionals, has created 10,000 learning modules that account for more than 1,000 hours of classroom teaching in the K12 segment.

“The next focus area is on how to provide talent management and how to transform hobbies into education and bring it to the learning,” he said, adding that Next Education had plans to tap more schools, bring new products and explore opportunities in CBSE schools in the African region.

AICTE Agrees Upon Closure of 50 Institutes More

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June 18, 2012

In response to several technical education institutes for closure, the AICTE has decided to close down 50 more institutes recently.

There has been an over six-fold increase in the number of technical institutes across the country which have got approval of the All India Council for Technical Education to shut down since April. In its previous meeting, the AICTE had okayed the closure of 44 institutes, taking the total to 51 at present. This includes around 32 management institutes and the remaining are engineering and MCA institutes, said AICTE Chairman S S Mantha. In the first phase, seven institutes had received the Council’s nod for closure.

“We will have another meeting of the AICTE soon and the numbers are expected increase further. In all, 138 institutes had requested for closure,” said Mantha.

Over the past few years, several states have been struggling with massive vacancies at its engineering and management institutes. This year, AICTE had received applications for permission for closure from 138 institutes and the reason cited was low admission rates. Prominent among them were states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Among the institutes that have been given the go-ahead in the second phase, five are in Maharashtra and a large chunk is from Andhra Pradesh.

Academicians said only institutes with a robust academic life, flexible curriculum in sync with the changing market needs, quality faculty and good industry interaction or collaboration, would be able to survive current market dynamics.

CBSE Introduces English Classics

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June 18, 2012

To encourage reading habits among students, the CBSE has brought a very good initiative to introduce English classics. The board has introduced English classics from classes IX to XII in its schools from the academic session 2012-13.

According to Vineet Joshi, chairman, CBSE, the Board constantly encourages schools to provide multi-fold learning experiences to young children. “Good reading habits help children to acquire the power of imagination, expression and appreciation of literature. Though all the skills of gaining proficiency in a language are equally important, nevertheless, reading habit helps tremendously in improving comprehension, accuracy, fluency and in increasing vocabulary. Reading provokes questioning, helps in generating ideas and inspires students to think. It also supports the syllabus in diverse ways by enhancing language competence across the curriculum.”

Strengthening of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) has added further impetus in fostering interest in children to read books. As part of the formative assessment in CCE, schools are being advised to take up ‘Reading Projects.’ Schools have also been encouraged to use multiple modes of assessment such as conducting reviews, script, reading, etc.

“The board prescribes a multi-cultural and technology enabled pedagogical approach in all the languages offered by it. In this process, incorporating all the four skills — reading, writing, listening and speaking — in the curriculum prescribed by the board has placed an equitable emphasis on essential skills of English language. CBSE recommends that reading skill should be fostered in children to make them better orators, autonomous learners as well as critical and creative thinkers,” adds Joshi.

“Every school has finalised one classic for students to read. Students will be evaluated continuously under CCE for the reading skills. At the end of the session, their marks on reading skills will be totalled in their final marks,” informs Prabha Sharma, assistant to English consultant, CBSE.

Nagpur CBSE Schools to Clear RTE Doubts

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June 18, 2012

In a recently held meeting, Nagpur CBSE schools have decided to send admission related details to the state education department by June 18 and reopen admissions for standard one, two days after that.

Almost all CBSE schools will start distributing admission forms from June 20 to meet provisions as mandated under the Right to Education (RTE).

City principals were briefed about the RTE modalities by Annapurni Shastri, principal, Bhavan’s Wathoda branch as she was in touch with the state education department.

The meeting was held under the banner of Nagpur Sahodaya Schools Complex (NSSC), the CBSE schools’ association, and was attended by 23 principals as some were not in city. Reena Dargan, secretary of NSSC and principal of Ira International, said, “We have members from other districts as well but their presence was not needed in this meeting and we wrote to them saying they should communicate directly with their respective education offices regarding details of implementing the RTE. In Nagpur, we all have decided to follow the Common Programme given by the deputy director of education’s office and reopen admissions from June 20.”

