EducationWorld May 14

Battles half won: India™s improbable democracy; Ashutosh Varshney; Penguin books; Rs.599; Pages 415 WHEN THE 525 PRINCELY states of the Indian subcontinent attained independence from the British Raj 67 years ago, most political pundits ” especially foreign savants ” predicted that the Centre wouldn™t hold and the newly cobbled together improbable Indian democracy would collapse into anarchy or morph into a military dictatorship. Well, they™ve been proved wrong and despite almost all the nation states of the post-colonial world obligingly proving them right, India has remained a united albeit imperfect, democracy. Currently in the midst of its 16th general election, it™s almost certain there will be smooth transfer of political power after the closure of voting on May 16 ” a scenario which still prompts astonishment the world over, not least in neighbouring Pakistan. However, according to Dr. Ashutosh Varshney, professor of international studies and social sciences at Brown University and author of several insightful books on India including Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (2002) and India in the Era of Economic Reforms (1999), the development battles of the world™s most populous democracy have been œhalf won. œIndependent India was born with multiple projects. Three projects were specially important: securing national unity; bringing dignity and justice to those at the bottom of the social order; and eliminating mass poverty, writes Varshney in the first sentence of his new book. A collection of updated and revised essays published in various newspapers and journals, it offers penetrating insights into why despite substantially failing to attain two of the three critical objectives of the Indian state cited above, œfor the first time in human history, a poor nation has practised universal franchise for so long. These essays provide a contrarian™s point of view. Therefore for the surprising longevity of Indian democracy, Varshney gives credit to a popular hate figure and villain of Indian society ” the politician. According to him, the longevity of Indian democracy is less attributable to the reportedly ancient village democracies of India, culture or economy than to the willingness of the country™s political class cutting across all parties, to observe the basic rules of electoral democracy. But the best that can be said about the two other critical projects/objectives ” providing social justice and dignity to the sizeable majority at the base of Indian society™s inherently iniquitous caste hierarchy, and eliminating mass poverty ” the battle has been only half won. Yet even on these parameters, if north and south India are separately assessed to measure progress, the scheduled and particularly OBCs (other backward castes) in peninsular India have recorded a greater measure of social and economic progress than in the north, where caste prejudice and oppression are more firmly entrenched. Varshney ascribes this more than half battle won by the historically oppressed lower castes in south India to the early electoral seizure of political power by Dravidian and other OBC parties and their aggressive practice of reservation or affirmative action ” a bugbear…

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POSITIVE CHANGE IS seldom sudden or drastic. It takes time to modify your family™s lifestyle and develop sustainable healthy habits. The key to successful behavioural change is to take small steps ” and keep moving forward! Many people find it helpful to focus on one initiative per month, and transform it into a habit. Every month will bring a new healthy behaviour practice to add to your repertoire. Therefore, here™s a monthly calendar of healthy habits for the year starting June. If you follow the calendar, a year from now you™ll be glad you did! June: Practice proper sun protection. Applying the right sunscreen is important every month of the year ” even cloudy months. Summer usually means greater exposure to the sun. So make sure you always carry sunscreen with you with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30. You should also encourage children to wear hats when out in the sun by setting the example yourself. July: Discuss oral care. Make July your Oral Health Month, in which you make the time to talk to your family about preventive tooth care and decay. Are you aware that tooth decay is one of the top chronic illnesses of children? Admittedly it™s difficult to make children take proper care of their teeth. But it™s important to make the time to explain the importance of oral health and adoption of good oral care practices to them. August: Take up biking. If you live close to your workplace or children™s school, make a commitment to walk or bike it instead of taking the car or bus. Check local consignment shops and garage sales for bikes that others have outgrown, and then get a few weeks of practice before riding to work/school. Also make sure you bike to the grocery store and other places in the neighbourhood. September: Start a garden. Working in the garden can burn calories and help families bond even as they learn botany, responsibility and stewardship in a creative, fun-filled way. It™s also an opportunity to start a kitchen garden for family needs. October: Practice moderation. This is the start of the festive season ” a time for candy and sweets. But it can also be a great season to learn self-control. Let children choose their favourite sweets, then donate at least half to an organisation such as your neighbourhood orphanage. November: Walk a walkathon. Run a marathon. Start November by organising a family-friendly road race. The race could be a short one-mile walk or a half-marathon. Settle on a distance that accommodates all family members, and gear up! December: Give back and raise awareness. This is a good time to find a cause that™s close to your heart and dedicate time to it. Of course, NGOs and charities appreciate donations of cash, clothing, and other household items. But actually working for a cause helps your children witness the impact. Whether it™s sorting out canned goods or sweeping your pet animal™s crate, find an active way to…

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MARKS ARE NO JOKE IN India. According to the India Consumer Survey 2013, middle class households spend an average of 10 percent of their monthly income paying school fees and towards private tuitions to improve their children™s exam scores, with the objective of ensuring their admission into top-ranked universities, and lifetime success. This is true of parents universally ” all of them want their children to succeed. Exams are considered a student™s horoscope of lifelong success. Therefore, failing an exam is a student™s worst nightmare, reflecting poorly on her family, school and teachers. Consequently, schools, teachers and parents are engaged in a charade that ensures children sail through education institutions year after year without learning much about or ever experiencing failure. The dimensions of this charade are reflected in the landmark Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. S.16 of the Act explicitly states that œno child shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education. But the problem with such smooth sailing through the education lifecycle is that later in life when children experience failure as adults ” as is inevitable ” it becomes a crushing burden which can break them because they™ve never known how to cope with failure, learn from it, and move forward. To become a productive learning experience, failure does not have to occur in exams. For it to become a learning experience, it can occur in any structured format when solving a problem with an unclear solution, not unlike the promotional phase of a start-up business enterprise. Eric Ries is a Boston (USA)-based entrepreneur and speaker at global seminars, advisor to numerous start-ups and venture capitalists, and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Harvard Business School, USA. In his book, The Lean Startup, he writes, œWe are rehabilitating a concept I call validated learning. Validated learning is not after-the-fact rationalisation or a good story designed to hide failure. It is a rigorous method of demonstrating progress when one is embedded in the soil of extreme uncertainty in which start-ups grow. Validated learning is the process of demonstrating empirically that a team has discovered valuable truths about a start-up™s present and future business prospects. It is more concrete, more accurate, and faster than market forecasting or classical business planning. It is the principal antidote to the lethal problem of achieving failure: successfully executing a plan that leads nowhere. Imagine if we replaced the word œstart-up with œstudent. The successfully executed plan that leads nowhere is what parents and students fear most ” an educational roadmap well-conceptualised in theory, with anecdotal past successes and enough cushions and stopgap solutions to rule out failure ” but leading nowhere. The inherent problem with such plans is that no plan is truly foolproof. The same lesson plan will not have an identical learning impact on 30 students. No recounted experience will identically influence a group of people. Unless we™re building a factory, it™s not natural to expect a lecture exposition or demonstration…

