Creating a mechanism to accredit Skill education and training is necessary to build an ecosystem for empowering the youth with global skills requirement as well as employable skills in Make in India regime. Vipin Sahni, CEO, National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET) tells Bhawna Satsangi of Elets News Network (ENN) how the organisation has repositioned its role in the formal and non-formal education to scale up the activities in education sector

What are the initiatives under NABET focusing on skill development?

The formation of Quality Council of India was done on the principles of creating a third party assessment structure – a national accreditation structure for international acceptability. One, of course was the general standards and conformity assessment arena. But, the other area which would be the foundation stone for our country to grow and reach at the international standards progressively through voluntary accreditation is education and training. With that perspective it was thought that we should have a separate board or an accreditation board which can create an ecosystem for providing quality services to the masses in education and skills domain.

You may be aware, that NABET is one of the biggest boards under QCI in terms of its reach, activities, growth as well as the impact it has on the total population of youth in India. The role of education has become more important because of the huge demographic potential that India possesses, which needs to be converted into a dividend not only for India but also for the world. These youth are also expected to take up employment internationally to meet the needs of the various economies around the world. To give you an idea, there are about more than one and a half million schools and GER of only 21% and more than 30 million people in tertiary education in India every year.

Whereas, the government has been spending lot of money in creating new institutions in order to provide access to education and skill training. The fast changing industrial environment in India and abroad has rendered the existing skill set a very short shelf life. Our education system and for that matter around the world has not been able to cope up with the skill set required for a global and fast changing work place. There are issues of employability, working in a multicultural work environment, working with pleasure without stress, training of teachers, holistic development of educational professional, peer learning, ICT based learning, and skill training etc.

All these areas of major concern are being addressed within a very tight framework and fortunately the present government has given lot of emphasis on skill training, which is likely to become a vehicle for economic development and leadership that India craves to establish in the world through its human resource potential. NABET has made an extremely visionary plan to address all these issues in a time bound manner.

Formal education is the basic ingredient or the foundation for any holistic development. Within this ecosystem, NABET is creating a structured assessment, rating and maturity model for institutionalization and linkages with the international benchmarks.

Please throw light on NABET structure.

We have five different verticals within NABET. It is the national accreditation body for the industrial training institutes – the ITIs, National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT), Government of India has made it mandatory for all institutes to first seek NABET accreditation for NCVT affiliation.

The process of accreditation is based on the principles of third party assessment.We work as a supporting arm to various government initiatives at central or state level and ensure the quality parameters in all education and skills related activities.

We also seek to accredit personal certification bodies which verify the competencies of professionals. Very soon this will become a mechanism for cross border movement of professionals from our country into different countries. The companies today are asking for certified professionals globally.

NABET is also working in a major way with Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and creating a kind of supporting mechanism through Quality initiatives. NABET is the National Monitoring and Implementing Unit for Lean Manufacturing Competitiveness scheme with Ministry of MSME.

NABET is also accrediting schools in formal education, a voluntary standard as of now. The standard is very well accepted in private, government and schools abroad. A number of schools in the Middle East are also coming for NABET accreditation.

We are also working on the accreditation of environment impact assessment consultant organisations who take up developmental projects in India wherein NABET is working in close cooperation with Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change. For preparing EIA reports, the consulting organisations have to be NABET accredited.

On what parameters do you decide the accreditation?

In certain areas there are process standards like ISO 9000 standards or 14000 standards which are embedded. Even for certification of non-formal training institutes, there is ISO 29990 standard. The bodies which are certifying the competencies of professionals there is a standard called ISO 17024. We as an accreditation body also have to meet the standard 17011 and there’s an international accreditation forum (IAF) of which Quality Council of India is a member. Wherever there are multilateral agreements, we try to be a signatory to those agreements.

Except for higher education wherein we have Washington accord, for schools and vocational training’s there are no multilateral agreements at present around the world. We are signing bilateral agreements with similar bodies around the world so that at least by the time these multi-lateral agreements come, we have certain mechanism which enables our workforce to be acceptable internationally.

We try to pick up the best practices from across the world and circulate criteria that we develop to all our stakeholders and other internationally to ensure that we are on the same lines. The objective is to create an enabling mechanism so that total ecosystem that we are trying to create gets evolved over a period of time.

How NABET is embracing technology?

Technology is the backbone in all of our activities. We have used technology to create certain environments that it reaches to a person even in a rural belt. Today, fortunately technology has given us all those options. All the accreditation mechanism that we are setting up, we are creating total online mechanism wherein institute has to apply online. We try to create all the mechanisms to support the applicants. Technology is also cutting short the time of accreditation through which we have reduced the time period of more than a year for approvals to 3-4 months. This year we have received more than 4000 applications for ITI accreditation because of easy accessibility and clarity of the criteria.

What are the other activities that NABET is working on?

We are looking at creating an ecosystem where we help SMEs in quality parameters to create their capabilities so that when international companies set up establishments in India, they are able to get the quality of resources that they desire. It will also provide ample opportunities to students who are coming out of technical institutes in jobs related to manufacturing quality.

