The Future of Webucation! - Economic Times - 30/12/2007

All the world’s a college

Net Effect: Free Lecture Downloads By Elite Colleges Provide Access To World-Class Education

Justin Pope BOSTON

GILBERT Strang is a quiet man with a rare talent: helping others understand linear algebra. He has written a half-dozen popular college textbooks, and for years a few hundred students at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been privileged to take his course. Recently, with the growth of computer science, demand to understand linear algebra has surged. But so has the number of students Strang can teach. An MIT initiative called ‘OpenCourseWare’ makes virtually all the school’s courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang’s Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.

In his Istanbul dormitory, Kemal Burcak Kaplan, an undergraduate at Bogazici University, downloads Strang’s lectures to try to boost his grade in a class there. Outside Calcutta, graduate student Sriram Chandrasekaran uses them to brush up on matrices for his engineering courses at the Indian Institute of Technology. Many ‘students’ are college teachers themselves, like Sheraz ali Khan at a small engineering institute in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Noorali Jiwaji, at the Open University of Tanzania. They use Strang and other MIT professors as guides to design their own classes, and direct students to MIT’s courses for help. Others are closer to MIT’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus. Some are MIT students and alumni, while others have no connection at all — like Gus Whelan, a retiree on nearby Cape Cod, and Dustin Darcy, a 27-year-old video game programmer in Los Angeles who uses linear algebra regularly in his work.
“Rather than going through my old, dusty books,” Darcy said, “I thought I might as well go through it from the top and see if I learn something new.”There has never been a more exciting time for the intellectually curious. The world’s top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they are arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information.

MIT’s initiative is the largest, but the trend is spreading. More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow. As with many technology trends, new services and platforms are driving change. Last spring marked the debut of ‘iTunes U’, a section of Apple’s popular music and video downloading service now publicly hosting free material from 28 colleges. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley recently announced it would be the first to make full course lectures available on YouTube. Berkeley was already posting lectures, but YouTube has dramatically expanded their reach.

If there is not yet something for everyone, it is only a matter of time. On iTunes,
popular recent downloads include a climate change panel at Stanford, lectures on existentialism by Cal-Berkeley professor Hubert Dreyfus, and a performance of Mozart’s requiem by the Duke Chapel Choir. Berkeley’s offerings include 48 classes, from ‘Engineering Thermodynamics’ to ‘Human Emotion’. “It’s almost as good as being there,” said Whelan, the Massachusetts retiree, of the MIT classes he has sampled. “The only thing that’s lacking is the pressure.” He says he usually doesn’t do the homework assignments, but adds: “Now that I’m not in school I don’t have to do that anymore.”

YouTube, iTunes, OpenCourseWare — none are the full college experience. You cannot raise your hand and ask a question. You cannot get a letter of recommendation. And most importantly, almost everywhere, you cannot get credit or earn a degree. That caveat, however, is what has made all this possible. When the internet emerged, experts predicted it would revolutionise higher education, cutting its tether to a college campus. Technology could help solve one of the fundamental challenges of the 21st century: providing a mass population with higher education at a time when a college degree was increasingly essential for economic success.
Today, the internet has indeed transformed higher education. A multibilliondollar industry, both for-profit and nonprofit, has sprung up offering online training and degrees. Figures from the Sloan

Consortium, an online learning group, report about 3.5 million students are signed up for at least one online course — or about 20% of all students at degree-granting institutions.
But it has not been as clear what role — if any — elite universities would play in what experts call the ‘massification’ of higher education. Their finances are based on prestige, which means turning students away, not enrolling more. How could they teach the masses without diminishing the value of their degree?

But MIT’s 2001 debut of OpenCourse-Ware epitomised a key insight: Elite universities can separate their credential from their teaching — and give at least parts of their teaching away as a public service. They are not diminishing their reputations at all. In fact, they are expanding their reach and reputation. It turns out there is extraordinary demand for bits and pieces of the education places like MIT provide, even without the diploma.

OpenCourseWare’s site gets more than 1 million hits per month, with translated versions getting 500,000 more. About 60% of users are outside the United States. About 15% are educators, and 30% students at other universities. About half have no university affiliation.

“I think the fundamental realisation is that distance learning will solve the problem of access to certification, but there’s a larger problem, which is access to information,” says Steve Carson, director of external relations for the MIT initiative.

“If you’re going to work as a public health professional, you need the certification,” Carson says. “If you’re working in a community” — say, in Africa _ “you don’t need the certification. You just need access to the information.”

About 11,600 kilometers from Cambridge, the Polytechnic of Namibia is the kind of place eager to learn from MIT. Though barely a decade old, the school in the young African nation’s capital Windhoek, is poised to play a key role in the country’s development. It is one of 84 sites in Africa where MIT has shipped its course materials on hard drives for institutions to store locally on their own networks. With bandwidth costing about 1,000 times its price in the United States, patching into OpenCourseWare over the internet would crash the school’s fragile networks.
CIO Laurent Evrard says the Polytechnic takes pride in standards on a par with top global peers — he notes how US exchange students get credit for work there — and says students like using Open-CourseWare to see how they stack up.

“Everybody here knows about MIT,” he says, though it does not hurt that the school rector — its top official — is an alumnus. On the opposite coast of southern Africa, Jiwaji says most of his Tanzanian students have never heard of MIT. Students use the courses “because it gives them a tool. They feel lost and they don’t have good books,” Jiwaji says. “They need a guide to help them.” His distance university — with 30,000 registered students — has OpenCourseWare available at centres around the capital of Dar es Salaam. There, it gets an impressive 600 hits per day, mostly in management classes.

