EducationWorld August 14 Archives

Young Achievers

Gayathri Muthukumar

Gayathri Muthukumar (17), a class XII student of the National Public School, Indiranagar, Bangalore, is the newly crowned Season Seven champion of the Indian National Brain Bee 2014 — an all-India competition open to class XI students. Launched by the Mumbai-based Seven Hills Hospitals, the objective of this annual competition is to inspire youth to seek careers in basic and clinical neurosciences. Before she became national champion on April 20, Gayathri bested 3,600 entrants from 180 schools in the 240-minute final staged in Mumbai. As this year’s winner she bagged a trophy, laptop, certificate and an all-expenses paid trip to Washington DC, to participate in the 16th International Brain Bee finals scheduled for August 7-10. “My parents and elder sister, an IIT-Madras graduate, mentored me through the entire process, as all of them are keenly interested in science. I’m also grateful to my teachers for encouraging me to participate and helping me prepare for this unique event,” says this younger of two daughters of Kalyan, principal engineer, Intel India, and Vijaya, a homemaker. Eminent neurologists including Dr. Susheel Wadhwa of the Narayana Hrudayalaya (Bangalore), Dr. Subhash Kaul, head of department (neurology) at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Hyderabad), and Brig. S.P. Gorthi, professor and head of department (neurology), Army Hospital (New Delhi), adjudged the competition which comprised a quiz, a written brain anatomy test and doctor-patient simulation rounds. The National Brain Bee has been “excellently designed” to provide exposure to youth interested in the medical sciences. “The biology education we receive in high school is very elementary. The competition goes well beyond school curriculums and stimulates students to explore nuances of the neurosciences,” says Gayathri who’s also a trained classical dancer. Although a career in biological research/medicine after class XII is a natural progression, Gayatri wants to keep her options open. “Right now I am preparing real hard to make an impact at the International Brain Bee finals in Washington,” she says. Bon Voyage! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)

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People

Teacher training evangelists: Sudheshna Sinha

Sudheshna Sinha and husband Sujit are co-founders of Shikshamitra (‘Education Mate’), an alternative school and education resource centre (estb. 2005). A psychology graduate of Calcutta University with a special needs education diploma from Mumbai University, Sudeshna has worked in special and mainstream schools for over seven years. An IIT-Kanpur alumnus with a doctorate from Princeton University, Sujit is currently a professor of development at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Newspeg. On April 18 Shikshamitra celebrated its ninth year of operations by announcing the launch of curriculum development and teacher training programmes for schools in eastern India. “We will also offer schools gender sensitisation, personality development, and life skills programmes,” says Sudeshna. History. Given Sudeshna’s specialisation and work experience with underprivileged and special needs children, the couple promoted the Swanirvar Trust in 1990 to provide education to poor and challenged children in West Bengal’s backward North 24 Parganas district. More than a decade later, in 2005 they promoted the Shikshamitra school and education resources centre with a first batch of 17 students tutored by four teachers. However, the school was closed down in 2011, to enable the duo to concentrate on developing teacher training programmes and supplementary content and services designed to improve children’s learning outcomes. During the past three years, Shikshamitra master trainers have conducted teacher development programmes in 54 government schools training 381 teachers in addition to 407 NGO teachers. Financial support is provided by Indienhilfe, Association for India’s Development (AID) and Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (WATIS) among other education and philanthropic organisations. Direct talk. “Children of diverse backgrounds have differing learning needs and standardised curriculums prompt millions of children to drop out of the education system. In Shikshamitra we believe curriculums must be customised for schools and special needs children within them, and teachers must be sensitised to the needs of learners,” says Sudeshna. Future plans. With Shikshamitra’s goals and objectives clearly defined, this go-getting duo is contemporising its teacher training programmes, propagating a libraries movement and developing content not only for children but adult learners, and youth who have dropped out of education. “There’s a new movement in K-12 education with a focus on measuring learning outcomes. Shikshamitra aspires to be in the vanguard,” says Sudeshna. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

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Levelfield progenitor: Arghya Banerjee

Arghya Banerjee is founder of The Levelfield School in Suri (pop. 80,000) in the Birbhum district of West Bengal. The school was promoted in 2010 by the Levelfield Trust whose mission and objective is to “level the playing field” and make quality education accessible and affordable to middle class households in tier-II and III urban habitations. Newspeg. In May, Banerjee was in Mumbai to explore opportunities for replicating and expanding the reach of the Levelfield Trust to Maharashtra (pop. 112 million), India’s #1 industrial state. “A metro city school and four-five tier-I and/or II schools will give us a ‘hub-and-spoke’ model enabling us to rotate teachers. Since our teachers are mostly from the metros, a metro city school will help us retain them throughout their careers. Otherwise, we tend to lose trained teachers to family, marriage, etc,” he says. History. An idealistic alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad, Banerjee began his career in ICICI Securities. Subsequently, he worked with a Chennai-based equity research firm Irevna Pvt. Ltd (now a division of credit rating agency CRISIL) where he experienced first-hand the poor communication and English-speaking skills of India’s ‘educated’ workforce. This disillusionment with the education system was compounded when he began evaluating schools for his daughter aged four in 2008, prompting him to return to his roots in West Bengal and promote the trust and the CBSE-affiliated Levelfield School with an initial investment of Rs.50 lakh. Since then, this K-VII school has grown, attracting 300 students mentored by 12 teachers. By introducing innovative practices and processes, Banerjee and his wife Asima, a science alumna of Mumbai University, have succeeded in keeping tuition fees (Rs.2,000 per month at the primary level) affordable for the neo middle class. Among them: intensive training of fresh graduates recruited as teachers and in-house development of teaching-learning programmes and materials. “Our policy is to adopt projects and applications-based education as opposed to rote learning,” says Asima, who supervises teaching materials development at Levelfield School. Direct talk. “Our pedagogies are designed to ensure learning through comprehension. Critical thinking skills are developed by encouraging children to solve Japanese puzzles such as Nonogram, Shikaku, Sudoku and Kenken. There is also an emphasis on strategy games in addition to chess. The objective is developing the cognitive skills of students so that exercising the mind becomes a habit,” explains Banerjee. Future plans. Pleased with the learning outcomes of the school’s students and satisfied with Levelfield’s teaching-learning blueprint, Banerjee is exploring other geographies to replicate the Levelfield experience and to introduce — starting with Mumbai and Kolkata — the trust’s metro-centred hub-and-spoke model. “I’m looking for forward-thinking corporates and real estate developers to partner with us to roll out the Levelfield model nationally. It’s an investment in nation building,” says Banerjee. Fair winds! Nadia Lewis (Mumbai)

