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Cyber security & Algo Trading Most Happening Careers in the Field of Management & IT

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The ongoing process of globalisation has made it imperative for us to encourage the development of new talent in myriad areas of IT. There now exists an immense need for professionals who can contribute by making the IT system secured without compromise on efficiency.
EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants) is one of the world’s largest certification bodies for information security professionals. EC-Council is a member-based organisation that certifies individuals in various information security and e-business skills.
India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years due to lack of infrastructure and investment, an official of security firm EC-Council said.
Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council said that the country is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare that has adopted innovative ways to attack governments and organisations causing huge financial losses.

Career in cyber security
• The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend ` 1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks
• India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years
• Indian needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015

The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend `1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks, according to a person familiar with the development. The Plan, which entails setting up of new agencies and coordination cells to improve response to cyber threats, is awaiting Cabinet Committee’s clearance, the person said.
At an event, Cyberfort Technologies, President, Amit Kumar pointed out that China is estimated to have 25 million cyber security experts while 1.25 lakh are from the local government. The US has 91, 080 experts in the government while India has just 556 experts.
“While the data points show that we are losing the fight, it is clear that the solution to the plague will happen when we will inject the vaccine. It is evident that the best way to solve the cyber plague is by introducing a cyber-vaccine programme at all levels of society through combative education plans,” added Jay Bavisi.
He said that the US, which has put in a lot of resources to create cyber security professionals, sees an annual growth of 15 percent in trained workforce.

Career in Algo Trading
• Algo Trading uses computer driven algorithms to decide which stocks to buy and sell
• Offers Opportunities for candidates with Engineering and Computer Science backgrounds
• Professionals Start at Rs 15- 20 lakh per annum
• Rosy Future as Algorithmic trading could account for 60- 70 percent of tradingin equity markets in next 3-4 years
Source: BT Research

“There is a need to involve academia like universities, impart training, setup labs and foster competition to deal with cyber security issues, which are entirely missing in the country,” highlighted Amit.
India is ranked ninth on Kaspersky’s list of countries with the highest percentage of computer attacks. However, the number of cyber security professionals in the country is very low.
Many government websites are still exposed to threats as proper investment has not been made to find a long-term solution. This has lead to security breach of government data and record. According to official data, more than 1,000 government websites were hacked in the last three years.
“When a government website is getting hacked they call professionals to fix the problem. But they have no budget to continue. They have no budget to hire the right people, to train them and defend their websites,” Amit said.
Cyberfort Technologies points out the recent study that revealed 5.39 million local malware threats were detected on computers in India. According to the organisation, India is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare. Any attack will result in financial loss, no matter how sophisticated the attack is.
On the government’s Cyber Security Policy 2013, Amit said the policy seems to be great on papers, but there should be greater focus on the implementation. While on the Indian cyber security awareness, he commented that the country needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015. In line with this requirement, Cyberfort Technologies will train through its channel partner 1000 cyber expert professional to combat the need of cyber professional.
Algo trading is another lucrative career in now days. It is going to swipe the entire market and help in creating entrepreneur professionals as well as white collar workers for banking and other diversified sector.
Cyberfort technologies has tied up with Modrika for providing niche financial technology equipped with ample job opportunites in the upcoming days. Algo trading is an automated facility where trading is carried out by computer driven algorithms designed by traders. Instead of the traders manually doing so, it is these algorithms that determine which orders – to buy or to sell – get booked. The high speed transactions can take as little as 18 microseconds – at which such trading takes place, gives it a competitive advantage over conventional manual trading. While a single trader can manually handle at best a portfolio of around Rs 5 crore, an algo trader, working alone, can cope with Rs 50 crore to Rs 55 crore
Algo trading started in India in 2005, but it was only in 2008 this facility started gaining wide acceptance after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed Direct Market Access, or electronic interaction with the order books of exchanges. Today, around 16 to 17 per cent of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange is algorithmic, with about 80 to 90 companies engaged in it. But many believe that in the next three to four years, the proportion could rise to 60 to 70 per cent.
“We have a six-month certificate course. So far, 500 candidates have enrolled,” says Vipin Kumar, Head of India operations of financial technology solutions provider Modrika.
dA broad range of brokerage firms, investment services, financial consulting firms, foreign and private banks, global insurance companies, taxation service providers, equity firms and other banking companies now expanding their operations across the globe. For young candidates there are bright lucrative opportunities in the fields of financial advisory services, insurance and banking services, investment management, financial analysis, stock-market consultants, broking agents, financial planners and economists. Over a million jobs in financial sector available by 2020 in India alone, as per report by Mc Kinsey has done for GIFT.
Modrika is primarily training and technology solutions provider for capital markets, and has been operating internationally for over half a decade. We provide technology driven wealth management solutions. We develop custom software and financial market technical analysis systems for financial technology firms, retail brokers, market makers, exchanges and individual trades. Leveraging nearshore or offshore outsourcing allows our clients to optimise project budget, reduce expenses and minimise both fiscal and organisational goals.