Though it has found a wider audience, OpenCourseWare was originally intended for teachers. The idea was not just to show off MIT’s geniuses but to share its innovative teaching methods. After examining an MIT course called ‘Machine Structures’, Khan, the Pakistani professor, redesigned his lab assignments for a computer science class to get students more involved, asking them to design and build their own microprocessors.

“It really encourages the students to discover and try something new,” he said. “Normally the stress here is on how things work, not on creating things of your own.” MIT’s free offerings focus mostly on well-organised texts like syllabuses and readings, along with an expanding video lecture collection. Others, like Stanford and Bowdoin College in Maine, provide more polish, editing and features. Berkeley, meanwhile, is focused less on bells and whistles than on ramping up its ability to roll out content with a system that automatically records and posts lectures. Berkeley’s eight YouTube courses drew 1.5 million downloads in the first month, said Ben Hubbard, co-manager of the webcast.berkeley program, and the school is inundated with requests to post more.

“That’s why we’re so focused on automation,” he said. “Our motto is ‘Fiat Lux’ _ ‘let there be light.’ We feel like this is a great way to let the light of Berkeley shine out on the world.”
A big obstacle is cost. Professors are reluctant to participate unless staff are provided to help with logistics. A major expense is video camera operators, unless schools can persuade lecturers to stand still at the lectern. MIT estimates OpenCourseWear costs a hefty $20,000 per course. Money from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation started the project, but from now on it will rely mostly on contributions from MIT’s budget and endowment, and from visitor donations. –– AP

GLOBAL WINDOW

MIT prof Gilbert Strang‘s Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 m times since June alone

Sheraz Ali Khan in Peshawar uses Strang and other MIT profs as guides to design his own classes and direct students to MIT’s courses for help

Video game programmer Dustin Darcy in Los Angeles uses linear algebra regularly in his work and prefers this to going through his ‘dusty,old books’

The new face of Education - Going High Tech and Global

The faster we get there the better! I wish we had free yet Quality Online Education available for the masses a decade ago :)

The TOI article - 30/12/2007

[I just love TOI for being so active in reporting the education scenario in India - it helps!]

2008 TIME TO CHANGE

THE WORLD IS YOUR CLASSROOM

Virtual Campuses Are Gaining Ground, Foreign Players Are Bringing In Funds and Investing Resources, Even IIT Is Broadcasting Live From Powai

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: Higher education for Priyanka Sinha, a class ten student who will enter college next year, is surely not going to be the same as it was for her brother who joined the campus world three years ago. For one, expansion in higher education will give her a wider range of options to choose from in terms of colleges and universities — she could even sit at home and enrol for a recognised course abroad, online. But her family will also have to shell out a substantially larger sum than what they did for their son. And given the rise in quotas, the competition will get stiff.

FEE HIKE
It was a government paper titled ‘Government Subsidies in India’ in 1997 that classified higher education as a “Non-merit Good’’ as compared to elementary education which was defined as a “Merit good’’, which required states to subsidise it heavily.

The same government later slotted higher education into a category called “Merit 2 Goods’’ that need not be subsidised by the state at the same level as “Merit Goods’’. Ever since, the government has hinted at increasing the cost for higher education.

Earlier this year, while increasing the financial allocation for education, the Planning Commission had suggested the need to hike fees in colleges and central and state universities. But alongside, the government also promised easy access to loans and a larger outlay for scholarships.

Vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai Vijay Khole pointed out that in Mumbai, “An interim report prepared by Principal Naresh Chandra is being relooked (at) and fee hike is imperative to better the amenities on college campuses.’’ The interim report submitted last year had recommended a 10%-15% hike, but members of the management council had suggested that the committee could relook at the figures and probably bring in a larger hike.

QUOTAS
Apart from fees, reservations is the other issue which will overshadow the higher education sector. The coming year may change the face of some of the country’s centres of excellence. The UPA government unleashed the quota genie in 2006 on all Centrally-aided institutions across the country, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs); campuses thereafter erupted in protests and counter-protests. While the IITs and IIMs have gone into expansion mode to accommodate more candidates from the Other Backward Classes, the case is pending in the Supreme Court.

Director of IIT-Bombay Ashok Misra pointed out that the coming year will also see “enhanced stress’’ on research as well as technology incubation. “We may also be able to set up a Tech Park, which will be able to support companies that are incubated on campus,’’ he said.

ONLINE EDUCATION

Peter Drucker in his article, The Death of the University, had said: “Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t survive....’’ 2008 may well mark the beginning of this trend.

Virtual campuses are going to be the reality of this year. Bhaskar Ranjan Das, the (west India) director of U-21 Global — a Singapore-based firm that offers online courses in management and hospitality — pointed out, “online would be the way to go if access to higher education is to go up.’’ His institute runs online courses in collaboration with several international universities, and enrolment in India has been increasing “exponentially’’ — by over 100% annually. Presently, there are 1,200 Indian students enrolled with U-21 Global.

Expansion in this sector has also propelled the union government to pass a bill governing digital education. “The Union HRD ministry has prepared a draft law to provide legal backing for the Distance Education Council (DEC), currently a body under Indira Gandhi National Open University,’’ said a senior member of the HRD ministry. His ministry had sought the Cabinet’s approval to set up a statutory body that will also monitor courses being provided by foreign universities/colleges through the internet.

