Technology solutions to benefit Students and Institutes alike

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September 5, 2013

Gregory J Dukat,
Chairman and CEO,
Campus Management

Having partnered with leading international institutions like Indiana University, the University of Illinois, and several others, Campus Management for Higher Education, is now making inroads into the Indian market. Gregory J Dukat, Chairman and CEO, Campus Management, highlights opportunities and challenges in the domain. In conversation with Chhavi Bakaria

Please share with us key points that differentiate Campus Management from its competitors?
The education market in India has become more competitive. Students have more choice about which university or college they are going to. Thus, the institutions across the country are looking at tools like our technology to improve students’ experience, as technology brings in higher transparency, and improves governance and efficiency.
If we look at education specifically, Campus Management is among the few end-to-end technology platform providers operating on a global scale. Admission process is the number one problem in India given the sheer numbers, but our admission process management is a lot more streamlined. We offer other services like digital marketing, alumni management, learning services, etc. Also, the flexibility that is inherent with our system to deal with multi-campus operations and to deal with different types of course curriculums being offered has been one of the hallmarks that distinguishes us from others.
Also from students’ point our tools like Smart Card, wireless network for campus, student self-service portal, student portal applications and an interactive website are becoming quite popular. Now the students can decide how they want to communicate with the institute whether that is an e-mail, chat, social media etc.

Can you give examples of Indian educational institutes who have benefited from Talisma’s CRM?
Premier institutions like Manipal University and other private and government universities are using Talisma CRM. We are also the technology platform provider for National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). So, the skill-based education is one of our core strengths that we bring to the table from a systems stand point.

How has the adoption of technology been in higher learning institutions across the country, and what are the challenges?
Educational institutions across the country are implementing technology to streamline functioning and improve students’ experience. The adoption of technology in India is growing, but I think the big problem in Indian institutes in general is their receptiveness to technology. Even if there is intent at the top level, but at the lowest level you do not have the same level of receptiveness in implementing technology. The teachers or professors are interested in technology and we have imparted trainings on biometric, Smart card access, etc. So yes, I would say, it’s getting better and there is a large untapped opportunity in that ecosystem of education.

What is your product strategy to penetrate the Indian education market?
India is a complex market. Each institution has its own level of complexity. We have come up with two product strategies. First we have an SME product that addresses the colleges including engineering colleges and we call it the SmartCampus. We have different financing models to lower the upfront investments of the institutes. In the SmartCampus offering institutes can come in at as low as Rs 1000 per student, per year. Another segment is the university sector for our enterprise product called CampusVue. So we have clearly distinctive products for each of these categories and that’s how we are going ahead from a strategy stand point

Next ERP for Institutions

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September 5, 2013

Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education talks about the critical role of ERP in Campus management. In conversation with Pragya Gupta

How does Education ERP revolutionise campus management?
The advent of Education ERP will usher in efficiency, transparency and quick scalability in campus management. It will redefine the way the schools are managed by making it easier for them to perform their day-to-day school management activities. However, its most revolutionary impact lies in the fact that it will unshackle the school management and the teachers from the day-today administrative tasks so that they have more time in hand to focus on their core objective of imparting knowledge to the students.

How is the market for Education ERP in India?
There is a growing need across all institutes to use technology not just in delivering education through digitised content but also in implementing an ERP solution that helps them manage the campuses in a cost-effective and efficient way. With the increasing number of big corporate houses entering in the education sector, the school management process itself has undergone a paradigm shift in the last few years. Most importantly, a lot of the best practices are being implemented to optimise the resources available at the school and implementing an ERP solution is one of these best practices. Further, we observe that there is in increasing pressure that the schools face these days from the new generation of parents and students who are themselves technology savvy and expect the schools to have systems and process that makes it easier for them to communicate, access information or track the performance of their wards without having to make a physical visit to the school to meet the teachers.
According to the latest report by Gartner, SaaS based ERP solution is expected to grow at 28 percent CAGR in India and with NextERP solution we will be providing a comprehensive yet customizable solution that meets the expectations of the education sector in India.