We have created a ZED model (Zero Defect Zero Effect Maturity Model) for MSMEs. Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry are supporting this initiative.

Just imagine through this if a SME is able to create even one more job, there would be an immediate creation of 40- 50 million employment opportunity for youth only in the SME sector. We are not only imagining but striving to create an ecosystem to support the “Make in India” call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

With a mandate to provide quality education for youth, Higher Education Department in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is encouraging employment opportunities through various programmes and schemes to develop skills among students. In an exclusive chat with Seema Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN), Raju Srinivasan, Director, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development shares the efforts that the department is making to skill people and make them job ready

What are the new initiatives being undertaken by MHRD to improve the skill in technical education in the country?

In 2009, the Government had introduced National Policy on Skill Development, but later realised that training alone was insufficient for making people employable. We realised that there was a need to educate our youngsters by providing a continuous skilling curriculum along with mainstream education. With this aim, we introduced skills as part of our education system and the Government has created National Skill Development Council (NSDC) and National Skill Development Agency (NSDA). MHRD had launched a scheme on Skill Assessment Matrix for Vocational Advancement of Youth (SAMVAY) on 11th November 2014 for Credit Framework to support students mobility under National Skills Quality Framework (NSQF). SAMVAY was created to support mobility of students between various levels of general education, community colleges and Bachelor of Vocational Courses (B.Voc) courses run by polytechnics and colleges approved by UGC and AICTE.

We need to educate our youngsters and focus on skilling manpower to encourage better employment and foster entrepreneurship in the country. The demographic dividend provides ample opportunities of employability in foreign lands as there is an adequate demand of skilled persons in all sectors. To make people work abroad and understand their culture and society, learners may prefer to choose any foreign language as an option to meet the global demand.

How can technical education be used to increase the employability level of the youth?

Most of the industries are facing shortage of skilled manpower. Our focus is to impart skills along with technical and general education to fill the gap of skill shortages across various sectors in the industry and to encourage life long learning. Institutions are working to understand the changing industry and market dynamics and have initiated the changes required to increase the employability level of the youth. Moreover, industry and educational institutes are working jointly for creating the curriculum required to meet the market needs.

Are all the IITs and NITs also collaborating with the industries for the right curriculum changes ?

IITs and NITs already have collaboration with various industries and have been able to increase the competency level of students. In case of other institutions, our regulators have directed them to adopt NOS and QP developed by SSC in their curriculum, while implementing community college scheme and B.Voc programme to increase the level of competency to fit into the specific job as per the market demand. With these Institutions adopting the SSC curriculum, there will be no issue of employability in near future.

Please throw light on the community college concept.

The community college is a scheme which is gaining prominence. It is a concept of skill development and traditional courses which are accessible to a large number of individuals of the community. These courses offer low cost yet high quality education locally run by polytechnics and colleges. It has synergetic relationship between the community, learners and a job market. Two years back, Ministry of HRD launched a pilot project for community college scheme, where 200 community colleges were identified. Out of these, AICTE has started 72 community colleges and UGC has started around 107 community colleges. These colleges give an opportunity to the community to move directly to employment or scale up to higher education. The Communty college scheme is expected to meet the local demand of industries and also retain the traditional skill with people.

AICTE has started 72 community colleges and UGC has started around 107 community colleges. These colleges give an opportunity to the community to move directly to employment

How is ICT helping the technical education to improve the quality of education?

More than 800 courses in various disciplines in engineering and science are available online under NPTEL. E-content for eight undergraduate subjects has been generated, over 100 Virtual Labs in nine disciplines, about 770 experiments and 1,500 spoken tutorials are currently ready for use. The use of ICT would thus ensure standardised delivery of education to all students in various universities and institutions.

What is the reach of ICT in various colleges today?

NMEICT cloud to host online courses with social networking to resolve doubts, peer level consultations, online examinations, certifications, credit transfer effective use of MOOCs have been made possible by ICT. NPTEL platforms are helping us to overcome shortage of faculties. Through ICT, we are able to generate the standardised content and it is also possible to deliver education in preferred languages.

What is the roadmap you have developed to reach to remote areas?

Ministry of HRD has notified NVEQF on 3rd September 2012, which is a nationally integrated education and competency-based skill framework, that has been superceded by the NSQF on its notification on 27th December 2013. Subsequently, MHRD has launched revised scheme of vocationalisation of secondary and higher secondary education in school education side and community colleges, B.Voc, Kaushal Kendras, SAMVAY – skill Credit schemes in Higher Education. All these schemes ensure vertical and horizontal mobility as well as provide windows of opportunities to the learner for progression across sectors from level 1 to level 10 under NSQF. The scheme covers 3,645 government schools in 30 States and Union Terrotories, 179 community colleges offering courses in 76 different trades, 127 B.Voc institutions and 100 Kaushal Kendras. Over the period, it would be possible to reach all the schools, colleges and universities across the country based on the response and market demand.

What are the challenges you see in increasing number of institutions in the country?