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I™m a second year BMM (bachelor of mass media) student keen on a career in sports management. What are my study options and career prospects? Ashok Patil, Pune A BMM degree is a good foundation for a career in sports management as it nurtures creativity, communication and organisational skills which are essential for success in this field. Good business acumen is an added advantage. While reading for your BMM degree, it™s advisable to intern with sports management companies during college vacations. Also, empower yourself with short diploma courses in accounts, finance and marketing, or a part-time diploma in sports management. After graduation, you may choose to sign up for a Masters in sports management abroad. Job opportunities are aplenty in sports and event management companies who need qualified professionals to organise sports events/competitions. Following the huge success of tournaments like the Indian Premier League (cricket), the demand for sports management professionals in football, hockey, and at badminton is on the rise. Remuneration packages are attractive ab initio, with private companies and government pouring money into sports. I™m a class XII student interested in a career in automobile engineering. What job opportunities are available in this field? Rajan Narayan, Bangalore With the exponential growth of the automotive industry in India, job opportunities in this sector are rising. You could consider signing up for a B.Tech degree programme in mechanical engineering followed by a Masters, which will give you a strong foundation. Students of automobile engineering also have career opportunities in automobile ancillaries, aerospace and management consulting companies. However, in the automobile manufacturing industry, engineers are typically employed in design, production, operations management and service activities. I™m a class XI student interested in a career in astrophysics. Please advise. Shashi Iyer, Chennai Most recognised universities in India offer M.Sc/integrated M.Sc-Ph D programmes in astrophysics at the postgrad level. To qualify for a Masters programme in astrophysics, enroll in a B.Sc degree programme with physics, mathematics or applied physics or BE programmes in electronics, instrumentation, or computer sciences. I™m planning to sign up for an MMS (Master of management studies) programme after completing my B.Com next year. Please suggest some specialisations I could choose, and other courses which will prepare me for a career in banking. Daisy Irani, Mumbai There are huge advancement opportunities in the banking and finance sectors. While reading for your MMS, it™s advisable to specialise in finance. Depending on the courses available at your chosen institute, sign up for additional programmes in banking, insurance, financial markets, and derivatives. After completing my MBA in finance next year, what further qualifications can I acquire? Karan Sethi, New Delhi It depends on your career path and goals. If you prefer a career in academia, a Ph D in finance is the right choice. However, if you are planning to work in the financial sector, the most convenient option is to acquire additional professional qualifications concurrently ” part-time or online. Some options are the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) course offered by the Financial…

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With the Ahmedabad-based MICA claiming it has been œmisclassified, the A.J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Delhi has been conceded first rank THE AHMEDABAD-BASED Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), promoted in 1991, has been reaffirmed as India™s #1 mass communication institution in the second EducationWorld India Professional Colleges Rankings 2014. A sample respondents database comprising 290 media professionals, 151 faculty and 125 mass comm students voted this 23-year-old institute which offers its flagship two-year wholly-residential postgrad diploma in communications management with specialisations in brand, media (including new media), advertising and market research, #1 for the second year in succession. However, while œgratified with the premier status conferred on the institute, Vaneet Chibber, professor and chairperson of corporate relations and media at MICA, believes the institute is œmisclassified as it is focused on œcommunications management and not mass communication. œWe wish to clarify that our students do not pursue journalism careers. One of the specialisations we offer is media management and not mass communication. MICA has been misclassified, wrote Chibber in an email requesting EW to exclude MICA from the mass communication rankings in future. Your correspondent™s contention that for the purposes of this survey, mass communication has been broadly defined to encompass print, television, radio and online journalism, media management, marketing communications, advertising and public relations, was not accepted. Be that as it may, ranked a close second in the league table of India™s most highly rated mass communication institutes is the A.J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre (AJK MCRC, estb. 1988) of Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, which was third ranked in 2013. Founded by Anwar Jamal Kidwai, former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia University, in collaboration with York University, Toronto, and the Canadian International Development Aid Agency, AJK MCRC is a constituent school of the Central government-funded Jamia Millia Islamia University. Currently it offers postgraduate and doctoral programmes in mass comm, journalism, animation and broadcast technology to 200 students (annual tuition fee: Rs.49,000-75,600). œAJK MCRC is a one-of-its-type institution in India™s university system which deserves premier ranking. We offer world-class infrastructure and equipment, and the best faculty of any media education institute countrywide. Most faculty members are practitioners who have spent long years in the media. That™s why our graduates are in great demand by top media houses as they can hit the ground running from day one, says Prof. M. Obaid Siddiqui, director of AJK MCRC. This year AJK MCRC has pushed the previously second ranked Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, to #3 while the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, has retained its #4 ranking. An institution which has dramatically risen in public esteem is the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication (SNSAC, estb. 1987) of Hyderabad University which is ranked #5 (cf. #8 in 2013) this year. A school of the Central government-funded Hyderabad University (estb. 1974), SNSAC offers postgraduate and doctoral programmes in radio and video production, print and new media journalism, and communication and media studies, to 240 students who pay a…

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Textile and fashion schools which offer the prospect of India reclaiming its international market share through design ingenuity, have assumed critical importance ONCE UPON A TIME india™s silks and textiles were among the world™s most valued merchandise, and prompted intrepid explorers such as Marco Polo (1254-1324) among others to brave grave dangers to open up trade routes to India. But with the onset of the industrial revolution in the 19th century when European nations began mass production of textiles and garments, India™s famous labour ” rather than machines ” driven textiles industry suffered continuous decline. Of late, neighbouring China, Pakistan and Bangladesh ” where garments and apparel manufacturing industries are permitted to enjoy economies of scale (in India these industries are reserved for small scale enterprises) ” are besting India in international markets. Against this backdrop, textile and fashion schools which offer the prospect of India reclaiming its international market share through design ingenuity, have assumed critical importance. For the second year in a row, the government-promoted National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi (estb.1986) ” the country™s first higher ed institution to offer professional degree programmes in fashion design ” has been top-ranked by a respondents sample comprising 318 fashion industry professionals, 148 faculty and 123 students. Promoted by the Union ministry of textiles in technical collaboration with the New York-based Fashion Institute of Technology, NIFT-Delhi was awarded university status through the NIFT Act, 2006, empowering it to confer undergraduate and postgrad degrees in textiles, jewellery and apparel design. NIFT-D is also top-ranked on all four parameters of excellence ” competence of faculty, infrastructure, pedagogic systems and processes, and placements. However while NIFT-Delhi has retained its numero uno position and NIFT, Kolkata has moved up to #7 (#8 in 2013) in the EducationWorld India Top 20 Fashion Design Institutes Rankings 2014, many of its affiliates ” there are 15 NIFT campuses countrywide with an aggregate enrolment of 7,000 students ” have failed to hold on to their earlier high ranking. NIFT, Mumbai has slipped from its #2 position in 2013 to #3 this year; NIFT, Bangalore has been demoted to #4 (#3 in 2013); NIFT, Gandhinagar has been pushed down to #9 (4); NIFT, Hyderabad to #10 (5); and NIFT, Chennai to #16 (7). The displacement of NIFT-D affiliates is the consequence of the rise of several private sector fashion design institutes which are challenging NIFT™s domination. The rising star is Pearl Academy, Delhi, whose ranking has dramatically risen from #6 in 2013 to #2 this year. Promoted in 1993, Pearl Academy claims it is the first fashion academy in India to be conferred ISO 9001:2008 certification and offers over 30 undergraduate, postgraduate and professional programmes to 1,000 students. The academy™s three other campuses in Jaipur, Noida and Chennai are also ranked among the Top 20. Recently, another Pearl campus was inaugurated in Mumbai. œIn all surveys of India™s premier fashion design institutes of the past decade, we have been ranked #2 or #3. We are glad that in…

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With major international hotel chains betting big on India,  there™s a huge rise in demand for qualified professionals in the hospitality sector THE INDIAN HOSPITALITY (aka hotel) industry is experiencing a surge, powered by an increase in business and leisure travel among domestic and foreign tourists. According to data released by the Union tourism ministry, 1,063 million journeys  were made by Indians within the country in 2012, while foreign tourist arrivals were 6.65 million. Moreover, with major international chains betting big on the country ” India is likely to host over 40 international hotel brands by 2015 ” there™s a huge rise in demand for qualified professionals in the hospitality sector. Therefore a growing number of youth countrywide are looking for hotel and hospitality management schools which suit their aspirations and aptitudes. In the 2014 league table of India™s most respected hotel management institutes, respondents comprising 322 hotel industry managers, 138 faculty and 137 final year hospitality students have ranked the Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development, Delhi (OCLD) #1 for a second time. Promoted way back in 1966 by the Oberoi Group, a hotels and hospitality heavyweight which operates 28 five-star luxury hotels in five countries, OCLD is also top-ranked on all four parameters of excellence. Otherwise, there™s been a major change in the pecking order of the Top 20 league table. The previously #3 ranked Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad (run in association with the Taj Group), has been upgraded to #2 this year while the Central government-promoted Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, Mumbai (IHMCTAN), ranked second last year has been pushed to #3. The Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal (#4) has traded places with the previously #4 ranked IHMCTAN, New Delhi (#5). Moreover, three hotel management institutes ranked #11-20 in 2013 have been upgraded to the Top 10 table ” Christ University, Bangalore (from #12 in 2013 to #7 in 2014); Merit Swiss Asian School of Hotel Management, Ooty (11 to 8) and IHMCTAN, Kolkata (14 to 9). Expectedly, there is jubilation within the hotel management department of Christ University, Bangalore, ranked #7 this year against a relatively modest #12 last year. Every year, 60 students are admitted into the four-year bachelor™s degree programme in hotel management (tuition fee: Rs.75,000-100,000) at Christ U, which was conferred deemed university status in 2008. œWe are very pleased with our improved #7 ranking. We™ve introduced several new subjects such as wine tasting and hotel ethics; increased the experiential learning component with two internships built into the course, while several top industry managers have been roped in as  visiting faculty to provide valuable industry perspectives. Christ is also the only hotel management institute in India to boast a tie-up with the Hilton group of hotels under which 17 students are selected for training and placement in Hilton hotels. Our placements record is also satisfactory with 70 percent graduates opting for jobs, and the rest choosing higher studies, entrepreneurship and/or joining family businesses, says Sushil Dwarkanath,…