What are your USPs over others existing players in this domain
• NextERP is a Cloud-based ERP solution that provides anytime, anywhere access and also unmatched data privacy and security features unlike the other offline ERP solutions present in the market.
• Highly customisable and flexible solution to meet the exact requirements of the school.
• Well researched implementation process and a dedicated support system.
• A product that is supported by the strong fundamentals of the Next Education group, which is solely focused on the school education sector and drawing from its experience of having its various products installed in 5000+ schools and used by over 10 million students in India.

Using ERP has been a great difficulty for education sector and this is the reason many have discontinued the use. How do you address this challenge?
We agree that despite the strong aspiration of the schools and colleges to implement an ERP system a lot of them have failed to do so. Our experience has also taught us that implementing an ERP solution in a school is very different than implementing it at enterprises in any other sector. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the transition is tough for members of the school staff who have been following a particular system for years (even decades in some cases) and have got used to a particular way of functioning. Further, some schools have the aspiration but not necessarily the infrastructure to implement ERP effectively in their day-to-day operations.
We recognise these challenges and have also successfully overcome in a number of schools across India.Some steps that we have taken to overcome this challenge are:
Feasibility Study: Just 50 percent of all schools that come to us with their inquiry about an ERP solution pass our NextERP Feasibility Test that we conduct before we begin any implementation project. For schools those are not able to meet our strict parameters that define the school’s readiness for a SaaS-based ERP solution we provide the feedback and request them to get back to us once they fulfil the requirements. This honest approach ensures that our conversion ratio and longevity of the relationships is far better than our peers and also the schools receive a clear feedback on the pre-implementation requirements of an ERP solution.
Sound Implementation Process: The first three months are critical and we take every care to ensure that we make the transition as smooth as possible for the schools. Our ERP consultants are dedicated to the schools during this phase and they are well trained not just on the product and technical skills but also on soft skills to be able to manage and overcome conflicts, resistance and fear that sometimes besot the end users when migrating to a new system. Even after the implementation there is a weekly followup by ERP consultants for two months.

Return on investment it offers to institutions
We are now in an age of tight budgets and reducing overheads. Gone are the days when one could run large labour intensive systems and hope to deliver substantial results. NEXTERP is an ERP solution, which helps you get the best results from existing processes. As it is a webbased application, it can be accessed from anywhere and you can effectively manage your workforce to increase productivity.
>>Little or no capital investment to get started
>>Very high return on investment, increases year-on-year
>>Eliminates 80 percent of the paperwork
>>No extra administrative overhead for maintenance of NEXTERP
>>Cut downs unnecessary and extra manpower resources
>>Saves a lot of time for each and every stakeholder (administration, staff, students, parents) (Effective utilization of time = More productivity)
>>Streamlines the entire operations and functions thus increasing the overall productivity and efficiency (More productivity=More value to your money)
>>Enhances the brand value of your institution thus resulting in higher enrolment of students

What are the type of the ERP solutions available for schools and Higher Education. How do you customise them?
We currently provide ERP solutions just for the K-12 sector. Our functional team interacts with the key stakeholders and users in the school to understand the requirements and create a project plan which gives detailed scope, estimation on manpower, commercials and delivery timelines. Once the project plan is approved by the customer, we start the customisation process. The complete process will be managed with a detailed project tracker, escalation matrix, defect reporting process, QC reports and User Acceptance process.

Soft Skills for Higher Education: A Station-e Model

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September 5, 2013

Dr Haresh Tank, Director, Station-e Language Lab

We are yet to see the policy regarding skills development of our youth. It amounts to being callous to the needs of our youth when a country does virtually nothing, even while being aware of the World Bank data which highlighted that being fluent in English increases the hourly wages of a person in India by 34 percent.

