Breaking The Mould

Breaking the

Mould

Volume 03 Issue 09 50A 9.9 medIA PublIcAtIon

sePtember 2012www.edu-leAders.com

Autonomous colleges are breaking away from their parent universities and raising the bar for themselves and others Pg 16

Prof PB Sharma, VC, Delhi Technological University

EDU SURVEY A preview of EDU survey on

achieving institutional excellence P28

DIALOGUE Enase Okonedo, Dean, Lagos Business School, on business

education in Africa P32

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1September 2012 EduTEch

FOREWORD

Dr Pramath Raj [email protected]

The Will to Excel

“We know that probably what comes in our path to excel is our own lack of will to do so”

By the time you are reading this, you are either at the Second Annual Vice Chancellor’s Retreat or just back from it. Between August 31 and September 2, around 50 higher education leaders from across the country will meet at Westin Sohna in Gurgaon to deliberate on the theme Delivering Excellence-

Against the Odds. Prior to this, we conducted preliminary online survey in August on Achieving Institutional Excellence, asking you all to rate the factors that, as academicians, you consider most important to delivering excellence, and by corollary, the odds in the way of doing it. We got an amazing 400 responses that helped us draft our agenda and discus-sion sessions for the Retreat.

Thank you for being part of the change that we are trying to drive through our endeavour. It is heartening to note that among all the communities of 9.9 Media, the EDU community is the most engaged, involved and vocal.

One of the major survey findings was that government policies and regulatory constraints figure among the least important factors on your scale. That’s quite a surprise and a happy one. We often blame regulations and policies for our slow progress in higher education. Yet we know that probably what comes in our path to excel is our own lack of will to do so.

The cover story on ‘autonomy’ clearly brings out the importance of the ‘will to excel’. It pushes a college to aim for the autonomous tag and further drives its standards upwards. A change in policy provided colleges with the option of going autonomous with the freedom to design their own curriculum and pedagogy (incidentally voted as the second most important factor in our survey). A big plus in the debate on the autonomous versus affiliated colleges, this freedom motivates the faculty (quality of faculty was voted as the most important factor) and pushes them to perform.

In the final analysis however, we know that whether one chooses to opt for autonomy like Delhi Technological University, or decides to stay affiliated like St Stephens College, it is the will to excel that makes them reach the top.

In this issue, we bring to you a sneak preview of what the survey unfolded. Following the Retreat, we will bring out a special issue on the survey findings as well as on the deliberations during the three-day sessions.

2 EduTEch September 2012

Contentsseptember 2012EDU

update 04 Vacant05 UnIFORM tESt 06 UnIVERSItY aWaRDED07 SESSIOn anD MORE

Viewpoint08 Mj xaVIER Education to become truly priceless

Viewpoint11 PUShkaR Why location matters when setting up a new campus

edu suRVeY 28 achIEVInG ExcELLEncE

technologY38 MaSSIVE OPEn OPPORtUnItIESMOOC has its share of detractors, but it is surely revolutionising the way we teach and learn By Tushar Kanwar

42 tEch IntERVIEWLalit Kathpalia, educator and researcher on IT Management By Padmaja Shastri

44 tEch tUtEManage you(r) brand onlineBy Tushar Kanwar

46 tEch IntERVIEWGrainne Conole, Professor of Learning InnovationBy Mitia Nath

global peRspectiVe Find out what’s currently happening in institutions around the world. The Chronicle of Higher Education shares its perspectives with EDU48 chIna ROLLS OUt thE WELcOME Mat FOR FOREIGn StUDEntSBy Mary Hennock

51 haRDLY a RInGInG EnDORSEMEnt FOR aUStRaLIa By Susan Woodward

timeout54 bOOkS55 GIzMOS & GaDGEtS

40

59

Credible schools are seeking partnerships in Africa”—Enase OkonedoDean, Lagos Business School, Nigeria

32


legacY56 PRaSanta chanDRa MahaLanObISA renowned Indian scientist and applied satistician, is best known for his discovery—Mahalanobis Distance

this index is provided as an additional service. the publisher does not assume

any liabilities for errors or omissions.

ADVERTISER INDEX scientech iFc

inventi 14-15

Agilent technolgies bc

BREAKING THE

MOULD

VOLUME 03 ISSUE 09 50A 9.9 MEDIA PUBLICATION

SEPTEMBER 2012WWW.EDU-LEADERS.COM

Autonomous colleges are breaking away from their parent universities and raising the bar for themselves and others Pg 16

Prof PB Sharma, VC, Delhi Technological University

EDU SURVEY A preview of EDU survey on

achieving institutional excellence P28

DIALOGUE Enase Okonedo, Dean, Lagos Business School, on business

education in Africa P32

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MaNagiNg DirecTor: Pramath raj SinhaPUBLiSHiNg DirecTor: anuradha Das MathurMaNagiNg eDiTor: Smita Polite

copYdeskMaNagiNg eDiTor: Sangita Thakur VarmaSUB eDiTor: radhika Haswani

designSr creaTiVe DirecTor: Jayan K Narayanan arT DirecTor: anil VK aSSociaTe arT DirecTor: atul DeshmukhSr ViSUaLiSer: Manav Sachdev ViSUaLiSerS: Prasanth Tr, anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr DeSigNerS: Sristi Maurya & NV Baiju DeSigNerS: Suneesh K, Shigil N, charu Dwivedi raj Verma, Peterson ,Prameesh Purushothaman c & Midhun Mohan cHief PHoTograPHer: Subhojit Paul Sr PHoTograPHer: Jiten gandhi

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pRoduction & logisticsSr gM oPeraTioNS: Shivshankar M. HiremathMaNager oPeraTioNS: rakesh Upadhyay aSST. MaNager - LogiSTicS: Vijay Menon execUTiVe LogiSTicS: Nilesh ShiravadekarProDUcTioN execUTiVe: Vilas MhatreLogiSTicS: MP Singh and Mohamed ansari

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16 the autonomous badge autonomous colleges are daring to carve their own path by raising the bar and setting new benchmarks by charu bahri

20 Raising the barProf Murali Manickam, Principal, Presidency college, chennai, tells eDU why autonomous status of the college has proven to be good

24 taking the leapProf PB Sharma, Vice chancellor of Delhi Technological University (DTU) tells eDU why autonomy matters


from the world of higher education


05 Vacant 05 uniform 06 test 06 uniVersity

07 awarded 07 session & more

proposal The University Grants Commission (UGC) has proposed set-ting up of regional centres of educational management in the Indian Insti-tutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Bangalore, and in the National University of Educational Planning and Administration.

The Commission has also proposed creating centres of excellence in sci-ence and mathematics education at the Indian Institute of Science and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for development of a specialised cadre of teacher-educators.

A proposal presentation was made at the Consultative Committee Meeting of HRD Ministry recently. Addressing the meeting, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said that the National Mission on Education through ICT would address cur-rent and urgent issues such as supply of qualified teachers, attracting talent in the teaching profession and raising the quality of teaching across Indian schools and colleges.

UGC to Improve Teaching QualityCommission proposes centres of education management across national-level institutions to improve teaching skills

CoMMITTED: HRD Minister Kapil Sibal at the Consultative Committee Meeting said that technology will be leveraged to improve teaching

ShETyE TO BE nEw GOa varSiTy vcSatish Shetye, the Director of

National Institute of Oceanog-

raphy (NIO), has been appoint-

ed the new Vice Chancellor of

Goa University (GU). Shetye,

who replaces Dileep Deobag-

kar, is one of the two selected for

the distinguished alumnus award

of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Bombay, for 2006. He took over as NIO

director in 2004. Shetye has been asked to

take charge with immediate effect as his ten-

ure at NIO ends in October 2012.

iGnOu GETS a nEw vcProf Gopinath Pradhan has taken over as the

new Vice Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National

Open University (IGNOU). Pradhan, 60, joined

IGNOU in 1993 and was the director of the

University’s School of Social Sciences (SOSS)

since 2010. A professor of economics, he was

associated with the National Institute of Pub-

lic Finance and Policy, New Delhi, prior to his

association with the IGNOU. Several research

papers by Pradhan have been published in

national and international journals.

PP MaThur iS vc Of KiiTDr PP Mathur has been appointed as

the Vice Chancellor of the Bhubaneswar-

based Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technol-

ogy (KIIT). Prior to this appointment, he

was working as the Dean of the School of

Life Sciences and Bioinformatics at the

Pondicherry University.

KIIT is a co-educational, autonomous univer-

sity located at Bhubaneswar in the Indian

state of Orissa. It was one of the youngest

institutions to be awarded the deemed uni-

versity status in India and then the university

status in 2004, and is also a Limca Book of

Records holder. KIIT was established in 1992

as an Industrial Training Institute with only 12

students and two faculty members.

update


globalupdate

unIforM Oxford University has changed its strict laws governing academic dress code which was perceived as being unfair towards transgender students. Under the new rules, gender specific ceremonial clothing is no longer compulsory on formal occasions like taking exams or attending formal functions. Now men can wear skirts and stockings and women suits and bow ties. The law was passed by the student union following a motion put up by the university’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer society (LGBTQ Soc). Jess Pum-phrey, LGBTQ Soc’s executive officer, said the change would make students experience less stress.

Oxford University said: “The regulations have been amended to remove any reference to gender, in response to concerns raised by Oxford University Student Union that the existing regulations did not serve the inter-ests of transgender students.” Simone Webb, President of LGBTQ Soc, said: “This is an extremely positive step, and indeed long overdue.”

Oxford University Changes Dress Code

VaCanT Most of the posts reserved for teachers from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) are lying vacant in 40 central universities across the country. Figures from the Ministry of Human Resource Develop-ment (HRD) show that less than a third (29%) of the total sanctioned posts for SCs have been filled in 40 central univer-sities. Of the total of 2,521 sanctioned SC posts, only 742 have been filled. For STs, out of 1,265 sanctioned posts, only 331 (26%) have been filled. In Jamia Millia Islamia, only 58 of the 124 sanctioned posts for SCs have been fi l led. For STs, the university has 62 sanc-tioned posts, of which only 17 have been filled. The situation is worse in the Aligarh Muslim University. It has only

Vacant Teaching Posts in VarsitiesMost of the vacancies are in the reserved categories in the 40 central universities

transgenders in a survey (Morton 2008) experienced transphobic harrassment

62%transgender people live in the UK (GIRES)500,000

one SC teacher, and not a single ST teacher against the sanctioned number of 283 for SC and 142 for STs.

Delhi University has 255 posts for SCs and 128 for STs. But appointments have been made for only 44 SC and 14 ST seats. In Jawaharlal Nehru Univer-sity, 109 posts have been sanctioned for SCs and 62 for STs. The university has, however, hired only 24 SC and 46 ST teachers for these posts. The Indira Gandhi National Open University has filled up only 28 of the 67 sanctioned posts for SCs and 13 of the 33 posts for STs. The situation is however better in

the central universities in Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, with the institutions filling up more than 90 per cent of the vacancies for SCs and STs.

Empty: Central universities are struggling with an acute shortage of faculty members


upDaTE

TEsT After implementation of com-mon entrance examination for IITs, the Ministry of human resource develop-ment (MHRD) is working on a single entrance test for undergraduate pro-grammes for central universities across country.

According to sources, Vice chancellors’ of the cen-tral universi t ies have agreed to work towards a common entrance exami-nation for admission.

The proposed examina-tion plan was discussed during the Vice Chancel-lor’s Retreat which was held recently at Chandi-garh. Sources informed

Common Test Plan for VarsitiesVice Chancellor of Central University of Tamil Nadu, BP Sanjay, will chalk out the policy document explaining the proposed test

that broad-ly concerns related to issues such as the scale o f t h e e x a m i n a -

tion, the impact on the qual-ity of students.

At present, there are 42 central universities in the country. Out of which, seven central universities—Bihar, Jammu, Jharkhand, Kashmir, Kerala, Rajasthan and Tami l Nadu—are already carrying out a limit-ed common entrance test.

According to a report, the task of pre-paring a policy document and explaining the proposed examination, has been entrusted to the Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Tamil Nadu, BP Sanjay. The ministry has also made it clear that minority central universities like the Aligarh Muslim University and some others such as the Indian Mari-time University may opt out of partici-pating in the common examination.

CET: A single entrance examination for admission to 42 central universities is on anvil

42 central

varsities to fall within the purview of

the CET

unIVErsITy To promote the research and education in

the field of Dental Medical Science, the Delhi government is

planning to upgrade Maulana Azad Institute of Dental

Sciences (MAIDS) as a university.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced that the

state government is all set to upgrade MAIDS as a full-

fledged university. The government is searching a land for

its expansion.

Dikshit made this announcement while unveiling

the statue of Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, in the

MAIDS campus.

Dikshit said, “We want to upgrade the Maulana Azad Insti-

tute of Dental Sciences as a full-fledged university and the

vacant land adja-

cent to the existing

institute may be

used for the expan-

sion.”

She a lso sa id

there would be

more emphasis on

research and all

nine departments

are likely to be given a facelift by adding more staff and

space to them. Currently, the institute faces an acute short-

age of staff and space in proportion to the number of

patients it treats.

Pointing to the importance of the institute, the chief min-

ister stated that in the last fiscal, MAIDS saw a footfall of

close to 2.5 lakh patients.

Capital to Get a Dental School Soon

EVEnT upDaTE


upDaTE

voices“With over 60 mn net-users in India being in age group of 18 to 35

years, educational-related search queries are

exploding on Google. Internet today is the biggest catchment area for the youth”—Rajan anandan,Vice President and Managing director, Google India

“Students, interested in financial marketing, can advance from the

basics to a higher level through e-learning. After completing

their courses, they can seek employment in investment, risk, market advisory and consultancy roles”— U VenkataRaMan, executive director, MCX Stock exchange

“We are going progressing from what was before through

the MOOC and there will be something else to look

at in the future. The idea is to take control of your own learning by creating a network of interactivity” — StePhen downeS,Researcher, nRC

awarDED Ashoke Sen, a scientist at the Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, has been awarded with the Fundamental Physics Prize. He will be one of the nine scientists who will receive the inaugural prize, launched by a Russian physicist-turned-internet investor. Sen has already received the $3-million prize for pioneering work on Str ing Theory, an a t tempt to uni fy the theories of gravity and quantum mechanics.

Sen, a graduate from Cal-cutta University, obtained his Master’s from the Indi-an Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a Doctorate from the State University of New York. He has been a professor at the Harish

sEssIon Addressing a function, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said, “We will start a new academic journey with School of Economics and Management and School of Information Technology.” Stressing on increased Public Private Partnership for building the university, Sen lauded the efforts of the Centre as well as the Bihar Government for giving shape to the uni-versity, located in the town of Rajgir which contains within it a memory of the ancient Nalanda University. It may be recalled that Nalanda University was established in November 2010. It came into being by a special Act of the Indian Parliament, a testi-mony to the important status it occupies in the Indian intellectual landscape. Member, University’s mentor group, Sugata Bose said the university has approved 26 faculty positions, 13 each for School of Historical Studies and 13 for School of Environment and Ecological Studies and the faculty will be appointed by July, 2013.

