eINDIA Education Summit 2013 Event Report

8/14/2019 eINDIA Education Summit 2013 Event Report

1/2144 September 2013 / digital LEARNING

PRESENTS

eINDIA 2013 Education SummitWith eight separate sessions on government policies ineducation, school education, management education, technical

education, private universities and industry-academia interface,the summit became an effective congregation for all thestakeholders in the education community.

eINDIA 2013Convened with the themeof Building a KnowledgeSociety, eINDIA 2013Summit was held on 23-24 July, 2013, at HyderabadInternational ConventionCentre, Hyderabad. TheSummit was divided intothree parallel thematic

tracks on Governance,Education and Health.The eINDIA 2013 wasinaugurated by the NKiran Kumar Reddy, ChiefMinister, Government ofAndhra Pradesh.

It provided a platformfor discussions betweenkey government ofcials,industry experts,stakeholders, and privateplayers on the issue ofICT implementation ingovernance, educationand healthcare. Inclusivegrowth can only becomea reality when thegovernment takes somesignicant initiatives fordeployment of ICT in all

the major areas - this is theclear message that emergedfrom the eINDIA 2013Summit.


2/2145digital LEARNING / September 2013

education.eletsonline.com

Information technologyhas evolved much in thepast 25 years. It is veryimportant that technol-ogy must be cheap andaffordable. It should

be within the reachof common man andmust change their life.For a government, it isvery essential that anycitizen of the state mustget government servic-es which he requires inan easy, accessible andcorruption free manner.The concept of MeeSeva was initiated in areview meeting whereI expressed the needfor a system whichcould deliver servicesto the citizens in just 15minutes.

N Kiran Kumar Reddy,Chief Minister, AndhraPradesh

Mee Seva, from avery modestbeginning of 100centres, 10 services,and one district,has now got 7000centres, 150 servic-es across the state

of Andhra Pradesh. We have coveredmore than 2 crore 35 lakh transactionsin the last one year.

Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Informa-tion Technology & CommunicationsDepartment, Government of AndhraPradesh

Youth is thebiggest powerand asset ofIndia. Talent haswiped out thebarriers betweenthe rich and the

poor. I want tomake Hyderabad

a synonym for letter H. We want tomake Hyderabad a global leader inInformation Technology. World Bankrated Hyderabad as the best metrocity in India.

Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister - IT,Government of Andhra Pradesh



PRESENTS

We have lakhs of students comingout from various engineeringand degree colleges, but the job

market is fluctuating. It is notjust dependent on the local ornational economy. There are somany factors including globalfactors, new technologies comingin, and thus students have to getequipped with a lot of new skillsto get employed. Students mustunderstand it is not only about thesyllabus or passing through yourexams. They need to develop theirsocial skills, communication skills,innovate, visualise and add valueto themselves. Learning beyondtextbooks is the key.

Critical Role of Industry-Academia Interface in MakingStudents Employable

Staggering data about the dearth ofemployability skills among Indiangraduates has raised concerns aboutthe need to foster Industry-Academiacollaboration. Such collaborations canprove a win-win situation for all the

parties including Students, Industry, andthe Academia

Amarnath Reddy, CEO, JawaharKnowledge Centre

Dr Sreerama K Murthy, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Teqnium

I would like to approach employabilityfrom the angle of educationalanalytics. Analytics is basicallylooking at data and trying to ndpatterns in data and then actingon those patterns. What you canmeasure, you can improve. So in ourinstitutions, if you can measure whatyou know and what you have learntso far, what is the best thing to learnnext then you will be able to learn in afaster, more effective way. Apart frompersonalising education to individualstudent, data analysis can help inmatchmaking between the studentand the industry.

So the quality institutions of the future must be data driven, itmeans the decision maker in anyinstitution should have the right data to support him in making a rationaldecision. They need to have enoughdata about themselves and about the environment to make the rightdecision.

For example, the Arizona StateUniversity has built a campus widedata collection and data reportingsystem. So anyone will be able togo on the campus intranet and forexample it is a professor looking to

decide a class time, and so he willbe able to see the data about thestudents, other classes and take a

decision appropriately based on theavailable data.Data does not come out of

nowhere. The visionary institutesneed to make a move for creating adata infrastructure for themselves.

Also when your students are ready to take up a job this data along withstudents studying data and patternscan be made available to the industryand the industry can seek the rightcandidate based on the data. Thiswill increase the employability as itwill inform the employers about therelative strengths of the students.


4/21


47digital LEARNING / September 2013

M P Pillai, Director, National Institute of Electronics and InformationTechnology (NIELIT), Chennai

Tamil Nadu higher educationdepartment has taken a lot of steps byincreasing the input for higher educationsector and the input in engineering

colleges has gone up by almost 800percent that has led to a decline in the quality of education entering into these colleges and thus leading tounemployability.

Most of academicians, includingmyself, do not support the stats that

only 25 percent of our engineeringgraduates are employable. It hasalso to do with the fact that industryexpects from day one the recruits tobe productive, and that as soon asyou are employed you should deliver that day onwards.

There are three categories of skills that the industry expects are Coreemployability skills, Professionalskills, and Communication skills.This core employability andcommunication or soft skills it is

common to all industries. To develop the professional skills in the students,which are industry speci c, requiresan industry input. Thus, unless weinvolve the industry in curriculummaking or teaching it is not possible to impart the professional skills.