The statement from the World Bank says that only 10 percent of the country is employable may sound like a cliché but the truth is that lack of employability related skill is a very serious issue. Higher education is still in a state of turmoil because of changes like Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), semester system, etc that can go either way. Traditionally, the youngsters passing out of higher education are absorbed in the services sector. But if only 10 percent of our youth is employable, then one marvels at the future of the youngest country in the world and what the rest of the young people whether unemployable and unemployed will do to sustain themselves especially in the era marked by inflation and stiff competition. It is not something that policy makers can overlook because it is a question of the validity of the system of higher education that we have created and what it is supposed to contribute to the society in terms of the training and education of our youth. If it is failing to deliver like other public institutions, it is time to contemplate over its ills and rectify it on a war-footing. It is not only a question of employability of youngsters who pass out. It is a matter of concern because it affects several other aspects and realities of the society and the nation. For instance, on the front of nation-building, if only 10 percent of our youth is employed, then the rest are effectively excluded from contributing to the country’s development. The ‘demographic dividend’ has remained frozen and has not yet transformed into the human capital that creates knowledge and accelerates the growth of a country like it has happened in countries like China and South Korea. It is beyond dispute that India is the youngest country in the world and it also beyond dispute that it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Post liberalisation, multi nationals came to India and the economy began to grow in a remarkable manner. Since then, India has been one of the favoured destinations for some of the world’s largest corporations to set up their plants and units. These companies cannot bring manpower from the country of its origin. They depend on our youth, but our higher education system dumbs them down. Hence, we have a scenario of classic contradiction- on the one hand, employers on the constant lookout for skilled manpower, particularly in services sector where the general graduates are to be absorbed, and on the other hand, the graduates fail to get a job and remain unemployed despite the degrees and qualification.

The reasons behind this debacle of higher education are many, but they are all interconnected. It all begins with policy on higher education. Our higher education policy lacks clarity and vision about what kind of graduates we wish to see at the end of the process of higher education and what higher education should do in order to ensure that the youth are able to find suitable employment after they spend a substantial amount of time and money in obtaining a degree. Secondly, higher education has limited itself to subject knowledge and all-round and holistic development of our youth has never been a priority of policy makers. We have also not considered the needs of the market, considering which we may devise policy measures to address what is lacking. Thus, soft skills like communication proficiency are missing from the education and training of our youth in higher education and when one investigates, it is easy to find that we have done little to integrate these skills in the core of higher education. Policy makers are ignorant of the fact that this little shift in policy paradigm is the difference between India and countries like China and South Korea. For instance, China makes it mandatory for its youth to pass two subjects– English and computers — with a certain degree of proficiency. It may well be remembered that China which is the closest to India in terms of the size of population is way ahead of India in terms of education. India has failed on both counts that China has capitalised on- technology and English. We have made communication skills in English, a subsidiary subject that mostly gets a step-motherly treatment in our higher education institutions. In some of the programmes, it is conspicuously missing. In case of South Korea, it could have the economic progress because it had the vision, way back in 1967, to institute the Vocational Training Act to provide a skilled workforce for industrialisation. It is an important example for us because it was a government-led skills development drive. Later, Korea created Skills Development Promotion Fund in 1976 for creating public institutions for skills training. A small country like Finland that is just a dot on the world map literally rules the world of education on almost all parameters because they have developed the policy they need in the context of their country. We are yet to see the policy regarding skills development of our youth. It amounts to being callous to the needs of our youth when a country does virtually nothing, even while being aware of the World Bank data which highlighted that being fluent in English increases the hourly wages of a person in India by 34 percent. Even being able to speak a little English raises the salary up to 13 percent. In the light of all of this, when our youth face the interviews conducted in crisp English, and they fail to articulate the knowledge they have acquired, there is nobody else to blame but ourselves as a nation.

Dr Haresh Tank is Director, Station-e Language Lab. In the capacity of Director, he is in charge of conceptualizing and operationalizing initiatives with a special focus on Skills Development. He holds a doctorate in Statistics and is a noted Statistical Analyst. He was also nominated for Young Scientist Award. With a passion for teaching and contributing to the society, he continues to serve as Associate Professor in Statistics. As a Director, Station-e Language Lab, he has initiated several projects in the realm of Skills Development with Government and private companies.