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People

Passaro pioneers: V. Karthikeyan

Chennai-based V. Karthikeyan and wife Veena are the promoter partners of Passaro Books (estb. 2012), a proprietary firm which imports pre-owned books from the UK for children in the 1.5-12 years age group. Newspeg. Passaro Books runs retail and online bookshops with over 50,000 titles, and has created quite a buzz in this port city, which prides itself on its intellectual and educational prowess. The firm’s growing customer base includes Indian and international schools, young parents and online buyers from across the country. “Passaro offers a wide range including story, interactive and educational books on different subjects, reference books for the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) syllabus, popular classics and best-seller titles for young adults,” says Karthikeyan. History. An engineering alumnus of Anna University, Chennai, Karthikeyan started his career in 1995 at Best & Crompton where he worked for seven years before switching streams to study visual effects and 3D animation at Pentamedia Graphics, following which he landed a related teaching job in Dubai for three years. He returned to India in 2007 and after working for three years as a visual effects supervisor in the Tamil cinema industry, decided to fly solo. In 2010, Karthikeyan and Veena — an alumna of Madurai Kamaraj University — promoted a proprietary exports firm Passaro International and two years later came Passaro Books. Direct talk. “Our USP is pricing. Since we import pre-owned books we are able to sell them at a fifth of cover prices. The major difference between us and others in the pre-owned books business, is that we focus solely on children’s books which are catalogued on the basis of age, authors and subjects. And we only sell titles in mint condition. Currently we have a customer base of 50 Indian and international schools apart from individual buyers across the country,” says Veena. Future plans. Having got off to a good start, the enterprising duo is confident Passaro Books has a bright future. “We have only scratched the surface of the market for quality pre-owned books. The feedback we have received from young parents, schools and individual buyers is very encouraging. Now we are working on establishing licenced franchisees countrywide,” says Karthikeyan. Way to go! Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

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BMU driver: Akshay Munjal

Delhi-based Akshay Munjal, a science and business management alum of Bradford University, UK, and Pepperdine University, USA, is executive director of the spanking new state-of-the-art, BML Munjal University (BMU) spread over 50 acres in Manesar (Gurgaon), on the periphery of Delhi. Newspeg. Named after Brij Mohan Lall Munjal, the founder-chairman of the Hero Group of 20 companies (annual revenue: Rs.30,000 crore) — the world’s largest producers of bicycles and automotive two wheelers (scooters; motorcycles) — BMU, constructed at an estimated project cost of Rs.200 crore, is ready to admit its first batches of 200 engineering, 70 business management and 30 commerce students on August 19. History. Established under the Haryana Private Universities Act, 2006, the fully residential university is being launched in two phases. Construction of the schools of engineering and technology, business management, and commerce has been completed. Additional schools — liberal arts, arts, architecture and design, natural sciences and law — will be added each year starting with the BMU law school which will admit its first batch next August. USP. The Imperial College, London (estb. 1907), routinely ranked among the world’s Top 20 universities, has been roped in to play a major mentoring role and will be closely involved in BMU’s curriculum design, content development, research, faculty training and digital research programmes. BMU engineering students will have the added advantage of preferential admission into Imperial College, if compliant with pre-defined criteria. Direct talk. “Our family is not new to education. As far back as 1962, we promoted the Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana. Since then, we have been associated with establishment of the Mohali campus of the Indian School of Business. The BCM chain of Schools in Punjab, Raman Munjal Vidya Mandir, Gurgaon, BML Munjal Vidya Mandir, Hardwar, and BCM College of Education in Ludhiana were our earlier education initiatives. Moreover, a group company Hero MindMine Institute Ltd (estb.2000) has trained over 250,000 students in life skills and English language during the past decade. Hero Group companies and our ancillaries recruit hundreds of engineers every year who require further training and education. Therefore, BMU is a natural consequence of our activities in education spanning several decades,” says Munjal. Future plans. With BMU all set to get rolling with the arrival of its first batch on August 19, Munjal who is working full time on getting the varsity on track, is confident of transforming it into an internationally respected university, which will attract foreign faculty, researchers and students. “Within the next five-ten years, BMU will be a prestigious and well-ranked university in India and abroad,” he predicts. Smooth sailing! Autar Nehru (Delhi)

