Takers Take it Online

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February 1, 2011

With the advent of Online Examinations, the nexgen procedures have been found to be more secured, uninhibited by the data loss possibility, resulting in unbiased evaluations

By Jaydeep Saha

Ten-years back an exam without pen, pencil and paper would have been absolutely beyond belief. But for the Facebook generation, who wake up by checking their mails, Google for verifying the time and go bed by Tweeting 'good night', the old system of pen and paper is definitely not going to work. However, today, by virtue of online examination, the old system has become almost obsolete. Thanks to our outstanding advancement in IT and software, online examinations have made the entire examination process not only hassle-free but also accessible to all. In an online examination system a student answers all exam queries through his computer and later submits them to the organisation taking the online examination. These answers are then evaluated by examination software which already has the answers to the questions fed into its system. The answers are checked and scored instantly thus saving a lot of time which is usually spent by the professors in reading and checking the answers one after the other.

Globalisation has opened the gates of success for millions across the world. People today are not just competing with strong challengers from the same state, but with the best people from across the world through the use of new online examination system.

Moreover, several other features make online exams well-accepted by the student fraternity. The first and foremost issue with the students is always the time factor to which e-exams come as a relief where answering is just a matter of click. Other factors are that no physical presence is needed for taking the test as starting and completion time are both recorded by the server and cannot be manipulated. Online exams are flexible, involve auto-grading, no wastage of time during evaluation, instant availability of results and are totally secured (beware of hackers though!).

How do Online Exams work?

Online exams are basically software based. Just the way in an exam department, various people are given different tasks and duties like enrolling students, managing the questions papers, checking answer scripts etc. Examination software also have various working units or components called modules. There can be various modules such as the student details modules, authorization module, subject and question management system, examination paper management, examination evaluation module and finally the result generation module.

This online exam system is ideal for multiple choice questions and other derivative questions. For every question asked, the student needs to select the right answer provided from the given choices. Once the questions are answered and then submitted to the examination system, the software will score the student after analysing his answers with the ones already fed into its system. After the evaluation is performed, the result of the examination is also generated by the system based on its scoring method. The generated result comprising the students score, time taken for the exam to be completed and the number of students passing through the examination is then sent to the student within minutes of the examination.

Online examination in India

For a country like India, e-examination is a great way to cover spread and reach to the masses. In addition e-examination brings in quality and efficiency to the process of conducting exams. In the near future we are going to see many exams converting into an online format, the initial ones would be the competitive objective type followed by others.

It is important that students get used to some practice of manoeuvring mouse, keyboard controls to focus more on solving the questions at hand than worrying about the technology side of things. If a student is exposed to few online mock exams which can simulate a real exam scenario, he or she can become efficient in no time. Technology is increasingly becoming apart of the learning process and, in a natural progression, has entered the testing and evaluation area as well. Increase in computer usage has accelerated the process and made it possible for e-examinations to be carried out not only in Tier 1 cities but in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well.

A student from India can today take examinations in the US, thus competing with other global competitors from across the entire world through the new web based exam systems

Advantages of Online Examination software/system

Innovate, Connect and Build Asia

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February 1, 2011

In spite of the progress of civil society in Asia, NGOs in the region have been facing significant organisational challenges regardless of their field of operation and core values for creating a better society. To share a direction and vision, the first Asia NGO Innovation Summit (ANIS) 2010 was co organised by The HOPE Institute and Intel Asia at Seoul, South Korea in September 2010.

By Rajeshree Dutta Kumar

The 1st Asia NGO Innovation Summit (ANIS) 2010 was jointly organised by The HOPE Institute and Intel Asia, bringing NGO leaders together across the Asian region, strengthening the impact of NGO community in Asia in the first week of September, 2010. The Summit was built around the theme on connecting and building Asia through social innovation. The partners for the Summit were Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), The Beautiful Store, The Beautiful Foundation, Civil Society Organisation Networks in Korea, Haja Center, and The UN Global Compact Korea Network.

The three day Summit, through its capacity building focus, sought to strengthen the organisational dimensions of NGOs, captured the effective and sustainable endeavours of many voluntary groups and NGOs in Asia, while promoting cross-fertilisation of knowledge, experiences, and perspectives between different NGOs and actors.

Setting the Context

Dr Won Soon Park, Executive Director, The Hope Institute, Seoul, South Korea

The Summit was opened with a joint Welcome remark by Won Soon Park, Executive Director, The Hope Institute, Seoul, South Korea and by Anjan Ghosh, Regional Director, Corporate Affairs Group, Intel Asia- Pacific. While sharing the focus and objective of the Summit, they emphasised that the NGOs have played a significant role in providing a space to solve big challenges of present times. They also highlighted that NGOs are also faced with internal challenges that May be an obstacle to achieving the social goals that they set out to accomplish. NGOs are struggling with financial difficulties, shortage of human resources, and they are constantly striving to play a catalyst role to build healthy governance and partnership among diverse stakeholders within the society. It is in this regard that we strongly recognise the need for NGOs in Asia to learn and share ideas on how to build their capacity and constantly transform ourselves in an innovative way. The idea is explore and identify alternative ways of moving forward together. The inaugural session was concluded with the declaration of the congratulatory note sent by Ki-Moon Bahn, the Secretary General, United Nations commending the initiatives taken through the Summit.

