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eduPAYMENT GATEWAYS Easing the Transaction Hassles

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

With online payments becoming the norm for people for every other transaction, these are also becoming a convenient mode for education vertical. A key component required to accept online payments is the payment gateway. Elets News Network (ENN) speaks to key people in the payment gateway industry and finds out the relevance of payment gateways for educational institutions, innovative payment gateway systems, value-added services they are offering, how secure are these payment gateways and more.

edupayment gatewayTechnology and IT are huge enablers today, potentially capable of covering and connecting all the people around the world. Therefore, online payments are becoming the norm for people as these are making life more convenient overall.

The volume of online payments conducted has grown significantly since the introduction of the Internet-based transactions. Acceptance of online payments is also becoming a convenient mode for almost every trade vertical. With the large proliferation of internet in each and every part of India, online payments especially in Educational Sector, is seeing an upward trend. However, a key component required by an Educational Institute to accept online payments is the payment gateway.

While traditionally in India, the role of a payment gateway was restricted to only aggregation services, nowadays with online payments market being on an inflection point, the need of value-added services from large as well as small players have increased considerably. These value-added services are analytics, better success rates, faster processing, customised reports, large number of convenient modes of payments like accepting credit cards, debit cards, large number of net banking options, mobile payments, etc. A better Payment Gateway in the market capable of delivering these value-added services, and offering a secure system is crucial in the current times.

However, the challenges arise in incorporating the technology in a better way and streamlining processes to drive down costs, increasing product innovation and even more so with raising customer service levels through innovative strategies, mainly in terms of a secure surveillance and systems. Therefore, security is a vital component in terms of technological sharing even in payment systems. However, the questions linger: How corporate,offering payment gateway systems, ensure to have an optimum payment solution; What are the value-added services they are offering with the gateways; how relevant are the payment gateways for educational institutions; and, how secure are these payment gateways in order to maintain the privacy and security of the crucial financial transactions.

ASHUTOSH PANDE Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, PaySe™Parents can pay fees for their children without the hassle of standing in a queue to arrange for demand drafts or depositing cash at the cashier. On the other side, payment gateways are reducing the pain for educational institutions in collecting and managing the cash

Catalysing the Financial Transactions
Online payments are widely accepted and becoming a convenient mode for compulsive spend verticals like Education. Payment Gateways are suitable for educational institutions who want to collect the fee and to do other financial transactions online. Srinivas Nidugondi, Senior Vice President & Head – Mobile Financial Solutions, Mahindra Comviva, said, “Not just payment gateways, many fintech players are contributing in digitising financial transactions for the education sector.

Digitisation brings with it a big advantage – pay anytime, anywhere. So far, schools typically had an associated bank and all school fee submission were done by filling up a form and submitting it along with a deposit slip at the bank. With a digital offering, schools can now enable parents to pay from the convenience of their home even on weekends or bank holidays. Additionally, value-added services such as reminders, standing instructions etc, provide tools which help in planning and timely payments.”

srinivas_nidugondi
Not just payment gateways, many fintech players are contributing in digitising financial transactions for the education sector. Digitisation brings with it a big advantage – pay anytime, anywhere

Through payment gateways, educational institutes funds are easier to manage and can predict the settlement, mentioned Rahul Chiddarwar, Head – Payment Gateway Business, Direct Pay, at TimesofMoney. He said, “Right from selling the application forms to paying tuition fees and hostel charges, payment gateways act as a catalyst for financial transactions happening in educational institutions. Collection of entire amount can be done in a click. Fund allocations are also easier as institutes can predict the settlement. The transactions are transparent, convenient and it is easy to track and maintain records.”

Ashutosh Pande, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, PaySe™, believes that the payment gateways are providing a convenient channel to parents and institutions for payments. He said, “Parents can pay fees for their children without the hassle of standing in a queue to arrange for demand drafts or depositing cash at the cashier. On the other side, payment gateways are reducing the pain for educational institutions in collecting and managing the cash. Though payment gateways have reduced the pain, but still the cost of cash is very high. Payment gateway charges somewhere between 2-5 per cent of transaction amount as fee.”

Education sector is catching up on adopting digital payments and converting from manual procedures to cashless, digital ones. Deepak Chandnani, CEO, Worldline South Asia and Middle East, said, “Higher education sector in India is expected to increase to $35.03 billion by 2025 from $6.96 billion in 2015 which will be accelerated by the growth in digital payments.