Station-e Model
In all, Higher Education faces the issue of accountability because of the unemployability of general graduates. To address the issue of soft skills deficit, particularly communication proficiency in general graduates, Station-e envisaged the concept of Skills Development Centre. It is a unique construct, aiming at upskilling the youth of the country in terms of soft skills. We have established several Skils Development Centres at various educational institutions – college campuses across the country. Skils Development Centre serves as the training wing of the university/college for soft skills, operated in a digital learning lab and powered by highly sophisticated technology. Skils Development Centre comes with in-built training programs on soft and life skills, integral to the theme of skills development and empowering the youth. Customised to the core, these modules have astonishing transformation value as they produce remarkable results in virtually no time. The youth across the country have benefitted by the innovative Skills Development Centres and carved a niche for themselves in their chosen area of endeavour. What it means for a university/ college is that it proves its worth, demonstrates its relevance through the skills training that the youth passing out of the system will be equipped with the best of soft skills and competencies required to operate in today’s world. The time is ripe for recognising the role of soft skills in higher education.

Industry collaboration

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September 5, 2013

Pearson, Village Capital partner to fund ‘Eduprenuers’

Pearson has partnered with social investor Village Capital to support and fund education entrepreneurs in India who are focused on serving the bottom-of-the-pyramid market in the country. Select education start-ups will receive up to USD 75,000 (`45 lakh) in funding and will be selected through peer review by fellow entrepreneurs.

HCL to offer break-fix support to Educomp

HCL Infosystems Ltd has announced business collaboration partnership with Educomp. As per the agreement, HCL Infosystems will provide life cycle services for existing and new Educomp classrooms across India. This will include providing break-fix support and field repair services along with managing new installations of Educomp Classrooms. The service and support to Educomp classrooms would be provided by HCL Infosystems through a nationwide network of field engineers, regional repair centres and a centralised repair factory.

English Edge ties up with the Essar Foundation

EnglishEdge, the provider of technology based English language learning solutions in India, has tied up with Essar Foundation, the CSR wing of construction and manufacturing company for providing training in the English language in Hazira district in Gujarat. This initiative has been taken to introduce children and youth towards different facets of spoken English.

Virtusa, ICFAI Sign MoU for Talent Development Programmes

Virtusa Corporation, a global business consulting and IT outsourcing company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, to engage in talent development programmes aimed at creating a pool of highly skilled Business Process Management (BPM) professionals trained on Pegasystems’ technology platform.

Tech Mahindra announces Industry – Academia Programme for IT Infra Management Services

Tech Mahindra Ltd has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with select Indian universities to impart industry ready skills in IT Infrastructure Management Services (IMS). The programme aims at creating a pool of resources to meet the demand across various facets of the IMS segment. The courses under this initiative cover the entire spectrum of IT operations, network operations and cyber security. ‘Megh’ has a designed capacity to train over 5000 associates.

Intel hosts interactive session on‘Toddlers and Technology’ with Educomp

Intel India and Educomp held an interactive event to connect with young parents about introducing technology to children at an early stage. The programme has shared a perspective on how in addition to being the epicenter of information, a personal computing device can also support positive interaction between parents and their children.

NIIT, Autodesk ink partnership

NIIT is set to ink a significant partnership with Autodesk, 3D design, engineering and entertainment software and services company, to evangelise design and promote design literacy, design skilling and research and innovation in design, in India. Given the dynamism in work roles, design thinking today is being recognised as one of the essential skills for a successful career in any industry.

New MBA Specialisations an Emerging Trend

Interviews

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September 5, 2013

Prof Ashok Panjwani (Dean – Graduate Programmes), Management Development Institute (MDI) , Gurgaon shares the emerging trends in the field of management education, in conversation with Chhavi Bakaria

What are the emerging trends in management studies especially in this era of globalisation?
A distinct emerging trend is the focus on niche areas and new emerging areas like Project Management, Banking, Infrastructure Financing & Management, etc.