Even established institutions are taking their courseware to the world via broadband or television. Starting January 2008, IIT-Bombay will broadcast lectures live through Edusat, a satellite which caters exclusively to the education sector. Students of any engineering institute will now not only have real-time access to IIT-B tutoring, but can interact with faculty at Powai. “There is an urgent need to get more and more high quality educationists. Through distance education, we will be able to provide high quality content to other technology schools across the country,’’ added Misra.

In fact, presently, 23 percent of all higher education enrolments in India are in distance education. According to a McKinsey-Nasscom Report, the Indian government has targeted 40 percent of all higher education participation via distance education by 2010.

FOREIGN/PRIVATE PLAYERS
Get a degree from a fullfledged foreign university sitting at home in India, from 2008 onwards. India lifted the restrictions on foreign direct investment in education way back in 2001. But the union government has not yet brought out a clear policy for foreign players. It may do that in the coming year.

Besides, Maharashtra may get its share of private universities. Like Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Devesh Kapur, Associate professor of government at Harvard University point out in their paper, ‘Indian Higher Education Reform: From Half-baked Socialism to Half-Baked Capitalism’: “Privatisation has resulted from the breakdown of state system and the exit of Indian elites from public institutions.’’

And so when the state will have players like the Tatas and Ambanis setting up universities, Priyanka will be able to do something her brother could not — choose.

THE 2007 REPORT CARD

J M. Lyngdoh Commission gave its nod to hold students’ union elections in universities and colleges. The panel, however, limited election expenditure to Rs 5,000 and banned political interference in college polls.

The apex court comes down on ragging. Based on the recommendations of a Committee on Ragging led by the former CBI director R K Raghavan, the SC said ragging should be made a criminal offence. The committee had said those caught ragging should be booked by the police, expelled from college and denied future admission.

The Joint Entrance Exam conducted by the IITs this year revealed that almost 14% of successful candidates from the general category are OBCs. Across IITs, a total of 990 OBC students qualified from the open category this year.

Following up on the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, the University of Mumbai permitted colleges to offer their popular courses in two shifts —- morning and evening.

IIT-B took over one of the country’s oldest academic establishments - the Institute of Science. The erstwhile Royal Institute of Science was among the first home-grown institutions dedicated to pure science and related research. Renowned scientists like Homi Bhabha, M G K Menon, V V Narlikar and chemical technologist R D Desai are among its alumni.

The Prime Minister announced the setting up of 1,600 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Polytechnics, 5,000 new Skill Development Centres, 30 new central universities, 5 new Institutes of Science Education and Research, 8 new IITs, 7 new IIMs and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology.

Health minister Anbumani Ramadoss proposed that medical graduates be awarded their MBBS certificates only after a compulsory yearlong rural internship. After countrywide protests, the health minister backed down and declared that the internship would be part of the existing five-and-ahalf year MBBS program.me.

University of Mumbai came up with a hair-brained idea - it set aside finances to conduct a feasibility study on listing the state university on the stock exchange. After being pulled up by the central government, the study was conveniently given a burial.

IIT alumni backed by former McKinsey MD Rajat Gupta, also the founding member and chairman of the board of directors of the PAN-IIT group of former students, drew up a blueprint to build resources for a new IIT..

This is exactly why I won't study at IIMs

Education looses its purpose when it get treated like a business. Why can't the so called best institutes provide quality education at nominal fees. Why should the best be offered on Financial Merit!

This is getting low, dirty and disgusting!

The Economic Times article - 29/12/2007

COSTLY LESSONS

IIMs to hike fees by up to 50% from next year

STEEPEST HIKE FROM IIM-A

Mansi Bhatt AHMEDABAD

GET READY to pay a huge premium to study at the country’s premier management institutes. Despite strong opposition from the human resource development ministry, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are set for a huge fee hike from the next academic session.

The proposed fee structure will see IIMAhmedabad effecting one of the steepest hikes in the history of management education in India. The IIM-A intends to hike its fees to whopping Rs 3 lakh for the 2008-2010 batch from the current Rs 2 lakh. This 50% increase will be the steepest fee hike by any IIM. Last year, IIM-Bangalore increased annual fee by Rs 75,000, from Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh. IIM-B plans to further increase it to Rs 2.75 lakh for the next academic session.

The board of governors of IIM-A has approved the steep hike despite strong reservations from the HRD ministry. According to sources, at a recent board meeting of IIMs, the members approved fee hike for the flagship PG programme for the next academic session. The ministry officials do not seem to be happy with the decision and are expected to ask for less stiff hike. IIM-A last increased its fees in March 2007, from Rs 1.77 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.

The institutes are increasing fees to offset the rising expenditure per student. “Majority of the board members accepted the proposal despite opposition from the members from state and central governments who thought the hike was too steep,” said a member who attended the meeting. While the HRD ministry representatives and the state government officials opposed the hike, the other members argued that hike was imperative considering the Pay Commission recommendations.

I I M - A

To hike fees for 2008-2010 batch from Rs 2 lakh/year to Rs 3 lakh/year It had increased its fees from Rs 1.77 lakh to Rs 2 lakh in March 2007

I I M - B

To increase fees to Rs 2.75 lakh for the next academic session In March this year, it had hiked fees from Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh

I I M - C & I I M - L
Raised fees to around Rs 2 lakh in the past one-and-a-half years

A moving article from Times of India and my views on it - TOI - 28/12/07

My Views:

Spare a thought for the generation which is constantly mesmerized by these so termed 3c's - Cricket, Cinema and Computers. It's really sad that the article tends a bit towards negative criticism of the issue. I agree to the fact that students need to sideline their passion of these three C's for a while during the exams. But on second thought, why should one sideline passion for anything in life?