NGOs moving towards Social Innovation

The Day I started with the Keynote address by Sanjit Bunker Roy, Founder and Director, The Barefoot College, India, on Demystifying Professionalism. Recipient of many awards and honour, he shared the Barefoot approach of training rural semi-literate middle aged women to solar electrifying their own villages. The college, based in the village of Tilonia in Rajasthan, India, is the only college that follows the life and work style of Mahatma Gandhi, where living conditions are simple, and where there are no written contracts. So far they have been able to work in Afghanistan, Mali, Russia, Bhutan and Namibia. The second Keynote was delivered by Brenton Caffin, CEO, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), Australia on public policy, performance improvement and change management.

The Day I also focused on various approaches through which NGOs can involve community and citizen participation to bring societal change and efforts were made through breakout group discussion in evolving innovative ideas in addressing the various challenges of participation by communities. Dr Wonsoon Park also threw some light on the significance of citizens' participation towards building a society founded on Social innovation. The second half of the day also witnessed case presentations by Howard Chan, Member, Community Museum Project, China and Shingo Hattori, Secretariat, Earth Day Money Association, Japan.

NGOs moving towards Sustainable Partnership and Governance

The deliberation on Day II was directed on evolving innovative strategies to build collaborations across sectors and stakeholders. The focus was also on the innovative ways of mazimising the use of ICT to promote partnership between different sectors and stakeholders. Marianne Quebral, Executive Director, Venture for Fundraising, Philippines. She highlighted various models of fundraising, which is a core activity in the NGO sector. She shared with the delegates her success story on managing the largest non-profit direct mail campaign in the Philippines with over one million letters sent annually, raising more than 85 million pesos in less than four years. The session theme was adequately substantiated with case presentations by Hyunyi Hwang, Project Manager, The Beautiful Store, Seoul, South Korea on the Beautiful Store's Learning and by D E Susapto, Coordinator of Employment Civil society, Bina Swadaya, Indonesia.

The second half of the session focused on the financial sustainability and various ways on delivering solutions in case of financial crisis. The exercise was contexualised by Prof Francisco L Roman, Executive Director, RVR Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Philippines through his speech and presentation on Governance and Collaborative Engagement. He shared two case studies

Making Education Accessible

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February 1, 2011

The 6th Pan Commonwealth Forum witnessed dialogues and deliberation on the various good practices on making education accessible to everyone. We bring a snapshot of the conference attended by more than 600 delegates from over 70 countries.

By Rajeshree Dutta Kumar

From left, A Kalyani, VC, Tamil Nadu State Open University, COL Vice President Prof Asha Kanwar, Pro-VC Prof PR Ramanujam,VC Prof VN Rajasekharan Pillai, Sir John Daniel, President and CEO, COL, Burchell Whiteman, Chairman, COL Board of Governor,and Chief Guest Dr MS Swaminathan, inaugurating the PCF6 at Le Meridian Hotel in Kochi on November 25.

The 6th Pan Commonwealth Forum, jointly organised by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), kicked off at Kochi on November 25, 2010. The event was attended by over 600 delegates from across 70 countries to share and their best practices and learning over the next four days on the conference. The conference theme was `Access & Success in Learning: Global Development Perspectives.’

Linking Education to Sustainable Development

IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor and Programme Coordinator Prof P R Ramanujam welcomed the dignitaries. PCF6 was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Prof M S Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist, who in his keynote address stressed on sustainable development and the need to link education with achieving happiness. The highlight of his deliberation was that there is a need to conserve the environment. He emphasised that sustainable development means comprehensive development at social, economical and ecological level. Burchell Whiteman, Chairman, COL Board of Governor, said that COL seeks to make a difference in the lives of millions of people across the commonwealth countries and tries to create greater impact through its various initiatives in the field of education. Sir John Daniel, President and CEO, COL elaborated on the themes of PCF6. According to him, community development means participation of members of the society; social justice means providing a wider economic and social system to the people; skill development is training millions of people in the informal economic sector and formal education means engaging people with content of learning with the help of technology.

Prof VN Rajasekharan Pillai, IGNOU Vice Chancellor said that the state of Kerala was an example of how tough goals could be achieved through proper planning and a dynamic vision. He gave an overview of his university by highlighting that the university will strive to optimally utilise the educational and training infrastructure in both the private and public sectors to ensure the national mission of increasing the Gross Enrollment Ratio. IGNOU, in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period (2007-2012), has embarked upon a large number of partnerships with and through Central and State Governments, and other governmental agencies. Almost all the Schools of Studies, Institutes and a few Regional Centres (RCs) of the University have effectively availed of these collaborations. Government departments have leveraged the nation-wide academic and infrastructural capabilities of IGNOU to conduct on-the-job training programmes and upgrade the qualifications of employees. In these partnerships, the projects are of the Ministries in the Central Government or State Governments. He also shared that grassroot level interactions and dissemination of the public-funded projects have also been facilitated by the ICT and satellite-enabled network of IGNOU, ably managed by its 61 Regional Centres and over 3,000 Study Centres

Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Anuwar Ali, President and Vice Chancellor, Open University, Malaysia with distinguished delegates

The millenium development goals (MDGs) notwithstanding, global pressures, like rising inflation and unemployment, omnipresent issues of disparity and the digital divide have made the need for equity even more colossal

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and Social Justice

The session on `Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and Social Justice examined in detail the role of ODL in strengthening the empowerment process among the marginalised sections of the society and enhancing their power of negotiation in the stakeholder relationship.