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Despite the legal profession being hugely overcrowded, the black-coats and tie-bands fraternity continues to attract youth from middle class households into this universally hated but indispensable profession A PARADOX OF CONTEMPORARY India™s sclerotic legal system characterised by too-few courts and judges, court fees, garrulous judges and lawyers alien to written pleadings, and unsurprisingly the biggest judicial backlog of pending cases (30 million) worldwide, is that even if the system is on the point of collapse, top-of-the-heap counsel in the Supreme and high courts reportedly rake in annual incomes running into crores. This is because although the wheels of justice grind ponderously, they grind surely, and the prospect of languishing in the country™s cramped and notoriously unsanitary jails, and/or losing large fortunes to predatory tax officials and business rivals prompts lay citizens to pay any price for liberty and justice. This perhaps explains why despite the legal profession being hugely overcrowded ” the number of practicing lawyers countrywide is estimated at 1.27 million ” the black-coats and tie-bands fraternity continues to attract youth from aspiring middle class households into this universally hated but indispensable profession. Moreover, following liberalisation and deregulation of the economy, the structure of the legal profession has undergone a metamorphosis with the emergence of a large number of American-style legal firms which have merged the traditional roles of counsel and solicitor even in the apex and high courts. Contemporary law firms pay mint-fresh graduates substantial salaries ab initio, reducing the long three-five year ˜waiting period™ of young law graduates of yesteryear. This structural change in its character has made the legal profession more attractive to youth of both sexes in recent years. In addition, the emergence of professional law schools and academies which dispense indisputably better quality legal education than the law faculties of traditional universities, has also enhanced the appeal of this career option. To facilitate the large number of young hopefuls in evaluating the relative merits of the country™s best law schools, for the second year in succession the editors of EducationWorld commissioned C fore, the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company, to constitute a sample respondents database of 307 advocates, 157 law school faculty and 134 final year law students countrywide, and elicit their opinions of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the country™s Top 20 sufficiently high-profile law schools. œTo eliminate bias, only one faculty member from each law school or law faculty of a university was interviewed and ratings given by faculty and/or students to their own institutions or alma maters were disregarded. The rating scores given to law colleges/institutes by respondents were totaled to arrive at the rankings, says Premchand Palety, founder-CEO of C fore. Unsurprisingly, the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore promoted by the Bar Council of India and the Karnataka state government in 1987, which routinely heads the league tables of media publications, is top-ranked for the second year in succession followed by NALSAR, Hyderabad maintaining the status quo from last year. However the National Law…

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A sample respondents base comprising 1,483 industry managers, 721 faculty of professional education institutions and 626 students enrolled in them, rated India™s top law, hospitality, fashion, mass communication and animation institutes RIGHT UNTIL THE 1990s, entry into colleges of engineering, medicine, commerce and law was the preferred choice of the overwhelming majority of youth from upwardly mobile middle-class households. But after liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy in 1991 and the explosive growth of the ICT (information and communications technology) industries, a bouquet of professional education options in animation, business and finance, social and audio-visual media, travel and hospitality became available to the country™s youth. Therefore to enable higher secondary school-leavers to make informed choices about non-medical/engineering professional education options available to them, last year coterminously with publication of EducationWorld™s league tables of non-IIT engineering colleges and non-IIM B-schools, we introduced league tables rating and ranking the country™s best institutes offering other professional qualifications. Although we have vetoed business school league tables this year because a large number of media publications rate and rank them, we have continued the practice of presenting league tables of colleges/institutes offering other professional study programmes. Therefore, early this year we commissioned the well-known Delhi-based market research agency Centre for Forecasting and Research Pvt. Ltd. (C fore, estb. 2000) to rate and rank India™s top institutions in five fields of professional education ” law, hotel management, fashion design, animation and mass communication. To discharge this obligation, C fore managers constituted a sample respondents™ database comprising 1,483 industry managers, 721 faculty of professional education institutions and 626 students enrolled in them, and presented them with a structured questionnaire to rate institutes they were familiar with on a ten point scale across four broad parameters ” competence of faculty, pedagogic systems and processes, placements, and infrastructure and support systems. They were also asked to allot appropriate weightage to each parameter in terms of relative importance. œTo eliminate bias, the rating respondents gave to their own institutes or alma maters were disregarded. The rating each institute received against the four parameters was totaled to rank colleges/institutes in each category, explains Premchand Palety, promoter-CEO of C fore. With several professional education institutions ” government and private ” still in their infancy, the league tables have been limited to the Top 20 and in some cases Top 15 and even Top 10. In the pages following, we present the all-India league tables of Top 20 hotel management institutes, law colleges, and fashion design institutions; Top 15 mass communication institutes, and Top 10 animation institutes.

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Against a backdrop of uncertainty and confusion in medical education which has raised misgivings about the quality of graduates certified by India™s 355 medical colleges, 439 sample respondents have voted for stability in the 2014 league table “PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF! This is an imperative India™s medical profession needs to urgently heed. Because the country™s medical system is in a near-terminal state and requires strong medicine to resuscitate it. For a start, despite its subcontinental size and population of 1.2 billion, India is served by only 355 colleges of allopathic medicine which certify 41,469 MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) graduates and 22,000 postgraduates (MDs) annually. That this seemingly impressive number of medical practitioners qualified to practice modern (allopathy) medicine is grossly inadequate is testified by India™s rock-bottom doctor-patient ratio of 1:1,700. Against this, the doctor-patient ratio in the US is 1:407, 1:357 in the UK and 1:714 in China. Yet despite the country™s abysmally adverse doctor-patient ratio, India is perhaps the world™s largest exporter of qualified medical practitioners. But for the number of medical practitioners from India serving in them, it™s quite likely the publicly-funded National Health Service of the UK and perhaps even the healthcare system in the US would collapse. Clearly, something is very wrong with medical education, medical practice and the medical system in India. One of the major causative factors behind the continuous flight of doctors to foreign climes is poor governance of medical education and practice by the apex level Medical Council of India (MCI, estb. 1934). For the past 80 years through myriad rules and regulations and an opaque licencing system, MCI has severely constrained capacity expansion in medical education with the council acquiring a notorious reputation for corruption and graft even as successive governments at the Centre and in the states discouraged education entrepreneurs from creating new capacity by decreeing forced subsidies and reserved quotas in private medical colleges. Unchecked corruption in medical education reached its apogee in the new millennium. A rash of scandals in MCI during the infamous ten-year (2001-10) reign of chairman Ketan Desai (finally arrested in 2010 on charges of corruption) severely dented the quality of medical education, forcing the Central government to dissolve the council in 2010. Subsequent to disbandment of MCI, the Union health ministry constituted a six-member interim Board of Governors with a one-year term, and last November the UPA-II government reconstituted MCI with 68 (of the total 130) members elected/nominated by various states and universities through the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Second Ordinance, 2013. However several state universities have yet to propose members for the newly constituted MCI which will have a term of four years. Against this backdrop of uncertainty and confusion in medical education which has raised misgivings about the quality and competence of the 41,000 MBBS graduates certified annually by India™s 355 medical colleges, it™s unsurprising that the 439 informed sample respondents have voted for stability in the second EducationWorld India Medical Colleges Rankings 2014. As in 2013, survey respondents have…

