Archive for the ‘Indian Education System’ Category
NRI education pioneer, Dr Sugata Mitra, wins $ 1 million TED Prize
Sometimes, a hole-in-the-wall is all you need to get a deep insight into education and — attain worldwide recognition. When Prof. Sugata Mitra installed a computer in a slum in Kalkaji, Delhi, in 1999 in what came to be known as a “hole-in-the-wall” experiment, it led to a fundamental reappraisal on his part of the formal education system. Surreptitious monitoring of what followed showed the power of what he would later call ”Minimally Invasive Education.”
Left to themselves, kids anywhere, from any background, even without knowing English, seamlessly learn to use computers and the internet. Particularly if they are working in groups, they can figure out complex subjects such as DNA sequencing, trigonometry, and avionics, as Dr Mitra found in similar experiments he has conducted across the world.
For his revolutionary work in this area, TED, the multidisciplinary conference of brainiacs, on Tuesday awarded him its $ 1 million prize at its annual mindfest here in Long Beach, California. Cheered with gusto by the cream of world intelligentsia and geek power, Dr Mitra later told TOI that the prize money would go to further research in non-formal, minimally invasive education “that should rid us of a system that is fast becoming obsolete.” Previous winners of the annual TED prize of $ 100,000 before it was bumped up to $ 1 million this year include the singer Bono, former President Bill Clinton, the naturalist E.O. Wilson, tech-savant Larry Brilliant, and the writer-historian Karen Armstrong.
In experiments from Karaikal in Pondicherry to Villa Mercedes in Argentina, Dr Mitra has found that left to their own devices (literally), children easily forgo what he mocks as TCPIP education, the abbreviation denoting an Internet Protocol that merely carries data without comprehension. Such learning by rote, he says, is a legacy of both Victorian and Brahmanical values, furthered by the East India Company to produced an army of clerks and accountants for the Empire. Independent India has not challenged that model; instead, it has nourished it.
In the Pondicherry experiment, Dr Mitra left a computer with some DNA Replication software amid slum children who did not know any English. Yet they managed to figure out within days that improper replication of DNA causes disease. Similarly, kids in a remote South American village grappled with theology and geometry in understanding why human beings are born with five fingers on a limb. The best results were when children worked in groups and there was minimal adult supervision, although informal mentoring helps.
”The results broke every learning hypothesis in my mind,” said Dr Mitra, adding that such alternatives could have happened only at this time with the arrival of computers, internet, and broadband. “There is no need to carry data in our head as if it is a pen drive, because information is available at our fingertips. Instead, children should be challenged to understand and express ideas and concepts.”
Dr Mitra has since expanded on his findings and created a “granny cloud” — online moderators of retired teachers — who could Skype into learning centers and encourage children with questions and assignments. He now wants to build a “School in the Cloud,” a learning lab in India, “where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online.” He is particularly keen on schools and teachers not depriving children of smartphones, laptops, and other connected devices in the classroom. “Such schooling is outdated,” he said. “Will you take away a gun from a soldier when you send him to battle?”.
Source: The Times of India, February 28, 2013
India fares poorly in global learning study
A global study of learning standards in 74 countries has ranked India all but at the bottom, sounding a wake-up call for the country’s education system. China came out on top. It was the first time that India participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). India’s participation was in a pilot project, confined to schools from Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.
The findings are significant because they come at a time when India is making a big push in education and improving the skills of its workforce. If the results from the two states hold good for the rest of the country, India’s long-term competitiveness may be in question.
Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh traditionally rank high on human development parameters and are considered to be among India’s more progressive states. The India Human Development Report 2011, prepared by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), categorized them as “median” states, putting them significantly ahead of the national average. IAMR is an autonomous arm of the Planning Commission.
For literacy, Himachal Pradesh ranked 4 and Tamil Nadu 11 in the National Family Health Survey released in 2007. Yet, in the PISA study, Tamil Nadu ranked 72 and Himachal Pradesh 73, just ahead of Kyrgyzstan in mathematics and overall reading skills. The eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai topped the PISA rankings in all three categories — overall reading skills, mathematical and scientific literacy.
PISA is an international study that began in 2000. It aims to assess education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in participating economies. To be sure, there are some reservations about the findings of the study. Such comparisons may not be fair as they are not between equals, says Manish Sabharwal, chief executive officer of human resources training and placement firm Teamlease Services Pvt. Ltd. Yet, he argued, it does serve as a timely warning. “Industries are already facing a problem because of poor quality (of graduates),” Sabharwal said. “What we need to do is repair and prepare. Repair by imparting skill training and prepare by improving the school system, which is the main gateway.”