Ashoke Sen Awarded the Fundamental Physics PrizeSen is one of nine scientists recognised for his contributions to the study of physics

Chancellor of University, Amartya Sen, sets 2014 deadline for two schools

Chandra Research Institute since 1995. Sen received the Padma Shree in 2001 and the SS Bhatnagar Award in 1994. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1998, and to the Indian National Science Academy in 1995.

The other inaugural recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize are American-Canadian Nima Arkani-

Hamed, American Alan Guth, Russian-American Alexei Kitaev, Russian M a x i m K o n s t e v i c h , R u s s i a n - A m e r i c a n Andrei Linde, Argentinian Juan Maldacena, Israeli A m e r i c a n N a t h a n Seiberg and American Edward Witten.

Like Sen, all are star fundamental physicists.

3 mn dollars have

been rewarded to Sen for his contribution

to physics

Nalanda to Start Session from 2014

Viewpoint MJ Xavier


Education to Become Truly Priceless

After Harvard (http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative) and MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm), a group of four universities (Stanford, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Michigan), under a new banner, Coursera, is now offering a wide array of courses, for free (https://www.coursera.org/ courses). One of the famous Stanford professors, Sebastian Thrun, had earlier offered a course on Artificial intelligence, enrolling a record 2,00,000 students. Now he is independently offering a variety of courses on computer science, (http://www.udacity.com/). There is some very good mate-rial online on Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/). There is cur-rently a very good course on machine learning—Learning from Data at Caltech at https://telecourse.caltech.edu/ with free take-home-assignments and exams.

Online learning gives millions of students access to the world’s best teachers. Thousands of students have taken accounting classes from Nor-man Nemrow of Brigham Young University, robotics classes from Sebastian Thrun of Stanford and physics from Walter Lewin of MIT.

What’s new is that they are giving it a more organised form with the use of LMS (Learning Management Systems) and e-learning tools. If you are willing to pay for these courses they will give a degree as well. Most people think that it is great for anyone to have access to great courses and good professors. Consequently, priceless edu-cation is truly becoming price-less (free).

impact on indiaAccording to David Brooks (http://www.pressdemo-crat.com/article/), online learning could extend the influence of US universities around the world. India alone hopes to build tens of thousands col-leges over the next decade. Curricula from the US schools could permeate those institutions.

As such, we are using American textbooks and case studies in Indian institutions. If courses by star professors of the US universities are available for free on the web, why would an Indian student

Top newspapers could not become top TV news channels. Top news channels are not there on top social media sites. The same is sure to happen in education with the increasing popularity of the

online platform. Top universities of today are not likely to be the top online education providers. I call it the Googlisation of education.

MJ Xavier Viewpoint


want to listen to someone who reads and vomits from American books?

Are we headed in the direction of magazines and newspapers? At the drop of a hat, we raise fees. How long will Indian students tolerate the rising fees for quality education? Once quality education becomes available on the web, students may not patronise institutions of higher learning in India.

Once these online courses get recognised by corporate India, will the the mad rush for quality institutions such as IIMs and IITs be reduced? Already questions are being raised about the qual-ity of teachers in higher learning institutions in India.

Rigour of online educationThere are several questions that haunt the minds of the students and the educators alike. Will aca-demic standards be as rigorous online? How are they going to blend online information with face-to-face discussions, tutoring, debate, coaching, writing and projects?

Online education has come a long way from the time Phoenix University in the US started online education in 1987. The technologies have changed and so have delivery methods. The costs have come down too.

Distance learning started with sending self-learning books and materials directly to the stu-dents. Students were expected to read on their own and appear in examinations. Later the same reading materials became available as soft copies sent through email. Over a period of time, record-ed lessons in CDs, known as CBTs (Computer- b a s e d Tr a i n i n g ) s t a r t e d b e i n g u s e d . It offered several advantages over traditional class-room learning methods and self-taught books. Typically, CBTs contain text and graphics, anima-tion, audio and video. Navigating across lessons and revisions were a lot easier. The tests in CBTs could be timed making it almost real. Then came WBT (Web-based Training) which was basically a subset of CBTs where material was made accessi-ble on the internet by applying web technologies. WBT is also referred to as ‘online courses’ and ‘Web-based instruction’.

In the above methods, content gets pushed to the students and is not interactive. To overcome this, early innovators introduced online text chats with professors who authored the lessons.

What revolutionised online education is the arrival of web conferencing solutions. This allowed for interaction between the professor and students. Though it technically allows for two way

video and audio transfers, there are limitations in the number of students who can simultaneously interact with the teacher. In any case, the teacher can take only one question at a time.

As the technology grows in sophistication, more and more universities will jump onto the online bandwagon. In India, Indira Gandhi Open Uni-versity was set up to offer education in a distance mode. Several universities, such as Annamalai University, and Sikkim Manipal University jumped into the fray and made a lot of money. On seeing the success of these universities, most other universities have also started offering pro-grammes through the distance mode. Even top B-schools like IIM Calcutta, IIM Kozhikode, XLRI Jamshepur and several others offer programmes in the distance mode.

The problem is that online education is consid-ered as an inferior cousin of traditional education. Online education provides a back door entry for those who cannot make it to leading institutions through competitive examinations. Also there are concerns on how to impart morals and values through online education. Training for soft skills can still be done better through traditional learn-ing. Despite these shortcomings, online educa-tion keeps growing in size day by day.

Changing Face of educationThe rise in the popularity of online education is due to many factors, such as:

a. The rising cost of higher education coupled

“The problem is that online education is considered as an inferior cousin of traditional education. Online education provides a back door entry for those who cannot make it to leading institutions through competitive examinations”

Viewpoint MJ Xavier


with high demand is forcing many aspirants to join online courses.

b. The shortage of good teachers is resulting in deterioration of quality in higher education. The gap between traditional and online education is getting narrowed.

c. With the advancement in technology, online education is expected to become as good as tradi-tional classroom education.

Online education is not an extension of tradi-tional education. It is a new paradigm. It is almost like the tectonic shifts that we are witnessing in the field of mass media; like newspaper to televi-sion to social media. The best newspapers failed to gain visibility on TV news channels and the popu-lar TV channels could not manage to grab eyeballs on the online space. The producers and consum-ers are the same in social media sites. News has completely become free due to the ecosystem that creates and consumes news in social media.

Guru-centric educationTo deliver education online several people have to come together: teachers, content creators, soft-ware suppliers (assessment tools, learning man-

agement solutions, e-learning platforms), hard-ware suppliers (cameras, smart boards, audio equipment, servers, cloud owners), e-book suppli-ers, sellers of educational aids (laptop computers, e-booksellers and stationary sellers), study centre operators and broadband suppliers. Even today, more than 40 per cent of the fees at leading institu-tions are shared with those supplying the e-learn-ing infrastructure and the study centre operators.

This is just the beginning. As the ecosystem matures, there will be several people offering their platforms free of cost for the teachers to host their courses. The revenue models too will take a new turn. Education will truly become guru-centric with the popular courses that get maximum hits attracting many advertisers who sell learning aids and related products online. The best teachers will be able to reach maximum number of students across the world. The ad revenues will get shared between the platform provider and the teachers who author the lessons. The priceless education will then, truly become priceless.

Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/content/newsletters

Author’s BIoDr MJ Xavier, Director of the IIM Ranchi, has more than 25 years of professional experience in teaching, research, and consultancy. His areas of interest include Marketing Research, Data Mining, e-Governance and he has authored three books and published more than 100 articles in journals and magazines in India and abroad

Pushkar Viewpoint


Why Location Matters

For three years, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar bickered over the location of Bihar’s central university. Sibal’s prefer-ence was for Gaya while Kumar wanted the university at Motihari in north Bihar. Sibal’s reasoning was that Gaya is a more accessible city with better infrastructure and therefore better suited for a central university. For Kumar, since Gaya is already home to Magadh University, it was more appropriate to build the new university in Motihari.

At least some of the disagreement was political in nature and was eventually settled earlier in June when Sibal agreed to set up two central uni-versities, in Gaya and Motihari respectively. This compromise left an important question unan-swered: Who was right about the location of the new university? Is it preferable to locate universi-ties in or around larger urban centres or in small-er towns or even rural areas with the expectation that they will become the engines of local develop-ment? Did Sibal’s insistence on Gaya fit with his government’s choice of locating the upcoming Nalanda International University at Rajgir which is quite far from and poorly connected to the any large city?

Location can be all that matters for a successful or less successful university in terms of its broad appeal for students. All else being equal, a univer-sity located in or near a big city is likely to be favoured by prospective students over another in a small town. In modernising India, it is reason-able for the young and their parents to favour good education in combination with the ameni-ties and pleasures of what urban India has on offer over the beauty of the countryside. Location

As India goes about setting up new universities and colleges across the country, location has become a key problem especially for public institutions—for reasons other than politics. From issues

of connectivity, slow pace of infrastructure development, students’ reluctance, faculty crunch to a plethora of other reasons, India must pause and contemplate its choice of venues before it goes about setting up universities in remote areas.

Viewpoint Pushkar


also matters if India’s new institutions want to attract high-quality faculty who constitute the backbone of any institution. There is strong evi-dence that what separates the best institutions from the rest is the quality of its faculty.

Attracting Right FacultyIn their book The Road to Academic Excellence, Philip Altbach and Jamil Salmi examined the efforts of 10 universities from around the world (including IIT Mumbai) to become high-quality institutions. Their general conclusion was that a lot of ingredients go into the making of a success-ful university—including resources, autonomy, leadership and good governance, vision and plan-ning, ability to attract competitive students, luck and persistence—but the quality of faculty is cru-cial. The recruitment of high-quality faculty, they argue, induces a virtuous cycle so that such insti-tutions attract the brightest and the best students and other good things follow.

The book tells the story of the Hong Kong Uni-versity of Science and Technology (HKUST) which, after its birth in 1991, took just over two decades to become one of the top-ranked universi-ties in the world. This has happened in India too, though in the private sector. The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, made it to the list of top 20 business schools in a decade or so.

If we agree that the quality of faculty is crucial to an institution’s appeal among students as well as to the building of superior institutions, the obvi-ous question is how to recruit them.

Leaving aside more obvious factors such as money, India’s institutions are at a tremendous disadvantage in their search for faculty. Two of these have to do with supply and competition.

It is widely acknowledged that there is a short-age of qualified faculty in India. Different num-bers are in circulation but shortages are said to

range from 20 to 40 per cent. A recent estimate put the deficit at around 20-25 per cent for the IITs and the IIMs but the numbers are certainly higher at the new ones in less preferred locations. The shortage is more serious than it seems for those institutions—especially brand institutions like the IITs and the IIMs—that aim to rise above the rest and count as world class.

India’s institutions must compete for faculty at two levels within the constraints of poor supply. First, public institutions have to compete domestically with the many new private universities. Second, they must contend with the more globalised competition for faculty, especial ly those trained at Western institutions.

One of the newer developments in India is the growth of respectable private institutions. This has given qualified faculty more choices than ever before. Lesser located IITs and IIMs are reported to be losing out in their search for young faculty to better paying private institutions located in or around India’s metros.

Location especially matters in countries like India because of the immense differences in the level of development and quality of life across states and between the largest cities and smaller urban centres. It is unlikely that the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, would be able to attract world-class faculty if it was located in Bareilly or Bhagalpur. Most states have poor infra-structure, especially outside the larger cities but often within them as well. With the possible exception of the NCR, the pace at which infra-structural improvements are taking place in Indi-an cities, as anyone from Bengaluru, Mumbai or Patna will tell you, is painfully slow.

At the same time, it is necessary to build some new institutions in less-than-ideal locations. In China, most public universities are located in the largest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai or in provincial capitals which puts them in a good position to attract qualified faculty. However, Lan Xue, the Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University—which fig-ures in the world’s top 50 universities—recently expressed concern that smaller cities may be missing out on the benefits of development because they lack good educational institutions.

In contrast, the Indian government has set up many new institutions at distant locations. The problem is that even the brand institutions are coming up at a typically Indian pace and the development of local infrastructure, including good connectivity to larger cities, will be even

“A university located in or near a big city is likely to be favoured by prospective students over another in a small town”

Pushkar Viewpoint


slower. Therefore, it may be a few years before these new institutions will become more appealing to faculty or students than similar schools located in Pune or Mohali.

If the goal is not simply to build new institutions but also those which can go on to become world-class centres for teaching and research, the battle is nearly lost unless corrective measures are taken quickly. Otherwise, many of India’s new institu-tions will simply become places which young Indi-ans will attend when other options don’t exist and exit as quickly as they can, contributing little to local development.

tough CompetitionIndia’s new institutions also have to compete for faculty—especially for Indians with degrees from Western universities—with Western institu-tions as well as other new institutions that are com-ing up in Asia and the Middle East. Many Western universities already have campuses in non-Western locations. New York University has recently set up a branch in Abu Dhabi. Yale University and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have set up the Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Similarly,

Qatar is building and consolidating higher education institutions.

Other than salaries, the biggest difference between such non-Western locations and India is their significantly superior infrastructure and the better quality of life afforded by the routine avail-ability of public goods—whether water, electricity, transport or general cleanliness. It would be asking for a miracle for India to enable easy access to basic public goods when even the metros afford them only in gated communities and at relatively high costs.

What India can do in the face of the challenges posed by competition is choose the location of new institutions more carefully and/or build local infra-structure at a better pace. If the goal is to build world-class institutions, they must be located in or around larger cities. If the goal is more modest – that of building institutions in neglected parts of the country for building access to quality education or to spur local development—it is still necessary to do better in developing suitable infrastructure.

Author’s BIoPushkar has a PhD in political science (McGill University) and previously taught at the University of Goa, Concordia University, McGill University and the University of Ottawa. His blogs on higher education in India have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education


Inve ntI adve r to r Ial


Can you tell us more about the your experience at the event?

The invitation to this event came to me as one of the big-gest surprises I ever had. The organizers had identified 40 persons from around the world and just 1 from India., They par-ticularly appreciated my work on Academia-Industry linkage which included a DST funded study and database, TIFAC-CORE and my very unique model of col-laborating with the industry My co-speakers included the likes of John Sulston (2005 Medicine Nobel) and Dr Yamazaki (Presi-dent SEL, Japan & Guinness Record Holder for Patenting – holds over 7000 US and Japa-nese patents).

How do you see the Indian prospects in innovation?

Sadly, we are bad and getting worse. On the Global Innovation Index we rank 62nd and in the last one year we have slipped 6 ranks. On the other hand, China rose 14 steps in 2011 to the 29th position. It is due to lack of inno-vativeness that none of our uni-versities figure in top 100 of the world. Another issue is our abys-mally poor patenting culture. In 2011 while 400 thousand patents were filed in China, we filed less

than 40 thousand. However, India does have tremendous potential to emerge as a global innovation hotspot.

Where does the problem lie?