Educational Mobile Apps from Redbytes

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June 18, 2012

The 39 years old Pune based Altaf Rehmani, founder of Redbytes is making learning fun for kids. His venture Redbytes offers educational applications from mobile devices which cater to kids in the age group of two-six.

Redbytes is hoping to revolutionise the way children start out their educational years.

Nothing prepares us for success like failure. Third time lucky, Altaf Rehmani returned to India from Hong Kong in 2009 to start Redbytes Software. With 15 years of corporate experience under his belt, Altaf started Redbytes after tough lessons learnt from previous ventures like ushops, an online market place and a testapart.com, an online website for technical testing. Not one to give up, Rehmani zeroed in on the idea of making learning fun for kids using interacted mobile educational applications.

Rehmani says, “We are big believers in early education. Also, we know that by research, a lot of brain developments take place in the first five years of a child’s growth. Three, we were all inspired by our own kids growing up with these new generation of devices. For example, I was just amazed at how my two-year old daughter could quickly use the ipad, navigate through the ipad and really learn through what the apps had to offer on that device. Within a span of six months, she started teaching her mom, she started teaching her grandmother how to use and navigate these apps. So, it was simply amazing how quickly kids learn through these devices. And that really inspired us to turn the entire company around and start doing mobile application for kids.”

And kids are keen to bite into Rehmani’s idea and curious about how it works. Redbytes has developed more than 28 educational apps across iOS and Android platforms and claims to have recorded more than 80,000 downloads.

Redbytes helps kids colour and draw, have fun with numbers, learn about animals and nature and understand the world around them.

Rehmani says, “We are one of the very few companies who are focused in creating a complete curriculum for toddlers. There are over 30,000 apps in the app-store, but very few companies are doing the kind of curriculum that we are doing. That’s first and foremost very unique to us. Secondly, we are trying to get the concept of games and educational learning into our apps. So, what we are trying to do is really make education fun by making it more interactive so that the child is truly engaged while using our apps.”

Redbytes makes most of its money from the sale of its apps like ikids, a program in which Redbytes partners with schools to create customised content for mobiles. With a large chunk of business coming in from schools and Middle East, Altaf has managed to clock revenues of around Rs 60 lakh annually. He is confident of breaking even in six months.

Rehmani says, “We generate revenue from our apps which we sell in the app-stores worldwide. We also work with international publishers where we take their content and package their content so that it becomes monetisable on the mobile platform. We also partner and tie-up with device manufacturer. So, there are number of players in India and abroad who are selling mobile tablets out in the market. We are partnering with some of these names, with some of these companies and trying to pre-package our content onto their devices. That is also a fantastic distribution and marketing channel for us.”

Inspired by his kids, Rehmani uses his experience as a dad to refine Redbytes offering and stay ahead in the game. With an eye on growth, he is keen to team up with international publishers to give Redbytes access to newer markets.

Himachal Pradesh to Tie Up with Indonesia in Education, Agriculture & Tourism Sector

Higher Education

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June 18, 2012

Indonesian ambassador Andi Muhammad Galib has said his country is willing to foster the bilateral trade with India and wants to seek opportunities in education, agriculture, horticulture and tourism sector.

They are targeting to raise the bilateral trade from $25 to $ 45 billion by 2015.

Ghalib said that with a lot of area in Indonesia being a mountainous region, experience in agriculture and horticulture practices along with tourism could be shared.

He said that though Indonesia had made much progress in education sector but a stronger tie up with India could help in giving larger opportunities of higher education to Indonesian scholars as it education was very costly in western countries.

After China, US and Japan, India is Indonesia’s fourth largest trading partner with bilateral trade now touching $ 22 billion.

By 2015 it is targeted to grow to $ 45 billion that has been upward revised from the earlier $ 25 billion and in times to come India could emerge as the largest trading partner, he said.

With Indian power companies which include Tata’s Reliance and Adani entering Indonesia’s mining sector in a big way, the current balance of trade in against India.