For establishment of cyberfort study
center contact – Dr Rajesh Kumar
Mobile- +91 9031489275, 9973195996
email-rajesh@cyberfort.org

 

Working to achieve the goal of skilling 50 crore Indians by 2022: Pallam Raju

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

rajuNew Delhi: While addressing the sixth Global Skills Summit (GSS), the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr M M Pallam Raju said “we are working toward achieving national goal of skilling 50 crore Indians by 2022”.

He also added that a larger challenge at hand is to engage the youth of the country to participate in developing skills without inhibitions.

The two-day FICCI annual event was recently organised in collaboration with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) , Ministry of Labour and Employment and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). New Zealand was the country partner this time for the Summit. The theme of the sixth GSS is “Industry Leads”.

The Minister said that the MHRD has structured the programmes in such a way that the private sector and industry would play a leadership role and an enabling environment would be provided for skill development. The Ministry is keen to have Industry as partners in setting up schools, skill development centres, polytechnics, community colleges and even provide skill programmes in colleges and cniversities. It is even exploring the opportunity to promote skill development in existing educational institutions, he added.

The Minister further added that the need of the hour is to synergise the efforts and resources to provide a feasible platform for vocational education and skill development. It demands a collective effort by varied government initiatives, PPP initiatives to set up schools and training institutes, National Skills Qualification Framework and large and small scale private players. Recently National Skills Development Agency (NSDA) has been formed which would be coming out with a National Skill Qualification Framework.

He elucidated a number of facts and figures which show that Indian Economy needs a strong skill training system if it is to survive the economic competition and reap the demographic dividend: a) The National Manufacturing Policy envisions to create over 10 crore additional jobs by 2022: b) Total employment in the unorganized sector is expected to be about 42 crore; c) welders, operators, plumbers, masons, crane operators, carpenters and electricians, the incremental requirement at the level of other construction workers is expected to be over 3.8 crore till 2022; d) drivers, helpers, and warehouse workers will together account for over 85 per cent of the incremental human resource requirements of the Transport and Warehousing sector.

Two reports were also released by the HRM on this occasion – Reaping India’s promised demographic dividend- Industry in driving seat and India New Zealand Partnership on Skills. The first report highlights the vocational education and training scenario (VET) of India. It also outlines concrete recommendations that can be taken up by respective State Skill Development/ Employment Missions for perceptible improvement in programme delivery in a time-bound manner.

Transformation of Distance Education with WizIQ

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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“WizIQ is the best online virtual learning environment equipped with features designed for one-onone, group and class interactions. One does not need to download any special software for using WizIQ. It is absolutely user friendly and comfortable for teachers to conduct online classes,” Prof Mandar Bhanushe, IDOL, University of Mumbai

The Beginning
Treading on the path of innovative transformation of distance education by tapping the revolutionist nature of technology is Professor Mandar Laxmikant Bhanushe. With a double masters in Mathematics and a PG Diploma in Operation Research, all from University of Mumbai, and currently working as the Assistant Professor-cum-Assistant Director in the Institute of Distance Learning (IDOL) of the University of Mumbai (UoM), Prof Bhanushe has nine years of rich academic experience.

“The WizIQ team not only provided support but relentlessly maintained interactions with me and my team at IDOL,” Hemlata Chari, Deputy Director Academic, IDOL, University of Mumbai

The Change
One of the chief initiators of mobile learning project for First Year B Sc students of the University, Prof Bhanushe has conducted and organised several workshops. Currently in progress is his major project to create mobile educational apps for android.
He has initiated the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube as a tool for learning for the students of IDOL, UoM for various courses.
He has also pioneered the initiation of online lectures for the first time ever in the University, for courses in Mathematics as well as Artificial Intelligence, via the WizIQ Virtual Classroom.

The Award
Recognizing his efforts to make learning more easily accessible to the distance learning students, Indian Education Congress 2013 awarded Professor Mandar Bhanushe with the Indian Education Award 2013 for his online course in Mathematics {for Second year BSc(IT) course} in the Best Webinar Series category.

