wes event report - 2013

WHEN THE WORLD TALKS EDUCATION...

WES, Advisory Board, Justice MSA SiddiquiChairman, National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions

wes.eletsonline.com

Event Report

2013

World’s Premiere Education Event

Bringing Together Thought Leaders in Education

Kapil SibalFormer Minister of

Communications and IT Government of India

Carrying forward the grand success of its earlier edi-tions, the 3rd annual edition of World Education Sum-

mit was held on April 23-24, 2013, in New Delhi. World Education Sum-mit 2013 was jointly organised by the AICTE, and Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd; and was co-organised by the UNESCO, NCERT, and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

Presented by digitalLEARNING, the Summit has grown into a premier plat-form on education thought leadership, enabling one of the largest gatherings of education leaders since its inception in 2011. Based on the theme of “Strength-ening Equity, Inclusion and Quality”, this year’s edition was graced by the presence of Kapil Sibal, Minister of Com-munications & Information Technology, Government of India, as Chief Guest and Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and IT, Government of Bihar; Mantriprasad Naithani, Minister, Agri-culture Marketing, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education and Drinking Water, Government of Ut-tarakhand; and Naseem Akhtar Insaaf, State Education Minister, Government of Rajasthan, as Guests of Honour.

Prof (Dr) S S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Educa-tion, participated as the Programme Chair. The two-day Summit turned out into a platform for knowledge exchange among different stakeholders of the edu-cation sector including academicians;

Strengthening Equity, Inclusion and Quality

World Education Summit 2013

15 sessions with more than 100 speakers; 37 Sponsors and Exhibitors; 130 Schools; 140 Higher Education Institutes; 195 participants from the Cor-porate Sector; 60 partici-pants from the Government Sector; More than 300 delegates; 172 Award Nominations, More than 82,489 online votes; 48 Award Winners

WORLD EDUCATION SUMMIT 2013 HIGHLIGHTS

event report

policy makers; leaders; educationists; ambassadors from different countries; representatives from the Ministry of Hu-man Resource Development, Govern-ment of India; directors of IIMs, IITs and NITs; vice chancellors of various private and government universities; founders and directors of school chains across the country and abroad; representatives from governing bodies; service providers; entrepreneurs and representatives from the corporate sector active in bringing innovations in the education sector.

The two-day Summit was also marked by World Education Expo – which offered a platform to education stakeholders to showcase their unique products and work – and World Educa-tion Awards – which were given to vari-ous stakeholders in recognition of bring-ing in innovation in the education sector.

Chief Guest Kapil Sibal inaugurating World Education Summit 2013 by lighting the lamp

Digital and Collaborative Learning is the Future in Education

India needs to think in terms of what the world will be 10 years from now, and then decide what our educa-tional programmes must offer, what

teaching methodologies should be. We require a change in mindset

in education. For instance, in school education, the old definition of literacy still continues, and we still have a textbook system of teaching and we follow an examination system. We have the older methodologies where the teacher stands in front of the class and teaches. But learning is a far more collaborative process than ever before, thanks to technology and the future lies in digital literacy.

Affordable technologyWe have to make sure that 10 years from now, all kids will have tablets. The government has to ensure that a digital highway is created, and the last mile connectivity is achieved. We are trying to connect 1,50,000 Gram Panchayats with fibre optics. We aim to connect 2,50,000 villages by 2014.

We also require access devices that are accessible and affordable like ‘Akash’, and for that we need to build manufacturing capacities at home. The next question is what kind of content will flow on the information highway? Institutes like AICTE and IGNOU are already working on it. Courses and content will be provided by private en-trepreneurs to school kids anywhere in the world for a price. If there is more competition then there will be lower price of the content. We will also have

to move into the university system. This is not going to work in the future.

Collaboration and R&DIf you look at history, the western coun-tries have developed because of technol-ogy. There is a need for an increased col-laboration between all the stakeholders. The industry transforms ideas into goods and services, so it must be directly linked to academic institutions. Also, the indus-try as well as the government will take up R & D, and we must collaborate with each other because without collabora-tion there will not be solutions.

Kapil SibalUnion Minister of Communications & IT, Government of India

We cannot look at the future through the eyes of past, not even through the eyes of present, but we have to look at the future by having a dream of what the future will be, and those who realise that dream will be the winners

to regulate the content and that’s a challenging task.

Choices galore The future lies in collaborative learning where a teacher must understand indi-vidual inclination and genius of each child because each child might want to learn different things.This choice must also be reflected in higher education. Now, if you have the present univer-sity system where you have academic councils and other councils controlling the university system, there is no choice available. There are only three streams

WES 2013 REpoRt InaUGUral sessIon

Education Must Encompass Moral Values and IT

In this year’s budget, there will be no exaggeration if I say that this time there was a huge amount allocated for educational development in Ra-

jasthan. There are various schemes, such as giving scooters to students of Other Backward Castes (OBC) as reward for those getting more than 55 percent marks or taking admission in college. Government is also giving laptops to girls belonging to mi-nority communities who are scoring good marks in schools and are opting for higher studies. Children, especially girls, who earlier used to walk kilometers to reach schools, are now being given bicycles for easy conveyance to schools. This boosts the moral of children to get education.

Government has opened thousands of new primary schools, and thousands of primary schools have graduated to second-ary schools. Educational developments are on going from the past many years.

Government is putting so much of efforts because we want to create aware-ness about education in every sector of the society. Our aim is to educate every single person in every village of Rajast-han. In urban areas education is still at par, but rural areas need real attention.

We are targeting to control the drop-out rates in schools. We are running bridge courses to associate them to schools. Government will give laptops to the top 10 meritorious students of Xth and XIIth boards. Government is also distributing special learning laptops to the VIIIth class students. This is a huge investment, but government wants competitiveness among students and we want to connect our education system with information technology.

Indira Priyadarshani Puruskar, Gargi Puruskar, free K-12 education for girls are some phenomenal initiatives taken by the government.

Importance of girl educationThe Government has provided a lot for education. Now it is our responsibility to take it to the common man. Our govern-ment is determined to educate each and every female in the state. That is why we are highly focused towards girls’ educa-tion. When a girl gets educated, she edu-cates two families - one is the family she

is born in, and the other is the family she gets married in. She inculcates morals and ethics in the family. The first teacher of any human being is his/her mother.

We need to add morals and traditions values to our education system. We will be able to build a constructive and cul-tural society only when we tech morals in our education system.

Various malpractices happening in so-ciety like female foetus killing, and rapes can be curbed up to greater extent if we educate a child systematically since he is in his mother’s lap and then in primary education. We should inculcate values in our child so that in future he becomes a man with a healthy mentality.

Government’s initiativesIt is the 21st century, and it is an advanced era of information technology. We need an education system of global level. In-dian students are very much popular all around the world in terms of quality education. Even the US President, Barack Obama, watches out for Indian talent.

The central government has helped us in providing broadband services at

all the levels. Now Rajiv Gandhi Bharat Nirman Seva Kendra is also connected through IT. These initiatives eased the life of rural population in Rajasthan as they are now able to do most of their work like bill payment and getting many other documents from village it-self through IT.

Rajasthan has set such a model in terms of IT advancement that when the US President, Barack Obama came to In-dia he spoke to the people of Kanpura - a small panchayat of Ajmer, direct from New Delhi through video conferencing. Numbers of schools have got computer labs, and even many classrooms are connected with IT.

Smt Naseem Akhtar Insaaf, Minister of State for Education, Government of Rajasthan

Education in BiharFocussing on Employability and Affordability

I believe technology is going to lead the way in education and India is going to be a global technology hub. Today, Bihar is at the same

level as the rest of India as far as IT and education sectors are concerned. We re-ally need to put emphasis on primary education because it is the first step for any child. Yes, there is a dearth of qual-ity faculty in the state, but we have to manage within our means. I believe ed-ucation has to be connected to employ-ability and affordability yet high-quality education is the order of the day.

to 20,225 and day-by-day an environ-ment for education has been built. We have taken steps to extended technol-ogy education in Madarsas. We also formed the Bihar Knowledge Society through which we impart computer training in all districts across Bihar. It is not only open to students, but for teachers and general public as well.

Educating the girl child We have started scholarship schemes for meritorious girl students. This has increased the rate of education among girls. Other states have now started distributing bicycles to girls, which we have already done in the past. We have been the front runners in promoting education among girls through various incentives.

Towards a bright futureIf today a person becomes a teacher af-ter completing matriculation, then we think that his son will be at least a lec-turer. However, any sort of change does not come instantly; it can only be seen in the next generation.

We did not have private university in the state. Now we have passed a bill through the cabinet to have a private University in Bihar. We started IIT as we had only two engineering colleges. Earlier we had only 13 polytechnic in-stitutes and now we are starting one polytechnic institute in every district. So we are continuously doing this work, and as I said the next generation of Bi-har will reap benefit out of this.

Shri Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and IT, Government of Bihar

We did not have a private university in the state, but now we have passed a bill through the cabinet to have a private university in Bihar

Tech education for minorities The Sachar Committee report re-vealed that minority communities in Bihar fared even below the Schedule Caste group in terms of education. So our government initiated several schemes to promote education among the minorities. For the first time we announced to give financial aid for 10,000 matriculation students. At that time only 2,627 students in the entire state were first year qualified. Over the years that tally has gone up

WES 2013 REpoRT InauGural sessIon

Quality Education through Motivating Teachers and Students

Our Government has built a complete computer-aided set-up in almost every educational institute. We also have a proj-

ect to improve the basic infrastructure. This project is associated with the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan wherein children from class I to VIII are provided free of cost education, books, uniforms and also one time meal. Recently the government of Uttarakhand realised that the percentage of educated girls was sharply going down in the state, as they were facing problems in going to schools. Therefore, to boost girls’ education in our state, we have de-cided to provide bicycles to them, in the non-hilly areas. For the girls living on the hilly areas, we have planned to open bank accounts and transfer a sum of `3,000, which can be utilised by them to cover the expenses incurred during travel to school. The amount will be transferred to their ac-count on a regular basis.

Maintaining quality To motivate teachers, we have conferred 23 government school teachers with the Shailesh Matiyani State Teachers’ award for extraordinary work. We are also mindful about other facilities for our teachers such as maternity leave. For students, the top ten rankers of Ut-tarakhand Class X and Class XII board examination in 2012 were awarded with the Pt Deendayal Upadhayay Edu-cational Meritorious Scholarships. We also encourage and fund children at the state level under the leadership of the Chief Minister Vijay Bahugna Joshi. Our

pointment of new teachers, professors, lecturers and even basic tutors.