When we develop skills among ourstudents, we are building our countryas 54 percent of our population is under25 years of age. Employability skillsare the skills required not only to gainemployment, but also to progress withinan enterprise so as to achieve onespotential and contribute successfully to

an enterprise. However, education imparted in majority of institutions is exam-oriented and not skill-oriented. At the college level, the academia should beable to provide basic communication skills, soft skills, aptitude sector speci cskills through professional trainings to ensure that students perform better

at the employment space. Apart from these some fundamental problems foremployability skills development are the lack of industry exposure, outdatedcurricula and methods, dearth of trained and quali ed teachers, and inability of the academia to keep pace with changing technologies and latest developments.As a result, education is not resulting in proper employment for a large numberof students. There are two kinds of un-employability -- lack of fundamental skillsresulting in unsuitability for any job and lack of technical and soft skills resultingin under-employment. There is also a huge disparity in the student-teacher ratioleading to pushing of semi- nished talent to industries.

Some of the possible solutions to the lack of employability include: effectivecareer counseling, create awareness about traditional and emerging jobs, trainfaculty to leverage technology, evolve mechanisms for industry-academiapartnerships to provide practical exposure to students, using internet technologies to provide access to learning resources and collaborate with academicians,industry experts, HR and peer institutions/ universities for speci c skill training.

I believe that the fire within isvery important. All the youngstersshould strive to know what theyare made for and the various linesavailable to them. In J&K we have alot of initiatives as far as providingemployment opportunities areconcerned. For example, the J&Koverseas employment corporation,

which was started with the objectivethat our youth which is educated andskilled should find ways to accessmarkets like the Middle East. Thiscorporation came into existencethree to four years back and weare coordinating with differentministries, overseas corporationsand departments and we are tryingto send skilled workforce outsidealso. I only request students tonot have a typical mindset aboutemployability in terms of jobseekers. Try to go a step further andbe job creators.

Amit Sharma, Additional Secretary,Government of Jammu and Kashmir

VSN Raju,Chief Operating Of cer, Globarena Technologies



PRESENTS

No student is a bad student and no teacher is a bad teacher. It is all a matter of situation and perspective.There are students who think that in the three-fouryears after completion of class XII they would have alot of fun, whereas there are many who are focused andclear about what they would do during these years. Themost important thing is that we need to be aware ofwho we are and what kind of possibilities and potentialis lying within us. Talking about communication skills,nobody is weak in communications; it is all a matterof igniting your inner con dence. Lot of learning, un-learning and re-learning is the need of the hour. Thestudents should know the purpose of their life and what

they want to do in life, at least in the next ve years or

may be during the whole day. You should also maintaina KASH (Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits) diaryfor yourselves to be able to rate yourself on yourlearning from life at the end of the day.

We talk about how much industry input should be there in our curriculum and we also claim that our curriculum has been vetted by the industry. But, how much of thatindustry curriculum is relevant for a student and how is it been taught in the classroom?

So, you cannot depend on the system. Good make good students teachers and not the other way round. You need tobe responsible for yourself. Be ahead of the professor, do your own study before you come to the class.

Dr Pankaj Gupta, Director General, Jaipuria Institutes of Management

Automatic Dummy Numbering System

[email protected]:91-44 2472 4565 91-44 2372 4031 eNumbering Scanners

TRS Forms & ServicesTM

Barcode

OMR / OCR / ICR

Data Capture

Dummy Numbering

Eliminates Manual process and related errors

Heavy Duty and less Maintenance

Dropout Colors (RGB)

Proven System

User friendly and easy to use

Accurate and fast turnaround of results

MUST FOR INDIAN UNIVERSITIES



PRESENTS

We have had a history ofeducational institutes likeTakshashila and Nalanda where thespirit of inquiry was encouraged.Even though we expanded educationas such, the spirit of inquiry is not

being encouraged so thats why wefind the quality is not satisfactory atthe higher education level.

India has the largest highereducation system in the world interms of the number of institutionsas compared to the USA and China.The numbers are attractive butit is not proportionate as per thepopulation and there are somestate-wise anomalies and progressis not uniform. A lot needs to bedone to increase the Gross EnrolmentRatio (GER). The undergraduateenrolment is highest at 86 percentfollowed by post graduate whichis only 12 percent, but it is lessthan one percent for research orPhD programmes. Thus, the qualityalso depends on this particularfactor particularly the postgraduateeducation and PhD programmes.

The numbers are less even in

terms of faculty i.e. the student-staff ratio. Potential facultyshould be attracted and existinginstitutions with active research

Fostering Excellence in Technicaland Management Education

Dwindling quality is a matter of concernin technical and management institutesacross India. But fostering excellence andquality in higher education institutionspresents a range of challenges. Theseinclude developing excellent pedagogicalpractices and attracting quality facultyto implement them

Prof K Lal Kishore, Vice Chancellor, JNTU, Anantapur

programmes should be supportedby the government. Updating facultymembers through workshops,courses or teacher training in theindustry should be encouraged.

Financial innovation is also oneof the important aspects becausewhen we say a large number ofinstitutions have to be established

then the government alone cannotdo it. Therefore, the private sectorhas to be encouraged, but withcertain restrictions so that degreesare not sold or it will not become a

commodity. The government spendon higher education is very less ascompared to the other countries andwe must increase it.




Chandrashekhar Kumar, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Employment &Technical Education & Training Dept, Govt of Odisha

The whole system of highereducation stands on the edifice

of school education. We cannotsuddenly talk about quality at highereducation level. If good quality ismaintained through the school orsenior level then probably we willhave better quality at this level, butif there is a huge gap then that is amatter of concern. Also, we have

to educate in such a manner that astudent is employable after next four

to five years of college. These are the two biggest challenges. Anotherbig challenge is that we have tocreate teachers for future, for both inhigher as well as school education.