Its really hard not to loose respect for the CBSE chief when he says - "overindulgence in the 3Cs not only cost students their valuable time but could also be of such an influence to hamper their growth and stunt them in achieving 3As—aptitude, attitude and altitude—in their personal life and professional career".

The article talks about the so called three A's of life - Apptitude, Attitude and Altitude; which stand a chance of being unachieved if time is devoted to these 3 C's.

If this is true, will someone tell me then,

• why the hell is the entire nation inspired when a cricket team wins a crucial series or a world cup?
• Why are the team members showered with diamonds and jewels?
  
• Why is Shahrukh Khan followed religiously? Why are their temple named after Sachin Tendulkar or Amitabh Bachchan?
  
• Why is Bill Gates considered to be a genius or just why is he the richest guy? Why are Apple Computers founders thought of highly? Why is IT industry termed as hot and happening? Why is Animation industry said to be the next big thing for India?

If devoting time to these three C's is so bad then why the hell do we have a cricket team? Why do we make movies and why do parents buy computer? Are they dumb?

I don't doubt your intelligence Mr. Chief but please get this right - Your three A's exist in this nation with the help of these three C's.

This generation has a positive attitude towards things in life. We are the future and we love the three C's - you have no choice but to agree with this fact.

• The ever improving young Indian Cricket Team inspires us to aim high in life, keep striving for success and take failure with a strong heart without diminishing your positivism.
  
• Cinema inspires us in every aspect of life. Yes, I agree to the fact that sometime the scenes are just unbearable and unwatchable with family. But movies like Swades, Iqbal, Yuva, Chak De India, Lagaan, Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par, both the Munna Bhai's keep us up on our toes to do something good, to strive for something better, to give back more than what you take, to improve the system by taking active part rather than staying out and criticize, to do our part in building the nation.
• To be true, I have learned more about physics, maths and chemistry through websites such as Google, YouTube, Metacafe, howstuffworks, wikipedia, teachertube, expertvillage, 5min, videojug, physicstutor just to name a few out of the thousands of websites filled with educational content. Yes I agree that inappropriate content exists from students point of view and they can loose their focus. But that's just the other side of the coin. Instead of spending our energy negatively in criticizing the bad things about the system why not spend some good amount of energy together in make the good side of the coin more prominent, attractive, known, accessible and affordable?

If students love PC games then each them through games, if they love sports, teach them through sports, if they love movies, show them high quality educational movies with mind-blowing story lines filed with rich content.

The process never matters, the end result does.

We don't have the skill to teach - it is they who have the power to learn!

I teach students various topics on physics, and many other subjects, and I strongly believe one can teach some of the best topics in physics through games and sports like cricket, football, billiards, boomerangs, kite flying competition and a hell lot of other crazy things.

There's a difference between a good teacher and a great teacher. A good teacher teaches the subject with accuracy and perfection and his/her students score well. A great teacher however makes the students fall in love with the subject and allows them to think!

Get out of your skin Mr. Chief, tune up yourself for the new generation. Please don't prepare Indian students for the big rat race. Let them play and discover the Genius within. Prepare them for a beautiful life and not a mundane job. You have the power of decision, please utilize it to the full potential. Start imagining like a kid again and please go and watch Taare Zameen Par!

SandeepRajSharma
sandeeprajsharma@gmail.com

My apologies if my thoughts hurt you in any way. Take it in good spirits - all for the sake of Education! Have a Good Life!


The Article

Cricket, cinema and computers affecting students: CBSE chief

Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN

New Delhi: Expressing grave concern over the growing negative impact of cinema, cricket and computer on the student community, CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly has sought active parental guidance and control to moderate children’s indulgence in these 3Cs. He would not term any of the 3Cs as a vice or bad per se in this era of globalization where sources of information were varied and even agreed with parents the impossibility of shutting students from these three.

“However, overindulgence in the 3Cs not only cost students their valuable time but could also be of such an influence to hamper their growth and stunt them in achieving 3As—aptitude, attitude and altitude—in their personal life and professional career,” he said at a function on Wednesday. To drive home the point, he recalled that when the cricket World Cup matches clashed with the CBSE examinations, a student had telephoned him and bluntly said that he was a heartless person.

“He said the CBSE chairman was heartless as students were being deprived of watching the matches due to the exams. He went on to request postponement of the examinations. I told him that the World Cup comes once every four years, but the CBSE exams will come only once in his lifetime. Hence, I advised him to devote adequate time for preparations,” Ganguly said.
Three months later, after the declaration of results, the same student again telephoned and thanked him profusely for giving him the “correct” advice, he said.