Accessiblility mattersHigher education is not limited to any particular state. In Uttrakhand, cit-ies like Dehradun and Nainital are the hubs of international level education institutes. Moreover, we also have sev-eral kinds of universities like Himgiri Nabh Vishwavidyalaya (University in the Sky), Uttarakhand Technical Uni-versity, etc and we are proud of the fact that overseas students are coming to study in these universities. Now the main focus of the state government is to provide education to the most interior parts of the state by bringing the best institutes’ branches to those places.

Shri Mantriprasad Naithani Minister, Agriculture Marketing, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education and Drinking Water, Government of Uttarakhand

To promote education among the girls, we have decided to provide bicycles to them in the non-hilly areas of Uttarakhand

state government is focusing hard to im-prove the quality of education through motivated teachers so that a child’s IQ gets increased.

Even for the minorities, the state government has plans to provide qual-ity education in Madarsas from basic schooling to higher education. Earlier, the government was not able to attract youngsters but now we have laid these plans considering the new technology, new curriculum from SCERT books, etc.

Moreover, the landscape of Uttara-khand is totally different. Here we have three kinds of areas like the high alti-tude, middle altitude and the ground level. Therefore, we have the acute shortage of teachers and to address the same our government has started ap-

Higher Education will Shape Life, Economy and the Society

As opposed to the past, we need to take a hard look at the proposition of making education available to ev-

eryone who needs it — a truly inclusive system that is in everyone’s interest. It should teach us humility, benevolence, and clarity of mind and purpose.

Private, public and governmental partnerships have been on the rise in the education sector. Forecast suggests if the current pattern of participation continues, more than 30 percent of to-day’s school drop outs will experience higher education 10 years from now. I wish we reach GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio) of 50 percent in probably the next 20 years.

However, statistics show that over 50 percent of the youth fail between

Xth- XIIth grades, and are out of educa-tion scene forever. An out of the box ap-proach and possible best practices could allow them to pass the grade with mini-mal intervention. Apart from the col-lateral advantage of a higher GER and overall growth in economics brought about by an exalted youth.

Prof (Dr) S S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education

“Setting up community colleges either new or in the existing polytechnics needs to be pushed aggressively, so that competency based skills along with basic life skills is imparted to enhance the employment potential of our youth

Higher education will shape an indi-vidual’s life and the economy and society. Also, a scheme for vocational education where a student can learn competency based skills along with general education at various certificate levels initiated early in the school going up to the diploma or a graduate level is probably the way to go. With the bachelors in vocational educa-tion now duly constituted, it is expected to play as catalyst to an otherwise satu-rated system. The most important feature of the framework created by AICTE is that a student could also avail of multi-point entry and exit between formal and voca-tional education and the job markets.

Setting up community colleges ei-ther new or in the existing polytech-nics needs to be pushed aggressively, so that competency based skills along with basic life skills are imparted to enhance the employment potential

of our youth. We also need to realise that our youth coming from the lim-ited financial means would need to be sustained on some minimal financial incentive to pursue skills for employ-ment. Hence we also need credible fi-nancial models to sustain education for youth.

WES 2013 REpoRt InAugurAl sEssIon

Inclusion with quality is what we all look for. Inclusion means reaching the last child. I doubt if only technology is the answer to that. First of all, is it available to everybody? We can reach that point slowly, but that does not mean we should not use all modes.

We talk about values in our curriculum, but for that we all have to share those value systems. It doesn’t come by telling, it comes by imbibing. You have to decide whether technology can impart values, you have to decide that.

Of course we need technology for certain things like teacher training. Also open learning, in my view, is the answer to many issues. Technology can help us develop multi-language usage that can help teachers in making learning easier. Even holistic learning that you need to do for a vocation is important, but it should not be limited to a particular skill-set.

Prof Parvin Sinclair, Director, National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT)

At UNESCO we are looking at two issues of what do we think, and what we are doing to assist countries to achieve EFA goals by the year 2015. We are asking our partners to look at the issue of schooling, not only in terms of access, but also to get the completion rate high.

For instance, in India we have more than 90 percent access to the primary school, but the completion rate is below 70 percent, and it is going down drastically in secondary education and upper secondary education. Many of them are related to the gender exclusion, disability exclusion, etc. Post 2015 we are putting new focus, not saying education for all, but we are saying learning for all.

Alisher Umarov, Chief of Education and Programme Specialist, UNESCO

Education should focus less on examination system and more on learning. The examination system and rote learning from the text book is not what we need. The examination system is only a tool to select. Is there anything in the examination system that selects in terms of values like honesty, and are we getting proper people at proper posts, in any profession?

So the first thing is that the focus should be learning instead of teaching. Focus should be on education instead of examination. Yes, we do need to select, but we can look at a more holistic way of assessment, where we look at the development of skill. We have to look at the development of understanding, but even the role of the teacher is very important that helps in value system and skill development.

Dr Pascal Chazot, Elected Member of Parliament in France for the French Overseas; Founder and Head of School, Mahatma Gandhi International

School (MGIS), Ahmedabad

Education is a great enabler as well as leveller. We have worked with former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s Pan-Afri-can e-Network project. It is one of the most successful proj-ects where 10,000 students from 48 countries across Africa are enrolled in live, face-to-face classroom sessions. As we have seen from Pan-African model, there is a lot of poten-tial for cooperation at the global level in terms of sharing of knowledge, content development, increasing accessibility, and improvisation of technology for e-networks.

Vimal Wakhlu, Chairman & Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Limited

Strategies for Steering the Education Sector

The wealth of nations is judged by the intellectual property they have and not by their physical or mineral wealth. There is a need for integration of societies and countries. We may have manufacturing in one place, the user maybe at another place, and the workforce maybe coming from a separate country. This means, whatever education and skill development we wish to have must be of comparable standards and be such that it can be trans-located from one region to another.

Amit Khare, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

Digital literacy is very important in today’s world. Also, mobile penetration is growing. So, we have to plan for e-content for the mobiles because that’s the best component through which we can reach the last miles. With increased internet connectivity, I also believe that we have to go for a virtual classroom system, as we have shortage of quality teachers. Lastly, to enhance em-ployability we have to focus on skill development.

Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director,

National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT)

The Government of India’s investment in research is roughly 0.95 percent of the GDP, and it aims to increase this to two percent by the end of this plan period. We are working on the Singh-Obama Knowledge Initiative, and working for collaborations between foreign and Indian universities for the purpose of research and innovation. Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Secretary, University Grants Commission

Globally, the open learning education resources have gained a great momentum and we must pace ourselves with this particular ap-proach for improving quality in education. We have to create a safety net for the disadvantaged groups or school dropouts so that they complete their education up to secondary level. We should collabo-rate and develop good quality resources that will be available at a particular platform.

Dr S S Jena, Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling

WES 2013 REpoRt plenary session 1 & 2

Opportunities of OverseasCollaboration for Indian Institutions

We are grateful to India for leading the international education aid programmes in our country. Nearly 7,000 Afghan students are studying at universities and technical schools across India. We look forward to increased collaboration between India and Afghanistan through faculty and student exchange programmes. Educational co-operation through sustainable mechanisms will go a long way in enabling an economically and socially integrated region.

HE Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India

I see enormous opportunities, benefits, and synergies from international collaboration in the field of education. The inspiration for me is in seeing a future that is increasingly reflective of people who see themselves first as the citizens of the world, and later as citizens of nations. We are striving towards a world where international collaboration brings with it international understanding, which

in turn, brings opportunities for world harmony. Mark Parkinson, Executive Director, Head of School, Kunskapsskolan Eduventures, Gurgoan

There are many avenues of collaboration between India and the Philippines including the education sector. We welcome Indian investment in education in the Philippines. There is already an increased people-to-people contact between the two nations. Implementing less restrictive visa policies is a building block that can go a long way in boosting ties in the field of education. I

also believe organisations like ASEAN and SAARC should look into co-operation in education with India.

Robert O Ferrer, First Secretary, Embassy of the Philippines

Our gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is 28 percent and our gov-ernment is setting up a new target of 30 percent, for 2014. Thus, there is a need for more higher education institutions in Indonsesia, and we look forward to more collaboration with friendly countries like India. Also, India has now become an at-tractive education destination for students from overseas students. We are already working closely in several areas like organ-ising training and exchange programmes and joint-research programmes.

HE Rizali Wilmar Indrakesuma, Ambassador of Indonesia to India

Under the ‘Erasmus Mundus’ programme we are collaborating with more and more international students, especially in the short -term programmes of six months or nine months. Slovenia and India have been the main supporters of the International Centre for Promotion of Enterprises (ICPE) for the last two decades and we have had a lots of students from India. The programme will begin from this year in October and we expect that at least 25 or more students will enrol.

Lt Boris Jelovšek, Minister Plenipotentiary, Republic of Slovenia

WES 2013 REpoRt special session

Our project e-Pronounce is an ongoing research project. It aims at learning correct pronounciation using phonetic sym-bols. We wanted to have something to bridge the language divide for people in the non-native English environment. The objective is pedagogy first and technology second.

Prof (Dr) Fong Soon Fook, Professor, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Blended Learning, Multimedia Content and Supportive Teaching Tools to Promote Student Engagement

In teaching through technology, we have to stop looking at engagement through content. Context is more important than content. We conducted an ex-periment, where we converted a sixth-grade science textbook into a comic. Students read through their entire science textbooks in exactly two days. So by changing context you can get students’ interest.

Kunal Sharma, Founder & Director, Mexus Education

Education should not be limited to read-ing or writing, it must be understood, applied and reasoned. Also, with digital learning and internet, a lot of resources are available for the students. We are in-troducing the tablet PCs with pre-loaded content to reduce paperwork.

Prabhakar Rao Polasani, Chairman, Rao’s Group of Educational Institutions, Hyderabad

There is only one percent penetration of interactive displays in India, while other countries like Moscow, Russia, and China have far greater adoption. So as a technology provider, we are working with our ecosystem to ensure that some of these problems are captured in our future products. Also, the future lies in 3-D stereoscopic, which is more engaging for students.

Ganesh S, Business Development Manager, DLP Products, Texas Instruments (India) Ltd

I believe it’s not just about hardware and software. It is not even about how we apply technology. It’s about com-pletely re-thinking the way we personalise learning spac-es and learning experiences. It means we place the stu-dents at the core, and let them set their goals. Instead of teachers, we should have coaches. This personal coach-ing leads to personal accountability for the students. Even the assessments have to be on the basis of knowledge instead of running after grades or marks.