Prof K Elumalai of IGNOU’s School of Law facilitated the session. Dr Martha Nkechinyere Amadi, University of Lagos emphasised that ODL means more freedom of access, and thereby a wider range of opportunities for learning and qualification educating girls was a social development policy that works. Dr Yasmin,University of North Bengal observed that continuing communication between teachers and students was of utmost of greater significance in providing education. Dr Helen Lentell of the University of Leicester spoke on the theme on ‘Going the distance. What it takes to achieve access & success in Distance Learning.’

Community Development

The session on Open Learning and Community Development was conducted in open environment to have a meaningful dialogue amongst the delegates. According to the Rapporteur Albert Amoah Saah, Kwame Nikrumah University, three groups of 41participants were created and discussed various models and methods of participation and strategic linkages between university and community linkages, and innovation through ICT in the ODL system.

A session on Formal Education at PCF6

Developing the Community: The Role of Universities and ODL

Opening the PCF6 proceedings the Keynote speaker, Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Anuwar Ali, President and Vice Chancellor, Open University, Malaysia, stressed that the higher education should reach ensure continuity with basic education for the mass, generate knowledge to drive and transform the community, widen access and create equity. He also shared with the delegates that communities, in present day, need universities and higher education more than ever before. Universities not only advise governments in policymaking decisions but also help developing skills, create knowledge and train leaders. “The MDGs notwithstanding, global pressures, e.g. rising inflation and unemployment, omnipresent issues of disparity and the digital divide have made the need for equity even more colossal. In the long run, it will prove vital for every single member of the community to have the opportunity to seek education and gainful employment, just as it is important to ensure that the community has access to basic social needs like housing, health care and nutrition,” he added.

Former Union Minister and renowned writer Dr Shashi Tharoor delivering Asa Briggs Lecture at PCF6 in Kochi.

After the opening session, delegates spread out to different rooms to have detailed discussions on subjects relating to four themes of the conference: Social Justice, Community Development, Skills Development, and Formal Education.

Role of Community Media

The session that needs special mention is the PCF seminar sponsored by UNESCO and COL, presented in two parts. Chaired by Wijayananda Jayaweera, Director, Communication Development Division, UNESCO, the seminar deliberated on the issues pertaining to the critical role of community media in linking learning and development. Maria Protz of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication, Prof Pushpesh Pant of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Rafiqul Islam Khokan, Rupantar, Bangladesh and Lia Maka, Community Education and Training Centre, Secretariat, Pacific Community, among others, made presentations on various pressing issues on media and development.
There were concerns raised on the efficacy of the community media as a viable channel for widespread learning for development, growing domination of languages such as English in community media, thus running the risk of suppressing local languages and dialects that are essential in getting the messages across to local communities.

Gender and Education

The other session which generated a great deal of discussion was on gender issues. While Sir John Daniel chaired the session, Dr Rekha Sharma Sen of IGNOU and Dr Sherllin (Australia) made valuable presentations on how gender issues were creating hurdles in spread of education. Dr Sherllin quoted studies to emphasise the role of new technology such as cell phones in empowerment of women. Dr Rekha Sharma Sen of IGNOU presented a paper based on her study of certain prevailing beliefs regarding approaches to study and learning styles.

Building Skills

In another session, George Herd of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Africa, dwelled upon the needs of a flexible Open and Distance Learning system. ODFL

Upgrading Skills through Professional Courses

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February 1, 2011

Upgrading Skills through Professional Courses

The increase in the number of job opportunities in the current global economy has witnessed an enhanced demand for skilled and qualified workforce. Management courses for working professionals are being currently offered, specifically to cater to the requirements of budding entrepreneurs and employed professionals who want to create an edge for themselves on the career front. Combined with virtual learning environments, these courses are reaching out to its burgeoning target audience.

By Sheena Joseph

Executive education programmes are rapidly gaining momentum with increasing competition in the job market and are in a constant need to be updated in a swiftly transforming world. Working professionals of today need to be well informed about changing global practices and be equipped to face and handle new challenges. Worldwide affairs have always been full of activity. However, of late, the tide has changed towards increasing pressure on working professionals to be updated about global regulations, geopolitics and the world economy.

In order to cope with the changing information requirements and gain more productivity through knowledge acquisition, the workforce is promoted to constantly renew their understanding and skills. This is one of the predominant requisites for qualified professionals operating in dynamic fields like global affairs.

B-Schools Setting the Trend

Realising the importance of continuous learning and skill building for the workforce, leading B-Schools in India are offering tailor-made management programmes designed to suit the requirements of working executives.