When it comes to education, payment gateways are not merely the instruments of payment collection. With the help of payment gateways, from converting fee collection to electronic payments acts as an identification methods for students and visitors. The university can provide access control in various areas of the campus and monitor cashless payments as well.”

“Worldline has recently tied up with Sharda University in Greater Noida, Rajarajeswari Medical College & Hospital, Bangalore and Emerald Heights International School, Indore to provide digital solutions for these institutions,” Chandnani added.

Innovative Solutions for Education Sector
With rapidly expanding market, unprecedented technological innovation and rapidly changing business environment, there is a need to build innovative payment solutions based on a solid architecture and a secure technical infrastructure, in compliance with the high demands of a complex payment system. To meet this demand, various organisations came up the payments gateways to ease the transactions process in education sector. Some of the innovative solutions are:

mobiquity® Money: Mahindra Comviva’s flagship mobile financial services platform mobiquity® Money is transforming the payments approach in education sector. It has been deployed by 67 mobile operators and banks in over 45 countries. Many mobile money providers use this platform to offer services for education sector such as pay school or university fee, pay examination fee, pay for books and stationery, send pocket money to children in boarding schools and take micro-loans for paying school fee.

DirecPay: DirecPay, of TimesofMoney, offers a gamut of services for education sector. They are:

  • Special pricing for education sector;
  • E-invoicing;
  • Surcharge;
  • Customised turnkey solution;
  • Ability to integrate with institutes’ ERP solution;

Recurring fees.

PaySe™: PaySe™ (????) is the world’s first offline digital cash solution designed and created with an aim to democratise money. PaySe™ delivers the advantage of cash. It enables university/institution campuses to accept digital cash completely offline. Students will be able to use digital cash along multiple touch points – cafeteria, admin, peers, etc. Like cash, there is no need for reconciliation. PaySe™ solution consists of three key components:

  • PaySe™ Processing Platform, is the interface between the real world and the digital world in accordance with the regulatory guidelines;
  • PalmATM™ application converts a smartphone into a mobile ATM. This application provides the same access as a conventional ATM including the ability to withdraw and deposit;
  • PURSE™ is a mobile to carry digital money and is designed to pay or receive digital cash. It empowers over 50 million families living without a mobile to bring the power of JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile) trinity to these and beyond to carry money. PURSE™ is just this mobile that securely stores the crypto token.

Worldline Payment Services: Worldline provides superior digital solutions for education institutions. It provides end-toend integrated payment services to handle the entire cashless payments in the college, including tuition fee, payments at canteens, shops etc.

The Added Advantage
With the role of payment gateways for simple financial transaction has increased considerably, there is a need of value-added services for better success. Srinivas Nidugondi provides a brief about the value-added services by Mahindra Comviva’s payment solutions. “For the enterprise, our product offers the flexibility of accepting payments from multiple sources and view all transactions that are made and payments due. For the consumers, it offers the option of setting up standing instructions for automated fee payment, reminders before due date etc,” he informed.

Mobile PaymentBriefing about DirecPay, Rahul Chiddarwar, said, “There are a lot of value-added services offered by DirectPay that include: On demand analysis; Multi bank EMI; Recapturing abandoned transactions; Stored card; and Freedom to choose the look and feel of website.”

  • On the value-added services provided by PaySe™, Ashutosh Pande informed that it offers the facility for:
  • Connecting online world of e-money (banking through payment gateway) with the offline world of digital cash;
    Enabling free peer-to-peer transactions (proximity payments) digitally like cash;
  • Enabling all activities (cafeteria, admin fees, event fees, fines, petty payments etc) of the institution to accept digital cash offline.

Worldline’s payment gateway solutions provide benefi ts to various parts of the value chain. Deepak Chandnani informed, “Customers get the fl exibility to pay from any mode – debit cards, credit cards and internet banking. For the bank and merchant, there is a detailed MIS so they get in-depth transaction information. Merchants can also use the power of analytics, analysing customer behaviour and patterns to aid sales strategies. Beyond this, the solutions can be coupled with a fraud and risk management module to monitor and combat fraudulent transactions.”
“Worldline also gives merchants a chance to develop omnichannel commerce for their business, by widening the scope of MIS and analytics, traditionally used for online transactions, to transactions at POS as well,” he added.