There should be inspiring teachersin technical education because only

25 percent of the technical content isimparted under classroom teachingand the rest of the 75 percent thestudent has to learn on his own. Sowe need to impart a different typeof training to the teachers so thatthey make lectures interesting andinspiring.

Today, the faculty developmentprogrammes are needed in allthe fields and not just IT and theconceptual understanding has to beimparted. For this, the universitiesand the technical institutions needto have improved industry-instituteinteraction and the student mustvisit industries.

The teacher should go to theindustry first, come back and sharethe experience with students andtell them about the relevant matteras per their subjects. The net result

of this exercise is reflected inthe campus placements. Anotherpositive impact of sending thefaculty to the industry is thatindustry gets to know that there ispotential in the institutes and they

start giving consultancy projects.Thus, the interaction grows intoresearch partnerships betweenindustry and the institutes.

Dr K Sarukesi,Vice Chancellor, Hindustan University

Anbuthambi B,Associate Vice President, ICTACT, Tamil Nadu

If you go to acampus hiring

manager of anybig company, theypoint out that thestudents are good

technically, but theylack communicationor soft skills likeconversing inEnglish, ability topresent themselves,

teamwork skills orare unable to adapt to the company culture. So these skills should ideallycome right from the school. Today, that can change only when the successmeasure of the school changes.

Another important factor is the faculty in engineering colleges. Nobodychecks where the teachers are coming from. There are certain teacher traininginstitutes but it is not compulsory and many new teachers are last year passouts from the same or other colleges without any prior training.

So the solution to the problem of skill development will have to star t fromschools and the problems of good teachers can be addressed through oneor two week training programme where they can be taught classroom andpedagogy techniques.

The student life will depend upon his faculty around whom he is going to be

for the next four years and faculty will only make the difference in engineeringeducation where we are facing a big problem of the skill-gap between industryand academia.



PRESENTS

In Andhra Pradesh we havearound 179 colleges are funded bygovernment. We also have privatecolleges in which around 3,00,000students studying. From ourexperience, we have found thatthe aided colleges are the bestperformers because they have amix of government infrastructure,financial help as the whole facultyis funded by the government andthey have autonomy in workingtheir management and academicpolicies.

Education for All: Cohesive Efforts by Government and Private Sector

India is progressing towards buildinga knowledge economy and makingICTs available to all is imperative forachieving this goal. The government andprivate sectors are putting in dedicatedand consistent efforts in this direction.Yet it is the public delivery of servicesthat remain the ultimate benchmark ofsuccess

K Sunitha, Commissioner,Directorate of Collegiate Education,Government of Andhra Pradesh

Dr Akhilesh Gupta,Secretary,University Grants Commission (UGC)

From 1953 to 2000, the highereducation in India was growing at a slowpace. But then onwards there has beena sudden jump in the growth that waspossible due to rising number of privateinstitutions and universities.

We are targeting to achieve about 25percent GER by the end of the 12 th Planand 30 percent enrolment ratio by 2020.The enrolment ratio can be increased by the co-operation and involvement of the private sector.

Our carefully planned schemes address issues related to increasing accessand equity. We are trying to include the underprivileged class and communitieslike SC, ST, minorities, and women so that all of them get their share in highereducation.

We are introducing a large number of fellowships. Moreover, it is not onlyabout the number of schemes, but also about increasing beneficiaries of eachscheme. We recently started the Rajiv Gandhi fellowship for disabled studentsso that they also get the opportunity to pursue studies.

We started this Special Assistant Programme and a number of universitiesand colleges are participating in that. In order to bring teachers excellencewe have set up academic staff colleges in 66 locations. We will increase thatnumber to 100 by the end of the 12 th Five-Year Plan. Currently about 450autonomous colleges are present in the country and we will increase theirnumbers and provide them more autonomy and additional funds.

We have launched two interesting initiatives Joint Appointment and StudentEntitlement. We are also trying to encourage teachers from universities to goand work in the research labs and the research scientist to come and teach.So, we have brought out new API norms and it is going to be helpful for many

teachers in the country. We are forging several collaborations at the internationallevel and several support systems have been created. We are bringing severalinstitutional improvements and systemic changes, and new ICT programmes likeelectronic repository, etc.




At the Department of Science andTechnology we are looking at twomissions - The National Mission onsustaining the Himalyan Ecosystem

and the National Mission on StrategicKnowledge for Climate Change.We are trying to capture the

knowledge available with all theinstitutions. In this the institutions anduniversities play a major role and weare trying to target the knowledge gapareas so that we can create a knowledgeplatform. Thus, this knowledgegenerated system should be utilised forpossible policy directions, for adaptationand mitigation actions to combat theill-effects of climate change.

Here the capacity building for theeducation sector plays a major role. We

have already launched a centre in IIT-Bombay and another one in Hyderabad.These centres are dealing with theclimate change science and anotherone is in the area of plant protection.There are two more centres, which wehave supported -- Divecha Centre inBangalore and Indo-German Centre forsustainable development at IIT-Madras.Major coordinated programmes whichwe have already launched include Inter-University Centre of Glaciology in whichfour major universities are partners.Under the Indo-Swiss capacity we want to train 25 young scientists and we mayprovide them a career opportunity after

successful completion of this course.The National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE)is about building and creatingcapacities specifically for Himalayanecosystem and here we want to target12 knowledge institutions for theirstrengthening and data collection.It is one of the important area insharing for policy generation. So weare going to come up with a verybig programme in which 25 or 50universities, scientists, professors willbe working for us to give a shape to the NMSHE deliverables.

