>Pearson wants to establish itself as an education company

>Pearson Plc, which recently bought a controlling stake of Indian education company TutorVista, wants to shed public perception of a publishing firm and establish itself more as an education service provider. Pearson India Chairman John Makinson, who recently visited New Delhi, said in an interview that school education is now one of its key focus in the country, which can be replicated in other nations such as South Africa. He also said the Indian government’s decision to open up the education market is a welcome move for global education firms. Edited excerpts:

How much is acquiring TutorVista going to help Pearson?
For the last three years, we have been focusing in the Indian education space. The two key areas are vocational education and school education space. Two years back, we had two partnerships, one with TutorVista, which was largely an online tutoring firm, and the other with Educomp Solutions Ltd., on vocational education. We had really not thought about the school education space. After talking to the TutorVista management, we realized they have a vision for school education. It sounded sensible to us and we thought of honing that in India. The challenge for a company like Pearson is it’s a large opportunity, which is scalable. It has to be delivered at a relatively low price. We have software, platform, we had other resources but we did not have the dedicated culture of growing schools. By combining the entrepreneurial skill of TutorVista with our global experience as a global education company, we thought we can achieve more success here.

Do you seek to grow as a bouquet in the education service sector by offering K-12 (class I through XII) education, vocational education and test-prep centres?
Yes, we see opportunity to grow in India in a whole lot of areas. We see opportunity in testing, in English language teaching, teachers training, in higher education space like curriculum designing. Some will be delivered through our partner Educomp Solutions in the vocational education space and some through this effort where we have acquired the majority stake in TutorVista. Some we may develop on our own. We will look at it case-by-case. If it is expanding schools we will do it through TutorVista and if it is college education (curricula and publishing), then we will do it by ourselves.

Running test-prep centres that coach students for engineering, management and medical colleges is a huge business. Will you focus on them?
Our general idea is to establish as an education service company and a technology-enabled service company. In test-prep, we may develop content, assessment capability. Maybe we will use some of the infrastructure of the TutorVista schools as test-prep centres, without opening a chain of test-prep centres across the country.

You have said that Indian education sector’s opening up is good for the world. Why do you think so?
I think there is a recognition in India that education is the fundamental enabler of India’s potential as a globally competitive service economy. If that is the target then education has to be in a broad way be the epicentre of government agenda… That recognition has led to a much more enlightened and open approach to education. There has to be a balance between public purpose and the commercial terms of education. We have to have a social purpose and a commercial purpose. I think the ministry of human resource development in the last two years has done a great job…

How much does India contribute to the kitty of Pearson?
At this moment a very small portion. We generally don’t split that number. But it is growing very rapidly. Today we employ 1,600 people in India. We will see that it grows.

TutorVista’s chief executive K. Ganesh says he sees this company a billion-dollar company in five years. If that happens, where do you see Pearson?
We want to establish ourselves as an education company (rather) than just a publishing company. There is a perception that Pearson is a textbook publisher, this should change. Yes, we do publish textbooks, but it is a pretty small proportion than what we do in education. Largely, we are producing digitally enabled content that is embedded in learning platforms. We need to get some recognition for that. With TutorVista deal, the perception will shift a bit. Ganesh’s vision about the company is not unrealistic.

Will you take this K-12 education model to other countries where you are growing, such as Brazil and South Africa?
Yes, we will. It will be a two-way spread. In Brazil…we give all kind of content to schools and we will see if that can be brought to India. In turn, if we become successful managers of K-12 schools, then it can be exported to Brazil, South Africa. If we develop a model in India and it can be replicated, then we will do that for sure.

Source: Mint, February 15, 2011

>US varsity ties up with Pune-based B-school

>The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS), one of the state universities in the US, has entered into a formal tie-up with the city-based Europe Asia Business School (EABS) and academic service provider Global Talent Track (GTT) for setting up a centre for services excellence that will offer advanced study programmes in the infotech (IT) and management fields.

The EABS, which has campuses in Pune and Mumbai, was founded by Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar Technologies and Chairman of the CII’s IT and ITeS committee. While the GTT, which specialises in training students on vocational skills that will help them get ready for the industry jobs, is headed by Uma Ganesh.

As part of the tripartite arrangement, the centre for services excellence will conduct research as well as offer multi-disciplinary academic programmes in India, starting with an advanced programme in information assurance leading to a masters in engineering from the UCCS and a certificate programme in services marketing.

According to Uma Ganesh, “This collaboration promises a much-needed global education experience for students, bringing together the best of the academia and the industry of the two nations.” Ganesh said, “The UCCS has some of the most relevant programmes in IT and Management and also an outstanding programme taught through blended learning for healthcare and nursing and through our new global connect initiative. These are the first of several planned courses that we look forward to customising and offering, via the centre, to cater to the huge needs in India and Asia.”