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Cover Story

Education Reforms Routemap for Modi Express

The intent of this education reform route map spanning the entire spectrum from preschool to PhD education, is to provoke debate within the somnolent groves of Indian academia and the intelligentsia to transform the nation’s demographic liability into an asset IF INDIA’S ACADEMY had a conscience and sense of responsibility, August 15, when the nation celebrates Independence Day, would be a day of introspection, if not sackcloth and ashes. Although since the hauling down of the Union Jack 67 years ago, the Indian State has chalked up some notable achievements — national unity, democracy, rule of law, constitutional government — its failures in birth control, universal healthcare, poverty eradication, income inequality, justice delivery etc, by far outnumber its successes. Yet perhaps the most egregious failure of the Indian State and several political formations which have established 15 governments in New Delhi and state capitals during the past six decades, has been the conspicuous failure to adequately educate and develop the country’s vast human resource pool which had the potential to restore the Indian subcontinent and particularly the Indian Republic within it, to its glory days of less than three centuries ago. Right until the mid-18th century this geography contributed 20 percent of global GNP. Indian architecture, goods and manufactures were acclaimed worldwide and its vast landmass was a busy hub of learning boasting the world’s greatest universities. Today, almost seven decades after independence, in every sector of the education continuum — preschool, primary, secondary and higher education — India is routinely ranked among the bottom decile of the world’s 195 nation states in education quality surveys conducted by reputable international organisations. This situation analysis report is the backdrop against which the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party assumed office in New Delhi on May 26 following its huge victory in General Election 2014. Nevertheless, Modi and BJP have aroused great expectations within the academy and the small but growing community of reformers committed to upgrading Indian education which needs drastic overhaul across the board. The cause of their enthusiasm is a single sentence in the BJP election manifesto which states that “public spending on education would be raised to 6 percent of the GDP, and involving the private sector would further enhance this”. This commitment is of great significance because it hasn’t been honoured since the Kothari Commission recommended it in 1966, as a precondition of national development. Despite promising to take the lead in implementing this recommendation made 39 years ago, no government at the Centre has succeeded in raising public spending (Centre plus states) on education to 6 percent of GDP in any year. For this desideratum to be attained, the Central government needs to provide a sum equivalent to 2 percent of GDP for education, setting an example for the country’s 29 states and seven Union territories to contribute the remaining 4 percent. However, in its first Union budget presented to Parliament and the nation on July 10, finance minister Arun Jaitley provided a sum of Rs.68,728 crore…

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Special Report

SOS: Save 300,000 Budget Private Schools

An estimated 300,000 recognised/unrecognised private schools countrywide with a massive enrolment of 60 million children are endangered because of non-compliance with infrastructure norms prescribed by the Right to Education Act, 2009. Unsurprisingly 1.2 million dysfunctional government schools are exempt SIX MONTHS AGO, the Kailash Public School in Sehna village (pop. 20,000) in Punjab’s Barnala district experienced the daily buzz and excited chatter of 60 children turned out in neat uniforms. Today the class I-V school housed on a 2,840 sq. ft plot wears a desolate look with dusty blackboards and benches. According to the school’s promoter Praveen Kumar, Kailash Public (estb. 2004) was among the village’s most popular “fully-recognised private primary schools offering quality education” at an all-inclusive annual fee of Rs.3,650. But in November last year, a notice issued to the school by the district education department ordered it to shut down in the middle of the academic year. The notice alleged that the school had not complied with s.12 (1) (c) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009, which makes it obligatory for private schools to reserve 25 percent capacity in class I for poor children in their neighbourhoods and provide them free education until class VIII. Kumar’s protestations that the school hadn’t received any admission applications under s.12 were not entertained by the district education officials, the “local authority” under the RTE Act. Kailash Public is one of 2,983 budget private schools (BPS) forcibly shut down in the past academic year (2013-14) by governments in nine states (Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand) for violations of the RTE Act. Another 5,097 budget schools have been served closure notices for non-compliance with the Act. Enacted in 2009 after a constitutional amendment (Article 21-A), the RTE Act makes it mandatory for the State (i.e Central, state and local governments) to provide free and compulsory elementary education (class I-VIII) to every child between 6-14 years of age, and prescribes minimum infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio and other norms for all schools. S.19 of the RTE Act requires all private schools to comply with infrastructure and teacher-pupil ratio norms stipulated by the Schedule of the Act within three years from April 1, 2010 when the Act became operational. With the stipulated norms which include provision of a playground unaffordable for the great majority of BPS promoters, an estimated 300,000 recognised/unrecognised budget private schools with a massive enrolment of 60 million children are confronted with the threat of closure. Unsurprisingly, the country’s 1.20 million government schools are exempt from the punitive provisions of s.19 (see box p.84). India’s 300,000 budget private schools are a unique phenomenon and live demonstration of the inexorable law of supply and demand, as also of the fierce determination of struggling parents at the bottom of India’s iniquitous social hierarchy to secure a good future for their children. Sited mainly in ubiquitous urban slums, tier II towns and in rural India, BPS are the response of small-time entrepreneurs to India’s…

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Bihar All is well Addressing the state’s legislative assembly on July 3, Bihar’s education minister Brishen Patel said the government will provide water bottles and backpacks to all government school children free of charge. “We are considering water bottles and backpacks for students of government schools so they need not suffer from an inferiority complex in comparison to private school students who go to school in proper uniforms,” Patel informed the house which approved the state’s education budget of Rs.24,715 crore for 2014-15. The minister said the number of schools in the state has risen to 73,592 currently, against 52,112 in 2005-06, and the number of teachers to 417,000 against 146,000. “Student enrolment in primary schools statewide has increased to 20 million at present as against 14 million nine years ago,” he added. Nagaland Teachers’ conference consensus The consensus of opinion at a government school teachers’ conference held in Kohima on July 3-4, was that instead of being complacent about the state’s high literacy (80.1 percent), teachers should focus on delivering quality education. The two-day conference convened for the first time, was organised jointly by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the school education department of the Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE). Over 1,000 primary and secondary teachers were in attendance. Speaking at the conference, secretary of school education, Yitachu said under the no-detention provisions of the Right to Education Act, 2009, teachers have an enormous responsibility to develop India’s human resources. “The legislative intent of the RTE Act is for good, but if teachers neglect their responsibilities, the very purpose of the Act will be defeated,” he warned. Goa Salgaocar Institute initiatives The Raia/Panaji-based V.M. Salgaocar Institute of International Hospitality Education (VMSIIHE) has signed an academic collaboration with the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Ireland, under which all academic programmes of DIT will be offered by VMSIIHE. “The tie-up will help students acquire international exposure as DIT will be supervising our academic programmes at regular intervals,” VMSIIHE director Irfan Mirza told mediapersons in Panaji on July 8. VMSIIHE is affiliated with Goa University, and also has a strategic tie-up with the international hospitality chain — the Marriott Group — for knowledge-sharing and training purposes, added Mirza. Odisha Patnaik invites private varsities While inaugurating the Xavier University at Nijigarh in Pipili tehsil of Puri district on July 7, and remarking that the top-ranked universities of the world were Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT — all private institutions — chief minister Naveen Patnaik invited private investment, particularly in higher education, in Odisha. “People look to the new generation of private universities to take up leadership roles in terms of academic commitment and raising standards in higher education,” he said affirming that his government is committed to providing quality education to students and making Odisha a hub of higher and technical education. “We are trying to ensure that higher education facilities benchmarked with global standards are nurtured and fostered in our state. Xavier University is a testimony…