The Now
Professor Bhanushe continues to play his dynamic role as an ambassador for change. Understanding the need of the hour to adopt the 21st century pedagogies in Indian Education, Prof Bhansuhe has helped design the model for Open learning with his education webinar series. The award winning, live webinars are conducted via the WizIQ virtual classroom. Learners attend these sessions from anywhere, from the comfort of their study or office. It’s a unique opportunity for learners in India, where knowledge transfer is rare or comes at a very high cost. Imagine a high school teacher sitting in Boston and learning from an expert in Banaras.

The Technology
With WizIQ coming into picture in 2006, establishing an e Teaching Business in India, meeting students online in real time for virtual classes/webinars, teaching asynchronously through tutorials and online assessments, is no more a distant dream. WizIQ Virtual Classroom aims to democratise education too in the largest democracy of the world. More premier institutes like IITs, VIT Vellore, ISB, ISM Dhanbad and NIOS are opting for integration of Information and Communications Technology in higher education. And with WizIQ being almost infinitely scalable, the education sector in India is undergoing a paradigm shift.

The shrinking world

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

“With technology penetrating in the remotest areas, people understand the need of connectivity. Therefore the acceptance of technology among the citizens is increasing,” says P Krishnakumar, Executive Director & GM, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India. In conversation with Sruti Ghosal

How do you look at the role of technology in the growth of education sector in India?
We should look at it from the perspective of technology, how evolutionary technology is playing a part. We should also look at people who have access to good quality education and people who don’t. The way the education system is spread across the country it enables a child to learn a lot of things on his own. But at the same time it doesn’t enhance the curiosity of the child, it does not enhance the abilities that a child possesses. But today we have the Internet, which allows the child to be curious about exploring the world. A lot of children in Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and becoming aware of what is going on around the globe and are not confined to their cities. They are not restrained by the knowledge that the teachers have. Therefore, from the teaching perspective as well as from the teacher’s side, technology has bridged the gap that was causing a hindrance in access to quality information. The second part is that few people in the Tier-3 and Tier- 4 cities have access to information, but not the right kind of education, which will actually help them achieve their dreams. If we see the penetration in Indian household, its only 7 to 8 percent as compared to the developed countries. Therefore, we as a country are not harnessing the potential of the child. In Dell our vision is to deliver technology that will enable a child to dream and emerge as the future leader. Last year, we launched a programme called Study Buddy through which we have over 300 schools. We invited students from these schools for an interactive session with the computer and thus giving them an opportunity to explore.

Please shed light on Dell Champs 2013 School Programme.
The Dell Champs School Programme was launched recently, where we invited 20 cities, purely Tier-2 and below. Here we are running a city school-level contest, which focuses on students from class V to XII. In this contest, children and parents participate as a team and from each school we pick up two winners. After the contest is over we are carrying out an interactive session where we will be discussing about the usage of Internet and the safety issues. This interactive session is purely from the parental perspective and this also educates them about the pros and cons of Internet usage. After this, we pick up a champion from each city and take up to the national level where the national winner is given a scholarship amount of ` 25,000. The winning school will get a customised computer lab. That is the way we have broadly structured the programme and through this we will be able to help the students to achieve their dreams.

“As we go to the Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities we find that the Internet penetration has reached up to 34 percent and most of the Internet activity is happening through the mobile devices”

Indian education is an $85 billion opportunity for business. How is Dell tapping into this vertical?
Education as a vertical looks into two parts, private education system and government education system. Private education can be further divided into college and school education. Most of the private colleges have already started implementing distance classrooms and have put technology in the forefront. They have implemented projectors and other electronic devices through which they can conduct these virtual classrooms, and Dell which produces projectors, laptops and other devices has played a vital role in making these implementations successful. But in the public sphere we have less participation, as government decision is a time consuming and lengthy process.

How do you customise products as per the requirement of education verticals?
It varies from institution to institution. If an institution has laptop requirements we can give it. There are a lot of institutions that want to set up their own data centres; in that case we have to look at different aspects like connectivity, feasibility etc. Therefore these are large scale projects in which we work with them and therefore we talk to them internally. So we can customise that depending on the requirements of the institutions.

What were the initial hiccups when you approached the institutions?
The institutions themselves wanted technology, but the most important factor is how the students will seize this technology. We have come up with different levels of power which makes it more accessible to the students and gives a better learning experience. Nowadays technology has grasped the entire community and is now approved across the society. So in Dell our motive is to help students explore the world of quality information through technology and not remain stuck with the stereotype and traditional notions of technology.