Mark Parkinson, Executive Director, Head of School, Kunskapsskolan Eduventures, Gurgaon

Our core function is to digitise data that is written by hand to business process-able data. We designed a digital pen with the prime purpose of not wast-ing human time for completely non-productive things. I believe any new technology faces problems of adapta-tion and adaptability. No technology is bad. It only fails when it is wrongly implemented.

Sundaram Ramaswamy, Chief Executive Officer, Xcallibre Digital Pen Solutions Pvt Ltd

WES 2013 REpoRt school education

Early Childhood Education

Emotional stability is important, as a child needs to be understood and heard. There shouldn’t be any rank-ing, neither in academics nor in sports. Our effort is to de-digitise, as too early stimulation will affect in the long run. Thus, computers should be limited as an aid. Treating parents as partners is extremely important. Also, teachers need to feel valued.

Shilpa Solanki, Founder Principal, The Orchid School, Pune

The role of educators is to keep the cu-riosity alive in the children to develop them fully. The key imperatives of early childhood educators to help children reach their

goals are: Care, Curriculum, Curiosity, Confidence and Creativity. The art of asking questions rather than knowing the right answers is a major aspect of a child’s development.

Pooja Goyal, Director, Intellitots, Guargoan

I believe no matter howsoever marvellous the school curriculum is, the problem lies in its imple-mentation. I have been involved in setting up early learning centres with the Shri Ram Group. We be-lieve in not only imparting skills but an attitude. We work in a children-centric curriculum. We look into different aspects like emotional security, experien-tial learning to encourage inquiry among students,

and differentiating between a slow and a fast learner. We also hold workshops for parents to bridge any sort of disconnect.

Kaadambari Muttoo, Director Academics, Schools Division, Shri Ram New Horizons, New Delhi

We have realised that we cannot live in that idealist framework where you teach a moral science chapter on don’t lie and the kid goes back home and observes his/her parents lying. So we believe that parents should go many steps beyond PTMs, and not only in pre-primary classes but be-yond that as well.

Amol Arora, Vice Chairman & MD, Shemrock & Shemford Group of

Schools, New Delhi

The issue here is not only about early childhood education (ECE). It is about early childhood care where emotional needs should be met. A school is a child’s first point of separation from his/her family. I think there is a lot of homework that needs to be done by most schools in that regard. ECE also needs to have measurable outcomes in terms of the ambience and the pedagogy.

Dr Jitendra Nagpal Program Director “Expressions

India” The National Life Skills Education & School Wellness

Program; Sr Consultant Psychiatrist & Incharge,

Institute of Child Development & Adolescent Health, Moolchand Medicity,

New Delhi

Teacher training is about getting complete mastery of ICT as pedagogical tools. Focus should be on ICTs in schools to transform teaching and learning. Implementation is an issue, professional development has happened haphazardly. It should be a continuous process. If teachers are not trained, then hardware and software are of no use.

Dr Termit Kaur Ranjit Singh, Senior Lecturer, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Capacity Building of EducatorsTeachers, Training, Technology

You have to inspire children and create in them a desire to learn, not just rote learn. They should be able to discuss and have belief in values and should have confidence in themselves. We should give them a stable tomorrow with informed decisions. But are we training our teachers to do that? There are large percentage of teachers who are unaware of what they need to do for a better future of young children. It is teacher training component that is going to make a critical difference. Teachers today have to act as facilitators and turn into mentor. For achieving that teachers should become a life-long learners.

Gowri Ishwaran, CEO, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation

One of the most important thing that I tried to identify is availability of teachers. Across India there is a dearth of teachers and according to reports we require 1.2 million teachers. The main reason for this, as per reports, is that teaching is the least preferred career choice. Another reason is the insufficient teacher training institutions and lack of qualified teacher educators.

Dr Dinesh Kumar, Additional Commissioner (Academics), Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, New Delhi

Today our system demands so much from us. We have to add so much, like cognitive element, social element, and psychological elements, intel-ligent quotient, new curriculum along with new acts like RTE, etc. Therefore, capacity building of teachers has be-come a full-time demand for school systems. Schools may have dramatic infrastructure and you may get good admissions, but you will not sustain those children in your campus unless you do something extraordinary.

Lakshmi Kumar, Director, Pradnya Niketan Education Society & Coordinator, Sweden-India Project Inter-Cultural Training Specialist

ICT can make a mark in education and various teaching challenges can be addressed by using ICT in classroom. So we have to change according to the digital world. Monika Mehan, Principal, DAV Public

School, Khera Khurd, New Delhi

The passion for teaching is lacking in the country. There is a huge gap beetween how the classes are held in India and abroad. The problem is either we have 18th century classrooms or we have 22nd century classrooms in most of the international schools, and we have 20th century teachers and 21st century students. To solve the problem we need to focus on

quality teachers. The whole concept of education is a waste if teachers, the most important factor for student development, are not paid attention to.

Shalini Nambiar, Director, Excelsior American School, Gurgaon


International Schools in IndiaChallenges and Opportunities

Everything has changed – the role of the teachers as facilitators, advance-ments in IT, etc. Still there are chal-lenges like dearth of quality teachers and resources. International collabo-ration is a fantastic opportunity and we need to harness it. Updating tech-nology is important, but let us not forget which technology is relevant to our community. Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan

Group of Schools, Mumbai

All our schools can become international schools, no matter whichever board af-filiation, through the universal best prac-tices like good stu-dent-teacher ratios, assessment for depth

and application of learning, and being accountable to parents by demonstrating real performances of understanding by their kids. It is a package of Intel-ligence Quotient (IQ), Passion Quotient (PQ), Spiritual Quotient (SQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ).Lina Ashar, Founder, Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd,

Mumbai

In this age of ‘ice-cream dilemma’ of careers, as an international educationist, I wanted to guide children to be able to pick the right kind of careers for themselves, based on their natures. Interna-tional education is about having choices, and also the need to get the RPRP approach i.e. right people at the right place/profession.

Steven Rudolph, Director, Jiva Education

Why do we live with the excuse that international education is limited to the rich? The theory of connectivism is the way forward, especially for learn-ing in the digital age. Every teacher has to be a part of international teaching-learning platforms because we do not live in India, we live in a global world and compete at an international level. We need to improve at the level of mu-nicipal schools. Manjula Pooja Shroff, CEO,

Calorx, Mumbai

Globalisation has led to the de-mand for international schools in metros and even in tier-I cit-ies. International exchange pro-grammes, international teaching practices where learning is not by rote, and the use of technology all form part of an international school. Challenges range from quality infrastructure, catering to a growing but niche segment, teacher availability, etc.

Rajeev Katyal, Country Director (India), Global Indian

International School, New Delhi

International affiliation, resources, teacher and training costs lead to an expensive fee structure. So the cost factor itself is a big challenge, and it is not meant for all. Prices may only come down if we have many international schools. Another challenge is there are not as many international universities in India for a child to be able to pursue international certification. Dr Vandana Lulla, Directorh & Principal, Podar International School

(IB & CIE), Mumbai

International education breaks down the barriers of race and culture. Such schools are expected to double in next five to seven years. But there are challenges like the mentality that it’s a ticket for a child’s study abroad, so sometimes the vision behind the programme is lost. Also, acceptance of international education is a problem with the higher

education universities in India. Priyamvada Taneja, Development Manager, India, International

Baccalaureate Organization, Haryana

The model of education that we have is from the days of industrialisation were, schools are still organised on factory lines; there is compartmen-talised subject delivery; and there is no intermingling. We have to start thinking differently about education, and we have to realise what our hu-man capacity is. Rita Wilson, Former Chief

Executive and Secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate

Examination; and Academic Lead, Develop Schools

digitalLearning

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Ranking Top Private Universities in India in July 2013

Ranking Top Government Universities in India in August 2013

Ranking Top Pre-schools in India in November 2013

Ranking Top Schools in India in December 2013

Ranking Top B-Schools in India in January 2014


Creating Excellence in School Education

“Excellence in education has become a buzzword today, and is very often used in clichéd terms.

But I think excellence is an overall pack-age of character building with focus on values, and the final summit is that of creating a good human being,” said Gowri Ishwaran, CEO, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, during a roundtable discussion at the third edition of World Education Sum-mit 2013.

Speaking about current schooling systems, Col V K Gaur, Advisor, Manav Rachna Educational Institutions said, “Nowadays, schools have become facto-ries that are more concerned about how many of their students have been selected for the IITs or IIMs. Excellence for them only means what converts into money. This is the state of affairs at the highest level in the country. Sadly, India only has two percent of skilled workforce.”

“Excellence will be there if we focus on Adhyayan (study), Adhyaapan (teach-ing), Abhayaas (practice), and Vyavahaar (behaviour),” Col Gaur added.

Elaborating upon the distinctive ap-

proach towards educating young minds, Steven Rudolph, Director, Jiva Educa-tion said, “Every morning in our school we give 15 minutes to what we call SOE- Self Others Environment, and we do swadhyaya (self-study). Every student talks to the other student about what good deeds he has done, and what prob-lems he is facing.”

Pointing towards the need for in-creased partnership between educators and parents to promote excellence in schools Rudolph added, “My belief on how we get excellence is through find-ing out what is the nature of the child, analysing it over the years, making him reflect with his parents, and setting him on the right path.”

Kavita Das, Principal, St John’s High School, Chandigarh, spoke about the im-portance of bridging the rich-poor divide in education, “We should not forget that there are millions out there who are very poor and who need to be educated. We have to start bringing them in our schools, and start integrating them rather than treating them as separate members of the society. The schools need to start widening their perspectives and not only cater to the

haves of the society, but should also start looking at the have-nots.”

Muhammad Husain Zulqarnain from The Knowledge Bridges Interna-tional Schools, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia added, “Einstein once said that it is not intellect but character that makes great scientists. If you are not imbibing charac-ter among students in schools, they will not get to learn it elsewhere.”

Discussion also highlighted the need of having gurus. “Are we having teach-ers or gurus, because there is a differ-ence between the two. If we have good gurus then we are actually going to do good to the society. Nowadays, moral values have gone down, and schools need to include moral lessons and per-sonality development classes. It is not only about teaching,” said one of the participants.

Summing up the session, Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Group of Schools said, “Generally K-12 is referred to as 15 years of school education. If we substract what-ever syllabi or curriculum taught in all those 15 years from the child’s personal-ity, then whatever is left with the child is what the holistic education means.”