Working professionals, in a busy job environment, would not always have time to attend regular classroom learning structures. Nowadays, fortunately, there are a numerous courses being created and offered for both personal and professional development. These May include competitive intelligence newsfeeds, independent tailor-made reports, peer forums and management development programmes.

Management Development Institute (MDI) has been providing several such executive education programmes in India. Prof V K Gupta, director of MDI elaborates that their educational programmes attempt to help executives in broadening their understanding and improving their skills to prepare them to face the challenges at higher positions. MDI conducts more than 100 management development programmes every year. These programmes are of varying duration and the structure focuses on the current areas of interest to executives at the senior, middle or junior management levels. While the programmes provide inputs to fill knowledge gaps, the emphasis is also on broadening the horizons of participants through case studies, business games, role-plays and exercises. “Interaction with experienced faculty and fellow participants provide new insights and help crystallise concepts to enhance the thinking process for better quality decision-making”, he says. MDI also fosters alliances with other business schools, industry and individual experts to offer joint programmes to address the diverse needs in executive education. The institute focuses on ethics and value-based management.

Part Time MBA for Working Professionals

India today has become the centre for outstanding management education, with numerous management institutions providing world-class infrastructure and unmatched teaching technology. Large numbers of students are choosing MBA programmes to sharpen their industry skills and thereby, seize the best opportunities in the employment circuit both within India and abroad. Key industries are also queuing up to hire exceptional talents having competent and updated skills. Full time MBA programme emerges as the greatest solution for students wanting to gain a unique edge to their careers. On the other hand, professionals who have already entered the career path do not necessarily have that option. In such cases, options for executive MBA programmes are available which can easily augment one's management skills and provide value addition to their future prospects. However, though several executive MBA programmes have a pre-requisite of having at least 3 to 5 years of job-experience.

“The executive educational programmes attempt to help executives in broadening their understanding and improving their skills to prepare them to face the challenges at higher positions”

Prof V K Gupta
Director, Management Development Institute (MDI)

Realising the importance of continuous learning and skill building for the workforce, leading B-Schools in India are offering tailor made management programmes designed to suit the requirements of working executives

Scores of management institutions in India have come out with part time management programmes with classes taking place during evening hours or on weekends to suit the requirements of working professionals. Assortment of qualification-based courses available are intended to assist working professionals in advancing their performance by using university level education in the workplace.

The executive management courses are delivered on a part-time basis, supplemented with monthly on-campus workshops, thereby enabling the student to get a distinguished qualification from a renowned university whilst in full-time employment. “Several major corporates encourage, promote and sponsor executive development programs for their employees

XSEED Sapling Growing at Slow yet Steady Process : Ashish Rajpal, XSEED

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February 1, 2011

Ashish Rajpal, Co-founder of XSEED, speaks on the way XSEED is gradually taking over educational development with the highly integrated curriculum based on the guidelines of the National Curriculum Framework, 2005. The syllabus seamlessly integrates with schools following CBSE, ICSE, state boards or even international certifications such as IGCSE. Through the use of rubrics, student assessment in XSEED is kept objective. With the evaluation of tasks at every critical juncture, the assessment is also kept formative. The summative assessment at the end of the unit then feeds into the learning and developmental goals for the next unit or lesson. XSEED Assessment takes a wider view of the child’s capabilities and ensures that the unique talents and skills of every child get showcased.

First person account on the journey towards corporate world

It was a personal journey for me, the journey of an idea. I grew up here in a middle-class family in Delhi. After MBA in XLRI, I joined Procter and Gamble in Mumbai and the worldwide marketing director in DANONE. I was still fashionable in the 80’s to do something different, wanted to join an NGO. But I was very disillusioned, partly because there was no quality model and partly because of corruption. I was interested to do here in self-sufficient way and education, in particular, sparked by the birth of my children, especially by birth of my daughter. I was fascinated that how my children would be different, quit my job and came back in 2002 with mission to improve the quality of my teaching. It was my core bug.

The initial days in the world of teaching

I think if am credited, it would be for assembling an uncommon team. In India, my core idea always has been how to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the class. We have never deviated from that. I came back here from Harvard earning a degree. It was my hypothesis that India has six million teachers and who wants to do a B.Ed? We were involved in three years training, but when we went back to school, we found that training was not effective as it’s a very poor tool to upgrade anybody. People are not going to teaching by choice, they somehow end up there. In our country, teacher training is a very poor tool to teach anything. Like training horses or dogs, no human learning can happen especially in short doses of training. We need a number of other things, like understanding of why that thing is happening and need daily tools of teaching. With those insights, I stepped in classroom and started teaching myself.

As per my experience, it’s a very hard job. If the teacher is paid 8,000 to 10,000, it doesn’t mean that the job is easy. Giving teachers Gyan that do this or do that is easy, but important thing is that can you give a better mouse trap? Then our programme XSEED started. We built an entire library of 8,000 plans and how to teach every topic from nursery to class 8th minute by minute. Then we added teacher’s training and later leadership training. We have beta tested in three schools but we were shocked with just 20 to 30 % improvement in scores of children. We saw that bottom of the half class is doing much better. Then we started in a wide manner. Now we have four hundred schools, the story is to take a lot of time in getting movement in eight years.