Dr Gupta: The biggest problem lies in our attitude and educa-tion system. We are extremely risk-averse and this fear of failureprevents us from being innovative. Our education system was primarily designed to create clerks and we are still carrying forward the same instruction and examination centric system.. . This existing system can never create enterprising minds.. This prevailing lopsided structure can be deduced from the funding pattern as well. While any good institution should drive signifi-cant fund from knowledge-com-mercialisation, a true measure of the innovativeness, our institutions mostly drive their revenue either from tuition (self-financed) or grants (govern-ment funded).

According to you what needs to be done to fix this problem?

There are two sets of things that could effectively boosts inno-vativeness in our country – 1: Creation of an innovation

ecosystem, and 2: Educational reforms. If we could create an ecosystem of hand-holding innovators from idea genera-tion, research and development, financing and mentoring to the final step of commercialisation the pace of advancement would be much greater.. However, because of the massive privati-sation in the education sector, it can move on its own without hav-ing to depend on the Government

What is the single-point-schema that you would to suggest to the institutions to trigger innovativeness in their campuses?

Innovativeness can be trig-gered in any institution without allocating big amounts of mon-

ies! If I were to identify one trig-ger it would be massive exposure to patents. Patents, which are tools for protecting innovations, are also, a wonderful source of information. Unfortunately, in India, students and teachers do not rely as much on patents for their information as they do on books and journals HEIs in India need to aggressively expose their faculty and students to patents. This would help the faculty and the students develop a taste for the intellectual property and out-of-the-box-thinking. (Dr VB Gupta participated in the event ‘How do Scientists, Companies and Society gets the best out of Collaboration between Univer-sities and Industries?’ at Stockholm

Innovativeness: A must-have for Indian HEIs Dr VB Gupta, Director, BRNCP TIFAC Centre of relevance and excellence, Mandsaur on his recent participation at a Stockholm event on industry academia collaboration

Inve ntI adve r to r Ial


...we can TRIGGER INNOVATIVENESS in your campus

Call (or SMS ‘INC’) 09827099512/ 09425536487 or write to [email protected]

Inventi-NovoTrail Consortiumwww.IndiaInnovationProgram.in | www.Inventi.in | www.NovoTrail.in

COVER STORY Autonomy

16 EduTEch September 201216 EduTEch September 2012

Murali Manickam Principal, Presidency College, Chennai


Autonomous colleges stand out from the crowd for daring to carve out their own path. Affiliated to a university, they break away from the stranglehold of their parent in search of freedom and commitment to quality. By doing so, they raise the bar by setting new benchmarks for others to follow. The autonomous status is the badge that distinguishes a college from being one-among-many to one-of-a-kind


BY ChaRu BahRi

Design by raj verma

BreakFree

Story Name COVER STORY

PB SharmaVice Chancellor, Delhi Technological University



he Indian university sys-tem, started with the establishment of the univer-sities of Mumbai, Madras and Calcutta in 1857. It is akin to the solar system model, wherein a cen-tral sun, read university, shines upon many sur-rounding planets, that is, affiliated colleges. The university takes on the mantle of guide, supervi-sor and impartial external examining body, and award degrees on behalf of its few constituent col-leges. Arguably, this simpler format would have been seen as easier to adopt for the country at the dawn of the age of modern higher education, when the more pressing issue was to create high-er education infrastructure to prepare Indians to take up civil administrative posts and become doctors and lawyers.

The affiliation system also furthers the goals of higher education in India—to be accessible to the masses and to adhere to prescribed minimum quality standards. “Contrary to creating islands of excellence for an elite group of people, the affilia-tion system focusses on the larger picture, on maintaining minimum standards for the maxi-mum number of people,” observes Nandita Nara-in, Head & Associate Professor, Mathematics, St. Stephen’s College.

Drawbacks of affiliationAffiliation is essentially an inclusive approach to higher education in practice. Clearly, this has undisputed benefits for a country like India. But it also has drawbacks. Homogenising colleges, that is, clubbing together all the affiliated institutes of a university disregards the inherent strengths of the leaders and the weaknesses of the laggards. This adversely affects the development of the best colleges, the older, established colleges having the potential to raise education standards beyond the prescribed minimum standard for affiliated col-

leges. Affiliation is thus stifling for colleges with ambition. It precludes them from modernising the curricula as they deem fit; establishing inno-vative assessment systems; starting courses without taking umpteen permissions; renaming, restructuring and redesigning courses; and so on.

Affiliation also fails to promote the best educa-tion pedagogy—as is evident from the adverse feedback Indian higher education has been draw-ing from the industry and from its direct beneficiaries. Industry criticism revolves around the system not measuring up in producing employment-ready graduates. Here, rote learning is at fault, yet it is the mainstay of the affiliation methodology entailing the adoption of a pre- set curriculum and evaluating learning by knowledge regurgitation.

Looking back to the global dawn of higher edu-cation, rote learning became popular as an unde-manding academic pedagogy fit for preparing individuals for standardised jobs like civil admin-istration, medicine, and law. Then and now, this method would fall short in providing students a holistic understanding of the world around and the faculties to think, question, criticise, and anal-yse—vital skills in today’s complex business arena. The development of such faculties man-dates true academic freedom in the collegiate model sense, wherein knowledge is taught for the sake of knowledge and its application to solve social challenges (research) and for the stimula-tion of productive thinking.

autonomy = academic FreedomAs far back as 1966, the Education Commission saw autonomy as the way forward, to steer Indian higher education in the right direction. It recom-mended college autonomy as an instrument for

T


Autonomy COVER STORY

allowing teachers to exercise academic freedom, which in turn would develop the intellectual cli-mate in the country. Autonomy truly recognises that teachers (and managements and students) are co-partners in raising the quality of higher education and puts on them the onus of doing so.

Recogising autonomous colleges as a desirable addition to the higher education structure, the National Policy on Education (1986-92) formulat-ed objectives outlining the freedom that would be granted to autonomous colleges. Such colleges could frame their courses of study and syllabi; establish admission rules in keeping with the res-ervation policy of the state government; evolve methods of assessment of students performance, conduct of examinations and notification of results; use technology tools to achieve higher standards and greater creativity in delivering edu-cation; and promote healthy practices such as community service, extension activities, projects for the benefit of the society at large, neighbour-hood programmes, etc.

In the Indian academic frame, autonomy is thus synonymous with academic freedom, the means to produce industry-ready manpower and individuals prepared to take on meaningful roles in society. Harcourt Butler Technological Institute (HBTI), Kanpur, a long-time autonomous college under the Gautam Buddha Technical University, is among the country’s premier institutes that offer specialist chemical technology. Professor JSP Rai, Director, HBTI, says autonomy has made possible its job-oriented curricula and deep ties with industry.

Opting for autonomyGaining academic freedom is the over-riding rea-son why colleges in India are seeking the autono-mous status. Principal of the recently made autonomous KJ Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce, Dr Sudha Vyas, says, “We applied for autonomy because we wanted to provide our stu-dent with a broader understanding of subjects and thereby, with greater opportunities. Autono-my allows us to design a syllabus that focuses on academics as well as on experiential learning and to tailor it with industry requirements and stan-dards. In bridging the gap between what organisa-tions expect from their employees and what is being taught in colleges, we would thus give our students an advantage when they enter the employment market. Autonomy also allows us

the freedom to set up accurate assessment stan-dards to test the knowledge and aptitude students assimilate over the academic year.”

Autonomy was seen as the next logical step in the evolution of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, which was granted autonomy in 2010. Principal Dr Frazer Mascarenhas SJ explains, “We felt that we had already reached the height of quality in higher education in the non-autonomous affiliat-ed system and since the autonomous system had borne much fruit in colleges in the south for about 30 years, we felt that it would be good to seek such academic freedom. We were also encouraged by many alumni and others who felt that we owed it to Indian academia to make this transition. In 2006, the NAAC committee recom-mended that we apply for autonomy as well.”

“Contrary to creating

islands of excellence for

an elite group...affiliation

system focusses on the

larger picture...”

Nandita Narain

Head, Mathematics, St Stephen’s College



The change in status means that St Xavier’s is now free to adopt the Bloom’s Taxonomy and other such pedagogical practices that encourage critical thinking and application, and also to introduce a more authentic assessment system. When it applied for autonomy, the prevailing evaluation system of the University of Mumbai encouraged rote learning, as the degree was based on one set of exams conducted at the end of the three year course. The university has since shifted to the Con-tinuous Internal Assessment and Credit System but Dr Mascarenhas is looking to take St Xavier’s a step ahead: “Assessment should not only be con-tinuous but should also reflect the teaching-learn-ing in the classroom with the particular group of students and teachers. This is not easy in the non-autonomous system where there is one exam for all the colleges in the university.”

Positive ResultsAutonomy could be a godsend for the Indian high-er education system that is floundering amid accu-sations of failing to meet market needs. It allows colleges to train students to think beyond books and encourage experimentation with new ideas. Conferring the autonomy status on a greater num-ber of colleges would reduce the workload of uni-

versities since autonomous colleges exe-cute themselves of many of the functions that the university hitherto performed. In fact, the questionable fall in university standards with the unprecedented expan-sion of colleges is another drawback of the affiliation system that autonomy could possibly stem.

When affiliation came into being, the education sector was confined. Each uni-versity had precious few colleges to nur-ture and monitor. Consider the University of Delhi as an example. It had merely three affiliated colleges when it was established in 1922–St Stephens College founded in 1881, Hindu College founded in 1899 and Ramjas

College founded in 1917. Today, 25 colleges are affiliated to the University’s South Campus while another 40 are to the North Campus. If colleges offering professional courses are included as well, the number of affiliated institutes goes up to 77. The administrative and financial maintenance of these colleges is split between the university, gov-erning trusts and the Delhi Government.

The situation pan-India has changed drastically since the expansion of higher education facilities hit top gear. The number of colleges has soared

25 colleges are affiliated to

Delhi University’s South Campus while another

40 are affiliated to the North Campus

PB SharmaVice Chancellor, DTU



The concept of autonomous colleges must be encouraged. Autonomy holds the key for excellence in education and research and for industry relevant innovations.

Autonomous colleges are conferred the vital freedom to excel with the prescribed legislative structure providing sufficient checks and balances to ensure accountability and align the framework of autonomy for excellence, relevance and social responsibility.

The need for autonomy arises from the fact that affiliating universities in India are fat (large), both in terms of the large number of affiliated colleges and their own multi-faculties. Also, it is an open secret that large affiliating universities in the country are riddled with campus politics and hyperactive teacher and staff associations.

The university administration remains engaged in fire-fighting and has little or no time

for educational innovations for the promotion of quality, relevance and excellence. Not surprisingly, such universities exhibit a lack

of focused attention on professional education and world quality research in areas of high relevance to the country. So, contrary to being averse to making select colleges autonomous, the parent

university should go all out to promote the concept as autonomous colleges become a source of pride for it, for the

innovations they bring in educational programmes,

examination reforms and for promoting research and innovations in thrust areas. If the college goes on to seed a university, what greater honour could there be for the parent university?

The Government of Delhi granted DCE, an affiliated college of Delhi University, university status through the Delhi Act 6 of 2009. Since then, DTU has made good progress, launching new undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in emerging industry-relevant areas of engineering and technology—such as nano-science and technology, VLSI design & embedded systems, microwave and optical communication, etc. It has also introduced innovations in programme curricula. Student placements are progressing well, new faculty has been taken on, the campus has been made eco-friendly, the industry interface has been strengthened and collaborations for R&D have been entered into with leading R&D organisations and world-class universities in Indian and abroad. Student creativity and engagement in cutting edge research is at an all time high. India’s first solar car designed and developed by DTU students, Solaris, participated in the World Solar Challenge 2011 in Australia. DTU’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle has earned a pride place among top three in a global competition organised by AUVSI at Maryland, USA in June 2012. The next milestone is to compete at the university level, to transform DTU into a world class university.

The pinnacle of evolution for a college is its transformation into a university. Is autonomy the first step towards this aim? Professor PB Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technological University (DTU), tells EDU why autonomy matters

TakingLeapthe



from 5748 in 1990 to 25951 in 2010. This almost fivefold increase in colleges has not been comple-mented with a similar rise in the number of uni-versities–184 to 527 for the corresponding period–and thus, has rendered the affiliation system unwieldy. Keeping tabs on and fulfilling the varied needs of the ever-growing number of affiliated col-leges is one of the biggest challenges universities are facing today. “Thus, autonomy could be one solution to the burden of overworked universities,” agrees Rekha Bahadur, Vice Principal, HR College of Commerce and Economics, albeit with a caveat. “Autonomous institutions must maintain high quality in delivery, which could be enforced by a central body through rankings.”

Then, the University Grants Commission (UGC) position expounded in the Xth Plan profile of high-er education in India, stating that “the only safe and better way to improve the quality of under-graduate education is to de-link most of the col-leges from the affiliating structure” seems the best way forward. It would somewhat reconfigure the federal structure of the university without a major revamp of the higher education system. Colleges would continue to receive financial support from the university; this in turn would boost the concept of autonomy.

Letting GoDuring the Xth Plan, the UGC proposed to increase the number of autonomous colleges to 10 per cent of eligible colleges, that is, all colleges fall-ing under Section 2(f ) and Section 12(B) of the

UGC Act, regulations providing for the recogni-tion of colleges and for making colleges eligible for central assistance from the Government of India or from any organisation receiving funds from the Central Government respectively. Self-financing colleges that have existed for at least 10 years can also apply for autonomy although conferment of autonomy does not entitle them to autonomy grants.

Achieving this vision would depend to a large extent on the willingness of parent universities to foster the concept of autonomy and accept a sub-stantially changed relationship with autonomous colleges. A parent university is bound to accept the methodologies of teaching, examination, evalua-tion and the course curriculum of its autonomous colleges. It is also mandated to assist colleges in developing their academic programmes, improv-ing faculty and by providing necessary guidance by participating in the deliberations of the different bodies of the colleges.

From the look of things, however, some universi-ties are finding it hard to let go of their prized con-stituents. Delhi University (DU), for instance, has been steadfastly rejecting the concept claiming that it aims to make institutions more self-suffi-cient by increasing their resources. Proposals to make DU’s top colleges autonomous have met with stiff resistance from the university. It may have lost Delhi College of Engineering (see box) but it has no plans to let go the likes of St. Ste-phen’s College, Hindu College, LSR College etc. The DU perspective counters the mandate set out

Sudha Vyas

Principal, KJ Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce

“autonomy allows

us to design a

syllabus that focusses

on academics as well

as experiential

learning...”



for universities, in particular, to bring more auton-omous colleges under its fold and to do everything possible to foster the spirit of autonomy.

Along the spectrum are also universities and state governments that have let go but which are finding it hard to completely adhere to the vision of operational freedom for autonomous colleges. UGC provisions require the university to review the management structure of applicant colleges prior to conferring autonomy on them to make sure that it is participatory and provides ample opportunities for academicians to make a creative contribution. The stipulations also outline the composition and functions of the Governing Body, Academic Council, Board of Studies and Finance Committee and list the other committees that an autonomous college should create for the proper management of its academic, financial and admin-istrative affairs. Ample UGC specifications on the one hand and greater faculty and student participa-tion on the other hand are expected to improve the governance of autonomous colleges vis-à-vis affili-ated colleges. “Teachers and students own the sys-tem much more than in affiliated colleges – this makes for better governance. Student representa-tives in the Boards of Study also have a say and therefore can play an important part in decision-making by providing feedback from the student perspective,” opines Dr Mascarenhas.