Security – a Vital Componentdeepak_chandnani

When it comes to education, payment gateways are not merely instruments of payment collection. With the help of payment gateways, converting fee collection to electronic payments acts as an identifi cation methods for students and visitors.


A secure payment gateway is crucial in the current times in order to maintain the privacy of the fi nancial transactions and to reduce fraud and increase consumer confi dence. Srinivas Nidugondi said, “Mahindra Comviva’s mobile fi nancial solutions make no compromises when it comes to security. We ensure that service and payment implementations are safeguarded with multi-level, bank-grade security in order to reduce fraud and increase consumer confi dence.

The security framework includes multi-factor authentication for access and transaction control, while all data is encrypted with the industry-standard 3DES algorithm. Our solutions adheres to international Anti-Money Laundering requirements and implement the best practices in PIN and Password management. Over and above this, the entire security approach is strengthened by Mahindra Comviva’s proven knowledge of country-specifi c regulations.”
Security is of prime importance to DirecPay while facilitating fi nancial transactions, informed Chiddarwar. He said that the company take care of the following security parameters:

  • World class fraud management system;
  • Real-time volume velocity checks;
  • Rule based engine for monitoring and fl agging of perceived risk transactions;
  • Double verifi cation checks for enhanced security for multiple forms of payment;
  • Tracking of IPs and fl agging off transactions from high-risk countries;
  • Dynamically updated global negative databases;
  • Manual override tools for high risk transactions;
  • Push and pull reports available across pay modes for better sanity.

Ensuring security is the most important part of fi nancial transaction processing. Deepak Chandnani, said, “As one of the biggest players in the acquiring space, we ensure security is the most important part of transaction processing. We have a robust fraud and risk management mechanism that analyses transactions in real time, assigns risk scores and fl ags off those with high risk. There is constant monitoring of all transactions processed and mapping against negative databases. Our solutions are PCI DSS compliant in order to provide the most secure services to our customers. Apart from this, we are certifi ed by ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System and ISO 27001 Information Security Management System.”

eduPayment Solutions: The Way Ahead
The education sector is going digital. Today, one can purchase books online, access e-libraries, attend lectures virtually (distant learning via internet), do entire course online via webex or videos and even give the exams online. With digitisation of education the payments involved in it are also becoming digital. Digital payments include both online payments and mobile payments. Srinivas Nidugondi said that the digitisation of education, of which digital eduPayment is an important part, will transform the education sector in the following ways:

Expanding the Availability of Content: Education content such as books, journals, white papers are costly. Students cannot buy all of them. Moreover, students currently have access to mostly local study material and they are not able to study the global content. The few copies which are available in libraries have high demand and can be accessed by a limited number of students. Digitisation of education is changing this. Students will get global exposure as they will be able to buy books from international authors online. The libraries will become digital, which student will be able to access online and pay for the subscription of journals via digital medium as per their convenience. No longer there will be scarcity of books in libraries. Because of digitisation of content and digital payments, students will be able to just buy the required portion or relevant content and not the entire book.

Virtual Learning: Now the students are no longer restricted to by distance, lack of educational institutes or unavailability of courses. Virtual classrooms are making distant learning possible in an efficient manner. Students are able to attend lectures online and listen to guest lecturers from academicians across the globe and and learn skills by looking at videos. Not only this, students can give exams online and the checking of papers will also be done by computer system and result produced in a short time. For end-to-end virtual experience, payments will be made remotely by online or mobile, easing the transaction process.rahul_chiddarwar

Electronic Payment of Fees: Paying fees for school, university or applying for a course is time consuming, as students or their parents have to visit the educational institutes or nodal centers and stand in queues to make payments. The time and money spent in paying fee can be used more productively. With digital payments, cash based fee payments will be a passé. With online and mobile payments students will be able to pay at their convenience, remotely and in smaller installments. These types of payments are not only restricted to debit and credit card users, but the unbanked people using mobile money services such as Airtel Money, M-PESA, EcoCash, Orange Money and Mobicash are also able to make digital payments using feature phone.