The Good and Bad of Education - A Times of India artice - 27/12/2007

STATE BOARD MAY BE LESS STINGY WITH MARKS

New Rules Make It Difficult For Schools To Hold Back Students In Class IX

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

School education in Mumbai is all set to witness dramatic changes in the new year, both in terms of the quality of institutions on offer as well as the assessment scheme in board examinations.
NEW RULES IN LANGUAGE
PAPER
Passing the language paper in the SSC and HSC exams may get a little more difficult next year. It’s no longer just about mugging up grammar and syntax. In 2008, for the first time, the state board will test children on their ability to speak the language. Twenty per cent of the marks for the language examination will be reserved for internal assessment that will include an oral examination. There will also be an internal assessment for mathematics worth 20 per cent of the marks.
MORE LIBERAL MARKING IN THE OFFING
The sky-high marks scored by ICSE and CBSE students have been giving SSC students sleepless nights for the last few years but there is a chance that the state board will attempt to level the playing field and give out marks more liberally in 2008. 2007 saw a dramatic increase in the SSC pass percentage; students got 30 “free’’ marks, thanks to a goof-up in the mathematics paper. But, despite that, ICSE, CBSE and International Baccalaureate (IB) students had an upper hand when it came to college merit lists.
NO HOLDING BACK STUDENTS IN CLASS IX
Schools are known to fail a high number of class-IX students in order to get cent per cent results in the class-X exams. But fresh guidelines from the state board will make it virtually impossible for schools to hold back students a year before the big exam. A student now needs to get only an average of 35 per cent in all three languages instead of getting 35 per cent in each subject. Similarly, instead of having to pass in both mathematics and science papers individually with 35 per cent in each, students now need to only get 35 per cent of the total marks for science and maths.
BIRDS AND BEES IN SYLLABUS
Studies may no longer be all about history and mathematics. Birds and bees may make their way into the curriculum. However, after the uproar over the teachers’ manual for sex education which forced the government to backtrack and pull the subject out of the curriculum, the state may act with a little more caution this time. The State Council of Education, Research and Training is working on a new curriculum that “will not hurt Indian sensibilities’’.
EASIER FOR LD STUDENTS
English-medium students have access to Learning Disability tests to detect the condition but the disorder often goes unnoticed in students from Indian-language schools. All that, however, is set to change next year, thanks to a series of newly-released standardised LD tests in Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati.
MORE IGCSE SCHOOLS
The other bit of good news is that the city will witness a host of new IB schools entering the market; along with that, a number of existing ICSE and SSC schools also plan to switch over to the Cambridge curriculum (IGCSE).
CONVENT REVAMP
It’s not just international schools that plan to effect a slew of changes. Convent schools, too, are all set to get a facelift.
Recognising the need to keep up with the times, the Archdiocesan Board of Education (ABE) that runs the 150-odd convents in and around Mumbai is going all out to revamp its schools in 2008. Don’t be surprised if you drop in at your neighbourhood convent and find some exciting, innovative methods of education replacing the traditional chalkand-blackboard method. ABE will also set up a system of assessment for the headmasters of its schools.
Those schools that are doing well will be asked to mentor other convents that need a leg up.
CHANGES IN BMC SCHOOLS
It’s not just private education that’s set to witness a number of changes next year. While free-of-cost civic schools — that cater largely to the poor — have seen a tremendous decline in student strength, there may be a reverse trend in 2008. The BMC is going all out to woo children, providing students with freebies like schools bags and milk to starting English-medium schools.
BATTERED KIDS
But the big worry is that, despite the blanket ban on corporal punishment, there is little hope of a decrease in the number of incidents of kids being battered in the classroom.
School authorities rarely take such instances seriously and are known to brush them aside. In the last one year, there has been a spate of such incidents (including one in which a child partially lost his hearing after being hit on the ear and a four-year-old saying he never wanted to go to school after being hit on the head with a duster).
WISH FOR 2008
TAKE IT EASY
Mumbai witnessed a spate of teenage suicides this year. Despite a slew of changes in the school education system, there’s little hope of any letting up in study-related pressure. Mental health experts warn of an increase in depression and suicidal tendencies. Hiring full-time counsellors is an option schools must consider seriously. If there’s one wish that we at TOI have for 2008, it is that parents and teachers go easy on their expectations and concentrate more on the child than his/her marks so that no more lives are lost.
THE 2007
REPORT CARD
WE STILL KNEW THE TOPPERS
The state board had announced, with great fanfare, that it wanted to do away with merit lists like the ICSE/CBSE boards. But it ended up releasing the names of the students with the highest scores in each category this year.
MARKED IMBALANCE
ICSE and CBSE students continued to get phenomenally high marks in the board exams, giving SSC students the jitters, as these marks were important in deciding who got into which junior college.
SSC GOOF-UP
SSC students got 30 “free’’ marks in mathematics thanks to a goof-up in the paper.
NO SEX EDUCATION PLEASE
The teacher’s manual for sex education in schools caused a huge furore early in 2007. The State Council of Education, Training and Research now plans to introduce sex education in the classroom after modifying the manual.
SPIRIT OF GIVING
BMC decided in May to allot over Rs 200 crore to provide free uniforms, shoes, school bags and other accessories — in addition to flavoured milk and sports gear — for its 4 lakh students.
DEATH BY WATER
A seven-year-old student drowned in the swimming pool of Janakidevi Public School (Four Bungalows) in July 2007.
WAKE-UP CALL
The Archbishop of Mumbai was forced to lament the dip in standards at convent schools.
HELP FOR STUDENTS WITH LD
Two SNDT teachers designed standardised tests in Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati to detect Learning Disability. The tests took the teachers two years to develop and standardise and the final product was ready in September.
FROM BMC TO IB
An RTI application by Simprit Singh of the National Alliance of People’s Movements in October revealed details of how the Walpakhadi Municipal School — a BMC school at Mazgaon that closed down four years ago — was converted into an International Baccalaureate School, violating the law.
A SAFER JOURNEY
Traffic cops said in October they wanted all kids to go to school on school-buses for a safer journey.