More than 150 Indian companies are expected to participate in the Jakarta International Trade Fair in October, said Ghalib.

To provide better connectivity among the over 18000 islands that constitute the Indonesia archipelago, our government has drawn up plans to construct 240 airports and only two are being constructed, said the ambassador as he invited infrastructure companies to avail the opportunity.

Other than the mining sector, there was tremendous potential for oil exploration in the area. India also happens be the largest importer of crude palm oil from Indonesia, he added.

To increase higher education opportunities for students from Indonesia, vice chancellor of HPU (Himachal Pradesh University) ADN Bajpai sought opening of a joint study center with Indonesian ambassador Andi Mohammad Ghalib, who had called on the academician on Friday.

Bajpai let the ambassador know that that HPU had potential in bio-sciences, bio-technology, bio-informatics, IT, management, languages, social sciences, Yoga and tourism faculties to take in students from Indonesia.

The visiting ambassador was accompanied by education attaché Son Kuswadi.

Bihar State Government Seeks Ideas from Kamal

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June 18, 2012

In an attempt to boost the education sector of Bihar, India the state government has turned to former President APJ Abdul Kalam for his valuable suggestions for further development of the education sector. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said that he would send a team to Kalam in near future for his suggestions.

Kalam, who arrived on a two-day visit of the state on Thursday night, met Nitish over lunch at the CM’s house on Friday, where other dignitaries of the state were also present. The former President took keen interest in education and research work in the state and also gave his precious suggestions for the establishment of a Science City in Patna.

He also attended a function of Netaji Subash Institute of Technology (NSIT) at Bihta in Patna district. MM Singh, member-secretary, NSIT, said, “We are highly delighted and excited to have Kalam’s suggestions for a better educational infrastructure.”

While attending a programme, “What can I give”, organized by the Gulzar Group of Institutes here, Kalam told the students, “I am born with potential, ideas, confidence and wings. I was not born to crawl. Everyone should believe in his ability to achieve his goal.”

The students promised the former President that they would always make their parents happy. “If parents are happy, the home is happy. Happy homes make a happy society,” the visionary said. He even asked the young minds to dare stop their parents from taking corrupt ways of living. “We all know the society is corrupted but we hardly dig into our own house to find out the guilt. But if the country has 60 million corrupt citizens, a few of them must belong to us,” Kalam said.

Technology in Education – Are we on the right track?

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June 17, 2012

Lack of clear-cut policies on technology in education often makes the domain incoherent. The projects that are successful seem to small bits of a complex jigsaw puzzle being identified. With the advent of educational technologies to create new, interactive learning environments and tools, several good practices are emerging. These innovative projects seek to understand the mechanisms that lead to better teaching and learning. However what is needed is to systematically study and rigorously evaluate the outcomes of technology-supported educational innovations. Through frank and free sharing of the lessons and the challenges faced in implementing these technology in education projects in workshops and conferences, which Digital Learning magazine and the Digital Learning India 2006 facilitates, key recommendations and reports can be produced that can have impact for education leaders.

Often Technology in education remains narrowly focussed on IT training in education, and use of multi-media or ICTs for education and learning. There is a critical and very important aspect of educational management too where ICTs have proved to be effective, and can be used as an entry point for creating awareness among the teachers and administrators for introducing ICTs. Bearing in mind the need to prepare societies to a knowledge economy, there is a need to facilitate rapid change processes, particularly in developing countries. Some key questions that must be borne in mind are: Should technologies enable learning? Should they be geared to imparting practical and livelihood creating skills? Or, should the students be given the chance to explore the applications out of their course and study the topics of their interests? Introducing technology in education is not without constraints.

The technologies become redundant too quickly, and hence, when designing curriculum for training or while developing e-Learning software, this aspect needs to be borne in mind. High infrastructure and maintenance costs are the second set of constraints. To help the schools and educational institutions to introduce technology in education programmes, the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) has developed the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) calculator tool, which enables 10-year horizon planning of full costs. It is a comprehensive framework for anticipating costs, benefits, and feasibility of technology options for educators. It also has a step-by-step guide to enable them to select appropriate technology solutions. The private sector players in the digital learning ecosystem have a great opportunity to showcase their products to be assessed through such tools as TCO calculator and be adopted in a fast track mode, without compromising on the goal of building the human resources for a knowledge economy.