Dr Nisha Mendiratta, Scientist F, Director, Climate Change Programme(CCP), Department of Science & Technology (DST)

The government has given a lot ofautonomy to new central universitiesand expects us to be modeluniversities and thats why we arerather flexible in our approach. Weare open to undertake partnershipsor programmes like adjunct facultyor we can use ICT for faculty todeliver lectures, we can have joint

research work or programmes. Weare starting B Sc, B Ed four-yearintegrated programme from thisyear itself and it is targeted mostlyfor school teachers. We have alsobeen asked by the government tostart Community Colleges. We willtrain Class X and Class XII dropoutsand enable them to come to adegree level at anytime in their lifewhen they would like to. They canalso take a break and come backafter a couple of years and there isno age bar for that.

Prof Darlando T Khathing,Vice Chancellor, CentralUniversity of Jharkhand

Dr Veera Gupta,Associate Professor,National University of EducationalPlanning and Administration (NUEPA)

We have had a legacy of the phenomenon of divide whether that is rich or poor,digital divide or the government and private sector divide. In the first Five-YearPlan education was discussed only at the elementary level. Even then we didnot talk about education for all, due to lack of resources. There was no target for

secondary education and certainly none for higher education, which are part ofour Five-Year Plans now. In the past decade we have aimed at universalisationof elementary as well secondary education and we have improved our GER inhigher education even though it is still below the benchmarks.

However, now the private sector has also started talking about the nationalagenda or national targets and is helping especially under the PPP mode.We also need to take up education and skill development for adults. At thegovernment level, we need to have cohesive bodies that look after educationalneeds of a segment of population. For example, in the UK there is the Ministryof Young People, which is responsible for schooling or vocational training ofpopulation between 6-18 years of age.



PRESENTS

I believe school is a place wheretomorrow lives and thus the conceptof inclusive education should startright from schools. Also, fromAyurvedic era i.e. the Shruti (listen)and Smriti (remember), we havecome to the new dimension now i.e.technology, so we need to expandit across the country to attaininclusivity.

Role of Universities in promotingInclusive Education

The idea of a university comes fromuniversality of education, which meansproviding education to all and giving equalopportunity to students across cultural,demographic or economic barriers.Although there is widespread willingnessand support for inclusion, but there aresome challenges on how to implement it apolicy level

Pradeep Chaturvedi, Director(IT), Rajya Sabha Secretariat,Government of India

Dr Gautam Bose, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre,Dept of IT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

A knowledgeable population can playa better role in the democratic processand economic progress of thecountry. The government has somedefinite policies for inclusiveness likeSarva Shiksha Abhiyan, SakhsharBharat, EFA goals, etc as far as schooleducation is concerned. We try toinclude every child into the schoolsystem, but in higher education many things still need to be done.

It should not be limited to socialor economic inclusion only, but the differently-abled population should alsobe included. It should be part of our national as well as state policy to includeeveryone. In addition to this, all the services rolled out by the governmentshould be accessible to all and people should be aware about various schemesor services and how can they be availed.

We do have reservation policies or admission criteria but as more andmore private institutions or universities are coming up, they should havesome definite policies as far as their admission criteria are concerned so that they become all inclusive. The fees in these private institutions are very high,so there must be large number of scholarships to include the students fromeconomically weaker sections of the society.

Inclusion should also be devoid of any discrimination like separateclassrooms, as there must not be a feeling of inadequacy among the studentswho are being included. There has to be a right curriculum, examination systemand appropriate teaching methodologies. There must be specialised tuitionand coaching like some of the IITs do, but such practices need to becomemore popular and thats part of the policy. Proper examination and evaluationsystems should be made for the differently-abled people and other weakersections of the society.




Prof B P Sanjay, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Tamil Nadu

With the aim of expanding inclusiveeducation to the states that hitherto didnot have a central university, a commonOmnivous Act was introduced in the

parliament and 12 new universitiescame up in different parts of the countryand Tamil Nadu was one of them. Thefirst dimension of the policy of the

Government of India towards expandinginclusivity has been achieved by settingup of these new universities.

Similarly, IT policies should alsolook at the country as a whole andhave an inclusive expansion of itsresources so that every corner of the country gets integrated into whatwe call the national knowledge grid.Unless our country becomes inclusivewith regard to expansion of the ICTsector on a broad and an equitablebasis, the goals of inclusive educationare not going to be achieved.

Moreover, there has to be an inclusiveperception of higher education. Forinstance, people in Tamil Nadu andsouthern states have a parental and

aspirational perception that highereducation means engineering andmedicine courses. The number of suchinstitutions in these states is evidenceenough to understand that there is askewed perception. But in this contextit is important to make the aspirationmore inclusive by having many otherdisciplines so that a university is set upin a liberal framework.

By the end of next year the numberof private universities is going tosurpass the number of state and centraluniversities. There may be criticism for

corporatisation of education, but I thinkit also helps in increasing inclusivitybecause it provides opportunities for those who are willing to pay.

We have studentsfrom differentlanguages,communicationskills, barriers,diverse academicpreparations, etc.More importantly there are studentswith different motivational levels, intellectual calibersand learning styles that makes the whole thingvery complex and hence inclusive education has ameaning in this particular aspect as well. To cater to students with low level of academic preparations,we have bridge courses at first year level. We have

remedial classes because we have a system thatmonitors progress of the students, their academicperformance, and participation in the classes, etc,regularly. Again at the end of the year we havesummer quarter organised for those students whootherwise find it difficulties during the course. Toidentify students for these courses we have studentcouncils and mentors and we have a system where these mentors identify the students who requirespecial attention.

We find that inclusive education at universitylevel especially in professional courses has a verydifferent relevance and this has to be done withrespect to integrating the entire community ofstudents into one level.

