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UGC’s funding declines 55 per cent

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digitalLEARNING Network
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The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) budget allocation has been cut by almost 55 per cent, from Rs 9315.45 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 4286.94 crore in 2016-17. The UGC provides funds and maintains standards in institutions of higher education.

The UGC’s funding has declined with the setting up of a Higher Education Financing Agency and increased focus on the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan.

In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Higher Education Financing Agency would be set up with an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crore. The Financing agency will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations.

In the current financial year, a provision of Rs 1,300 crore has been made in the Budget for the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, up from Rs 1,155 crore. Launched in 2013, the centrally sponsored scheme aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions.

The total allocation for the department of higher education has increased to Rs 28,840 crore from Rs 25,399 crore. This amount includes provisions for various technical institutions. A sum of Rs 190 crore has been earmarked for setting up of new IITs and Rs 695 crore for IIMs.

NIIT’s NITAT opens Avenues for Careers across Multiple Sectors

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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NIIT Limited, a global leader in skills and talent development has received an overwhelming response for its 12th National Industry Targeted Aptitude Test (NITAT) conducted on February 13, 2016. NITAT 2016 witnessed 93,068 applicants, 47,311 test takers, among which 35,178 students qualified. The examination was conducted in over 150 cities nationwide. Over past 11 years, more than 1 million aspirants have been benefited by the test.

NITAT helps the students and graduates to access their potential and aptitude for careers across multiple sectors. The test has been designed as an objective test of reasoning, comprehension, data interpretation skills and behavioural traits. Every student is entitled to receive a personalised scorecard that will give his/her Aptitude Ranking (concentric graphical form) on National and Zonal basis.

Shivan Bhargava, Group President, Skills and Careers Group, NIIT Ltd, said, “The response that NITAT has received from the students across India is unprecedented. We commenced NITAT 11 years ago with an aim to recognise skilled workforce to meet the demands of the IT industry. Today, NITAT has evolved from being just an IT aptitude test to the one that assesses student’s career readiness quotient across multiple domains like IT, Banking and Finance. We are confident that NITAT will continue to help students access their skills for multiple career domains.”

NIIT’s pioneering initiative NITAT was introduced in 2004 to enable graduates and students pursuing their studies in engineering, arts, commerce and science streams to gauge their aptitude for a career in the IT sector, identify skills further required, if any, and thus systematically charter their career into the IT industry. Today the test has evolved as a powerful tool that assesses student’s aptitude across multiple domains, including IT, Banking and Finance. The test is designed scientifically to assess students and provide a relative ranking system, which helps them to identify their position amongst all test takers.

CUP India introduces two Revolutionary Digital Solutions

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press (CUP) has introduced two new age digital solutions – Cambridge HOTmaths, a comprehensive blended mathematics learning system and Communication 360°, an innovative Listening and Speaking Skills Development solution, powered by technology.

Cambridge HOTmaths, a global learning solution for mathematics offers cutting-edge technology and best practices to support mathematics teaching and learning. Cambridge HOTmaths brings a paradigm shift, where print material supports digital and has distinct advantages for both – classroom and home usage – and is aimed at encouraging independent learning.

Communication 360° immerses the learners into a real-world environment wherein they are allowed to interact within relevant contexts, encouraged to make connections and build confidence to communicate effectively.

Speaking at the launch, Ratnesh Kumar Jha, Managing Director, CUP, South Asia, said, “We are driven by our goal to create products that ignite curiosity and love for learning and teaching. These products are developed keeping in mind the pedagogy designed in context of the real world. With such learner-centric solutions, we aim to unlock the potential of the new age learner and make them future ready.”

Mark O’Neil, Executive Director, CUP, Australia and CEO of HOTmaths Pty Ltd, said, “HOTmaths is enabling pathways for children with different abilities to achieve successful outcomes. Cambridge HOTmaths India has a mission to make learning mathematics more engaging and interactive. The response garnered globally has been overwhelming and we are certain that schools will achieve better results and lesser impediments in the classrooms, in India as well.”