Regarding eduPayments transforming educational landscape in times to come, Saloni Malhotra, Associate Vice President, Paytm, says, “India is undergoing rapid change and innovations across the board. As the education sector leverages the new digital tools available, a strong payment option is required to extend convenience. Our presence in 25000 institutions and impacting 10 million students positively by enabling single click payments shows the bright future of eduPAYMENTS.”

In coming years, payment will add more value as it is convenient, easy, safe and time saving process with transparency in place. Rahul Chiddarwar, said, “In spite of the digital trend, very few institutions accept online payments these days. But, looking at the payment preferences from students and parents, maximum institutions will start opting for online fees collection over a period of time. Obviously it will add more value as it is convenient, easy, safe and time saving process with transparency in place.”

Like any other sector, education also stands to gain from the growth in online payment solutions. Deepak Chandnani, said, “Currently, India has the world’s largest higher education system in the world with 762 universities. The government also plans to open more higher education institutes across India. Fee payments for education helps a university reach out to the parents as well, who are often the payment initiator.”
“With more services added onto the plain vanilla offering, a payment gateway helps the institution build a robust system that tracks and identifies student payments, maintains records, reduces mishandling of physical payments like cash and DDs etc. This improves efficiency and helps move towards digitisation of payments for education,” he added.

PaySe™ delivers the advantage of cash. It enables university/ institution campuses to accept digital cash completely offline. Students will be able to use digital cash along multiple touch points – cafeteria, admin, peers, etc.

Boosting the Enterprise of Education

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-
Ravi Gupta
Dr. Ravi Gupta
Editor-in-Chief

At a time when a number of path breaking decisions are being heralded on the Indian horizon, the focus and emphasis on the enterprise of education is somehow eluding the attention of one and all.

The very fact that education at all levels is still considered a social good with tightly held regulatory mechanisms which have been largely ineffective to ensure the quality delivery, need to be amply reviewed in the light of major national initiatives to boost Indian economy. The unavailability of duly trained and oriented manpower across the skill spectrum would scuttle the prospects of these well meaning campaigns of short to medium term.

The dismal state of baseline data across educational institutions of all hues came out in the open in the opening remarks of the report on INDIA RANKINGS 2016. Even after having a plethora of regulators, canvassing for credible data across the fi nest national institutions still remains a challenge. We do provide a candid commentary on NIRF outcomes which in a way give a breather that the data driven eduGOVERNANCE has somewhere taken off

Creating a credible brand, and that too in the domain of education remains an ordeal. Engineering Institutions across the country are experimenting on one paradigm or the other to usher excellence in their teaching-learning processes and create employable graduates. We do present in this issue a compilation of key constituents of some of the leading brands in Engineering Education. This shall be followed by an elaborate issue on Engineering Education Brands, next month.

Technological advancements in the domain of eduPAYMENTS are eating away the ineffi ciencies on educational campuses. The entire burden of fee collection, corroboration etc has been duly addressed by some of the fi nest, off the shelf technological solutions. You shall fi nd a fi ne story on this emerging narrative.

digitalLEARNING.in has witnessed a major overhaul in these months. Do visit the same and enroll yourself in one or the other forums out there.

With a view to summon and share the best practices and transformational initiatives in the domain of Higher Education, we are organizing a National Convention at Bengaluru on 27th-28th of May in collaboration with Government of Karnataka. This is to extend a hearty invitation for the same.

We do seek your sustained patronage and support in boosting the enterprise of education.

CBSE propounds for a monopoly over Government Publications

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued circulars to private schools, not to encourage parents to buy non- NCERT/ CBSE books. As per norms, CBSE-affiliated private and government schools are required to only prescribe the books that have been approved by the board. It has been observed that some of the private schools sell books within the school premises, which is against the CBSE norms.

Interestingly, the UT education department, Chandigarh has issued a Whatsapp complaint number for parents, to lodge a complaint against private schools for forcing parents to purchase books, uniforms etc from specific shops. With parents gearing their kids for the next academic session at city schools, several instances of private schools forcing parents to buy books and uniforms from specific shops only have been reported to the education department.

digitalLearning View: 
Well, neither the schools nor the education regulator should retort to mandating a peculiar set of books. The preference or choice should be left over with the respective institutions themselves, though any malpractice or vested interest should be checked.

