employment yin yang

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F O R L E A D E R S I N H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N

VOLUME 01 ISSUE 12 150A 9.9 MEDIA PUBLICATION

OCTOBER 2010WWW.EDU-LEADERS.COM

PROFILEDEEPAK PENTAL “WE ARE PROGRAMMED FOR INSPIRATION AS HUMANS” P56

ADMINISTRATIONMEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INDIAN B-SCHOOL CURRICULUM P24

DIALOGUEHOTELSCHOOL THE HAGUE’S DUO DEFINES INDUSTRY, INSTITUTE NEXUS P42

Srikantan Moorthy VP, Head-Education Research, Infosys Technologies

Uma Ganesh CEO, Global Talent Track

Yin YangEmployment

Industry and institutions need to strike a balance to help train students and prepare India’s skilled set P10

H.S. Ballal Pro Chancellor,

Manipal University

1October 2010 EDUTECH

The (Un)employability Gap

Some 30 years ago, as I was approaching my Class X board exams, my well-wishers were bothered by a single question–what I would study, and how it would help me get a job. For the people in my generation the question of a college degree almost entirely revolved around the question of a job, or a career. The attitude is not that

different today. Growing up in Patna, I had only three career choices—engineering, medical and civil services.

Since then, more professional disciplines have been introduced. And, the number of higher education institutions have multiplied. For all this expansion of choices, and despite the much-touted demographic dividend of India, recruiters are still struggling to find “good” people. There are surveys that show just how “unemployable” our graduates are. Surveys state that companies can hire only one in 10 graduates. Others, five in 100. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

Are our institutions failing in their attempts to educate young Indians? My academic friends beg to differ. They believe a professor’s role is to set a foundation and then send graduates off to figure out the rest themselves. On the other hand, students and employers are frustrated by the quality of teaching and by the lack of training (for employment).

Somewhere, we have to strike a balance. I see that our educational paradigm is now driv-en by examinations. Students tend to focus on rote learning to pass. Adding to the problem are single-discipline institutions that focus prematurely on specialist subjects and hamper holistic learning—you end up with graduates who don’t bring “life-skills” to an interview.

We decided to focus on this aspect of higher education for this issue of EDU. We bring to you perspectives of employers, institutions, and “intermediaries”, trying to bridge this employability gap. In some cases, we found employers playing this intermediary role by supplementing higher education through training. We also spotted standalone institutions providing supplemental skill training and capability-building. One day, I hope these inter-mediaries will disappear altogether, as the quality of our education and degree of specialisa-tion will improve. Till then, we will have to live with this “(Un)employability Gap”.

Dr Pramath Raj [email protected]

“I SEE THAT OUR EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM IS NOW DRIVEN BY EXAMINATIONS”

FOREWORD

2 EDUTECH October 2010

CONTENTSOCTOBER 2010EDU

UPDATES 07 PROTEST REVIEW08 TECHNOLOGY REFORMS09 BAN DISMISSAL

VIEWPOINTS22 RAHUL CHOUDAHA Why hasn’t India been bitten by the bug of internationalisation?

34 DHEERAJ SANGHI If lack of research is the problem with faculty, what is the solution?

46 RISHIKESHA T. KRISHNAN Case study method, and its alternatives, give students a taste of the real world

PROFILE56 DEEPAK PENTALMeet the ex Vice Chancellor of DU who realised that his PhD ‘wasn’t good enough’By Rohini Banerjee

ACADEMICS 36 TECHNICAL EDUCATIONInstitutions develop new ways of learning and collaboration By Vikramaditya G. Yadav & Ganapati D. Yadav

ADMINISTRATION24 B-SCHOOL MANAGEMENTHow well can management institutions measure their effectivenessBy R. Gopal

COVER STORY10 EMPLOYMENT YIN YANGFinding the balance is never easy. We explore the ever-widening gap between industry and academia, and meet the intermediaries who strive to build bridges By Padmaja Shastri

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Learn more about what’s currently happening in institutions around the world. The Chronicle of Higher Education shares its perspectives with EDU

48 GLOBAL FOCUS DRAWS STUDENTS TO EUROPE FOR BUSINESSBy Katherine Mangan

56

Life is full of little epiphanies”

07

59

3August 2010 EDUTECH

51 S. KOREAN COLLEGES AIM TO PROSPER IN WORLDWIDE ONLINE EDUCATIONBy Jeffrey R. Young

53 SAUDI ARABIA’S EDUCATION REFORMS EMPHASISE TRAINING FOR JOBS By Ursula Lindsey

PERSPECTIVE60 M.N. FARUQUIThe Failiure of Higher Education Institutions

EXPERTISE30 BHARAT PARMAR AND ABHINAV I.

DIALOGUE42 HI-TECH & HI-TOUCHEDU meets the ‘Laurel and Hardy’ of the HotelSchool The Hague By Smita Polite & R. Banerjee

This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

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VOLUME 01 ISSUE 12 150A 9.9 MEDIA PUBLICATION

OCTOBER 2010WWW.EDU-LEADERS.COM

PROFILEDEEPAK PENTAL “WE ARE PROGRAMMED FOR INSPIRATION AS HUMANS” P56

ADMINISTRATIONMEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INDIAN B-SCHOOL CURRICULUM P24

DIALOGUEHOTELSCHOOL THE HAGUE’S DUO DEFINES INDUSTRY, INSTITUTE NEXUS P42

Srikantan Moorthy VP, Head-Education Research, Infosys Technologies

Uma Ganesh CEO, Global Talent Track

Yin YangEmployment

Industry and institutions need to strike a balance to help train students and prepare India’s skilled set P10

H.S. Ballal Pro Chancellor,

Manipal University

Cover Art:DESIGN: SRISTI MAURYAPHOTO: RADHAKRISHNA,MILIND & RK BHAT

All about the business of clearinghouses. Does India lack a clear-cut solution to solving its tedious data problems?

TIMEOUT58 BOOKS Integrating Study Abroad Into

The Curriculum The Heart Of Higher Education

59 PRODUCTS Glasses-Free 3D TVs The Traveller’s Guide

58

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Indian industrialist Anand Mahindra recently gifted Harvard University a grant of $10 million—in the honour of his mother, Indira Mahindra. The sum is the largest grant made for any humanities centre in the university.

The Centre has been renamed the Mahindra Humanities Centre and will be led by Director Homi Bhabha. The Centre will advance interdisciplinary exchang-es among Harvard faculty, and faculty from other institutions, graduates, undergraduates, and the public. It will sponsor a range of discussions, lec-tures, readings, conferences, performances, workshops and seminars, as well as graduate and postdoctoral fellowships and hopes to foster collaborations among humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Harvard also received a gift of $50 million from Tata Companies, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and the Tata Education and Development Trust, philanthropic entities of India’s Tata Group. The gift, the largest from an international donor in the School’s 102-year history, will fund a new academic and residential building on the HBS campus in Boston, for participants in the School’s broad portfolio of Execu-tive Education programs. The school hopes to break meet new benchmarks for the building, which will be named Tata Hall, next spring.

PRESIDENCY COLLEGE APPOINTS FIRST VICE-CHANCELLOR A renowned professor of philos-

ophy, Amita Chattopadhyay, is

set to be the first Vice Chancel-

lor of Presidency University

(see picture right). Chattopad-

hyay is an alumnus of Presi-

dency College and a retired pro-

fessor of Jadavpur University. “I

am happy. To be frank, I am over-

whelmed. It is a great honour for me that

I have been selected as the first Vice Chancel-

lor of Presidency University,” she said.

ANDHRA PRADESH RECEIVES 1.2 BILLION FOR EDUCATION The central government recently released

1.2 billion as grant to the Andhra Pradesh

government, under the centrally-sponsored

scheme for postmatric scholarships for stu-

dents belonging to the Scheduled Castes.

The objective of the scheme is to provide

financial assistance to the Scheduled Caste

students falling in the postmatriculation, or

postsecondary stages, and to enable them

to complete their education.

LSR PRINCIPAL MAY BE DU’S FIRST WOMAN VC Meenakshi Gopinath, Principal of Lady Shri

Ram College, Delhi University (DU), and a

veteran educationist, may be next-in-line to

succeed Deepak Pental, the former Vice

Chancellor of DU. If appointed, Gopinath

would be the first woman Vice Chancellor of

DU. Gopinath, however, has said that she

was not aware of the development. Deepak

Pental’s five-year term as the Vice Chancellor

ended recently. A senior university official

said, “From what we know, Gopinath will take

over this month.” As a peace activist, Gopi-

nath, over the years, has been actively work-

ing for deepening people-to-people contact

between India and Pakistan.

grants

Harvard Gets $ 60 Million In GrantsThe Ivy League university has been receiving multi-million dollar grants from Indian industrialists, who are part of their alumni

at a glance0 7 P R O T E S T 0 7 R E V I E W 08 TECHNOLOGY

08 REFORMS 09 BAN 09 DISMISSAL & MORE

Indian industrialists, alumni of Harvard, are showing their gratitude with multi-million dollar grants

UPDATES


protest

NEHU Vice Chancellor Takes Charge Amid Protests Students ask eminent biochemist, A.N. Rai, to step down from his post as the new Vice Chancellor of North Eastern Hill University, Rai rubbishes corruption allegations

Biochemist A.N. Rai took charge as the Vice Chancellor of North Eastern Hill Univer-

sity (NEHU) amid protests from stu-dents’ organisations, which set a day’s deadline for his resignation.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, said the issue should have been handled “properly”. “A central team should have visited the state to sort out the imbroglio, before appointing a new VC,” Sangma said. Rai, the former Vice Chancellor of Mizoram University, was appointed by President Pratibha Patil, after former VC Pramod Tandon completed his tenure on September 12, 2010. “We will not accept Rai as our VC as he has tainted creden-tials in Mizoram University. We have given him a day’s time to quit,” said Kyn-

pham Kharlyngdoh, chairman of the Coordination Committee. The Coordina-tion Committee comprises Meghalaya Postgraduate Students’ Union, Khasi Students’ Union, NEHU unit and the A’chik Postgraduate Students’ Union.

Rai has been accused by the Mizoram Students’ Union of violating a memoran-

GLOBALUPDATE

Day-old VC faces resignation demands

review

dum of understanding and misin-terpreting the eligiblity criteria set by the University Grant Commis-sion for the appointment of lectur-ers. However, Rai termed the pro-test as an “attempt by few people to remove me” from the post.

“People would soon realise. The allegations against me are not true. I hope they will know me through my work,” he said. Asked if he would bow down to

the students’ protest, Rai said: “I have been appointed by the President. There-fore, I am still honouring this appoint-ment.” Rubbishing allegations, he said: “If anyone wants to know the truth, they should visit the university (Mizoram) and find out the facts rather being content with the rumours.”

and more, if charged by a uni-versity, will lead to it losing a proportion of its fee

£6,000will be the fee cap that English universities may be able to charge

£ 12,000

A MAJOR REVIEW of university funding done by an Independent Review Of Higher Education & Student

Finance In England has recommended that English universities should be able to charge unlimited fee. Lord

Browne’s review proposes setting out models of charges up to £12,000 a year for a degree course. The

review also makes it clear that universities that charge more than £6,000 a year would lose a proportion

of the fee to help cover the cost of student borrowing. The report seeks to balance higher charges with

support for applicants from poorer families. This competitive market would

mean that universities could go out of business. Students will not

have to pay fees up-front, but will receive loans, which they

won’t have to start repaying until their income reaches

£21,000 per year, up from the current level of

£15,000. Elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students,

studying in Scotland, do not have to pay any

fees. In Northern Ireland and Wales, fees are

charged up to a maximum of £3,290.

Lord Browne’s Review Makes Waves In England

UPDATES


technology

reforms

IIM Ranchi Head Seeks Virtual Boost For B-SchoolBoard members roped in to look for mentors and US consultants for virtual classes

Battling with a shortage of faculty, Ranchi-based Indian Institute of Management (IIM Ranchi) (in pic-

ture) is contemplating virtual classes, by top brains in world business, to fill the classroom gap. Its newly-appointed Director, M. Joseph Xavier, at his maiden board meeting, expressed a desire to bring IIM Ranchi at a par with other B-schools in India.

The board also discussed measures that they wished to introduce, which include roping in US-based consultants to arrange virtual classes to be taken by an international faculty. “Money is no constraint,” Xavier said.

The board meeting was chaired by R.C. Bhargawa, the chairman of the institute and chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Limited.

The Director of IIM Calcutta, Shekhar Chaudhary, Jharkhand chief secretary A.K. Singh, Vice Chancellor of Central University of Jharkhand, D.T. Khating and pro fessor o f I IM Ca lcu t ta

IN A MEETING between HRD Minister

Kapil Sibal, and directors and chairper-

sons of IIMs, powers were granted to the

members of boards, of the IIMs, to start

centres abroad.

It was also decided that the IIMs will be

free to raise salaries of their directors and

faculty from the funds generated in-

house. A ministry official said, “Kapil

appointed through a process wherein the

board of governors will suggest three

names to the government. The Centre

would then choose one.” Other powers

given to the boards include freedom to

create posts within approved norms, free-

dom to amend IIM rules, the power to

acquire and dispose property not funded

by the ministry.

Other changes include, powers to

approve budget and to manage funds

generated by the IIMs on their own. The

minister pointed out that the boards

should take steps to prepare annual

action plans and key performance indica-

tors at each level, and be fully accountable

and transparent.

identified 200-acres at Nagri in Ranchi’s suburb for a full-fledged campus. The institute is also contemplating short-term courses for executives from next session. “For extra facilities, we will be using the Sri Krishna Institute of Public Administration,” said Xavier. SKIPA trains probationers of administrative service officers.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have been allowed to open campuses overseas

Sibal Introduces Reforms In IIMs

Chakraborty were also present at the meeting.

IIM Calcutta , the mentor institute to Ran-chi IIM, is expected to invite US-based educa-tional consultants to arrange virtual classes from top-notch faculty.

“A consultant is sup-posed to provide techni-cal support mechanism for teaching such as web-based methodology and video conferencing, for students,” said the secretary of the Jharkhand human resources department, Mridula Sinha, who was also present in the meeting.

The B-school, presently functioning from the Soochna Bhavan owned by the Jharkhand Public Relations Depart-ment, has 44 students in its first batch of two-year postgraduate programme in management. The government has

Sibal directed that old and new IIMs sit

together and streamline the use of technol-

ogy for class-scheduling, attendance and

marks compilation.” The official hinted that

an overhaul may be on the cards, as the

issue of representing the IIM society, gov-

ernment, faculty and alumni on the boards,

was also discussed. “It was decided, in prin-

ciple, that directors of the IIMs will now be

IIM Calcutta, the mentor institute to IIM Ranchi

UPDATES


“JUST ONE IN FIVE DIS-ADVANTAGED YOUNG-STERS GO TO A UNIVER-SITY, compared to well over half of the young peo-

ple from wealthier backgrounds, and this gap is getting wider”

—DAVID WILLETTSMinister of State for Universities and Science,

England

“LORD BROWNE’S RECOMMENDA-TIONS, IF ENACTED, represent the final nail in the coffin for affordable higher education. His proposals will make our public degrees the most expensive in the world”

—SALLY HUNT General Secretary,

The University and College Union, London

“I DON’T SUPPORT CHARTER SCHOOLS, I ONLY SUPPORT GOOD CHARTER SCHOOLS”

—ARNE DUNCANEducation Secretary, USA

VOICES

“UNIVERSITIES SHOULD DEPART FROM EXISTING NORMS TO accom-modate the scope for a collective devel-opment in the field of higher education”

—K.N. PANIKKAR Vice Chairman,

Kerala State Higher Education Council, India

ban

DU Seeks Lifting Of Substance Ban University officials are looking for permission to use radioactive substances again

A team of Delhi University offi-cials headed to Mumbai to meet the Atomic Energy Reg-

ulatory Board (AERB) officials to request them to lift a ban on the use of radioactive substances in the uni-versity laboratories. A.K. Bakshi, head of the chemistry department, said, “We are going to meet the AERB offi-cials to request them to lift the ban on the usage of Cobalt-60 and other radioactive substances in the labora-tories. This ban is seriously hamper-ing our study schedule.” The AERB

withdrew permission from the uni-versity to use radioactive substances last month, after it failed to submit its reply within a stipulated time on the radioactive exposure accident that happened in the capital’s Mayapuri junkyard in April. Bakshi said the inquiry report prepared by the chem-istry department on the disposal of gamma cell was submitted last week and is being examined by a three-member committee of the executive council and “action has been taken against erring officials”.

The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a writ petition against the Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) decision to set up two new centres at Malappuram in Kerala and Murshidabad in West Bengal. “The divi-

sion bench of the Allahabad High Court, comprising Chief Justice F.I. Rebello and Justice A.P. Sahi, held that there was nothing wrong in establishing the AMU centres, especially since the same was duly approved by the President of India in her capacity as the visitor of the university,” official spokesperson of AMU Rahat Abrar said.

Z.K. Faizan, former president of AMU students’ union, filed a public inter-est litigation, seeking stay on the university’s decision to start the new centres. He claimed the AMU Act did not have any provisions which enabled the uni-versity to open any centres outside Aligarh. “Counsel representing the univer-sity argued that prior to issuance of order sanctioning the new centres by the president of India, thorough examination of reports related to the project was made by the authorities and the same cannot be challenged merely on some-one’s apprehensions,” Abrar said.