Are our Educational Authorities sleeping? - TOI - 25/12/2007

A LESSON IN REGULATION: LESS IS MORE

SP Jain college bigger abroad than in India

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: It was in 2004 that the S P Jain Institute of Management Studies decided to head for Singapore and by the time the next academic session started, the college was ready with the approvals and accreditation.
Unlike in India, the paperwork was quick: S P Jain had to coordinate with just one agency. “It is a single window system, we merely had to approach the Economic Development Board (EDB), which in turn co-ordinated with all the other ministries,’’ said Suresh Advani, a professor with the Mumbai-based institution who spearheaded the Singapore initiative.
“Once we had submitted all the documents, a delegation came to inspect our campus in Mumbai. Even the Singapore embassy collected some of our details
like courses we offer, placement records, our standing in the industry, faculty quality, etc,’’ added Advani.
After all the checks yielded positive results, S P Jain was asked to discuss their curriculum and submit a copy of it for clearance from the ministry of education. The EDB even sent S P Jain a list of the plots available in the Singapore, where they could set up base. “There was a one point-person we were co-ordinating with,’’ recalled Advani.
Today, there are 450 students studying on this campus, far more than the 180 students this institute has on its Mumbai campus, which has been in existence since 1981.
The situation is a result of a liberal policy under which there is no cap on student intake if you have requisite facilities. Secondly, the government there has also allowed S P Jain to fix its own fee structure. “We were given a broad idea of what other B-schools were charging. But there is no cap on the fees we can charge. We were merely told that our institution should be self sustaining,’’ added Advani.
Under the laws, the S P Jain Institute cannot remit a penny from what they earn for nine years. But they are not complaining. They are investing the money in upgrading and expanding their facilities in Singapore.

Red Tape in Indian Education - TOI - 25/12/2007

GIVING EDUCATION THE RUN-AROUND

Red Tape And Corruption Have Led To Bottlenecks In Quality Higher Education. Govt Needs To Loosen Up To Improve Supply

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

The Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, may boast of a sprawling campus and students who bag lucrative offers every year through campus recruitments, but so far as the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is concerned, it’s an “unrecognised” college.

In 2001, the S P Jain Institute of Management Studies applied to the AICTE to increase its intake from 150 to 180 seats. It took six years for the approval to come through. Compare that with S P Jain’s setups in Dubai and Singapore — they are less than five years old, but their total student intake is 900, which is five times the capacity on the 26-year-old Mumbai campus.
Post-reforms, the time to get an industrial licence in the country has reduced drastically. But the institutions that supply manpower to these business houses, it seems, are still under the licence raj.

Academicians point out that the only ones getting into the education sector are those who can circumvent archaic rules through political connections or the ones who have enough capital to pay for clearances.

“A group of scholars from Oxford could go and set up the Cambridge University. In India, that is surely not possible because of the huge black and white investments involved,’’ mocked a senior faculty member associated with the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.
Clearly, the multiplicity of governing agencies at the local, state and central level forces institutions to go through a maze of bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures. In Maharashtra, for instance, to start a Bschool, an institute first needs a noobjection certificate from the government. Then it needs to apply to AICTE for recognition and then a local university for affiliation. For funds, the institute needs to send an application to University Grants Commission (UGC) and for accreditation (not mandatory) to NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council). And finally, the college needs to send its approval letters and brochures to the state government’s admission committee and fee fixation committee, the Pravesh Niyantran Samiti and Shikshan Shulka Samiti.

Unlike in the US, UK, Singapore or Australia, where an institution has to merely undergo two to three levels of clearance (see box: How Colleges Abroad Skirt Red Tape Get Recognition), professional institutions here need a nod from six to seven agencies before enrolling or adding more students.

Given such concerns, the Planning Commission, in a proposal approved by the Cabinet in early-December, had announced the setting up of a panel to suggest reforms in all regulatory bodies for education including the AICTE.

“It is imperative to review the role these organisations are expected to perform in the context of global change, with a view to enable them to reach out, regulate and maintain standards,’’ the Planning panel document read. The document included the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) on restricting the role of regulatory bodies.

“The existing regulatory framework constrains supply of good institutions, excessively regulates existing institutions in the wrong places and is not conducive to innovation or creativity in higher education,’’ NKC chairman Sam Pitroda had said in his report submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year.

Not only is the list of approving agencies long, but Indian institutions can begin negotiating stage two of clearances only after they sort out paperwork at stage one. What this means is the institute cannot simultaneously process papers with different departments in order to save time.
On the other hand, governments across the developed world emphasise on single-window clearance — accreditation or recognition is handed out by one single body based on quality of facilities and curriculum. This body or agency makes a recommendation to the government, based on which the final decision is taken. And it’s a completely transparent process — assessment reports and rankings published by the accrediting agencies are put out on websites. “The reports are used as guides by students to find the university which best meets their needs and interests,’’ said Anu Jain, adviser-education, science and training at the Australian High Commission in Delhi. So, is India capable of adopting similar processes and does it have the will to do it?

Former secretary (education) of the Planning Commission B S Baswan points out that there is an urgent need to look at the demand-supply equation and not put barriers to entry for quality institutions. “If there is a demand supply mismatch, it will lead to rent seeking,’’ he added.

hemali.chhapia@timesgroup.com

HOW FOREIGN COLLEGES SKIRT RED TAPE AND GET RECOGNITION
In most countries, setting up a professional institute requires going through 2-3 levels of clearance. In India, on the other hand, the process of getting approvals and recognition is a long drawn-out process which involves a gamut of agencies at the local, state and central level

United States
The US Department of Education (USDE) publishes a list of accrediting agencies, which have powers to recommend institutes of higher education. All accrediting agencies are private bodies, which charge fees for evaluating colleges and giving them a certain ranking. Their credibility depends on how accurately they rank a college.