At our university, we havedifferent socio-economicbackground based students,almost 95 percent of themcoming from the rural oragriculture backgrounds andbelong to the economicallyweaker sections. They havespecial needs particularlyin which English languagecommunication is a bigproblem.

Andhra Pradesh nearly spends ` 6000-6500 crores annuallyon scholarships being given to students at higher education

level. In our university 95 percent students get scholarshipsi.e. tuition fee, examination fee, hostel mess charges from thegovernment as such. All this has been done to improve accessand inclusivity.

From 1950 to 2012, there has been a phenomenal increasein the number of universities and colleges in the country butwhen we look at the meager GER of around 18 percent thenwe realise the inadequate institutional development in India.As compared to the contribution of central universities to theGER, the state universities have done a better job in promotinginclusivity.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan particular focus has been givento reflecting upon the disparities not only in terms of poor andmiddle class, but also on caste, ethnic, religion and genderlines and how to improve access to higher education.

Mohammad Akbar Ali Khan,Vice Chancellor, TelanganaUniversity

Prof G L Datta,Chancellor, K L University



PRESENTS

Preschools in IndiaOpportunities and Challenges

The preschool sector in India poses greatopportunities, but at the same time thereare the challenges too. Leaders fromPreschool gathered and discussed onvarious opportunities and challenges inPreschool in India

Amol Arora,Vice Chairman & Managing Director,Shemrock and Shemford Schools

Perception ofparents is changinggradually andwith RTE comingand banning ofinterviews inschool, the role ofPreschool havebecome even moreimportant to lay agood foundationfor the child. Lot ofunlearning needsto be done in orderto make staff moreeffective. It is a chicken and egg situationsince industry does not pay that well so we do

not attract the best of the talent. Market forceswill ensure quality. If regulation aspect hasto come it should come in the safety aspectnot for increasing the paperwork. All goodPreschool would want regulation to ensurethat good quality Preschool sustain in themarket because sometimes parents are notaware about good and bad pre school and endup sending their children to wrong pre school.For now, let us have self-regulation and letmarket forces determine quality. It is a realitythat if we have to educate a country it has tobe a dual effort of government, PPP and profitmaking private sector.

Navneet Anhal, CEO, Zee Learn Limited

The biggest opportunity for those who are interested in preschool segment is to increase the awareness about preschoolsin the parents mind. Of late there are three segments of people

first segment who think that pre school is a place where theycan park their child for a while, second set of people think thatit is important for their child to be in a pre school just to getinto a good school, third segment of people,which is small butincreasing, think and believe that by putting their child into preschool will help their child in learning and development. In all ourcommunication, in our effort to design the curriculum and in oureffort to counsel the parents if we can stress on the on the role ofpre school in their childs life it will help in the active participationof parents. There is a challenge of safety of children, which isunder the bucket of non-regulation or absence of governing bodyin this segment. There is a challenge of finding qualified staff that knows what is right for the child. If we work on all this it canflourish into a good business opportunity and more importantlyearly development of a child.




Dharmesh Kapasi , CEO, Shanti Juniors Pre School ChainA S Ganesh, Managing Director,Smartkidz Educare India

Until the last decade there was thedilemma of declaring that whetherpre school education should beconsidered as a part of education. Weare still expecting an answer from thegovernment of India. Today Preschoolhave become a point of start of childseducational career. We need to createlots of awareness among parents tomake them understand that pre schoolis the most important part of childs

educational career and how the need to take it seriously for a childs growth.Talking about population as a threat I am taking it as an opportunity. I find

population as an opportunity for business. Another threat of no governing bodycan be taken as opportunity as it would give us freedom to offer the best qualityeducation to children. Untrained human resources is a challenge for which wehave started teachers training programme. We are working on technology andresearch to create good quality content, which is digitally enabled.

The Indian pre school market is oneof the most upcoming markets inIndia. It is highly under-penetrated.Only one percent of children areenrolled in Preschool currently in Indiawhereas in France and Scotland 100percent children go to Preschool.Only 17 percent of the Indian preschool market belongs to organisedsector. So there is a huge potentialavailable. This segment is attractinginvestments from private players asentry barriers are very low. Parentshave started to understand the

importance of pre school to enhance their childs emotional and intellectualgrowth but still there is much more tobe done in this regards. We conductpositive parenting workshops in all ourbranches to bring about awarenessabout the importance of Preschool.Also Increase in disposable incomehas led to more spending oneducation. The challenges in thissegment are lack of awarenessamongst parents and non-availabilityof quality teachers. Retention ofquality teachers is another challenge that the industry is facing.

There are three models of preschool prevailing in India. The majority ofpreschools are in the unoragnised sector with 70-80 percent market share.The second model is organised preschools that are relatively small in number.Another model that exists in India is a school feeder model. A lot of K-12 schoolhas preschool inbuilt in their campus itself.

The preschools in the organised space are making a total difference in thespectrum as they offer a scientific basis for their execution model and offerpersonalised and professional approach. These schools have a research-basedcurriculum, which is constantly upgraded towards better delivery of educationand development.

These organised preschool chains have standard operating practices (SoP)and business practices and that iswhere they make a difference.

Today opportunities in preschoolsare increasing due to the increasingawareness of parents about the needof preschool in a childs development.Another reason is shrinking families that are looking for the options for theirchildren. Also, the ability to pay forquality education has improved in Indiain the last few years. Now there is ademand for better facilities and trainedstaff coming in. Earlier preschoolmeans parking the child when you donot have anyone to look after them.Now parents are looking at preschoolbeyond this.