The university has decided to establish centres in Pune, Kishanganj in Bihar and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. The central government had sanctioned 250 million each for the Malappuram and Murshidabad centres.

dismissal

Plea Against AMU Centres Dismissed Allahabad High Court dismissed a writ petition, points towards Madame President’s approval

Employment yin yangBY PADMAJA SHASTRI

EDU examines if the industry and

academia can come together to create a

wholesome environment in which

India produces employable graduates

“There is a need for

the Industry to take

active interest in the

educational institutions

where their potential

employees are groomed,

and be involved”

—Dr H. S. Ballal

Pro Chancellor

Manipal University


Take a look at the number of people that will be needed in various sectors over the next decade:

millionAuto Industry35 million

Textile and Clothing 26

COVER STORY STRATEGY

“Students should be

encouraged to solve more

problems rather than only

prepare for exams by

studying past exam

papers”

Srikantan Moorthy

Vice President and Head,

Education & Research,

Infosys Technologies

Strategy COVER STORY

Out of every 100 campus can-didates, KPIT Cummins Infosystems, a Pune-based IT consulting company, is able to recruit only around

15 to 18 people. The strike rate (ratio of applications to

selection) is even lower—one out of every 10 people screened—for Zensar Technologies, another Pune-based IT-BPO company, which could hire only 599 out of 5893 eligible candi-dates in a recent campus recruitment drive. The company had the capacity to absorb upto 800 people.

“On an average, approximately 70 percent of the applicants fail to get past Zensar’s qual-ifying aptitude test. Even among those that do, majority are eliminated due to a lack of requisite communication skills, or poor tech-nical grasp,” says Gopalji Mehrotra, Head – Human Resources (HR).

This scenario holds true not just for IT companies, but cuts across industry sectors. While the strike rate is 1:10 in the auto indus-try, it is an abysmal 1:15 in the insurance sec-tor, especially in the frontline.

There is no dearth of availability of jobs though. According to a National Skill Devel-opment Corporation (NSDC) report, incre-mental requirement of various sectors of the industry will rise to 240 million over the next 10 years. Some of the biggest job creators in the coming decade, the report says, are expected to be the auto industry–35 million people; building and construction indus-try–33 million, textile and clothing–26 mil-lion, organised retail–17 million, transporta-tion and logistics–18 million and real estate services–14 million. What’s more, the report says that newer employment avenues requir-ing skilled manpower might open up.

The IT-ITES industry would alone need about 12.3 million graduates by 2020, as per the National Association of Software and Ser-vice Companies’ (NASSCOM) Perspective 2020 Report. The cumulative talent available

Building & Construction Industry

million millionTransportation and Logistics

Real Estate Services Organised Retailmillionmillion33 14 17 18

What is Infosys doing to tackle the issue of unemployability?

Our recruitment philosophy is centered on learnability and competency development. It is done across 3 stages.1.Before the graduates join Infosys we reach out to students and faculty of over 400 colleges through our Campus Connect programme to improve competencies.2.Fresher training programmes of over 23 weeks are held at the Infosys Mysore campus. 3. Certification programmes and assessments are held through

PoolBuilding

Talent

Srikantan Moorthy Vice President and Head, Education and Research,

Infosys Technologies speaks to EDU about what his company is

doing to enhance the quality of talent pool in

our higher education institutes

RA

DH

AKR

ISH

NA

COVER STORY Strategy


The ProblemWhile that is an impressive line-up, only a fraction of them are found to have the requisite skills to execute jobs in the industry. So, the prob-lem is of neither lack of job oppor-tunities nor availability of qualified candidates, but one of employabili-ty due to huge gaps in skills.

According to The Rao Commit-tee Report of 2003, this gap has arisen in recent years because of the mushrooming of a large num-ber of private technical institu-tions and polytechnics. “Barring some exceptions, there is scant regard for maintenance of stan-

dards,” the report said.There is no regulating body that assures that these colleges and uni-versities follow a certain standard of education. Often these institutes have unqualified instructors and inadequate infrastructure, raising many concerns regarding quality. And the students passing out of these institutes face several prob-lems at the time of recruitment, such as lack of knowledge of inter-view techniques and inability to express the knowledge gained, among other things.

“We find that most graduates are shaky on even the most fundamen-

upto 2020, based on current sup-ply trends, is estimated at 10 mil-lion, so there would be a shortage of about 2.3 million graduates, the report states.

Interestingly, this is despite the fact that India’s graduate outturn has more than doubled in the past decade, with an addition of 3.7 million graduates in fiscal year 2010, a scale unmatched by any other country. This includes 4.97 lakh engineering graduates and 72,777 engineering post graduates during the year, accord-ing to NASSCOM Strategic Review 2010.

tal concepts in their field of study. Even those with a technical degree often have had no access to com-puters and hence lack basic pro-gramming knowledge. Their Eng-lish competency is so poor that they are often unable to carry on a sim-ple conversation,” says Dr Shanta-nu Paul, CEO and MD of Hyder-abad-based TalentSprint, which trains technical and management graduates in employable skills.

Little wonder then, that the cur-rent employability rate is 26 per-cent for engineering graduates and 10 to 15 percent for other gradu-ates, according to NASSCOM.

“The common issue that all of us face among prospective employees is lack of relevant skills and “hands-on” experience. Their knowledge is more theoretical and they find it challenging when it comes to putting theory to practice. Besides technical competence we also experience gap in areas such as communication skills, interper-sonal skills, problem solving abili-ty, analytical ability, creative and lateral thinking, planning and organising,” says Sumedha Nashi-kkar, Head – HR, KPIT Cummins.

Many a time it is seen that even technically sound candi-

continuous education program for people who have more than one year of experience with us. Last year, more than 2,20,000 assessments were conducted. We have several academia outreach programs aimed at enhancing competencies and “catching them young” to create a continuous supply of industry-ready talent pool to cater to the growth in the Information Technology (IT) space. These include:SPARK:—This programme conducted in our campuses initiates school and college students into the world of IT through interactive sessions about values, industry relevance and demystifying IT. Teachers of government-aided schools of rural areas are trained to use computers. Spark has touched over 1,00,000 students and 5,700 faculty since its inception in August 2008.Campus Connect Programme: This industry-academia partnership programme was launched in 2004, to enhance the quantity and quality of the IT talent pool. The programme is designed to offer benefits to all stakeholders in engineering education supply chain such as students, faculty members, college management and policy makers and align their needs with those of the IT industry. We have trained 4400 faculty who in turn have

trained 80,000 students in technical and soft skills in engineering institutions to make them industry- ready, when they graduate.

Do you train completely in-house or do you depend on external third party organizations?

We offer round-the-year instructor-led and e-learning programmes to our current and prospective employees. Depending on the training program/ course, Infosys uses in-house or external trainers. The choice is influenced primarily by the decision to get the best training team for

employees. We have increased focus on training to ensure that employees deepen their competencies and are multi-skilled. Infosys currently spends ` 8.7 billion every year on educating and training the workforce.

What else can be done to make more students employable?

The academia and the industry must work closely in order to meet the supply-demand gap of job-ready professionals in our country. Students should be encouraged to solve more problems rather than only prepare for exams by studying past exam papers. There should be more emphasis on team work during the education and such team based projects should start earlier than the final year. Community work can also help build empathy while developing team skills in students. Competitions like debate competitions can help students develop and sharpen their communication skills during the education process. There is also a need to connect to the new paradigms of student learning patterns. Today, in contrast to traditional modes, most of the student learning happens through peer network and through adoption of newer media such as Facebook, blogs and ipods.

Students should be encouraged to solve more problems rather than only prepare for exams by studying past exam papers

dates have poor social and behav-iour skills that the industry needs, like negotiation and con-flict management, ability to work under pressure and being asser-tive when dealing with people.

“One of the first things that we do in our programmes is to get people to ask questions. Most of them just say ‘yes’ to whatever they are told, don’t make eye-contact, which can be interpret-ed as’not trustworthy’ by the for-eign partners,” says Aparna Prabhudesai, proprietor of Bod-hivriksh, a soft and behavior skills training firm.



Industry talks about these issues but is not ready to invest people and resources to help. THEY EXPECT ACADEMIA TO DO THIS ON THEIR OWN. A huge impact can be made if industry groups in India seriously join hands with IUCEE and similar programmes—Prof Krishna VedulaExecutive Director for Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education

To read the full interview with Professor Krishna Vedula, go to www.edu-leaders.com



Training IssuesIn a good learning environment, students develop these skills auto-matically. However, in most edu-cational institutions that environ-ment is found missing. So, industry has to invest huge amounts of time and money on training its freshers.

According to NASSCOM, the average training spend for Indian IT firms on a new recruit, to make up for his/her inadequate skills, is over $ 4,350, 40 percent of the cost of an average engineering course. The auto and engineering sector have to run their graduate trainee programmes for around a year,

problem and diffuse issues inde-pendently,” says Lokesh Mehra, Regional Manager–Corporate Responsibility, Cisco–South Asia. It is these very skills that his com-pany trains students in, in a simu-lated environment of the actual job scenario, before providing technology certifications.

However, not everyone can invest billions of rupees in set-ting up sprawling training cam-puses like Infosys, Tata Consul-tancy Services and Cognizant; and they look at investors to take the load off. It is to fulfill this need to bridge the skills gap and deliver ‘industry-ready’ products

management, people manage-ment and IT service management.

The most cited reasons for the glaring gap in skill-sets of stu-dents passing out of Indian HEIs is outdated curricula and not enough industry participa-tion in academia.

“There is a need for the Industry to take active interest in the educa-tional institutions where their potential employees are groomed and be involved in their develop-ment process. This will cut down on the Industry’s training costs and they will be able to get candi-dates who can deliver to their expectations from day one,” says

before the engineers they recruit start becoming productive.

Many companies run compre-hensive in-house programmes for training employees, which include not only technical cours-es, such as software program-ming, but also those focused on imparting soft and behaviour skills, such as leadership, busi-ness communication, e-mail eti-quette, personality development and presentation skills.

In addition to these, many com-panies allow employees to enroll for certification courses to improve their skill sets for the future. “It is not enough to solve a problem technically. A guy should know how to critically analyse a

that a host of independent train-ing companies and finishing schools have come up in the last decade (see box).

“Apart from technical and soft skills, another critical piece miss-ing in the puzzle is that little or no exposure to the business side of technology at the campus level. This is where we come in,” says Navyug Mohnot, CEO of QAI, a software skills training company.

His company is working with companies like Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant and higher educa-tion institutes (HEIs) like IIT Delhi and Symbiosis by offering focused training in business criti-cal skills in the software industry, like project management, process

Dr H.S. Ballal, Pro Chancellor of Manipal University.

Forging AlliancesFor such “tailor-made employees”, many companies across different sectors are entering into partner-ships with HEIs.

Leading retail conglomerate, Future Group, has joined hands with 16 MBA colleges which offer two-year retail management pro-grammes. That gives it an almost captive talent pool, which is pro-ductive from day one. “We interact with the students before they join the course and during the course, as they work with us 4-5 times in a year. So, they do not require any additional training when they join

Dr H.S. Ballal, Pro Chancellor of Manipal University, talks to EDU about his varsity’s initiatives to boost its students’ skill-sets

How do you identify and bridge the skills gaps that your students might have?

We have continuous assessment of the gaps which exist between industry expectations and academic inputs. Accordingly our Board of Studies and Academic Senate tries to bridge these gaps by revamping the curriculum, planning workshops, seminars, internships and projects in the identified areas. The university also arranges ‘guest talks’ by industry and academic experts to connect industry expectations and academic inputs better.

Have your collaborations with the industry helped in increasing the employability of students?

Our collaborations with reputed organisations like Infosys, Wipro, IBM, Cisco and Phillips, for enhancing both domain and soft skills of our students, have immensely benefited them. We have ‘Infosys Campus Connect’, which focusses on technical as well as soft skills, ‘Wipro Mission 10 X’ on training faculty in technical teaching and

collaborations with IBM, CISCO and SAP for certification programs. Students who have undergone these programmes have found wide acceptance in the industry. The fact that 90 per cent of our engineering and management students were placed directly from the campus in 2009-10, demonstrates that.

Do you conduct the add-on skills training in-house or engage external experts to impart it?

Based on the identified training needs in domain skills, we train the trainers by sending them to the Industry. After coming back they train the faculty who in turn train the students. For this, services of external organisations are not used. But, we do use facilities provided by various companies for conducting certificate courses as a value-add for the students, free of charge. For instance, the 16 terabit storage facility from EMC2 Corporation, installed in the Central Computing Facility Laboratory, helps the IT department offer an elective in `information and storage management’. And the Cisco Lab, set up with routers and switches, helps in conducting Cisco courses in networking. Such courses give students an edge during job interviews. Training in add-on skills, like software packages in the market, is done with a mixture of in-house and external trainers in the evenings and weekends.

What does Manipal University do to ensure that its students develop employable skills?

We have internships during the course which enable the students to get hands—on experience and practical orientation. Faculty conduct specialised certificate courses and workshops, with the help of industry, for the students. We also encourage students to participate in and organise various competitive events/festivals for their holistic development. This sharpens their soft skills like team building and coordination, interpersonal communication and other managerial abilities. Such events also test their knowledge in their domain areas, enabling them to improve. We encourage international student exchanges through tie-ups with foreign universities and by allowing student bodies such as `The International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience’ and AIESEC to start their chapters in Manipal University. These give students an exposure to global practices.

The university also arranges guest talks by industry and academic experts to

connect industry expectations and academic inputs

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us,” says Sanjay Jog, Chief People Officer of Future Group.

The IT industry is among the most proactive in entering indus-try-academia partnerships. Infosys engages with over 400 colleges through its Campus Connect pro-gramme, while Zensar has exclu-sively tied up with 13 colleges under its Centres of Excellence (COE) programme where its tech-nical managers actively engage in distance learning modules for third— year engineering students. “This is where some of our best hires come from,” says Mehrotra.

KPIT Cummins, through its PACE programme, creates proj-ect banks and sponsors projects for the final year students; con-ducts special workshops for stu-dents at college campuses in soft skills and process related training including basics of six sigma methodology. “We also participate in sharing our views with education bodies to align curr iculum with industry needs,” says Nashikkar.

As part of its Educational Institu-tions Alliance Program, HCL Tech-nologies has launched HCL K2 Academy, which is partnering with universities to train students in contemporary technologies, projects, industry exposure through principal workshops by Microsoft, Oracle and Redhat.

Many companies like HCL and KPIT also encourage students to spend a day at their campuses and give them an opportunity to interact with people on the ground. Some believe in catching them really young. Infosys, for instance, pro-vides IT exposure to students of urban high schools through a two-week summer vacation programme at its development centres.

For HEIs, these partnerships mean improvement in the techni-cal know-how, professional com-petency and skill sets of their stu-dents , making them more employable. Amity has such tie-

ups with Nokia Siemens and Cisco, while College of Engineer-ing, Pune (COEP) has MoUs with IBM, John Deere and Wipro, wherein the industry partners train their students as per indus-try needs and help in updating curriculum. Similarly, Manipal has an academic Alliance with SAP U Academy for SAP Certifi-cation and a collaboration with Phillips for Bottom of the Pyra-mid (BOP) project related train-ing. Some companies also provide

summer internship training in their organisations as well as live projects to final year students, which helps them gain practical knowledge in their domain area.

Campus SkillingMany HEIs across the country like Manipal, Amity and COEP, have even begun to offer courses in add-on skills at the campus, after regular classes.

“We offer many value-add pro-grammes with a view to develop

What is the role of skills training companies like Global Talent Track (GTT)?

We act as a bridge between academic institutions and the industry. Companies value the fact that we invest time in understanding industry expectations and translate them into classrooms. It is different from universities’ approach, where the mindset is that universities are not created to service the industry, but to disseminate knowledge. So their understanding of the industry requirements is quite sketchy. This is where we come in, as we are more industry driven and nimble footed in providing customised training solutions to companies’ ever-changing human resource requirements. Many of us have worked in the corporate sector earlier and have built equations and rapport with people in the industry, which also helps in convincing them that their time is meaningfully spent. We have built an interactive blended (online, face to face and videos) learning platform, along with industry experts, which helps in quickly ramping up an employable talent pool. We have also developed a talent assessment tool, which helps students in understanding their

Dr Uma Ganesh, Chief Executive Officer of Global Talent Track, speaks to EDU about how intermediary corporate training companies like hers form the vital link between the industry and academic institutions

strengths and capabilities, which enables them to discover career options and prepare for the most suitable role/function in a sector they want to work in. For instance, IT industry has so many opportunities other than software programming.

In which sectors do you provide skills training? How many students and faculty have you trained so far?

We work across knowledge services including IT-ITES, banking, financial services and insurance and offer a range of career oriented learning content from soft skills to advanced concepts in domain areas like IT and banking. Through our Global Knowledge Platform

for Professional Practice, we bring industry exposure into the classrooms by making available a huge bank of industrial projects and mentors to the students. We also enable collaboration with other students doing similar projects. This way, all students are able to work on real industry projects, even if companies are not able to accommodate them physically. GTT has so far trained 10,000 students, across 15 states, in the last one and a half years. We have a faculty development programme, meant to help faculty in HEIs in smaller towns like Nanded and Satara appreciate what the industry expects. Most of them have no understanding of the emerging sectors and have never been inside a company. We hold small workshops in areas like using computer and internet to develop course content, make power point presentations.

Do you work with colleges or governments or individuals?

All the three. We are working with universities and colleges, especially in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities like Sangli, Kopergaon, Jabalpur, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, where students need to be groomed right from the beginning. We also work with 21 colleges in difficult terrain in Mandi and Lahaul-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. Because of their location, their awareness of industry requirements is very low.

It is different from universities’ approach, where the mindset is that universities are not created to service the industry



the technical and managerial capabilities and overall personali-ty of our students. For instance, learning one foreign language, business communication, mili-tary training, confidence building and behavioral workshops are part and parcel of every course that we offer,” says Dr Balvinder Shukla, Pro Vice Chancellor (Academ-ics), Amity University.

Similarly, COEP conducts pro-grammes to teach techniques to face interviews, group discussion,

preparing reports, power point pre-sentation, team work, managerial abilities and time management through group activities and games.

Not just HEIs in metros and big cities, but focussed exposure to the industry has helped a group of professional colleges run by the Gowrishankar Education and Charitable Trust even in a small city like Satara ensure high employability. “We have 100 per-cent placement in most of our col-leges. This is because our stu-

12.3 milliongraduates will be needed by IT-ITES industry by 2020

dents have continuous exposure to the industry—one or two indus-trial visits per subject per semes-ter in the first year and intern-ships from second year onwards, apart from one or two lectures per subject by industry experts every

What does NSDC do? NSDC is a Private Public Partnership

that was set up to foster private sector investment in skill development. We devise strategies and provide funds to encourage the private sector to boost training and skilling.