Flip Side But it isn’t smooth sailing for every autonomous college. “Government interference in administra-tion is a bane of autonomous colleges in the public sector,” claims Professor Rai of HBTI. While UGC provisions clearly permit the parent university to depute nominees to serve in various committees of the autonomous college for better monitoring and the state government to depute nominees to the governing body of a government autonomous col-lege, Professor Rai laments “the appointment of individuals without the proper background or experience as Board members.” But he is hopeful that the situation will improve after a decision was taken last October to allow only eminent educa-tionists to form the governing Boards of autono-mous colleges. That said, autonomous colleges continue to face other challenges.

Autonomous colleges are still dependent on the university and on the state for funding, leading Professor Rai to realistically observe, “Autonomy allows improvisations to the curricula although the paucity of finance may still constrain a college from making all the reforms in academics and assessment that it would like to introduce. The

university also retains the right to make demands on faculty for university administration work.”

Concurring with this, Professor Murali Manick-am, Principal, Presidency College, Chennai, an autonomous college adds, “A university may have a few hundred colleges affiliated to it. As a result, the university becomes more of an examination conducting body than an educational institution. The teaching faculty is pressed into service as camp officers for the central valuation—their precious time is wasted in this administrative work which sometimes extends to say 10 to 15 days per semester.”

The transfer of teachers in government autono-mous colleges is another sticky area. UGC provi-sions clearly state that the state government will avoid, as far as possible, the transfer of teachers, especially in colleges where academic innovation and reforms are in progress, except for need-based

“Autonomy could be

one solution to the

burden of overworked

universities”

Rekha Bahadur

Vice Principal, HR College of Commerce & Economics


Autonomy as a concept for colleges is vital for India. Autonomy allows indigenous skills and brains to be put to use.

Affiliated colleges suffer from being mandated to toe the line of some person sitting miles away, who usually lacks a clear understanding of localised needs. Why should the Academic Council and the Board of Studies of the concerned University based in a city, decide what students in the smaller towns of the region/state will learn? The native situation must reflect in the education syllabi and this is only possible with autonomy. Centralising these aspects of education ignores local resources and requirements.

The need of the hour is for the higher education sector to respond rapidly to industry and society. Swift change calls for a measure of freedom that comes with autonomy. University dependence precludes a college from introducing innovations in terms of syllabi design. College professors have neither the space nor the authority to realise their ideas for the betterment of the education programme.

In taking the lead in introducing innovative methods, autonomous colleges essentially give

competition to the university in every aspect of academics and examination systems. In time, the university has to live up to these changes. Thus, the autonomous colleges raise the bar for education across affiliated colleges.

Other but no less important issues are also better addressed with autonomy. Student rights are best protected in autonomous colleges since grievances can be swiftly addressed and sorted out. Also, autonomous colleges can encourage faculty to take up research and directly approach research organisations such as the DRDO, DST and so on for grants.

It is not as though autonomous colleges become a law unto themselves. We are mandated to follow the University-prescribed norms. For instance the University of Madras outlined 11 mark-sheet security features last year and ordered autonomous colleges to follow at least 5 of these. We have introduced six of these new security features in our examination system to make the process more authentic. These measures covered the system of selecting examiners, the print quality of the question paper, incorporating photo impression on the mark-sheet etc.

Professor Murali Manickam, Principal, Presidency College, Chennai, an autonomous college, tells EDU why its autonomous status has proven to be good and not only for Presidency College

RaisingBarthe

Murali ManickamPrincipal, Presidency College, Chennai




transfers. Yet Professor Manickam notes, “Faculty continuity is the biggest challenge facing an auton-omous college in the government sector. The pos-sibility of faculty being transferred at government will makes it difficult to put down names for research projects, which mandate stability. The research project lead must continue in the office for at least the duration of the project to get the desired results.”

Ongoing EvaluationThe autonomous college status can by no means be equated with a cushy position that bequeaths privileges on the holder. Certainly, autonomous colleges gain certain freedoms and rights. But autonomy is also a huge ongoing responsibility. That the status is not permanent only strengthens this argument. Autonomy is initially granted for a period of six years at the end of which the UGC reviews the per-formance of the college. Standards must be maintained to earn a renewal—this keeps an autonomous college on its toes.

Also, an autonomous college must get itself accredited by the National Assess-ment and Accreditation Council within a period of two years from the date of confer-ment/extension of the status.

The university also reviews the new courses of an autonomous college for evi-dence of a decline in standards or quality, which may require the course to be modi-fied or in the worse case, cancelled. And regulations mandate each autonomous college to formulate an appropriate mechanism to conduct annual self-evaluations to gauge its academic per-formance and the degree of success in the utilisa-tion of autonomy. Teacher evaluation methods in autonomous colleges could include periodical self-evaluation, institutional assessment, student feed-back, research appraisal and other suitable forms.

For these reasons, Dr OG Kakde, Director, Veer-mata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, which has been autonomous since 2004, describes autonomy as a dual-edged feature: “Whereas autonomy confers more authority on the college management as well as the teachers, it also impos-es more responsibility on them to make good. Breaking away from the homogenous mould of the university means taking the reins of education design, delivery and assessment in ones hands. The changeover of status from affiliated to autono-mous calls for a change in mindset and much preparation of the faculty, departments, institu-tion, and students for the task ahead. Autonomy

During the Xth Plan, the UGC proposed to increase the number of

autonomous colleges to

10% of eligible colleges



grants a college the flexibility to structure and restructure its courses in keeping with the needs of society and the industry. However, gaining the ability to make the best use of this flexibility for value addition doesn’t happen overnight. Teachers especially must be prepared because their workload increases after the grant of autono-my—in terms of syllabi design, continuous student assessments and the responsibility for conducting examinations.”

Declining autonomyIn other words, the conferment of the autonomous

status comes with a mantle of responsibility. Is this the reason why some colleges that undoubtedly constitute the crème de la crème prefer to remain part of the larger system?

HR College of Commerce and Economics was granted autonomy in 2007 from the UGC, making it the first college to have achieved the status in the University of Mumbai’s 150 year history. The college chose to turn down autonomy. Vice Princi-pal Professor Rekha Bahadur explains why: “Because the Maharashtra rules are different from the UGC rules for autonomy so we are waiting for the state to adopt the UGC’s new rules for autonomy.” She does not believe that this move has adversely impacted HR College of Com-merce and Economics because it has still intro-duced innovations within the university prescribed curriculum.

As much as proposals to make St. Stephen’s Col-lege autonomous have been floated, Dr Karen Gabriel, Media Coordinator & Associate Professor, Department of English, St Stephen’s College, affirms that St Stephens is not contemplating autonomy at this point in time.

Elucidating the pluses of being part of a larger academic setup vis-à-vis becoming an autonomous college, Professor Narain of St Stephen’s College says, “Being part of a larger system provides affili-ated colleges an academic audit of sorts. Student assessment on a broader anonymous platform gives a college an idea of its relevant standing in the university. This isn’t possible in an isolated col-lege. Also, interacting with teachers from other affiliated colleges provides faculty with a healthy learning experience. Coming together perforce to exchange ideas to frame syllabi and evaluate exam scripts constitutes a very real way of interacting that is different from meeting other faculty at aca-demic seminars. The federal structure of the uni-versity ensures that we participate together at all levels. Of course, there is the issue of the univer-sity catering to diverse standards of students and hence setting the standard to suit the lowest common denominator.

Rote-learning has also drawn flak. To a certain extent, a system of compulsory internal assess-ments introduced in 2004 is making up for that and bringing out the strengths of individual col-lege faculties in setting creative question papers.”

Bearing in mind the expectations for the Indian higher education system to deliver quality educa-tion to the maximum number of beneficiaries, Dr Narain reiterates her earlier position, “Being part of the larger system is an opportunity to pull up standards”. The affiliation concept unifies socially

“autonomous system

had borne much fruit

in colleges in the south

for about 30 years. We felt

it would be good to seek

such academic freedom.

In 2006, NAAC too

recommended it”

Dr Frazer Mascarenhas SJ

Principal, St Xavier’s College, Mumbai



diverse entities whereas the autonomous concept accentuates disparities and promotes a sense of alienation from the mainstream.” And from the standpoint of governance, she adds, “Autono-mous colleges face the danger of becoming fief-doms, where the management is all in all and teachers lose their autonomy.”

Big PictureAt the end of the day, the concept of autonomous colleges is a matter of perspective. Colleges opting for autonomy believe that it has never made great-er sense than now, in the face of a raging debate about the quality of higher education. Contrary to seeing the autonomous status as a privilege to race ahead of the larger system, Dr Vyas says autonomous colleges get the best of both worlds —“As an autonomous college, we are abiding by all the rules and regulations laid down by relevant authorities like the government, Mumbai Univer-sity, UGCA, AICE etc. It is not as though we com-pletely break free from the University. On the other hand, the status gives us due recognition for our worth—the student’s convocation certificate would carry both the Mumbai University and the KJ Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce seal. Moreover, we remain free to revise the syllabus as per industry demands, jointly by educationists

and industry experts, to devise our own assess-ment method and to make quick decisions.”

To the contention that autonomy creates islands of excellence, Dr Mascarenhas says the effect of autonomous colleges, as lead colleges, on other colleges affiliated to the same university should be acknowledged. Certainly, the top 10 per cent of colleges in each university on the basis of student results, having already proven their mettle and possessing the experience of running good insti-tutions, should bear the responsibility of pioneer-ing the way ahead for other colleges.

The decision to apply for autonomy essentially remains an outcome of a colleges’ stage of evolu-tion and the role it sees for itself not merely in the larger system comprising the university but in the still larger context of the country as a whole. Autonomous colleges are helping the Indian higher education sector to come full circle; in introducing a more challenging method of higher learning. Higher education has taken a millenni-um to get where it is in Europe. India lacks the luxury of time to scale the learning curve. The will of autonomous colleges to take the road less trav-elled is helping get around that.



survey Institutional Excellence

Indian higher education today boasts of more than 611 univer-sities with over 1.5 crore stu-dents. This growth story in numbers has not been matched

by quality despite efforts of the govern-ment and the private sector. Lack of infrastructure, funds, quality faculty and sometimes sheer indifference come in the way of pursuing and delivering excel-lence. However, these odds have not stopped pockets of excellence and stories of innovation from flourishing within our country. There are also lesson to be drawn from other countries with similar

A peek into EDU survey result reveals some startling factors that the community of leaders in higher education consider important to deliver excellence in the field. Read on to find out what they think...

Edu Survey | InstItutIonal excellence

challenges and sectors besides educa-tion. It’s time to share the strategies and extend this experience for the collective growth of the sector. The odds unfortu-nately are not going to change overnight. Our strategies however can.

Through the first Vice Chancellors’ retreat, EDU had taken the onus to get the decision-makers in this sector on a common platform to identify effective strategies to make the change. This year we hope to take another step in that direction by talking about how to over-come the hurdles that may come up in implementing our vision.

achieving Institutional excellence

By the time this issue reaches you around 50 leaders in higher education would have met for EDU’s VCs’ retreat from August 31 to September 2 to talk about and work out a plan to overcome these hurdles. To form the basis of our discussions at the Retreat, EDU had con-ducted a survey on what constitutes Achieving Institutional Excellence. We got an overwhelming 400 responses from our readers. We bring to you a preview of the findings in this issue. In the next issue we will be covering the findings in detail along with the deliberations at the Vice Chancellors’ Retreat.

By

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Top administrators were the major respondents

South scores in the number of respondents

The group consisting of Vice Chancellors, Pro-Vice Chancellors, Principals and Directors formed 39 per cent of the respondents

Chancellor

President/CEO

Member, Governing Board

40% of the respondents to EDU survey were from the southern region

East region scored the least with

13% respondents from that region

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Institutional Excellence survey


Fix faculty first, say India’s higher ed-leadersOverall Quality of Faculty came out as the most important factor followed by Curriculum and Pedagogy while Government Policy and Regulation were voted the least important

Factors in achieving Institutional excellence Importance score rank

Quality of Faculty

Curriculum and Pedagogy

Effective Institutional Management

Infrastructure and Technology

Availability of Funds

Industry and Community- relevant Activities

Quality of Students

Alumni Relations

Collaboration and Partnering

Government Policy and Regulation

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survey Institutional Excellence

SOME INSIGHTS FROM THE SURVEY

Infrastructure and technology was rated second most important

factors by President/CEOs while overall it stood fourth

Group 2 i.e. VCs, Directors rated ‘Quality of Faculty’ the most

important factor followed by ‘Curriculum and Pedagogy’ but

professors rated both of them as equally important

Across geographical regions, ‘Quality of Faculty’ was considered the

most important factor except for West region where Curriculum

and Pedagogy was rated slightly higher than Quality of Faculty in

terms of importance

Alumni Relations is around the bottom but was voted the third

most important factor by institutes offering both engineering and

management courses

Government Policy and Regulation came out the least important

overall and also across groups, regions and various types of

educational institutes

Higher education institutions that are models of excellence and

worth emulating: IITs and IIMs are the favourites. Among non-

government institutions, ISB Hyderabad and BITS Pilani, are the

most mentioned ones



Institutional Excellence survey


dialogue Enase Okonedo

EnasE OkOnEdO

Current enGAGeMent: Dean Lagos Business School, Nigeria

ACADeMICS: BSc, Accounting, MBA from IESE Business School Barcelona, PhD from International School of Management, Paris

Other POSItIOnS: Chairperson, Association of African Business Schools, Member Academic Advisory Board Global Business School Network


Enase Okonedo dialogue

Enase Okonedo, Dean, Lagos Business School and Chairperson of Association of African Business Schools in conversation with EDU says that Africa is a continent and cannot be viewed as a country

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edu: What brings you to india?enase okonedo: I was here for the annual conference of the Global Busi-ness School Network (GBSN) to which the Lagos Business School belongs. It was a great opportunity to meet with people that are interested in India-Africa collaborations. Another reason was to organise a study trip to India for our Alumni to learn from the business practices in India. In the past, Lagos Busi-ness School Alumni always went to study trips at top western schools. Now the focus has shifted to Asia. This year we will go to China and Singapore. We are hoping that next year we will come to India.

What relevance do associations like the gBSN have? The GBSN is a network of higher education institutions and Lagos

Business School have been members since it started, I am on its academic advisory board. It fosters a network whereby schools can meet and look for ways to collaborate. The annual conference presents the platform for this to happen and I like the fact that the annual conference moves beyond the USA. GBSN is located in America, but over the years we have seen it holding

By Smita polite



conferences in Africa, Mexico and other places.

It presents an opportunity for other schools that do not come from that region to get to know it better. The GBSN also engages in other activities for instance it created an interesting cam-paign called MBA challenge where stu-dents were asked to work on a project with a social impact in the developing world and make a short video on it. You can imagine what an impact it would have had with b-schools all over the world thinking about what can be done to affect the lives of people.

you are also the Chairperson of the association of african Busi-ness Schools (aaBS). What is the purpose of this association?