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1- LtoR: Lt Boris Jolevsek, Minister Plenipotentiary, Republic of Slovenia; Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and Information Technology, Government of Bihar; Mantriprasad Naithani, Minister, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education, Government of Uttarakhand; Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan Group of Schools; Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd

2- LtoR: Asim Chauhan, Chancellor, Amity

172 Award Nominations, More than 82,489 online votes, 48 Award Winners

University; Lt Boris Jolevsek; Shahid Ali Khan

3- Release of CyBERfORT Technologies

4- Entrepreneurship in School Education (Special Mention): Dr Amrit Lal Ishrat Memorial Sunbeam Group of Schools Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

5- Vocational Education & Training Initiative (Special Mention): AISECT – Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

6- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Jury

Choice): Computer Aided Learning in Primary Schools of Gujarat

7- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Public Choice): My School e-School – District Panchayat Kutch, Gujarat

8- Start-up Initiative (Special Mention): Touch-on-Cloud – Harness Handitouch Pvt Ltd

9- Innovation By Engineering Institute (Public Choice): SAL Institute of Technology & Engineering Research, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

wes 2013 AwArds

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10- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Jury Choice): Who We Are & Where Are We Going – Bal Bharati Public School, Delhi

11- Innovation By Engineering Institute (Jury Choice): foundation Programme – Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat

12- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Special Mention): eScholarship Management System – Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra

13- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): Seamless Learning – Dr K N Modi University, Newai, Rajasthan

14- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): Customizable Business Simulation Software – Amity University, Gurgaon, Haryana

15- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Public Choice): Exploring the World – Ryan International School, Greater Noida,

16- Innovation in Language(s) Education

(Jury Choice): ePronounce – School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

17- Innovation in Language(s) Education (Public Choice): Innovations in Hindi Curriculum – The Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai

They Also WonInnovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): Ask your Kids – Oakridge International School, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

Innovation By Management Institute (Public Choice): MIT School of Management, Pune, Maharashtra

Use of Assistive Technologies In Education (Public Choice): ICR @ Home – NIIT Ltd

Government Sector Initiative in Education (Special Mention): Vignana yathre – Department of State Education Research and Training, Government of Karnataka

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18- Innovation in Science Education (Public Choice): Kaleidoscope – Sir Padampat Singhania Education Centre, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

19- e-School Initiative (Public Choice): Online Interactive Virtual School Portal – Dr Kedar Nath Modi foundation, New Delhi

20- Green Campus Initiative (Public Choice): RMK Engineering College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

21- Multimedia Content for K-12 Education (Public Choice): DigitALly – Pearson Education Services Pvt Ltd

22- Green School Initiative (Public Choice): Save Earth, Save Mankind – Gyan Ganga International School, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

23- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Public Choice): International Exposure Programme – Dewan V S Group of Institutions, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh

24- Green Campus Initiative (Jury Choice): University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, Uttrakhand

25- Vocational Education & Training Initiative (Public Choice): Apprenticeship Programme – Volkswagen India Pvt Ltd

26- eCampus Initiative (Jury Choice): Campus Initiative University – Jayoti Vidyapeeth Women’s University, Jaipur, Rajasthan

27- Non-Government Sector Initiative in Education (Public Choice): Empowering Deaf Kids through Donated Mobile Phones – Sounds of Silence, Mumbai, Maharashtra

28- Start-up Initiative (Jury Choice): Synergize – Esquvi Technologies Pvt Ltd

29- Innovation in Math Education (Public Choice): Math fair Application of Math in Life – The Orchid School, Pune, Maharashtra

wes 2013 AwArds

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30- Multimedia Content for K-12 Education (Jury Choice): Raptivity – Harbinger Knowledge Products

31- Non-Government Sector Initiative in Education (Jury Choice): Legacy of Creating Educational Institutions of Excellence – Shri Ram Education Trust, New Delhi

32- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): MathsLab – Next Education India Pvt Ltd

33- e-School Initiative (Jury Choice): e-School Programme – Doon Public School, New Delhi

34- Use of Technology for Engineering Institutes (Jury Choice): Virtual 3-D Simulations A Sustainable Approach – Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre, Jaipur, Rajasthan

35- Innovation in Pre-School (Public Choice): Multiple Intelligence Learning Strategies – Delhi Public School, Bopal, Gujarat

36- Interface between Academia-Industry (Public Choice): Shadow Engineering – VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

37- eCampus Initiative (Public Choice): Activ(e)-Learning – Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

38- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): Making No Bones about It – Mahatma Gandhi International School, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

39- Innovation in Open and Distance Learning (Jury Choice): Virtual Labs Universalizing Education NMEICT Project – Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam, Kerela

40- Use of Technology for Engineering Institutes (Public Choice): Microsoft India Student Appfest – Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd

41- Start-up Initiative (Public Choice): Recruitment Assisstance – Substance

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42- Innovation By Management Institute (Jury Choice): Abhyudaya – S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra

43- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Jury Choice): Competence Development in Product Lifecycle Management – JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

44- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): iKen Design & Technology

Lab Hands-on-Learning – Mexus Education Pvt Ltd

45- Innovation in Pre-School (Jury Choice): Towards Making of Holistic Global Citizens – Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd

Fostering Excellence Transformative Practices towards Ensuring Quality

To bring about excel-lence, commercialisa-tion of education needs to be stopped first. Edu-cationists and education aid providers need to work together on areas of improvement through deliberations and in-novations. Enrolments need to be increased, while dropout rates have to be minimised. Language barriers play a vital role too.

Dr G James Pitchai, Vice Chancellor,

Bhararhiar University, Coimbatore

The biggest factor that correlates good quality education is a good quality teacher. How do we improve the quality of teachers is a major concern. Secondly, we need to understand why our institutions don’t figure in global rankings, as much as we are proud of them and have invested billions of dollars into them. If we are to become a knowledge economy, we need the insight and experience to take the Indian higher education to a completely different level.

Dr Amir Ullah Khan, Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India

A lot of transformational practices can come into examinations that will im-prove the overall quality of the education system. Maybe five years down the line, we shall be talking more about the best practices in computer-based mode of examination, instead of just talking about switching over to online system. Crucial aspects such as quality guidance, candidate convenience, and multiple service providers shall have to be considered.

Nagendran S, Executive Vice President, MeritTrac Services Pvt Ltd

The issue of ensuring quality in education is inherently tied to the scalabil-ity and accessibility of education. We need larger number of classrooms, books, study materials, labs, equipments, and good teachers, etc. However, human resources cannot be guaranteed to scale, and that’s where blended learning can help through models such as flipped classrooms and distance education. It enables students to get a mix of face-to-face type interaction with teachers and computer-mediated learning technologies, hence offering them best of both the worlds.

Jaya Jha, Head, Product & Marketing, Aurus Network

We need to create a framework where a student’s self-learning process gets much better. Technology is not about taking the teacher out of the system, but enabling the teacher. We need to change the mindset and see technology as an enabler. For any transformation to happen, we need corporates to provide us technology that would take us to the next level, academicians for bringing in re-search and innovation, and parents to keep faith in us.

Ullas Sathyanarayana, Co-Founder & Director, Cogknit Semantics Pvt Ltd

The classroom should focus on how we can learn together. This is the age of diminishing IP. The idea of patents is

going to be over, because everything is going to be open. We are talking about ethical hacking. We really need to open up.

Supreet Kaur, Head, Marketing and Alliances, Harness Handitouch

WES 2013 REpoRt HigHer education

Over the years, foreign presence may increase in the management institutes and programme offer-ings will be changed. Less than two years or executive MBA pro-grammes will gain popularity.

Prof P Rameshan, Director, Indian Institute of Management

Rohtak, Haryana

Management EducationThe Current Scenario and the Way Forward

Only three percent of India’s total R&D is conducted by educational institutions, and we have not done well in ap-plied research in engineering and management as well. So, that is a matter of concern. Also, teaching is usually done through the case study method that focuses on companies who have performed in terms of profit and strategy. But this method has become obsolete abroad, as it talks about past practices. But today, the future lies in building socially responsible companies and inno-vative practices.

Dr M P Jaiswal, Chairman, Centre for Smart Innovation

& Governance; Chairman, Process Rennovation

Projects, MDI, Gurgaon

There was a time when MBA provoked a lot of craze among people. However, over the last few

years, not only in India but even in the US, placements have been very bad in MBA institutes.

The cost of tuition has risen manifold. The two-year MBA has lost its relevance, and it should

be converted into a combined four-year programme. In fact, specialisation programmes of 14-

18 months on business analytics, financial engineering, multimedia, e-commerce, and digital

marketing will do well in future. M J Xavier, Director, Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, Jharkhand

There has been a dearth of serious people in education. I feel the faculty and students are the heart of any in-stitute. We should invest in delivering quality knowledge and more value for all stakeholders. For instance, we have a structured mentorship pro-gramme for students at our institute, where faculty and industry leaders

come together to guide our students. We also have academy quality assurance system, and academic audit at both internal and external level.

Prof Pankaj Gupta, Director General, Jaipuria Institutes of Management

There is a common concern among universi-ties of management education world-over on how to build socially sensitive business lead-ers for tomorrow. Our institute undertakes many pedagogic innovations in this regard. For example, the programme called ‘Abyu-daya’, where our students mentor underprivi-leged students from neighbouring slums.

Rukaiya Joshi, Professor, S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai

Private Universities in India Innovation in Education

Innovative curriculum, including contemporary subjects, is going to be the most important thing in the coming years. Experiential learning is also very important and students need to take up projects with the industry. Technology transfer and collabo-rations between government, research institutions, and industry are going to play a pivotal role.Padmakali Banerjee, Pro Vice Chancellor, Amity

University, Gurgaon

Quality is the hallmark of education. It can be attained by aligning global partnerships

to national interest, along with institutional autonomy, balanced with accountability to

prevent misuse of freedom. The private institutions should come up with innovations to

include a global perspective in a more global-oriented curriculum. The students should

be given challenging assignments and be evaluated on an innovative grading system.Dr Francis C Peter, Vice Chancellor & President, Dr K N Modi University, Rajasthan

For education we need only one thing, which is a great mind and enabling environment. We know that India has great minds, but where is the enabling environment? There is a lack of freedom for private institutions. The hope is that they can differentiate them-selves by focusing on students, who should be treated as the centre of all the activities. Another hope is in engaging the industry, as employability of students depends on the in-dustry. But it has to be two-sided interaction wherein teachers and students also contrib-ute to the industry. Also, private universities should have other models of revenue gen-

eration apart from students’ fees,

to remain s u s t a i n -able in the long-run.

Dr Anup K Singh, Director

General & Chairman,

Nirma University, Gujarat

We believe in innovations through entrepreneurship whether it is technology or management or business schools. The motive should now be to produce employers rather than employees, because an employer can feed and assist four other people. We encourage our students to take up entrepreneurial projects.