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Education Briefs

RIGI-Kaspersky concordat

CRICKET ICON Sachin Tendulkar launched the Kaspersky Kids internet safety programme of Kaspersky Lab India — a subsidiary of the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab — at the Ryan International Group of Institutions (RIGI) campus in Mumbai on July 23. Under a RIGI-Kaspersky agreement, Kaspersky Lab will deliver online safety education through various touch points, including a daily blog (Kaspersky Daily), online newsletters created specially for youth, training modules administered by RIGI’s computer instructors, and on-ground engagement events and contests in RIGI’s 128 schools countrywide. “Our mission is to save the world from all kinds of cyber-threats. We want to make the internet — the greatest innovation of our time — safe for everyone. This means making it secure for children, protecting them from harmful content and teaching them to use it wisely. This is why we have introduced our programmes in India. We want to reach students through their schools, educate them and increase their awareness of online threats,” said Eugene Kaspersky, chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. Also speaking on the occasion, Ryan Pinto, chief executive of RIGI, expressed satisfaction with the RIGI-Kaspersky India partnership. “We are really pleased that Kaspersky Lab has chosen to launch Kaspersky Kids from our campus. Today almost all children, regardless of age, either play on their parents’ smartphones or access the internet on their own laptops, iPads and other devices, but they rarely have any formal training about what to click and what to avoid. That’s why it is vital that children get a basic understanding of the principles of internet safety,” said Pinto. Manav Rachna’s cloud campus THE DELHI-BASED Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) together with Skillvue.in (an initiative of Bapna Tech) launched its cloud campus — a skill development and digital library platform which provides globally acclaimed and industry designed cloud-based learning systems — in Delhi on July 15. According to MRIU sources, cloud campus will provide a comprehensive yet flexible learning management system, compatible with multiple devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones which will enable students and faculty access to a world-class digital library with over 50,000 titles from 634 publishers covering business, management, engineering, finance, IT etc in sync with 7,500-plus skill development courses. Moreover training in over 100 certification programmes with cost and operational efficiencies will also be available on the cloud campus. “The vision behind the MRIU cloud campus is to deliver globally acclaimed digital learning resources to promote educational excellence and develop industry accepted, skilled and employable people,” said Dr. M.K. Soni, executive director of MRIU’s faculty of engineering and technology, speaking on the occasion. “The cloud campus will help to bridge the gap between academia and industry by providing students an environment to learn and upgrade their soft as well as hard skills. Such platforms are currently being used only by Fortune 500 companies and Ivy League universities, setting MRIU apart from other universities in the country,” added Vikram Bawa, president of Bapna…

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Young Achievers

Yashaan Cooper

“CIVILIAN DRONES are just a few years away from becoming commonplace,” says high-tech innovator Yashaan Cooper (20). In May, this robotics enthusiast together with Rohit Saluja and Vishank Bhatia — all second-year electronics and communications engineering students of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Dubai — were shortlisted in the students’ category to compete in the second round of the three-phase ‘Drones for Good Award’ global competition initiated by the government of United Arab Emirates, with a winners’ prize award of AED 1 million (Rs.1.6 crore). The competition challenges participants to design prototypes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remote-controlled drones to deliver civilian services. The finalists will showcase their UAVs at the Government Summit scheduled for February 2015. The elder of two children of geologist Nari Jimmy and homemaker Binaifer, Yashaan credits his success to his rigorous primary-secondary education in Anand Vidya Vihar, Vadodara, his Parsee lineage and perfectionist mother. “I believe the strict regime I was put through at home and in school coupled with the freedom to be creative, has stood me in good stead. I don’t give up easily and stay focussed,” he says. Top-ranked last year at the International Autonomous Robotics Challenge (IARC), 2013 staged in Dubai, #8 in IARC at IIT-Kanpur 2014, and #4 at the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)-sponsored Student Design Competition for UAVs for forest fires, team leader Yashaan says: “Our project drone will have an integrated system which will store Google images, operate on artificial intelligence and can be used for navigation, exploration, traffic updates and to deliver parcels. We are currently looking for sponsors to fund our AED 15,000 (Rs.2.45 lakh) project.” Besides robotics, this young engineer has several other interests. He is an accomplished pianist with certificates of the Trinity College of Music, London, an avid web designer and an ethical hacker. He is also the co-founder of Traderse7en Capital Holdings, a risk assessment management company. In the long term, Yashaan has ambitious plans to combine robotics research with social entrepreneurship. “I’m exploring ways to design an open-source robotics development platform which will attract people around the world to contribute to apps development. And someday I hope to design robots to aid disabled human beings,” he enthuses. Way to go, Bro! Suverchala Kashyap (Vadodara)