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To provide readers, especially aspiring engineers, a comprehensive profile of India™s most highly respected ˜other™ (excluding IITs) engineering colleges, the Top 100 national and state league tables are supplemented with Top 10 national rankings on the basis of parameters of excellence. To compile the national and state rankings, C fore field researchers interviewed 1,036 faculty and 1,220 final year students countrywide, asking them to rate engineering colleges on seven parameters, viz. competence of faculty, faculty welfare and development, research and innovation, pedagogic systems and processes, industry interface, placements record, and infrastructure and facilities. Further, the informed interviewees were also asked to assign weightage to each parameter. The scores awarded by respondents under each parameter were totaled for the purpose of final ratings and ranking. Unsurprisingly, the ˜competence of faculty™ parameter was assigned highest weightage (350) indicating that the respondents believe that ability to attract and retain faculty ” dependent upon the faculty welfare and development systems  ” is the most important criterion for assessing the teaching-learning and research capability of engineering (and other) education institutions. Parameter rankings which highlight the prime strengths of highly ranked institutions are useful because they enable students to select institutions whose priorities dovetail with their own. The national rankings of Top 10 colleges under all seven parameters enumerated above, are set out below.

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THE BIRLA INSTITUTE OF Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS-Pilani) and the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) have been ranked India™s top two non-IIT engineering colleges for the second successive year in the EducationWorld India Rankings of next-best engineering colleges by a specially constituted sample database of respondents comprising 1,036 engineering faculty and 1,220 final year engineering students. The pan-India survey was conducted early this year by 150 field researchers of the well-reputed Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting and Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb. 2000). Although there™s been no disturbance of rankings at the very top of this year™s league table of India™s sufficiently well-known Top 100 next-best engineering colleges ” College of Engineering, Anna University, Guindy (Chennai) and the National Institute of Technology, Trichy (NIT-Trichy) have retained their #3 and #4 ranks respectively ” there™s a rearrangement of seating with the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (NIT-W) ranked #5 this year against #8 in 2013. Moreover while NIT-Surathkal and the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar (Gujarat) have retained their 2013 rankings of #6 and #7, and Delhi Technological University has risen from #9 to #8 this year, the big loser is the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (often referred to as the seventh IIT) which has dropped in the public esteem from #5 last year to #9 in 2014. The PSG College of Technology ranked #11 in 2013, has graduated to the Top 10 table this year. œI am pleased to learn that your survey has accorded BITS-Pilani the apex position for the second year in succession. The high scores under the parameter of infrastructure facilities are acknowledgement that we have started a massive infrastructure expansion and upgradation programme in all three of our Indian campuses (Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad). In the Pilani campus we have embarked upon a Project Parivarthan (˜change™) initiative with an outlay of Rs.600 crore to construct new academic, faculty and students™ residential buildings. Simultaneously, we are upgrading our teaching and research labs infrastructure. Our top rating under the parameters of industry interface and placement are also justified. Our Practice School programme which makes industry internship an integral part of the curriculum from the very first year, is highly acclaimed by industry and academia leaders. Moreover, we have doubled our efforts to provide challenging career opportunities for our graduates by building a larger and stronger placement team, says Dr. G. Raghurama, an alumnus of IIT-Madras and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore who started teaching in BITS-Pilani in 1987 and is currently director and senior professor of electrical and electronics engineering at this pioneering institute which was awarded deemed university status in 1964, and is celebrating its golden jubilee year. FUETHER DOWN THE 2014 league table of non-IIT engineering colleges, the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai ranked #11, PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh (13), Netaji Subhas Institute, Delhi (16), R.V. College, Bangalore (19), SSN College of Engineering, Chennai (21) and VJTI, Mumbai (25) have…

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Although some engineering education institutions ” notably the IITs ” enjoy great national and even offshore reputations, India™s 3,400 engineering institutes have not been able to produce graduates technically equipped to conceptualise and execute monumental engineering projects EDUCATIONWORLD™S second rating and ranking league tables of India™s most highly regarded non-IIT engineering colleges are being published against a grim backdrop of sustained low annual rates of jobless industrial growth. For almost three years consecutively, the official index of industrial production has been almost static. According to T.N. Ninan, consulting editor of the Business Standard, the industrial production index was 170.3 in 2011-12. œTwo years later, the index for the first 11 months of 2013-14 stands fractionally lower, at 170.0. If we go by the index, we have had zero industrial growth compared to two years ago. The manufacturing sub-sector of ˜industry™ has seen zero growth or a fall in output in 15 of the last 24 months, he writes (BS, April 19). Moreover, the country™s current account deficit (goods and services imports minus exports) which had widened to 6.5 percent of GDP in 2011-12, and according to Union finance minister P. Chidambaram has been reduced to 2.3 percent in the period April-December 2013, is testimony to the preference of domestic consumers for foreign manufactured goods over Indian brands. A host of factors including policy paralysis and backtracking on the country™s economic liberalisation and deregulation programme begun in 1991, during the Congress-led UPA-II government™s second five-year term in office ” apart from loss of  competitive capability of India™s engineers in industry and manufacturing ” could be contributory causes of the decline in industrial growth momentum. Yet the ground reality that the Indian market is flooded with imports ” which can™t be banned because of WTO (World Trade Organisation) treaty obligations ” ranging from chocolates, to automobiles and heavy industry equipment, is visible proof of the uncompetitiveness of Indian industry and its declining engineering capability. Better proof is provided by the defence services which are wholly dependent upon imported equipment and armaments. An indigenously developed jet fighter, tank and aircraft carrier have been in the works for decades without much to show for heavy investment. Quite clearly, although some engineering education institutions ” especially the six pioneer Indian Institutes of Technology (the first of which (IIT-Kharagpur) was established in 1951 with Soviet assistance) and whose number has since grown to 16 ” have great national and even offshore reputations, India™s 3,400 engineering colleges/universities have not been able to produce graduates technically equipped to conceptualise and execute monumental engineering projects (except perhaps in space engineering) which attract global headlines. On the other hand, engineers in other countries, even newly-emergent nations, have successfully executed projects of great ingenuity and expertise which have not only stunned the world, but also hugely benefited their economies. For instance in recent years, British engineers have built a railway under the English channel which has connected the European mainland with the British Isles. A similar rail link under the Bosphorus…

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Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

India™s general elections have a touch of the circus. There is a sense of performance, of spectacle but also a comedy of distractions. If one looks for real issues, there™s little about sustainability, knowledge, innovation or justice. Education is not a priority and is hardly seen as part of the core competence of citizenship. Because we have no theory of knowledge, India is being out-thought and bested intellectually in all global forums and league tables. Any framework of education should comprise theories of knowledge, pedagogy, and institution building to establish connectivity between knowledge, technology, economy and society. A few words about investment in science or a reference to employment doesn™t add up to education policy. In fact, the ˜missingness™ of education as a concern is the one profound absence of these elections. There was even a moment of hypocrisy preceding it. President Pranab Mukherjee raised the issue of global rankings pointing out that our top IITs and IIMs rank nowhere in the global league tables of Top 200 universities. There was a furore about rankings, but none of this concern has been expressed during election time. During the Congress/UPA regime, Union law minister Kapil Sibal appointed an education commission with the distinguished sociologist Andre Beteille as chairperson. But a week later, he dismantled it. After that, serious concern for education disappeared in a philosophical sense. It™s sad that no politician thinks we need a follow-up on the Kothari and Radhakrishnan reports. Education policy does not exist as a narrative in a coherent sense. It™s not as if BJP has more to offer. Early in his campaign, Narendra Modi while speaking at Delhi™s Shri Ram College of Commerce referred to skilling as education as if no other theory of pedagogy exists. Sadly, there™s no vision of childhood, schools of the future, or an ideal university. There is more concern about the authenticity of Rahul Gandhi™s educational qualifications than about the genuineness of education itself. But moving beyond the facetious, there was the issue of mandating one year of liberal arts education for all students of Delhi University. A generation of our finest teachers objected to the experiment, observing it was poorly planned and badly conceived. While the BJP and AAP hinted they would restore the status quo ante, no one felt it was an issue for debate. Today™s politicians prefer to discuss security but hardly refer to education as a security issue. There™s a general feeling that once education has been mandalised and vandalised, it™s no longer a terrain of values for the future, a blueprint for a great society. Consider two very ordinary events. A few months before the elections, before receiving the Bharat Ratna, renowned chemical scientist C.N.R. Rao, called politicians a bunch of idiots. The incident was papered over. No one in Bangalore or in Indian academia seems to experience the deep conflict between science and politics. Today, politicians and scientists are content to dream about the information revolution and think technology is a form of problem-solving which…