Vittal Bhandary, Founder and Managing Director, Liitle Elly Play schools



PRESENTS

Globalisationcannot happenwithoutintroduction

of ICT intoeducation. In todays worldstudents areexpecting them

to be taughtin a differentway. In a childcentric education

we need to take the perspective of the child intoconsideration. If education can not keep pace with

todays children who are tactfully, technologically andinformation ridden, it will become less appropriate andsignificant. ICT should not take over the teacher ratherit should be supplementary and complementary to the

teachers.

CreatingExcellence inSchool Educationand the Role ofICT

Anjum Babukhan,Director, Glendale Academy,Hyderabad

Kalpana Mohan, Principal, VidyashilpAcademy, Bangalore

As an educator we need to keep in mind that there are certainwindows of learning, which we need to optimise. Also weneed to avoid pushing down the curriculum. In India we have

tendency of introducing things earlier the better, which isnot necessarily brain compatible. We need to keep in mind

the age and stage of development. ICT has created a world ofopportunities for children to utilise the technology by sharingwhat they are learning. We have Internet, teleconferencing,audio visuals, webinars, etc all types of digital learning

tools. Living in the information age there is an abundance ofinformation, we just need to know what is comfortable to use.

In green school concept webelieve that if we want ourchildren to flourish we needto connect them to nature

before we teach them tosave it. The environmentis only guiding us to gofurther. We follow Panch

Mahabhuta i.e. Prithvi,Agni, Jal, Vayu, and Akaashpractice for sustainability.We have a green teacher

programme in which we have merged CBSEprogramme to the Green Teacher Programme. Wehave also transformed CBSE curriculum to GreenCurriculum. Our goal is to reduce, reuse and recycleall the resources. The Government of Gujarat hasplanned to open 70 green schoolsin the coming year.

Virender Rawat, Coordinator- India, Director,Bkannes School,Gujarat




B A Wahid Newton,Programme Manager Education, BRAC

Technology integration is an endeavour to make textcontent easier, interactive and stimulating by addingvisualisation. Technology allows teachers to accessgood resources for better planning of classroompedagogy. Technology helps in increasing the levelof enthusiasm among students to attend classes.We have seen some encouraging results afterimplementing ICT in our schools.

It is not that before the emergenceof ICT teaching-learning was nothappening. There were wonderfulstudents, good learning and excellentteachers or results. It is not about

the results or learning but it isabout the experience of childrenin the classroom, it is all about theexperience of the teacher in the schoolwhere ICT is making an impact. ICThas made things easier and simplerfor teachers to elaborate thingsbetter. KV has made lots of attemptsin this regard. KV has got intoe-classrooms. Every KV has at leastone e-Classroom, interactive device.A lot of e-content has been developedby KVs for students which is availableonline and offline. We are going toinaugurate a portal for the e-contentsoon.

If the brain has to retain it needs novelty. Jointproductive activity as instructional pedagogy in

the classrooms to enhance quality is a joint effort

of teacher and student and aimed at enhancementof learning outcome. It is not the teacher driving the classroom but it is the partnership between teachers and learners. The teacher apparently turns

into a learner but at the same time she will also become silent spectator and amotivator. To carry out such activity they need to have joint goals and outcomes

that are clearly indicative. Children along with the teacher are going to designhow they are going to implement about it. When children are left in the freeatmosphere to learn that is when maximum learning happens.

Usha Reddy, Principal, Meridian School

Nagendra Goyal, Deputy Commis-ionar , Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan

Definitely there are more reasons than one thatICT has an integral role to play in teaching-learning process. Reasons for the use of ICTin education are continuous learning, digitaland informational competence of students,communication action in cyberspace, increasedproductivity of a person and group, and methodicalinnovation. ICT has an impact on students, teachers as well as parents.Introduction of ICT in teaching-learning and administration has proven

valuable. ICT has made the learning process more interesting and easier.Using ICT effectively is more important than changing resources.

G Prabhakar Reddy, Principal & Administrator, Bhadrachalam PublicSchool, Hyderabad

We have a total e-campus in ourschool. When you enter the campusWi-Fi provides Internet access in the

campus and all of our classroomsare digitised. We have a curriculumbased on CBSE and Cambridge.Teaching methodology is entirelydigitalised. ICT has been proved asa boon for all the stakeholders. Wewould definitely like to think about theGreen School Concept.

Mona Mehdi, Principal, OrchidsThe International School

Excellence in school by emphasis on maximisation oflearning is an excellent approach. Technology is merely atool to assist the cause. Learning is the ultimate purposein any school. Sustainability is the need of the hour. Ihad visited the green school in Bali, which is a wonderfulconcept. In the digital age, we are the digital migrantsusing ICT tools to teach students who are digital Natives.ICT can help teaching-learning to happen in remote anddifficult situations.

Seetha Murthy, Principal, Silver Oaks School, Hyderabad



PRESENTS

Emerging Models forSetting up New Schools

Starting a private school is a timeconsuming and complicated process. Thepanel having the industry veterans discussedemerging models of setting up new school.It also highlighted the importance ofmarketing in todays scenario

Vipul Reddy, CPO, Global discoveryAcademy

We are network of affordable K-12 schoolsand targeting families in middle incomegroup who have very ambitious goals forchilds education but are not necessarilyable to find a fit for them. For exampleInternational schools because of pricepoints associated with those schools.

We have a platform called Roadmap to my Dreams, which differentiates us in terms of what we are actually offering to them. One thing what we offer is end to endaccountability for the schools that we build.We do actually go with partners in termsof funding the schools, the growth of thecompany and network of school. But do takeaccountability and hold ourselves responsiblefor everything that goes into school

whether it is hardware, software,

building, people, process,and training. At this pointof time we have sevenschools in Gujaratand Tamil Nadu. For

this academic yearwe are in the processof setting up moreschools for the nextacademic year, whichwe will announce in the future. If we do things right we dohope for change.