Madras High Court Restrains Two Schools from Charging Excess Fees

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June 16, 2012

The Madras High Court has restrained two Anglo-Indian schools from charging excess fees. The court has granted an order of interim injunction, restraining two Anglo-Indian schools from demanding fees exceeding the amount fixed by the Inspector of Anglo-Indian Schools, and also from discriminating among the students.

Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar gave the order for two weeks to the Doveton Boys’ Higher Secondary School and Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Vepery, in response to a petition filed by the Doveton Group of Schools Students-Parents Welfare Association and two others.

The petitioners said the schools started discriminating between students who have paid the fee as demanded by the correspondents and those who had not.

“On June 1, our children were made to sit on the floor when other students who have paid the fee fixed by the schools were seated at their tables. In fact on the same day, our children were locked inside a room and when we came to know this, we informed the police,” the petitioners said.

“It was only after the intervention of police that the lock was opened. The children are mentally affected by the action of the school. Some of our children fear to go to school,” they added.

Parents said they had received a communication stating that if the arrears of fees for the last academic year were not paid on June 15, the student would not be allowed inside the school premises. Such action by the school’s correspondents was contrary to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, they said.

Hence the parents had approached the court to restrain the schools’ managements.

SIET Wins Accolades for Developing Digital Learning Projects

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June 16, 2012

Kerela’ ICT based education model has been winning accolades in the country. As the Central Advisory Board of Education has decided to adopt Kerala’s Information Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled education as a base model for other boards in the country

It is celebration time for e-content developers of two premier information and communication technology development agencies working in the field of school education funded by the State Government.

Their efforts have been identified as among the best in the country by the Union human resources ministry.

This clearly indicates that the ICT initiatives of the State are well ahead of other states.

Digital learning projects developed by the State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET) and IT@school have been lauded by different wings of the MHRD ministry.

The concept of dynamic e-textbooks developed by SIET has been approved by the Information and Communication Technology Project Monitoring group of the Union HRD ministry.

The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) has decided to adopt Kerala’s Information Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled education as a base model for other boards in the country by including it in the national ICT policy on education.

The CBSE and ICSE streams will also have to follow this model once this becomes part of the National Policy.

The decision was based on the report of the subcommittee on National ICT Policy for Education recommending the Kerala model as the base model.

Former executive director of IT@school, K Anvar Sadath, who was the special invitee to the sittings of the sub-committee, told Deccan Chronicle that the committee viewed the major advantages of Kerala’s ICT-enabled model to be its decision to empower existing teachers to handle ICT instead of bringing outside IT experts to schools to handle Computer Science; use of free and open source software; the emphasis on academic perspective; and cost effectiveness.

While most states outsourced digital content through private vendors under the build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) model, Kerala prepared its own digital content through Collaborative Content Development practices, Mr Sadath said.

SIET director Babu Sebastian said that in the first stage the textbook will be made available on the web portal of SIET.

At a later stage there are plans to provide the text books to computers provided to schools by the government.

The advantage of the dynamic e-text is that children can download the material from the e-textbook directly to a personal computer, laptop, mobile phone, or i-pad.

Tools like text, audio, video, graphics and animation will be used in the dynamic e-text book which is now in the final stages of development, said Mr Sebastian.

Using the e-text books students can listen to different topics using the ‘voice-over-text’ facility. It also uses animation sequences to explain scientific concepts and terms.

The textbooks will be designed in such a way that they are directly linked to dictionaries and an encyclopaedia, Dr Sebastian said.

Another specialty of the text is that it will have interactive tests at the end of each chapter. These tests will also be in the form of games, to sustain the interest of children in the topics they learn.

One of the attractions of such interactive test is that it uses sound effects and video clippings, he said.

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