With the mushrooming of new institutions everywhere, it is important that the quality of education provided by them also improves. Ensuring quality of teaching, training teachers and imparting skills in higher education are the major challenges for institutions. It is viewed as an opportunity of demographic dividend for these institutions where the combination of skills in technical and higher education with an appropriate sectoral domain to match the demand of industry may boost the economy of our nation. NBA accreditation became mandatory for all the programmes of AICTE-approved technical institutions, that are willing to increase the intake of programme or introduce new programme. This would certainly make an impact on improving the quality of technical education.

Chhattisgarh is focused to devising newer ways to improve the quality of teaching in schools by employing ICT tools. Subrat Sahoo, Secretary, Department of School Education, Government of Chhattisgarh, in conversation with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN), talks about the initiatives undertaken taken by the State Government in this direction

What are the major initiatives undertaken by your department to enhance the quality of education in schools of Chhattisgarh?

We are amending the schedule of academic calendar which normally starts from 16th June until 30th April. From next session onwards, the calendar will start from 1st April until 31st March, in tandem with CBSE and other boards. We are also going to start online teachers’ management system, so that we can track them and their salary would also be credited through a payment gateway to avoid any delays. It will be an online management system applied to all the schools in Chhattisgarh. The project is in its initial stage now and is likely to be rolled out by the end of this financial year.

How do you keep track of other districts or blocks’ workflow?

We have migrated to an electronic mode, in which messages including letters, circulars and orders are delivered instantaneously, and we can also track the movements of the documents. For instance, the number of times it is seen, the number of copies that have been printed and so on. It also provides us leads about the defaulting districts or blocks.

What initiative is your department taking towards teachers’ training?

We have rolled out a programme on compulsory training for all teachers and have trained around 40,000 teachers so far. However, 5,000 more teachers are still to be trained. We will complete their training by the end of this financial year and none of the teachers will remain untrained on completion of this programme.

We are in the process of becoming Vocational Training Providers (VTPs) and are already a part of the training schedule.

The Government of India is focusing on quality education. What is the contribution of Chhattisgarh Government in this regard?

We are in the process of becoming Vocational Training Providers (VTPs) and are already a part of the training schedule. There are some issues on which we are working. Overall, it has been a positive experience for us.

How important is the role of ICT in education?

We are using ICT for all our programmes. For example, for our training module, we are using online platform to reduce the paper burden and carbon footprints. Training material is available to all those who attend it. They can also offload their training preferences and the system will decide in which slot and time a person can attend the training class.

We are also doing a free web-page enabling of question banks. This will be operational in a couple of months. In this programme, any child anywhere within or outside Chhattisgarh can access the web-page and select a sample paper of his own choice depending on class, subject and level of difficulty. This step will reduce dependence on guide books.

How important digital learning would become in the coming years?

Digital learning is here to stay and it won’t vanish. It’s a paradigm shift and we have to keep pace with time. However, since there is limitation of resources, it can be done only in a phased manner.

What is your vision for the School Education Department in the State?

My vision is to improve the quality of education, which is not very satisfactory at present. We need to improve the level and capabilities of teachers and also the general environment in the State, where children can be promised a better future.

Keen on creating third level links in post graduate research, Ireland is slowly becoming a home for Indian students to explore their area of interest at the local universities. In an exclusive chat with Feilim McLaughlin, Ambassador of Ireland to India, Bhawna Satsangi of Elets New Network (ENN), finds out the opportunities that the country offers for Indian students.

Please throw light on India and Ireland education ties.

The number of schools in India has been developed by Irish people over 200 years and has Irish links all over India. But that’s a story of the 19 th century. We are trying to develop a new story of 21 st century, looking at more third-level links, particularly in post graduate research, and trying to make relationship with faculties in India.

We have signed almost 45 MoUs with Indian institutes and the number is growing. We have around 1000 Indian students studying at the post graduate level in Ireland. The number has been doubled in last two years and we are hoping to increase more numbers in next two to three years. We are trying to encourage Irish students to come to India and take up post graduate courses. The primary area which is of interest to Indian students in looking at Ireland is the linkages we have between education and industry.

Ireland is home to thousands of the world’s largest multinationals working in Hi-tech sectors. We develop very strong links between education sector and business, so that in many cases, research and development done by businesses is actually done in collaboration with our universities which help students of the universities to hone their skills and get practical knowledge. They get the opportunity to work for blue chip companies. It is an experimental duty to bring them together to ensure that our education sector is industry relevant and provides best possible platforms for individual students when they leave university. They have skill and experience which is required by the industry. We find this as a great interest to Indian students.

 What are the popular subjects in Ireland Universities for Indian students?

Tech related subjects, computer science, engineering, business and marketing are some of the subjects very popular among Indian students in Ireland universities. We have very good Business Ireland ensures to give best possible platforms to students to work in blue chip companies school in university college Dublin to study Business and Marketing. It has one of the best MBA programmes in Dublin College. We have maximum number of Indian students in the Dublin University and there are 120 students looking to go to University College Dublin. Applied sciences is also another subject which is gaining popularity.