We have helped the industry in coming up with a demand list of the skill set and competency factors that they seek. We also assist the industry as far as the framework, curriculum and accreditation is concerned. Industry-led projections and our estimate show that if we can encourage 500 industry people (maximum) to train people we can address the whole problem of the skill gap.

There are different sets of people who benefit from us— those who are barely literate, those who have a school degree, those who are graduates and then the postgraduates. The main aspect is that people may have a degree, but they may still be unemployable.

Our mandate is simple. It’s to train 150 million Indian citizens by 2022. We estimate that the industry will require 240 million people.

Why do you think that the employability problem exists in India?

DegreeEnough

isnot

Look at the university system per say. It is a seat for learning. Their job especially in India is still not to train people— they just get the students ready for a further degree. NASSCOM figures state that one in four graduates in India are still unemployable. A lot of people believe that getting a degree is the prerequisite to getting a job, but a BCom or an arts degree alone cannot get one a job. Employers seek communication and computer skills.

Also, when we compare to China, India has 12 million graduates, while China has 24 million. Some 60 percent of the manufacturing personnel in India only possess a sort of higher secondary education degree. Formally skilled people comprise only 2 percent of the workforce. While some 8 percent of the workforce consists of informally skilled people.

Does the industry participate enough?

We cannot just pin the blame on the industry alone because if we take individual cases, the industry might not have any say in this. Let’s take the engineering or medical degrees—the industry has no say in the matter. Similarly, BA and BCom degrees do not encourage industry meddling.

Dilip ChenoyManaging Director, National Skill Development Corporation

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semester,” says Nitin Mudalgikar, chief administrative officer of the Trust. The Group also sends its faculty for periodic training with the industry and regularly reviews the teaching-learning process for better delivery of each pro-gramme. Apart from core sub-jects, its students are also given 50 hours of training in additional skills like time management, proj-ect management, interview tech-niques, resume writing, business communication, writing and lis-tening, English language and paper presentation. “This increas-es our students’ confidence levels and ability to express their knowl-edge better,” says Mudalgikar.

Some HEIs like NIIT University and Amity have also designed and fine tuned their courses, keeping in view the industry requirements.

“The Industry Advisory Board of our University comprising lead-ing industry professionals is involved in the curriculum design. Thus, the curriculum incorpo-rates state-of-the-art technology in various courses and students are exposed to industry best practices. Thus, our students will be fully industry-ready when they gradu-ate,” says Dr Parimal Mandke, Registrar, NIIT University.

To give their students a competi-tive edge, some HEIs regularly organise conferences, discussion forums, guest-lectures and Men-tor–Student meets, where their students get insights about the lat-est trends in the industry and what is expected of them. For instance, Amity students have got to interact with Global manage-ment gurus like Steven Kovey, Philip Kotler and Jack Trout among others. “All these mea-sures ensure that Amity students are industry ready and are employ-able even before they step outside our portals,” says Dr Shukla.

At participative seminars, stu-dents learn to articulate their views and defend those. It also

At participative seminars, students learn to articulate their views and defend them. It also gets them to reason through issues, which develops their analytical skills

NASSCOM, through involvement of its members, is facilitating the design of Foundation Skills Programme, for both the IT and BPO industries.The Foundation Skills programme for the BPO industry is called Global Business Foundation Skills and is being piloted this year in association with the Delhi University. This 120-hour programme, facilitated by NASSCOM along with six companies, will help students hone their basic skills and enhance their employability. A similar programme will be facilitated for IT and the Engineering industry.For both the programmes, Nasscom will facilitate Train-The-Trainer (TTT) programmes to develop a pool of trainers who can train students, as well as create a second layer of qualified personnel to create further modules and train faculty to conduct these programmes.Apart from this, NASSCOM offers national standard assessment programs for the BPO industry called NASSCOM Assessment of Competence and NASSCOM Assessment of Competence – Technology for the IT/ engineering industry. The assessments can be used to check training efficacy at the end of the Foundation Skills Programmes for the respective sectors. Students can also opt for the assessment, without undergoing the training programme, to check their employability levels.

LayingFoundations: NASSCOM


gets them to reason through issues, which develops their ana-lytical skills. To enhance students’ interest in domain skills, COEP inculcates pride in the engineer-ing profession, by showcasing great achievers and engineering marvels. “We must start engaging our students right from the first year, rather than employ a finish-ing school approach. That will give them a headstart,” says Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, director, COEP. A few HEIs like the IITs and Manipal are also involved in improving the skill sets of students and faculty in other HEIs, espe-cially the tier- 2 and tier- 3 colleges.

“We conduct training /faculty development programmes in most of the disciplines offered by the University for the faculty of institutions from all over India, which in turn improves the quality of their students’ inputs,” says Dr Ballal.

Government InitiativesGovernment is also gearing up to increasingly involve industry in the learning process at HEIs.

“We have a sub-mission on skills development, which is assisting the State governments in creating 1000 new Polytechnics—300 in the Pub-lic Private Partnership (PPP) Mode, 300 in the private mode and 400 in the public mode. In the Polytech-nics set up in the PPP mode, the private partner is expected to bring in the industry experience. The pri-

vate ones would anyway be run by the industry people, who will auto-matically ensure that the students are trained in industry-relevant skills,” says NK Sinha, Joint Secre-tary, Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Gov-ernment of India.

The Ministry is also trying to get a management committee institut-ed, which would be chaired by a person from the industry. “The idea is to encourage more and more integration of technical education with the industry,” says Sinha.

Further, it has a plan to embed Polytechnics within engineering colleges to make technical educa-tion more cohesively linked to industry needs. The idea is to rewrite curricula in the Polytech-

nics for specific skill needs, tailored for specific industry requirements. AICTE is already on the job.

To be eligible for Phase Two of Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme that the government has introduced with the World Bank funding, engineering colleges have to improve learning outcomes and employability of their graduates by modernising curricula and level of pedagogy to suit the indus-try requirement.

Another government initiative in the pipeline is ‘National Vocational Qualification Framework’, wherein standards of the programmes, institutes and competencies required for each vocation will be laid down and the learning path-ways for each defined. “This will enable a number of vocational institutes oriented towards specific set of skills come up and offer spe-cialised programmes in tandem with what the industry requires,” says a senior official in MHRD.

According to the official, making accreditation mandatory will help employers get clarity on where graduates of a particular institu-tion stand and the additional skills’ training they would require.

ENGINEERING SECTOR

“Most graduate engineer trainee pro-grammes in the engineering sector run for around a year, when the new recruits are given only light responsibility in terms of deliverables. It is only after a year that they actually start contribut-ing productively. This is way too long”

Sharad Gangal Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Thermax

IT—BPO SECTOR

“There is no paucity of talent availability in India. Only an absence of

right skills that suit the IT-ITES industry. Apart from technical

knowledge relevant to the current industry needs; students also need to

hone up on their communication, analytical and problem solving skills”

Som MittalPresident, NASSCOM

Prabir JhaSenior Vice President,

Human Resources, Tata Motors

AUTO SECTOR

“Candidates with relevant knowledge and specific skill sets in niche areas of auto-mobile manufacturing like research and

development, testing, computer aided engineering, paint technology and auto-mation technology are in short supply”

RETAIL INDUSTRY

“We mainly require selling skills, cus-tomer skills, knowledge of the local lan-guage and domain knowledge of the concepts related to retail operations. Basic traits we look for are good com-munication and inter-personal skills”

Sanjay JogChief People Officer, Future Group



Not just at the centre, but the skills agenda has become a top priority even at the State government level. “We are following a two-fold meth-od to enable our college and uni-versity students for the industry–revision of the core curriculum with the help of industry and aca-demicians and short-term courses in soft skills like communication and employability skills specific to domains like IT, Banking, insur-ance, sales, computer literacy, tourism and hospitality,” says Dr. C. Bhanumathi, Director, Institute of Service Management, Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE).

The state government body has already revised the curriculum of 26 subjects in the science and commerce streams and made it compulsory for all government colleges to have a multimedia lab for teaching communication in English. APSCHE also holds “career awareness and recruit-ment drives” at all universities and district headquarters, where industry officials are invited to talk about the opportunities and skill-sets required in different domains. “The strike rate has gone up from three-four percent in 2006 to 8-9 percent this year at these job fairs,” says Dr Bhanumathi.

Right Course“Employability of our graduates would improve in the next 4 to 5 years, when the MHRD imple-ments all the reforms it is plan-ning–compulsory accreditation, making the curriculum more cur-rent, empowering HEIs with autonomy, enhancing the quality of faculty and research and there is far more academia-industry interac-tion,” says Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM.

Industry leaders also feel the need for changing our archaic examina-tion pattern of “questions and answers”, which is mostly based on memorising things/rote learning.

WhatIndustry

Wantsthe

Here’s what industry leaders from some of the biggest employment generating sectors in India have to say about the skills they require and what they find lacking among students passing out of our universities:

GivingFinishing Touches



“If we follow the open book exami-nation pattern that involves real life problem situations and make our students think, half the battle is won. This will enable our educa-tion system to generate people who can find innovative solutions to problems,” says Nashikkar.

Some HEIs have begun incor-porating communication and behavior skills into the course cur-riculum to give a fillip to their stu-dents’ employability.

“The course curriculum should be redesigned, as and when required by the industry to make sure the redundant elements no more form a part of the curricu-lum and topical technology and relevant topics are incorporated,” says Dr Shukla.

Challenges AheadCreating a spirit of intellectual enquiry among students and peda-gogical methods for delivery of edu-cation in the HEIs, like in the devel-oped nations, is the biggest challenge yet for enhancing employability, according to Dr Arun Nigavekar, former chairman of UGC. “For developing a student’s capacity to think critically and cre-atively and solve problems indepen-dently, you cannot treat skill devel-opment as an independent entity with no connection with core sub-ject knowledge. A marriage of the two is necessary,” he said.

That is why, despite holding e-Learning programmes in soft skills, interview techniques and computer literacy, some HEIs in smaller cities find it difficult to place their students due to total absence of relevant domain knowl-edge. “We have a huge number of students taking up subjects like Hindi and Philosophy, which find no relevance in the industry. While a few of them get into Indian Administrative Service or become lecturers, it is very difficult to find employment for the rest,” says Prof essor R.G. Harshe, Vice Chancellor

of Allahabad University. The entire initiative of skills

building is critical to the success of our country and its economy, as employable human resources would be the key to retain our industries’ competitive advantag-es and growing stature.

According to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India needs to build 700 million globally employable work-force, 200 million university graduates and 500 mil-lion vocationally skilled people by

To bridge the gap between graduates who struggle to find jobs because of the lack of adequate skills and companies that are unable to recruit well -qualified entry- level talent, a host of training and finishing schools are emerging across the country.These outfits usually cater to IT-BPO and banking, financial services and insurance sectors, though some like Indian Institute of Job Training also provide training in the area of retail, sales and marketing. These offer short-term intense programmes aimed at equipping graduates with domain, technical and various soft skills including effective communication skills that will help them become productive in the workplace faster. These training schools follow a three-pronged approach:Be Practical: They help students put the theory they know into practice. For instance, Hyderabad-based TalentSprint follows a practical case study -driven approach and introduces students to tools they will be using in the workplace early on in the programme. They are encouraged to work on technical projects in groups as that is what is required in the workplace. Speak Up: Theses schools teach students professional work ethics and communicate better. TalenSprint uses discussions and role playing techniques to demonstrate standards of professional conduct and communication.

Its students make presentations to the class on various conceptual and technical topics. They are trained to write specifications, hold discussions and present their point of view to peers, seniors and clients. Certifications: Some of these institutes also help students get international certifications like International Software Testing Board Certification for Testing Professionals and Sun Certified Java Programmer or Microsoft Certified Engineer for Software Engineering Professionals, to add that extra sheen. Since the courses are mostly offered in an interactive distance learning mode, it makes it possible to learn from expert faculty across the country. Apart from technical and domain, career skills training providers like IIJT Indian Institute of Job Training also train in soft skills like English skills, self-grooming, resume improvements and interview techniques.These finishing schools are becoming popular as most like Bengaluru-based PurpleLeap deliver professional skills enhancement programmes on college campuses. “Most colleges are open to these programmes as including skill development in the college routine is the first big step, especially including anything new in the curricula is a tricky issue given the number of approvals that might be required,”says Amit Bansal, CEO, PurpleLeap.

the year 2022, if it has to realise its potential to become a leading econ-omy globally and be recognised as a centre of knowledge. This ambi-tious target can be achieved only if all the stakeholders—academia, industry, skills training companies and the government—work in a concerted fashion. Only then can we reap the benefits of our demo-graphic advantage of being one of the youngest nations of the world and become the workforce of the world.

VIEWPOINT Rahul Choudaha


Moments When Scope Meets Excellence

However, there are hardly any exemplars for what is considered “comprehen-sive” internationalisation. Though internationalisation is not relevant to all institutions, it becomes a competitive necessity for those aspiring to achieve international excellence or rankings.

Consider the pace of growth of Indian higher education in the past five years. According to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the number of engineering and business schools has doubled to 3,000 and 2,000, respectively, in the past five years (2004-2005 and 2008-2009). This has resulted in a rise in competition (as far as students are concerned), both in terms of quantity (number of seats) and quality (related to prestige).

In the pursuit of competitiveness, internationalisation is an important opportunity to rise a notch higher. And, it is effective as a “differentiator” for excellence.

Need For InternationalisationThe process has several benefits. The presence of foreign students on campus significantly adds to the learning experience of all students. Some institutions have managed to forge short-term exchange programmes. But, most Indian institu-tions so far have struggled to recruit foreign stu-dents for a full programme.

Foreign students provide an additional source of revenue. In India, regulatory bodies allow for 15 percent supernumerary seats for foreign stu-dents, of which 5 percent is earmarked for chil-dren of Indian workers in the Gulf. An institution is also free to decide the fee to be charged.

A handful of Indian institutions are seeking to gain entry into global rankings. Global rankings are highly-sensitive to the concept of comprehen-sive internationalisation. For example, according to the Financial Times ranking, ISB, Hyderabad, ranks 12 in the world. And, it attributes 25 per-cent to diversity and international measures.

Internationalisation of an institute is not a choice. Rather, it’s an emerging need, a competi-tive compulsion for institutions that are in the race for quality and excellence.

A Question Of ComplexityHowever, internationalisation has its challenges. It’s an expensive process with controllable and uncon-

Only a handful of Indian institutions such as Manipal and SP Jain have taken the leap into internationalisation by starting foreign campuses. Few others (say Indian School of

Business) have integrated internationalisation on-campus by collaborating with overseas institutions. Public universities (University of Pune) have been wooing foreign students.

Rahul Choudaha VIEWPOINT


trollable risks. Imagine the investments required to build a brand and to communicate the purpose of the brand to foreign students. Add to that, expenditures involved in travel to different markets to create aspi-rational value and that “oomph-factor”. Even after making these investments, pay-offs take time.

At another level, gaining the confidence of reputed international universities for collabora-tions is an intensive concept-selling process that involves inspiring confidence in terms of profes-sionalism, culture and results.

Signing MoUs for international collaborations is only half the story. The bigger challenge is the suc-cessful execution of programmes—in terms of well-defined goals.

Charles Klasek noted, “It’s not difficult to sign an agreement with universities of all types throughout the world; it’s difficult to implement agreements, so that there are mutual academic benefits for institutions involved.”

Comprehensive Internationalisation To address needs and challenges of internation-alisation, institutions should systematically

Rahul Choudaha A higher education specialist based out of New York, Dr Choudaha specialises in strategic management of higher education, institution building, academic leadership, collaborations and market development. He has a PhD in higher education from the University of Denver, MBA from NITIE, Mumbai, and BE from Jabalpur University. He can be reached at [email protected]

l Forge sustainable and innovative collabora-tions: Internationalisation is inherently collabora-tive in nature. Innovative and sustainable collabora-tion should not be limited only to educational institutions. It should extend to a wider domain of communities and industry.

For example, alliance organisations like AISEC or NetImpact could enrich the placement and learning potential of students.l Take a talent perspective: Top talent which

has the potential to achieve global excellence is the core for achieving success with international ambitions. This includes building an ecosystem to attract talented students, faculty and adminis-trators from global markets.

For example, foreign students from developed economies have certain expectations from stu-dents’ services and safety, which can make or break the global positioning of an institute. l Develop thought leadership: Education is a

knowledge business and achieving global recog-nition requires building thought leadership. Institutions need to integrate and reward excel-lence in knowledge creation and dissemination.

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Once goals and time lines are defined, institutional processes and resources should be aligned to emphasise internationalisation

invest in comprehensive internationalisation—so that all resources are optimally utilised. Here are a few suggestions:l Develop an internationalisation plan: A com-

prehensive plan is an absolute must for any insti-tution seriously thinking of investing into inter-nationalisation. Richard Levin, President, Yale University, while formulating the “The Interna-tionalisation of Yale: 2005-2008” noted, “…We set forth a framework to help explain and guide our institutional thinking for the next few years.”l Align processes and resources: Once goals

and time lines are defined, institutional processes and resources should be aligned to emphasise comprehensive internationalisation. An office of internationalisation should lead efforts of imple-menting and integrating efforts related to global initiatives including launching new programmes and working on accreditation and other ranking processes.

For example, a publication in a refereed journal by a faculty should be rewarded and leveraged for institutional visibility.

Comprehensive internationalisation is an opportunity to create long-term differentiation and value-addition.

Madeleine Green rightly notes, “Comprehen-sive internationalisation is no less than an institu-tional transformation….[It] occurs when interna-tionalisation is both deep and broad. It results from multiple interrelated changes—one pro-gramme or policy change produces a cascading series of other changes.”

I hope many more institutions pursue a trans-formational approach and engage with compre-hensive internationalisation.