There are much better products in the market by private players which are well in consonance with the prescribed curriculum. Why should their adoption be restricted by CBSE? Wouldn’t it be a censor on knowledge and the ways of disseminating the same?

VR, Robotics, IoT, Cloud Stack & Big Data to dominate the training deck at NIIT

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Future technologies like Virtual Reality, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Mean Stack, Java Stack, Cloud Stack, Big Data and Data Sciences would constitute the core of training programme by NIIT. These future technological courses would be of 12-14 weeks and would be launched across 150 NIIT centres pan India.
As the world is moving ahead in the digital space, skilled manpower in these technologies are becoming much sought after. India’s software bellwether, Infosys’ CEO Vishal Sikka among other tech leaders have enunciated this upcoming shift quite emphatically.

digitalLearning View:
It’s a welcome move on the part of NIIT which has been a pioneer in IT Training across the country. This technological mix falls well within the entire spectrum of national missions of Smart Cities, Digital India, Make in India etc.

With over 1.5 million seats in engineering spread across 400 districts of the country, this digital makeover has the potential to transform the employability & innovation quotient of India’s Engineering Graduates. The catch lies in the fact that India’s eduLEADERS have to start seeing what NIIT could envisage and deploy well in time.

Synthesising Knowledge through BIG HISTORY

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Macquarie University pioneered the Big History project to support the teachers and students in acquiring critical skills and to meet the challenges of today. In an interview with Elets News Network (ENN), Professor Andrew McKenna, Director, Big History Institute at Macquarie University, Australia, shares about the initiative, its benefits for students & teachers, expansion plans in India and much more

Please share the concept and vision behind Big History initiative. Macquarie University is the birthplace of Big History.
Professor David Christian coined the term ‘Big History’ and taught the first Big History course at Macquarie University in 1989. Big History is the attempt to understand, in a unified and interdisciplinary way, the history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity. Big History is a universal history for the modern era, a science-based origin story for humanity that links human history to the history of the earth and the universe. It synthesises knowledge across the two main cultures, and many disciplines of the sciences and humanities providing a framework to think in fundamentally new ways. In a time of increasing innovation and change, Big History provides perspective on our current and future trajectory.

What was the focus of your recent visit to India?
The recent visit to India was focused on informing Indian teachers and schools about two separate initiatives, pioneered by Macquarie University to provide Indian students with the opportunity to experience the benefits of engaging with Big History. These initiatives are:

International Student Scholarship: Macquarie University has announced the Big History International Student Undergraduate Scholarship, which is available to all international students who apply for any undergraduate course at Macquarie University and have verified completion of the Big History: Connecting Knowledge MOOC available through the COURSERA® platform.
The scholarships, depending on the programme of study, will cover all tuition fees up to AUD 50,000 per year for an undergraduate degree of 3-4 years duration. This represents a value of `2.5 million (`25 lakhs) per year, potentially over 4 years, for a total value of `10 million (`1 crore). The first ever Big History International Student Scholarship will be awarded in mid-2016. Indian students who enrol in the MOOC and finish the six-week course will be eligible for selection.

SynthesisingProject Indian Pilot Schools Programme: In 2012, Macquarie University partnered with Bill Gates private company bgC3 to develop an online school-based course in Big History for high school students. Based on the work of Professor David Christian, this collaboration produced the Big History Project website https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive. Five schools in Mumbai have been piloting the Big History Project website materials in their classrooms (mostly in Grade VIII), in the 2015-16 school year. Based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback from these schools, Macquarie University is now working to expand the Big History Project Indian Schools Programme across Mumbai.

What is unique about Big History Project? How is it beneficial for students as well as educators?
The unique thing about Big History Project website is the specific skills set it provides students to successfully meet the challenges of today. The website provides a wealth of resources that support teachers and students in acquiring these skills.
The website is designed to develop student’s critical thinking, critical literacy and problem solving skills, enabling them to be innovative global citizens. It provides teachers and students access to resources anytime, anywhere for use in the classroom, including detailed instructional guides, lesson plans, studentbased activities and supporting resources for teachers.