In Tamil Nadu, only 17% of students were estimated to possess proficiency in reading that is at or above the baseline needed to be effective and productive in life. In Himachal Pradesh, this level is 11%. “This compares to 81% of students performing at or above the baseline level in reading in the OECD countries, on an average,” said the study. In other words, only a little over one in six students in Tamil Nadu and nearly one in 10 students in Himachal Pradesh are performing at the OECD average. A similar trend was observed in mathematical and scientific literacy, too.
Anurag Behar, chief executive officer of the Azim Premji Foundation, said the study’s findings were alarming.
This is because the PISA study found that only 12% of students in Himachal Pradesh and 15% in Tamil Nadu were proficient in mathematics against an OECD average of 75%; when it came to scientific literacy among students of class X, the proficiency level in Tamil Nadu was 16% and in Himachal, 11%, as against an OECD average proficiency of 82%. In Malaysia, 56% of students were proficient in reading and 41% in mathematics. Similarly, in the United Arab Emirates, the mathematics proficiency levels was estimated at 49% and for reading, 60%. Like India, both countries participated for the first time.
Behar says there is a need for a complete change of India’s teacher education system and a shift from rote learning-driven school education to understanding-driven curricula. “We also need to reduce the policy-implemenation gap,” he said.
Tamil Nadu education minster C.V.Shanmugam declined to comment on the study’s findings, asserting that the state’s education system is good. “In the last five years, 56,000 teachers were recruited… In which state do they give students laptops?” he said, referring to chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s free laptop scheme for students that was part of her campaign for elections that brought her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party back to power in May. “We give incentives for students attending higher secondary. We give Rs. 1,500 (a year) to class X students, Rs. 1,500 to class XI and Rs. 2,000 to class XII. We give Rs. 5,000 if they clear class XII. So steps are being taken to improve the existing system,” he claimed.
Himachal Pradesh education minister Ishwar Dass Dhiman defended his state’s education system. In elementary schools, the enrolment has reached 99.3%, for instance, he said. “If they have taken samples from the interior areas of our state, then we cannot say anything. We are now hiring better qualified teachers to improve the teaching of students.”
Pramath Sinha, an education entrepreneur and former dean of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, said he knew about the deficiencies of India’s education system but was still shocked to find India so low in the PISA rankings. “I belive our lack of urgency will take away the demographic dividend that we could have reaped,” Sinha said.
Not everyone agrees. The study may not be based on an apple-to-apple comparison, says Vipul Prakash, managing director of Elixir Consulting, a recruitment process outsourcing firm. “If you look at the entire people entering the workforce, you may find lack of quality. But if you take the top 10% then they are perhaps the best in the world. This 10% is quite a large number which is giving India a competitive upper hand.”
Source: Mint, December 20, 2011
Zee Learn to manage schools owned by government, corporate houses
Zee Learn Ltd., the education firm of Essel Group, plans to enter a new segment — school outsourcing, or managing schools owned by corporate houses or the government. The company said this is a fresh business opportunity at a time when the country’s education sector is growing rapidly and companies from other sectors also want to invest.
Chief executive officer Sumeet Mehta said Zee Learn is in talks to manage a school of steel manufacturer JSL Stainless Ltd. and some other companies. “We are hoping that 20% of our school business will come from this segment. We will focus on operating and managing schools of leading business houses and making it a key vertical to expand,” said Mehta. “We are in touch with at least four-five other corporates.”
The cost of school education has doubled between 2005 and 2011, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). There are at least 240 million students in India pursuing school education, according to data available with the Union government.
Zee Learn runs 900 play schools, 100 K-12 schools and nearly three dozen animation institutes across the country. It recently tied up with Japan’s Gakken Education to improve science learning in classrooms. By the end of the year to March 2012, the company plans to add 100 playschools and 25 each in the other segments.
Mehta said Zee Learn hopes to have 500 K-12 schools in five years, of which 15-20% will be owned by others. Motiprakash Rath, deputy general manager, corporate communication, JSL Stainless, said the company is in talks with Zee Learn. “Organizations like Zee Learn are specializing in education and we believe that the best result can be extracted by giving the right job to the right people,” Rath said.
Analysts said school outsourcing can help education firms sidestep the difficulties of land acquisition. “For any business expansion, land is a major issue and in case of education firms this is definitely one of the concerns. Hence, some K-12 education players find it convenient to partner with those corporate houses or government bodies that have this facility. What they are following is a management service model,” said Bharat Gulia, senior manager, education practice, at consulting firm Ernst and Young.