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OIS is an exclusively offshore exams-board affiliated K-12 institution routinely ranked among Mumbai™s Top 3 international schools Curiously, although mumbai has long been acknowledged as the commercial capital of the country with a greater density of millionaires and high net worth (HNW) households per square mile than any other metro, high-end international primary-secondary schools with globally comparable infrastructure and offshore exam board affiliation are a relatively recent phenomenon in urbs prima Indis. Mumbai™s first genuinely international primary secondary ” the Dhirubhai Ambani International School  ” was promoted by the country™s premier HNW family in 2003 followed by the establishment of Ecole Mondiale World School (2004) and the Oberoi International School (2008). These capital-intensive institutions are routinely ranked Mumbai™s top three international schools. The relatively low-profile Oberoi International School (OIS), promoted by Oberoi Realty Ltd six years ago, offers its 1,301 students the curriculums of the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) in KG-class V and classes XI-XII, and of the UK-based Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) for classes VI-X. OIS is an exclusively offshore examination boards-affiliated K-12 institution, ranked #6 among international schools countrywide and #3 in Maharashtra and Mumbai in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013. Constructed vertiginously on a 1.13 acre separate campus set within the 80-acre Oberoi City under development in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon, OIS offers its students 100 fully-wired classrooms with electronic smart boards, multimedia projection equipment and enviable teacher-pupil ratios of 1:8 in kindergarten, 1:6 in primary school and 1:6.5 in secondary and higher secondary classes. The school™s 1,301 students of 26 nationalities are mentored by 190 teachers, of whom 54 have foreign professional qualifications. Housed in a ten-storied building with each floor averaging 24,000 sq. ft, the academic infrastructure includes eight science laboratories, two ICT (information and communications technology) labs, and two libraries for the junior and senior schools with an aggregate 49,000 volumes, 51 journal subscriptions and 16 electronic resources. Impressive co-curricular and extra-curricular education facilities ” the hallmark of genuine international K-12 institutions ” are omnipresent in OIS. The school offers students a bouquet of 51 co-curricular activities including computer animation, forensics, debates, games and app development, ballet, jewellery design, journalism, robotics, pottery, webpage design, music, theatre, and dance, for which 18 practice rooms and a 400-seat auditorium have been provided.  Students have the option of choosing three activities. Moreover, despite constraints of outdoor playing spaces because of the poor, haphazard civic planning which typifies Mumbai (pop. 12 million), the range of sports, games and athletics facilities provided by the OIS management is impressive. Outdoor sports on terra firma include football and athletics. Other games facilities extend to glass-backed squash and basketball courts, and two swimming pools uniquely sited indoors with tennis played on synthetic courts on the terrace of the tenth floor. œThe biggest differentiator of OIS is our faculty. We follow a rigorous process in the recruitment of teachers with a selection ratio of 1:20. Recruitment is followed by intensive in-service training supplemented by weekly workshops including international workshops in…

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Griffith University™s Gold Coast City (Australia) campus is in the final stages of a A$500 million (Rs.2,773 crore) construction programme. The construction of tennis, basketball and beach volleyball courts, a $20 million extension to the campus library, and a new $150 million Griffith Health Centre, have been completed. A $37 million Business Building which includes a fully-operational mock trading room is scheduled to be inaugurated in mid-2014. The new Griffith Health Centre and contiguously located A$1.76 billion (Rs. 9,762 crore) Gold Coast University Hospital constitute the core of the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct. This world-class medical teaching and research facility brings all of Griffith™s health programmes under one roof. With the 2018 Commonwealth Games scheduled to be hosted by Gold Coast City (pop. 525,000), Griffith is well-placed to become an epicentre of the games, with the 29.4 hectare Commonwealth Games Village currently under construction opposite Gold Coast City campus. œThe games will enhance what is already a vibrant multicultural community on the Gold Coast and will provide our sports and event management students with a unique opportunity to experience the industry first-hand, says a Griffith University spokesperson. AIC-UoM concordat The Singapore-based Asian International College (AIC), which recently entered the early childhood education (ECE) teacher-training space in India, has signed a high-potential collaboration agreement with the University of Melbourne (UoM), Australia. Under the terms of the agreement inked on April 23, UoM and AIC will jointly train ECE teachers to teach the primary years programme (PYP) of the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO). The year-long course will equip teachers to impart the IB (PYP) curriculum to three-12 year-olds and will be conducted by UoM faculty in partnership with AIC. The first batch of teachers in Singapore will start receiving in-service training on a part-time basis in July. At the end of one year, trainee teachers will be awarded an IB-PYP postgraduate diploma. œThis qualification is like an MBA, so teachers who have it will be better paid than those without it, says Swapna Pawar, head of AIC. Applications close on May 26. œWith demand for IB programmes growing at over 30 percent per annum across the Asia-Pacific region, there™s a corresponding demand for IB proficient teachers who not only know IB curriculums but also demonstrate pedagogy centred on developing the whole child through enquiry-based learning. We are sure the rising number of IB World schools in the Asia-Pacific region will benefit from a growing pool of IB-ready educators, says Ian Chambers, director of IBO (Asia-Pacific). Visioning Chandigarh conference-workshop Visioning Chandigarh, a conference-cum-workshop organised by Taaleem College of International Studies (TCIS), Chandigarh and the Institute for Competitiveness, Gurgaon, a constituent member of the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness of Harvard Business School, was convened in Chandigarh on April 16. According to TCIS spokespersons, this œunique conference-cum-workshop was a combination of deliberations, brainstorming and visioning exercise ” œin a carousel workshop format ” which brought citizens and other stakeholders on one platform. œBy asking the participants to…

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Odisha Lecturer suspended for poll violation A TEACHER OF A government-aided higher education institution was placed under suspension for violating the Election Commission of India™s model code of conduct by campaigning for a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party candidate in the Pattamundai assembly segment of the Kendrapara district. Sridhar Behera, a lecturer of Pattamundai Women™s College, allegedly canvassed for the ruling BJD. The allegation was probed by an inquiry committee constituted by the district Election Commission office. The committee found corroborative evidence supporting the charge following which Behera was suspended, district collector Nitin Bhanudas Jawale informed media personnel in Kendrapara on April 9. Earlier in the week, a junior clerk of a government-run high school was also suspended on similar charges. Arunachal Pradesh University curriculums upgradation plea ADDRESSING FACULTY AND students of the North East Regional Institute of Science & Technology and the Rajiv Gandhi University in Itanagar on April 26, D.P. Agrawal, chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) said the curriculums of universities in the country need upgradation because they have not been revised œfor more than a decade. Moreover Agrawal advocated vocationalisation of the education system to enhance skills of students to earn livelihoods, while urging the state government to ensure optimum utilisation of resources to provide quality education. œImparting quality education is the biggest challenge before us today. We must focus on nurturing and developing our education system for a better Arunachal and India, he said. Punjab ADR Lok Sabha candidates profiles OF THE 253 candidates contesting the 16th Lok Sabha elections in Punjab state, barely 50 percent have passed their class X board exam with only 32 percent having graduated. According to the Delhi-based Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 68 candidates failed to clear class X while 62 have. According to the report, nine contestants are illiterate. A total of 80 candidates testing the electoral waters in Punjab are graduates, graduate professionals and/or postgraduates, says an ADR press note issued in Chandigarh on April 27. Prominent among them are Congress candidate Partap Singh Bajwa; Patiala Congress nominee Preneet Kaur, and BJP™s actor-politician Vinod Khanna (Gurdaspur). Among 21 graduate professionals are the BJP™s Arun Jaitley (a law graduate of Delhi University), contesting the Amritsar seat, and the Aam Aadmi Party™s H.S. Phoolka (law graduate of Panjab University) contesting from Ludhiana. Only 29 candidates are postgraduates, notable among whom are Congress candidate Ambika Soni, who has a postgrad diploma from the University of Havana (Cuba), and AAP™s Amritsar contestant, eye surgeon Dr. Daljit Singh. Maharashtra Reduce defence spend call DURING A DISCUSSION with Maharashtra governor K. Sankaranarayana and political leaders of the state on April 3, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sanchez called upon developing nations including India, to slash defence expenditure to release resources for investment in education and health. œThe world is spending $175 trillion (Rs.1035,000,000 crore) on arms and ammunition. Poor countries of the world don™t need to spend that much. India is one of the…