T24 EDUTECH October 2010

ADMINISTRATION B-school Management

BY R. GOPAL

Measuring effectiveness of management education in

B-school. Carving out a

niche, creating competitive advantage

T

T25October 2010 EDUTECH

MANAGE THISACCORDING TO an annual report released by the All India Council for Technical Education, the number of management schools in India rose from nine in 1978, to 1,600 in 2008 INDIAN management schools offer over 100,000 seats to students across the country

of a B-school and rank them. The ranking varies from organisation to another. Organisations that claim to make these rankings, do not visit the schools to gauge performances. In many cases, no discussions (written or oral) are held with stake-holders viz. students, (who are the customers), management, society, parents or, the ultimate users of the products of the B-schools—corporates and the industry. The Centre-promoted body—National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)—has developed an elaborate, complicat-ed and substantially-detailed process of measur-ing and ranking colleges or universities, etc. This yardstick is applicable to all colleges and universi-ties, and is not specific to B-schools. The defined research objective of this article is to develop a framework for the measurement of the perfor-mance of a B-school. And, suggest ways and means to improve performance.

Research Methodology

The methodology used for this article was exploratory research. Discussions were held with more than: n 100 directors of B-schools in

Mumbai and Punen 30 management personnel (primarily owners or trustees) of B-schoolsn 300 students from B-schoolsn 30 parentsn 20 citizens of India

The need to satisfy customers in any commercial enter-prise is obvious, more so in today’s context. One doubts whether there is any need to establish the importance of creating a “Customer Centric-ness Organisation”. Well, there is. Customers’ satisfaction is true not only for any organisation, but also for the provider of management education—the busi-ness school (B-school).Management education in India is offered in the following categories of institutions:n Institutions of national importancen University departmentsn Colleges affiliated to universitiesn Non-university autonomous institutions n Distance or correspondence-based institutionsn Unaffiliated institutions.

The growth of MBA and postgraduate diploma in management (PGDM) has been largely triggered by the growth of the corporate sector and industri-alisation in India. The increase in demand for professional managers in the country, has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of B-schools. According to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Annual Reports, there were nine B-schools in 1958, 58 B-schools in 1978, 87 in 1988, 744 in 2000, 847 in 2002, and 1,600 in 2008.

AICTE and its Board of Management Studies currently offer offer 100,000 seats for postgraduate students. In addition to AICTE-approved institutions, there are a large number of foreign universities (40) that offer management education in India, either independently or as joint ventures with Indian business schools.

“Management Education Worldwide” is a 20th century phenomenon, focus-ing on business administration. At the end of the 20th century, management education also included the management of government, public systems, management of agriculture and management of education system, among others. The purpose of management education since the beginning of the 20th century has been to enable organisations to apply knowledge and thus improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Framework of management education in India is primarily based on the American and European business models. These models prove to be inade-quate in the Indian context. Requirements of business managers and their expectations from B-schools are also changing substantially, and quickly. A good management education should not only help potential business manag-ers to achieve short-term results, but also help in achieving long-term goals.

With the rapid growth in the number of B-schools in India, the question today is—is it possible to measure the effectiveness of a B-school? Today, in India, there are organisations that claim to measure the performance



n 50 members of the corporate world (especial ly, members of the HR department)

Even B-schools can hold such research. Remember its not enough to gauge expectations alone, they have to be mon-itored, measured and improved. Student feedback system—based on adequacy and quality of resource products, infra-structure and faculty—is the key. There should also be a “faculty feedback sys-tem”. And, corporate or alumni feed-back, based on the question of quality and adequacy of students and their knowledge. Feedbacks can be taken through a five-scale questionnaire. Parameters on which student feedback can be taken may be:Classroom facilities—seating and light-ing arrangements, audio systems, or overhead projects, etc.General cleanliness—hygiene of toilets, floors and classrooms, among others.Support Systems—canteen, quality of food and overall hygiene.Library—seating arrangement, system for retrieval of books, system for availing books and adequacy (availability) of books at all times.

Similarly, for the faculty feedback, fol-lowing parameters can be looked at (again, on a five-point scale):n Whether the member of the faculty provides conceptual backgroundn Application knowledgen Encourages class discussionsn Is accessible to studentsn Is open and transparentn Sticks to schedules and session plans n Is punctualIt’s also important to take feedback from the alumni and corporates on the quality of the B-schools. These parties are likely to gauge a school based on: n Students’ knowledge base and depthn Application knowledgen Attitude of a studentn Ability and capability of a studentIt’s cardinal for stakeholders to know how important these parameters are to students. And that can be measured on a five-point scale (1=very important, to 5=least important). Additionally, B-school management must compare themselves with the others —both locally and globally.

1 For any B-school to survive, there is a need for students. Each student has certain aims and ambitions measured in terms of placements—salary, job satisfaction and knowledge gains.

2 These aims and ambitions mean that the B-school will have to measure performance against some parameters, which are controlled. Such as:

Human Resource: Measured in terms of quality or quantity of faculty, both in terms of educational qualifica-tions, and quality of lectures delivered. Non-teaching resources (e.g. adminis-trative office staff). Today, there is no dearth of faculty available. Students often feel that what is required is not people with communication abilities, but teachers who add value to an insti-tute by correlating industry practices and conceptual thinking.Infrastructure: Measured in terms of adequate number of classrooms fit-ted with overhead projectors, LCDs, computers, computer labs with 24-hour internet, libraries with access to Indian and foreign journals.Work Environment: Creating or simulating an office-like environment which is friendly and motivating.Product Offering: Measured in terms of specialised courses, or modifi-cation of existing courses and syllabi, so as to make them compatible with the industry needs.

3 In addition to the above measures, softer measures may be based on the following areas:

Faculty should focus not only on the concepts of functional subjects, but also on applications. Importantly, one

is looking at the ‘sharing’ of experienc-es, especially application of concepts in real-life situations.

Case studies related to Indian or Asian companies are more appropri-ate. It’s common to see faculty lift arti-cles and cases from Harvard Business Reviews and then discuss them. These articles have a western orientation and several times, students feel detached from the example that is being given.

Live projects incorporating interac-tion with the industry is another way to get students’ attention.

Guest lectures or industrial interac-tions, at a functional and corporate level, also grabs eyeballs.

Visits to medium and large-scale industrial organisations, with an objec-tive of understanding their functioning, should be encouraged in the syllabus.

Study of foreign languages should be made mandatory.

4 Areas where B-schools have to concentrate are:

Team building, sharing of insights Genuine tolerance for idiosyncrasies

of colleagues and faculty Intrapreneurship, entrepreneur skills Counselling and mentoring of

students

5 Students will be satisfied, if the following facilities are also available:

Strong placement cell that ensures 100 percent placements, headed by a dynamic placement coordinator

Open and transparent admission process

An examination system that is open and free from malpractices

Communication systems that cater not only to them, but also to the society at large

Discussions revealed that:

THE BIZ BUZZ

B-school Management ADMINISTRATION


These metrics can be then measured and plotted. Features where one institu-tion are better than competing B-schools then automatically becomes the USP of that institution. And, that point or fea-ture may be then highlighted in the com-munication or prospectus. Features that turn out to be the weakest links, calls for introspection and corrective action.

B-schools, in order to survive, will have to gear themselves up by continuously monitoring, measuring and deciding on priority action plans.

Recommendations

1From a student’s point of view, the key issues involved are always:

a. Whether a school brings leading cor-porates to campusesb. How effective is the alumni networkc. How relevant is the curriculumd. Whether the faculty is indeed stronge. Whether the pedagogy is modernf. How strong is the overall brand g. How strong is the infrastructure

2Discussions with students indicate that among all the above-mentioned

issues, placement is the key one. Certain other issues that also play an important role, are the kind of hostel facility, infra-structure and locational advantages.

ma industry, biotechnology, or a man-agement degree in business process out-sourcing or knowledge outsourcing, or an MBA in hospital management.

4B-schools need to inculcate leader-ship qualities, analytical capabilities

and adaptability within their customers.

5Key mantras today are leadership and adaptability—which encompasses

capabilities to lead people and adapt to dire situations, think out-of-the-box, and move from a strategic thinking platform to a ground-level implementation plat-form (flexibility).

6Management schools, therefore, have to think of ways and means to

inculcate requirements of corporates into students through various method-ologies—simulation techniques: One such example would be of a manage-ment school in Navi Mumbai that asked students to manufacture or buy and then sell items to random customers on streets of Navi Mumbai. The boundary condition was the availability of resource—not more than Rs 500 per stu-dent or group (of students). The exercise was to help students gain valuable insights into the art of negotiation and selling. Key learnings were then dis-cussed and analysed.

3In order to attract a bevy of bright minds, B-schools must interact with

the ultimate users of their products (stu-dents)—the corporates.

Schools need to upgrade themselves to suit the ever-changing corporate needs. This would mean a constant revision of the syllabi and devising specialised courses to suit the needs of an ever-changing industry. It would be wise to offer new-age MBAs—lets say, in phar-

The following are some of the param-

eters based on which a B-school may be

ranked, and what may help it understand its USP. However, USPs have a meaning only

when they are perceived as having

some ‘value’—by the students. Thus, a

student’s selection is often like this—see

graph right. Decision in favour of B-School 1 only when

Student)(Customer

(USP)1 (USP)2>

INFRASTRUCTUREPLACEMENTFACULTYINDUSTRY INTERACTION GUEST LECTURESLIBRARY

(USP)1

B-School 1

INFRASTRUCTUREPLACEMENTFACULTYINDUSTRY INTERACTION GUEST LECTURESLIBRARY

(USP)2

B-School 2

THE FRAMEWORK OF

INDIAN MBA IS PRIMARILY BASED ON

AMERICAN, EUROPEAN

MODELS. THESE PROVE TO BE

INADEQUATE IN THE INDIAN

CONTEXT



research papers and forums are also ways to encourage a professor or a teach-er to strive for improvement. But, to do this, the (teaching) load on the faculty needs to be reduced. Through these pro-grams, an institute may hope to enhance the quality of the faculty.

11Making the atmosphere condu-cive to work through empower-

ment of the faculty, decentralisation of the decision-making process (through formation of committees), are some of the techniques that are also used to retain faculty.

12Technology is another key issue, as far as management institutes

are concerned. Technology enables stu-dents to be better-informed and exposed to a global market place. Thus, schools need to provide the GenY, an opportuni-ty to make use of the technology.

13In order to survive in a fiercely competitive world, the mantra is to

excel, or perish. Strategies need to be developed to ensure a high-level of eye ball contact in the corporate world—per-haps through proper communication and not necessarily advertisements.

14There is an urgent need for good quality faculty and to retain the

same. Strategies such as providing opportunities for research paper publica-tions, faculty development programmes, and organising management develop-ment programmes, need to be “tailor-made” if a B-school wishes to retain its faculty for a period of time.

15Additionally, devising new sylla-bus—offering specialised courses

such as MBA in BPO or KPO manage-ment, hospital management or in bioin-formatics—goes a long way in ensuring a school’s survival.

The analysis reveals that each man-agement school needs to carve out a niche for itself. And then it needs to develop sustainable competitive advan-tage for its survival.

Dr R. Gopal is Director, Dean and Head of the Department of the Padmashree Dr D. Y. Patil University, Department of Business Management

7Encouraging industry people to par-ticipate in the classroom is another

successful way of creating a corporate culture in a class.

8Frequent interaction with alumni, through meets, dinners and get-

togethers, help students get a grip on basic fundamentals—logical thinking, communication and networking. Through an alumni network, students become better-equipped to understand the fact that apart from the profit bot-tomline, aspects such as corporate gover-nance, economic, social and environ-mental dimensions also play a major role in the corporate decision making.

9A key issue, from the B-school perspec-tive, is the availability of strong faculty.

The problem of faculty has become acute in India. A reason for this is that increas-ingly a number of specialisations are being offered, without the specialists to teach them. The number of approved B-schools (whether AICTE or UGC-approved) is esti-mated to be more than 2,000.

This rise has resulted in an acute shortage of faculty. The present genera-tion of students is less inclined to join

academics. And the reason is often an economic one. Remember that the start-ing salary for an academic is between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 a month. The start-ing salary for even an above-average B -school student is more than Rs 4,00,000 a month. Many management schools are now trying to overcome this vacancy problem by offering research, consul-tancy and training possibilities—thus, offering salary incentives that add to the overall sum. However, there is a problem in this as well—faculty members may not be inclined to get into research activ-ities at all.

The problem gets aggravated further when one considers schools located outside the metros. Attracting quality faculty in those areas is a headache. Net effect is that B-schools, in order to sat-isfy AICTE or UGC norms, recruit mediocre teachers.

10Holding regular faculty develop-ment programmes and making

the faculty then train the GenY is often the way to make the best use of the situ-ation. The use of research methodology, statistical packages such as SPSS,

From this analysis, B-schools, in order to survive, will have to gear themselves up by continuously monitoring, measuring and deciding on priority action plans

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LOW LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE

‘SUSTAIN’ Areas Placement

Assistance record Guest lectures

‘INCONSEQUENTIAL’ Areas HBR reviews and

discussion on issues Academic qualifications of

faculty members Hostels

‘NON CRITICAL’ Areas

Availability of air conditioned rooms

Canteen

HI

‘PRIORITY’ Areas Good library R&D facility MDP programme

HI

LOWLOW


EXPERTISEEDUCATION CONSULTING

Does India Need A Clearinghouse?

The Indian higher education sector has been seeing a lot of activity of late. Promises of higher salaries, opportunity to be a “Global Indian”, lifetime of benefits, stability, security, and more luxury along with socio-economic status; these

incentives have been driving students to opt for better higher education opportunities. With 16,885 colleges providing higher education courses to about 10 mil-lion students, India boasts of one of the largest higher education (HE) systems in the world. In a nation where scale is so massive, management and tracking relevant information is a tedious task for stakeholders—higher education institutions (HEIs), employers and banks.

About The Business Of LoansTo boost HE in India, one of the reforms brought in was in the area of education loans. With easier availability of funds, students began to turn to banks for assistance. In 2009 alone, almost 70 billion was disbursed by banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in the form of loans. This, however, opened up the issue of efficient recollection and recovery of loans.

Between 2009 and 2010, a leading Indian private bank saw some 22.8 billion being disbursed from the previous amount of 29.47 bil-lion, amounting to an “year on year” (YoY) growth of 29 percent. At the same time, the amount of non-performing assets increased at an unprecedented rate—from 613 million to 1.13 billion (YoY growth of 85 percent). In the past couple of years, the growth has been a challenge faced by banks that operate in this space. Higher NPA on student loans

is partly a result of economic recession. Its adverse impact on the job market, reduces a student’s capa-bility to pay off. Also, a chunk of students don’t update lending institutions about repayment ability (employed or otherwise), thus converting the pro-cess of tracking the borrower, into a task. Presently, banks update information about a borrower’s enrol-ment status and employment details by contacting institutions or parents.

Employers’ Verification; A Tedious TaskEnrolment and degree verification is a part of the induction process for employers. With a rise in num-bers of degree and certificate scams, employers now emphasise more on an employee’s degree. Employ-ers manually collect this data (validity of the certifi-cate) either from the student herself, or an institu-tion. This is performed either by a team within the organisation, or is outsourced to agencies that offer background screening services. Often, such activi-

BY BHARAT PARMAR & ABHINAV [email protected]

Bharat Parmar(top) is a founding partner at Eduvisors, a leading research and consulting firm focused on the education sector. Eduvisors advises clients in implementing varsity projects and assisting foreign universities and education businesses enter India. Abhinav I is a part of Eduvisors


Bharat Parmar & Abhinav I EXPERTISE

ties are time consuming or results are unsatisfactory. Reasons for unsatisfac-tory results are multiple—lack of will-ingness to share information, outdated databases, no mechanism to validate the data collected, etc.

A majority of screening agencies resort to informal ways of procuring information. When the background check is performed in-house, or when it is outsourced, cost and effort involved gets high. This makes HEI participa-tion, in providing enrolment and degree verifications, imperative. In the current scenario, HEIs provide validation of data to employers or potential employ-ers and banks, with help of administra-tive staff—a process that involves a lot of paperwork, administrative hassles and waste of resource (money, time). Also, this process becomes confusing, burdensome and expensive, as it is fragmented among institutions, lenders and employers.

Taking The Clearinghouse PathThese factors highlight the need for a “student clearinghouse”—a centralised agency that acts as a data repository. Such an agency collects, stores, and disseminates information as and when required. Due to the nature of the data involved, a clearinghouse is ideally supported (directly or not) by a government agency that has a buy-in from all HEIs. An organisation such as “Association of Indian Universities” is ideally positioned to drive a clearinghouse platform.

US National Student ClearinghouseNational Student Clearinghouse is a non-profit organisation that provides verification reporting, secure data transfer and database management solutions to US HEIs. It enables institutions to minimise their administrative burden and has-sles by collecting information on a continuous basis and disseminating them to loan-holders, employers and student-service providers. Under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (that protects privacy of student education records), some 3,500 schools subscribe to their services. Loan-holders and employers need to interact with a single body to track and respond to stu-dent’s enrolment and degree status.

By designating the clearinghouse as a service provider, US Department of Education, and edu-cational institutions outsource the task of collat-ing, updating, maintaining and transferring data

to the clearinghouse. A college is expected to enter data on an online platform once in every 30-45 days. With the following services, the clear-inghouse cumulatively helps institutions save more than a $100 million annually:n Verification Services: The clearinghouse pro-

vides automated enrolment verification and deferment reporting services for students, who have taken aid from lending institutions. This enables lending agencies and guarantors to keep tab on the student’s status. This in turn decreases the default rates. n Tracking Services: A clearinghouse maintains

comprehensive records database, which is made available (as allowed by FERPA and subject to con-ditions set by the institution that has provided data) to colleges for educational research and analysis. For example, this data enables a college to under-stand choices made by their prospective students and provides it an insight into the competition matrix. It also provides factual information, on the basis of which they can devise strategies to target, attract, select and retain students. Tracking services are provided for high schools that can gauge the success of students in college education.n Transcript Ordering and Exchange: A tran-

script is a detailed record that mentions the cours-es taken and grades earned by a student. Often, students who have moved to other institutions or have passed out require such transcripts. Though a small number of US colleges enable online tran-script handling facility, a majority use paper tran-scripts, increasing expenses and wasting manual resources. Electronic transcript exchange between high schools, colleges, and organisations speeds up the process. It also provides status updates of

STRAIGHT FACTS:

Student Clearinghouse is a centralised repository that collects, stores and

disseminates information regarding students to

interested parties


EXPERTISE Bharat Parmar & Abhinav I

the exchange process. Students and alumni can order for transcripts at any hour of the day.