The AABS was formed in 2005. Guy Pfeffermann, who encouraged the form-ing of this association, was the chief economist at the World Bank. Because of his wide travels he had seen that there

knowledge. So we have an annual work-shop for B-school professors to encour-age participant focused learning based on the case study method. This year we had an Indian national Srikant Datar, a professor at Harvard, who facilitated the workshop.

Perhaps because of our common heri-tage, for Indian academics there is some-thing about Africa that they feel they are actually helping their brothers. The pas-sion and willingness to come and do things is there and that came through very clearly when Srikant was with us.

as the chairperson what do you want the association to focus on?

I am very concerned about the dearth of what I would say qualified managers. For a lot of multinationals based out of Africa inadequate infrastructure is a big problem. So when you speak to the CEOs of these companies you would expect them to speak to you of high operating costs brought about by lack of

was a dearth of management capacity on the continent and he thought that some-thing needed to be done about that. One of the ways to do this was to improve management education. One of our objectives is thus to build capacity in management education on the conti-nent. We run various programmes in faculty development and one of the pro-grammes that I find quite interesting is the dean study trips. In fact there is a group of deans of South African Busi-ness Schools that is in India right now. We also have a programme for business school professors called “teaching the practice of management”. A good busi-ness school professor needs to be not only scholarly with interest in publica-tion but should also connect with industry. So we also encourage industry engagements.

Most of the business schools in Africa exist within the university structure and thus are more theoretical than practical. Whereas what we need is practical



infrastructure. But no—nine times out of ten they will speak to you about peo-ple. They just can’t find the people.In large degrees we find that they rely on expatriates and repatriates—those who had gone overseas and have come back.

The growth projections that are expected to come out of Africa are huge. There is this whole talk about economic growth indices and how we will equal Asia in some time. But who is going to actualise that growth if we have not started to develop the managers? This is my objective—to get the right people. The number of business school in Afri-ca is dismal. We have a population of close to one billion and only about 80 business schools in the real sense of the word. So, AABS is now partnering with three other organisations: GBSN, The Tony Elumelu Foundation in Nigeria and the Lundin foundation of Switzer-land. Together we have formed the Afri-ca Management Initiative which was

launched in Lagos in May. We have quite an ambitious dream to develop one million qualified managers across Africa over ten years, to help us drive this growth.

We have even come up with a blue-print for setting up of business schools that we are willing to share with inter-ested parties in areas that we consider important to be able to help them.

What role are business schools

playing in africa? Business schools have a very impor-

tant role to play in society and especially in Africa. I hope that African B-schools are conscious of this. A business school must focus firstly on being able to offer an education that is at a par with the best in the world. But the best practices that we learn about must be adapted to the peculiarities of our environment.

We also need to develop in them attri-butes that are especially needed in the African environment. Attributes like leadership skills, a focus on integrity and ethical way of doing business is impor-tant in our context. Management educa-tion should be used as a tool to serve the society as much as to serve oneself.

do the role and challenges of business schools differ from coun-try to country within africa?

Of course they do. It’s unfortunate that when people talk about Africa they tend to generalise. But it is not one coun-try. And even within countries there are peculiarities across regions. A top busi-ness school could give you access to their curriculum if you seek help. But that is that sufficient? No. You will not add any-thing if you don’t contextualise the cur-riculum. In Africa one size does not fit all. The peculiarities of doing business in Nigeria are very different from that of Kenya and you have to keep that in mind when you decide what to focus on.

Some schools want to focus on the mainstay of the economy in their loca-tion. Some others such as Lagos Busi-ness School for many years focused on the private sector. For various reasons we did not do anything in the public sector but then a couple of years ago I started to

think about how the private sector man-agers operate in a sphere that is deter-mined and controlled by managers in the public sector. We realised that we will have to have some programmes specifi-cally for the public sector. The needs of the public sector are very different from that of the private sector. That’s because in a space like Nigeria policies could change without recourse and without thinking through the entire chain. In other countries it may not be the same therefore for each country it is different and the courses have to be conceptual-ised based on the differences

So there is a lot of demand for business education?

Yes there is and I am glad to say that people have become more discerning about the quality of business education. There is no more just an interest in hav-ing that qualification but also in getting the knowledge. Therefore when people are seeking schools they use different criteria to determine where to go based on what they want. This is helpful in a way because it means that schools who want to track students who are really interested in knowledge have to raise their standards.

do you see a different view of africa emerging now? Where do you see business education mov-ing in africa?

I see some changes in the last couple of years. One of the things that I have seen move is the sense of boundaries in business education. Within a particular country you would find that people who offered business education lived in that particular country and served the needs of that country. This is changing now with a lot of top business schools com-ing into Africa. For some of them it is a question of moving to a better market. The chips are down in their home coun-try because of the economic situation. How do we make up the numbers? Ok let’s go to Africa. These are the fly-in-fly-out business schools. But I am glad to say that a lot of more credible schools are now seeking partnerships or establish-ing their own business schools. Consid-

We have quite an ambitious dream to develop one million qualified managers across Africa over ten years



ering the drastically low number of schools in Africa, I think that it is a wel-come development. I also think the com-petition is good as it raises the standards and that’s what I am about and that’s what we are all about at AABS.

Talks of collaboration have also increased. Few years ago Africa did not even feature on the radar. But now they are coming into our terrain and collabora-tion is a way to know the peculiarities of doing business here. It’s also a way for the local business school to raise their standards and learning by walking with somebody. I think this will continue because the world is flat and the boundar-ies are breaking down in most spheres.

What similarities and differences do you see in business education between africa and india?

When I visited IIM-A a couple of years ago I was very surprised when they told me about the number of applicants that they get. They take one in thousands. In Africa we are still taking one in three or maybe one in five applicants. To that extent we differ.

In terms of faculty, I may be wrong here, but it is my view that you have a higher degree of academically qualified faculty in Indian schools than you would have in African schools.

I see a lot of similarities in terms of what it is that we are trying to do in meeting the needs of the society. In research I think that both of us have high aspirations in terms of publication. I dare say though that perhaps with Indian institutions the main pedagogy may not be the case study method unlike the top business schools in Africa which have the Amerc ian or iented v iew of business education.

How can collaborations between india africa help?

I like Indian institutions for experiential learning. I remember meeting a professor of innovation at IIM, Anil Gupta who takes students on a trip that is a part of their course. I also met a professor of history in Delhi, who instead of talking about Delhi’s history said: “Why don’t I take you to the actual spots and you can experience that?”

There’s so much that comes out of this kind of an experience and is something that we can learn in African business schools. In terms of growth projections there is also room for collaboration. Indian academicians are known world-wide to be very good researchers. Collabo-ration will enable us to raise our research capabilities.

A large number of Indian corporations do business in Africa. Obviously there is going to be some transfer of managers between the two regions. Collaborating with an institution can enable us to devel-op managers that are equipped with the skills to play in either region.

What are the challenges that the head of a b-school faces in africa?

Most business school in Africa exist within the structure of a university. There is still a need to understand the difference between the business school and any other faculty. First the profile of the faculty and second the type of education it offers to its students. The challenge that a lot of the deans of business schools in Africa face is to just get the rest of the university to understand that there is a different kind of dynamics that drives a business school. To get the leader of the university to

understand that business schools should be innovative in structure and in terms of their offering and therefore the structures that govern them may have to be slightly different. To give them the freedom of curriculum review and design it accord-ing to the evolving needs of the industry.

My school is a private school and exists within a university. But fortunately for us the business school gave rise to the uni-versity and not the other way around.

The other challenge concerns the peda-gogy of case study method that is used in most of our business schools. In a lot of African cultures you share your success stories but you don’t talk about your fail-ures. If we want to develop more African case studies, we will need more coopera-tion from the industry to understand what they are doing. We need them to open up and tell us their stories. We have been able to do that at our business school because we have a very strong engagement with the industry. It may be less so in other places.

How is it to be a woman leader in higher education in africa?

It’s definitely a big deal. I have always been the only woman in several situa-tions. When I got appointed to the man-agement team of the school around seven years ago and went for my first meeting, the room was full of men with the average age of 55. I was the first Nigerian and the first female dean of the Lagos Business School. I remember going to the first gov-erning council meeting of the university and this time the average age was 68. It is rare to find a female dean. I know of only one or two other female deans in Africa.

The fact that I am a woman has helped me. It is easy for me when I go out for fund raising. People in Nigeria are glad to see a woman in leadership of a top school and there is a willingness to accommo-date. My colleagues at work say that I don’t see myself as a woman which I do think is a compliment. I have never sensed that there has been any sort of dis-crimination or negative bias. If one is seen as competent I think you can hold on to the position and place with respect. That is true for the AABS as well. Obvi-ously I am the first female chairperson.

It is rare to find a female dean. I know of only one or two other female deans in Africa

advts.indd 56 12/22/2009 3:02:47 PM


But there are always instances when a woman has to just break through and then others will just follow. It will be a shame if somebody got a big position because of the quota system or some sort of gender equality just because one needs to have more women at the top.

But we do need to encourage women in management education. More so in Africa where gender roles are still pretty defined. You find almost equal number of women and men at the initial stages into the career but with time that ratio changes. I did my PhD while I was bringing up my kids and it was on of the most difficult phases of my life. When I got my PhD I felt I had really achieved something.

Have you taken any initiatives at your school to ensure more partici-pation of women?

Yes, certainly to ensure more participa-tion of women we have a crèche at our business school so mothers can actually bring their babies to work. We have extended leave for people who go and

have babies and then we don’t penalise them if they are taking time out of work because I think that is one of the reasons why their career tapers off.

What prompted you to switch f ro m f i n a n c i a l s e r v i c es t o education?

I trained as a certified public accountant but I always worked as a banker. When I joined banking industry I was very excited about my job. Sometime in the late 80s and early 90s liberalisation in the banking sector in Nigeria changed banking and I just started to feel unhappy with my job. I started looking for a change and it was very difficult because I was not trained to do anything else. I had never practiced accountancy and hence that was not an option. I took a year off hoping to do an MBA to broaden my horizon. I had a bit of time in my hand and saw that Lagos Busi-ness School was looking for a temporary research assistant. I applied and the per-son in charge said I was over qualified. But I managed to persuade him.

He said we are starting an MBA with IESE Business School in Barcelona, Why don’t you stay with your work and do your MBA here? So I did that. I did my PhD in Paris but did not move away from home. I had to keep shuttling between Paris and home.

I was always passionate about the devel-opment of my country and of Africa. I was always sure of working here because I believe that change begins with each indi-vidual doing their part. I always wanted to do something that would impact the society.

I always had an interest in creating a fund, so I always thought after MBA I would create a venture capital fund that had a social impact but then I got into the classroom and I found that I enjoyed the role and I also remained in touch with industry with consulting work. It was in many ways an ideal job.


advts.indd 56 12/22/2009 3:02:47 PM

38 EduTEch September 2012 39September 2012 EduTEch

Massive Open Opportunities

MOOC has its share of detractors, but is surely revolutionising the way we teach and learn by Tushar kanwar

Over the next few months, I’ve signed up to take a number of five to eight week long courses taught by professors from Stan-

ford, Duke, and the University of Penn-sylvania—some of the best minds and the most prestigious names in the discipline. I’ll be doing these courses along with thousands of classmates from around the world, working on assignments and mas-tering skills as I go along. All this without stepping out of my home and without tak-ing a break from my job! And did I men-tion, without spending a dime?

Till about a year ago, most academia and higher-ed students would have dis-missed this phenomenon as being too far-fetched. All that changed in the fall of 2011 when over 100,000 people signed up for each of three Computer Science courses offered by Andrew Ng, Sebas-tian Thrun, Peter Norvig and Jennifer Widom of Stanford University. Literally overnight, several of the world’s top and most elite universities were at the fore-front of experiments with this format, and the concept of Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs was born.

42 Tech INTeRVIeW: Lalit Kathpalia, Director, SIcSR

44 Tech TUTeS: Online Reputation Management

40-45 Tech SNIppeT: Tehnology News and Tips and Tricks

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story name TEChnOLOGy

subsequent batches to take advantage of the learning just as students currently do with class notes. Of course, “Online Course” suggests that the course takes place completely online, and that it is in fact much like a regular academic course, structured down to what is to be covered in each week and associated assignments and assessments. But by far, one of the most defining features of MOOCs has been the level of connected-ness and collaboration by participants online. The “classroom” may be just one of the many hubs where interaction occurs, others being personal blogs, websites, social networking sites, and it is these discussions that are at the core of the MOOC learning process.

benefits of MOOC If you look at it from a student’s perspec-tive, the benefits of signing up for one of many MOOC courses are plenty. Stu-dents get a wide variety of courses and assignments to choose from, learning occurs in an informal setting and the course flexibility allows for the student to attend when he/she has the time. There are no pre-requisite degrees, costly tuition fees and entrance exams that deter a lot of willing candidates in the regular institutional context. All that’s needed from the student is a robust internet and a willingness to learn—the latter being a critical component since a majority of MOOC courses see heavy signups but low percentages of course completion. And it’s not just targeted at college-goers; in fact, new online courses

are attracting mostly older workers who want to upgrade their skills and knowl-edge, but may not have the time or money to attend classes on campus.

For institutions, MOOCs let colleges reach vast audiences at relatively low cost, in effect, by throwing open their doors digitally. Courses and faculties can reach out to people living in foreign countries, far beyond their in-class reach. For many of the initial MOOC adopters, the professed goal is more about changing the world than about making money, but business models and revenue opportunities are evolving and can exist, allowing this hitherto for-free model to generate revenues (see the “Are MOOCs financially viable?” section).

Criticism of the ModelBy the inherent openness of their design, MOOCs pose a unique set of challenges to students and faculty alike. Aside from the requirement of basic digital literacy, MOOCs often throw students into the deep end of self-monitored self-regulat-ed learning, which may be difficult for those used to strict, syllabus oriented in-class courses. Also, sitting behind a com-puter takes away the in-person, real world socializing, presenting and practi-cal experience that classes give you, not to mention the increased likelihood of academic dishonesty, particularly during assessments. And of course, the scale of a typical MOOC puts the onus of assess-ing possibly tens of thousands of stu-dents onto an already stressed faculty.

Over the past year, we’ve seen remark-able spate of MOOC ventures from top universities such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley, and the big names have attracted a number of startups in this space—Udacity, edX, Minerva, Khan Institute, Straightline, the University of the People and most notably Coursera, the coming together of 12 universities in the US and Europe under the banner of an internet course platform created by two Stanford scien-tists. They have in common a platform for free access and collaboration, assess-ment and certification mechanisms, and above all, a pace of growth that’s making investment houses and information industry giants sit up and take notice.

MOOCs: what They are?For a breed of initiatives that are being touted as the democratisation of higher education, the thought behind MOOCs isn’t new, with the possibility of offering free quality education to thousands of students having piqued the interest of academia for decades. What is a MOOC then, and how is it different from the current models of distance education?