Prof Satish C Sharma, CMD & Professor in Management, Maharaja Group of Colleges

Though the private sector has contributed a lot towards the success of technical education, priority structures have to be maintained across institutions. The most important thing on the list is the quality of the faculty that you acquire. It has to be followed by teaching-learning processes, quality of academic leadership, quality

of admission, alumni relations, sports and cultural activities. But most of these segments have been misplaced in the priority list. It is time to stop distinguishing between public and private colleges, rather making both of them deliverable.

Prof Prem Vrat, Vice Chancellor, ITM University, Gurgaon


India has become one of the major hubs for knowledge outsourcing and skill development. The quality of skill enhancement programmes, their variety and delivery has become major advantage for the world. It is only in India that you can find skill development enhancement solution for any need. One of the most sought after course is the algorithm training programme. Another emerging area of skill development is that of cyber security, given the rising cyber criminal activities.

Amit Kumar, Managing Director, Dr A Kumar Institute of Education; President, CyBERFORT Technologies

Vocational TrainingEnhancing Employability Skills

In India only 10 percent of fresh grad-

uates are employable, as the majority

lacks industry specific skills. We need

to emphasise on vocational training

for target groups like school drop-

outs, women and socially backward

groups of our society. Also, we have

to do away with the stigma attached

with vocational education to attract the

best talent.Dr U C Pandey, Regional Director,

IGNOU Regional Centre

Our education system is more theoretical leaning on getting good grades, but we do not create professionals. We have to build linkages between all sections of education to enable skill development along with knowledge generation.

Dr Aarti Srivastava, Associate Professor, National University

of Educational Planning and Administration

We have been working for the last 27 years in the unorganised sector in the backward districts of the country. We provide short-term and entry-level courses in regional languages. Our focus is on providing skills development in areas that are relevant to that particular

region, like data entry operators, bank kiosk operators, hardware-repair, and

maintenance of mobile, etc.

Abhishek Pandit, Director, Business Services, AISECT

Recently, the Government of Andhra Pradesh started Rajiv yuva Kiranalu scheme. It aims to build job specific skills among the unemployed, and place them in appropriate private job sectors like construction. However, it is essential to make people aware about the different vocational skills and their learning centres.

Prof B Venkat Rathnam, Vice Chancellor, Kakatiya University

The sectoral approach is that we need to scale quality ca-pacity among the faculty, infrastructure, students, and the ecosystem, at large. Employability at the entry-level, and research and development at the higher level, both are re-quired. While the industry has gone on its own journey, we have not made our efforts to bridge the misconception of supply and demand requirement. So the supply side has ac-

tually perceived the industry re-quirement and moved on its own journey.

Dr Sandhya Chintala, Executive Director, Sector Skills Council, NASSCOM

Industry-Academia Bridge

Channelising Collaborative Models

The government is not solely responsible for doing everything. There are many examples across the world where education, health, transport and many important sectors are into private domains. It is good to involve private sector, both at the school level and higher education level in education, as it increases the competitiveness. When we say that education is the backbone, it is about inculcating democratic and secular values among the citizens.

Capt H A Arfi, IAS, (Retd) Director AICC & AIESR, Amity University, Noida

Graduates now require skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity that are documented in the approach paper of the plan document in the 12th Plan. Special emphasis on verbal communication skills, especially English, will help in bringing employability. We need an interactive and collective arrangement between academic institutions and the business cooperation, for the achievement of certain mutually inclusive goals and objectives. There is a growing need of industry in making new recruits productive with right

skill and knowledge, and thereby reducing the cost.Shakila Shamsu, Officer on Special Duty, Department of Higher

Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India


Industry and academia are not working together. We are facing this issue that after four years of engineering, the companies come to us and say that their mindset is different, and they want something else from the students. We made industry-specific learning as a part of our curriculum. There are some industry relevant curriculums, which we have designed in consultation with major companies.

Dr Madhu Chitkara, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University

We have kept the concept of corporate mentor at our institute, whereby we as-sign 15 students to a corporate and the mentors groom students. They take all the responsibility, starting from the academ-ics to placements and teach business etiquette to students. We are also provid-ing vocational courses to our students as corporates need students with basic knowledge of a particular industry. We must emphasise on practical knowledge and then the theory.

Prof (Dr) Sandip P Solanki, Director, MBA Dept, M H Gardi School of Management, Gardi

Vidyapith, Rajkot

Gujarat Knowledge Society (GKS) is a revolutionary measure of the Gujarat Government, undertaken in 2008, to bridge the gap between the industry and academia. GKS believes in empowering the youth. We incorporate training centres with the help of various industries, where quality education is imparted to the candidates. GKS has already registered with some of the finest public and private institutions in the country like NIIT, HCL, etc. The students get great employment opportunities along with enhancement of the skills and knowledge.

Ritesh Maheta, Accounts Officer, Gujrat Knowledge Society

During the second year of MBA course, we talk to the industry people, and they give curriculum to us, which has to be added to the syllabus. Retail giant, Shoppers Stop, approached us and said that they need 900 employees every year. Attrition rate is high, but we have to give extensive training to graduates for one year to make them employable. They suggested us to give six-month training in the last year of graduation for students who want to join the retail industry.

Dr Deepak Shah, Secretary, Kamala Education Society (KES)

New Financing and Business Models in Education

India’s private education market is estimated to reach USD 103 billion from USD 71 bil-lion currently. New models of PPP in the skill development sector are assisting the vo-cational education sector. We see expansion in education with participation of private and foreign players. For that, the sector should be turned into for profit. Government can allow long-term lease on land and infrastructure. It may cap profitability, but allow a rate of return to the investor.

Melwin Braggs, Business Lead, Develop Schools

Most of the companies think that investment happens on top line. The new set of investment that is happening in the country, which is particularly in education is happening on PACT (Profit After Tax). Even if you have `1 pact there are investors who are ready to give you 20 times of that. But if you have a top line of 50 crores and you are not profitable means the execution is a big problem inside the company and we as Indians are far better in giving ideas, chalking out strategies, but lack in the execution side. If you are running a company, or a business and, if you have `1 of profit, it is more valuable than `100 of top line.

Naveen Jha, CEO, Deshpande Foundation; and Managing Trustee, Deshpande Education Trust;

President-TiE-Hubli

There are lots of challenges in finding investors in educa-tion. In India, education is considered as a non-profit making sector. For profit entities like partners firm, cooperatives, pri-vate limited companies, investments is not a challenge. But with education, which is formed under entities like societ-

ies, trusts and Section 25 companies, finding investor is a real chal-lenge. Investor or VC funds cannot invest in trust or society because they cannot reap benefits out of them.

Seema Jhingan, Partner, LexCounsel Law Offices, New Delhi

I think private players like us are looking to invest in innovations so that we can play a meaningful role in the education sector. For instance, we support an organisation called ‘Agastya’ that designs low-cost science equipment. So there is a huge opportunity lying in the philanthropy and innovation format that can be used to supplement the education system. Various sectors require very specific skills. I think India’s demographic dividend has to be converted into human capital else it will

become a liability.Ujjawal Singh, Partner, Indus Balaji


Carrying forward the grand success of its earlier edi-tions, the 3rd annual edition of World Education Sum-

mit was held on April 23-24, 2013, in New Delhi. World Education Sum-mit 2013 was jointly organised by the AICTE, and Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd; and was co-organised by the UNESCO, NCERT, and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

Presented by digitalLEARNING, the Summit has grown into a premier plat-form on education thought leadership, enabling one of the largest gatherings of education leaders since its inception in 2011. Based on the theme of “Strength-ening Equity, Inclusion and Quality”, this year’s edition was graced by the presence of Kapil Sibal, Minister of Com-munications & Information Technology, Government of India, as Chief Guest and Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and IT, Government of Bihar; Mantriprasad Naithani, Minister, Agri-culture Marketing, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education and Drinking Water, Government of Ut-tarakhand; and Naseem Akhtar Insaaf, State Education Minister, Government of Rajasthan, as Guests of Honour.

Prof (Dr) S S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Educa-tion, participated as the Programme Chair. The two-day Summit turned out into a platform for knowledge exchange among different stakeholders of the edu-cation sector including academicians;

Strengthening Equity, Inclusion and Quality

World Education Summit 2013

15 sessions with more than 100 speakers; 37 Sponsors and Exhibitors; 130 Schools; 140 Higher Education Institutes; 195 participants from the Cor-porate Sector; 60 partici-pants from the Government Sector; More than 300 delegates; 172 Award Nominations, More than 82,489 online votes; 48 Award Winners

WORLD EDUCATION SUMMIT 2013 HIGHLIGHTS

EVENT REPORT

policy makers; leaders; educationists; ambassadors from different countries; representatives from the Ministry of Hu-man Resource Development, Govern-ment of India; directors of IIMs, IITs and NITs; vice chancellors of various private and government universities; founders and directors of school chains across the country and abroad; representatives from governing bodies; service providers; entrepreneurs and representatives from the corporate sector active in bringing innovations in the education sector.

The two-day Summit was also marked by World Education Expo – which offered a platform to education stakeholders to showcase their unique products and work – and World Educa-tion Awards – which were given to vari-ous stakeholders in recognition of bring-ing in innovation in the education sector.

Chief Guest Kapil Sibal inaugurating World Education Summit 2013 by lighting the lamp

Digital and Collaborative Learning is the Future in Education

India needs to think in terms of what the world will be 10 years from now, and then decide what our educa-tional programmes must offer, what

teaching methodologies should be. We require a change in mindset

in education. For instance, in school education, the old definition of literacy still continues, and we still have a textbook system of teaching and we follow an examination system. We have the older methodologies where the teacher stands in front of the class and teaches. But learning is a far more collaborative process than ever before, thanks to technology and the future lies in digital literacy.

Affordable technologyWe have to make sure that 10 years from now, all kids will have tablets. The government has to ensure that a digital highway is created, and the last mile connectivity is achieved. We are trying to connect 1,50,000 Gram Panchayats with fibre optics. We aim to connect 2,50,000 villages by 2014.

We also require access devices that are accessible and affordable like ‘Akash’, and for that we need to build manufacturing capacities at home. The next question is what kind of content will flow on the information highway? Institutes like AICTE and IGNOU are already working on it. Courses and content will be provided by private en-trepreneurs to school kids anywhere in the world for a price. If there is more competition then there will be lower price of the content. We will also have

to move into the university system. This is not going to work in the future.

Collaboration and R&DIf you look at history, the western coun-tries have developed because of technol-ogy. There is a need for an increased col-laboration between all the stakeholders. The industry transforms ideas into goods and services, so it must be directly linked to academic institutions. Also, the indus-try as well as the government will take up R & D, and we must collaborate with each other because without collabora-tion there will not be solutions.