Ireland has large technical sectors, institutes of technology, private colleges as well and lots of Indian students are opting to study catering and hotel management. The institute of technology offers wide range of vocational courses for the students in engineering related field

Are there any innovations done in education sector specifically targeting Indian students?

Education sector is very innovation focussed may be not specifically for Indian students but it is for all. There is an opportunity for the Indian students to profit from the work we are doing with the industry in particular. We have got huge ICT sector in Dublin which has become silicon dock. There are lots of companies that have shortages in terms of qualified workforce. Once the student completes graduation, he can stay in Ireland for 12 months and can find an employment.

What are the other opportunities students can explore in Vocational studies?

Ireland has large technical sectors, institutes of technology, private colleges as well and lots of Indian students are opting to study catering and hotel management. The institute of technology offers wide range of vocational courses for the students in engineering-related field.

What are the scholarship schemes for Indian Students?

We have 150 scholarship schemes that we are running for Indian students in all of the colleges. Most of them are from Government of Ireland. Majority of the scholarship schemes are coming from colleges itself.

Please throw light on British Irish Scheme.

This is the VISA scheme, which allows the student to explore education tourism in the UK without acquiring separate VISA. This is a single VISA scheme through which students can commute from Ireland to UK easily. With an Irish VISA you can move to UK and vice- versa. The idea is to facilitate education between two countries. The number of VISA applications has been increased to 20 per cent.

What are the employment opportunities for students?

Students are allowed to work upto 25-30 hours a week part time which is permitted by the Universities. They can get hands on experience. Unlike lot of other countries, we offer possibilities of having a breathing period after the student finishes his study. He can look for internships in companies and can work in the blue chip companies.

Do universities provide placement opportunities for students?

The universities arrange internships in the companies, felicitate the student’s name, give ideas. There are couple of courses now which has placement opportunities as part of the course.

What are the other benefits of studying in Ireland?

It’s a very friendly place, relaxed and is a good social place. One can go to 150 destinations in Europe from Ireland. People are more generous and talk to each other. Indian students are becoming our strong advocates.

The world is changing and quickly moving to mobile devices, and so are we, says Ashutosh Kumar, CEO, Testbook, who explains that Testbook is migrating to a primarily mobile-based platform to increase usage and user engagement

What are the various reasons behind starting Testbook?

The main reason to start Testbook was to address the growing need for affordable quality education and testing. Data is the key element to make learning more personalised, engaging and informative. Testbook employs a vast array of data analytics and machine learning techniques to give users the most accurate learning experience.

There is an excellent market opportunity. The majority of big exams are conducted online now. Students need platforms where they can practise and learn in simulated testing environments. The Internet is reaching each and every palm very fast and mobility is key in getting students to multi-task while doing mundane things like travelling.

We are migrating to a primarily mobile-based platform to increase usage and user engagement. The world is changing and quickly moving to mobile devices, and so are we.

What are the various difficulties encountered in doing business on ground level?

It was very difficult to create quality content which students could rely on and fortunately we have nailed it. Getting good, skilled people in a competitive industry to work in your startup with a small account balance is challenging. You need to inspire them with good ideas and a credible promise of great things ahead.

All of us are young entrepreneurs and most of the strategies we execute are based on trial and error, but are logical. And luckily we hit right on the target with most of them and as a result we have been able to achieve steep growth with close to 1 lakh user base in just 14- 15 months.

What is the market size of the services offered by you in India?

We support a wide range of exams in the post-graduate market. From continuing higher studies, to public sector recruitment, students come to us for a variety of their needs. Currently the test prep market size stands at over 18 million students, with an annual growth rate of 20-25 per cent. At an average ticket size of `10,000 the market value currently stands at around `18,000 crore.

Testbook has been testing markets to discover that there is an untapped market. It aims at expanding to markets not covered under these. Currently, due to the unavailability of affordable classroom education, a lot of candidates do not end up taking these exams. Testbook aims at rectifying this.

What are the major benefits for organisations and individuals adopting your solutions?

Students can learn and test themselves from anywhere and at any time at just the price of a cup of coffee. Analysis and recommendations provided by Testbook help them locate their weak points accurately and get the edge over their competitors.

User experience on test book.com has been found to be a happy learning experience. Our user engagement in terms of daily time spent on the site is more than thrice that of any other site in the e-learning space. In fact, according to Alexa, it is more than that of Youtube. We think it says something about us that an e-learning site can engage users the way bigwigs like Youtube can.

We have the ability to scale into classrooms. We partner with institutes and teaching establishments to bring the Testbook advantage to students everywhere.

Institutions can manage and track the performance of their students in a very smart way which would turn a good result for them.

What is the vision of your company for the next two years?

Create the best learning platform on mobile and web-app is the focus. It will be of international standard, personalised, adaptive and will support all the major competitive exams being conducted in India and abroad.

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

We have a Campus Ambassador Programme where we have two-three representatives in each college and they represent Testbook’s activities on their campuses. Currently we have the Campus Ambassadors’ network in over 150 colleges pan India and will reach 1500 by end of this year. Our Campus Ambassadors are young entrepreneurs in training who utilise novel techniques to accelerate our growth in these places.