To understand this, let’s break down what the terms in the acronym mean. “Massive” refers to the fact that anyone interested in following the course can do so, irrespective of geography, which often results in hundred if not thou-sands of participants (as was the case with Stanford). “Open” points to the fact that content and discussions around the course are open to the public, allowing


TEChnOLOGy Open Online Courses

All this is assuming the content put out to the MOOC class is as good as the content taught in-class. With a pedestri-an MOOC, the end result can be at best to inform, not to educate, and educators have to intentionally mold their content to best suit the digital medium, rather than put out mere podium lectures.

And finally, there’s the issue of recog-nition of course completion—by way of credits. Though some colleges are slowly granting credits for completed MOOCs, it is a recognised problem that tracking an individual’s performance in a class of hundreds, (if not thousands of students) to legitimately award them credit is a tough nut to crack. A legitimate question then—if there is no credit, why would a student take up a course? MOOC advo-cates point to the fact that the individual can learn or say that they took a course from a prestigious authority in their field—an opportunity they may never have had previously—and substantiate it with better on-job performance.

Financially Viable?MOOC naysayers point to a credible problem—the lack of a business plan to produce revenue and cover the notional loss of opening up presti-gious content to just about anyone who registers. VCs and early MOOC startups have grappled with these issues, and some revenue models have emerged. I f your inst i tut ion is

Google India’s recent survey revealed that India ranks second just behind the US in the volume of search queries related to education on Google. Over 60 per cent of the Indian students with Internet access use Google search for information related to courses and institutes.IT and vocational courses are most searched topics followed by MBA and engineering colleges. The study further reveals that Indian students spend about five to six months on researching before making their final decision on the institute they want admission in. The survey consists of

Google search query patterns and an offline research conducted by TNS Australia. Out of 2,229 survey respondents, 52 per cent were female and 48 per cent male. The respondents belonged to 18-35 years age group. The survey was conducted across seven Indian cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.The survey also showed a growing popularity of smartphones and usage of the Internet on the go among the Indian students, as majority said they wanted the educational institutes to have mobile-friendly websites. Students also said that they want more videos by institutes.

TECH SNippET | Mobile

India among top nations Googling on education

EDu: what are your thoughts on the MOOC phenomenon?

Gopi Garge: I would like to draw your attention to local efforts such as the NPTEL effort by the Government of India. Clearly, this phenomenon is only going to grow larger and bigger given the local needs of our users —be it language, country-specific content, packaging

MOOCs–Massive Opportunity or Digital hype? technology mentor Kishore Bhargava and Gopi Krishna s Garge (currently on sabbatical from IIsc, Bangalore), speak on how MOOCs will play out in the Indian context

Gopi GargeConvenor nItss, serC (IIsC)

(delivery to desktop or mobile first approach) etc. From being open ended in that they only currently provide the content and a sense of reward for watching the videos, these will evolve into more structured systems which could lead to the award of a diploma or a certificate of proficiency as a result of the assessment. Professionals who want to refresh their knowledge will be able to get quality content, while current students can use the content to supplement their formal learning or build on additional competencies.

kishore bhargava: Universities that have taken the bold step to promote open content are doing a great service, and while these will still not substitute traditional distance learning and certification programs, they will certainly have an impact on learning. Along with the new breed of educational apps that allow students in all fields to learn at their own pace, MOOCs will definitely be a game changer, allowing students to learn


Open Online Courses TEChnOLOGy

The aakash tablet is once again in the news, and this time hopefully for the right reasons. Kapil Sibal, the Minister of Human Resources, announced that the “Aakash tablet will be launching very soon,” when addressing the first convocation of BITS Hyderabad.The last time the Aakash 2 was in the news, was back in late-June, when the tablet was officially revealed, with engineering colleges slated as the first recipients, with the rollout scheduled to begin in July, which never happened. Now, the tablet is expected to arrive by early September.

The Aakash 2 features updated specs when compared to its predecessor, and boasts ofAndroid 4.0 ICS straight out-of-the-box. It sports an 800MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, 7-inch capacitive touchscreen, 2GB of built-in storage, Wi-Fi and GPRS connectivity with voice-calling capabilities, and a 3,200 mAh battery that is rated to deliver up to 3 hours of battery life.The latest announcement about the Aakash 2 comes five months after IIT-Bombay took over the project from IIT-Jodhpur. According to reports, IIT-B has already developed apps for the ultra low-cost tablet.

TECH SNippET | tablets

aakash 2 tablet to be launched in september

MOOCs–Massive Opportunity or Digital hype?

beyond the textbooks. Current distant learning programs should start adopting some MOOC features in terms of student/teacher interactivity.

EDu: Do MOOCs have the potential to work in India?

GG: If you look at the demand-supply inequality in education, there is a huge potential for uptake of such online resources. However content providers (such as institutions) should provide content and let other agencies provide the structured content delivery and evaluation. Of course, depending on the level of study, content delivery could be available in specific languages, which would engage a wider learning audience.

kb: Sadly, it will be a while before the industry accepts people who will have gone through these systems as their only form of higher education. People will also complain about access to courses due to lack of equipment or bandwidth but I think we have more or less overcome that problem. Tablets/mobiles will help the cause greatly providing cheaper methods of Internet access. Given the size of the country and the number of people who can use

these methods, it could make a positive shift in overall learning. Indian government should support and encourage these methods and where possible adopt them in existing distance learning.

EDu: what, according to you, is the tipping point for greater acceptability?

GG: Openly available content enables two aspects—exploring subject matter and eventually skill acquisition. From an industry perspective, skills are what are

required up to a certain level in the production hierarchy. Open content helps people acquire skills. For example, some of the best programmers I know are commerce graduates and some are astrophysicists! They acquired their skills by utilizing the content available via the Internet—no formal training. With respect to computer programming, the industry has devised their own means of evaluation of candidate’s proficiency. I believe this will extend to other areas as well in different forms. It is going to take a while before such open material is packaged into courses with credits; it is a matter of time since there is a need for such approach. However, both the consumer (students/industry) as well as the supplier (content providers) will have to evolve themselves to find a acceptable middle ground.

kb: Many modern day employers now interview and seek skills rather than qualifications specially startups and entrepreneurs. Till this trend does not spill over to the rest of the industries, nothing will change.

kishore bhargavatechnology Mentor



Cloud, the catalyst for growthLalit Kathpalia, educator and researcher on IT Management, says cloud is the way forward by PaDMaja shasTrI

what is cloud computing and why should higher education institutes (hEIs) use it?

Cloud is a metaphor for the internet and the delivery of storage and computing capacity through the internet to the end users is cloud computing. Every HEI was an isolated silo before the internet. It is cloud that has made an interconnected world possible. With cloud HEIs can solve problems of infrastructure and lack of resources, including money and faculty. This is possible as cloud provid-ers can make infrastructure (servers), platform (operating system) and software (application soft-ware and databases) available as services. These can be rented as per the requirement, obliterating the need to buy and store, thus saving money, space and manpower. The servers and the system soft-ware are also remotely managed by the cloud provider/s, doing away with the need for a system manager. Cloud technology, with its obvious advan-tages, is the future of higher education. It is the best platform for education delivery, available anywhere, anytime. It also enables HEIs outsource most of the

Tech INTeRVIeWLalit Kathpalia

Lalit kathpalia Director of Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research

Prior to that he was the Delivery Head, APAC Banking Unit at Infosys and has worked for 23 years in Information Technology management and training

Researcher and educator in the areas of management of and by technology, cloud computing, software project management and enterprise resource planning

Managed a programme for the establishment of the first exchange based Internet Trading System in India for Bombay Stock Exchange

considering a MOOC initiative, one of these may apply to you.

Certification/Credential Charges: While the base content may be free to offer to students, content mastery can be charged for. By put-ting a money premium on the actual assess-ment, institutes can tie up with remote testing centres (such as Pearson-Vue/Prometric) to run closely monitored assessments tests not unlike the kind of examinations that are run within the institutions.

Meetup Charges: Coursera regularly sends out emails organizing real-world study groups and social meetups to encourage meeting with your virtual peers, but it is not unforesee-able for them to charge students to pay for the chance to meet and spend some quality inter-action time with the professor.

Employer Leads: With course owners having detailed records on which student has attained what level of mastery in which subject/skill, the next step is to sell leads to potentially recruiters. So, if Google India is looking for an expert in search technologies, Coursera could monetize the transaction by providing contact information for students who have completed the relevant course in India.

setting up MOOCInterested in what you’ve read so far, but not sure your institution is ready to sign up and give away the rights to your courses to a pro-vider like Coursera? You could explore the alternative of setting up your own MOOC to allow you to see how well it is accepted. MOOCs have one more benefit that’s not often discussed—they give students a chance to experience courses for free. Convince them of what your institution delivers, and it’s much easier to convince prospective students that your institution should be the institution of choice.

All that’s needed for your own MOOC is the basics: a schedule, a syllabus referring to content and associated assignments/ self-assessments, and a learning space where course participants can meet and exchange ideas on the subject of the course to enhance mutual learning and experiences. You could get your IT administrator to set up a wiki within a section of your college website, or choose a free wiki for educational institutions at wikispaces.com. Load up your content, cre-ate a mailing list for class discussions, and you’re all set for a mini-MOOC rollout!


Interview TEChnOLOGy

administrative work and focus on their core activity – education delivery. Those who jump on to the bandwagon fast will be the prime movers and can leapfrog into higher levels of learning. The rest will be left behind and seen as luddites.

what are the things for which cloud can be used in an hEI?

Institutions can use cloud depending on their own innovative ideas. Universi-ties like MIT and Harvard are using it for delivering massive open online courses. Universities are being created, in the cloud, without any physical building. If two HEIs have an expert faculty each, they can offer a blend of courses using webinars, video-conferencing, without the faculty ever getting together. Cloud

can bring down the manpower used and the time taken for administration to a fraction by doing everything online— from processing applications to collect-ing fees; admission to exams. With cloud, HEIs can deliver personalised educational experience. Teachers can connect with students through email groups, social networking sites like Face-book, and Twitter, blogs, Skype, You-Tube, Slideshare etc. Learning manage-ment systems like Moodle can be used by educators to create effective online learning sites. They can get students to explore other material in Wikipedia and e-books. What’s more, students can take their lessons at their own pace in these virtual classrooms and also practice what they learn via simulation. Even research

can be organized and research collabora-tions can take place online through aca-demic social networks like Mendeley. Student placements and recruitment of faculty and staff can also be done through social networking sites. Cloud can also be used to issue digital certificates to students in a demat for-mat. This way the certificates submitted by students can be authenticated in an easy manner.

what does an hEI need, to implement cloud technologies?

The only thing needed mainly is a con-nection to the internet. Apart from that some basic computers depending upon the function required. If you want to apply the cloud for teaching and learn-



ing, then you need as many computers as there are students and teachers. How-ever, if you are using it to manage the student lifecycle, you may not require so many computers. You also need some-body who is (internal or outsourced) knowledgeable about web/cloud applica-tions. Organisations like Educause and School 2.0 handhold HEIs who need help with the applications.

what changes is the cloud bringing in higher education?

The biggest change is the transforma-tion of the educational experience. Ear-lier if students had trouble understand-ing something, they either went to the teacher or the library. Today, they go online. Students learn through video lec-tures on YouTube, which they can attend any time they wish and submit assign-ments and take exams online. Students are becoming smarter than the teachers, as they are more internet-savvy. This has changed teacher’s role from an informa-tion provider to a facilitator and a men-

tor. The economics of computing has changed as it’s available on tap and you pay as you use. By enabling server and desktop virtualization, it also results in 95 per cent less power usage. Even more importantly, it helps students, teachers and HEIs share knowledge among themselves and thus, break walls.

will cloud completely replace physical infrastructure?

Absolutely. It is only a matter of time. However, online education may not be a perfect replica of what you get in the classroom. So, blended learning, which is a combination of classroom teaching as well as online learning, is a good idea.

how will cloud impact the IT strategy of an hEI?

Long-term IT strategies of HEIs involve buying hardware and software and storing it. It requires frequent investments in capacity expansion and infrastructure management. With cloud, you do not need to buy all these resourc-

es, you just `pay-as-you-use’ like you do for utilities such as electricity. Now IT strategy would rely on the cloud as a plat-form to deliver all services required for education with added flexibility of pro-viding it Anytime, Anywhere. IT strategy earlier was inflexible because you were stuck with you bought. Now it can be optimized as per requirements and is cost-effective, better and faster.

what are the challenges to deploying cloud in an hEI?

Access to the internet, which is still very limited in our country, is a major challenge. And then the speed of the internet connection is too slow in most places. There is also the problem of mindsets, which view cloud as a threat. Then there is a challenge of education itself. Educators need to be educated on cloud technology. At present students are learning things on their own. Also, we are just aping the west. Where is the Indian context, in terms of language, low bandwidth and access to the net?

Manage you(r) brand Online

as heads and thought lead-ers for your institutions, prevailing wisdom is that merely updating your uni-versity’s ‘About Us’ pages

should be sufficient for your own online reputation, right? People searching for you should always come to the university website to find out more about you, right? In fact, it couldn’t be further from the truth! Today, your online identity is just one discreet Google search away.

engine. When a prospective employer wants more information about you, a journalist needs background on you for a profile, or a student seeks details about your professional history, it’s Google they turn to. It might be a good time to remove the outdated digital bit about your online life, and create new content that will rank on the first page of Google for your name, before someone else discovers it.

There are many facets to managing your reputation—your personal brand—online. Here are some tips.

Know Thyself: The first thing you should consider is what is already out there. Run a Google search for your name, and evaluate the sites that come up. Is your Facebook profile divulging too much? Or an old site you had created years ago and never bothered to main-tain? Remember, Google is no longer just a search engine, it’s a reputation

a lot is at stake today with our lives being lived out on social media

Tech TUTeSOnline Reputation Management

By Tushar Kanwar


Open Online Courses TEChnOLOGy

research in Motion (RIM) in coordination with telecom operator Vodafone and entrance test preparation firm IMS has launched a test preparation application called Study Buddy for BlackBerry devices. The app, developed by Pune-based company OmniBridge Systems, is aimed at promoting BlackBerry phones among youth in the country. The Study Buddy app is available for download for BlackBerry smartphones on Vodafone network from the BlackBerry App World for free. To use the app, users will

however need to activate a data access plan that costs up to Rs. 599 a month. The app mainly has modules for CAT and MAT preparation and about 5,000 test papers are available for free download. The app randomly streams the questions to the phone when the app is used. The app will soon have study materials for other competitive examinations such as ISEET, NEET, GATE and Bank PO. Other features of the application includes in-app communication facility to chat with students on BBM.