The Revenue ModelAn interesting aspect of the process is the revenue model that clearinghouses follow. Being a non-profit organisation, the Student Clearinghouse provides almost all services for free, or at subsi-dised rates to educational institutions. Costs that they incur are compensated by funds provided by guarantors, lending agencies and servicers.

Institutions that are not a part of the National Student Clearinghouse Programme are required to go through and edit each and every Student Status Confirmation Report. It is a comprehen-sive report of students who have availed financial aid. They are also expected to report all discrepan-cies. These are then compared with the govern-ment borrowers’ records every academic term. This means responding to volumes of paper-based requests for lender status and deferment.

In case of a dropout, an institution has to report the same to the appropriate holder, the identifica-tion of which is a tedious task for the school.

Also, there is no fixed standard communication process or format. Each stakeholder has a differ-ent formatting and reporting procedure, which makes it cumbersome. Also, lack of a fixed chan-nel of communication, results in duplicate infor-mation being transferred, making it difficult to sort out the most updated status of a borrower.

An agency like the Student Clearinghouse pro-

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STUDENTS’ DATA, A CLICK AWAY

vides clear benefits of eliminating administrative hassles and freeing resources, increasing report-ing and record-keeping efficiency, and speeding up execution of a task. It creates a transparent sys-tem, with almost no chance of fraudulent claims. Institutions, on their part, don’t have to develop an online platform. With the Eleventh Year Plan targeting to raise the Gross Enrolment Ratio for higher education to 15 percent (24 million), the Indian HEI space is going to expand more. That means more loans will be disbursed. There will be volumes of employment and enrolment data that would need to be sorted. In the US, students’ loans constitute the third-largest portfolio, while in India it is much smaller. The overall exposure to outstanding education loans in India stands at $5 billion, as compared to $700 billion in the US.

However, this sector is slowly picking up in our country, evident by the entry of specialised educa-tion loan providers such as Credila (HDFC-backed NBFC) in the Indian market.

There is a need to establish systems and pro-cesses that will help digitise, centralise and chan-nelise information in a systematic manner from HEIs to the right stakeholders. It will help in easy management of information for educational insti-tutions and employers, reduce delinquency rates for banks and help set right the foundation for a transparent and efficient system.


Largest portfolio in the US loan market is the educa-

tion loans. The overall exposure to outstanding education loans in India, is $ 5 billion, as compared to $700 billion in the US

3rd

VIEWPOINT Dheeraj Sanghi


Research Boost in Indian Universities

India’s worried. None of our higher education institutions are in the top 100 list of either Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s ranking of world universities, or in the Times Higher Education list. Whether we look at the number of PhDs produced,

papers in journals with high-impact factors, or patents—in all metrics of research output—China has left us behind.

students and faculty members are in affiliated col-leges, which are not allowed to set a fee structure. The Centre sets fees at such a level that even pay-ing for running expenses is a challenge. When an appropriate amount is charged, it’s brought down by the government. Project funding is a stronger way to support research. However, the way central agencies fund research does not cover a significant part of expense. Project funding usually supports purchase of equipment used for a project, staff salaries directly hired for a project, travel and con-tingency expenses. Normal funding does not allow salaries to be paid to permanent employees of a university (faculty) who may be spending a signifi-cant part of their time on a project. They don’t pay rental for the space used by equipment and staff. They don’t pay for the infrastructure such as the computer centre, internet, library and journal access and electricity.

Varsity BluesLook at the faculty cost. If a university is only interested in knowledge dissemination, it hires faculty to teach at least three courses per semes-ter. On the other hand, if a university wants to encourage knowledge creation, then its asks its faculty to typically teach two courses per semester.

So, the second type (of university) needs to hire at least 50 percent additional faculty. Faculty sala-ries are a significant part of any university budget

Experts are unanimous—we need more money. Research faculty needs to be paid more than the salaries that Sixth Pay Commission has asked for. After all, the competition for research manpower is global. Government should fund IITs and universities liberally to improve research infrastructure. And, budget for government agencies that fund research projects in academic institutions, should be increased substantially.

The Real ProblemWhile money is important, to improve research, one needs to ensure that all stakeholders are properly incentivised to work towards a common goal. A faculty member must have incentives to do research. And, institutes must have incentives to encourage faculty to do research. India encourages neither.

Consider an institution’s motivation for research—reputation and brand building. Unfortunately, both cost money. Typically, there are two major sources of income for universities. One is from tuition, the other is direct funding from agencies such as Department of Science and Technology (DST). Increasing tuition to support research is not a realistic solution. Most

Dheeraj Sanghi VIEWPOINT


If India is serious about research, at the institution level, funding agencies must grant a greater amount of money as ‘overhead charges’

today. It’s only fair that universities expect a fac-ulty to spend 1/3rd of his time on research, then 1/3rd of his salary comes from that source, apart from the undergraduate tuition.

Project ProposalThen there are the costs of preparing a project proposal. If a faculty is expected to spend time on research, either the university or the funding agency needs to provide her with initiation grants to start a laboratory. After all, the faculty member may have other research expenses such as travel expenses (to the field or to conferences).

Most agencies do pay an overhead cost of the proj-ect budget. But, these are inadequate. DST pays 20 percent overhead. Others pay around 15 percent.

Erroneous MathematicsFunding agencies argue that institutes have built-in infrastructure funded by the govern-ment. They add that the overhead cost is only a small amount which covers the incremental expense of administering the project. Today, 90

Several agencies don’t fund proposals sent in by private institutions. Perhaps the “disinterested-ness” stems from the fact that individuals involved in the decision-making process are afraid that they may be accused of “wrong doing” if a private institution is not able to show reasonable amounts of research output. Research fund policies have almost made sure that almost the entire non-gov-ernment sector in higher education does only a limited amount of research.

Promotion ProblemsWithin the government sector, what is the incentive for an individual faculty member to conduct research?

If we look at the career of a member of faculty in an IIT, one goes through two rounds of pro-motions—from being an assistant professor to associate professor and from being an associate professor to professor. At the time of promo-tion, the selection committee does look at an individual’s research record. A strong record helps in promotion.

percent of higher education is conducted through private institutions. And most research projects supported by government agencies are an additional loss to these private players. Gov-ernment agencies show that most research pro-posals come in from government institutions—that is perhaps true, because these projects are a “loss” for private institutions; most are unlikely to apply for several projects.

Few government institutions that do apply for project grants have an incentive to cheat. If the project needs 10 personal computers, the budget is put as 20 personal computers. This kind of fudging is difficult for a private institution to pull, since their budget is screened carefully. Project monitoring is also strictly done, since the general perception is that private institutions are more likely to cheat.

There is also a bias against private institutions when it comes to approving project proposals.

A teacher becomes a professor between ages of 40 and 45 years. For the next 20 to 25 years, there is no promotion or any other incentive to perform. Most people do need to be incentivised for better performance.

Speedy SolutionsIf India is indeed serious about research, solu-tions are obvious. At the institution level, funding agencies must grant a greater amount of money as “overhead charges”. They need to be flexible in terms of allowing payment to permanent employ-ees from project funds. To encourage an individu-al, there should be a component of salary hike linked to performance. Sixth Pay Commission has already allowed the institutions to set up such a scheme—more such incentives should follow.

Dheeraj Sanghi Dr Sanghi is the former director of Laxmi Narayan Mittal Institute of Information Technology, Jaipur. He is a professor of computer science at IIT, Kanpur. Dr Sanghi has a BTech in computer science from IIT Kanpur and an MS and a PhD from University of Maryland, USA . He can be reached at [email protected]



BY VIKRAMADITYA G. YADAV AND GANAPATI D. YADAV

What will it take to re-engineer an outdated science and technology education system in India?

EducationRetooling IndianTechnical

Technical Education ACADEMICS


EYE STOPPER THE GROSS

ENROLMENT RATIO in secondary and tertiary education in India were 54 percent and 12 percent, respectively (2006)

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING enrolment ratio was about 20.3 percent. For science alone, it was 14.3 percent

That India is yet to witness appreciable improvement in sectors such as food, shelter and preserving the environment, suggests that our (technical) profession-als are woefully out of depth. Usually, the blame for this incompetence trickles down to Indian politics and government. University administrators deflect respon-sibility for the quality of education to resource constraints. But, can only the government be held responsible?

Systematic Blame GameIndia’s policies have been inspired from those of the “developed” nations. When development is slow, Indian policymak-ers bemoan the size, complexity and idiosyncrasies of Indian society. How-ever, it has been observed that a nation’s goals, priorities, instruments for devel-opment, exhibit convergence with oth-ers (more developed) despite differenc-es in history, culture, political contexts and timing of entry into the industriali-sation process.

India’s size and relative economic mat-uration predisposes her to be an influen-tial player on the global stage, which complicates the task of the policymak-ers—how to remodel the nation’s institu-tions without severing links to the global

village; a tricky balance that China has managed to achieve. A holistic develop-ment plan, encompassing all economic and social rungs, is vital if the Indian experiment is to succeed.

Licence Raj, Afterwards Judicious application of scientific and engineering acumen—though ratio-nal—is challenging. More so, for India, owing to her predilection for incremen-tal process innovation—a fondness that may be ascribed to innovation being industry-led. Not that process innovation is a flawed approach. But, it is past its sell-by date.

Though part of the fault lies with cen-tral and state-funded agencies, the bulk of the blame must be borne by India’s professional bodies and university administrators. Administrators are par-ticularly guilty of propagating tedious bureaucracy. Take this process for exam-ple: if a project required sophisticated equipment not manufactured in India, a researcher was first asked to apply to the Director General of Technical Develop-ment (DGTD) and provide documenta-tion that proved that no Indian instru-ment-maker manufactured it, following which, a review of the case was initiated–

t is a debate that is endless, as it is polarised–are Indians doing enough for their science and technical education gradu-ates? The argument is that Indian technical institutes suffo-cate creativity, instead of germinating it. Improving a nation’s higher education system, whether in science, engineering or technology, is correlated to its economic health and social

development. India seems to have fallen behind other more developed nations in both respects. A reason could be an outdated and unplanned edu-cation system, driven more by fiscal motives than addressing a nation’s needs.

ACADEMICS Technical Education


the duration of which often exceeded the duration of a project!

If the bureaucratic hurdle wasn’t enough, Indian technical professionals and researchers also face alarming skill deficiencies—attributable to the out-dated curriculum in place at most Indi-an universities. The exodus of India’s best and brightest to the financial sector was also another blow to Indian innova-tion. An ill-equipped technical educa-tion system, unable to motivate stu-dents, led to a general lack of interest with professions which in turn deflated academicians’ enthusiasm to mend an outdated system.

Economic EngineThe Indian Patents Act of 1970 was inor-dinately lenient and Indian companies soon realised that they could alter the manufacturing process of foreign corpo-rations with little or no legal repercus-sions, thus producing these products at cheaper rates. Consequently, the attitude of Indian companies to research and development alarmingly regressed. This situation witnessed no change as such “copy cat” companies found a sizeable share of votaries who believed that India could ill-afford spending money on R&D while a majority of its population was dis-tressed with meagre incomes and poor standards of living. This approach unwit-tingly killed the spirit of innovation.

Faced with these facts, our excitement at India’s adoption of new intellectual property rights policies is understand-able. It is hoped that these new mea-

sures will go a long way towards improving the Indian Patents Act.

DynamicsNational policies are pre-dominantly shaped by the availability (or lack) of technology and the uni-form standards of living. Low levels of public dissi-dence in the developed world can be ascribed to the technological conver-gence of these nations. Once universi-ties become economic institutions that drive progress, tasks facing govern-ment become significantly tractable. In such a situation, an overarching gov-ernment aim is judicious allocation of resources for scientific research and extending support to organisations involved with commercialisation of potentially useful technologies.

In the evolution of nations, a stage ulti-mately arises where at national policies are aligned to maximise the benefits of technology. For India to attain this posi-tion, it is imperative that the Centre reconstitutes India’s innovation systems.

Indian politicians believe that the lack of access to technical education is the root cause of India’s ills. In response to this perception, the Centre recently embarked on a project to increase the number of IITs and establish more med-ical research centres. That these centres have been established in urban areas has yet to strike many. Wasn’t the lack of cen-

tres imparting technical education to rural India one of the raisons d’être for these centres? Besides, establishing universities in rural India will not alle-viate any problems. India’s ails do not stem from a lack of technically “qualified” professionals. It is the lack of quality of these professionals that afflicts the nation.

Tech EngineeringNearly all of India’s centres of learning are state-sponsored, and nearly all are modelled along the lines of European, notably British, universities. Conse-quently, dogmatic bureaucracy and con-ditions that stifle innovation have perco-lated into most of them, killing research.

India is also home to a slew of engi-neering colleges that are administered by private trusts. One could define these colleges as poorly-managed corporations offering an inferior product that a cus-tomer is forced to buy because it is the only one in that market. It’s time to realise that IITs are only a small part of the technical education system; and that most successful IIT alumni honed their skills at American universities.

Numbers’ GameA quick glance at a recently-released fed-eral budget leads one to assume that the “new institutions” would propagate the flaws of the older. These institutes threaten to siphon away federal funding from vital social institutions and services against which they directly compete. It could have undesirable ramifications on the standard of living. We simply can’t afford that! Another pertinent aspect is the concurrent expansion of the job mar-ket for engineers and scientists. An increase in the number of universities offering technical degrees, irrespective of the quality, will increase the number of job applicants. Though that’s desir-able from an employer’s perspective, if the number of available jobs does not see a commensurate rise, India might find itself housing a great number of

LACK OF IMAGINATION OF THE INDIAN TECHNICAL WORKFORCE CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO OUTDATED TECHNICAL EDUCATION SYSTEM, WHOSE EVOLUTION STAGNATED OVER YEARS

researchers for every million, India has the lowest R&D ratio among BRIC nations

119

Technical Education ACADEMICS


technical professionals performing non-technical job functions. Such develop-ment not only reduces economic returns of a technical degree, it lowers the stan-dard of living of technical professionals and negatively impacts accountability, consequently impairing the innovation capacity of the nation.

Nearly all industrialised nations rank as some of the most educated societies in the world. The fundamental differ-ence between industrialised western democracies and those nations that have only recently witnessed industrialisation is the difficulty of the curricula at the pri-mary and secondary levels. In countries such as the US, the basic secondary school curricula provides students with essential analytical, interpersonal and trade skills.

In stark contrast, most Indians do not have access to universal primary educa-tion. The gross secondary and terti enrol-ment ratios in 2006 were 54 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Of those enrolled

in tertiary programmes, science and engi-neering enrolment ratio was about 20.3 percent, whereas the enrolment ratio for science alone was 14.3 percent. With 119 researchers per million of the population, India has one of the lowest R&D density in the G8 and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations.

India CompetitiveSome might find the citation of India’s R&D density (119 per million of popula-tion) and objection to the establishment of more institutions such as the IITs as paradoxical. However, it is felt that such an argument, though justified, is largely inadmissible to the Indian debate. A vastly different route is required to improve innovation in science and engi-neering and more funds should be allo-cated towards improving primary, sec-ondary and vocational education in the nation and elevating the cognisance and civic sense of the populace (see complete article for details). As India rebuilds the

foundations of its education system, India’s universities must embark on a new resource—light approach to mend their declining education standards. Exactly how, is summarised in the fol-lowing passage.

A bulk of the blame for the current state of technical education rests on indecisiveness and myopia of the admin-istration. Politicians, too, have a role to play. In America, universities are mostly private and autonomous. We believe it would be better to grade state-funded universities using yardsticks of excel-lence such as impact factors, citations, h-indices or similar metrics, and com-mensurately grant them greater autono-my to decide and possibly raise tuition fee. It is hoped that the national need-based scholarship programmes will ade-quately complement this hike. However, we do not recommend in toto privatisa-tion, as it would not translate to better standards—India’s private engineering colleges are testament to this. Achieving privatisation without sacrificing academ-ic standards or affordability is now a moot question.

In lieu of our familiarity with the chemical engineering curricula and research programmes, suggestions pre-sented here have been formulated using chemical engineering education as a demonstrative case.

To the uninitiated, chemical engineer-ing is arguably the most versatile of all engineering disciplines. It involves astute and ingenious application of basic scientific principles to achieve practical, socially-relevant outcomes. The chemi-cal industry–a manifestation of chemical engineering practice – is one of the larg-est employers in the world (it contrib-utes nearly $400 billion in goods and services to the American economy). After all, problems—food shortages, environmental destruction, lack of clean water—fall within the purview of chemi-cal engineering.

It is this broad range of interests that confuses formulators of the curricula. Not only do they have to remain “loyal to their roots”, they feel pressurised to accommodate courses in emerging fields (biotechnology, green chemistry

India’s industries have a role to play, but it needs some degree of government help to proceed in the right direction. The industry should be given generous tax breaks to support faculty positions, either through endowments, or like regular employees. Private corporations could be encouraged to mentor universities to expand

research repertoire to newer domains in order to foster knowledge creation without handing them any direct or indirect control of administration, or recruitment. Additionally, industries should be invited to participate in university-led research consortiums.

With appropriately negotiated terms for intellectual property ownership and commercialisation of technologies emerging from such partnerships. Such arrangements could synergise research competencies of corporations, provide universities with funds to operate strong graduate programmes, hedge risks associated with exploratory research as well as accelerate technology conception and commercialisation. Attractive tax benefits for faculty and library endowments, scholarships and financial assistance by way of interest-free loans are some other avenues by which industries could assist in reshaping India’s destiny. The indus-try should be given tax breaks to support faculty, either through endowments or like regular employees. Corporations could be encouraged to mentor universities to expand research repertoire to newer domains. Additionally, industries should be invited to participate in university-led research consortium with negotiated terms for intellectual property ownership and commercialisation of technologies.