We built an entire library of 8,000 plans and how to teach every topic from nursery to class 8th minute by minute. Then we added teacher’s training and later leadership training

The USP that sets us apart

In India, three parts needed to come together, just like cooking a good food. In our country, we talk a lot about lesson plans, but teachers have no plans when they go into classroom. They only have a text book or a summary written in papers that is difficult for students to understand.

One day, I went in the class and did a quick activity. I took a bowl of water and dropped a pen. It was floating. Then, I dropped a fifty paisa coin, it sank. Children asked what this was. Then I asked “if both are made of metal then why I that one is floating and another sank?” “Jadoo hai sir”, slowly they said. Then, I said, this property is called surface tension. That is why we have dew drops. This is science not jadoo. It was an amazing experience.

My USP is that of bringing all aspects of academics, teacher training and technology and thereby, integrating in a research manner and focusing on the result.

We learnt a lot about curriculum development from the American educational organisations, a lot of them are non-profits. Since the 80’s when the National Science Foundation and other such organisations funded a lot of efforts, several innovations happened.

Changes in education to keep up with globalisation in economic sector

Aspirations of parents have changed in globalisation. Since mid 90’s, the poorest guy in India wants to spend on education as he believes in the obsession. The obsession is all about getting educated as when I visited a remote village in Andhra Pradesh, the labourers I talked to over there almost everyone has a relative in America doing well. Now that perspective has taken a strong and solid place in these people’s mind. For a poor person it is godly. That aspiration has changed. When we go to small towns, people are really spending because people see value in education. If we look at Andhra Pradesh, things have changed like this. From their eyes, this is investment they are making

Technology Developments@ Bangladesh : Prof Dr Alauddin Ahmed, Educational, Social Development and Political Affiars-Bangladesh

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February 1, 2011

Prof Dr Alauddin Ahmed, Adviser (Educational, Social Development and Political Affiars) to Hon’ble Prime Minister of Bangladesh,in a tête-àtête with Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Pravin Prashant and Jaydeep Saha, speaks on ICT, progress of women, culturally and academically, and developmental initiatives that have been repackaged making the whole nation competent in almost all spheres.

Technology Developments@Bangladesh

What are the effort taken towards
the expansion of ICT in education?
Altogether 501 local bodies in the form of Panchayats are working for the development of local education policies, in which unions with small Union Information Centres (UIC) are the main sources and forces for the government of Bangladesh. These UICs teach people the basic norms and techniques of technology and importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Besides, we also have 22 Upzilas (sub-divisions) working for the betterment of ICT. Here we are planning to have a hub of ICT, with the help of Korean Overseas International Corporation Agencies (KOICA) and Axis Bank, Korea and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). But certain geographical and financial problems are still persistent, including absence of electricity in remote rural areas, any char (isle) lanes where connectivity through only boats is possible, coastal areas which are prone to cyclones and drought-prone Northern areas mainly
attacked with starvation

The Indian government has determined to introduce ICT primarily to students of classes from 9th to 12th. What is your policy of inclusion of ICT in school and university education?
We have a different educational policy altogether. The primary education that we cater encompass till standard eight, followed by four years of higher or secondary education. We have decided to upgrade our educational policy with the blend of ICT where we have already spoken to the Korean Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) about it. KERIS has been developing ICT substantially the not only in Korea but also in Morocco and other countries at primary education level. For ICT, now we also have a programme of Access 2 Information (A2I). Prime Minister’s private secretary Mr. Nazrul Islam Khan is in charge of this with the UNDP Bangladesh. We want to improvise the sector of Madrasah education as students who pass out of these schools get no jobs for the improper uplift they are brought up in. The students after that are reportedly involved in criminal activities. In 2004, out of the 64 districts, 63 were attacked sequentially with bomb blasts and they have been able to attack major
places like, District Magistrate’s court, session judge’s court and public library. Although I do not blame these people directly but feel if this particular forte is upgraded then Bangladesh would be worth admiring. Under my guidance, new educational policy has been adopted after it was passed by the parliament in December 2010, 40 years after independence. We still have stiff opposition against this policy, including religious extremists. So we want to upgrade these institutions with basic subjects like history, geography and mathematics as the primary topics. Not only do we want to apply this in these schools but also in all types of schools, including English medium, where the national anthem isn’t taught to the children. The institutions after this application should be uniformed mass oriented and science and technology based hubs. Besides, we are also focussing on developing the university level studies by the advent of science and technologybased studies. We have already set up 12 varsities and also focus on implementing his idea in other universities, where besides a normal degree; a student should have the basic knowledge of science and technology that is ruling the market in today’s world. Therefore, our focus is mainly on information technology where every college should have a separate department for ICT that would help bring the students in the forefront and not only make them competent enough to meet the present demands of the industry but also lead the country en route success.