Mehta agreed that acquiring land is a concern for Zee Learn, and the company won’t mind expanding to smaller cities and towns, where land acquisition is easier. Zee Learn has already tied up with the Gujarat government to manage 25 municipal schools in Ahmedabad, he said. The agreement was signed some months ago and the company will take over operations after Diwali holidays.
The company’s board has approved a proposal to raise $60 million to support its expansion, Mehta said. He did not say how the money will be raised but added that the option of bringing in private equity firms or other investors is “not off the table”. Zee Learn’s revenue grew 40% in the first half of fiscal 2011-12 to Rs. 220 crore (Rs. 2.2 billion), Mehta said. In the second half, it aims to expand 50-60% to nearly Rs. 300 crore (Rs. 3 billion) as it is expecting its order book to grow.
Source: Mint, October 28, 2011
Undergraduate students baffled by IIM-Indore notice
The ambitious five-year integrated programme offered by the Indian Institute of Management-Indore (IIM-I) has left its takers astonished. After being selected to the first-ever programme that opens doors to an IIM after high school, the institute has said that all those selected will have to pursue a graduation degree on the side.
This has left them all worried about the standing of the IIM-I’s course. The letter sent out by the IIM-I Director N. Ravichadran, to those who’ve been picked to join the programme, states, “Pursuing a degree in the first three years by distance education mode while they are on the IIM Indore campus is a reality.” This has left candidates and their parents equally rattled. Doing their bit, IIM-I is also in talks with Indian and international universities who would join hands with it to jointly offer this course.
The five-year residential Integrated Programme in Management was initially designed in such a way that students could drop out after the degree course. But the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) nixed that plan by disallowing the institute to modify its governing Societies Act, which states that the IIMs are postgraduate schools. So, the exit route after three years was closed.
The course was touted to be a rigorous one, designed to be a mix of essential skill subjects – maths and statistics, history, literature and political science, biological sciences, languages, finance and accounting, economics and information technology.
Now, students will have to pursue a graduation degree on the side too. “The decision was taken after we realised that Indians are obsessed by the idea of a degree,” said a faculty. IIM-Indore officials were inundated with queries from parents about the validity of this five-year course that does not give a degree to their wards, forcing the IIM-I Director to clarify that the institute “is not empowered to give degree for any academic programme”.
Source: The Times of India, October 16, 2011
Bureaucratic hurdles delaying Nalanda varsity: Amartya Sen
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Friday blamed “bureaucratic barrier” as a major hurdle for the delay in starting of the Nalanda University, which is being established in Bihar, close to the ancient historic institution of learning. “The reason for delay is the bureaucratic control. We are having some problem in getting the sanctioned funds released but we should be able to deal with it,” Professor Sen, who also chairs the Governing Board of the University, said.
Explanations for bureaucratic queries take a lot of time, he said, while speaking at an open session on “Nalanda University: A 21st Century University: (Re) Calling the Past” in New Delhi. Dismissing a growing perception that the University was in trouble and that the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, had disassociated himself from it as the first Visitor, Professor Sen said the delay was only because of bureaucratic hurdles, which could be partly due to ignorance, and Mr. Kalam had disassociated himself only because he had stepped down as the President, in which capacity he held the position of the Visitor also.
“We wanted him to continue as the Visitor but he wrote to us saying that would be inappropriate since the new President had taken over,” he explained. Describing Nalanda as the university of “Bihar, India, Asia and the globe,” the Nobel laureate said admissions would start as soon as the funds were released to enable appointment of the faculty. Quoting Mr. Kalam, whom he met earlier in the day, Professor Sen said he (Mr. Kalam) felt that research in India was difficult because of bureaucratic control, though some of the institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were very good basic training centres.
“There should be no bureaucratic control over education and the institutions should get freedom and autonomy as in the American universities,” Professor Sen said. He said a lot of money was being spent on higher education in India, which should have been spent on school education, but not much was being achieved. He expressed unhappiness that India was not represented in the top 200 institutes of the world, though several Asian institutes had found place in the survey conducted by the Times group. “The important thing to recognise is the standard of education and the relevance of what is being taught,” he said, adding this would be followed strictly in Nalanda.
Professor Saugata Sen, member of the Governing Board, said even though the Indian institutions did not seem to be doing well at a global level, there was enormous individual talent. “So something was missing which failed to translate individual talent to administrative ability,” he said, adding that most good researchers were in institutes and hence unable to benefit the young students. There is a need to strike a balance between research and teaching.
Source: The Hindu, October 8, 2011
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