What methodology do you follow to make the students future-ready as well as industry-ready, through the project?
Students today live in a world of increasing innovation and change. To be industry-ready and equipped for future, students are required to be innovative, problem-solvers and flexible thinkers. Big History gives students a framework to think and solve problems in fundamentally new ways. This is hugely relevant to the many challenges faced by CEOs, scientific researchers, politicians, and entrepreneurs. Real-world problems are complex, complicated and connected. Big History provides students with multi-domain knowledge, crossdisciplinary critical thinking, and innovative synthesis and problem-solving skills required to meet the complex challenges of today’s world.

What are your expansion plans and the steps you are taking to promote Big History in India? Macquarie University is committed to bringing Big History to every student, school and country. As India is a global hub for innovation, empowering Indian students with the knowledge and skills that come from studying Big History is one of our key priorities.
At the ‘in-school’ grade VIII level, Macquarie University is running a pilot programme with Indian teachers and schools in implementing Big History Project website materials. The pilot programme will be expanding from an initial group of five pioneering Indian schools in 2015-16 to a group of 30 Indian schools in 2016-17. Feedback from our work with this core group of Indian schools will ensure the optimisation of Big History Project website and course materials for Indian students and teachers to facilitate implementation in classrooms across India. A key factor in this process will be ensuring the Big History Project website and resources align with the different curriculums implemented in schools across India.

Real-world problems are complex, complicated and connected. Big History provides students with multidomain knowledge, cross-disciplinary critical thinking, and innovative synthesis and problem solving skills required to meet the complex challenges of today’s world

Finally, what are your achievements of the project and what priorities you set for the future?
 The Big History Project website is currently used in over 3000 classrooms across the world. Macquarie University is committed to bringing Big History to students across India as a global priority. Empowering innovative minds of the future, many of whom will come from India, is our main objective. Ensuring that the talented minds that come from India are equipped with Big History skills to innovatively approach complex problems will make a profound contribution to meeting the challenges of the 21st century for humanity as a whole.n

Helping to unravel & unfurl your inner voice

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Helping to unravel & unfurl your inner voice, the Careerline.com way….

Envisioned as an integrated suite of solutions in the domain of Human Resource Development, CareerLine.com is the flagship tool that is designed to enable individuals to take ownership of their career journey

The interesting part is the process fl ow whereby the individual is at the center of the narrative taking charge of his/her career choices.

What happens when a Royal Navy Engineer turns into a passionate HR professional, wearing on his sleeves a typing speed of 120 WPM having global stints with companies like British Aerospace, DHL, Coco-Cola, Kimberly Clark and Tetra Pak? Probably, it’s a WorkAmmo !!!

Richard Cowley, the Founder, WorkAmmo claims it to be a tool which unravels & unfurls the inner voice, which is quite central to epic success in today’s diversifi ed work arena.

You defi ne your goals as to where you intend to go; you document your career history; you develop your capabilities in sync with your career goals and you deliver your aspirations with best-fi t jobs.

Careerline emerges out to be a personalized mentor echo-system which guides and goads you, to achieve what the deepest confi nes of your conscience had ever aspired for. Your inner voice gets echoed & empowered within the system which is available closer to you on android and iOS apps.

The paradigm shift which the product makes is the absolute ownership of the career journey which has been transferred to the individual, starting as early as the advent of the teen-age and as late as senior leadership.

In an increasingly mechanical world, this ubiquitous product somewhere facilitates career decisions that are informed, objective and result-oriented across the entire careerline of an individual.

CareerLine.com allows individuals to plot out their career journey – their history, present, and their future goals – all in one place, allowing them to refl ect on where they have been and where they want to go.

A private space for life, a place to document your career, receive help to develop your career, and fi nally help you deliver your career by pushing jobs to you based on your profi le and preferences.

Seems like a worthwhile try…Mariners are known to be sticklers for performance.

Workshop conducted on Improving early student learning, via toolkits

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

In collaboration with Catalyst Management Services, Bangalore, Centre for Education Innovation(CEI) has unveiled its Early Learning Toolkit in India.

Molly J Eberhardt and Duncan McCollough, educational specialist, facilitated sessions on early learning challenges in education in the Indian context, in a hands-on workshop titled “Evidence-based Strategies to Improve Student Learning”.Both the facilitators discussed teacher coaching, mother-tongue instruction, targeted instruction and parent-child interaction to mitigate problems that plague primary education setups. This session was conducted by presenting evidence-based approaches from their toolkit. They also discussed scaling up, cost-effectiveness, monitoring and evaluation as part of program management strategies.The Early Learning Toolkit is based on rigorous evidence collected from Hewlett funded evaluations of innovative education interventions, as well as direct input from wide cross-sections of programs, that CEI is involved in.