What is the University system and structure in Bangladesh?
At present, we have 33 public universities in the country, including the new ones mentioned earlier, and by the end of this year the number would increase to 50, including one Arabic University. Only the Madrasah Universities and all the schools under this category would
be controlled by the Islamic University in Kustia. All the universities are autonomous and self governed and over 2000 colleges are there that offer two-year degree courses, BME or Carl Michael, but they cannot offer degrees. Therefore, they should be under some university.So now all the colleges are taken under the National University of Bangladesh, Dhaka and all Madrassa education, which was earlier, controlled by boards, by the Islamic University, Kustia.

Is there any second language eing taught in Madrassas apart from Bangla which is a primary language? How are you going to implement your Millennium Development Goals? What kind of outcome are you expecting?
Now English has been made a compulsory language in the primary six subjects taught as the condition of English speaking power have relatively deteriorated. So it is made compulsory till Aliya Madrasah (equivalent to M.A).

The PM has promised that in 2021 Bangladesh will be a moderate income country and during the last twoyears, our growth rate has crossed more than 6 per cent from the stagnant 4-5 per cent. This year it has been 6.5 per cent. It’s a steady progress of the economy

We have a non-formal education system and a separate ministry of primary and non-formal education. But now we have placed the papers in the National Assembly about implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the child mortality rate has even come down after carrying out this policy. We have even been
awarded by the UN for this achievement. Next in the pipeline, we would also be getting another award for cent per cent school enrolment but it’s followed by a big problem indeed. From class one to five, the dropout rate is almost 50 per cent. As per my opinion may be they do not find this system worthy enough or interesting and the thoughts of the parents are also similar because they think that if these children work then they would earn money for the family. Therefore, to avert this type of thoughts, we have revised the courses with the help of JICA and made

Almost 50 per cent of the population is literate and when we were in the govt from 1996-2001, we had increased it to 64 per cent as our Total Literacy Movement (TLM) worked wonders for us, but with the change of govt everything changed and the literacy rate has come down again as they stopp ed our practise

the country will be totally free from illiteracy. The third goal under MDG is gender equity. In fact the enrolment rates report that the admission of girls is even more than boys in every sector, including Madrasah organisations. In future, we would also have onethird of the electorates (100 members) directly elected by the ladies. That means, from the present 45-member strength we have in reserve for ladies, it would go up to 100. In the local government, in the municipal corporation unions, Upzilas (sub-divisions), of all the members, one-third are women. This is another gender parity we have

With the new education policy, what is the investment that you see in the recent 3-5 years?
the coming decade. We will try to make it in six-years of time. In 2014, we will go for election. We are arranging for it and are capable of doing that. The setback is that as there is very less Research and Development (R&D) activity in Bangladesh, besides a shortage of technical persons. Therefore, every high school will have a technical institute. It will be part of the curriculum and compulsory. The religious things will be totally untouched. We will make them potential human workforce. We are basically an agrarian country. That is why we cannot have a fine and smooth cooperation between industry

Mobile Learning in Higher Education : Ninad Vengurlekar, New Media in Education @ IL&FS Education and Technology Services Limited

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February 1, 2011

Historically, it has been proven that every media can be put to educational use. Radio, TV, Cinema, Internet and Computers are some of the traditional as well as new media that has created innovative educational programming for masses. Traditional media (Radio, TV and Cinema) has been more in the broadcasting realm, in the sense, the communication is from one-to-many. Communication is orderly, systematic and planned. There are limited feedback mechanisms and almost none other interactive features. The educational and learning opportunities in traditional media have therefore been limited. Computers and Internet changed all that. Computers introduced what we call today as interactivity. Communication became interactive and one to one-like human communication. Internet added even more interactivity to this communication by making it one-to-many and many-to-many. Such communication channels offered huge opportunities for education and learning. As a result, while you rarely find radio, TV and cinema in classrooms; computers and internet are all pervasive in education across the world. Ninad Vengurlekar, Vice President – New Media in Education @ IL&FS Education and Technology Services Limited, talks about the potential of M-Learning in India.

Mobile Learning in Higher Education

Why do you think mobile phones will impact the education sector in India?
In India, mobile phones arrived close on the heels of internet. But their penetration has been nothing short of a miracle. With over 700 million phone users in India in the past one decade, close to 65 per cent of India is connected to this wonder machine. It is estimated that close to 70-80 per cent youth in the country may own a mobile phone making it most preferred communication option than any other media ever. The all pervasive nature of mobile phones makes it imperative for educationists to evaluate its merits and demerits as learning tools or aid.

English Seekho, a spoken English Program on Mobile Phones, provides the user 44 IVR based lessons, recaps, multiple choice questions, SMS summaries and speech recognition to facilitate learning on the go

What is the kind of impact that you envision through mobile learning?
There can be huge impact, if we get learning out of the realm of traditional educational models. A traditional education model comprises of a classroom with a teacher, a blackboard and students. But this model has limited use in a country like India where 200 million youth have no access to formal educational institutions. Traditional education also comprises subjects, theories, exams and rankings. But the 200 million out-ofcollege youth are not equipped to garner knowledge in this fashion. Most of them are at work, far away from their homes, earning livelihood to support their families. What they need is Just-In-Time knowledge and learning solutions in the areas of job skills, government schemes, job search, health and hygiene, family planning, agricultural practices, career guidance, and so on.