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œWhen America steps back… trouble will fill that vacuum. Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state, alleging that America™s œweariness over foreign entanglements enabled Vladimir Putin™s land grab in Crimea, among other diplomatic crises (Time, April 14) œLet it be said of Narendra Modi that he is petty, that he does not forget easily, and that he never forgives… What should we expect from a Modi sarkar? I predict: no quarter and no mercy. Aakar Patel, well-known columnist, on what the media should expect from a Modi-led government at the Centre (Mint, April 19) œChina™s fate, and that of the Communist Party, will be determined by the stability of its cities. Editorial in The Economist (April 19) œDemocracy cannot simply be a plurality of parties, free elections, peaceful handovers of power, an independent judiciary, constitutional governance, and personal and group freedoms. A healthy democracy must also have and promote substantively rich debate on policy alternatives and choices. Kanti Bajpai, educationist and foreign affairs expert, on the ˜quality™ of Indian democracy (Times of India, April 26) œA necessary part of explaining reforms is to shake people into realising how not doing these things will doom us… ˜Explaining™ must include setting out the whole truth. Arun Shourie, former Union minister, on the need for citizens to instigate reforms (National Standard, April 28) œIf we want to raise the hope and confidence of Indian youth, we have to create jobs for them ” jobs with good disposable income. We have to create 150-200 million jobs during the coming decade. N.R. Narayana Murthy, executive chairman of Infosys Technologies, on the prime focus areas of the new prime minister (The Economic Times, April 29)

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ONE OF THE MANY promises made by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party in the run-up to the 2011 assembly elections in West Bengal was a pledge to œdepoliticise higher education. Accordingly, in May 2011 after TMC routed the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government which had (mis) ruled West Bengal (pop. 91 million) for 34 years during which it ruined the state™s once much-envied higher education system, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee promptly abolished the packed-with-leftists Executive Council inherited by the state™s showpiece Presidency University (PU). An apolitical 10-member Presidency Mentor Group (PMG) was constituted, chaired by Dr. Sugata Bose, Harvard University™s Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and South Asia Affairs, and enonomics Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen, among others. Shortly thereafter, Cambridge (UK) alum Malabika Sarkar, then professor of English at Jadavpur University and a renowned Milton scholar, was appointed PU vice chancellor. However in end-March, Dr. Sugata Bose dropped a bombshell in West Bengal™s groves of academia by announcing his candidature for the Lok Sabha elections from Kolkata™s Jadavpur constituency on a Trinamool ticket. Although the chairmanship of PMG is a non-statutory honorary position, it nevertheless commands great prestige and is ranked above the office of vice chancellor of PU. Therefore in no time at all, Bose was embroiled in a huge controversy. According to his critics, Bose, who had promised to cleanse PU of politics, has done just the opposite. Reacting to Bose™s candidature, the PU Students™ Union called a referendum to determine whether Bose had breached his unwritten commitment to depoliticise the university. On March 29, 1,524 of PU™s 2,135 students voted on the issue. Counting on April 1 revealed that 1,208 students wanted him to quit, with only 316 voting in favour of his retaining PMG chairmanship. Comments Nirmalya Mukherjee, general secretary of the PU Students Union: œDr. Bose has been given a ticket by the ruling TMC. He is therefore a member of the party and is no longer apolitical. When she formed the PMG, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had promised that no one with a political identity would be a member of the group. She cannot go back on her word. The chairman of the mentors cannot have any political affiliation. With Bose showing no sign of heeding the students™ protests, union spokespersons have resolved to seek appointments with the VC and the chancellor, when the demand for Bose™s resignation will be pressed. However, Bratya Basu, minister of higher education, isn™t impressed. œThe students™ referendum has no validity. Isn™t the prime minister functioning as chancellor of Central universities although he is a political figure? he asks rhetorically. Meanwhile, it™s business as usual in PU. Vice chancellor Sarkar™s tenure ends on May 15. As we go to press, she has confirmed that she won™t seek a second term and that Anuradha Lohia, professor of biochemistry at Kolkata™s S.N. Bose Research Institute, has been appointed her successor. Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)

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THE SUPREME COURT has sought the response of the Centre, all states and Union territories to a petition filed by the Delhi-based National Coalition for Education (NCE) alleging widespread violation of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in schools countrywide. On April 11, a constitution bench of the court headed by (recently retired) Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justices Ranjan Gogoi and M.Y. Eqbal, issued notices to the Centre, all states and Union territories seeking a reply œafter the summer vacation. Four years after it became operational, the well-intentioned RTE Act is floundering on the rocks. While the Act promised free and compulsory education to all children in the 6-14 age group, the DISE (District Information on School Education) report 2011-12 says a massive contingent of 34.5 million children are out of school countrywide. Census 2011 enumerated 233.5 million children in the 6-14 age group. Thus, out-of- school children aggregate almost 15 percent. Moreover, there™s a shortage of 1.2 million teachers in the school system and according to the Delhi-based RTE Forum, only 8 percent of India™s 1.30 million schools are compliant with the infrastructure and teacher-pupil ratio norms stipulated by s.19 and Schedule of the RTE Act. This status quo ante scenario prompted NCE ” a conglomeration of NGOs intent on implementation of provisions of the RTE Act ” to file a PIL in the apex court. In its petition NCE prayed the court to issue directions for construction of more schools, immediate recruitment of 100,000 professionally trained teachers, identification and mapping of all school-age children, upgradation of deficient schools, according permanent status to contract and para-teachers countrywide, constituting school management committees (SMCs), and registration of all government schools. Cut to Uttar Pradesh, India™s most populous state (200 million). The State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), required to be established as per provisions of the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, to promote, protect and defend child rights, is yet to be established, while 39.2 percent of children are reported out of school, according to official statistics. The state also reports the highest number of teacher vacancies countrywide (165,000). œPolitical rivalry on key issues such as teachers™ eligibility has stalled political action on education in the state, says Kumar Ratan, national advocacy coordinator of NCE. This is ironical given that for the past decade and a half, UP has been ruled by political parties headed by former teachers. General lack of awareness about the provisions of the RTE Act and institutional cunning to circumvent its provisions, have also stymied its implementation in UP. For instance in Lucknow, even the highly reputed Delhi Public School side-steps the obligation mandated by s.12 (1) (c) of the Act to reserve 25 percent capacity in primary schools for children from economically weaker and disadvantaged groups by running separate afternoon classes for them, a clear violation of the spirit of the Act. But even schools which are RTE-compliant prefer not to become involved with government. œWell before…