Kapil SibalUnion Minister of Communications & IT, Government of India

We cannot look at the future through the eyes of past, not even through the eyes of present, but we have to look at the future by having a dream of what the future will be, and those who realise that dream will be the winners

to regulate the content and that’s a challenging task.

Choices galore The future lies in collaborative learning where a teacher must understand indi-vidual inclination and genius of each child because each child might want to learn different things.This choice must also be reflected in higher education. Now, if you have the present univer-sity system where you have academic councils and other councils controlling the university system, there is no choice available. There are only three streams

WES 2013 REPORT INAUGURAL SESSION

Education Must Encompass Moral Values and IT

In this year’s budget, there will be no exaggeration if I say that this time there was a huge amount allocated for educational development in Ra-

jasthan. There are various schemes, such as giving scooters to students of Other Backward Castes (OBC) as reward for those getting more than 55 percent marks or taking admission in college. Government is also giving laptops to girls belonging to mi-nority communities who are scoring good marks in schools and are opting for higher studies. Children, especially girls, who earlier used to walk kilometers to reach schools, are now being given bicycles for easy conveyance to schools. This boosts the moral of children to get education.

Government has opened thousands of new primary schools, and thousands of primary schools have graduated to second-ary schools. Educational developments are on going from the past many years.

Government is putting so much of efforts because we want to create aware-ness about education in every sector of the society. Our aim is to educate every single person in every village of Rajast-han. In urban areas education is still at par, but rural areas need real attention.

We are targeting to control the drop-out rates in schools. We are running bridge courses to associate them to schools. Government will give laptops to the top 10 meritorious students of Xth and XIIth boards. Government is also distributing special learning laptops to the VIIIth class students. This is a huge investment, but government wants competitiveness among students and we want to connect our education system with information technology.

Indira Priyadarshani Puruskar, Gargi Puruskar, free K-12 education for girls are some phenomenal initiatives taken by the government.

Importance of girl educationThe Government has provided a lot for education. Now it is our responsibility to take it to the common man. Our govern-ment is determined to educate each and every female in the state. That is why we are highly focused towards girls’ educa-tion. When a girl gets educated, she edu-cates two families - one is the family she

is born in, and the other is the family she gets married in. She inculcates morals and ethics in the family. The first teacher of any human being is his/her mother.

We need to add morals and traditions values to our education system. We will be able to build a constructive and cul-tural society only when we tech morals in our education system.

Various malpractices happening in so-ciety like female foetus killing, and rapes can be curbed up to greater extent if we educate a child systematically since he is in his mother’s lap and then in primary education. We should inculcate values in our child so that in future he becomes a man with a healthy mentality.

Government’s initiativesIt is the 21st century, and it is an advanced era of information technology. We need an education system of global level. In-dian students are very much popular all around the world in terms of quality education. Even the US President, Barack Obama, watches out for Indian talent.

The central government has helped us in providing broadband services at

all the levels. Now Rajiv Gandhi Bharat Nirman Seva Kendra is also connected through IT. These initiatives eased the life of rural population in Rajasthan as they are now able to do most of their work like bill payment and getting many other documents from village it-self through IT.

Rajasthan has set such a model in terms of IT advancement that when the US President, Barack Obama came to In-dia he spoke to the people of Kanpura - a small panchayat of Ajmer, direct from New Delhi through video conferencing. Numbers of schools have got computer labs, and even many classrooms are connected with IT.

Smt Naseem Akhtar Insaaf, Minister of State for Education, Government of Rajasthan

Education in BiharFocussing on Employability and Affordability

I believe technology is going to lead the way in education and India is going to be a global technology hub. Today, Bihar is at the same

level as the rest of India as far as IT and education sectors are concerned. We re-ally need to put emphasis on primary education because it is the first step for any child. Yes, there is a dearth of qual-ity faculty in the state, but we have to manage within our means. I believe ed-ucation has to be connected to employ-ability and affordability yet high-quality education is the order of the day.

to 20,225 and day-by-day an environ-ment for education has been built. We have taken steps to extended technol-ogy education in Madarsas. We also formed the Bihar Knowledge Society through which we impart computer training in all districts across Bihar. It is not only open to students, but for teachers and general public as well.

Educating the girl child We have started scholarship schemes for meritorious girl students. This has increased the rate of education among girls. Other states have now started distributing bicycles to girls, which we have already done in the past. We have been the front runners in promoting education among girls through various incentives.

Towards a bright futureIf today a person becomes a teacher af-ter completing matriculation, then we think that his son will be at least a lec-turer. However, any sort of change does not come instantly; it can only be seen in the next generation.

We did not have private university in the state. Now we have passed a bill through the cabinet to have a private University in Bihar. We started IIT as we had only two engineering colleges. Earlier we had only 13 polytechnic in-stitutes and now we are starting one polytechnic institute in every district. So we are continuously doing this work, and as I said the next generation of Bi-har will reap benefit out of this.

Shri Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and IT, Government of Bihar

We did not have a private university in the state, but now we have passed a bill through the cabinet to have a private university in Bihar

Tech education for minorities The Sachar Committee report re-vealed that minority communities in Bihar fared even below the Schedule Caste group in terms of education. So our government initiated several schemes to promote education among the minorities. For the first time we announced to give financial aid for 10,000 matriculation students. At that time only 2,627 students in the entire state were first year qualified. Over the years that tally has gone up


Quality Education through Motivating Teachers and Students

Our Government has built a complete computer-aided set-up in almost every educational institute. We also have a proj-

ect to improve the basic infrastructure. This project is associated with the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan wherein children from class I to VIII are provided free of cost education, books, uniforms and also one time meal. Recently the government of Uttarakhand realised that the percentage of educated girls was sharply going down in the state, as they were facing problems in going to schools. Therefore, to boost girls’ education in our state, we have de-cided to provide bicycles to them, in the non-hilly areas. For the girls living on the hilly areas, we have planned to open bank accounts and transfer a sum of `3,000, which can be utilised by them to cover the expenses incurred during travel to school. The amount will be transferred to their ac-count on a regular basis.

Maintaining quality To motivate teachers, we have conferred 23 government school teachers with the Shailesh Matiyani State Teachers’ award for extraordinary work. We are also mindful about other facilities for our teachers such as maternity leave. For students, the top ten rankers of Ut-tarakhand Class X and Class XII board examination in 2012 were awarded with the Pt Deendayal Upadhayay Edu-cational Meritorious Scholarships. We also encourage and fund children at the state level under the leadership of the Chief Minister Vijay Bahugna Joshi. Our

pointment of new teachers, professors, lecturers and even basic tutors.

Accessiblility mattersHigher education is not limited to any particular state. In Uttrakhand, cit-ies like Dehradun and Nainital are the hubs of international level education institutes. Moreover, we also have sev-eral kinds of universities like Himgiri Nabh Vishwavidyalaya (University in the Sky), Uttarakhand Technical Uni-versity, etc and we are proud of the fact that overseas students are coming to study in these universities. Now the main focus of the state government is to provide education to the most interior parts of the state by bringing the best institutes’ branches to those places.

Shri Mantriprasad Naithani Minister, Agriculture Marketing, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education and Drinking Water, Government of Uttarakhand

To promote education among the girls, we have decided to provide bicycles to them in the non-hilly areas of Uttarakhand

state government is focusing hard to im-prove the quality of education through motivated teachers so that a child’s IQ gets increased.

Even for the minorities, the state government has plans to provide qual-ity education in Madarsas from basic schooling to higher education. Earlier, the government was not able to attract youngsters but now we have laid these plans considering the new technology, new curriculum from SCERT books, etc.

Moreover, the landscape of Uttara-khand is totally different. Here we have three kinds of areas like the high alti-tude, middle altitude and the ground level. Therefore, we have the acute shortage of teachers and to address the same our government has started ap-

Higher Education will Shape Life, Economy and the Society

As opposed to the past, we need to take a hard look at the proposition of making education available to ev-

eryone who needs it — a truly inclusive system that is in everyone’s interest. It should teach us humility, benevolence, and clarity of mind and purpose.

Private, public and governmental partnerships have been on the rise in the education sector. Forecast suggests if the current pattern of participation continues, more than 30 percent of to-day’s school drop outs will experience higher education 10 years from now. I wish we reach GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio) of 50 percent in probably the next 20 years.

However, statistics show that over 50 percent of the youth fail between

Xth- XIIth grades, and are out of educa-tion scene forever. An out of the box ap-proach and possible best practices could allow them to pass the grade with mini-mal intervention. Apart from the col-lateral advantage of a higher GER and overall growth in economics brought about by an exalted youth.

Prof (Dr) S S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education

“Setting up community colleges either new or in the existing polytechnics needs to be pushed aggressively, so that competency based skills along with basic life skills is imparted to enhance the employment potential of our youth

Higher education will shape an indi-vidual’s life and the economy and society. Also, a scheme for vocational education where a student can learn competency based skills along with general education at various certificate levels initiated early in the school going up to the diploma or a graduate level is probably the way to go. With the bachelors in vocational educa-tion now duly constituted, it is expected to play as catalyst to an otherwise satu-rated system. The most important feature of the framework created by AICTE is that a student could also avail of multi-point entry and exit between formal and voca-tional education and the job markets.

Setting up community colleges ei-ther new or in the existing polytech-nics needs to be pushed aggressively, so that competency based skills along with basic life skills are imparted to enhance the employment potential

of our youth. We also need to realise that our youth coming from the lim-ited financial means would need to be sustained on some minimal financial incentive to pursue skills for employ-ment. Hence we also need credible fi-nancial models to sustain education for youth.


Inclusion with quality is what we all look for. Inclusion means reaching the last child. I doubt if only technology is the answer to that. First of all, is it available to everybody? We can reach that point slowly, but that does not mean we should not use all modes.

We talk about values in our curriculum, but for that we all have to share those value systems. It doesn’t come by telling, it comes by imbibing. You have to decide whether technology can impart values, you have to decide that.

Of course we need technology for certain things like teacher training. Also open learning, in my view, is the answer to many issues. Technology can help us develop multi-language usage that can help teachers in making learning easier. Even holistic learning that you need to do for a vocation is important, but it should not be limited to a particular skill-set.

Prof Parvin Sinclair, Director, National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT)

At UNESCO we are looking at two issues of what do we think, and what we are doing to assist countries to achieve EFA goals by the year 2015. We are asking our partners to look at the issue of schooling, not only in terms of access, but also to get the completion rate high.