Can you highlight the initiatives taken by IL&FS in this field?
English Seekho, a spoken English Program Program on Mobile Phones, launched by IL&FS Education in September 2009 on Tata Indicom provides the user 44 IVR based lessons, recaps, multiple choice questions, SMS summaries and speech recognition to facilitate learning on the go. In its first month of its launch, 50,000 subscribers signed up for the programme and since then over one million subscriptions have taken place. Currently the program is live on four operators with over 300,000 users subscribing every month. However, the challenge has been what we call as ‘mobile absenteeism’. Only 15-20 per cent of the subscribers, who subscribe for the program, actually learn; rest are all just subscribers but do not use the service

Any further step taken to meet and rectify this deficit in people? Which age group is basically your customer?
Now we plan to send voice mails to these users every day, so that we do not have to depend on their constraints to learn. Our users range from college going girls from small villages, job seeking youth, senior managers in leading companies, spoken English tutors, to even the visually impaired. And a majority of them do not have access to formal learning channels.
We have recently launched Sparsh – sex education on mobile phones, Mobile Swasthya – Health education on mobile hones, Margadarshak – Government Schemes information on Mobile Phones, Lakshya – Career Guidance on mobile phones, and so on.

How can mobile learning be of help to traditional teaching styles?
My belief is that mobile lso be used for traditional classroomlearning canmodels. Mobile learning in classrooms can offer lectures on the phone, testing and assessment, SMS summaries of concepts and alerts. In classrooms, mobile learning can act as supplementary educational aid for students and professors. A smartphone today costs between Rs.4-5000 and is easily affordable to students in high paying professional courses. With the advent of 3G, a smartphone can act as a mini computer and can deliver live tutoring to students along with power-point and PDF assessments. Learning can happen on the go.

What are the areas which people actually should explore before using the mobile learning medium?
My personal experience shows that just because people use mobiles may not mean that they can use mobile devices as learning tools. We should always keep in mind certain questions and
points that are actually useful in the process. A lot of questions, which are worth meditating on before we design mobile learning interventions in the future, remain in terms of successful implementation of M-learning in classrooms and outside classrooms. These include:
• What is the rationale for implementing mobile learning technologies?
• Will brevity of expression trump depth of knowledge?
• What course content is suitable for transmission to mobile computing/ communication devices?
• Will the quality of communication and interaction be enhanced or diminished by adopting mobile learning pedagogy?
• Do mobile devices allow students to interact with peers and instructors at the same level and quality as if they were participating using a PC?
• Will the quality of the instructional content be improved, enhanced, or downgraded by transferring to a mobile- compatible format? • What types of resistance to change will faculty and students experience?
• How will the instructor’s role change?

Indian Youth Poised to Stir Global Market : Prof Prem Vrat, Management Development Institute

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February 1, 2011

Prof Prem Vrat¸ Professor of Eminence¸ Management Development Institute, Gurgaon; also the Founder- Director of IIT Roorkee & former Vice Chancellor, U P Technical University, talks to Sheena Joseph about his vision for higher education in India.

Indian Youth Poised to Stir Global Market….

India’s demographic advantage has long been talked about, with 24 being the average age of India today. Can you elaborate on what will be the future scope for India in this regard?
The mammoth youth population of India can be seen as a demographic dividend – provided we make good use of this opportunity. In the context of the aging population of the developed countries, where majority of the wok
is mechanised, we can foresee a future where there will be a tremendous requirement of trained youth population in these developed countries.Manpower crunch will be crucial in the coming years and every country is gearing up to meet this requirement. We can cash on this opportunity by making available trained youth population from India. In this context, the Indian youth can make
their presence felt even in western countries. I call this the demographic dividend potential.
If we convert our youth population into a skilled workforce, we can meet the workforce requirements all over the world. The large number of youth population will then be globally empowered and be gainfully employed. The demographic dividend would otherwise become
a demographic liability There is a need to nurture and build Indian talent. Skills training forms only one aspect of the process. Several other aspects have also to be taken into consideration. These include inculcating knowledge and attitude. Theoretical knowledge without hands on experience will be incomplete. Positive attitude would mean having attributes like understanding, leadership and, team work. Nurturing talent involves holistic
development of an individual’s personality which is groomed for the competitive world requirements.

What are the internationally acclaimed and unique best practices

that India is implementing in the field of skills training?

Foreign educational models do not necessarily have to be blindly emulated since India also has several best practices that
can be replicated. Perhaps a focus on excellence and quality standards have to be benchmarked. IITs in India have created a brand for itself. Their quality standards can be set as the yardstick for higher education institutes across India. Elements of a successful academic process and qualities for excellence would include visionary academic leadership, very committed and talented faculty, outstanding students, efficient academic processes, remendous transparency in all processes, merit driven functioning and achieving global standards. Liberal funding and greater degree of autonomy in decision making has to be ranted to educational institutes.