What are the popular areas of specialisations among students?
Project Management, Marketing using social media, Services Management, etc. are the popular and upcoming areas of study in management education.

There are concerns that the quality of placements has deteriorated across B-schools even including some of the premier ones. What can this be attributed to and how can it be addressed?
Quality of placements in terms of the salary(s) offered may have definitely come down because of the capacity to pay, as also the typical MBA is not being able to justify ( by way of providing solutions to businesses to improve their performances ) the high salaries he was being paid in the just recent past. Another reason for the same is the huge availability of MBAs in the market coupled with the widespread economic slowdown.

According to reports, more than 180 business schools closed down in 2012 because they could not attract enough students. But we need more colleges and institutes to bridge the demand-supply gap. What can be a way out in such a situation?
We certainly do not need any more colleges. The closing down of colleges is a correction in the right direction as everybody wanting to do an MBA today or doing an MBA does not perhaps has the requisite mental and other endowments which are required of a robust, vibrant MBA output.

Transcripts Securing the Data

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September 5, 2013

Dr Sankaran Raghunathan, Dean, The National Management School, India

Dr Sankaran Raghunathan is an expert in transcript or document security matters; he has participated in international conferences that discuss matters related to transcripts and has made significant contributions in those debates. He can be reached at sankaran@nms.edu.in

One issue that is being addressed across countries in higher education is the secure generation, distribution, and, subsequent verification of transcripts. Imagine a situation where Universities can generate transcripts either on ordinary paper or electronically in a very secure format that cannot be tampered with; distribute this secure transcript without the need for sharing the data with any third party; with the transcript so issued being verifiable at any time or place via the internet without recourse to the original database or the issuing University.

The solution should meet the following criteria:
• Enables generation of tamper-proof transcripts on ordinary paper or electronically
• Does not require any additional spending on media
• Does not require investment in any new infrastructure either for the generation or distribution of transcripts
• Avoid sharing of student records with any central repository or third party
• Verification of the transcript should be simple, universal, and not require access to the original database
• Is less expensive to implement in terms of time, effort and money

I believe that such a solution can be found in a derivative of the bar code system or the QR code system that we all are familiar with.
In a simple format, a security mark can be used to store the student data such as grades, etc. that are normally printed on a transcript. This security mark can be printed in one corner of the transcript. The data that is originally stored there when the transcript is printed can be read by scanning the security mark. Therefore, if the data printed on the transcript is in any way tampered, the scan of the security mark will display the true data with which the verification can be done without going to the source for verification or accessing any database.
There should be a secured process evolved for generation of the security mark using the data at the time of generation of the transcript. Similarly, the decoding of the security mark should be done by an authentic process so that verification of the data from the reader is also authenticated.
Therefore, I would suggest a modification of the generally accepted generation process. The process should involve the following:
• The data that is to be stored in the security mark is first encoded using a logic
• Such an encoded data is then encrypted using an encryption key before the security mark is generated
• The security mark that is printed on a transcript cannot be generated by anybody but only by the University that is generating the transcript and which has the encoding and encrypting logic

Then, such an encoded and encrypted security mark that contains the transcript data, which is printed on a transcript can be captured as image by any scanner. The scanned image has to be opened only by the algorithm that may be available at a particular website or portal that accepts the scanned image to decrypt, decode and display the data that is stored in that security mark.
Such process need not access the original database. The University that generated the original transcript need not share the data with this portal. There is no special infrastructure needed for this portal to work, nor such an infrastructure needed to generate the security mark.
The security mark can be printed on any media including an ordinary sheet of paper. Thus, Universities can save a lot of money in eliminating the security paper on which the transcripts are printed now.
The security mark that contains the encoded and encrypted data is very secure since the security mechanism is only with the University that generates the transcript. Verification can be done from anywhere using the internet to access the portal that is the only one that can decrypt and decode the scanned security mark. Each University can have its own encoding and encryption algorithm. Centralisation of all the student transcripts is also completely avoided.
This system can be used not only for University transcripts but also wherever variable data needs to be secured on a document. Thus this is a document security mechanism.