For instance, in India we have more than 90 percent access to the primary school, but the completion rate is below 70 percent, and it is going down drastically in secondary education and upper secondary education. Many of them are related to the gender exclusion, disability exclusion, etc. Post 2015 we are putting new focus, not saying education for all, but we are saying learning for all.

Alisher Umarov, Chief of Education and Programme Specialist, UNESCO

Education should focus less on examination system and more on learning. The examination system and rote learning from the text book is not what we need. The examination system is only a tool to select. Is there anything in the examination system that selects in terms of values like honesty, and are we getting proper people at proper posts, in any profession?

So the first thing is that the focus should be learning instead of teaching. Focus should be on education instead of examination. Yes, we do need to select, but we can look at a more holistic way of assessment, where we look at the development of skill. We have to look at the development of understanding, but even the role of the teacher is very important that helps in value system and skill development.

Dr Pascal Chazot, Elected Member of Parliament in France for the French Overseas; Founder and Head of School, Mahatma Gandhi International

School (MGIS), Ahmedabad

Education is a great enabler as well as leveller. We have worked with former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s Pan-Afri-can e-Network project. It is one of the most successful proj-ects where 10,000 students from 48 countries across Africa are enrolled in live, face-to-face classroom sessions. As we have seen from Pan-African model, there is a lot of poten-tial for cooperation at the global level in terms of sharing of knowledge, content development, increasing accessibility, and improvisation of technology for e-networks.

Vimal Wakhlu, Chairman & Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Limited

Strategies for Steering the Education Sector

The wealth of nations is judged by the intellectual property they have and not by their physical or mineral wealth. There is a need for integration of societies and countries. We may have manufacturing in one place, the user maybe at another place, and the workforce maybe coming from a separate country. This means, whatever education and skill development we wish to have must be of comparable standards and be such that it can be trans-located from one region to another.

Amit Khare, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

Digital literacy is very important in today’s world. Also, mobile penetration is growing. So, we have to plan for e-content for the mobiles because that’s the best component through which we can reach the last miles. With increased internet connectivity, I also believe that we have to go for a virtual classroom system, as we have shortage of quality teachers. Lastly, to enhance em-ployability we have to focus on skill development.

Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director,



The Government of India’s investment in research is roughly 0.95 percent of the GDP, and it aims to increase this to two percent by the end of this plan period. We are working on the Singh-Obama Knowledge Initiative, and working for collaborations between foreign and Indian universities for the purpose of research and innovation. Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Secretary, University Grants Commission

Globally, the open learning education resources have gained a great momentum and we must pace ourselves with this particular ap-proach for improving quality in education. We have to create a safety net for the disadvantaged groups or school dropouts so that they complete their education up to secondary level. We should collabo-rate and develop good quality resources that will be available at a particular platform.

Dr S S Jena, Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling

WES 2013 REPORT PLENARY SESSION 1 & 2

Opportunities of OverseasCollaboration for Indian Institutions

We are grateful to India for leading the international education aid programmes in our country. Nearly 7,000 Afghan students are studying at universities and technical schools across India. We look forward to increased collaboration between India and Afghanistan through faculty and student exchange programmes. Educational co-operation through sustainable mechanisms will go a long way in enabling an economically and socially integrated region.

HE Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India

I see enormous opportunities, benefits, and synergies from international collaboration in the field of education. The inspiration for me is in seeing a future that is increasingly reflective of people who see themselves first as the citizens of the world, and later as citizens of nations. We are striving towards a world where international collaboration brings with it international understanding, which

in turn, brings opportunities for world harmony. Mark Parkinson, Executive Director, Head of School, Kunskapsskolan Eduventures, Gurgoan

There are many avenues of collaboration between India and the Philippines including the education sector. We welcome Indian investment in education in the Philippines. There is already an increased people-to-people contact between the two nations. Implementing less restrictive visa policies is a building block that can go a long way in boosting ties in the field of education. I

also believe organisations like ASEAN and SAARC should look into co-operation in education with India.

Robert O Ferrer, First Secretary, Embassy of the Philippines

Our gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is 28 percent and our gov-ernment is setting up a new target of 30 percent, for 2014. Thus, there is a need for more higher education institutions in Indonsesia, and we look forward to more collaboration with friendly countries like India. Also, India has now become an at-tractive education destination for students from overseas students. We are already working closely in several areas like organ-ising training and exchange programmes and joint-research programmes.

HE Rizali Wilmar Indrakesuma, Ambassador of Indonesia to India

Under the ‘Erasmus Mundus’ programme we are collaborating with more and more international students, especially in the short -term programmes of six months or nine months. Slovenia and India have been the main supporters of the International Centre for Promotion of Enterprises (ICPE) for the last two decades and we have had a lots of students from India. The programme will begin from this year in October and we expect that at least 25 or more students will enrol.

Lt Boris Jelovšek, Minister Plenipotentiary, Republic of Slovenia

WES 2013 REPORT SPECIAL SESSION

Our project e-Pronounce is an ongoing research project. It aims at learning correct pronounciation using phonetic sym-bols. We wanted to have something to bridge the language divide for people in the non-native English environment. The objective is pedagogy first and technology second.

Prof (Dr) Fong Soon Fook, Professor, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Blended Learning, Multimedia Content and Supportive Teaching Tools to Promote Student Engagement

In teaching through technology, we have to stop looking at engagement through content. Context is more important than content. We conducted an ex-periment, where we converted a sixth-grade science textbook into a comic. Students read through their entire science textbooks in exactly two days. So by changing context you can get students’ interest.

Kunal Sharma, Founder & Director, Mexus Education

Education should not be limited to read-ing or writing, it must be understood, applied and reasoned. Also, with digital learning and internet, a lot of resources are available for the students. We are in-troducing the tablet PCs with pre-loaded content to reduce paperwork.

Prabhakar Rao Polasani, Chairman, Rao’s Group of Educational Institutions, Hyderabad

There is only one percent penetration of interactive displays in India, while other countries like Moscow, Russia, and China have far greater adoption. So as a technology provider, we are working with our ecosystem to ensure that some of these problems are captured in our future products. Also, the future lies in 3-D stereoscopic, which is more engaging for students.

Ganesh S, Business Development Manager, DLP Products, Texas Instruments (India) Ltd

I believe it’s not just about hardware and software. It is not even about how we apply technology. It’s about com-pletely re-thinking the way we personalise learning spac-es and learning experiences. It means we place the stu-dents at the core, and let them set their goals. Instead of teachers, we should have coaches. This personal coach-ing leads to personal accountability for the students. Even the assessments have to be on the basis of knowledge instead of running after grades or marks.

Mark Parkinson, Executive Director, Head of School, Kunskapsskolan Eduventures, Gurgaon

Our core function is to digitise data that is written by hand to business process-able data. We designed a digital pen with the prime purpose of not wast-ing human time for completely non-productive things. I believe any new technology faces problems of adapta-tion and adaptability. No technology is bad. It only fails when it is wrongly implemented.

Sundaram Ramaswamy, Chief Executive Officer, Xcallibre Digital Pen Solutions Pvt Ltd

WES 2013 REPORT SCHOOL EDUCATION

Early Childhood Education

Emotional stability is important, as a child needs to be understood and heard. There shouldn’t be any rank-ing, neither in academics nor in sports. Our effort is to de-digitise, as too early stimulation will affect in the long run. Thus, computers should be limited as an aid. Treating parents as partners is extremely important. Also, teachers need to feel valued.

Shilpa Solanki, Founder Principal, The Orchid School, Pune

The role of educators is to keep the cu-riosity alive in the children to develop them fully. The key imperatives of early childhood educators to help children reach their

goals are: Care, Curriculum, Curiosity, Confidence and Creativity. The art of asking questions rather than knowing the right answers is a major aspect of a child’s development.

Pooja Goyal, Director, Intellitots, Guargoan

I believe no matter howsoever marvellous the school curriculum is, the problem lies in its imple-mentation. I have been involved in setting up early learning centres with the Shri Ram Group. We be-lieve in not only imparting skills but an attitude. We work in a children-centric curriculum. We look into different aspects like emotional security, experien-tial learning to encourage inquiry among students,

and differentiating between a slow and a fast learner. We also hold workshops for parents to bridge any sort of disconnect.

Kaadambari Muttoo, Director Academics, Schools Division, Shri Ram New Horizons, New Delhi

We have realised that we cannot live in that idealist framework where you teach a moral science chapter on don’t lie and the kid goes back home and observes his/her parents lying. So we believe that parents should go many steps beyond PTMs, and not only in pre-primary classes but be-yond that as well.

Amol Arora, Vice Chairman & MD, Shemrock & Shemford Group of

Schools, New Delhi

The issue here is not only about early childhood education (ECE). It is about early childhood care where emotional needs should be met. A school is a child’s first point of separation from his/her family. I think there is a lot of homework that needs to be done by most schools in that regard. ECE also needs to have measurable outcomes in terms of the ambience and the pedagogy.

Dr Jitendra Nagpal Program Director “Expressions

India” The National Life Skills Education & School Wellness

Program; Sr Consultant Psychiatrist & Incharge,

Institute of Child Development & Adolescent Health, Moolchand Medicity,

New Delhi

Teacher training is about getting complete mastery of ICT as pedagogical tools. Focus should be on ICTs in schools to transform teaching and learning. Implementation is an issue, professional development has happened haphazardly. It should be a continuous process. If teachers are not trained, then hardware and software are of no use.

Dr Termit Kaur Ranjit Singh, Senior Lecturer, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Capacity Building of EducatorsTeachers, Training, Technology

You have to inspire children and create in them a desire to learn, not just rote learn. They should be able to discuss and have belief in values and should have confidence in themselves. We should give them a stable tomorrow with informed decisions. But are we training our teachers to do that? There are large percentage of teachers who are unaware of what they need to do for a better future of young children. It is teacher training component that is going to make a critical difference. Teachers today have to act as facilitators and turn into mentor. For achieving that teachers should become a life-long learners.

Gowri Ishwaran, CEO, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation

One of the most important thing that I tried to identify is availability of teachers. Across India there is a dearth of teachers and according to reports we require 1.2 million teachers. The main reason for this, as per reports, is that teaching is the least preferred career choice. Another reason is the insufficient teacher training institutions and lack of qualified teacher educators.

Dr Dinesh Kumar, Additional Commissioner (Academics), Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, New Delhi

Today our system demands so much from us. We have to add so much, like cognitive element, social element, and psychological elements, intel-ligent quotient, new curriculum along with new acts like RTE, etc. Therefore, capacity building of teachers has be-come a full-time demand for school systems. Schools may have dramatic infrastructure and you may get good admissions, but you will not sustain those children in your campus unless you do something extraordinary.