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Institution Profile

Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai

Ranked #1 in Maharashtra and Mumbai in the EW India School Rankings 2013, this vintage school, Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai (estb. 1860) has acquired a national reputation One of Mumbai’s landmark institutions and the must-go-to K-12 school of the old elite of India’s commercial capital, the Cathedral & John Connon School (CJCS, estb.1860), sited in trendy south Mumbai, has acquired a national reputation for academic excellence and holistic education. In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013, Cathedral & John Connon School was ranked India’s #3 co-ed day school and #1 in Maharashtra and Mumbai by a specially constituted community of 5,779 respondents countrywide. Currently this premier school affiliated with the Delhi-based Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) comprises the pre-primary, infant, junior, middle and senior schools in five buildings, which host 1,950 students mentored by 145 teachers. Unsurprisingly, this vintage school’s alumni roll reads like a Who’s Who of Indian history, industry and intelligentsia and includes Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Ratan Tata, former chairman of the Tata business empire, and his successor Cyrus Mistry, Booker Prize novelist Salman Rushdie and journalist/columnist Fareed Zakaria among a host of illustrious businessmen and intellectuals. “The excellent reputation that Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai has established in India’s commercial capital and indeed nationally and globally, is built on the foundation of our liberal Christian heritage which promotes values-based education, and the strong commitment of our dedicated and progressive faculty who deliver education far beyond the prescribed curriculum,” says Meera Isaacs, an English literature and education postgraduate of Pune University and the St. Xavier’s Institute of Education, who began her career at the Carmel Convent School, Delhi (1973-1977) before signing up with CJCS in 1977 as an English and history teacher. In 1996, Isaacs was appointed principal and has since transformed this historic institution into a contemporary K-12 school whose heritage facades boast impressive new technologies-enabled academic infrastructure including 64 IT-enabled classrooms equipped with electronic smart boards, multimedia projection equipment, four air-conditioned auditoriums, state-of-the-art music and art studios and computer laboratories, separate laboratories for physics, chemistry and biology, and three large libraries housing an aggregate of 35,000 books and digital content accessible through approximately 500 e-books and multimedia CDs. Sustained investment in enabling new technologies and in-service teacher training — all teachers have to undergo professional training on an ongoing basis — have produced excellent academic outcomes in CISCE’s school-leaving class X and XII exams. In the results for the academic year 2013-14 declared in June, of the 143 CJCS students who wrote CISCE’s class X exam, 102 averaged more than 90 percent with the cohort averaging 91.14. Likewise, the 107 students who wrote the class XII exam averaged 88.42 percent, with 56 scoring 90 percent-plus. CJCS’ excellent reputation for learning outcomes is confirmed by the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013, in which the 154-year-old institution was adjudged India’s #1 school (together with eight others) on the parameter of academic reputation with a perceptual score of 95. Moreover, its top ranking…

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Institution Profile

University College Dublin

Routinely ranked among the world’s Top 200 universities, University College Dublin (estb. 1854) hosts more than 5,000 international students from 124 countries Founded in 1854, the University College Dublin (UCD) is Ireland’s biggest varsity with an aggregate enrolment of 30,000 students and 1,300 faculty. A research-intensive institution, UCD is one of the two Irish universities (the other is Trinity College, Dublin) to be ranked among the world’s Top 200 universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013. Its seven colleges — agriculture, food science and veterinary medicine; arts and Celtic studies; business and law; engineering and architecture; health sciences; human sciences and science — offer 70 undergraduate programmes and a wide range of postgrad and doctoral studies. University College Dublin also hosts 7,000 graduate and 2,000 Ph D students — the largest cohort of doctoral students in Ireland. “In recent years University College Dublin has established itself as Ireland’s global university, with operations around the world, and more than 5,000 international students on our Dublin campus from 124 different countries. This allows us to give all students an international education that will prepare them to take their place in today and tomorrow’s global society,” says Prof. Andrew J. Deeks, president University College Dublin. University College Dublin traces its origins to the Catholic University of Ireland founded in 1854 by Cardinal John Henry Newman, author of the celebrated Idea of a University, in the heart of Dublin. In 1933 University College Dublin moved to a 132-hectare campus in the suburb of Belfield, which offers state-of-the-art academic, research, sports and leisure facilities. Dublin. With its numerous parks, museums and historic sites, Dublin (pop. 1.7 million) — the admin capital of the Irish Republic (minus Northern Ireland) — has much to offer students. Among the historic landmarks in the city are Dublin Castle (1230 AD), Spire of Dublin, Anna Liva monument and Christ Church Cathedral. Moreover, Dublin has more green spaces per sq. km than any other European capital, with 97 percent of residents within 300 metres of a park area. The city boasts an eclectic mix of museums, art galleries, theatres and musical venues offering rich cultural education, and is replete with pubs, restaurants and shops. Ireland is famous for the favour of rain gods, Dublin not excluded. Therefore umbrellas, jumpers, jackets and woollens are standard issue. In winter, temperatures fluctuate between freezing, cold and bearable — ranging between -5o-15oC. In summer, they rise to 15o-25oC. Campus facilities. Sited in Belfield, 4 km south of Dublin’s central business district, University College Dublin’s deep green campus hosts landscaped gardens, modern and heritage buildings accommodating most colleges and schools, as well as student halls of residence and numerous leisure and sporting facilities. A second campus at Blackrock, two miles from Belfield, houses the University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Drama Studies Centre and more student residences. Other university buildings include the Lyons Estate in County Kildare which houses the research farm of the school of agriculture, food science and veterinary medicine.…

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Guest Column

Case for structured open learning

THE world wide web (aka the internet) has enabled access to knowledge like no medium has ever done. As an entire universe of knowledge opens up, educators and educationists have no choice but to follow suit. Hitherto, organised education or academia had near total control over the dissemination of knowledge. However, the role of educators is not just dissemination of knowledge. In its broadest form, education is about inviting communities from around the world to participate in challenging established knowledge, creating new knowledge and interacting with diverse groups of learners. Education is essentially dialogic in nature, a constant interplay between general and specialised knowledge and between researchers, practitioners and amateurs. That said, open education as we know it today, is still largely about access to quality resources, which is only the first but crucial step in reaching these resources to millions in underdeveloped parts of the world. Currently we are witnessing further opening up of open education itself. For example, the massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by blue-chip universities such as Stanford, MIT and the University of Edinburgh on the Coursera, EdX and Future Learn platforms are radically different from certified open courses offered by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). MOOCs allow anyone from any part of the world to register for any course free of charge. These are mostly undergraduate or short modular courses, typically in the range of six-12 weeks. Although there’s a paid option for those interested in acquiring certification through a closely monitored process, the differentiating characteristic of MOOCs is their open invitation to anyone passionate about learning a subject — no prior qualification, age, geographical or class barriers. But what’s so radical about structured open education if the internet has already managed to reach quality content all over the world? The answer is that a chaotic world of multiple knowledge resources is not equivalent to a syllabus/curriculum organised by subject experts and educationists, where students begin with simple lessons and move towards the complex, where information is broken into digestible chunks, with examples, stories and multimedia representations, with learners provided intervals to reflect upon what they learn. Therefore when we sign up for structured open education programmes offered by reputed universities and education providers, as students we are afforded the opportunity to engage with proven experts and multicultural peer groups as opposed to interacting with static unverified content. Not only that, MOOCs allow us to ask questions, challenge assumptions about geographical or cultural stereotypes and provide feedback to course designers and experts on ways and means to upgrade content and curriculums. In this sense, structured open education is a great equaliser as it stands in opposition to the idea of charitable education, which reinforces the perception of free education as an act of benevolence. The other advantage of formal open courses (which do not demand prior qualifications from learners) is that they transcend academic silos, enabling students to combine an eight-week programming course with a…