Content Marketing is fetching us growth organically at high pace and social media has proved one of the high visibility platforms.

How can you differentiate your services from competitors?

Testbook has the best interface and comparative test analysis. Students love and choose us over our competitors for this. Content quality is always at the highest priority in all of Testbook’s efforts and we have been complimented with the ‘best content’ in the market by our users.

Engaging blog and social media posts that support our content marketing strategies. Our tie-ups with educational institutions have made us the leader in the industry. As the only e-learning institute with the capacity to scale with market needs, we have firmly established ourselves as the go-to for many educational institutions.

Tell us about the ways of engaging the customers with you? Any special case study?

As our team has grown to over 30 people now, all of us have made it a habit to regularly get in touch with our customer base to get their feedback on different aspects of Testbook.com like content and platform. We are regularly surprised with the amount of appreciation they have for Testbook.com.

We connect with our users via email, live chat, phone and text. Every time an exam is conducted we get lot of mails from users saying that they found same questions from our tests in their final exam which is very motivating for us.

For the GATE 2015 test series, we offered a host of rewards to encourage and motivate students. These included Macbook Air laptops and HP Android Tablets to toppers. But apart from all these, we also offered cashback to users for every correct answer in the test series in order to incentivise learning. These proved to be a success. We had students aiming for accuracy in their tests, treating them like the actual GATE exam.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focusing on?

We are primarily focused on competitive exams being taken by students after they graduate like GATE, Bank PO, Bank Clerk, Insurance, CAT and Campus Placements. All together over 1.8 crore students takes these exams every year.

Major stakeholders are offline coaching centres which have localised presence in different parts of the country. But for the wide range of exams we are targeting, there is no single nation wide brand.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

In education space, content is king and in order to sustain for long to be the market leader, you must focus on content quality. As mentioned earlier, we promise to deliver the best content in the industry.

Technology changes so fast that you need to be innovative to sustain for long and we do exactly that. We tweak our platform on a daily basis to give our users the best experience.

Looking at the volume of students for all these competitive exams, we focus more on growth than on revenue and this will definitely give us the lead in the market. We have the luxury to do so, talks a lot about investor confidence in our venture.

To make students learn skill education, CBSE has introduced five vocational courses under National Skill Qualification Framework at Senior Secondary level. In conversation with Elets News Network (ENN), MVV Prasada Rao, Director, Vocational Education and EDUSAT, CBSE, informs about the opportunities that skill education provides to children

What are the initiatives under your department focusing on Skill Development?

CBSE has introduced five Vocational Courses under National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) in 2012 namely IT, Automobile, Retail, Security and Introduction to Travel and Tourism at Secondary level classes IX and X (level1 & 2).

There are 40 vocational courses offered at senior secondary level i.e. classes IX & XII in seven different sectors. CBSE develops curriculum and content for these courses and prepares student’s manual and teacher’s handbook for the benefit of the students and teachers. Also, training programmes for teachers are organised to upgrade the teaching techniques and skills in respective subjects.

CBSE also conducts sensitisation and awareness programmes in various parts of the country to sensitise the students, principals and parents on skill education. We are also looking forward for digitalisation of materials in subjects and already developed some subjects in this direction for the benefit of the students.

The courses offered at senior secondary level have been aligned with NSQF. A new course at secondary level at level 1 Class IX is being introduced on Financial Management and Marketing from this academic year under NSQF.

How technology is leveraging and aiding the initiative for the growth of skill development in the education domain?

No doubt that the technology especially educational technology plays a very significant role in teaching and learning process. Technology is highly useful in skill-oriented courses, as these require hands on experience unlike other academic courses.

There is a shift in the classroom learning today from traditional teaching to that of the digital teaching for the benefit of students. Learning becomes easier through the use of technology and also preparation of teaching aids in proper motivation of students.

How can low employability of Value Education Training (VET) graduates due to skill mismatch by worked upon?

There is a big mismatch between what the educational institutions are doing and the needs of the industry. Sufficient employment opportunities are available in our country but the children coming out of the schools are lacking specific skills to get employed. Educational institutions should look forward to integrate skill education with that of the general education so that the child acquires some skill before he leaves the educational institutions.

Skill education provides an opportunity for the child not only to get employed if required skills are obtained as per the requirement of the industry but also to become an entrepreneur and create employment for others.

What are the measures being undertaken to integrate vocational skills training into school curriculum?

It is a matter of policy. However, curriculum is being designed in accordance with the NSQF for the benefit of the students. Necessary global skills required in specific vocational course are being addressed with the involvement of concerned sector skill councils.

What are the suggestions, measures and initiatives that will drive this change forward in the VET segment?

First of all, skill education must be integrated into the general curriculum and make every child to learn specific skills at school level so as to get confidence of getting employment. We need to make skill education compulsory for all the students in school right from primary level at least to create awareness amongst the child on the importance of vocational education and develop taste and choice for skill oriented education.