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MEDICAL STUDENTS IN andhra Pradesh wrote the Post Graduate Medical Entrance Test (PGMET) 2014 administered by the state government for a second time in the last week of April. Following a probe ordered by Andhra Pradesh governor and chancellor of the NTR University of Health Sciences, E.S.L. Narasimhan, and an investigation by the state™s Crime Investigation Department (CID) indicating a question paper leak in the entrance exam conducted throughout the state on March 2 ” in which 15,000 candidates contested 2,240 seats including 1,500 in government-owned medical colleges ” the university™s management was obliged to order a re-exam. The papers leak scam came to light after complaints by students about glaring anomalies in the results declared. MBBS graduates who wrote the exam were stunned as many candidates with questionable academic credentials secured top marks, and those who were failed in some subjects in the PGMET had been in the ranks of Top 50 in the undergraduate MBBS exam. A detailed report of a one-man commission of enquiry headed by L. Venugopal Reddy, chairman of the State Council of Higher Education, prompted cancellation of the March exam and arrests of 41 persons including 18 brokers and ˜consultants™, and 23 students. Continuously rising demand for seats in medical colleges whose number has remained static at 43 ” 28 private and 15 government ” because of the prolonged agitation for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh (pop. 84.7 million) into Telangana and Seemandhra, has adversely affected investor sentiment, and dried up promotion of new colleges even as the number of aspirants has risen to 700,000-1.5 million. This pressing demand has engendered a system of brokers and consultants who suborn candidates writing the entrance examination by offering assured seats. In this particular case, some consultants bribed an employee of the printing press to leak the PGMET exam papers and auctioned them to unscrupulous students writing the exam. œSome desperate parents made online payments of Rs.10 lakh in advance, while others gave blank cheques, and yet others wrote post-dated cheques for amounts ranging from Rs.1-1.5 crore, says T. Krishna Prasad, director general of the state CID. According to Prasad, the question papers were sold to more than 200 of the 15,000 students who wrote PGMET in March. Meanwhile, the fact that the re-examination is being conducted again by NTR Health University has perplexed students.  œGiven the scale and ramifications of the scam, ordering a re-examination is the best option. But given the possibility ” indeed probability ” that some NTR Health University employees are likely to be involved in the scandal which is under investigation, why is the re-examination being conducted by the university again? There™s a strong possibility the re-exam won™t be conducted fairly either, says K. Abhilash, president of the State Junior Doctors™ Association. With Andhra Pradesh under President™s rule and caught up in the hurly-burly of the Lok Sabha elections after which bifurcation will become a reality, nobody has time for such academic questions. Aruna Ravikumar (Hyderabad)

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THE CONSEQUENCES OF arbitrarily increasing the number of engineering colleges and capacity in popular study programmes for over a decade, are beginning to manifest in the south-eastern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million). Ahead of the admission season, 20 private engineering colleges in the state have sought permission from the Delhi-based All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) ” the apex regulatory body authorised to licence and administer technical institutions countrywide ” to discontinue their IT (information technology) and computer science programmes. Five colleges are seeking permission to reduce intake into computer science, eight in IT and 10 in electronics and communications engineering programmes this year. Since the 1990s, these were study programmes most favoured by students, but now there aren™t many takers. Although academics cite several reasons for this phenomenon, the root cause is that capacity creation in engineering colleges is far outstripping demand. In the academic year 2013-2014, 103,000 of the available 279,000 seats in the state™s 564 engineering colleges had no takers. Most vacancies are in private self-financing engineering colleges with two of them unable to fill even a single seat, and eight colleges unable to fill 10 percent of capacity. That a growing number of private engineering colleges have to move heaven and earth to attract students is clear indication of the poor quality of education dispensed by them. œMany private colleges established during the past two-three years are struggling to find qualified faculty and students. Almost 100 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu are up for sale, because of low student enrolment and high operational costs and overheads. In the circumstances, the state government should take the initiative to shut down low-quality institutions to protect the interests of gullible students who unknowingly enroll in colleges lacking basic infrastructure and faculty. Left to themselves, poor quality colleges continue to plod on ruining the future of thousands of students, says E. Balaguruswamy, former vice chancellor of Anna University. Yet, even if the state is inclined to be lax, the final authority for greenlighting and monitoring engineering colleges countrywide is the Delhi-based AICTE which has been recklessly licencing private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu for over a decade. To the extent that the number has more than doubled from 237 in 2005-06 to 564 in 2013-14 even as the IT industry™s demand for engineers is tapering off due to slow growth of the industry and the economy in general. Moreover, AICTE has failed in its primary duty of checking the quality of licenced colleges, most of whom are staffed with inexperienced temporary faculty, and lack research and development facilities. In a landmark judgement delivered in April last year in the Bharathidasan University vs. AICTE (AIR 2001 SC 2867 ), in which the varsity challenged an AICTE regulation mandating the council™s prior approval for introducing new technical education programmes by universities, the Supreme Court held that such approval is not required as AICTE is only œan advisory body as per the AICTE Act. The apex court directed the…

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THE IMPRIMATUR GIVEN by President Pranab Mukherjee to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation and Collection of Fees) Act, 2011 on March 21, has cheered parents in the state and particularly in Mumbai where they have been protesting the steep rise in tuition fees of private schools. Under provisions of the Act, fees ” including tuition, term, admission, deposit, examination and library ” in government-aided private schools will be regulated by the state government, and of unaided private schools by an executive committee comprising parents, teachers and school management representatives. The Act requires all unaided/independent private schools to constitute PTAs (Parent Teacher Associations) which will elect executive committees to approve tuition fee increases proposed by institutional managements. The PTA executive committee of each school will determine total payout by way of fees after considering location, infrastructure facilities, accreditation status, administration and maintenance expenditure and salaries paid to teaching and non-teaching staff. œDuring the past three-four years, many private schools especially those with an ˜international™ tag have raised tuition fees by more than 200 percent. Others have routinely increased fees by upto 50 percent per year making huge profits. The Act states that unless the difference between fees suggested by the school management and PTA executive committee is more than 15 percent, the PTA executive committee doesn™t come into the picture. Many schools have already misused this clause and raised fees without taking PTA consent. Moreover, parents are inadequately represented on PTA executive committees and all important posts are being held by school managements with parents hardly having a say in the matter, says Jayant Jain, president of the Mumbai-based Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE), which has been advocating a government appointed school fee committee after a Bombay high court order quashed a government resolution seeking to regulate fee hikes in private unaided schools in 2010. Arundhati Chavan, president of Parent Teachers Association United Forum, concurs. œWhile the Act can bring in some transparency, its success depends on how empowered are the PTA executive committees. Parents, who enjoy a good rapport with managements, are selected rather than elected to executive committees. Moreover, there is no grievance redressal forum for parents. It remains to be seen how much of an impact this Act really makes, says Chavan. Knowledgeable monitors of Maharashtra™s education scene as also most private school promoters have given a cautious welcome to the new legislation. For one, it has nullified the power of notoriously corrupt officials of the state government™s education ministry to determine the tuition fees of private unaided schools, and vested it in in-house PTAs. œParents want excellent infrastructure and facilities for their children without paying for them. Under the provisions of the Regulation and Collection of Fees Act, school managements will get opportunities to work with and make parents aware of how schools operate. Prima facie, the provisions of the Act are balanced and fair and have devolved the onus of negotiating fees upon parties directly involved in children™s education ” parents and teachers, says Rohan…

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ON MARCH 31, the landmark Right to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which guarantees free and compulsory education to every child in the 6-14 age group completed its fourth anniversary. Although the Union government and major political parties locked in a high voltage combat to elect members of the 16th Lok Sabha had little time to mark the occasion, a report of the Delhi-based RTE Forum ” a network of 10,000 NGOs and child rights activists ” titled 4th year: Status Report on the Implementation of the RTE Act, 2009, says that only 8 percent of schools countrywide are compliant with the infrastructure and teacher-pupil norms stipulated by s.19 and Schedule of the Act. Moreover, the report says the pivotal SMCs (school management committees) with parents in the majority, decreed by s. 28 of the Act, are non-starters resulting in ineffective institutional development and project implementation, budget cuts, delay in receipt of funds, non-functional grievance redressal mechanisms, and other violations of the Act across the country. œThe diversity in the prevailing situation, the absence of an open consolidated information source on the status of implementation of the Act across the country has been a major hindrance in this review process, the report adds. According to Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty of the Council for Social Development, New Delhi, of the five legislative enactments of the Congress-led UPA-II government, only the RTE Act is a right with the potential to affect lives and build society, while the œothers are just relief measures. œAffirmative action of the past 25 years will come to naught if we fail to implement the right to quality education as stipulated by the RTE Act, he warns. Likewise, the much-debated, celebrated, resisted and litigated s.12 (1) (c) of the Act which makes it mandatory for all private independent schools to reserve 25 percent capacity in primary education for children of economically weaker section (EWS) households, is also a non-starter. A study covering 352 households conducted by Delhi-based Indus Action, a non-profit group headed by Teach for India director Tarun Cherukuri, with support from the Central Square Foundation, indicates that 98 percent of heads of eligible EWS households in south Delhi didn™t apply for admission into neighbourhood private schools in the academic year 2013-14, due to lack of awareness, excessive documentation and procedural hurdles. Therefore under its project Eklavya, Indus Action has started a door-to-door campaign in Delhi to facilitate the admission of EWS children into private unaided schools as mandated by the RTE Act. œAll families admitted they prefer private over government schools. They would like to change the school of their wards if given the opportunity and if not required to pay tuition fees, says the Indus Action report. Likewise, the well-known pioneer B-school IIM-Ahmedabad has established an RTE Resource Centre to enable eligible children to derive the benefit of entitlements under the Act. œWe see an opportunity of transforming the common perception from disenchantment to engagement, and would like to open chapters in other cities,…