Doon Public School 35 Years of Service to the Nation

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September 5, 2013

“Doon Public School is a hi-tech, futuristic, numero-uno school that grooms each child academically, socially and spiritually, thus, turning him out into an ethical, confident, well-balanced citizen of the world. Being pioneers in digital learning, we provide a cutting-edge technology platform for our students and believe that education can bring about a radical change in the society,” M G Vasan, Chairman

I am proud and privileged to be a part of a spirited and dedicated team, which has redefined school education. Our methodology and pedagogy of imparting holistic high-value education by combining judicious use of technology and moral values makes our students globally capable, competent and efficient. We groom leaders in every field to meet every challenge,” N V Sarat Chandran, Manager

Doon Public School is a coeducational, CBSE affiliated, senior secondary school celebrating its 35 years of service to the nation. The school aims at imparting premium quality education through a holistic and a spiritual approach in its pursuit of excellence in all the fields.
Doon Public School was felicitated with the best ‘E- School Award’ by World Education Awards 2013 at the World Education Summit held at Le Meridian Hotel, New Delhi. The reward been bestowed for the school’s stupendous initiative in the e-school programme.
The school enjoys a unique distinction of being the first school in India to have computer-aided teaching and learning through Smart Class using plasma screen with Smart Assessment System (SAS) in all the classes. The school has received the ‘Best ICT Laboratory School Education Award 2010’ for being pioneer in the field of digital learning.
To facilitate students with new modern techniques in learning, verifying and visualising mathematical concepts through educational aids, the first digital Maths Lab of India has been installed in the school. The Abacus and Vedic Maths programmes enable the students to achieve an extremely high standard of mental arithmetic and help the students excel in Bhaskara.
Amongst the other pivotal features of the school, the ‘Language Lab’ occupies a significant place as it aims at improving the students’ communication skills. Further, the ‘Digital Library’ with more than 18000 books online is an addition to the existing library.
The school has a lecture theatre provided with interactive board and facility for video-conferencing, a ‘Biotechnology Lab’, with the facility of ‘tissue culture’ and a ‘Fashion Studies Lab’ that trains the students in the theory and practice of garment manufacturing. There are special animation classes and an exclusive Lexile Framework for Reading for the students.
The sports faculty of the school imparts coaching in all the games and athletic disciplines and a well equipped gymnasium in the school ensures the physical fitness.
The school has extended its contribution to the social concerns such as Mother Empowerment for Educational Development (MEED), ‘Rural Education Mission’ and ‘Hope For the Future’ and is empowering the mothers of the school children with computer-aided learning, English speaking skills and parenting skills. ‘Hope For the Future’ is a programme to empower the under privileged for their enrichment and vision in life to make them independent. The dedicated work of our competent teachers, innovative teaching methodology and the use of cutting edge technology platforms positively hold a mirror to a bright and resplendent future and ensure that we live upto the motto ‘Excelsior

Innovating to Excel

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September 5, 2013

Addressing the concern of quality in higher education, Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (National Higher Education Mission) under the Ministry of Human Resources, has recently proposed to put a ceiling of 200 on the maximum number of colleges that can be affiliated to any university. Current figure highlights the Osmania University has 901 colleges affiliated to it while 811 colleges are attached to Pune University. Rashtrusant Tukadoji Maharaj University, Nagpur has 800 colleges with it and Rajasthan as well as Mumbai University have 735 and 711 colleges attached to them. The average number of affiliated colleges per university is 300.
There have been instances where several state universities are having large number of colleges affiliated to a single university, and this leads to decline in quality of education being offered in some of the universities, so such a ceiling is a welcome step. But, how this proposal will be implemented given the skewed college and university ratio will remain to be a tough task for MHRD. This also calls for increasing the number of central and state universities in the country. RUSA, the one lakh crore rupees scheme, when implemented will lead to setting up and upgradation of new colleges and universities.
President Pranab Mukherjee recently inaugurated a new laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) at Dehradun. He highlighted that to become a knowledge economy, India needs to revitalise research and increase its R&D spend. And the good news is that India is fast emerging as a hub for Research and Development (R&D). Big multinationals as well as international universities are seeking collaborations or off-shoring their R&D projects to India, and pumping in investment. Currently, India’s GER in PhD is less than one percent, but this can be improved if we provide better opportunities and fellowships to our budding researchers and scientists.
To contribute our share in building the knowledge economy, we had organised 9th eINDIA Education Summit 2013 on 23-24 July, 2013, at Hyderabad International Convention Centre. In this issue we have tried to present a summary of the views of various stakeholders for the overall development of education to achieve educational goals. Reading the report on eINDIA 2013, you will get a comprehensive view of the education related projects that are currently being executed in the country. The eINDIA 2013 report also sets out where proof, promise and potential lies for technology in education.