In todays times as the need ischanging and the aspirations ofyouth are also changing. Whatwe really need in the country ischanging. Earlier we had to buildbrick and mortar school building,but today with technologyadvancement, we do not reallyhave to have that. Yes, we needthem but we can leverage the useof technology to reach out to anumber of students, educators,and parents.

We have emerging modelslike Public Private Partnership to build schools. Now thereare different segments of school like we have pre schools,K-12, pre college centres and that itself is the new emergingway of setting up new school or centres of learning. Soinnovative thinking is required as there is ample need for good

institutions. There is a lot of interest from all sectors of societyand everybody has its own motto of getting into education.As an educationist, I personally believe that education is the

best sector to be in. Today in India people talk about educationand health care being sunrise sectors. Yes, they are aswhatever you invest in school means you are not investing intobuilding or land but investing in children, life and future. Thereturn we get out of that is immeasurable. You can measure iton graph not on papers. I welcome everybody in this sector. Ifyou are coming into education I really encourage you to checkyour motives and passion. Education really requires sacrifice,dedication, commitment and patience. It is not easy where youcan sit and plan but here execution is to be on the ground, bein the classroom and deal with children on a daily basis alongwith the issues that we have today.

Ryan Pinto, Ryan Group of Institution




Chandrashekhar, CEO, Jain Group of Institutions

In India we have an additionalrequirement of 200 thousand schools

and it makes absolute sense that weare discussing the emerging modelof establishing schools. The Indian

education system always focused on two Es. First is the Expansion. When wegot independence in 1947 our literacyrate was 17 percent and today it is said

that it has expanded to 74 percent.We have expanded from a handful ofcolleges to 33,000 colleges and 30universities to around 700 universities.The Next E is Equity that is reaching out

to every nook and corner of the countryirrespective of caste, creed, religionand gender. The literacy rate during theindependence period had only 8 percentof literate women. Now that figure is 65

percent. So the Indian Education systemhas come a long way from 1947 tillwhere we stand.

There are two Es that we areneglecting. First among two isemployability. Outlays have to matchoutcomes. We are investing lots ofmoney, resources, and energy ineducational institution but what is comingout is not what is needed by the society.We do not need degrees we neededucation. Is the education propellingemployability we have to work upon?

The next E is excellence. This is veryeasier said than done. It has been said

that if the rate of change inside theinstitution is less than the rate of change

outside then end is inside. It is time forus as an educator to sit back and think that are we focusing on excellence.

What is the use of promoting devicesand technology where there is noaccess? We have a mandate at Gemsto make sure that in any locationaround the world when we will buildthe school we will build technologyaround the bandwidth available atthat area. If the bandwidth is poor

we will build something that canwork in poor bandwidth. If device aredifficult, expensive, or unaffordablewe will build a school with our owndevice. May be it would be one deviceto but if the usage is good that isnot the real issue because they willhave real access. There are a lot ofpeople who want to just copy pastewhat is working in one place. Youneed to make sure that the solution isadaptable according to the location.Not only we have the device but alsowe have to good content, right usage,and experience.

There are some emerging models of building schools and there is a lot of privateequity money flow in the sector. That is an asset like model. Some people sayownership of land is very important, but private equity would like asset model,which means lease is becoming widely accepted. The CBSE, ICSE laws are alsoflexible. They allow you to take land on lease for 30 years and give you affiliation.The manage model is basically if school is not doing well, you want to change itfrom vernacular medium to English medium or state board to national board hereprivate players come in and manage the school. The COCO or COFO are the modelcompletely accepted in the market.

Creating a good quality K-12 school costs more than 20 crore and no individualcan pump in this much money so money has to come from some external source.The best way to grow that anybody can tell you is debt management-take a bankloan. Mortgage your property and then build but the bankers will not give youmoney when you need it, they will give you money when you have money. Soit becomes difficult for people to start with debt but it is the cheapest way withcost of finance around 10-12 percent. If you go through equity you get the money

much faster through angel funding, venture capital, or equity funding are optionsfor entrepreneurs. These are the funds that will come to you when do not have itbecause they trust you as a promoter, they trust your capabilities and they want

to see growth. But it will enhance your cost of finance from 16 to 28 percentdepends on what they can negotiate with you.In conclusion I will say education is the sunriseindustry and going forward in next 5-10 years

they is no looking back. But I will suggestyou to check your intentions because it is not

the field, which will give you quick return. Itis capital extensive and has a high gestationperiod. However, it is extremely gratifying ifyou love children and have a passion for thejob. If your intention matches with the industryintention or the growth of the industry this is

the great place to be in.

Manjula Pooja Shroff, CEO, Calorx GroupHerve Merchet, Group ChiefTechnology Officer, GEMS Education



PRESENTS

Nurturing School Leadersof Tomorrow

The session highlighted organisationalleadership and management skills forprincipals. It also threw new perspectiveson the role that ICT can play in schoolmanagement

Swami Swaroopananda, DirectorIn-Charge, Chinmaya InternationalResidential School, Coimbatore

A Murali Mukund,Chairman, Jubilee Public School, Hyderabad

Leadership is something that peoplesay is inborn. Yet all are not bornleaders and yet everyone is leader in

their own space. Best leadership isalways through example. To createleaders out of people all we have to dois make them people of some values.