The market size for security and surveillance equipment is estimated to be USD 20 billion, and is showing huge potential for growth, especially in the education sector, where security and surveillance have become indispensable. Nidhi Sharma of Elets News Network (ENN) explore how the government has recently mandated CCTV cameras even in school buses, highlighting the need for security and surveillance in all the education areas

It is necessary to understand the unique safety challenges faced by schools, universities, and educational institutions. There is an urgent need for comprehensive security solutions in educational institutes for a safe and nurturing environment. Securing the buildings, improving overall safety and most importantly, protecting students and the educators are the various parts of creating the right environment for institutes in which security solution providers have an essential role to play.

The education facilities across the nation have experienced incidents of security breaches in the recent past,highlighting the need to make their environment safer. The 2010 rash of stabbings in primary schools in China brought international attention to the need for security in schools everywhere. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, college campuses struggle to design the perfect mix of technology, systems, and software to protect students, faculty, and staff members.

TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Global Surveillance and Security Equipment market to grow at a CAGR of 13.58 per cent over the period 2014-2019. The Indian market size for security and surveillance equipment is USD 20 billion – comprising CCTV, access, time attendance, fire alarm, alarm systems and others. These statistics assume great importance in a backdrop where concerns regarding school security have dramatically increased.

Educational institutes need security for a variety of reasons. These entail monitoring and controlling access to all campus facilities, providing surveillance of private records, materials and valuable equipment, tracking truancy and inappropriate student behavior, enabling automated facility lock-down for elevated threat levels and crowd control during events.

Recently, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines for ensuring the safety of the students of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) on and off campus across the country.

UGC Secretary Jaspal S. Sandhu had written to the Vice Chancellors of all the universities to ensure the safety of the students. The guidelines on the safety of students on and off campuses of higher educational institutions have been uploaded on the UGC website. The bio-metric way of marking student attendance, both in HEI as well as hostels, can be an effective way to overcome proxy.

The bags and other belongings of students or visitors should also be examined, manually or by metal detectors, to secure a weapon-free and violence-free campus, as per the guidelines.

Today, there is a need for a complete and integrated security solution for educational institutes which can provide a safe and secure environment. There are various products and solutions available to cater to education institutes like IP DVAMBS which is broadcasting and Audio- Video Monitoring for installation in schools, mobile solution for transport and mobile surveillance.

Market for security

As administrators and those in charge of campus security folks consider privacy, integration, budget, and the latest up-and-coming technology around security and surveillance, many questions swirl around these technology discussions. How can campuses make sense of all this information?

Sanjeev Sehgal, Managing Director, Sparsh, a leading manufacturer of electronic video surveillance equipment in India, feels, “Education sector across the globe has witnessed major security breach and criminal incident in recent past. Today, there is a need for a complete and integrated security solution for educational institutes which can provide a safe and secure environment. There are various products and solutions available to cater to education institutes like IP DVAMBS which is broadcasting and Audio-Video Monitoring for installation in schools, mobile solution for transport, mobile surveillance, integrated access control, intruder alarm and CCTV solutions.”

Security Solution Market poised to grow to

3,000 crore

Sagar Gosalia, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Matrix Comsec explains that threats and security issues are mainly in educational institutes in the form of safety of students living in hostels

What are the threats and security issues in education institutions?

The threats and security issues are mainly in terms of the safety of students living in hostels or studying in boarding schools, colleges. Also, the attendance of students studying away from home needs to be kept in check. Maintaining student decorum during interval session or in the absence of higher authority is the main concern for the head of the educational institute.

In case of multi-location educational institutes, centralised management of videos as well as attendance management of the students and staff is a pre-requisite. Inquisitive parents on safety of their children studying away from home also creates difficulties for the institute administration.

Are there innovative solutions that can add value to the security of the institutions?

Matrix Security Solutions offers features and products which enhance the productivity and safety of the institute. Accurate capturing of the In time, Out time of the staff members, centralised attendance management, SMS, e-mail notifications about the student’s attendance, audio input or output in all the class rooms which can be accessed by absent students, centralised monitoring of the connected cameras etc. add value to the security of the institutions and tend to improve its reputation and reliability.

What is the market size of the security solution industry?

There are no published numbers but to the best estimate, the overall security solution market in India is to the tune of `3,000 crore per annum.

What is the rate of adoption do you see in the education sector?

The awareness regarding security in the education sector is on the rise and most of the institutions are deploying security solutions. Colleges, hostels, schools etc. are making sure their students are safe and no stone remains unturned in improving the discipline and safety of the institute.

What are the major hurdles of security solution adoption in educational institutions?

Security is usually not of prime importance for the educational institutions due to which they do not opt to spend a lot of their allotted budget for the installation of security solutions. Most of the schools still only go with the traditional security guard option. Also, the provided budget for the safety of students is restricted because of which the authorities generally do not prefer investing abundantly in these solutions. We at Matrix always strive to make them aware of the necessities of a proper security solution in educational vicinities. Due to our continuous efforts, we have achieved projects of esteemed educational institutes like RBK International school, MIT Pune, Indian Institute of Science, Rishikul Vidhyapeeth Sonepat, British School, to name a few.