After setting up a professional institute like an engg college, the institute applies to an accreditation agency as well as a private body known as Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). The accreditation agency assesses facilities while CHEA evaluates courses.

After assessment, the agency submits a report to a National Advisory Committee, which then makes a recommendation to the US Secretary of Education. The Secretary, after considering the report, takes a final decision.

Australia For an educational institute to operate in Australia, it has to get accreditation from a regulatory body and seek approval from the state.

Professional courses need to be accredited by the relevant professional regulatory body. For engineering, the body is Engineers Australia; for accounting, it is CPA Australia; for MBA, it is the Graduate Management Association Australia — which does not accredit the program but rates the university’s MBA course.

Apart from the state and the accrediting agency, there is the AUQA which is an independent, national quality assurance body that audits key activities such as teaching, learning, research and management in Australian varsities every five years. AUQA reports are available to the public on their website.

United Kingdom
To award a higher education degree in UK, an organisation needs to be authorised by a Royal Charter or Act of Parliament.

Applications by an institute for powers to award degrees or carry out research must be made to the govt’s Privy Council. The Council forwards the application to a minister.

Permission is granted by the Privy Council on the basis of background checks on the group interested in setting up the institution as well as the people associated with it.

After getting permission from the Council, the institute has to seek accreditation from the Quality Assurance Agency, an independent body funded by subscriptions from UK universities and colleges of higher education, which reviews standards of infrastructure, admission processes, academic programmes, placement records, etc.

Times of India Article - 24/12/2007 - About a Child's Self Esteem

Children should look to keep their esteem engines going

Meher Marfatia

Sandwiched between ‘self-employed’ and ‘self-evident’ in dictionaries is ‘self-esteem’: a good opinion of oneself. It’s something children can do with, considering the increasing number of student suicides and campus shootouts. But, what seems such a free and easy state of being could actually be the trickiest to achieve.

Pegged at Number 4 in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-esteem precedes self-actualisation which sits at the apex of this pyramidal theory of human motivation. Inadequate esteem results in discouragement and feelings of inferiority, he explained.

Although poor self-esteem lies at the core of much social turmoil, from inner angst expressed as aggression to communication breakdown on the personal front and at the workplace, it’s still an underrated quality, agree mental health experts. “Self-esteem is equally vital in the corporate world. A person’s state of well-being definitely sends positive motivation down the line,’’ says Mehul Kuwadia, CEO of Grey Cells, a training consultancy. While self-esteem generates a ripple effect and develops mutual respect in an office, Kuwadia warns, “A fine line divides esteem from ego. False pride shouldn’t block progress.’’

If low self-esteem triggers the classic superiority complex, there are tougher things to come to terms with. The strangest syndromes, apparently unconnected with esteem, very often are. Take the case of a man whose fear of flying is extended to sick reactions like extreme acidity each time he has to board a flight. While it obviously made him an infrequent traveller, his psychoanalyst discovered he was not only frustrated at this “failing’’ but also resented a wealthier wife. As she dug deeper, the the rapist unravelled self-esteem disturbances dating back to childhood insecurity and envy of a younger brother suddenly becoming the centre of attraction for his family, a problem that made her patient’s own sense of worth plummet.

Ruta Vyas, who conducts self-esteem workshops for children and corporate groups, blames the patriarchal structure of society where a woman’s worth is defined by prescribed standards and expectations. “A woman’s life is seldom hers, claimed by those who ‘depend’ on her. To fulfil these roles, she does not see herself as an individual with her choices but, unhappily, as an enabler of other people’s priorities,’’ says Vyas.

An alarming aspect is that selfworth can be synonymous with warped body image perception. Calories count as they mount in weightconscious urban India. The thin-is-in craze can assume severe delusional aspects if personal dissatisfaction with physical size and shape becomes obsessive. Women tend to bite this bait easier. Susie Orbach’s argument in her anti-diet guide Fat is a Feminist Issue—that women’s relationships with their bodies mould complex psychological patterns—couldn’t be truer than in these dangerous days of eating disorders, with anorexia and bulimia claiming younger girls than ever before.

Thanks to the women’s movement, attention has been paid in recent years to the need to nurture self-esteem among girls. Journalist Ammu Joseph points out, “These efforts are necessary and should be widespread. But it’s as important to address selfesteem issues among men, in the interests of society as a whole. No man with genuine self-esteem would ever beat or rape a woman. The high prevalence of gender violence indicates a low prevalence of self-esteem among men.’’

Shoring Up Self-esteem

Know that life is not a contest where some win and others must lose. Each person has a unique designated place in the world. Be yourself. Self-esteem is not how people feel about you but how worthy you feel you are.

Filter feedback. Don’t accept everything coming your way with blind faith, from significant others too; our closest ones too have the power to make or break us.

Get a life and be busy, don’t keep the spotlight on thoughts of yourself. An idle mind gets into a negative spin.

Exercise and care for your body, it goes with a healthy mind. Generally, people who think they look good, feel good as well.

Become financially independent, even in a small way. It certainly does boost self-worth.
Help out. Teach a skill, assist the elderly or volunteer for a social event. Anything that helps someone else will also leave you feeling good.

Keep all promises, even the smallest ones—this makes you confident of being dependable and trustworthy.