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Career Focus

Hospitality: New favourite career option

The demand for qualified mixologists — specialist bartenders who create magical cocktails and provide entertainment — is far outstripping supply With hotels, bars, restaurants, discotheques and night clubs springing up all over the country even as the wine and dine soirees of India’s multiplying rich and famous are becoming more flamboyant and imaginative, new careers are emerging in the hospitality industry. For instance the mixologist, a specialist bartender who creates magical cocktails and beverages providing new highs to guests who leave with fond memories of hosts. Experts in the art of concocting memorable alcoholic beverages for refined palates, mixologists specialise in fixing unique cocktails which can make the reputations of bars and restaurants. While they are knowledgeable about wines, beer and branded alcohol, they also create their own signature cocktails and present them with ‘flair’, using dramatic pouring techniques and providing entertainment by way of amusing chatter and dance movements. Study programmes While important, work experience under a trained mixologist isn’t enough. A diploma/degree in hotel management is advisable. Widely respected diplomas/degrees are awarded by 21 Central government-sponsored Institutes of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition (IHMs) sited in all major cities of India including the five metros. Admission into their bachelor of science programmes is through a joint entrance examination. India’s top private hotel chains such as The Oberoi, Taj and Welcomgroup have also promoted institutes of hospitality management. Another basic requirement is to pass the exams of the London-based Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET), internationally regarded as the leading provider of wine and spirits education. WSET also offers professional certification in the US. Employment options With demand for qualified mixologists far outstripping supply, this vocation has emerged as a new favourite career option of hotel management graduates. One of the attractions of this profession is that mixologists can work in upmarket bars and restaurants, on cruise liners, and are given star billing in private bachelor dos, corporate functions, weddings and parties. Pay & perks As new kids on the block, professionally qualified mixologists are well paid with freshers starting at Rs.35,000 plus perks. Within four-five years they can expect to be appointed brand ambassadors of best-selling liquor brands which rocket them into the Rs.1-1.5 crore annual income bracket. Moreover, those who monitor and keep up with trends abroad could well be signed up by international hotels with fancier pay packets. “With the moral opprobrium associated with social drinking having dissipated in urban India, hotels and restaurants are constantly on the lookout for mixologists who combine bar-tending proficiency with service flair and social skills. New employment opportunities keep opening up as we win the appreciation of managements and clients,” says 20-something Shaun Colaco, assistant manager (food and beverages) of the Trident Hotel, Mumbai. Lady Luck smiled on this cheerful mixologist while still a student at IHM, Mumbai, when he bagged a six-month internship with the Medinat Jumeirah, Dubai, a luxurious 5-star resort which boasts 44 bars and restaurants. “I trained in the kitchen, moved to a restaurant…

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Career Focus

Your counselor replies

I’m a BAMS (bachelor of ayurvedic medicine and surgery) graduate practising in Pune and simultaneously studying law (LLB). Can I practise as a medico-legal consultant? Shailesh Patil, Pune I suggest you check with a law firm that deals with medico-legal cases or even your law college whether you qualify to practise on completion of your degree programme. Meanwhile, you could top up your law degree with a correspondence course in medical law. The Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, Pune (www.schcpune.com) offers a postgrad diploma programme (postal and online) in medico-legal systems. The National Law School of India University, Bangalore (www.nls.ac.in) also offers a one-year postgrad diploma in medical law and ethics through distance education. I’m keen on a career as a sound recordist after completing B. Sc in 2015. Please suggest reputed institutes which offer courses in sound recording. What are the employment prospects of qualified sound engineers? Sumeet Aggarwal, Mumbai A sound engineer combines knowledge of physics and recording technology with an ear for sound and music. Sound engineers record high-quality music, speech and sound effects in recording studios and ‘on location’ using complex electronic equipment for music companies, radio, TV, films, advertising agencies, websites, computer and mobile devices. Sound recording/engineering is usually offered as a three-year diploma programme to physics/electronics graduates. Among the top-rated institutes which formally train sound engineers are the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune; MGR Government Film and Television Training Institute, Tharamani, Chennai; Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata; Mumbai University; SAE School of Audio Engineering at Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram; Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai and Zee Institute of Media Arts, Mumbai. After completion of your course, you could work full-time for a recording studio, or freelance. Most recording studios are based in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. The music and entertainment industry is growing rapidly and the remuneration is excellent for professionals with ability and experience. I’m interested in pursuing an actuarial science course through correspondence. Which institutes offer this study programme? Sudha Iyengar, Bangalore You are eligible for the actuarial study programme if you have cleared class XII or equivalent examination. Candidates with aptitude for maths/statistics (85 percent plus) are ideally suited to train as actuaries. This is a self-study course and can be pursued conterminously with a formal bachelor’s degree programme. For details, contact Actuarial Society of India, 9, Jeevan Udyog, 278, Dr. D.N. Road, Fort, Mumbai. After completing class XII (science) in physics, chemistry, maths and biology next year, I want to enroll for a B. Tech/BE degree course in computer engineering. What’s the admission process and career prospects? Arvind Swamy, Chennai There’s plenty of scope for career advancement in computer engineering, especially if you graduate from a well-reputed college. Numerous engineering colleges countrywide offer computer engineering study programmes. While state colleges have their own admission processes/entrance tests, for admission into the IITs, clearance of IIT-JEE exam is mandatory. A listing of institutions offering computer engineering degree courses in the states is available on…