People find something in them which they are inspired by. Common answergiven by students on asking as what

they are missing in the educationsystem is that they do not have rolemodels. It became a task that at least

that they look up to their parentsand teachers as role models. It hasbecome a challenge to make teachersas role model. We began to empowerpeople in order to make them leaders.Recognising the talent and allowing

them to express freely whatever theyare good at. Discipline, which is self-developed, is always constructive.

A good institution should havefour things those are vision,strong leadership, good teachereffectiveness and good studentlearning. A good teacher neednot be a good school leader buta good school leader essentiallyhas to be a good teacher. A Schoolleader should have a clear visionto lead the staff, to implement themanagement policies for deliveryof quality education to the children.Passion and commitment are twokey aspects to become a good leader. Teacher, trainer and team leader arethe key roles of a leader.

Nurturing the future leadersin such a way that they getenough time and space tocultivate the values and requiredqualities to pass it on to the nextgeneration. We need to reduce

the gaps between school andparents, parents and teachersand students and teachers.Leadership is an action nota title. It is a promise, whichwe make to the people. HRdevelopment is very importantaspect in nurturing leadership.

Dr Kiran Singh,Principal, Mandsaur International School, Mandsaur




Shivananda R Koteshwar, Director, The Amaatra Academy, Bangalore

Leadership is all about getting into astate of a resonance. With resonance

I mean that gets created when staffsaspiration, institutes requirement andlearners interest intersect. This stateof resonance is a real leadership.Difference between a manager and aleader is that manager says go and theleader says lets go, which means theleader is involved in things. Mangerknows how to do things where asleader knows what things to do. Themanager gets others to do and theleader gets others to want to do. Aprincipal requires a coach, a structuredplan and absolute managementsupport for implementation of planning.

Sameer Bora, EVP, Research &Development, Next Education

Dr Nripen Kumar Dutta,Founder and Principal, Miles Bronson ResidentialSchool, Guwahati

Digital learning has to blend withconventional way of learning. It is not

a substitute to conventional learning.We look at the teachers as catalystsand we do not seek to replaceteachers when we are designingtools. Educational data mining isan important activity, which helpsin making big decisions regardingstudents. It is important to figure outhow the teacher views the technology.It can not be the case that you built atechnology and force teacher to a verysteep learning curve, which makesthem uncomfortable in front of theclass. Content must be such that theteacher must add value rather thanreplacing teachers.

There is a transformationalchange over the last 20years because of the

technological change,innovation, globalisation,migration, the landscapeof school has changedwhere the old model ofadministrative style hasbeen replaced by the newpublic management style oflearning. A paradigm shiftfrom that of intervention to

prevention is happening.This shift has made the role of principals different, which is based on actionand behaviour. Instructional leadership has become more relevant. Old systemand new system can blend and club together in attaining goals. Teacher quality,rigour of content and students as learners are the core of the system and thereshould be an interaction in the system.

The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teaching-learning process.

Lt Col (Retd) A Sekhar,Principal, AtulVidyalaya, Valsad



PRESENTS

eINDIAAwards 2013

3

12

1.Siddaganga Instituteof Technology, Tumkur,Karnataka beingpresented the PublicChoice Award for GreenCampus Initiative by

Higher Education Institute2.SAL Institute ofTechnology EngineeringResearch, Ahmedabad,Gujarat being presentedthe Public Choice Awardfor Industry-AcademiaCollaboration Initiative

3.Department of SchoolEducation, Government ofPunjab being presentedthe Jury Choice Award forGovernment Initiative inEducation

4. UP ElectronicsCorporation Ltd beingpresented the PublicChoice Award forGovernment Initiative inEducation

5.Aditya Birla World Academy, Mumbai,Maharashtra beingpresented the PublicChoice Award forUse of ICT in SchoolManagement

6.Hindustan UniversityGreen-Yuvatharang beingpresented the Jury Choice

Award for Green CampusInitiative by HigherEducation Institute

7. KiiT InternationalSchool, Bhubaneswar,Odisha being presentedthe Public Choice Awardfor Use of Technology inTeaching-Learning

8. Ryan InternationalSchool, New Delhi beingpresented the PublicChoice Award for Schoolof the Year

9. PSNA Collegeof Engineering andTechnology, Dindigul,Tamil Nadu beingpresented the PublicChoice Award for Use ofTechnology in TeachingLearning

4

5

6

7 98


21/21


10 11 12

13

14

15

16

19

18

17

10. Edmatix InformationSystems Pvt Ltd beingpresented the JuryChoice Award for ICTInitiative in Education

11.B-KANAE School,Modasa, Gujarat beingpresented the JuryChoice Award for GreenCampus Initiative bySchool

12.Vidyashilp Academy,Bangalore, Karnatakabeing presented thePublic Choice Award

for Innovation in GlobalCollaborative Learning

13.National Institute ofScience and Technology,Berhampur, Odishabeing presented the JuryChoice Award for Use ofTechnology in Teaching-Learning

14. Indian Institute ofBanking and Finance beingpresented the Public Choice

Award for Solution forTesting & Assessments

15. Lovely ProfessionalUniversity, Phagwara, Punjabbeing presented the JuryChoice Award for Industry-

Academia CollaborationInitiative

16. Kushal CREDAI PuneMetro being presented thePublic Choice Award for ICTInitiative in Education

17.O P Jindal School,Raigarh, Chhattisgarh beingpresented the Public Choice

Award for Green CampusInitiative by School

18. OrchidsInternational School,Hyderabad, AndhraPradesh the JuryChoice Award forUse of Technology inTeaching-Learning

19. Glendale Academy,Hyderabad, AndhraPradesh beingpresented the JuryChoice Award forInnovation in GlobalCollaborative Learning

eINDIA Education Summit 2013 Event Report

Documents