The higher education sector is undergoing a massive overhaul with talks going on for replacing the existing regulatory authorities. How would it impact the education system in India?

Several regulatory bodies do exist in higher education currently in India. Proper synchronisation of their efforts would add value and do good to the higher education sector. Multiple agencies can work together to bring out a coordinated outcome. The structure must be efficient and should not get bogged down by bureaucratic frameworks. Nurturing quality in education is important. There is also a concept called ‘Quality Paradox’. This is a situation where quality is made the custodian of a single regulatory body resulting in quality itself becoming a casualty. Therefore, be it a case of single or multiple regulatory authorities, there has to be a well thought out and coordinated effort to maintain and sustain quality in education.

The Foreign Educational Institutions Bill 2010 allows foreign universities to set campuses in India. Will this serve as a panacea for the problems plaguing higher education or will it further add to problems in regulation?

The bill has its own pros and cons. We have to see the context in which the bill has been introduced. There will be opportunities for foreign educational institutes to come to India and do business and perhaps create a sense of competition among their Indian counterparts
to improve and compete with each other When top grade universities from abroad come to India, they will benchmark best practices that will be utilised by Indian educational institutes to analyse and compare faculty competence, compensation, research, student performance, more focus on industrial interaction, and thereby enabling Indian institutes to wake up to the actual needs of the student community.
Liberal funding and greater degree of autonomy in decision making has to be granted to educational institutes
India’s capacity to attract best quality foreign institutes is a critical factor. Secondly, if these institutes come, obviously they will be able to provide much better compensation packages to their faculty. It will then raise the cost of
education since Indian education institutes will also have to match up to their standards. If we do not compensate our faculty on similar lines, it will result in large scale faculty exodus. The idea of bringing foreign higher education institutes is to bring in competition, but simultaneously it is also necessary to nurture inhouse institutes.

What role do you envisage for ICT in promoting quality in higher education?

Technology has a very important role in education, since it is an engine for bringing about quality, efficiency, effectiveness and outreach. With the shortage of quality faculty, ICT enabled education is now a necessity. It can address the gap by taking classroom lectures to a wider audience across boundaries.
Technology enabled classrooms is an element that can obviate faculty shortage in the country. National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is an outstanding initiative for spreading higher education. As of now, our Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) is 12.4%, and we want to increase it drastically. We can do this by leveraging technology effectively.

ISRO to launch remote sensing Resourcesat in February

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February 1, 2011

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is getting ready to launch Resourcesat 2, a remote sensing earth observation satellite, by the end of February, officials said on Monday. Remote sensing satellites send back pictures and other data for various uses. India is a major player in providing such data in the global market. The Resourcesat-2 will replace Resourcesat-1 launched in 2003, which has outlived its original mission life of five years. According to ISRO officials, the satellite has reached the Sriharikota rocket launch centre around 80 km from Chennai and tests are being conducted. The satellites will be carried by the ISRO's polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV). The launch will be between February 20-25 in the morning. The PSLV will also be carrying two other small satellites made in Singapore and Russia. With nine orbiting satellites and the tenth one to join in February, India has the largest number of remote sensing satellites in the world providing imageries in a variety of spatial resolutions. The remote sensing satellites currently operational are: Resourcesat-1, Cartosat-2B, Oceansat-2, RISAT-2, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1 and TES. For some time Resourcesat-2 and Resourcesat-1 will work together before the later is fully replaced, the official said. Compared to Resourcesat-1, the multispectral swath of Resourcesat-2 has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs. Suitable changes, including miniaturization in payload electronics, have been incorporated in Resourcesat-2, said the official.

Taj part of Harvard study

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February 1, 2011

The Taj Hotel is honored to be part of a Harvard Business School case study following the inclusion of the heroic response of its employees during the 26/11 terror attacks here, a hotel spokesperson said in a statement. “We are honored to be a part of the Harvard Business School case study in which the spirit, loyalty and resilience of our employees during the crisis has been recognized as an exemplary display of leadership,” the spokesperson said. The multimedia case study 'Terror at the Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership' by professor Rohit Deshpande of the Harvard Business School (HBS) documents the bravery and resourcefulness shown by rank-and-file employees during the attack. “The Tata group has a long standing association with HBS. Deshpande, during one of his engagements with the group, felt that the story provides a great opportunity to showcase unique leadership in crisis management and in this he saw the potential of a great case study coming out from one of the new emerging economies. “The details were shared with HBS to form a multimedia case study and the case was first presented in the fall of 2010 where senior management from Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces were invited to be present for an interactive session with the students,” he added. The study focuses on how most employees of the hotel stayed put at their positions during the attacks and how they saved several guests of the hotels, thereby jeopardizing their own safety and with some sacrificing their lives. Ten Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people in an audacious attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. As many as 12 employees of the hotel are said to have been killed in the attack, though the exact figures have never been revealed. One example of the resilience of the employees was by Karambir Singh Kang, the hotel's general manager. He led from the front by continuing to supervise rescue operations at the hotel and helping numerous guests to escape even after losing his wife and two sons in the attack. The study says the level of loyalty and dedication cannot be replicated elsewhere.

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