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People

HCL adventurer: Chetan Mahajan

Chetan Mahajan IS the president of HCL Learning Ltd (HCLL, estb. 2010), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Noida-based HCL Infosystems Ltd (estb. 1976; annual revenue: Rs.8,297 crore), the well-known IT behemoth. HCL Learning offers ICT (information and communications technology)-enabled mapped curriculums and supplementary development services for K-12 schools, as well as training and education solutions to higher education institutions and corporates countrywide. The company’s curriculums-mapped DigiSchool programme is installed in over 4,000 schools in India and abroad with an aggregate enrolment of 4 million students. Newspeg. In early June, HCLL planted its first flag overseas by installing adapted DigiSchool programmes in 11 international schools in the Middle East and Africa, and eight in Nepal, which will impact more than 22,000 students. Prominent among the schools abroad which have installed DigiSchool are DPS, Ghana, Indian Language School, Nigeria, DPS Academy, Dubai, Indian School — Al Wadi Al Kabir, and the Euro School, Nepal. Earlier last August, HCLL launched two innovative products — My IIT Tutor and MyEduWorld-Drive — self-learning, plug and play devices pre-loaded with two and three dimensional content mapped with the syllabi of CBSE, ICSE and selective state boards for class I-X students and apps for JEE-IIT aspirants. Direct talk. “The objective of our international initiatives driven by latest ICT innovations is to impact India’s ICT capability in education upon the world, and to provide ICT-enabled K-12 education which delivers learning with measurable outcomes. We have invested heavily in our state-of-the-art HCL Learning Development Centre (HLDC) in Mumbai which has a 130-strong technical resources team for developing learning programmes for schools affiliated with exam boards such as CBSE, ICSE and a number of state boards, and adapted for boards in Africa as well,” says Chetan Mahajan, an alumnus of Northwestern (USA), Punjab and Calcutta universities, with 20 years corporate experience in India and abroad. Future plans. With the company’s 50-plus career development centres nationwide which were started in 2008, HCLL has expanded its portfolio to provide in-campus and offsite IT and employability skills to graduating students. “We are a 360 degree learning solutions company spanning K-12 and higher education, and are looking at South Asia as our new focus area. We also intend to extend our footprint to 6,000 classrooms worldwide during the next five years,” says Chetan Mahajan. Wind in your sails! Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)

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Teacher-to-Teacher

English language opportunities

Uniquely among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) countries, India has a competitive advantage. Not only in the education sector, but also in the world of employment, with a potentially beneficial fallout for India’s balance of payments. Every nation across the world is stronger, more vibrant and attractive if it is able to communicate with, trade with, and learn from best practices happening everywhere. The best way to develop advanced communication skills and competencies is to become fluent in the international language of business and education — English. English is an associate, not the national, language of India. But most professionals know and speak it, and it is theoretically the language of instruction in much of secondary and tertiary education. English is where it’s at. Yet is India maximising and exploiting this potential advantage? The answer to this question requires focus on three areas — the impact of English on the education sector; the impact which the education sector has on the future of Indian youth; and the impact greater engagement with education overseas might have on the Indian economy, including the country’s balance of payments. The value of English to global education is very straightforward, and is to do with engagement. According to Unesco, English is now emerging as the language of academic communication to an extent not witnessed “since Latin dominated the academy in medieval Europe”. Academic conferences, research papers, and communication of knowledge, are all mostly happening in English. Inadequate English language skills of educators inevitably translate into risky academic research, which fails to fully engage with the international cutting edge of thinking and development. The second focus area is the added value which would accrue to the Indian economy from improved communication skills of its graduate population. Indian students attend secondary schools and then universities in which all or much of their tuition is supposed to be in English. In practice, even where instruction is given in perfect English, an education setting in which students are passive receivers of knowledge won’t develop their interactive communication skills in international English, and workplace (aka soft) skills which they will need in later life. The fallout of inadequately developed English language skills is the so-called ‘employability crisis’ in India. ‘Less than 10 percent of Indian MBA graduates are employable!’ screams a Wall Street Journal headline. ‘75 percent of technical graduates and more than 85 percent of general graduates are unemployable,’ says another WSJ headline. No one is saying India isn’t producing technically competent graduates in IT, engineering, and other professional vocations. But current structures aren’t equipping young people with the interactive communication skills needed to engage fully with modern workplaces. With over 400 million youth under age 25, the need to adequately educate this massive cohort is more pressing than ever. Quite rightly, most Indians regard English competency as a necessary skill to succeed in business — as evidenced by the reality that people with good English communication skills already enjoy a 25 percent premium in…

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International News

United States: Liberal arts enabling drive

THE INDIANA JONES warehouse. That’s where William Pannapacker claims much of the output of students and staff in the liberal arts ends up — in the figurative obscurity represented by the seemingly infinite, but sealed off, government storeroom where the fictional archaeologist’s discovery — the Ark of the Covenant — is placed at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Pannapacker is a humanities professor too – in his case, of English literature, at Hope College in Michigan – and he wonders whether in today’s world someone like Jones would ever have found a job outside academia. “We want liberal arts majors to take their educations out into the world, not just end up in graduate school,” with their research unread, he says. Pannapacker has become an evangelist for the emerging concept of digital liberal arts, combining collaborative undergraduate research with work experience and digital literacy to create what he calls “the super liberal arts graduate for the 21st century”. In the US, the idea is spreading fast. Thirteen institutions in the Midwest have just convened a conference aimed at fostering collaboration among their liberal arts departments using digital communication. In addition, Middlebury College in Vermont has hired a post-doctoral fellow in the digital liberal arts, and Whittier College in California and five liberal arts universities in eastern Pennsylvania have also picked up the idea. “We’re trying to create a culture in which we can figure out how to use what’s going on in the digital world to enhance what we do in the liberal arts,” Pannapacker says. Not coincidentally, digital competency, teamwork and practical experience are precisely what employers have been saying they want — and often fail to get — from graduates. The idea of incorporating them into the curriculum comes at a time when liberal arts institutions in particular are under pressure from business, students and students’ families to demonstrate they are teaching practical skills in exchange for high tuition fees. “It is, to some extent, about closing the gap between what the job market expects today and what the liberal arts produce,” says Pannapacker. Employers, he adds, “love liberal arts students, but they need somebody to fix their website too”. Talking about making students more employable, however, creates a difficult balance for backers of the digital liberal arts, since academics bristle at the suggestion. “There are faculty who look at this with a little bit of suspicion, because it’s different from what they’ve done,” says Tim Spears, vice president for academic development at Middlebury. However, Greg Wegner, director of programme development for the Great Lakes Colleges Association, who ran the Midwest conference, insists that “none of the faculty members who have come to our workshops have done so, because they’re feeling pressure from their institutions to be more practical”. “This is work that’s in support of a liberal arts mission. The gathering of information, the formulation of understanding, and conveying your thinking in a compelling way to a broad audience — these are perfectly in…