Cambridge HOTmaths, at school, enables teachers to chart student progress with integrated diagnostic tests and other assessment activities. It caters to all ability levels, from beginners to advanced, and offers creative teaching ideas for integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the classroom. At home, it improves performance by reinforcing the topics learnt at school.

Similarly, Communication 360° consists of School and Home use components. The product makes use of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning strategies. It promotes confidence building via multiple guided as well as self-paced practice opportunities. The programme comes with a progress tracker, to track the performance and graphically depict the position vis-à-vis other learners. Pre, mid and post scored Assessments and Analytics are in place for all stakeholders – students, teachers, administrators and parents.

MS University to study state of Higher Education Institutes

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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To know the state of higher education institutes in the country, the Department of Educational Administration of MS University’s Faculty of Education and Psychology will conduct a national level research project, through a multi-state and multi-institutional study.

The study on teaching and learning in higher education institutes in India has been commissioned by the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration of Ministry of Human Resource Development.

K Pushpanadham, Director and the state project lead of the research, and the professor of educational management at the Department, said, “While extensive research and development are being conducted on improving teaching-learning in primary and secondary education sectors, there seems a lack of substantial and contemporary research for evidence based policy making to improve teaching-learning in Indian higher educational arena.”

“Despite focus on excellence becoming a national agenda for higher educational reform (during XIth and XIIth plan of Planning Commission) teaching in higher education has an overall limited success in improving the conditions of the youth of the country. It is in this backdrop that the research is being carried out,” he added.

Universities covering different regions in five zones including Himachal Pradesh University from North, Madurai Kamraj University in South, Calcutta University in East, MSU in West and Guru Ghasidas University in Central India, have been selected for the study.

Duolingo launches customised App in India

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Duolingo launched its Duolingo App, customised for Hindi speakers, in India. The app has already attracted over 110 million users worldwide and is helping the people learn languages for free. After conducting user studies with English learners in India, Duolingo introduced customised features for the Hindi-speaking population, such as removing the need to type in Hindi and improving the placement test experience to help people quickly determine their proficiency level. With Duolingo, Hindi speakers can learn English while English-speaking Indians can choose from 16 other languages.

Luis von Ahn, Co-founder and CEO, Duolingo, said, “In developing markets like India, learning English is crucial to people’s professional development and can double or triple their income potential. Our goal is to give everyone in India the best possible language education money can buy, but for free.”

Duolingo, which has partnerships with governments, schools and companies across the world to improve language education, is keen on entering similar partnerships in India as well.

Union Budget 2016-17: Education Sector expects more

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Arun jaitley Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party going for election campaigning Lucknow; Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election 2012 ,Uttar Pradesh, photo:pradeep gaur/mint

With the unveiling of the Union Budget 2016-17 by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 29, reactions started pouring in from experts and the stakeholders in education space. The experts say that they welcome some parts of the Budget but it is disappointing on some fronts.

Sivaramakrishnan V, Managing Director, Oxford University Press India

It is heartening to find Education listed amongst the ‘9 pillars’ identified by the Finance Minister for this year’s Budget. The specific to Education announcements seem pragmatic and progressive – digital literacy for six crore rural households combined with the promise of 100 per cent electrification will provide impetus to knowledge dissemination efforts in sub-urban parts of India. Large outlays for skill development will resonate with India’s youth seeking to improve their employability quotient.

The Higher Education sector which has been sluggish for past few years will get a much-needed stimulus through the appointment of the proposed financing agency. I think the policy makers have responded well to the collective vision of a modern and educated India.

Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT

There were high expectations from Budget 2016 from the skill development industry, in continuing of the financial push which Skill India Mission desperately requires. To that extent, the budget can be termed as a step in positive direction, with setting aside of Rs 1800 crores of funds for setting up of Multi-Skill Institutions and scaling up of PMKVY to cover one crore youth in next three years. Another long-pending requirement has been addressed in the budget that is setting up of a National Board of Certification of Skills, though much depends on the fine print when this body becomes active. On the other hand, the sheer budgetary requirement for skill development sector in terms of capacity expansion, certification and mobilisation of large number of underprivileged youth remains much more than what has been allocated in the current budget. (Budgetary outlay increased by only 20 per cent as against at least 30-40 per cent required over previous budget). The budget also stopped short of providing concrete and definite service tax exemption measures for private sector players involved in skill development operations.

It is also heartening to note the usage of MOOCs, for promoting entrepreneurship education in Schools and Colleges which would bring the focus on self-employment, much required for livelihood creation in our country. Also, a digital literacy mission aimed at rural India is again a welcome move, which would enable financial, social and digital inclusion of vast majority of rural population.

Abhishek Pandit, Director-Business Services, AISECT

Apart from inheriting low growth from the previous Government, this Government has also inherited several schemes which have benefited the common man. Jandhan Yojana is one such scheme. I am disappointed that there has not been an impetus given to the scheme in this budget. With the focus of farmers income being doubled and bringing in e-platform, there has to be a clear focus on how this can be channeled through organised banking channels.

Along with digital literacy, financial literacy should also have been clubbed. We want the citizen to understand the digital space as well as the basic financial space so that they can benefit by streamlining the household expenses and income and increasing the effective saving.  

Focus on Aadhaar platform is a good step towards transparency in schemes implemented across the country. All the schemes that have been launched by the Government today should be linked to the UID.

Shantanu Prakash, CMD Educomp Solutions Ltd

An intention to put education on the frontline has to a large extent been translated into actionable numbers. The interdisciplinary approach to impacting various pressure points of the education framework was praiseworthy and indicates that the government has taken a 360 degree view of the needs of India’s education sector. The pointed emphasis on skill development is crucial for employability while the deeper issues of education quality and reach are addressed.

The education industry was expecting rather big bang reforms in the policy framework by creating and enabling a regulatory authority for education which would have marshalled more resources coming into education. While the Government’s announcement to open 62 new Navodaya Vidyalayas is fantastic, there could have been a scheme to launch 100 times more number of schools i.e. 6200, which is what the country requires. All of these don’t need to come from the government sector and the private sector should be allowed to contribute as well.

I think that would have provided the much needed fillip to education sector to bridge the gap that currently exists between what is needed and what is available, if we are going to create a new generations of Indians that are ready for the global challenges of the 21st century. Education is the fuel for a 21st century economy and it is linked to all the other schemes such as Digital India, Start Up India and even Swachh Bharat. So let us look at education as social infrastructure and give it the importance it deserves like all other aspects of infrastructure.

The fact that the government had said that this is one of the pillars of our budget is heartening since it indicates that the thinking is in the right direction. However, more and more needs to be done for education compared to what is on the table right now.

Vijay K Thadani, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, NIIT Ltd

We welcome the focus on education, skills, job creation and entrepreneurship in this budget. Emphasis on promoting excellence in higher education on a level playing field by identifying 10 public and 10 private institutions, is a good move.

Digital repository for validation of qualification will provide a great boost to high employment industries, such as the IT sector. Also, upgradation of National Career Services will produce more effective connection of jobs with skills.

The maturity of digital technology and its role in the society is visible from the fact that MOOCs will be used for mentoring new entrepreneurs.

Aakash Chaudhry, Director, Aakash Educational Services Pvt Ltd

The push in the higher education, opportunities for skill development and focus on quality education is a welcome move. It turns the spotlight on both sides of the potential growth story – job creation as well as skill up-gradation.

The budget is promising as it supports 10 public and 10 private educational institutions to be made world-class which will further add to the opportunities for aspiring students to get exposure to right kind of faculty, infrastructure, jobs and market ready curriculum.

Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education India Pvt Ltd

To realise the full potential of the demographic dividend that India is set to enjoy, and to prevent from that becoming a demographic liability, we need to find suitable avenues for employment and self-employment, through the focus on skill-development. We strongly believe that skill and aptitude identification and development has to start in schools itself. Teachers also have to be trained accordingly, something that is missed out in this year’s budget.

The total allocation of Rs 68,968 crore will play a significant role in inclusion of entire education sector from secondary schools to higher education and research centers. However, we could have had a more active engagement with the private sector, which currently contributes well over 40 per cent of K-12 education in India.

Lastly, the concern on quality education and learning outcomes will increase the focus on infrastructure development. Since the government has promised to increase the number of IITs, AIIMS and other professional institutes, maintaining the quality will be yet another challenge. However, we believe the allocation in the Budget for higher education will go a long way towards resolving this problem.

‘Knowledge Economy’ to drive Economic Growth

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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Sivaramakrishnan V Managing Director Oxford University Press, India
Sivaramakrishnan V
MD
Oxford University Press, India

In the run up to the Union Budget 2016, Sivaramakrishnan V, Managing Director, Oxford University Press, India, shares with Elets News Network (ENN) the key areas where government should lay emphasis on, from an education perspective

The relevance of education in any growing economy is uncontested. Its significance in a country like India that has a young demography with aspirations to be a part of the global knowledge pool, makes it exceptionally relevant.

While our policy planners have traditionally accorded priority to the education sector, the focus was mostly on programmes that would shore up the country’s literacy rate. In the changing world order where India’s ubiquitous position as the ‘knowledge capital’ has grown manifold, literacy is no more the terminus – it is in fact the start point! Life-skills, vocational, digitisation and skilling are the new buzzwords that now delineate education in India. The expectations from the upcoming budget are hence not just around policy reforms or increase in outlays – it is about providing impetus to a range of existing schemes, setting measurable goals and, most importantly, stressing on the efficacy of the work undertaken. Below are the four areas where we think the Union Budget of 2016 should lay emphasis on from an education perspective:

Teacher Training and Development: Teachers are the biggest influencers on students and hence hold a pivotal position in the education ecosystem. The teaching profession itself needs to be made more attractive for young professionals so that it becomes a career of choice. This could be done through increase in outlays for teacher salaries, incentivising them on the basis of student performance and outcomes or even with launch of a mass media campaign. Alongside, it is equally important to focus on the professional development of Teachers and Educators. This keeps them up-to-date on student related research, technology tools for classrooms and curriculum related aspects. A large-scale intervention targeted at training of teachers and educators, delivered through the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model, can provide the much needed impetus to classroom learning outcomes across schools, colleges and professional institutions.

Life-skills and Employability: Around 50 per cent of India’s population is under the age of 25. It is only prudent that we think of the employability of the growing young demography, as they have a critical role to play in the future economic development of the country. Programmes, such as ‘Make in India’ designed to make the country a manufacturing hub of the world, stand to gain from such measures. There is also a strong need to make our workforce globally employable, and proficiency in English language can immensely contribute to that effort. Therefore, English language courses must be incorporated in all life-skill programmes. Quality conscious private sector organisations can easily play a role in filling this gap through partnerships with bodies such as the NSDC.

Technology Proliferation: Technology is a great enabler and can prove to be the game-changer in education. While technology adoption in the Indian education space has happened at a rapid pace (especially in the K-12 segment), it is still limited to urban pockets. The real benefits of technology reaching classrooms will emanate once we ensure proliferation in tier 2 cities and sub-urban towns. This is possible through providing institutional subsidy on education technology products so that educational institutions find it affordable to adopt technology.