TECH SNippET | apps

Test prep app for blackberry smartphones

run a google search for yourself and check if there are any old sites created by you needing updation

strengthen your online presence through blogs, online forums and

twitter. Being active online increases the chances of good press about you

Facebook Dilemmas: Facebook is a tricky beast to master, what with the myriad number of privacy controls and settings. First things first, control your Facebook profile from showing up in Google search by unchecking the “Enable public search” checkbox under your Facebook Account > Privacy Set-tings > Apps, games and websites > Pub-lic search section. Next, make sure all your Facebook posts that you want lim-ited to friends and family are tagged with the “Friends” privacy setting, and not “Public” (you see this setting whenever you make a new post or share some con-tent on Facebook). This way, your Face-book account stays within the circles of your choosing.

Keep your Ears to the Ground: Know-ing what people say about you is the first step in managing the information. Once you’ve searched Google search results for your name, you can have Google set up email alerts to monitor when some-one makes a mention of your name on a public website. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts to activate alerts.

Make your Presence Felt: If you’re a well-regarded voice in your academic circles, having your own online presence always helps strengthen your personal brand. Whether it’s via your own per-sonal blog to share and document your thoughts, or managing your own social media presence on twitter, or even if it is via active participation in online forums around your areas of interest, being

active will help give Brand You a positive fillip. Just remember, when it comes to the online actions, the more involved you are on industry related blogs, forums and other websites, the number of posi-tive mentions increase, and if you com-bine this with physically participating in your community, not only will this gen-erate good press for you and your institu-tion but highlight you as an approach-able individual to the community.

LinkedIn is your Ally: As your visible resume online, an updated and well-lev-eraged LinkedIn profile can be used to great advantage for your professional presence. Just ensure that your profile is updated, full of rich data and links to

your work/research, and steers clear of personal interests. Next, join any of more than one million LinkedIn indus-try groups—they offer an excellent way to contribute thoughtful commentary and demonstrate expertise in your field, and make some meaningful connections in the bargain! Enhance your profile by adding in the power of LinkedIn applica-tions. For instance, the Events app lets you find professional events, from con-ferences to local meet-ups, and make the right connections. Or one of the most popular, the SlideShare Presentations app that lets you upload slideshows, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations and share it to your profile.

46 EduTEch September 2012 PBSeptember 2012 EduTEch

TEChnOLOGy Interview

Exciting Times for e-learningGrainne Conole says e-learning will provide access for India’s huge young population by MITIa naTh

what does e-learning involve for students? I think e-learning involves the use of any online digital tool, mobile device and a

whole range of different things. The benefits of e-learning are enormous as they enable learners to learn anywhere, anytime. They give more flexibility and can also comple-ment the campus face-to-face learning. The range of tools we have today and the way they enable learners to commuincate and collaborate with other learners and interna-tional experts worldwide, is incredible. It’s a very exciting time for e-learning.

what about e-learning in India? Does it have a lot of scope in India? Well, it’s my first visit to India and I am delighted to be here. We had an excellent

presentation at EDGEX 2012, which gave us the flavour for the context of education in India. India is clearly a country that is ancient in some way with age-old traditions. But

otherwise, it is very young and vibrant with a big population of young people. The huge demand for learning can’t be met by face-to-face campuses, so e-learn-ing will be a major alternative by which students can access learning. One of the interesting things about e-learning in the Indian context is that India is striving towards excellence. Sugata Mitra, an Indi-an now based in England, carried out a wonderful ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiment, where he went into villages in India and left a computer there. He thought in a month’s time the computers will be bro-ken, but to his surprise the kids had worked out how to use it and that was something incredible. He said the Indian kids had high aspirations—they wanted to become engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. Education in India is seen as a tool to root out poverty. India has got a very exciting future and e-learning is an important part of it. But the challenges India will face because of it’s mind-bog-gling numbers, are huge.

Tech INTeRVIeWGrainne Conole, Professor of Learning Innovation

Grainne Conole Director, Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester, UK

Research interest in the use, integration and evaluation of Information and Communication Technologies

All Advts.indd 33 2/1/2010 10:38:44 AM


perspectiveINSIDE

F r o m o F h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n

the global 51 | Hardly a Ringing Endorsement for Australia

Attracting international students is part of a package of higher education reforms aimed at internationalisation By mary hennock

China Rolls Out the Welcome Mat for Foreign Students

Ayodeji Okusanya, James Keane, and Fiona O’Regan are among the newly arrived international students absorbing their first day of class at Renmin University of China’s International Summer School here. As they

devour bowls of rice topped with spicy sauces and shredded meat and vegetables in a campus canteen, they explain why they decided to enrol at Renmin for their first taste of China.

O’Regan, from University College Dublin, is studying com-merce and Mandarin. If she enjoys the four-week course, China could be a major part of her future career. “It’s better to find out early if you don’t like it,” she says. For Keane, also from University College Dublin, the experience “is more of a cultural visit”. And Okusanya, who is studying physics at the University of Warwick, in England, says he is road-testing his ‘just above beginner’ language skills.

Renmin’s Summer School, now in its fourth year, is one of the most ambitious efforts so far to meet China’s goal of bring-ing half a million foreign students to its shores by 2020. To reach the bold target, the Ministry of Education is pouring money into colleges to establish programmes friendly to Amer-icans and other international students.

Traditionally, China has attracted two types of foreign stu-dents: the committed Mandarin-learners who want profession-al-level skills, and students from developing countries who want better bachelor’s and master’s programmes than the ones offered back home. Now China is looking to attract a broader swath of international students, like O’Regan and her classmates.

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the foreign touch: The desire to get students from across the western world could be a bid to build prestige

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Programmes like Renmin’s are key to that strategy. The summer school mixes domestic and international students and faculty mem-bers, and classes are taught in English. The courses also last only a few weeks, which is a popular feature for many foreign students. Short academic programmes accounted for more than half of China’s foreign enrolments last year.

Whether China can actually increase the number of international students it attracts by more than 70 per cent—293,00 foreigners studied in China last year—remains to be seen. With improvements to university facili-ties in recent years, once-frequent complaints by foreigners about doorless squat toilets, a lack of hot water, and bare concrete dorms have subsided. But concerns about more intangible issues, like the quality of teaching, have arisen.

And the stakes are high for China. In the same way the Bei-jing Olympics propelled refurbishment and expansion of the entire city’s infrastructure, China’s educational planners view better English-taught courses for foreign students as a lever to internationalise university campuses. Ultimately, they hope the programmes will help improve the international standing of the country’s higher-education system.

The 500,000-student target is part of a package of higher-education reforms that includes inviting overseas universities to open China campuses, attracting foreign academics as visit-ing scholars, enticing Chinese educated in the United States to return, and coordinating more research with top-ranked uni-versities overseas. Study-abroad programmes are awash with public money, mostly channelled through universities, which get a subsidy per student for opening new programmes.

“Internationalisation is necessary for universities in China,” says Zhang Xiuqin, who heads the ministry’s Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges. “This isn’t just a challenge for international students. It is also a challenge to reform teaching methodology for Chinese students. Every uni-versity has put this on the agenda.”

Even more than most countries, China sees universities as ‘economic drivers’ that signal its ability to compete globally, says Robert Daly, who heads the University of Maryland’s Maryland China Initiative, which provides training in management and pedagogy to Chinese universities. “This is a policy that aims at a certain kind of prestige. The Chi-nese will not be satisfied unless they’re attracting American, European, and Austra-lian students,” says Daly, who advises Chi-nese universities on how to improve courses taught in English.

Though Chinese universities offer some 20,000 courses in English, many are of poor quality, with professors unable to speak well enough to teach effectively. “We’re still at the beginning” of offering such courses, says Zhang. Universities are also still learning how to design courses that would interest for-

eign students, particularly students who may not want to study the traditional subjects of Chinese language and literature. While the country is drawing students in a wide variety of fields, including business and engineering, course offerings have not necessarily kept pace with demand. “This is also something we can’t solve in a day,” says Zhang.

Blended classroomsGiven its national education goals, the ministry wants to sup-port programmes for foreign students that strengthen Chinese universities over all. For instance, it would prefer a programme in which a foreign university brings in a team of faculty mem-bers who work alongside a host university’s instructors. Ren-min University’s summer programme is something of a show-case in this regard, as it flies in dozens of faculty members from abroad. This summer’s lecturers include academics from Yale and Michigan State Universities, and the Universities of Cambridge and Melbourne. Of the 3,000 students who enrol in the programme, 300 are international. They receive Mandarin instruction, attend classes on tai chi and calligraphy, and mix with Chinese students in the English-taught segment, known as Academic Frontiers. All students, foreign and Chinese, get transferrable credits. Reformers hope that by learning to teach Western students, Chinese educators will shed their commit-ment to rote learning and instructor-centered classes. “Chinese professors are used to too much respect,” says Yang Huilin, Renmin University’s vice president of internationalisation.

While the education ministry hopes that all of its 2,000-plus colleges will eventually attract foreign students, in practice most of its efforts have gone into the elite universities.

One particular focus is the development of master’s pro-grammes in English at leading universities such as Tsinghua and Peking Universities, and at Renmin. American colleges with major study-abroad programmes are on the ministry’s radar screen as potential partners, says Zhang.

Short academic programmes accounted for more than half of China’s foreign enrolments in 2011

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


It’s unclear how much China is spending on the effort, because it involves multiple budget pots at national, provincial, and city levels, Zhang says. However, the money goes to univer-sities to strengthen their capacity to absorb foreign students. They may use it to build facilities, or pass it along to students as tuition-and-fee waivers. Renmin University’s summer pro-gramme is ‘almost free’ to foreign students, says Yang, the Ren-min Vice President. O’Regan, Keane, and Okusanya said their dorms and tuition are free thanks to scholarships.

Universities are also rethinking what they teach. Less than a decade ago, discussion of contemporary China was hard to find in fusty textbooks and culture courses, which usually focussed on rare pandas and endangered folk customs. Elite universities are now modernising course content to appeal to Westerners wanting to understand China’s swift rise and future trajectory.

Beijing Normal University started 61 English-taught courses in 2011, exploring such topics as pollution, urban migration, and population policy. Today’s students are more picky about subject matter than previous generations of would-be Sinologists, says Xiao Kai, Deputy Director of the university’s Office for Interna-tional Exchange and Co-operation. “In the past everything was in Chinese. Even the culture course was in Chinese,” he says.

The Shanghai Education Commission, mind-ful of the city’s heady international reputation as China’s Manhattan, is commissioning textbooks examining its economic and social policies dur-ing the last 30 years of economic reforms.

A number of lesser-known Chinese universi-ties, and those outside major cities, have attend-ed international education conferences to pro-mote study abroad at their institutions. But, says Zong Wa, Deputy Secretary General of the China Education Association for International Exchange, they’re not ready to take in many international students. Rather, they are themselves learning about the field of international education, he says.

While short-term programmes are improving, four-year degree programmes for English-speaking foreigners remain weak. In addition to the poor English skills of most instructors, communication between faculty and students falls far short of what students from the United States would generally expect. Exam dates are announced or altered at a few days’ notice, and titles of courses or even whole degrees changed without consul-tation, say Western students studying in China.

For example, Elizabeth Gasson, who is enrolled in a journal-ism master’s programme at Tsinghua University, in Shanghai, says an abrupt change in test dates forced her to cut short a valu-able internship. “It was very inconvenient as I was doing some work for the European Union,” she says.

Daly, of the University of Maryland, says such problems would deter some international students from seeking a degree at Chi-nese universities. “These are not yet places that American stu-dents could accept,” he says. “Students have to have certainty about stability of faculty, of majors, titles of degrees,” but the

reality is “an opaque and shifting landscape, which Chinese stu-dents accept because they have to,” he says.

open armsFor American colleges who want to send students to China, the way to guarantee a successful programme is to have their own faculty on the ground, properly vet potential partners, and if problems do arise, to stick with the collaboration to iron them out, advise international educators who have worked in China.

“There isn’t a Chinese university that isn’t willing to sign a partnership. They’ve become very entrepreneurial. Quality is another matter,” says Stephen C Dunnett, Vice Provost for inter-national education at the University at Buffalo. The institution set up one of the first American academic programmes in China when diplomatic relations were renewed in 1979.

To help ensure a high level of teaching for its students, the University at Buffalo brings junior faculty from Capital Nor-

mal University, where the university operates its Beijing study-abroad programme, to the United States for training.”Chinese teachers don’t have any expectations they’re going to have a student-centered classroom, with a lot of give and take, but that’s what American students are used to from high school on up,” Dunnett says. “When it’s only six weeks, and our students have pulled a lot of summer jobs to pay for it, they’re very demanding about the quality of that experience.”

Another challenge is getting students to consider venues other than major cities. “In their minds if they’re not in Shanghai, Nanjing, or Beijing, they’re not in China,” says Dunnett.

“Their knowledge of geography is very poor, and Shanghai is considered the place for young people, and Beijing is the capital.”

With the growing interest in studying in China, new private educational services have also emerged. For example, the start-up Global Maximum Educational Opportunities established the Chengdu American Center for Study Abroad at Sichuan Univer-sity with funds from the city of Chengdu, in southwest China. Courses will be imported from four American partners: Concor-dia University Chicago, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Georgia State University, and Merrimack College. The centre plans to enrol up to 100 students next spring.

Sherry Sun, acting president of the company’s China opera-tions, says students at the centre must take a course in Manda-rin, but they don’t need any prior study of it—a reflection of how study-abroad programmes in China are opening their arms to a new breed of student.

“We don’t require students have any Chinese-language back-ground,” she says. “If they know zero, they can come.”

China aims to bring half a

million international

students to its shore by

2020

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Af t e r f o u r y e a r s i n Austral ia , Catherine Nguyen, a 20-year-old student from Ho Chi Minh City, says the

country and its education system are starting to lose their charm.

Yes, she agrees with official student surveys that show most international students find Australia relatively ‘safe’ and ‘friendly’. Yes, her education at the University of Melbourne is ‘high quali-ty’. But Nguyen says something deeper is missing. Halfway through her bache-lor’s in commerce, she can’t give the country the kind of ringing endorsement it seeks, and perhaps needs.

“As international students, we come to Australia and observe all these patterns of culture, and we’re really intrigued by the differences,” she explains of her efforts to befriend Australian students. “However, we don’t see that Australians feel the same way, in the sense that they do not really appreciate us back.”

Nguyen is not alone in her views. While government surveys report that students are content, a burgeoning for-eign-student movement and a growing body of academic research suggest that the truth is more complicated.

In these forums, many students from China, India, and elsewhere report a range of experiences from feelings of loneliness to incidents of outright dis-

crimination. They say they’re often left with the sense that Australia cares little for them beyond the amount of money they contribute. “We’re more like a prod-uct than anything else. We’re something that Australia sells and gets money out of,” says Arfa Noor, a student from Paki-

International students are not feeling at home in Australia despite government survey reports to the contrary By SuSan WoodWard

Hardly a Ringing Endorsement for Australia

stan who is President of the Council of International Students Australia.