ROLE OF INDUSTRY

ACADEMICS Technical Education


and engineering, and nanotechnology), while ensuring that the programme is limited to four years. It is a tough task. Already, chemical engineering curricula include multiple courses in chemistry, biology and physics, mathematics, courses instructing students in the core competencies of the profession—trans-port phenomena, thermodynamics, reac-tion engineering, chemical synthesis and process engineering. Any more and students will be discouraged to enrol.

However, biotechnology and nanotech-nology will soon assume central roles in chemical applications. Failure to intro-duce students to these will be foolish. One course of action is to demarcate an imminently gauche curriculum into separate disciplines, each focusing on a distinct sub-domain (e.g. demarcating chemical engineering into industrial engineering and biotechnology). This action, referred to as “over-specialisa-tion”, though rational, could precipitate undesirable ramifications, especially in India. One problem that comes to mind is the underpreparedness of graduates to deal with the cyclical nature of an econo-my. What do petroleum engineers do when the oil markets become vagarious?

Redesigning CurriculaUS universities have addressed the problem of curriculum accommodation by reducing the core requirements to include few courses in chemistry, phys-ics, biology, basic and applied mathe-matics, transport phenomena, thermo-dynamics and reaction engineering. The core course load has shrunk by as much as a quarter, if not more. Instead, a great degree of flexibility is built into the curriculum by offering electives instructed by a faculty whose research interests lie in that subject. Significant-ly, undergraduate research is included

as a recommended, if not mandatory, requirement and students are encour-aged to work under a faculty. Some uni-versities achieve the same goal by urg-ing students to embark on mandatory internships in industry. This model necessitates the existence of active research programmes—absent in Indi-an universities. In India, programmes have attempted to replicate the Ameri-can model. Owing to the absence of active research programmes, we have failed to achieve similar success. The fault lies in the administration’s mis-taken prioritisation of restructuring the curriculum over development of effec-tive research programmes.

SuperannuationThe Centre should think on unilaterally and uniformly extending, if not com-pletely doing away, with retirement ages for qualified technical professionals. With so many vacancies in even the best institutes no matter what schemes are adopted to lure professionals to join aca-demia, pays and perks given by industry will never be matched by academia. With the arrival of foreign universities, an exo-dus is on the cards. Retiring good profes-sors would be greatly misguided in such a scenario. How will the talent remain in the state universities and why should they? If the Centre is going to reward only institutes under its umbrella, we will never achieve excellence.

Research CompetencyWith absence of proper planning, newly established IITs will only be detrimental to India. It would be better to identify per-forming institutes with a global standard and convert them into world-class univer-sities. It is recommended that India expand her pool of qualified faculty and germinate reputed research groups prior to establishing new institutions. Barring a few exceptions, library collections at Indi-an universities are distressingly outdated. The government must encourage univer-sities to sign MoUs with American and European universities, to specifically avail of their undergraduate teaching resources. It must enable international faculty to spend sabbaticals teaching and research-ing in India. International faculty must be invited to serve as expert consultants on curriculum design.

Role Of IndustryIndia’s industries have a role to play. Despite industry-supported research being parochial in scope, they represent a significant source of funds for research. Without questioning the industries’ motives for supporting research at uni-versities, there is more room for improve-ment. The Centre should implement favourable tax policies that sponsor research. Companies supporting research in domains beyond the realms of their market should be rewarded with sizeable tax reductions. Also, companies hiring undergraduates as summer interns should reap tax benefits. It’s time that co-op programmes with alternate trimes-ters in industry be introduced in insti-tutes. The industry should be given tax breaks to support faculty, either through endowments or like regular employees. Corporations could be encouraged to mentor universities to expand research repertoire to newer domains.

THE CENTRE MUST ENCOURAGE VARSITIES TO SIGN MOUS WITH AMERICAN CENTRES, TO AVAIL THEIR TEACHING RESOURCES

engineers pass out from Indian tech hubs currently

650,000 Vikramaditya G. Yadav is in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy, USA

Ganapati D. Yadav is in the Institute of Chemical Technology. The above article comprises snippets of the paper written by the duo. To read the

full article log on to edu-leaders.com.


DIALOGUE Funnekotter & Allegro B

Y SU

BH

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Hi-T ech

&Hi- Touch

FACT FILENAMEJaap P.F.M. Funnekotter CURRENT ROLEGeneral Manager, Hotel School The Hague

POSITIONS HELDMember of the Board of Directors of The Leading Hotel Schools of the World


In their own words they are the ‘Laurel and Hardy’ of Hotel School The Hague. As Jaap P.F.M. Funnekotter, general manager, and Dr Sander M. Allegro, director of innovation, point out, the institution was born out of a need for a specialised centre for applied sciences. For the first time, EDU talks to not one but two administrators, to get an idea of what truly defines their school

BY SMITA POLITE & ROHINI BANERJEE

Hi-T echHi- Touch

FACT FILENAME

Dr Sander M Allegro

CURRENT ROLEDirector of Innovation,

HotelSchool The Hague

POSITIONS HELDPresident, Dutch Association of

Alumni of Higher Educational Institutes, Member, Board of

the Amsterdam Hotel & Restaurant Association

DIALOGUE Funnekotter & Allegro


EDU: HotelSchool The Hague is one of the last independent single-sector varsities in applied sciences of Netherlands. What made the school survive, whereas others closed down?ALLEGRO: We had a very good start—we were founded by the people who needed us. Whereas our colleagues were founded by other parties, we were founded by a party to whom we cater—the hospitality industry.

All through our institute’s life we have main-tained contacts with the industry. And we are also strongly tied to our ‘customers’, which not only means the students and parents; but that our prime focus has been to deliver success stories to the industry, through successful students. This is our focus and the prime reason why we made it, when several other people did not.FUNNEKOTTER: In the past century, our gov-ernment was urging smaller schools (like us), and universities of applied sciences, to merge. Our board of directors, at that time, understood that if we became a part of the larger universities with their myriad specialisations, we would lose our ‘identity’. Instead, the board decided to design and pursue a independent university of applied sciences, and that is how HotelSchool The Hague was formed.

What innovations in the curriculum does the school have that makes it unique among the rest of the same class?

Funnekotter: I will let him answer this one,

because one of his designations also reads as the director of innovation. Allegro: (Laughs) Thank you! Look at our curriculum. In two ways, I hope,

we can claim to be unique. The most important feature, according to us, is that we have chosen to instill a large part of practical application courses in our university theoretical degree. It is a university—there is a degree.

In the first-year of the course itself, we encourage students to be a part of the industry. They get a university degree, at the same time they work in the field, they serve at restaurants, they clean restrooms, they serve people, to get a better idea of the ground reality. It is quintessential for our students—they need to know the ropes of what’s happening on the floor.

Also, we have moved from being a teaching-oriented institute, to being a learning-oriented school. In the past 10 years we have learnt that knowledge is power. But, nowadays, this knowledge is also freely available via technolo-gy–so, now the focus is on what you do with it, how you process it and how you keep on developing yourself. That focus has been primarily a challenge for the teachers and teaching staff, who had to cope with the changing world, and new batches of students with their expectations.

Funnekotter: What also sets us apart is the industry inputs that we incor-porate in the curriculum. Since we were started by the industry, there is a strong co-relation between us and them. Say for instance, last year, board members of several hotels came and spoke with the students.

They were talking to people who would perhaps be the future members of the industry. In our new curriculum, we consulted the major hotels and asked them what they were missing in our students. What they said, we used as valuable input to change the way the curriculum was focused.

You lay stress on entrepreneurial learning. What do you mean by it? Funnekotter: We have noticed in several schools that there is a tendency of

making the professor a know-it-all, like a sage on stage. But real life doesn’t work like that.

We have made the students responsible for his/her learning journey, the professor is the coach and not the know-it-all. We have brought down spoon feeding to the minimum. Entrepreneurial working is always with people.

“We have brought down spoon-feeding to the minimum”

Funnekotter & Allegro DIALOGUE


Write your views, opinions about the stories, issues that you found interesting to the editor at [email protected]

Find similar stories at edu-leaders.com

What’s Online

Thus, in class, too, students work in groups of four. They have a marketing and financial professor-cum-coach, who work with them on a project. Students can ask their guides, teachers and professors or go to the internet to do their project. At the end of the project period, they have to defend their posi-tion, or project. Sometimes, they do so in the presence of industry experts. If there is a slacker in the group, then handling that person is the group’s respon-sibility, just like in real life every person has to deal with personnel issues.

What, to you, is the most important ingredient in a hospitality man-agement school?

Funnekotter: I would say that start with a vision. Do not immediately go down to the technicality of the process. Ask what the situation outside is like. If you don’t understand how the world is changing—how consumer needs are getting redefined, how the business is changing—then you won’t know where you are going. Allegro: What I really find satisfying with our collaboration with the UEI here is that the institution really shares our vision. They are keen to learn how the industry is changing—both here and outside. It is a good and a balanced system.

What kind of partnership do you have with UEI Global? What does it involve?

Funnekotter: It is a balanced and strong co-relation that we share. The UEI faculty went to Hague sometime in 2007 for a period of six weeks. They were there the entire day. Under our coach’s supervision, their faculty developed a new curriculum that was introduced after they came back.

The UEI was so happy with the collaboration that they expressed the desire to establish a quality insurance mission. According to that a team of two, (and that would be us), come here for an assessment. We meet the students in absence of the faculty. We meet the faculty in absence of the management. And then we ask the management to present a self-assessment report that they present.

We must make this clear that we are not the police; we are the guides. This assessment is more about the changes that have been brought into the sys-tem and how well it has been received —how we can improve it, if we can at all.

Allegro: We undergo the same sort of assessment from our industry guides every two years. We send them a report where we suggest changes, and in our later visits we assess whether the changes worked, or how they were devel-oped and implemented in the programme.

At the end of it all we allow UEI to use our logo by contract. We are really fussy about who we give our logo to. We also do an annual audit, which is quite extensive—the UEI has won our trust, and thus, the logo is theirs.

If someone decided to set up a new institute what would you sug-gest to them?

Funnekotter: First of all and this step one may never bypass–make sure that you have the support of the industry. If the industry doesn’t like you, or support you in some manner, then you have no reason to exist in the market. An institute receives some sort of credibility that pushes them through.

To be very honest, in a country like India, there are always those adventure-seekers, who run what Allegro and I call ‘Mickey Mouse schools’ which come and go. But those institutes that produce alumni that receive the industry’s blessings, are all set.

At HotelSchool The Hague, our ambassadors are our students—look at our website, look at the videos. None of them are about the faculty, but about the

students who have been trained in the school and are now success stories.

What changes have you seen in the hospi-tality industry in the past 10 years?

Funnekotter: When I went to school, and that must have been a 100 years ago (laughs), it was all about practical orientation. Customer satis-faction was the key, as it still is, but today there are terms such as business-orientation, broad-based orientation and revenue orientation. These terms came from the US and redefined the discipline a bit more. It made the discipline, a bit more focused.

“If the industry doesn’t like you, you have no reason to exist”

VIEWPOINT Rishikesha T. Krishnan


Bringing Reality Into The Biz Classroom

While an average business textbook in any area contains useful concepts, frameworks and models, managerial decision-making can’t escape uncertain-ties inherent to a constantly changing environment of business, ambiguities thrown up by human agents and lack of complete information. Managing in the “real world” is complex—with competition emanating from unexpected directions, “black swan” events posing threats to survival, and stakeholders demanding higher levels of accountability. A management curriculum that ignores these realities would be incomplete. How, then, do you bring these realities into the classroom?

The Case MethodAn approach to address this challenge could be the “case method”. Evangelised by Harvard Business School (HBS), this method is used in management education and few schools use it with the same fervour as they do. Case method seeks to

follow Socratic method of discussion. A business case puts a case reader in the driving seat, allowing her to view specific managerial problems from the vantage point of a decision-maker. Information pro-vided is designed to simulate uncertainty, complexity and information limitations of an actual situation. “Cracking” a case involves identifying the real prob-lem, generating alternatives, using appropriate crite-ria to evaluate these and then proposing a course of action with execution and contingency plan.

While the case method has advantages, it has limitations, too. Moderating a good case discus-sion requires a skilled facilitator in the classroom. A case discussion needs direction, but with a light touch. Without it, the discussion can deteriorate. Secondly, the quality of a case discussion depends on prior preparation by students. When that is lacking, the discussion can deteriorate into a superficial regurgitation of “case facts” rather than an in-depth analysis. The use of cases takes time and may not be a solid alternative when a number of issues have to be covered in a short time. There is also the danger that students see cases as a series of stories and fail to derive gener-alisable lessons from them.

ChallengesThis last limitation points to one of the major chal-lenges in case teaching—how do you integrate the-

While research in the field of management is being pursued with increasing vigour, the practice of management remains a quintessentially practical

activity. Basic building blocks of management, such as planning, organisation and execution, can be helped by theory—but, the practice of management resists being packaged into an “expert” system.

Rishikesha T. Krishnan VIEWPOINT


A clever combination of traditional and raw cases, practice courses, and simulations allow MBA course complement biz methods

ory and practice? Classical proponents of this meth-od believed that it promotes learning through an inductive process. By working through a variety of cases, students can distinguish patterns—and build their own theories. As management research becomes more sophisticated, faculty see cases as a way to complement, rather than replace, theories. As a result, a “case” is considered “effective”, if it is written with a particular conceptual frame.

Another challenge of using case method is try-ing to balance contemporary quality with impact. Case teachers have favourites— cases that create a “wow” effect. While cases might age like wine for the teacher, the same is not true for a student. In a fast-changing world, you can’t blame a stu-dent for doubting the relevance of a case written two decades ago. Besides, the pace at which new cases are written, struggles to keep up with the requirements of teachers. This problem is accen-tuated by the fact that case writing is an art. And few business schools provide the support required for faculty to write cases regularly. So, a teacher is

A drawback of the raw case is from a teaching per-spective. Students and teachers have to wade through volumes of material before entering a classroom.

Practice courses allow students to work on real world problems in a real context. At Cornell’s Johnson School, students participate in the finan-cial decision-making of a real hedge fund. At MIT’s Sloan School, students can access different labs—entrepreneurship, global and sustainability labs—to participate in organisation-sponsored projects. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School offers more than 900 experiential learning opportunities. While the power of practice cours-es can’t be disputed, they need substantial invest-ment (resources and support) from corporate partners, if they are to be meaningful.

The increasing power of the internet allows the possibility of using “multiuser games”, which can simulate the environment of competitive market-places. One popular simulation tool is Capstone. Such tools leave an impact on the corporate mar-ket as well, with leading companies choosing to

dependent on few sources such as HBS and Ivey School at University of Western Ontario.

Case teaching in India poses a peculiar challenge. Our system relies on a one-way process of teacher lecturing students. This leads to an expectation of gyan from a teacher. The case method is a collabora-tive learning process. Students uncomfortable with this method often wonder what contribution the teacher is making to the learning process. Notwith-standing these challenges, the use of cases has been attracting new adherents.

Alternative ApproachesThe classroom is witnessing new initiatives. While traditional case studies come in a “structured” form (with organised information), an innovation now is a “raw case”. It provides links to company websites, videos and media stories, related to a par-ticular issue. This raw case simulates the “messi-ness” of the real world better than traditional cases. Since the raw case can be updated easily, it’s rela-tively easy to keep it contemporary.

expose their managers to such simulations. Simu-lation tools have advantages over the case method in that, they explicitly involve rounds of play with environmental changes and the diverse responses of players. But they are relatively weak on internal organisational dynamics and impact of organisa-tional structure and process on decision-making.

In ConclusionThe good news is that—today, a student and a teacher have a variety of approaches to bring real-ity into the MBA classroom. A clever combination of traditional and raw cases, practice courses and simulations, allow business management curric-ulum to provide an invaluable complement to Philip Kotler and Michael Porter’s methods.

Only the imagination and creativity of educa-tors stand in the way of using these approaches more effectively.

Rishikesha T. Krishnan Dr Krishnan is a professor of corporate strategy at IIM Bangalore. He has an MSc in Physics from IIT Kanpur, MS in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University, and a PhD from IIM Ahmedabad. He can be reached at [email protected]



GElisabeth Garrett spent her childhood in Buenos

Aires, and worked in New York before deciding to pursue a globally-oriented MBA. After considering programmes on both sides of the Atlantic, she enrolled at HEC Paris, a management school where

she works alongside classmates from 50 countries.“American programmes, even when they declare themselves

to be ‘very international’, don’t have the diversity of some of the European ones,” she says, adding that the setting, just outside Paris, didn’t hurt. “Everyone loves Paris. I’m not going to lie. It was a big attraction.”

Garrett, 27, is a part of a small but growing number of Ameri-cans who are heading abroad to pursue a degree that was born in America, but has gained a foothold in other parts of the world.

European business schools, in particular, are making head-way in their efforts to recruit foreign students like Garrett by emphasising their multicultural strengths. Since most Euro-pean MBA programmes can be completed in a year, in contrast to the typical two years for American ones, they also attract stu-dents who want to avoid paying an extra year of tuition.

A study released in 2009 by the Graduate Management Admission Council confirmed that foreign applicants were increasingly looking outside the US, while applying for MBAs. The council, which administers the test that is required for entry to top graduate business schools worldwide, reported that

Global Focus Draws Students To Europe For BusinessUniversities today say that they are training students to work in a global environment. Perhaps that is why, the world over, these varsities are wit-nessing a multicultural infusion of students, who are arriving from all across the planetBY KATHERINE MANGAN

THE GLOBALPERSPECTIVE 51 S. KOREAN COLLEGES

AIM TO PROSPER ONLINE

53 SAUDI REFORMS EMPHASISE JOB TRAININGFROM THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION


the proportion of test scores these students were sending to US programmes had slid from 75 percent in 2000 to 42 percent in 2010. Students were probably discouraged by the stagnant US job market, as well as the tighter restrictions on work visas since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, management-education experts say. At the same time, students overseas are finding more options closer to home, as demands for MBAs in their home countries rises. Last year, for the first time, more than half of the tests administered by the council were taken by non-US citizens.