Dr Ravi Gupta
Editor-in-Chief
Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

Critical Role of Industry- Academia Interface in Making Students Employable

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September 5, 2013

Staggering data about the dearth of employability skills among Indian graduates has raised concerns about the need to foster Industry-Academia collaboration. Such collaborations can prove a win-win situation for all the parties including – Students, Industry, and the Academia

Amarnath Reddy, CEO, Jawahar Knowledge Centre

We have lakhs of students coming out from various engineering and degree colleges, but the job market is fluctuating. It is not just dependent on the local or national economy. There are so many factors including global factors, new technologies coming in, and thus students have to get equipped with a lot of new skills to get employed. Students must understand it is not only about the syllabus or passing through your exams. They need to develop their social skills, communication skills, innovate, visualise and add value to themselves. Learning beyond textbooks is the key.

Dr Sreerama K Murthy, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Teqnium

I would like to approach employability from the angle of educational analytics. Analytics is basically looking at data and trying to find patterns in data and then acting on those patterns. What you can measure, you can improve. So in our institutions, if you can measure what you know and what you have learnt so far, what is the best thing to learn next then you will be able to learn in a faster, more effective way. Apart from personalising education to individual student, data analysis can help in matchmaking between the student and the industry. So the quality institutions of the future must be data driven, it means the decision maker in any institution should have the right data to support him in making a rational decision. They need to have enough data about themselves and about the environment to make the right decision. For example, the Arizona State University has built a campus wide data collection and data reporting system. So anyone will be able to go on the campus intranet and for example it is a professor looking to Dr Sreerama K Murthy, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Teqnium I would like to approach employability from the angle of educational analytics. Analytics is basically looking at data and trying to find patterns in data and then acting on those patterns. What you can measure, you can improve. So in our institutions, if you can measure what you know and what you have learnt so far, what is the best thing to learn next then you will be able to learn in a faster, more effective way. Apart from personalising education to individual student, data analysis can help in matchmaking between the student and the industry. So the quality institutions of the future must be data driven, it means the decision maker in any institution should have the right data to support him in making a rational decision. They need to have enough data about themselves and about the environment to make the right decision. For example, the Arizona State University has built a campus wide data collection and data reporting system. So anyone will be able to go on the campus intranet and for example it is a professor looking to decide a class time, and so he will be able to see the data about the students, other classes and take a decision appropriately based on the available data. Data does not come out of nowhere. The visionary institutes need to make a move for creating a data infrastructure for themselves. Also when your students are ready to take up a job this data along with students’ studying data and patterns can be made available to the industry and the industry can seek the right candidate based on the data. This will increase the employability as it will inform the employers about the relative strengths of the students.

M P Pillai, Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Chennai

Tamil Nadu higher education department has taken a lot of steps by increasing the input for higher education sector and the input in engineering colleges has gone up by almost 800 percent that has led to a decline in the quality of education entering into these colleges and thus leading to unemployability. Most of academicians, including myself, do not support the stats that only 25 percent of our engineering graduates are employable. It has also to do with the fact that industry expects from day one the recruits to be productive, and that as soon as you are employed you should deliver that day onwards. There are three categories of skills that the industry expects are – Core employability skills, Professional skills, and Communication skills. This core employability and communication or soft skills it is common to all industries. To develop the professional skills in the students, which are industry specific, requires an industry input. Thus, unless we involve the industry in curriculum making or teaching it is not possible to impart the professional skills.