Global Discovery Academy Changing the Way of Imparting Education

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Foundation Concept
Take a group of global Indians that are prospering in their adopted countries, add a generous dose of burning passion to give back in a substantial way to India, stir in some of the best minds in education worldwide, and throw in a dash of some of the most cutting-edge innovations in education. Let the dish marinate for half a decade, and then flash fry it in the ground reality of actually operating in India. What you get is the Global Discovery Academy network of schools.
These successful graduates from the world’s best known universities and holding senior positions in the corporate world were passionate about shaping the future of Indian education.
The founders dreamed of schools that would serve the masses rather than classes. It took substantial research for the Global Discovery Academy to join the dots on these seemingly incompatible goals. This included benchmarking against some of the best school systems in the world.
The GDA Process
The USP of Global Discovery Academy is that they aspire to help children discover their strengths and play to them for the rest of their lives. Doing this well, even on a small scale, is challenging. GDA is attempting to do this for 400 schools pan India. A medical metaphor is followed in how this is achieved. The dominant strengths of each student (Diagnosis) are observed, a development trajectory for them (Intervention) is chalked out and their progress on that trajectory (Monitoring) is continuously checked.
“The innovation that GDA offers is in our pedagogy, our learning space design, our technology and finally, in the way we brand the entire product,” says Vipul Redey, Chief Product Officer, GDA.
“As far as quality teachers are concerned, we draw a lot of our inspiration from the Rocketship Education model for running schools in the US. We hire the best, train them thoroughly, give them quality mentoring and performance feedback continuously, reward them for outstanding work, and show them a long term personal growth trajectory,” he adds.
The technology used by our instructors includes Smart boards, prototyping tools, educational software to teach Mathematics and foreign languages. GDA’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Lab initiative will offer our students a multitude of avenues to pursue their interests through the effective use of technology, whether it is in the creative arts or in commerce or in solving a specific multi-faceted problem that intrigues them.
We have been offering a few certified needy students with the assistance to bridge the gap between what we charge and what they can afford. However, with the low standard fees, this is usually unnecessary as we make sure that the fee charged from a student stays highly affordable.
At GDA the basic CBSE curriculum confirms to the CCE standards. However, we have an additional remediation layer on top of it called Aha Packet by us to teach
• Difficult topics
• Foundation topics and
• Extra-curricular topics like those related to technology, entrepreneurship or other careers.
With the changing times the role and responsibility of the teacher has also undergone a drastic change. This can best be illustrated by how we use the reputed Khan Academy Mathematics model that turns the traditional role of teachers on it’s head – Students learn concepts by watching Khan Academy videos and then practice problems under the watchful eye of their teachers in class. This makes teachers infinitely more useful and effective as facilitators for APPLYING knowledge rather than being a person that offers a sterile administering of meaningless data.
The entire GDA education hinges around our “Roadmap to my Dreams” philosophy that seeks to ensure that every child plays to his or her strengths throughout their lives. This involves, first of all identifying that child’s strengths, accentuating them through our unique education process and then monitoring the child’s progress.

Education Management with ERP

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Razi Ahmed, Country Manager / CEO – India, Edmatix Information Systems, a subsidiary of Mazik Tech Solutions, talks about how the company is helping educational institutions to achieve their academic goals by removing the artificial barriers between parents, teachers and students

Please shed some light on Edmatix Solutions.
Edmatix is the education ERP division of Mazik Tech solutions which provides multi lingual educational solutions and services. Our products are built on latest Microsoft, Web 2.0 technologies to make it more user friendly and cater the education needs of various school boards such as state SSC, CBSE, ICSE and several others that exists in India it also caters colleges, training institutes and universities.

How is Edmatix helping Education Institutions across India?
Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals and set standards. We are totally committed to helping education community; reinvent education system to improve their education standards and student achievements to outperform in several state and central aptitude tests. Our education products are designed to help you support the lifecycle of active learning, inspires student success and create technology enabled environment. Our products are built to allow seamless customizations to meet the needs of every school in the education community.
Edmatix has been committed to providing the best software solutions for education industry and helping schools maintain their competitive edge with their counter parts in the education market. Our mission is to provide schools a very comprehensive, easy to use and most cost effective solutions. We help schools and institutions to achieve their education goals by improving education standard, student grades, achievements and ofcourse achieve their target revenues to help them expand their services. Improvement in student grades and education standards will help schools to send more students to colleges and universities where they can be selected for the most demanding courses and programs to support Indian growth in technology and sciences.

Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals around the world. It helps management to easily manage various entities of their institutes in 360 degree view using MIS reports, Teacher analysis, Student analysis and many canned reports

Key achievements

• 65 + satisfied customer Groups with a volume of 1,00,000 + Users
• ITIL Process based Customer Service Support
• Supports International and Local curriculum pattern (State, CBSE, ICSE, IB etc)
• User friendly and Microsoft Certified User Interface (UI) design
• Integrated with various Financial Accounting ERPs such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Tally

Key implementation challenges

• Collecting Data as per Standard Education System-overcome using ‘Custom-made’ Data Migration Tools
• The communication between User-Implementation Team – Educating Users to Communicate Using e-mail approach
• Implementing SaaS Model – Educating The Customer about Data Security and Advantages of SaaS Model

How do you manage support to existing customers when you are adding schools almost every week?
Along with our local support, we are constantly monitoring the industry and working with our customers who are driving the functionality of our software. We are committed to exceeding our customer’s expectations. We completely understand that the software you buy today needs to last for decades, grow and adapt with your school’s changing needs and requirements. We follow a strict change management and control for every release of each new enhancement. Our implementation and support teams are very well connected with all our customers, they keep all customers very well informed about our new features and enhancement to existing features in our releases. We believe in training our customers that to reduce the number support calls that we receive and help us use our valuable time to further build the software. We value each of our customers irrespective of their size and revenue.

Nurturing School Leaders of Tomorrow

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The session highlighted organisational leadership and management skills for principals. It also threw new perspectives on the role that ICT can play in school management

Swami Swaroopananda,
Director In-Charge,
Chinmaya International Residential School, Coimbatore

Leadership is something that people say is inborn. Yet all are not born leaders and yet everyone is leader in their own space. Best leadership is always through example. To create leaders out of people all we have to do is make them people of some values. People find something in them which they are inspired by. Common answer given by students on asking as what they are missing in the education system is that they do not have role models. It became a task that at least that they look up to their parents and teachers as role models. It has become a challenge to make teachers as role model. We began to empower people in order to make them leaders. Recognising the talent and allowing them to express freely whatever they are good at. Discipline, which is self-developed, is always constructive.

 

A Murali Mukund, Chairman, Jubilee Public School, Hyderabad

A good institution should have four things those are vision, strong leadership, good teacher effectiveness and good student learning. A good teacher need not be a good school leader but a good school leader essentially has to be a good teacher. A School leader should have a clear vision to lead the staff, to implement the management policies for delivery of quality education to the children. Passion and commitment are two key aspects to become a good leader. Teacher, trainer and team leader are the key roles of a leader.

 

Dr Kiran Singh, Principal, Mandsaur International School, Mandsaur

Nurturing the future leaders in such a way that they get enough time and space to cultivate the values and required qualities to pass it on to the next generation. We need to reduce the gaps between school and parents, parents and teachers and students and teachers. Leadership is an action not a title. It is a promise, which we make to the people. HR development is very important aspect in nurturing leadership.

 

Sameer Bora, EVP, Research & Development, Next Education

Digital learning has to blend with conventional way of learning. It is not a substitute to conventional learning. We look at the teachers as catalysts and we do not seek to replace teachers when we are designing tools. Educational data mining is an important activity, which helps in making big decisions regarding students. It is important to figure out how the teacher views the technology. It can not be the case that you built a technology and force teacher to a very steep learning curve, which makes them uncomfortable in front of the class. Content must be such that the teacher must add value rather than replacing teachers.

 

Dr Nripen Kumar Dutta,Founder and Principal, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati

There is a transformational change over the last 20 years because of the technological change, innovation, globalisation, migration, the landscape of school has changed where the old model of administrative style has been replaced by the new public management style of learning. A paradigm shift from that of intervention to prevention is happening. This shift has made the role of principals different, which is based on action and behaviour. Instructional leadership has become more relevant. Old system and new system can blend and club together in attaining goals. Teacher quality, rigour of content and students as learners are the core of the system and there should be an interaction in the system.

 

Lt Col (Retd) A Sekhar, Principal, Atul Vidyalaya, Valsad

The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teachinglearning process.

Shivananda R Koteshwar, Director, The Amaatra Academy, Bangalore

Leadership is all about getting into a state of a resonance. With resonance I mean that gets created when staff’s aspiration, institute’s requirement and learner’s interest intersect. This state of resonance is a real leadership. Difference between a manager and a leader is that manager says go and the leader says lets go, which means the leader is involved in things. Manger knows how to do things where as leader knows what things to do. The manager gets others to do and the leader gets others to want to do. A principal requires a coach, a structured plan and absolute management support for implementation of planning

Technology solutions to benefit Students and Institutes alike

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

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

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

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

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

hareesh-tankDr 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.

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