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International News

East Asia: History rewriting spree

IN EAST ASIA, history textbooks are barometers of nationalism, and arguments over them are proxies for disputes between states. So it’s hardly surprising — at a time when territorial disagreements are breaking out all round the South China Sea and East China Sea — that the region is witnessing a new chapter in a long-running argument over how history is taught. This time, though, the bickering has spread beyond Japan and China, its usual homes. And, in addition to their international implications, the textbook disputes have taken on a strong domestic character. The new round begins in Japan — inevitably since the country’s imperial aggression leading to its defeat in 1945 has long provided the starting point for disputes. In its manifesto for the election of December 2012, the Liberal Democratic Party promised to restore “patriotic” values to education and called current textbooks “ideologically prejudiced expressions based on self-torturing views of history”. Many academics and teachers were disturbed. After winning by a landslide, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, set up a panel to rewrite textbooks to make clear where there is lack of agreement on historical interpretation — “a backdoor way of limiting references to Japanese aggression”, says Daniel Sneider, at Stanford University, who studies Asia’s textbook battles. The panel also says it wants to get rid of Japan’s “neighbouring-country clause” — a self-denying ordinance which instructs historians to take into account the sentiments of neighbours (meaning China and South Korea) when writing textbooks. Neighbouring countries have reacted with predictable outrage. When Japan proposed teaching that the Senkaku islands are part of its territory, China (which claims them as the Diaoyu islands and is challenging Japanese control) urged Japan to “respect historical facts” (which happen not to confirm the Chinese claim). When Japan decided to teach that Takeshima belongs to Japan, South Korea, which controls the group of islets and calls them Dokdo, called this “false history (which) plants enmity and seeds of conflict”. China and South Korea are livid about Japan’s scrapping the neighbouring-country clause. The debate about history raging in Japan is echoed in South Korea and Taiwan. Last year, the National Institute of Korean History (NIKH), a state-run body which oversees the compilation of the country’s history textbooks, approved a new high-school textbook for publication written by “new right” scholars, who are sympathetic to the achievements of South Korea’s military dictatorships. The ruling party has also proposed that all schools should be required to use a single state-approved textbook rather than (as now) be able to choose among private publishers’ texts subject to NIKH approval. As in Japan, such a move would extend political control over textbook use. But the new textbook wars also have a domestic flavour. They are disputes within countries as well as between them. The proposals in Japan reflect a tussle over education: the ruling party says it wants to end 60 years of “left-wing control” over schools. And to complicate matters in South Korea, some new-right scholars are actually sympathetic to Japan’s…

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International News

Brazil: Private varsities boom

IN THE UNITED STATES, suspicions about private, for-profit universities’ high cost and dubious quality abound. Elsewhere in the Americas, though, the story is far more positive. After equally hectic expansion, Brazil’s for-profit institutions have three-quarters of the country’s higher education market — with fees kept low and quality rising fast. And since a degree boosts wages by a bigger multiple in Brazil than in any other country tracked by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, graduates can make back their tuition fees in just a few years. Soon Brazil will become home not only to the world’s liveliest for-profit education sector, but to its biggest for-profit higher education firm, too. In May, the anti-trust regulator, CADE, approved the purchase by Kroton, the biggest education firm in Brazil, of Anhanguera, the second-biggest, to create a giant with a stock market value of around 18 billion reais (Rs.48,000 crore). “Quality (in education) is easy,” says Rodrigo Galindo, Kroton’s energetic young boss. “And so is quantity. What’s difficult is combining the two.” The trick, he explains, is to abandon “handcrafted” teaching methods for scalable ones: online course materials and tutors; star teachers’ lessons broadcast by satellite; tightly specified franchise agreements with hundreds of local teaching centres staffed by moderators. The company has invested heavily in ‘adaptive’ learning materials — computerised courses that react to users’ progress by offering further explanation and examples where answers suggest they are struggling, and moving on swiftly where they are not. Unopar, a university in Londrina, a foggy city in the south-eastern state of Paraná, was bought by Kroton in 2011 and is one of its best-known brands. A decade ago, it became the first institution in Brazil to get federal accreditation for the distance-training of teachers. It soon realised that other degrees could be offered with the same combination of high-quality online materials and weekly attendance at seminars at a local centre. It’s now Brazil’s biggest provider of distance higher education, with 150,000 students registered in nearly 500 centres nationwide. The most remote, with 300 students, is in Oriximina in the Amazonian state of Pará, accessible only by light plane or a 12-hour boat ride from Manaus, the region’s main city. “These courses aren’t easy,” says Elisa Assis, Unopar’s director for distance education. “What they are is flexible.” Web-only courses often have high drop-out rates, she explains. One reason for the weekly get-togethers, during which students watch a class broadcast from headquarters followed by a moderated discussion, is to keep students engaged and on track. Their questions give the university instant feedback on how each lesson went, allowing it to improve courses. (Excerpted and adapted from )

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