The social impact that surveillance may have on children’s lives is highly dependent upon existing social relations, identities and cultural traditions. Furthermore, sole reliance on physical security to secure campuses of educational institutes is very expensive, and as expressed above, cause discomfort to students

R Nanda kumar, CEO, ATSS opines, “IP CCTV Products are well suited to serving educational institutions and facilities, as they effortlessly pinpoint security breaches, alert to safety hazards, protect valuable assets, provide data and information to enhance operational efficiency and offer powerful forensic analysis capabilities. Educational institutions and campuses seek to ensure the highest possible security and safety for students, faculty and staff while providing an open learning environment which fosters academic excellence and creativity. Unfortunately, educational campuses have proved to be attractive grounds for attacks and other security incidents, and more and more educational institutions seek advanced surveillance solutions that respond to their needs.”

“Recent earthquakes have jolted our whole system and made us think in depth about our current infrastructure, especially schools where kids right from the age of 2 years to 16years are trapped between concrete buildings. Web-based Virtual Surveillance can really help disaster recovery team for their speedy task,” says Gaurav Singh, Country Head, TechSmart, which is providing a comprehensive security solution for school-going children and their parents to stay updated about their whereabouts.

Growing demand for video surveillance

Despite a whole range of security equipment available in the market, video surveillance is all set to become an indispensable and all-pervasive tool in security systems across the globe.

According to BIS Research, IP based video surveillance systems have struck the market with compelling features such as high resolution, easy expansion of number of cameras (scalability), lower TCO and a higher ROI. Although in the current market scenario, IP cameras are strongly challenged by the legacy analog systems, but with declining equipment prices and increasing demands of smart video surveillance systems, IP surveillance systems will soon be setting up a new paradigm in the video surveillance market.

While opportunities galore, threat looms large. Cyber criminals make huge money by stealing personal information and selling that off. It is pertinent for educational institutes to understand this is because misusing this data for fraud they have databases full of personal information about faculty, staff, and students. To cyber criminals, who are not fussy about whose data they steal, these repositories of personal data make an appealing target, a common occurring in the US.

1   Video surveillance market expected to reach $42.81 billion by 2019, growing at a compound annual growth      rate (CAGR) of 19.1 per cent

2   IP-based video surveillance market is expected to grow rapidly at a CAGR of 24.2 per cent

3   The hardware market, comprised of cameras, recorders, storage, encoders and monitors expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.3 per cent

4   Researchers expect surveillance cameras to increase around 46 per cent by 2019

Creating a secure campus environment

In the midst of all this security, we also need to understand an important aspect of security and surveillance of young children. The social impact that surveillance may have on children’s lives is highly dependent upon existing social relations, identities and cultural traditions.

Furthermore, sole reliance on physical security to secure campuses of educational institutes is very expensive, and as expressed above, cause discomfort to students. Therefore, the private players of the security and  surveillance industry have been coming up with new innovations and cost-effective technologies and an increasing number of educational institutions are adopting advanced security technology and implementing more modern approaches to minimizing risks, providing more protection to students and teachers and building an overall safe campus environment. Choosing the right technology and a well-tested service is, therefore, the most important aspect.

Industry Speak

 

 

The Indian market for surveillance equipment is witnessing healthy growth, attracting bigger companies like Canon, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, Honeywell Godrej, and many others. The market was erstwhile largely unorganised but this is changing.	The requirement from the education sector is the simple and flexible system that is easy to install and operate across multiple sites. With our SNC Toolbox, the staff can automatically find Sony network cameras on the network, perform firmware upgrades, apply a setting for multiple cameras, and other key functions, thus management is easy and efficient.	During most of the first decade of the century, education sector showed hardly any interest in the biometrics. But with the initiation of many national scale biometric projects like Adhaar and e-governance, the awareness about biometrics has increased and we have observed a spike in the interest since the year 2001.
Reports and statistics suggest that the surveillance industry for educational institutes, specifically schools, will grow at 14.3 per cent CAGR by 2018. There is no option for educational institutes to take security extremely seriously, and hence their dependence on surveillance equipment, access control, etc. will only increase from time to time.		We believe that after completion of Adhaar enrollment, Biometrics will be adopted at least at the rate of 5 to 7 per cent every year by institutions related to K-12 education whereas the rate of adoption will be up to 10 to 15 per cent or even higher for institutions involved in Higher education.
IP CCTV Products are well suited to serving educational institutions and facilities, as they effortlessly pinpoint security breaches, alert to safety hazards, protect valuable assets, provide data and information to enhance operational efficiency and offer powerful forensic analysis capabilities. Educational institutions and campuses seek to ensure the highest possible security and safety for students, faculty and staff while providing an open learning environment which fosters academic excellence and creativity.

 

Security and surveillance is a critical part of the education sector

With the rise in criminal activities and other threats, a tight and well equipped surveillance system is extremely important in the education sector, says Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications, India and SAARC

What is the scope of providing security solutions in education sector?