Research: Research spending and scholarly work in India is on a downward spiral – this is a very unfortunate situation. The budget spend on research has remained static at 0.9 per cent of GDP for the last decade. India presently has barely 200,000 researchers for a population of over 1.2 billion people. It has one of the lowest densities of scientific workforce, ranking even below countries like Chile, Kenya, when it comes to research workforce density in the labour population. As an example, in 2013, South Korea filed over 4,400 patents per one million of population while India could manage only 17 (Source: data compiled by Nature Magazine, May 2015). The education sector will be expecting some impetus for research in the country to spur innovation, modernisation and advancement.

We are quite confident that the policy makers will take a considered view of the needs of a modern and educated India, which is beginning to make its mark as a growing economy on the world economic and knowledge arena.

OSU, IndoGenius develop Online Course to Educate Students about India

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Basic RGBOhio State University (OSU) – one of the largest universities in the US and Delhi-based IndoGenius have developed an online course to help students learn about the importance of India.

The course, launched by Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, will be delivered via the world’s largest online course platform, Coursera.

Funded through the US Department of State’s Passport to India initiative, the massive open online course (MOOC) will be jointly managed by Ohio State and IndoGenius.

Passport to India seeks to enhance the number and diversity of American college and university students studying abroad and interning in India by 2020.

The course curriculum was developed by Brian Joseph, a distinguished professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University and Nick Booker, co-founder of IndoGenius, and implemented through the Office of Distance Education and eLearning.

Titled, “The Importance of India”, the course covers a broad range of topics, from India’s ancient trade relations with the Roman Empire, South East Asia and China to India’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem and its role in creatively solving global problems through technology.

By educating students about India through the MOOC, Ohio State and IndoGenius are expecting that it will make a major contribution toward meeting Passport to India’s goal of increasing the number of students studying abroad in India annually from its current, 4,583 to at least 10,000 in the coming four years.

e-Learning Programme in all NDMC Schools from 2016-17

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

NDMCWith the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) selected in the list of 20 cities under the Smart City Mission, the Council has started taking initiatives for implementation of projects as envisaged in the Smart City Proposal. One of the pan-city projects under the proposal is to provide smart educational services through the smart classrooms.

Naresh Kumar, Chairperson, NDMC, said, “The project will be introduced in the upcoming academic 2016-17 session in 30 NDMC’s schools and 444 classes.”

Informing about the details of project, Kumar said that the main aim of the smart education is to introduce e-Learning solutions in all the NDMC schools, mentoring programmes, centralised students e-Health records and skill development.

The e-Learning solutions from Class-VI to XII in all NDMC schools are to transform traditional classrooms to futuristic technology enable smart learning classrooms by introduction of state-of-art technology, infrastructure and professionally developed learning content. “This would provide with high end computer, interactive whiteboards, short-throw projectors and other hardware/software. Through leveraging e-Learning, the drop-outs rate of students will be reduced and it also improves knowledge,” he added.

Chapter on Shivaji Maharaj as a Management Guru in MSBSHSE

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Vinod TawdeOn the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (Shivaji Jayanti) on February 19, Vinod Tawde, Maharashtra Education Minister announced that a chapter identifying Shivaji Maharaj as a ‘management guru’ will be included in Class IV history textbooks the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) from the next academic year.

The plan to include a chapter on Shivaji Maharaj as “a management guru” was also mentioned in January by the Minister during the inauguration of an event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research — ‘Balbharti’.

The Education Minister said, “Until now, we all knew and students learnt about Shivaji Maharaj the warrior king from textbooks. But Shivaji Maharaj was also a good management guru, and students will get to know all about that in this particular chapter. His work in the areas of water conservation, water distribution, forest conservation among others is the examples of Shivaji Maharaj’s management skills in those times.”

“The State Government has decided to add eight pages dedicated to Shivaji Maharaj’s management skills so that students should also get to know about the Maratha warrior’s management skills,” he added.

“The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has already suggested these changes but this has not been reflected in the textbook of the State board. Now these changes will be implemented from the next academic year,” the Minister further said.

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