Truly MulticulturalAmong the beneficiaries of the less-than-welcoming condi-tions in the US, was Essec Business School, one of France’s leading programmes and the first in Europe to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International).

“For the citizens of the world, I think the George W. Bush years were very painful,” says Pierre Tapie, dean and president of Essec. “But, as a selfish dean, I was happy to see how many people came here instead. The more the US was shutting the doors, the more the free world was going elsewhere.” That applied to international faculty members as well as students, he says. Despite American business schools’ extensive efforts to globalise their curricula, Tapie argues that European schools are better positioned to offer a truly multicultural experience.

“We are more international, because our countries are small-er and English is not our mother tongue,” he says. “The diver-sity of Europe in a limited space interests people. If you are coming from Shanghai, or Moscow, or Mumbai, you can, in a five-hour drive, see five countries, hear five languages, and see 15 landscapes.” Most European MBAs require students to speak more than one language; new global MBA programmes at Essec require a minimum of three.

INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, considered as one of the world’s top global MBA programmes, also has campuses in Sin-gapore and Abu Dhabi. It offers an MBA programme that can be completed in 10 months. Students come from 83 countries, and 92 percent are from outside France. Valérie Gauthier, associate dean of the MBA programme at HEC Paris, explains the advantages that her school, located half-an-hour from Paris (near Versailles), offers students. Students typically work in groups to solve case studies. “A professor presents a case. He or she does not give a solution, until participants have shared their views based on experiences and cultures,” she says. “For instance, students learn in accounting that a balance-sheet anal-ysis will be handled differently in Latin America and China.”

“We want people from around the world, who have had interna-tional exposure already,” she adds. “It’s a question of survival. Arriving at HEC Paris, where you would be surrounded by people from 50 countries speaking dozens of languages would be hard if

you hadn’t spent time outside your country.” Ten years ago, most students of the pro-grammes were French; today, only 20 per-cent are. The biggest chunk now comes from India and US.

More CosmopolitanWhile only a few European business schools have offered MBAs for decades, it’s only in the past 10 years that it has become a recognised standard in France, Gauthier says. “In 2002, when I started and told people, someone said, ‘Oh—you’ve switched to basketball’.”

Garrett, an HEC student, admits that international students make up only about

a third of the enrolments at some of the American programmes that she considered.

“American programmes just seem more provincial,” she says. “You might touch on the local perspective, but here, every conversa-tion brings in such a layer of cultural context, even if it’s the appro-priate approach for women doing business in Japan or Latin Amer-ica. Americans tend to want to rush in and get things done, but in Brazil, you might greet someone with a kiss and then chat a bit, before you get down to business.”

The leaders of top US MBA programmes say they, too, are preparing students to work in a global economy. That often involves creating alliances with business schools overseas.

Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business offers student exchanges with several foreign schools, including HEC, Paris, Essec, and London Business School.

University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School offers exchanges through its alliance with INSEAD. International students from 68 countries make up 36 percent of Wharton’s MBA enrolment, and nearly 40 percent of the faculty are international.Thomas S. Robertson, Dean of Wharton School, says his pro-gramme benefits from the strengthening of top European busi-ness schools. “The better those schools become, the better the exchanges we can set up for students and faculty,” says Robert-

THE MORE THE US WAS SHUTTING THE DOORS—THE MORE THE FREE WORLD WAS HEADING TOWARDS EUROPE. THAT APPLIED TO INTERNA-TIONAL FACULTY AND STUDENTS

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THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


son, who was born in Scotland and has taught at London Busi-ness School.

“We do everything conceivable to be an international busi-ness school.”

Yet, between 2005 and 2009, the percentage of students enrolled in full-time MBA programmes in the United States, who came from outside the country, dropped to 25 percent from 29 percent, according to figures reported to the AACSB by 176 accredited schools.

The actual number of students from the United States jumped 31 percent during that time, while the number of international students grew by a much smaller nine percent.

Meanwhile, the drastic growth in the international makeup of top European MBA programmes has been accelerated by aggres-sive recruiting over the last decade. Madrid’s Instituto de Empresa Business School, known as IE, expanded its network of offices from Latin America and New

for a family friend who was applying to a European MBA programme. Byer, who had been looking at programmes in the Bay Area, decided to “get outside my comfort zone” and apply overseas herself.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to be able to see more of the world, jump into a completely foreign culture, meet, con-verse with, and learn from people from many diverse back-grounds,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She says the Span-ish programme will put her “at the front lines of what it means to be in a global business market.”

International students from 50 countries make up 80 percent of the MBA enrolment at University of Navarra’s IESE Business School in Barcelona. Applications from the United States jumped 25 percent this year over last, and this fall’s entering class of 280 includes 31 Americans.

English is the main language of most of the globally-oriented MBA programmes in Europe. The first year of IESE’s full-time MBA programme is taught in English, while second-year elec-tives are offered in English and Spanish.

The 16-month programme at HEC Paris is taught in English, but international students are required to study the French lan-guage during one of four terms.

The growing popularity of European programmes “doesn’t mean that American schools have dropped in students’ esteem,” says Ulrich Hommel, associate director of quality ser-vices at the European Foundation for Management Develop-ment, which accredits business schools in Europe.

“It just means that the whole issue of getting a multicultural, international education has increased in importance, and Euro-pean schools are sometimes perceived as delivering more on that,” Hommel adds.

He is the former dean of the European Business School, in Wiesbaden, Germany, which offers a 16-month interna-tional MBA track that includes study abroad at a foreign partner university.

One American programme that comes closer to the more practice-oriented European model, he says, is the University of Michigan’s full-time MBA, in which students practice their skills working in teams for companies in different countries.

While major global recruiters recognise the brand names of Europe’s top MBA programmes, some applicants still worry that companies accustomed to hiring from Harvard or Wharton might have a tougher time distinguishing among the alphabet soup of programmes like IE, IESE, and HEC.

Garrett says she isn’t worried. “In New York, HEC was pop-ping up at the same career fairs as the top American pro-grammes,” she says. “I recognise that if I go to work in a less international city, I may have to explain where I went, but any-one with Google access can find its place in the rankings and see what a strong programme it offers.”

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IN 2005 TO 2009, PERCENTAGE OF FOREIGN STUDENTS IN FULL-TIME US MBAS DROPPED TO 25% FROM 29%. PERCENTAGE OF US STUDENTS JUMPED TO 31% IN THAT PERIOD

York to include Dubai, Los Angeles, Miami, Moscow, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

At IE, the percentage of students who come from outside Spain grew from 66 percent (2005) to 90 percent this fall, with the biggest growth coming from Asia. The number of countries represented in the 13-month programme jumped from 45 to 70, while the number of American students climbed from 25 in 2005 to 40 this year.

“Over the past 10 to 15 years, we’ve grown tremendously in international recognition,” says Lisa Bevill, associate director of admissions, citing IE’s high international rankings and its grow-ing popularity among recruiters from multinational companies.

At the Front LinesErin Byer, 26, enrolled at IE this year after working for four years at Habitat for Humanity in San Francisco. She hopes her MBA will help her land a job in the community-development section of a bank, helping low-income people make better financial decisions.Her decision to apply overseas followed a conversation with her parents, who had just written a letter of recommendation

GLOBAL.CHRONICLE.COM


Ji Kyu Hynn wanted to take a break from teaching his business class last week. So, he signalled to a producer to stop the camera. He

stood up from his desk in a small studio and opened a thick, soundproof door that seemed like a space-age airlock.

Hynn, a professor at Hanyang Cyber University, said teaching for an online university takes some getting used to, and he’s still adjusting. For one thing, he rarely cracks jokes in his taped lec-tures, because such quips seem strange in the vacuum of the studio. And, he steers clear of references to current events, since the lectures are reused for the next year or two, and such references can make the video lectures feel dated.

Like their professors, South Korea’s 17 online colleges are still adapting to new realities of teaching at a distance. The country has invested heavily in the vir-tual universities in the past decade, and much of their facilities and software is state-of-the-art. But, observers say, some of the online ventures have struggled to find as many students as expected, because the country already has plenty of traditional universities and a culture that reveres face-to-face education.

So Hanyang has begun a new strate-gy: to look beyond its borders to attract more students from around the globe. The country exports flat-screen TVs and cars, so why not export high-tech educa-tion as well?

“Our market will be in Southeast Asia, maybe Africa, maybe the United States,” said Byung Tae Yoo, the uni-versity’s vice president. The university has even changed its motto, painted with a world map on a wall of Yoo’s office: “To the world, for the future.”

The institution already has 12,000 stu-dents and offers 15 degree programmes, including a master’s degree in business. Tuition is about a third of the price of a tra-ditional university here, and it primarily attracts working adults. So far, only a few

SS. Korean Colleges Aim to Prosper in Worldwide Online EducationSouth Korea has 17 online colleges. The country has invested heavily in them. Yet, they are not seeing the kind of growth that they had expected. Are tradi-tional methods of teaching going to stay put?BY JEFFREY R. YOUNG

hundred foreign students are taking class-es, most of them Koreans living abroad.

To attract more of a global audience, Hanyang will make some changes. First, it plans to deliver more of its courses in English rather than Korean, the language in which most are now taught. And faculty members are look-ing to deliver educational material to cellphones.

Hanyang isn’t the only Korean educa-tion project hoping to make a splash worldwide. Such ambitions were on dis-



play at last week’s “eLearning Week 2010” conference and trade show here, which drew some 1,000 participants from ele-mentary and secondary schools as well as higher education. The event, organised by four government agencies, drew a size-able number of foreign attendees. Confer-ence sessions were held primarily in Eng-lish and simultaneously translated into Korean and Chinese.

In a keynote speech, Haeseok Oh, spe-cial adviser to the South Korean presi-dent for technology issues, said the country is promoting its IT and software sectors as global players, in an effort he dubbed “smart Korea”. That blended with the conference theme of going beyond current learning technology to move to “smart learning”.

Exactly what “smart learning” means was a point of debate throughout the conference, but clearly the country hopes to cash in on it.

“Korea is planning and is trying to make a big inroad into making money off of e-learning,” said Ann K. Brooks, a professor of education at Texas State University who has spent 10 years work-ing in Asia. “They’ve invested an enor-mous amount in hardware, and they’re really good at it.”

‘It’s Just a Struggle’Can South Korea become a worldwide hub of “smart learning”? And can Han-yang Cyber University achieve its dream—which officials here state non-chalantly during interviews—of being the best online university in the world?

When I sat down with Se-Yeoung Chun, president of Korea Education & Research Information Service, to ask him about the biggest obstacle to those goals, he was quick to respond: the lan-guage barrier in foreign markets. Spe-cifically, English.

“Korean people really hate English. It’s just a struggle. It’s like a demon, you know,” he said with a laugh, as two of his colleagues laughed nervously at his frankness. “We cannot escape from the demon. We must fight with the demon.”

Lately South Koreans have attacked the “demon” with technology, sometimes in ways that can seem over the top.

One example: The army of robots designed to teach English to school-children. The South Korean govern-m e n t h a s c o m m i t t e d a l m o s t $100-million to this project. I saw a demonstration earlier in the week, when I toured the Centre for Intelli-gent Robotics, at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

They are clearly an engineering achievement. The roughly three-foot-tall robots can maneuver, recognise speech, and display facial gestures as they broad-cast audio. But considering how nuanced and personal the best teaching is, the robots leave something to be desired.

Chun said many South Koreans try other high-tech approaches as well, sign-ing up for teleconference learning with native English speakers in other coun-tries.

The cyber universities have tried to tap into that market, too, offering “practical English” courses. They are making part-nerships with foreign online universities, so that students in South Korea can try a course or two in English taught at an affili-ate abroad.

Hanyang, for instance, formed a part-nership two years ago with eCornell, which offers short online courses in sev-eral areas of business and management.

The first couple of hundred students in the programme struggled to keep up with the English-language courses at Cornell University, and about half of them dropped out. But since then, Han-yang has worked harder to pick the right students and help them through, said Chris Proulx, chief executive of eCornell,

CAMPUS STUDIOS HERE HAVE ALL THE LATEST TEACHING EQUIPMENT, LIKE LARGE-SCREEN ELECTRONIC WHITEBOARDS. COURSES CONSIST PRIMARILY OF SLICKLY PRODUCED VIDEO LECTURES & WEB INTERFACE

in an e-mail interview. Last year 78 per-cent of the Hanyang students completed Cornell’s online courses.

Hanyang is in talks with the Univer-sity of Queensland, in Australia, in an effort to add more such partnership, according to officials at the eLearning Week conference.

Getting the Word OutBut why would students elsewhere in the world turn to a South Korean university for an online course?

The pitch is that institutions in South Korea can offer the best technology and teaching designs, said Yeonwook Im, a professor of technology at Hanyang.

Campus studios here have all the latest teaching equipment, such as large-screen electronic whiteboards that cost about $10,000 each. Most of the courses consist primarily of slickly produced video lec-tures; the Web interface developed by the university allows students to quickly skip to each major topic of each lecture and includes interactive exercises and online discussion boards.

The teaching model here assumes that students can get to high-speed connec-tions. In South Korea, where the broad-band infrastructure is among the best in the world, that’s not a problem. But in developing counties, it’s already proving a challenge, said Im.

Another challenge is getting the word out to new markets. The initial plan is to reach out to Korean-born students who have migrated to other countries and who already know the Hanyang name. Like many of the online universities in



South Korea, Hanyang Cyber is affiliated with a well-known college here, Hanyang University. Their facilities are side by side, and they have the same president, although technically the two institutions are separate, each with its own faculty and administration.

But talking with students at Hanyang University suggests that the cyber ver-sion may have its work cut out for it. Sev-eral said they would never consider going to an online college, because they

felt they’d be distracted by the format and would need traditional classes.

In fact, one of Hanyang Cyber’s most successful strategies to keep students—most of whom are working adults—has been to increase the amount of nonvirtual activities, to help them feel more connect-ed to the institution. The events include informal dinners with professors, optional lectures in a classroom on the campus, even a festival with sports events.

Chan Mo Joo, a senior at Hanyang

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SSaudi Arabia’s Education Reforms Emphasise Training for JobsPlans include expanded enrolments and vocational and technical degree pro-grams, but societal challenges loomBY URSULA LINDSEY

At the end of August, about 200 unemployed Saudi university graduates congregated in front of the Education Ministry, in Riyadh. The young men were there to demand government jobs; they held a banner calling for an end to their

“oppression”. The rare public protest highlighted the tensions and expectations that make higher-education reform in this kingdom a daunting prospect, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars the government is dedicating to the endeavour.

Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth may be enormous, but it has cre-ated an economy with very little diversification and a bloated, underproductive public sector. The reformist King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud and others know that even with its sizeable resources, the kingdom can no longer offer cushy administrative jobs to a majority of its booming population, and that to prosper the country needs educated young Saudis with marketable skills and a capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship. That’s not generally what Saudi Arabia’s educational system delivers, steeped as it is in rote learning and religious instruction.

A few weeks before the protest, the Saudi Council of Minis-ters, which sets national policies, passed the country’s latest five-year development plan. It calls for spending about $200-bil-lion on expanding access to schools and universities, and for substantially increasing vocational training by 2014.

In the past seven years, under King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia has spent lavishly on higher education. About a quarter of each yearly budget goes toward education and vocational training; this year’s allocations, amounting to $36.5-billion, represent a 12.4-percent increase over those of 2009. The King Abdullah Scholarship Programme has sent more than 90,000 Saudis to pursue graduate studies abroad. The number of public univer-sities in the country has risen from eight to 24; a few of them now appear in world university rankings.

The development plan calls for nearly doubling the number of university students, from 860,000 to 1.7 million, by 2014. The king and his allies are serious about the need to improve and expand higher education, says John Sfakianakis, chief econo-mist at Banque Saudi Fransi, who helped draft the plan. “They understand there is a problem that has to be fixed.”

University, expressed an attitude echoed by his classmates, and perhaps by online students as well. “I prefer to go to a nor-mal school,” he said.



WHILE A JOB IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REMAINS MOST SAUDIS’ IDEAL, THE COUNTRY’S PRIVATE SECTOR IS POWERED BY THE FOREIGN WORKERS

Many Saudi university students continue to pursue degrees in fields such as social studies, religious studies, history, and lit-erature, despite the labour market’s being saturated with social-science and humanities majors.

Mohammad Al-Ohali, deputy minister of educational affairs, says that is why the Ministry of Higher Education has placed “more emphasis in the last three or four years on technical, engineering, science and medical programmes”, as well as “fields of study related to the job market”, such as administra-tion and computer science. “These are the focus of the new universities we have established,” he says.

It may take a while, however, for students’ expectations to line up with the new educational policies. The protest in front of the Education Ministry was organised by graduates of Arabic-lan-guage programmes to demand teaching jobs in government schools. “Anyone who has a degree from a Saudi university aspires to a government job,” says Sfakianakis. Government clerks earn around $1,500 a month, have job security, and, with the public sector’s “relaxed working hours”, can often take a second job, he adds.

While a job in public administration remains most Saudis’ ideal, the country’s private sector is powered by the foreign work-ers who make up about a third of the country’s 28 million resi-dents. The government is imposing minimum quotas of Saudi employees on companies and decreeing that certain businesses, like gold shops, travel firms, and car dealerships, be staffed by Saudis. It considers this “Saudisation” of the private sector neces-sary to limit dependence on foreign labour, create a more dynam-ic economy, and stanch rising unemployment.

“But, one of the main issues that the private sector faces,” says Sfakianakis, “Is the fact that there aren’t enough well-trained Saudis in the kind of jobs that are needed.”