High NAAC graders to enjoy Autonomy of Operations

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

In a major enabling move linking up NAAC grades to that of the sought after status of Autonomy, UGC recently announced that autonomy would be granted to colleges which get highest grades in the three assessment cycles, of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The on-the-spot inspection by an expert committee has been done away with, which was mired with significant controversies and lack of objectivity.

The latest procedure envisages, a college to be accredited with the highest grade in two consecutive cycles. In addition, it should secure the highest accreditation grade in the third NAAC assessment cycle in order qualify for an autonomous status. The college would however have to obtain a no-objection certificate from the university, it is affiliated to.

Autonomy is considered to be a major milestone in an institution’s progress. Autonomy allows institutions to incorporate suggestions from students, industry experts as well as the alumni in their teaching learning processes. It also enables the institution to design the syllabus for different courses. Autonomy opens up the avenues for UGC funding under various heads as well.

digitalLEARNING View::
Linking the subsequent NAAC grades to a tangible milestone as autonomy is a substantial reform in a sector which was largely influenced and governed by subjective commentaries which were allegedly influenced at times. It would be difficult to do so with Consecutive expert committees year on year and would open up the vistas for objective data driven governance. These baseline reforms would certainly help bridge the innumerable fault lines existing in our higher education system refraining it from soaring high to its intended levels of quality and empowerment.

Niti Aayog prescribes a three pronged strategy to get Foreign Univs in India

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Niti Aayog has submitted its report to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), suggesting three routes to permit entry of foreign education providers in India:

  • a new law to regulate the operation of such universities in the country;
  • an amendment to the UGC Act of 1956 and deemed university regulations to let them in as deemed universities;
  • facilitating their entry by tweaking UGC and AICTE regulations on twinning arrangements between Indian and foreign institutions to permit joint ventures.

    NITI Aayog is of the view that, foreign universities will help meet the demand for higher education in the country, increase competition and subsequently improve standards of higher education in India.

    India stands to gain from setting up of foreign universities in terms of availability of resources both human and financial, state-of-the-art teaching methodology, research and innovation.

    The matter was referred to Niti Aayog when few political parties had advised against foreign universities setting up base in India.
    Their key contention was that the coming in of the foreign universities would raise the cost of education, making it out of reach for a large part of the population.
    The Aayog was thereby asked to study all reports regarding the setting up of foreign universities. The Prime Minister had called a meeting of senior bureaucrats last year, to discuss the feasibility of encouraging top foreign education providers. The proposal was backed by ten state governments,  including Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.

digitalLEARNING View ::
Considering the large amount of outward remittances for supporting education in foreign universities, it would be a worthwhile idea to facilitate the opening of some of them on the Indian soil itself. This shall galvanize the entire space of higher education and shall boost health competition enabling some of the homegrown brands to catapult to global standards. Nonetheless, a level playing field would have to be provided by enabling regulations with due riders so that the foreign entities don’t advance their interests at the cost of homegrown ones.

NCERT textbooks now on ‘e-paathshala’

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Seeing the trend of mobile apps and website portals, NCERT textbooks can now be read online, without having to purchase them. This is made possible via ‘e-paathshala’, a mobile app as well as a website portal, launched recently by Smriti Irani, minister for Human resource Department (HRD).
This has been done keeping in mind many factors. NCERT textbooks have been accepted throughout the entire country. Many students preparing for the UPSC civil services examinations refer to the NCERT books. Moreover, there has been a shortage of NCERT books in the market (as per news reports) and school students are finding it tough to buy these textbooks.
With the latest development, NCERT has also given rights to 8 state governments to print books as they believe fit to accomplish the requirements of their students.  This would be for the first time, that all NCERT books of class 1st to 12th , would be available in both English and Hindi on web based application ‘e-paathshala’. In addition, it would be put in publicly that NCERT has its own sales counter in Ajmer, Bhopal, Shillong, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Mysore, Kolkata, Guwahati and New Delhi from where schools can buy books in bulk.

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