Such attitudes come at a particularly critical time for Australia’s international-education sector. For 20 years, higher education here enjoyed consistent, envi-able growth in foreign-student enroll-

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Bridging the student divide: Despite efforts to reinvigorate international education Australia is far from being the student destination it once was

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


ments, rising 18 per cent per year from 2006 to 2009, when students from abroad made up 36 per cent of the 630,000 students enrolled in the univer-sity and vocational sectors. That all came to an abrupt end after a spate of violent attacks against Indian students in 2009, which led to a government crackdown on ‘rogue’ vocational colleges and the easy pathways to permanent residency they were peddling. As the government restricted student visas, the amount of money brought in through internation-al-student enrolments plummeted 12.5 per cent in 18 months, to $15.2-billion (Australian). Damage to Australia’s repu-tation and a strengthened local dollar are thought to have contributed to the fall. The attacks also began a public conversa-tion about the ways in which interna-tional students are treated in Australia.

Now the government has created an advisory council of eminent academics and business people charged with devel-oping a five-year strategy to reinvigorate international education. It has also formed a round table, now in its third year, to receive feedback from students.

The international education sector has welcomed such efforts. But students and other observers want to see decision-makers put more effort into ensuring that international students have positive experiences—academically, socially, and culturally—while in Australia.

“At the heart of the international-edu-cation industry, these are human beings who have basic human rights,” said

Helen Szoke, who oversees racial-dis-crimination complaints for the Austra-lian Human Rights Commission. She is drawing up a set of guiding principles on international students.

“Then, from a really practical perspec-tive, you have to make sure that people who are coming to buy your services, at quite considerable cost and quite consid-erable benefit to universities, are com-pletely looked after. The best thing we can do is give them a terrific experience, because they’re going to be the best advertisement for us when they return to their own countries.”

the outsiderBeing an outsider was hard for Nguyen, the University of Melbourne student. When she began having housing and financial trouble in her first year of studies, she says the situation became overwhelming.

In contrast to their domestic counter-parts, whose tuition is heavily subsi-dised by the government, foreign stu-dents in Australia pay between $14,000 and $35,000 as annual tuition. The stu-dents also have to contend with a rela-tively high cost of living. Nguyen hoped to live in a residential college on campus but was shocked to discover the privi-lege would cost about $18,000 a year. She was looking at another $30,000 per year for tuition.

Although her parents had put aside money throughout their work lives for their daughter’s education, Nguyen

In contrast to their domestic counterparts, whose tuition is subsidised by the government, foreign students in Australia pay between $14,000 and $35,000 as annual tuition

knew the price tag was beyond her fam-ily’s means. A high-achieving student in high school, she pinned her hopes on obtaining a scholarship.

But the university did not respond to repeated requests for information on scholarship options, she says. Living in a tiny bedroom in a privately owned Melbourne apartment, she became stressed and confused. She negotiated a six-month leave of absence from the university and returned to Vietnam to contemplate her options.

Victor Liu, a 32-year-old man from Beijing, remembers his struggles while obtaining a marketing degree from Monash University in the early 2000s. He had an easier time cultivating close friendships with Australian students. Resentment arose, however, as he worked as a janitor and factory worker to pay for his education.

“It felt unfair,” Liu said. “I had to pay a huge amount of money for the uni fee, and because I was working it was my obligation to pay taxes. Then there was an Australian student living in the same house as me, and he didn’t do any work and he was living on a govern-ment benefit.”

In time, both students found ways to navigate through most of their difficul-ties. Now an Australian citizen, Liu, who works as a technology business analyst for Monash, said he learned to accept the cultural variations between China and Australia and altered his “Asian thinking” and behaviour to fit in. Nguy-en pleaded her case in a letter to the vice chancellor, and the University of Mel-bourne came through with a faculty scholarship that tempted her back. The scholarship covers about half her tuition; she pays the rest of her expenses with her parents’ life savings.

Despite their improved situations, however, they and other students argue that Australia—now in sixth decade of deliberately recruiting students from abroad—has more work to do if it wants t o k e e p a t t r a c t i n g t h e m i n high numbers.

“It’s difficult for international stu-dents, that’s always been a fact, but the universities and government don’t do



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As surveys report that international students are content, a burgeoning foreign-student movement and a body of academic research suggest that the truth is more complicated

much to help,” said Liu. “All I did in the past came from personal effort. They didn’t do anything at all to give me more of a chance, or a programme to make me feel more at home.”

Bleeding Students?Simon Marginson, a professor of higher education at the University of Mel-bourne, has researched the Australian international-student experience exten-sively. More than half the students who were the subject of a study he undertook in 2005 said they had experienced rac-ism or discrimination here; two-thirds reported feelings of social isolation.

Marginson agrees that Australian institutions do not pay enough attention to student welfare. “The thing that wor-ries me is the political economy of the sector drives us to extract every last dol-lar from each international student, so we can pour that money into research, primarily, and push up the rankings and maintain our brand value,” he said.

“These aren’t secrets, they’re not pro-paganda, everyone knows they’re true—that we bleed international-stu-dent fees as far as we can for these other purposes.”

Foreign students in Australia are increasing-ly well organised. On one level, the students want many of the basics that Au s t r a l i a n c i t i z e n s enjoy—standardised healthcare coverage, affordable housing, equi-table school fees for dependents, and the right to vote in local elec-tions. They have also called for a better-trained urban police presence.

Their biggest and most emotive fight, however, is over travel concessions.

For decades the states of Victoria and New South Wales have refused to extend the same discounts to international stu-dents that domestic undergraduates receive for public bus and train fares. The issue is reignited regularly at con-ferences and in the media and policy documents. The states argue that they

can’t afford to give the concessions, and higher-education associations and inter-national students argue that the states can’t afford to not give them.

For international students, the issue is symbolic of the day-to-day discrimina-tion they say they often feel. “It’s about fairness. It adds to the perception that the government doesn’t care and sees international students as cash cows,” said Wesa Chau, who helped found the Australian Federation of International Students in Melbourne 10 years ago.

Of course, travel con-cessions have pragmatic benefits, too. Advocates say they would make a big difference to tight budgets, enough so that more international stu-dents would ride public transport instead of risk-ing their safety by walk-ing home after work or a night out.

The lines of responsi-bility for student welfare in Australia are blurred,

to say the least. The University of Mel-bourne, which has doubled its foreign-student population since 2001 to about 12,000, employs 13 full-time staff in an international-student services division to help. Aid services range from finan-cial to housing, disability, employment, and counselling.

But Margaret Loh, a senior interna-tional-student adviser who assists hun-

36% of students enrolled in Australian higher-ed were from

foreign countries

dreds of students on campus every year, said more was needed.”There needs to be a discussion at much higher levels to really work out, what is international education? Is it a ‘cash cow’ because the federal government is squeezing down funding to universities, or do we really want to embrace this notion of knowl-edge transfer across the world? Are we playing a global citizen role? What are we?” Loh said.

As universities watch enrollment numbers closely, such questions will form part of the work of the federal gov-ernment’s business and academic advisory council.

Among other things, the council is promising to examine ways to improve engagement between international students and local students and commu-nities. Also on the agenda is how services—including the travelconces-sions—can be delivered more consis-tently nationwide. Noor, the Council of International Students Australia Presi-dent, says having student issues addressed nationally is a significant and hopeful development.

“It’s going to take a while for the whole industry to change its point of view,” she said. “But there has been a big change in the way the conversations are taking places and a lot more conversa-tion about student support.”

V I E W S , R E V I E W S & M O R E


New releases for your BooKsHelf

Lopa Ghosh

“I was afraid someone would ask why are the stories thus (sexual)... someone did!”

Lopa Ghosh’s debut is an Indian khichdi—it takes gener-ous chunks of fact, mixes it with fiction and fantasy, evokes from the past and merges it with the present, takes political engage-ment along with apathy, solid prose with grammatical suicides and headache-inducing sentenc-es. The problem in Ghosh’s collection lies in its inconsisten-cy—the language oscillates between pure rococo and Hing-lish-Benglish.

However, all is not bad in this pish-pash; Ghosh’s strength lies in her occasional humour—acer-bic and empathetic at the same time. And in her metaphors. She offers interesting insights into the corporate world; one which she knows closely as she was very much a part of it before moving onto her present stint at the United Nations. Though her characters are sometimes not a direct part of the corporate world, they remain deeply influenced by it. And bosses, power points and offsites make their special appearances.

A mixture that is both good and bad, peppered with a sense of humour. Rohini Banerjee

Blended Learning in higher Education This book reflects the author’s enthusiasm and experience of blended learning. It will make professors and

administrators think about how to improve the learning experience using blended learning. Author: D Randy Garrison, Norman VaughanPublisher: Jossey-BassPrice: $30.36

Exploring Leadership: For College students Who Want to Make a Difference Exploring Leadership is designed to help college students understand that they are capable of being effective leaders and guide them in developing leadership potential. Author: Susan Komives, Nance Lucas, Timothy McMahonPublisher: Jossey-BassPrice: $27.50

For those intrigued by Ghosh’s choice of the title, the stories are not exclusively about the Ben-gali community. Though the writer is admittedly one. She has also centred several of her plots around NRI Bengalis. But Revolt is named thus because Ghosh believes that fish eaters enjoy a ‘momentary sense of happiness’ after eating the meat because of the presence of Omega3 fatty acids in it. Thus, her stories are about fluctuating emotions—desire, longing, loss and manipula-tion. Revolt is also the story of other fish-eating Indian communities and contains mesmerising flights of fantasy along with deceitful forces including a ghost of a dead mother, clueless communists and post modern arrogance.

A chairman manipulated by his mother’s ghost; a mid-rung career woman in love with a Siberian oil digger; a corporate anthropologist in love with a suicide bomber; IT companies grow-ing tea; a radical theatre actor creating board-room Buddhas; the leader of an impending revo-lution who can only sing nursery rhymes; the world’s richest man in the middle of witchcraft, rape and idol immersions, Revolt of the Fish Eat-ers is a strange and motley collection from the business world going through its worst recession period yet.

If her plots sometimes let you down, Ghosh’s style makes the collection an enjoyable read. And her intriguing characters are a strength.authoR: Lopa Ghosh puBLishER: Harper Collins PublisherpRiCE: ` 299

Revolt Of The Fish Eaters

timeout

gADgetS


sony Vaio E-series NotebookAfter the extremely blingy Vaio S-series, the new E-series does look a million times more subtle and appealing to a wider demographic of users. It is powered by the Intel Core i5–2450M (2.5 GHz) processor, with the Turbo Mode taking it to 3.1 GHz. There is 4 GB RAM to help this along. The 14-inch display on the Vaio E-series is among the best we have seen in the last couple of months. The Vaio E-series offers good performance and looks very well while doing it. However, the real cherry on the cake is the excellent battery life that it offers.price: ` 55,990

samsung’s New Galaxy Note Samsung is all ready to raise the curtains on its next generation smartphone-tablet hybrid device, the Galaxy Note 2. The Galaxy Note 2 is said to have a 5.5-inch display, as compared to 5.3-inch screen of the original Note. The Note 2 will run on the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system and sport a 13 MP camera. The device is expected to be powered by a quad-core Exynos processor, the same as seen in the SIII. Price: ` 36,000

tECh iNsiDER | TushAr

My FiRst experience with 3D was a diminutive toy-like device called the View-Master. You’d peer through it and shockingly well-rendered 3D photos would jump out at you. Pity that three decades later, we’re not much further along the personal 3D rev-olution. Wait a minute! Aren’t TV manufacturers crowing about major advancements in TV technology every passing year? Sure,

but what’s the point of technol-ogy for technolo-gy’s sake? Nobody cares if there’s no 3D content to play on that latest greatest 3D TV.

Many had hoped that with the recently con-

cluded Summer Olympics 3D TV would hit the prime-time, with sponsors proudly claiming that over 240 hours of 3D program-ming would be available in select countries. Much of that con-tent never made it to TV screens.

Even with the possibilities of home movies and photography driving the adoption of 3D in the living, the flagship products—a camera by Fuji, a handycam from Sony and an HTC smart-phone—seemed half-marketed party tricks. All you’re left with is expensive blu-ray movie content that can do the 3D capabilities on your TV some justice. Sure, many 3D TVs today convert 2D content to 3D, but having seen these, I’m frankly unimpressed. In fact, the current generation of 3D technology gives a section of the audience headaches.

There’s hope on the horizon though with a few manufacturers toying with glasses-free 3D, but it is prohibitively expensive. If you’re looking to buy a TV in the next year, do not use 3D as a parameter of choice. I personally will not be betting on 3D for some time to come.

Don’t Bet on 3D Yet!

A self-confessed gizmo-holic, Tushar Kanwar is a technology columnist with the Telegraph and Business World, and contributes to a variety of technology and lifestyle publications. Tushar’s interests lie at the intersection of consumer technology, internet trends and products that change the world.


legacy

Prasanta chandra Mahalanobis

A renowned Indian scientist and applied statistician, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis is best known for the Mahalanobis Distance, a statistical measure. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute, contributed to the design of large scale sample surveys and pioneered studies in anthropometry in India.

A Bengali, Mahalanobis grew up surrounded by intellectuals and reformers. He received his early schooling at the Brahmo Boys School in Calcutta and completed his BSc in Physics from Presidency College in 1912. The following year, he went to Cambridge for further stud-ies. On his return to India he was introduced to the principal of Presidency College and got an invitation to teach physics.

He went back to England and was introduced to the journal Biometrika. This interested him so much that he bought a complete set and brought it to India. He discovered the utility of statistics to problems in meteorology, anthropology and began working on it on his journey back to India.

Mahalanobis married Nirmalkumari, daughter of Heramba Chandra Maitra, a leading educationist and member of the Brahmo Samaj, on February 27, 1923.

His most important contributions are related to large-scale sample surveys. He introduced the concept of pilot surveys and advocated the usefulness of sampling methods. Early surveys began between 1937 to 1944 and included topics such as consumer expenditure, tea-drinking habits, public opinion, crop acreage and plant disease. He was also a member of the Planning Commission and contributed prominently to India’s Five Year Plans. In the Second Five Year Plan he emphasised industrialisation on the basis of a two-sector model. His variant of Was-sily Leontief’s Input-output model, the Mahalanobis model, was employed in the Second Five Year Plan, which worked towards the rapid industrialisation of India. He encouraged a proj-ect to assess deindustrialisation in India and correct some previous census methodology errors and entrusted this project to Daniel Thorner.

He also had an abiding interest in cultural pursuits and served as secretary to Rabindranath Tagore and worked at his Vishva Bharati University for sometime. He received Padma Vib-hushan from the Government of India for his contribution to science and services to the country in 1968.

He died a day before his 79th birthday on 28 June 1972. At that time, he was still active in research and doing his duties as the secretary and director of the Indian Statistical Institute and as the honorary statistical advisor to the Cabinet of the Government of India.

“The spirit and outlook of ‘Sankhya’ will be universal, but its form and content must necessarily be, to some extent, regional”

(1893–1972)

1944Weldon Medal from Oxford

University

1950 President of Indian Science

Congress

1951Fellow of the Econometric

Society, USA

1952 Fellow of the Pakistan Statistical Association

1954Honorary Fellow of the Royal

Statistical Society, UK

1957Sir Deviprasad Sarvadhikari

Gold Medal

1961 Durgaprasad Khaitan Gold

Medal

1968 Padma Vibushan

Numbers Man

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Breaking The Mould