Finish things you start. Achieve modest milestones set and you’ll believe yourself capable of bigger things.

Have a sense of humour. Laugh a lot, mostly at yourself! Don’t get all selfreprimanding when you make a mistake. Laugh at it, learn from it and move on...

(Source: From Ruta Vyas who runs I Love Me workshops for youngsters)

TOI Article - 24/12/2007 - The brilliant couple behind 'Taare Zamen Par'

A couple inspired by lives of little stars

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: In 1999, Amole Gupte and his wife Deepa Bhatia wrote a one-page story about a boy who does badly at studies and is sent to boarding-school as punishment, where he meets his saviour, a teacher who turns his life around. Over the next nine years, they dived into the lives of hundreds of children in order to explore their world first hand. Almost a decade of research and adventure went into Taare Zameen Par (TZP), a film on childhood.
Amole’s connection with children has been almost umbilical. “I started taking care of my neighbour’s children while growing up. Later, when my friends got married, I would babysit their children when they were out partying,’’ he says. In fact, the lead character in TZP, Ishaan, is named after his best friend’s son.
He does not believe in talking down to children. There’s no “Sir’’ or “Uncle’’ for Amole. The children call him ‘Mendhak Chacha’ or ‘Amole frog’, a character he created.
After writing the story, the duo began what has now become a lifelong association with several city schools, including Tulip and Saraswati Mandir that are meant for children with multiple disabilities. It’s at these special schools that they witnessed miracles.
Once, at Tulips, they saw a seven-year-old with her head between her legs, shrieking continuously for an hour. They were a little sceptical when the school’s principal and trustee, Medha Lotlikar, said that all children were ‘normal’ and should study together. To their astonishment, a year later, they found the same girl holding the railing and walking down the staircase with the other children. Though the girl had initially been diagnosed with a number of disabilities, visual impairment turned out to be the only one she had.
Amole-himself an actor, writer, painter and directorhas conducted countless workshops in numerous schools, where children were exposed to just about everything from Tagore’s poetry to Renaissance paintings and theatre. It’s here that he chose the actors for the film. He never called children to the studio or asked them to audition for him. “I would tell them bits and pieces from the story and all of us (the children and Amole) would take turns acting the scenes out. The children never knew they were rehearsing for the film,’’ he says.
Although the film revolves around a dyslexic child, the incidents could be about any child. A scene where Ishaan bunks school and gets his brother to write a note saying he was sick, is similar to the time Amole himself bunked in Class III and got a neighbourhood ‘auntie’ to write the note for him.
Another scene, where Ishaan gets a stray dog to eat his report card is inspired by a number of children who hide their report cards from their parents. The art teacher in the film—Nikumbh Sir—is named after Amole’s own art teacher at school “who was like a breathe of fresh air in an otherwise structured system of education’’. For Amole and Deepa, inclusive education is not about adding “four bad mangoes to ten good ones, but realising that all the mangoes are from the same tree’’.
Says Amole, “Inclusion is not an act of charity towards the ‘slow ones’ but an attempt at creating a more caring society. After all, the speed of a herd of animals is determined, not by the fastest in the pack, but by the slowest. They don’t create a separate division for the ‘slow ones’.’’
anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com

HAPPY FAMILY: Deepa Bhatia and Amole Gupte, who spent a decade researching for TZP, with son Partho at their Khar home

'To Children, Childhood and Learning'

"I am ready to learn, but please don't teach me!" - Sandeep Raj Sharma

We all are learners by nature. We all have immense curiosity within which itself is a sign of intelligence. It is sad that children are subjected to rote learning in many parts of the world even today.

We need to realize three very important things.

1. Every child learns by his/her method and at his/her pace. We need to stop imposing obsolete methods and treat every child uniquely.

2. If a child doesn't understand or learn something then the fault lies with the system of education NOT the child.

These thoughts were stimulated while I watched 'Taare Zameen Par' - the movie, today. It has to be one of the best performances by a child actor in mainstream bollywood till date. I just can't recollect any other performance - as natural and brilliant, by a child. Hat's off to the Genius called Aamir Khan, and great work done by - Deepa Bhatia The conceptulizer, Amol Gupte The writer and much more, Prasoon Joshi The lyricist and Shankar Ehsaan and Loy The musicians.

The movie deals with sensitive issues in education and childhood. Its a story of a 8 year old boy - Ishaan N. Awasthi [Darsheel Safary] who just can't get the reading and writing right. His parents send him off to a boarding school. This breaks his heart and he almost kills the real genius inside him - the painter. Enters Ram Shankar Nikumbh [Aamir Khan] who understands the child's problem and helps him overcome it.



Brilliant performances, beautiful direction and colourful imagination - a great movie indeed.

Understanding Education

A few quotes that I absolutely believe in and stand by:

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play." - Anon

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." - John Holt

"What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out." - John Holt

"Every child is special, each one has a different personality, different skill set, different strengths and different interests! Sadly we have a generalized education system instead of a customized one. A ring that fits the index finger doesn't fit the little finger. Yet we are adamant on fitting it on by stretching, twisting and torturing the little finger, and when we fail we blame the little finger and deem it as unfit and unintelligent! Let's stop this non-sense. Intelligence doesn't mean being good at science and maths. One who's good at any one thing is intelligent! It may be music, sports, painting, cooking, writing, traveling, caring, as small a thing as observing ants, dreaming and sharing. Let us make the children realize how intelligent they are. I believe and truly I do, that Every Child is a Genius" - Sandeep Raj Sharma