VSN Raju, Chief Operating Officer, Globarena Technologies

When we develop skills among our students, we are building our country as 54 percent of our population is under 25 years of age. Employability skills are the skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to an enterprise. However, education imparted in majority of institutions is examoriented and not skill-oriented. At the college level, the academia should be able to provide basic communication skills, soft skills, aptitude sector specific skills through professional trainings to ensure that students perform better at the employment space. Apart from these some fundamental problems for employability skills development are the lack of industry exposure, outdated curricula and methods, dearth of trained and qualified teachers, and inability of the academia to keep pace with changing technologies and latest developments. As a result, education is not resulting in proper employment for a large number of students. There are two kinds of un-employability — lack of fundamental skills resulting in unsuitability for any job and lack of technical and soft skills resulting in under-employment. There is also a huge disparity in the student-teacher ratio leading to pushing of semi-finished talent to industries. Some of the possible solutions to the lack of employability include: effective career counseling, create awareness about traditional and emerging jobs, train faculty to leverage technology, evolve mechanisms for industry-academia partnerships to provide practical exposure to students, using internet technologies to provide access to learning resources and collaborate with academicians, industry experts, HR and peer institutions/ universities for specific skill training.

Amit Sharma, Additional Secretary,Government of Jammu and Kashmir

I believe that the fire within is very important. All the youngsters should strive to know what they are made for and the various lines available to them. In J&K we have a lot of initiatives as far as providing employment opportunities are concerned. For example, the J&K overseas employment corporation, which was started with the objective that our youth which is educated and skilled should find ways to access markets like the Middle East. This corporation came into existence three to four years back and we are coordinating with different ministries, overseas corporations and departments and we are trying to send skilled workforce outside also. I only request students to not have a typical mindset about employability in terms of job seekers. Try to go a step further and be job creators

Dr Pankaj Gupta, Director General, Jaipuria Institutes of ManagementNo student is a bad student and no teacher is a bad teacher. It is all a matter of situation and perspective. There are students who think that in the three-four years after completion of class XII they would have a lot of fun, whereas there are many who are focused and clear about what they would do during these years. The most important thing is that we need to be aware of who we are and what kind of possibilities and potential is lying within us. Talking about communication skills, nobody is weak in communications; it is all a matter of igniting your inner confidence. Lot of learning, unlearning and re-learning is the need of the hour. The students should know the purpose of their life and what they want to do in life, at least in the next five years or may be during the whole day. You should also maintain a KASH (Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits) diary for yourselves to be able to rate yourself on your learning from life at the end of the day. We talk about how much industry input should be there in our curriculum and we also claim that our curriculum has been vetted by the industry. But, how much of that industry curriculum is relevant for a student and how is it been taught in the classroom? So, you cannot depend on the system. Good make good students teachers and not the other way round. You need to be responsible for yourself. Be ahead of the professor, do your own study before you come to the class.

MHRD initiates third edition of all-India survey on higher education

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

September 4, 2013

New Delhi: The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) recently launched the third edition of an all-India survey on higher education for 2012-13. Through the survey MHRD aims to have a better perspective of the state of affairs of higher education in the country.

It was launched by Minster of State for HRD Jitin Prasada. The survey covers all higher education institutions across the country including universities, colleges, and stand-alone institutions.

The survey that was started in 2011 to prepare a detailed database on higher education. Keeping in view the usefulness of data collected during the first year, the Ministry decided to make this survey an annual exercise of data collection in higher education sector.

The survey compiles and manages statistics directly online from respondent institutions. The main items of data collection under survey are basic details, programme details, teaching and non-teaching staff, student enrolment, examination results and scholarships.

According to the ministry statement, the survey for the year 2011-12 is under progress.

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