The information assurance programme will be conducted at the EABS’ campus at Vimannagar, while the services marketing programme will be conducted at the Advanced Technology Laboratory near Wadia college, said a GTT spokesperson on Monday. The two new academic programmes will be launched from the academic year 2011-12. The UCCS has provided the academic backup for these programmes in terms of designing the course and faculty training, among other things.

Both the courses have been designed specifically keeping in mind the factors like India’s growing economy and the projected growth of sectors related to business, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare and media. These sectors are expected to create over 40 lakh jobs within the next two years. On the other hand, information security and IT risk have emerged as key concerns with the growing IT penetration across the country. Successful participation of the advanced programme offered in India will lead to a masters degree in information assurance, which is offered by the UCCS. The services marketing programme will also enable students to get fee waivers for the fully accredited MBA offered by the UCCS at its campus in Colorado Springs.

Source: The Times of India, February 15, 2011

>PGDM colleges deplore AICTE cap on fee

>Colleges in the state of Andhra Pradesh offering PG Diploma in Management (PGDM) courses have decided to approach the Supreme Court against the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) move to put a cap on the fee. According to the new AICTE rules introduced earlier this month, colleges which run autonomous PGDM courses will now have to slash their course fee from a whopping Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 30,000 per annum.

The AICTE had also decided to cancel the autonomy of these colleges preventing them from deciding their own curriculum and fee structure. The colleges will have to get affiliated to state universities, which will monitor all administrative and academic matters of the colleges.

The managements stated that the fee reduction by 70 per cent would be a squeeze on their resources and running the colleges would become difficult. “The colleges have been offering good quality education. The students are even provided with laptops and are exposed to the syllabus which is not inferior to that of IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management). The AICTE’s decision to cancel their autonomy will upset the educational system being followed by these colleges,” said T. Srinivas Acharya, Principal, Vishwa Vishwani Institute of Systems and Management. There are 30 such institutions in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

College managements said that they would be left with no option but to shut down if the fee cap was implemented by the government. “We will not be able to provide all the good facilities being now provided to the students if the fee structure is controlled. From internship to full-fledged laboratories, the colleges have been providing students with the best facilities,” said a college representative.

The colleges said that they had brought the issue to the notice of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and were awaiting a response. “HRD minister Kapil Sibal has promised to find a solution to the problem. We will, however, approach court if the matter is not settled by the government,” said a representative.

Source: The Times of India, February 15, 2011

>XLRI students in high demand during campus placement

>Close on the heels of a record-breaking summer internship process, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur (widely known as XLRI), the premier B-school of the eastern region, has scaled new heights. The campus recruitment process of 2011 witnessed for the first time 240 students getting placed in less than four days. A total of 109 firms confirmed their participation and rolled out 317 offers. This year XLRI witnessed the highest number of offers made on campus with an increased batch size of 240 students being offered the widest possible range of profiles from across the sectors. The class of 2011 has successfully made their entry into coveted positions across the corporate world. There was a 19.25 per cent jump in pre-placement offers from last year with students being offered attractive jobs for excellent performance during summer internships.

The lateral placements at XLRI have been an impressive prelude to the campus recruitment process, with a rich mix of offers equally spread across various domains for middle and senior level management roles. The number of lateral offers doubled over last year with an average salary figure of Rs. 16,50,000. The placement process attracted 109 companies giving a total of 317 offers, to a batch of 120 business management and 120 personnel management and industrial relations (HR) students.

The average domestic package was around Rs. 15,80,000, a rise of close to 12 per cent over last year’s figure. The figure for the domestic salary of Rs. 14,70,000 echoes the focus on quality of job offers made at XLRI as a part of the placement season 2010. The highest domestic package was Rs. 23,00,000 per annum and according to sources it was offered by a consultancy firm.

XLRI’s position as a destination for premier finance roles stays, with 25 per cent of the total offers coming from the financial sector. ICICI Bank was the largest recruiter and had 21 offers. Marketing has drawn renewed interest from the students and was the most sought after profile with 25 per cent accepting offers. XLRI strengthened its relationship with consulting prima donnas with 25 per cent of the students entering the campus recruitment programme with top notch consulting firms involved in the process.

“This year saw an increase of 100 per cent in the batch of PMIR, but this was more than matched by the renewed interest of the recruiters for HR professionals” said Prof. Rajiv Misra, Chairperson, Placement Committee. Novartis AG offered its prestigious HR leadership development role at Basel, Switzerland, exclusively to XLRI, making the highest international offer of $120,000.

Source: The Times of India, February 15, 2011