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I READ THE APRIL issue of EducationWorld with great interest, and was happy to learn that vocational education is being written about and discussed among various other issues in the magazine. This will contribute positively to the perception of vocational education as a career option among students, teachers and schools. I refer in particular to the cover story ˜India™s Belated Skilling Revolution™, on the need for universalisation of education, promoting skills-based education and measuring learning outcomes. I want your readers to know that many of these policy measures are cuurently being implemented, and that vocationalisation of education has already been approved by the Union Cabinet, and will soon become a reality. There is also great interest from private sector enterprises keen on entering the skills space. This interest has been sharpened by the inclusion of CSR (corporate social responsibility) obligations in the Companies Act, 2013. In addition, there™s also greater NGO activity in VET (vocational education and training). A National Skills Qualification Framework is being formulated and should be in place within three years. It will define national standards for vocational training with stated learning outcomes for specific jobs. All in all, a lot is happening in the skills ecosystem, and the NSDC team will be happy to share information with you anytime. S. Ramadorai Chairman, National Skill Development Corporation, Delhi Government responsibility AS AN INDIVIDUAL with growing interest in India™s labour, especially unorganised labour, your cover story ˜India™s Belated Skilling Revolution™ (EW April) made interesting reading. Yet a notable feature of your article is that India™s skilling revolution seems to be almost exclusively led by the private sector, with companies and NGOs such as H3S and LabourNet filling the huge void created by the Central and state governments™ pathetically inadequate investment in education. While this private contribution is undeniably necessary, pressing the Central and state governments to allocate a much larger percentage of India™s GDP to education is an urgent priority. Government has a greater responsibility towards skilling the country™s neglected workforce. Simultaneously, attention needs to be paid to revamping the country™s archaic and complex labour laws which have contributed to the creation of a massive pool of poorly paid unskilled labour in the unorganised sector. The skilling revolution will be meaningless unless there is a concerted national effort to create skilled, well-paying jobs in small and medium enterprises as well. Tarun Bhalla Bangalore Valid point I WAS SUPRISED TO read your editorial ˜AAP™s irresponsible populism™ (EW March). I believe you haven™t got your facts right. I have been reading about this long before Arvind Kejriwal got into the act, and I believe he is right on this issue. The initial contracted rate approved by Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani was $2 per mmbtu for 17 years. But the company cut back production citing non-existent geological problems to jack up the rate to $4.2 per mmbtu and more recently to $6.5-8 per mmbtu awarded by the Rangarajan Committee. But the committee™s brief was to set a price based on…

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IN THE RUN-UP to india™s 16th general election, several issues of vital importance to the future well-being of the country have become obscured in the din and cacophony of the hustings. None of the major political parties have spelt out their programmes and positions on the critical issues of universal public health services, quality education for all, and perhaps even more important ” ecology and environment preservation and upgradation. According to State of India™s Environment 2014, the annual audit report of Down To Earth magazine published by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment ” the country™s most respected environment monitoring think-tank ” India™s water, air and land resources are being despoiled and depleted at an alarming pace. A national water scarcity is imminent because India™s rivers are being destroyed by pollution, obsolete water management policies and grossly inequitable distribution. For instance, it™s common knowledge that all our major rivers including the Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra are choking, polluted by thousands of tonnes of untreated sewage and toxic industrial waste being dumped into them every day. Similarly, dense and moderately dense forest covers only 12.3 percent of the country™s total land area against the recommended 33.33 percent. Yet timber mafias are omnipresent, and tribals knowledgeable about sustainable environment development are being forced out of their forest habitats. Likewise, large swathes of arable land are being corrupted by excessive usage of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and intensive waterlogging in some areas. Simultaneously arable land area is steadily shrinking as huge tracts of agricultural land are being swallowed by expanding cities even as the quality of air, water and civic amenities in urban India is going from bad to worse. Two egregious errors made in post-independence India™s national development effort are the causative factors of the imminent environmental disaster that future generations ” if not our own ” will surely suffer: neglect of education, and tolerance of quotidian corruption in governance at all levels. While sustained neglect of elementary education encourages the population to casually pollute the environment in myriad ways, endemic corruption in the Central, state and local governments makes it impossible to enforce even the most elementary environment protection laws. Clearly, upgrading the country™s education system and eradicating deeply entrenched corruption in government, are long-haul processes. Meanwhile, no matter which government or political alliance assumes office in New Delhi on May 16, one of its first priorities should be to legislate and implement sustainable policies to mitigate further degradation of soil, water and air. No price in terms of money, lost output or inconvenience of reforms-affected minorities is too great to pay to reverse the galloping destruction of the nation™s ecology and environment, sine qua non. Minority indulgence not wrong The controversy stoked by the opposition BJP™s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi™s public refusal to wear a token Muslim skull cap offered by a highly respected cleric as a mark of respect way back in 2011, has been resurrected by a recent (April 12) interview on India TV with this…

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Despite the large number ” estimated at 1 million per year ” of certified engineers India™s 3,400 engineering colleges churn out, there™s growing dissatisfaction within Indian industry and society with their quality, professionalism and productivity. Although it™s now dismissed as a misinterpretation, an infamous Nasscom-McKinsey World Institute study (2005) concluded that 75 percent of our engineering graduates are unemployable by multinational companies. Certainly, Indian engineers have not conceptualised or executed mind-boggling projects of the likes of the railway and motorways under the English Channel, and the Bosphorus Strait which separated Britain from continental Europe and Europe from Asia for thousands of years. And it™s highly doubtful if they can match the capabilities of Chinese engineers who have built the Sino-Tibet railroad which traverses permafrost altitudes rising to 16,000 ft. above sea level, and who have reconstructed and re-engineered China™s megalopolises of Shanghai, Guangdong and Beijing. In comparison, the best that Indian engineers have done is to build the 741 km Konkan Railway, the 5.6 km Bandra-Worli sea bridge in Mumbai and the Delhi Metro ” middling achievements in contemporary engineering. Curiously, for over 60 years India™s engineers have not been able to draft a project design to link the peninsular city of Mumbai, the country™s over-crowded and choking commercial capital, with mainland India ” a mere distance of 4.5 km over the Arabian Sea. And India™s crumbling cities defined by convulsive traffic, pot-holed roads and pathetic sanitation are testimony to the inadequate skills of our civil engineers. Of course, it can be argued that development policy failures and policy paralysis at the political level, rather than lack of engineering capability, are the prime factors behind the alleged failure of India™s professional engineers to impact the global imagination with ingenious breakthrough projects. This is no doubt partially true, but the fraternity of engineers is hardly straining at the leash. Undoubtedly, among the country™s 3,400 engineering and 355 medical and other professional education colleges, there are islands of excellence. The EW league tables rate and rank these leader institutions across several parameters of academic excellence. This perceptual survey is based upon the institutional assessments of knowledgeable respondents carefully chosen by our partner, the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company, C fore. The objective of this elaborate (and expensive) annual exercise is not only to aid and enable students to shortlist, if not select, institutions of professional education best suited to their aspirations and aptitudes, but also to inspire institutional managements to continuously improve teaching-learning and research standards to move up the annual league tables. Indeed, the national interest demands it.

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