That holds true both for high-skilled jobs in finance, engi-neering, and medicine and for the service sector, where many Saudis are reluctant to take jobs as, say, taxi drivers or hotel receptionists, and expect higher salaries than those paid to expatriate workers.

“It is not the scarcity of jobs that is the biggest problem,” says Al-Ohali. “It’s a very complex problem related to people’s habits, to people’s culture.” Official unemployment in Saudi Arabia stands at almost 11 percent. Unofficial estimates place it as high as 35 percent among men in their early 20s with high-

school diplomas. In addition to university graduates who must accept that there are no government positions for them, the relatively new category of young, urbanised job seekers of mod-est means and limited skills is what worries Saudi authorities. That jobless cohort is destined to swell as the 40 percent of the population that is currently under 15, along with more women, enters the labour force. Accordingly, the government plans to finance a major expansion in vocational training calling for the construction of 25 technology schools, 28 technical institutes, and 50 industrial-training institutes.

Relying on ResearchThe plan also suggests spending $240-million in grants for research projects each year, and calls for the establishment of doz-ens of research centres and technology incubators at universities.

The Ministry of Higher Education has already overseen the establishment of 14 university research centres specialising in such areas as chemical engineering, energy research, and nanotechnology, says Al-Ohali. The ministry hopes to increase their number to 25, he says. Saudi education offi-cials regularly invoke their determination to turn the king-dom into a “knowledge economy.” In 2009, the king created the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust, as it’s known, and personally donated its $10-billion endowment, saying he hoped it would “become a great insti-tution of research”.

The university, Saudi Arabia’s only co-educational institution, offers doctoral degrees in chemical and biological engineering, applied mathematics and computational science, and environmen-tal, chemical and computer science, among other fields. Its nonaca-demic operations are managed by the oil company Saudi Aramco.

But Kaust is an elite, and largely foreign, institution. Neil Partrick, a lecturer at the University of Westminster, in England, and a con-sultant on Middle Eastern politics and economics, estimates that only 8 percent of Kaust’s students are Saudis. The university is “a platform for foreign-company-assisted R&D,” he says. But even if cutting-edge research takes place on the campus, he says, the ques-tion is, “Does that permeate out to the wider economy and society?”

Although King Abdullah and his appointees in the Ministries of Education and Higher Education may feel that changes are

THE SAUDI MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION HAS ALREADY OVERSEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 14 UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTRES


necessary, Partrick says, they face “constraints” imposed by entrenched bureaucracy and religious conservatism. In addi-tion, among the ruling family are “tension about the direction of the country and politicking. There’s a problem in joining up [government] departments and following up on plans”.

How Fast? How Much?Another hurdle is “The nature of the education that’s being received at an early age and the pressure against changing it,” says Partrick. At least a third of Saudi primary and secondary education is taken up by religious studies. In the 2007 “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study,” produced by the US National Centre for Education Statistics, Saudi school-children ranked near the bottom of the 48 countries surveyed. Sfakianakis, of the Saudi bank, says officials are aware of the need to improve mathematics and science proficiency, and that about 30 percent of the Education Ministry’s budget is going toward retraining teachers in primary schools.

But how fast to move to reform the educational system, and how much to rely on foreign expertise and the private sector, are complicated questions for the kingdom’s rulers. In recent years the government has encouraged the private sector to enter the higher-education market, and dozens of private universities and colleges have been established. The pan-Arab newspaper Dar Al Hayat recently reported that the Higher Education Ministry is studying 120 more requests to establish private institutions.

“One of the major objectives is to create competition to improve the quality of higher education” and eventually to reduce the tre-

mendous cost of free public higher education, says Al-Ohali, the deputy minister of educational affairs. With that in mind, Saudi authorities support the establishment of private universities through loans and land grants, he says. A recent royal decree stipulated that the government would pay half the tuition costs of all students pursuing private higher education.

Saudi universities have also signed more than 300 agreements with counterparts in the US, Europe, and China, Al-Ohali says, under which foreign faculty members teach at the Saudi institu-tions, which design and evaluate the curriculum together with their foreign partners and engage jointly in research. Even so, the king-dom’s leadership has “decided not to push ahead the model of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,” says Sfakianakis, refer-ring to Persian Gulf emirates that have opened their doors to foreign branch campuses. In Saudi Arabia, “They want to have higher education and curriculum in the hands of the state.”

That state faces a gargantuan task. Creating better-skilled, employable Saudi university graduates, says Partrick, involves reforming the entire educational system, restructuring the country’s labor market, and encouraging a “cultural shift in terms of attitudes toward work—what Saudis will do—and edu-cation—what it’s appropriate to teach to Saudi children.”

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This section is being republished with permission from The Chronicle Of Higher Education

PROFILE Deepak Pental


There are a few people on this planet who can overlook a negative, and focus only upon the positive—Deepak Pental will like to believe that he is one such person. Ask him about the controversies that sur-rounded him while he was the Vice Chancellor of one of the oldest and most prestigious universities—Delhi University (DU)—he shrugs them off. Those were “occupational hazards”, as far as he is

concerned. Instead, he would rather tell you how lucky he was all these years.“Those who crib about life, do their lives and themselves injustice. There are so many

people on this planet who do not get a decent meal, or education. I received both. I never thought that I would be able to do research on a topic that I loved. I did! Or, be the Vice

The Rational Optimist

Deepak Pental, the former Vice Chancellor of Delhi

University, talks to EDU about why he is so lucky, and how research

keeps him ticking

NAME: Deepak Pental

STATUS: Former VC of DU

DOB: 1951

BOOK: For the bookworm that he is, it is difficult to name just one. But, Pental admitted that he ‘really enjoyed’ The Rational

Optimist recently

FOOD: Loved Chinese once. Now, admits to have become a frugal eater

FILM: Surprise, surprise, here is a professor who didn’t really enjoy 3 Idiots. Admits that Indian, French and Italian masters are a favourite. After some coaxing, we get a name (a cult classic, too)– Blade Runner

PASTIME: Thinking about research, or just plain thinking

MUSIC: Here, too, the good professor took us by surprise. Jethro Tull, ACDC, Dire Straits and Bob Dylan were some of the names that he came up with. Now these, we haven’t heard before

INSPIRATION: “We are programmed for inspiration as humans. I have derived inspiration from a lot of people and circumstances–but, I greatly admire an old professor of mine, Dr EC Ted Cockin”

NIT

ISH

SH

ARM

A

BY ROHINI BANERJEE

Deepak Pental PROFILE


Chancellor of such a prestigious univer-sity. But, both the chances were mine. I consider myself to be very lucky.” We believe that he is as well. Not because of what he is. But, how he is—taking in the positive, and discarding the negative—he is one of the lucky few.

Apart from being optimistic, Pental also confesses that he is rather the “pro-fessor-at-heart” and a bit of a “geek”. We get that feeling as well, when he stresses over and over again that a college is where “education takes place”. “I mean there should be a time for fun. But, that (time) should not overlap with your study period dedicated to learning.”

On his part, Pental never mixed his pas-time with his study period? Wait, he did. The bookworm—who would rather read than talk—considered his laboratory as his playground. And he was content studying for the better part of the day. It’s his “thing” that keeps him happy still. Mention books, especially those related to evolutionary biology, and he gets real chatty. “Panjab University had the best books on evolutionary biology that I had ever laid eyes upon. As a student I was deeply interested in the topic. What are the odds of that happening?” he asks with his eyes shining.

An Odd Point OutGlancing through Deepak Pental’s cur-riculum vitae, there are oddities that strike the reader. These make him rath-er the “odd ball”—as far as interests are concerned and as far as passions go. An odd subject—a diploma degree in Gandhian philosophy—stands out especially hard, considering that Pental is a self-confessed fan of the evolution-ary sciences.

What, then, could be a scientist’s interest in Gandhi, we had to ask—is there a missing link between Pental’s passion and the country’s most charis-matic leader? Figures out that’s exactly the question that led him to mix the two. Evolutionary biology and Darwin-ism, with its idea of the “survival of the fittest”, was such a contrast to what the Mahatma believed, that Pen-tal (an admirer of Charles Darwin) wished to find out what the Father of

the Nation (who he admired equally) had said of the topic.

Curious Case of CropsBorn in one of the greenest states—Pun-jab—Pental had always cycled through miles and miles of farmland on his way to school and then later to college. Per-haps that’s where his obsession with crops developed. He is a crop-genetics scientist after all.

Ideally, he should have followed his father into the line of medicine. But, Pental “hated blood” and had “no flair for it” (medicine). Thus, he abandoned the colour red and chose green instead.

the biggest leap—becoming the Vice Chancellor—and he admits that the deci-sion took him by surprise.

What Next? Who Cares?For a journey that has been this interest-ing, what lies ahead?

“Well, I have never been one of those who obsess about where next. I know that my research laboratory awaits me in the South Campus. I have been going there for the past five years, even while I played the role of the administrator.”

Pental is the only researcher-cum-administrator that our EDU team has met so far.

“I went to Rutgers for further studies, because it had the environment that encouraged research. Though, I had a great time at Rutgers, I knew that I was coming back to India someday. Life’s full of such epiphanies. At Panjab Uni-versity, I realised that my PhD was not good enough. I needed to do more in terms of research. Panjab University did not have an environment that was con-ducive to research.”

That’s when TERI came knocking. The institute built an entire laboratory at their Jorbagh (New Delhi) office for Pental. But, research wasn’t one of TERI’s strengths—policymaking was.

Thus, came the next shift, to Delhi Uni-versity, as a professor. The next step—becoming the Director of the South Cam-pus (Delhi University) took him by surprise. Since it allowed him time to research, Pental was happy. Finally, came

As we said earlier, there is something “different” about Deepak Pental—he took steps that often throw you off bal-ance, just a little.

Take this for an example. He quit pho-tography after the “digital age” kicked in. Whereas most people adopted photogra-phy after the digital camera was intro-duced, simply because their task became simpler. Pental abandoned photography, because it became way too simple.

He likes two polar opposites—Gandhi and Darwin—whose ideas couldn’t be more different at their core.

He believes that ecology is in danger, but there is still hope. But then, for the rational optimist that he is, hope is his favourite word.

“I KNOW THAT MY RESEARCH

LABORATORY AWAITS ME IN THE

SOUTH CAMPUS”



Book Review

NEW RELEASES

The Heart Of Higher EducationUS dialogue on integrative education may shed light on path to be taken by newly established Indian varsities

WHAT IS education’s highest calling? The Heart Of Education; A Call To Renewal raises this question, and, answers it by presenting a series of dia-logues between academics that evolved during a seminar (Uncovering the Heart of Higher Education) at California in 2007. The book exposes the “heart” of education to be the awakening of the “deepest potential” in students, faculty and staff—through the philosophy of integrative education.

Integrative education is the current buzzword in education. It entails a holistic education methodology that addresses the whole human being—

mind, heart and spirit—to transform that person in such a way that he or she can contribute in the best possible way to the planet. Integrative learning is a “fearless” concept, which links religion, spirituality, love, trust, sharing and community, to the curricula and classroom.

It’s root belief is that unless education can deal with the “messiness” that is modern real life, then it cannot help educated people to use their “classroom” knowledge amid the complexities and cruelties that constantly threaten to undo civilisation. It is a discovery-oriented form of learning. The authors

Integrating Study Abroad Into the Curriculum WITH INTEREST in overseas education, a question remains: is studies abroad engendering intercultural competencies? The

authors suggest structuring education to bridge the gap between academic, and experiential and intercultural learning.

Author: Elizabeth Brewer, Kiran CunninghamPublisher: Stylus Publishers, LLCPrice: $ 75

Social Justice EducationTHIS BOOK addresses the combination of pedagogical, curricular, and institutional commitments necessary to create and sustain diversity on campus. Its premise is that the socially-just classroom flourishes in the context of a socially-just institution.

Author: Kathleen Skubikowski, Catharine WrightPublisher: Stylus Publishers, LLCPrice: $ 75

Parker J. Palmer

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood

Arthur Zajonc

Cultivate all capacities in our students for knowing and creating

argue that current administrative policies fail to address the entire being (student). And, that the current methodology is at best piecemeal or divided, and fails to empower students with core values, purpose and a direction in life.

It also explains and explores integrative educa-tion. Loosely translated, integrative education may be seen as making connections within a major, between fields, between curriculum, co-curricu-lum, or between academic knowledge and practice.

Though there is no master plan offered by the experts in the book, there is “focused and disci-plined conversation” which the authors hope will itself be a course changing strategy, or lead to one. There is also an impressive list of interest-ing programmes that have been adopted by aca-demics and authorities in the US, which aim to create a change that “arises in the energised space between caring and thoughtful adults”.

With the expansion of the Indian higher educa-tion sector, and with a rise in dialogue between Indi-an academics, administrators and experts, on what is and should be, the book seems to be a “right” one which has arrived at the “right” moment.

—Rohini Banerjee

Publisher: Jossey-BassPrice: $ 24.95


The Samsung NX100 has finally started shipping now. Featuring a 14.6MP sensor, the NX100 is a mirror-less Micro Four Thirds camera that apart from some rather decent still images (with its full sized APS-C sensor), can record 720p HD video recording. the camera will come with a 20-50mm lens based on the NX mount, and feature a three-inch AMOLED display.

Price: $ 599

GIZMOSGADGETS

TIMEOUT

DELL STREAK is the first of the world’s major tablets to have arrived in India, and it will be priced at ̀ 35,000. Launched in partnership with Tata DoCoMo, the Streak will come with a 500MB free data usage plan for the first six months, with a DoCoMo post-paid connection. The Dell Streak also has a front-facing VGA camera, which will allow for video calling after the upgrade. The five-inch Dell Streak will become one of the biggest phones in the country, and, if you want to make frequent calls with it, we recommend you invest in a Bluetooth hands-free along with it.

Price: 35,000

Microsoft Arc Touch MouseTHE ARC Touch Mouse moulds itself from curved to flat, and can be used on nearly any surface, tracing with its 2.4GHz Nano transceiver and Microsoft BlueTrack technology. Featuring a capacitive touch and scroll sensitive strip, it does away with the mouse wheel. The Arc Touch Mouse is 15mm thick and is, of course, wireless—using two AAA batteries for power that last six months on a single charge.

Price: $ 69.95

Samsung NX100 Micro Four Thirds

Dell Streak Launched With Tata DoCoMo

If you want to make frequent calls with the Dell Streak, we recommend you invest in a Bluetooth handsfree

Glasses-Free 3DTVsTOSHIBA WILL be releasing two autostereoscopic 3D televisions in Japan in December. The displays will not be very large. They will be available in 12-inch and 20-inch models.

Price: $ 2,900

The Traveller’s Guide ACER ASPIRE One 532H is a sleek ultra-portable notebook that suits the needs of a frequent traveller. It incorporates all the features in a compact design. The optional 3G connectivity adds value for money.

Price: 19, 499


PROFESSOR M.N. FARUQUI Former Dean, IIT Kharagpur, Former Vice Chancellor, AMU

PERSPECTIVE

Failure of Higher Education Insitutions

term papers, oral and semester examina-tions, evaluate performances and grant grades. Lack of lab content is also a con-cern as is the lack of career opportunities. Remember that teaching social sciences does not require heavy finance. Our poor performance can be directly attributed to administration’s and teachers’ apathy.

A Problem In Physical ScienceWhen it comes to natural and physical sciences, the academia has been taking no effort to keep abreast with latest research. One reason for this is that experiments require money that most (Indian) departments cannot afford. Per-haps, one way of overcoming this prob-lem would be to share lab facilities among universities. The traditional universities also lag behind when it comes to the use of advanced computing and related soft-ware and hardware. And, the country should have better infrastructure that pro-vides better bandwidths. Excellence is not only about grand buildings and equip-ment. It’s an attitude and ambition.

In ConclusionThe zamindari of state establishments must be broken to make colleges that are doing well autonomous to teach and examine. If we are not willing to trust our teachers, we may as well forget excellence and integrity of universities as well.

(To read the full article log in to edu-leaders.com)

For sometime now, the academic performance of Indian higher educa-tion institutes have been on a decline. An excuse put forth has

been that universities are not “autono-mous” enough to decide programmes, that they suffer from excessive “control” exuded by the MHRD, UGC and AICTE (etc). Then there is the question of finances. In India we love to point our fingers at the “system”. Autonomy or the freedom from control of the “permit raj” or “sarkari approval”, especially with the IAS sahibs dictating academic policies, is necessary. But, it is not everything and, autonomy and accountability should go hand in hand.

A Closer Look A university ought to be known for its quality of teaching and research. I believe there is no bar on taking the effort to teach well, provided that the gurus are capable. And that the faculty and students are creative. Innovation and creativity are driven by ideas—bureaucratic apathy is a dampener, however, autonomy alone is not enough to foster creativity. Even if we have the best curricula, we can’t have the means to deliver it, unless our curricula receives the support of quality research. There must be an academic atmosphere minus administration, political or man-agement interference, academic obsoles-

SYLLABUS SHOULD BE REVIEWED EVERY YEAR. A TEACHER SHOULD BE LEFT AT THE LIBERTY TO DEFINE METHODOLOGY, EXAMINATION PROCESSES

cence and poor delivery. Also, universities should work in collaboration with indus-tries and NGOs on projects of their own interest or of national interest. Industries, so far, have been governed by “trading” considerations; and government control has harmed the technology development.

Bottlenecks In Social SciencesIncidentally, social, natural and physical sciences are our neglected departments. Are any of the central universities barred from conducting “involved” teaching? If not, then why are most universities still teaching material that is 20 years old? An excuse is that the “Board of Studies” meeting has not been held for sometime. But, for our classes to evolve, it is impera-tive that the syllabus is reviewed every year. Then a teacher is left at the liberty to define what s/he wants to teach. Indepen-dence is required to develop assignments,

Our performance can be directly attributed to administration’s and teachers’ apathy. Excellence is not only about buildings and equipment. It’s an attitude and ambition

employment yin yang

Documents

aspect of higher education

standalone institutions

t i o nvolume

singlediscipline institutions

headeducation research

issue of edu

lack of training

train students