Archive for October 29th, 2010
Need to deregulate education, says Chairman of National Knowledge Commission
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) Chairman Sam Pitroda on Thursday stressed the need to deregulate education, calling it the need of the hour. “We don’t need central or state control on universities and colleges. Today the challenge is to deregulate education,” Pitroda said, addressing a conclave organized by the Indian Institute of Technology alumni group PanIIT.
“That’s what we did to economy in 1991. That is what we need to do to education in 2011,” he stressed. Pitroda also emphasized that there was need to urgently pass the educational reform bills, expressing dissatisfaction over the fact that they have been delayed. “There is no sense of urgency over passing the education reform bills, many of them have not even been tabled yet,” he said.
Many new bills, including the much debated National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill have been drafted on the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission and the Yashpal Committee. However, they have not been tabled in parliament yet. “We have had debates and discussions, but no action. It’s time for government to act,” he said.
At least nine new bills have been drafted by the human resource development ministry. Of these, the Foreign Education Providers Bill, the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, the Educational Tribunals Bill and the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill, have been introduced in parliament. These have been sent to parliamentary standing committees, and are likely to be taken up during the winter session.
“Education is the only area we have not focused on economy of scope. We have to create an atmosphere where even a plumber can think of going for a Ph.D. in Mathematics,” he said. Speaking on the occasion, Secretary for Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Vibha Puri Das stressed on increasing the gross enrollment ratio (GER) to 30 per cent by the end of this decade. The GER, representing the percentage of students enrolled for higher education, is presently at 12.5 per cent. “We are giving right to education to students… higher education should be made available to them,” she said.
Yale to bring global best practices here
Yale University on Thursday signed an agreement with two of India’s leading institutions, the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K) and the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K), to develop training programmes that will create academic leadership here. The programmes will be aimed at vice chancellors, deans and heads of various educational institutes, and will be facilitated through the setting up of Centres of Excellence for Academic Leadership (CEALs).
A series of workshops and training programmes will kickoff from January 2011, the funds for which will be channelled from the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative which has a corpus of US$ 10 million in combined funding . The initiative was launched in November 2009 to create better ties between universities in India and the U.S.
Yale University will help shape the curriculum for the training, besides providing technical and research support, and even staff. As per the agreement, the implementation of activities and the newer areas of collaboration will be decided by a management committee comprising two members representing each partner. “Education is becoming more globalised every day. Local universities need to be exposed to global best practices to grow,” said George Joseph, Assistant Secretary, Yale University. The Ivy League university has already been conducting similar programmes for academia in China.
Source: The Economic Times, October 29, 2010
Pre-placement offers double across IIMs
The good times have returned at the country’s premier management institutes as the economy gets in shape. Pre-placement offers (PPOs) for students of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have increased by 25% to 100% over the same period last year, when the economy was in the grip of a slowdown. Companies make PPOs to students who intern with them in summer. With corporate earnings improving and recruitments picking up, the feel-good factor has spilled over to campuses.
IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) students have received over 65 PPOs and 30 pre-placement interviews, four months before final placements. Last year, the PPO tally was 41. “A lot of firms are yet to announce PPOs, and we expect the numbers to go up. So far, the scenario looks very good,” said IIM-C’s External Relations Secretary Samyukktha Thirumeni. She expects the numbers to cross the pre-slowdown days, when the PPO tally was 90-plus. Over 17% of the batch of 385 students has already received preplacement offers. The story is the same at other IIM campuses. Up to 20% of the batch at IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B) has received PPOs, says IIM-B’s Head of Placement Sapna Agarwal. “It shows the companies’ readiness to make commitments,” she adds.
Offers, which include lucrative international positions, are coming in from financial and consulting companies as well as FMCG, marketing, general management and IT firms. Consulting firms and i-banks have predominantly offered of PPOs at IIMA. “Several marketing and general management firms such as Hindustan Unilever, Tata Administrative Services and Aditya Birla Group have also offered PPOs,” says Mansi Chitalia, Member, Student Placement Committee.
While a large number of profiles remain the same, a few top management roles too have been offered to students. Dilip Krishnan of IIM-C, for instance, has been offered a position of marketing head of five countries (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) after his internship with the Florida-based Outback Steakhouse that operates restaurant chains in 22 countries.
Winny Patro, also from IIM-C, has been offered a PPO for the position of vice-president of Market Insight Consultants, a market research based consultancy in India. “Students have also received offers from firms in diverse industries such as niche consulting and media. Many companies are looking to meet a large part of their recruitment needs through the PPO route,” says Chitalia.
At IIM-C, consulting companies have the highest conversion ratio, with close to 90% of the interns receiving PPOs so far. “Finance and marketing firms have also offered many more PPOs compared to last year, with this change being most remarkable in the finance firms,” says Thirumeni.
IIM-Lucknow (IIM-L) students have already received over 43 PPOs, compared with 30 last year. “We expect many more in the coming months,” says Chairman – Placements R.L. Raina. The companies leading the pack include McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group, Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Aditya Birla Group, Diageo and Goldman Sachs.
Source: The Economic Times, October 29, 2010
India to help upgrade Jaffna University
Sri Lanka has sought Indian assistance to upgrade the engineering department of the Jaffna University in the north of the island to speed up the specialised skill development of people — mainly Tamils — living there. The department, badly in need of a fresh injection of teaching talent and tools, due to years of civil war that raged in the island’s north and east, is to be eventually be “developed into a full-fledged engineering college,” Indian government officials said.
India’s assistance to help modernise the education facilities in the island’s north and the east was discussed during the visits of Sri Lanka’s minister of higher education S.B. Dissanayake and foreign minister G.L. Peiris to New Delhi recently. Among the proposals explored were getting prominent Indian professors and lecturers to teach at Sri Lankan universities, a senior government official said.
“Under the proposal, we will also help groom the engineering teachers of Jaffna University. Faculty and student exchange are also part of the plan. India will help upgrade their laboratories and most likely provide high-end equipment to the university for its engineering institute,” a human resource development ministry official said, confirming the development.
As has already been announced, India is also helping Sri Lanka become a “trilingual society” with the minority Tamils learning to speak Sinhalese and the majority Sinhalese speakers learning Tamil — with both groups learning English as well. “The aim is to ensure respect for both languages so that the two ethnic groups understand each other. It will help better integration and unity in society,” said the government official cited above, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “A team of officials from the human resources development ministry will be travelling to Sri Lanka soon to flesh out this idea,” he said.
India, whose 62 million Tamils share close cultural links with Sri Lanka’s minority community, is keen to see the war-displaced resettled quickly. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which administers Tamil Nadu with the support of the Congress party, has been pressuring the government to lean on Sri Lanka to complete the rehabilitation of some 30,000 Tamils still living in camps and devolve more political power to them. India has already committed Rs. 1,000 crore (Rs. 10 billion) for the displaced civilians and will build 50,000 houses in the war-ravaged north of the island. Foreign minister S.M. Krishna is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka in November to take stock of the rehabilitation process and the utilization of Indian funds meant for the displaced.
Source: Mint, October 29, 2010
Higher Education News and Views 