Security and surveillance is a critical part of the educational sector owing to the concerns and unpleasant incidents ranging from kidnapping, shootouts to molestation in the past. Having security guards at the entrance checking the identity cards and getting visitors to fill forms are not sufficient any longer, as the educational institutions are now more in number, accommodating more students and teachers and keeping an eye on a larger crowd requires technology which can work independent of any human involvement.

With the rise in criminal activities and other threats a tight and well equipped surveillance system is extremely important in the education sector. Government has recently mandated CCTV cameras in school buses too, highlighting the need and importance for surveillance when it comes to education sector.

What are the threats and security issues in education institutions?

Some of the key threats and security issues in education institutions include theft or vandalism in the premises causing damage to the infrastructure and technology available; criminals trespassing in to the campus, kidnapping the students or causing any kind of harm, ragging and unlawful behavior inside the campus ; molestation and other severe offence

How can your solutions help education sector to be secure and safe?

We often hear about educational facilities that have been exposed to vandalism, violence or burglary, as a result, valuable resources are lost to heavy repairs and investigations; the Axis vandal- protection cameras are sturdy, hence cannot be destroyed by vandals and gives a clear image of the surroundings. Our outdoor cameras secure the surrounding facilities with variants that can adopt to any light or climatic conditions. It’s a surveillance system that enables remote access to video from any number of branch offices from a single location. The complete system is easily connected to the existing network infrastructure and computers, thus keeping installation and maintenance costs low. Ideal for hallways, corridors, classrooms, libraries, parking lots and other campus areas.

Moreover, if the cameras are tampered with or if there is noise or motion in a building during off hours, the security staff receives an automatic notification from the cameras, enabling them to quickly evaluate the situation and act accordingly. If needed, highquality video images can directly be shared with patrolling officers or local police via the Internet or mobile devices. This type of surveillance ensures safety across the campus especially residential campuses with hostels and teachers’ quarters.

What is the market size of the security solution industry?

The growing use of video surveillance system in sectors like retail, education, hospitality, government, banking among countless others has created huge opportunities for security solution providers. According to 6Wresearch, the market for video surveillance in India is projected to reach USD 2.4 billion by 2020. Among all the sectors, government has been one of the strongest growth drivers and we see the market for IP video surveillance expanding considerably over the next few years due to increasing infrastructure and demand for remote access.

Balancing Act of Security

Understanding the needs of security and surveillance for educational institutions, Yogesh B. Dutta, COO, CP Plus India, believes, institutions must enhance security measures and policies against a backdrop of constrained budgets and limited resources

What is the scope of providing security solutions in education sector?

India is an important education hub in the global education industry and has more than 1.4 million schools and more than 35,000 higher education institutes. India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world and there is still a lot of potential for further development in the education system. However, from the security point of view, the education sector is largely untapped and heavily relies on physical security.

The incidences of theft of assets are quite rampant and there is hardly any fool-proof measures are exercised. The schools have very critical and expensive value assets, like a library, sports equipment, answer sheets, students’ data in physical and electric form, stationery, etc. These needs to be protected from vandalism and unscrupulous elements who can manipulate the access to these resources.

How can your solutions help education sector to be secure and safe?

Today more than ever protecting students, faculty and school assets are a high-profile and complex challenge. School districts and educational institutions must enhance security measures and policies against a backdrop of constrained budgets and limited resources. CP PLUS has successfully secured locations across the country in diversified business sectors.

We understand the needs of the education sector and designs solutions which are true value proposition at affordable price points and offers pioneering solutions to help educational institutions to do more with less. Our solutions provide the sector with the most advanced networked security technology while lowering total cost of ownership.

Are there innovative solutions that can add value to the security of the institutions?

Ensuring campus-wide security is a delicate balancing act. On one hand, you must provide students and faculty with a safe learning environment while maintaining an open campus and community atmosphere. Our range of innovative solutions provides following advantages:

The latest innovations provide intelligent video surveillance that improves critical response time, unified integrated system and ensures complete system reliability. Video surveillance and video analytics systems also allow crowd behaviour recognition. An IP video surveillance system using video analytics can identify a variety of misdemeanors – be it a drunken person entering the campus, students bunking classes, disturbing the library environment etc.

What is the market size of the security solution industry?

As per rough estimates, Indian security industry currently pegged at around 3,500 crore and is expected to grow at least by 15 per cent per year and the figures may cross 6,000 crores by Year 2018.

What is the rate of adoption do you see in the education sector?

The rate of adoption in the education sector has been substantially low in comparison to other sectors due to impediments in the adoption. However, with growing awareness, training, availability of latest HD and intelligent solutions, and availability and spread of high-speed broadband internet, the rate of adoption is set to rise. Security surveillance has become the basic need of not only institutions but also for homes.

What are the major hurdles of security solution adoption in educational institutions?

Educational Institutes in India face a unique combination of security challenges that go beyond providing strictly educational services. The key challenges include budget allocation and utilization of funds for security infrastructure upgrade, availability of skilled persons, and smooth operations. Personal privacy is also a major concern before the authorities before implementing video surveillance solutions.