Lakshmi Kumar, Director, Pradnya Niketan Education Society & Coordinator, Sweden-India Project Inter-Cultural Training Specialist

ICT can make a mark in education and various teaching challenges can be addressed by using ICT in classroom. So we have to change according to the digital world. Monika Mehan, Principal, DAV Public

School, Khera Khurd, New Delhi

The passion for teaching is lacking in the country. There is a huge gap beetween how the classes are held in India and abroad. The problem is either we have 18th century classrooms or we have 22nd century classrooms in most of the international schools, and we have 20th century teachers and 21st century students. To solve the problem we need to focus on

quality teachers. The whole concept of education is a waste if teachers, the most important factor for student development, are not paid attention to.

Shalini Nambiar, Director, Excelsior American School, Gurgaon


International Schools in IndiaChallenges and Opportunities

Everything has changed – the role of the teachers as facilitators, advance-ments in IT, etc. Still there are chal-lenges like dearth of quality teachers and resources. International collabo-ration is a fantastic opportunity and we need to harness it. Updating tech-nology is important, but let us not forget which technology is relevant to our community. Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan

Group of Schools, Mumbai

All our schools can become international schools, no matter whichever board af-filiation, through the universal best prac-tices like good stu-dent-teacher ratios, assessment for depth

and application of learning, and being accountable to parents by demonstrating real performances of understanding by their kids. It is a package of Intel-ligence Quotient (IQ), Passion Quotient (PQ), Spiritual Quotient (SQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ).Lina Ashar, Founder, Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd,

Mumbai

In this age of ‘ice-cream dilemma’ of careers, as an international educationist, I wanted to guide children to be able to pick the right kind of careers for themselves, based on their natures. Interna-tional education is about having choices, and also the need to get the RPRP approach i.e. right people at the right place/profession.

Steven Rudolph, Director, Jiva Education

Why do we live with the excuse that international education is limited to the rich? The theory of connectivism is the way forward, especially for learn-ing in the digital age. Every teacher has to be a part of international teaching-learning platforms because we do not live in India, we live in a global world and compete at an international level. We need to improve at the level of mu-nicipal schools. Manjula Pooja Shroff, CEO,

Calorx, Mumbai

Globalisation has led to the de-mand for international schools in metros and even in tier-I cit-ies. International exchange pro-grammes, international teaching practices where learning is not by rote, and the use of technology all form part of an international school. Challenges range from quality infrastructure, catering to a growing but niche segment, teacher availability, etc.

Rajeev Katyal, Country Director (India), Global Indian

International School, New Delhi

International affiliation, resources, teacher and training costs lead to an expensive fee structure. So the cost factor itself is a big challenge, and it is not meant for all. Prices may only come down if we have many international schools. Another challenge is there are not as many international universities in India for a child to be able to pursue international certification.

Dr Vandana Lulla, Directorh & Principal, Podar International School (IB & CIE), Mumbai

International education breaks down the barriers of race and culture. Such schools are expected to double in next five to seven years. But there are challenges like the mentality that it’s a ticket for a child’s study abroad, so sometimes the vision behind the programme is lost. Also, acceptance of international education is a problem with the higher

education universities in India. Priyamvada Taneja, Development Manager, India, International

Baccalaureate Organization, Haryana

The model of education that we have is from the days of industrialisation were, schools are still organised on factory lines; there is compartmen-talised subject delivery; and there is no intermingling. We have to start thinking differently about education, and we have to realise what our hu-man capacity is. Rita Wilson, Former Chief

Executive and Secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate

Examination; and Academic Lead, Develop Schools

digitalLEARNING

Upcoming Ranking Issues

For Participation in University & B School Ranking contact: [email protected]

For Participation in School and Pre School Ranking contact: [email protected];[email protected]


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[email protected];

Ranking Top Private Universities in India in July 2013

Ranking Top Government Universities in India in August 2013

Ranking Top Pre-schools in India in November 2013

Ranking Top Schools in India in December 2013

Ranking Top B-Schools in India in January 2014


Creating Excellence in School Education

“Excellence in education has become a buzzword today, and is very often used in clichéd terms.

But I think excellence is an overall pack-age of character building with focus on values, and the final summit is that of creating a good human being,” said Gowri Ishwaran, CEO, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, during a roundtable discussion at the third edition of World Education Sum-mit 2013.

Speaking about current schooling systems, Col V K Gaur, Advisor, Manav Rachna Educational Institutions said, “Nowadays, schools have become facto-ries that are more concerned about how many of their students have been selected for the IITs or IIMs. Excellence for them only means what converts into money. This is the state of affairs at the highest level in the country. Sadly, India only has two percent of skilled workforce.”

“Excellence will be there if we focus on Adhyayan (study), Adhyaapan (teach-ing), Abhayaas (practice), and Vyavahaar (behaviour),” Col Gaur added.

Elaborating upon the distinctive ap-

proach towards educating young minds, Steven Rudolph, Director, Jiva Educa-tion said, “Every morning in our school we give 15 minutes to what we call SOE- Self Others Environment, and we do swadhyaya (self-study). Every student talks to the other student about what good deeds he has done, and what prob-lems he is facing.”

Pointing towards the need for in-creased partnership between educators and parents to promote excellence in schools Rudolph added, “My belief on how we get excellence is through find-ing out what is the nature of the child, analysing it over the years, making him reflect with his parents, and setting him on the right path.”

Kavita Das, Principal, St John’s High School, Chandigarh, spoke about the im-portance of bridging the rich-poor divide in education, “We should not forget that there are millions out there who are very poor and who need to be educated. We have to start bringing them in our schools, and start integrating them rather than treating them as separate members of the society. The schools need to start widening their perspectives and not only cater to the

haves of the society, but should also start looking at the have-nots.”

Muhammad Husain Zulqarnain from The Knowledge Bridges Interna-tional Schools, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia added, “Einstein once said that it is not intellect but character that makes great scientists. If you are not imbibing charac-ter among students in schools, they will not get to learn it elsewhere.”

Discussion also highlighted the need of having gurus. “Are we having teach-ers or gurus, because there is a differ-ence between the two. If we have good gurus then we are actually going to do good to the society. Nowadays, moral values have gone down, and schools need to include moral lessons and per-sonality development classes. It is not only about teaching,” said one of the participants.

Summing up the session, Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Group of Schools said, “Generally K-12 is referred to as 15 years of school education. If we substract what-ever syllabi or curriculum taught in all those 15 years from the child’s personal-ity, then whatever is left with the child is what the holistic education means.”


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1- LtoR: Lt Boris Jolevsek, Minister Plenipotentiary, Republic of Slovenia; Shahid Ali Khan, Minister, Minority Welfare and Information Technology, Government of Bihar; Mantriprasad Naithani, Minister, School Education, Adult Education, Sanskrit Education, Government of Uttarakhand; Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan Group of Schools; Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd

2- LtoR: Asim Chauhan, Chancellor, Amity

172 Award Nominations, More than 82,489 online votes, 48 Award Winners

University; Lt Boris Jolevsek; Shahid Ali Khan

3- Release of CYBERFORT Technologies

4- Entrepreneurship in School Education (Special Mention): Dr Amrit Lal Ishrat Memorial Sunbeam Group of Schools Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

5- Vocational Education & Training Initiative (Special Mention): AISECT – Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

6- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Jury

Choice): Computer Aided Learning in Primary Schools of Gujarat

7- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Public Choice): My School e-School – District Panchayat Kutch, Gujarat

8- Start-up Initiative (Special Mention): Touch-on-Cloud – Harness Handitouch Pvt Ltd

9- Innovation By Engineering Institute (Public Choice): SAL Institute of Technology & Engineering Research, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

WES 2013 AWARDS

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10- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Jury Choice): Who We Are & Where Are We Going – Bal Bharati Public School, Delhi

11- Innovation By Engineering Institute (Jury Choice): Foundation Programme – Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat

12- Government Sector Initiative in Education (Special Mention): eScholarship Management System – Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra

13- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): Seamless Learning – Dr K N Modi University, Newai, Rajasthan

14- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): Customizable Business Simulation Software – Amity University, Gurgaon, Haryana

15- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Public Choice): Exploring the World – Ryan International School, Greater Noida,

16- Innovation in Language(s) Education

(Jury Choice): ePronounce – School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

17- Innovation in Language(s) Education (Public Choice): Innovations in Hindi Curriculum – The Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai

They Also WonInnovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): Ask Your Kids – Oakridge International School, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

Innovation By Management Institute (Public Choice): MIT School of Management, Pune, Maharashtra

Use of Assistive Technologies In Education (Public Choice): ICR @ Home – NIIT Ltd

Government Sector Initiative in Education (Special Mention): Vignana Yathre – Department of State Education Research and Training, Government of Karnataka

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18- Innovation in Science Education (Public Choice): Kaleidoscope – Sir Padampat Singhania Education Centre, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

19- e-School Initiative (Public Choice): Online Interactive Virtual School Portal – Dr Kedar Nath Modi Foundation, New Delhi

20- Green Campus Initiative (Public Choice): RMK Engineering College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

21- Multimedia Content For K-12 Education (Public Choice): DigitALly – Pearson Education Services Pvt Ltd

22- Green School Initiative (Public Choice): Save Earth, Save Mankind – Gyan Ganga International School, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

23- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Public Choice): International Exposure Programme – Dewan V S Group of Institutions, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh

24- Green Campus Initiative (Jury Choice): University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, Uttrakhand

25- Vocational Education & Training Initiative (Public Choice): Apprenticeship Programme – Volkswagen India Pvt Ltd

26- eCampus Initiative (Jury Choice): Campus Initiative University – Jayoti Vidyapeeth Women’s University, Jaipur, Rajasthan

27- Non-Government Sector Initiative in Education (Public Choice): Empowering Deaf Kids through Donated Mobile Phones – Sounds of Silence, Mumbai, Maharashtra

28- Start-up Initiative (Jury Choice): Synergize – Esquvi Technologies Pvt Ltd

29- Innovation in Math Education (Public Choice): Math Fair Application of Math in Life – The Orchid School, Pune, Maharashtra

WES 2013 AWARDS

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30- Multimedia Content For K-12 Education (Jury Choice): Raptivity – Harbinger Knowledge Products

31- Non-Government Sector Initiative in Education (Jury Choice): Legacy of Creating Educational Institutions of Excellence – Shri Ram Education Trust, New Delhi

32- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): MathsLab – Next Education India Pvt Ltd

33- e-School Initiative (Jury Choice): e-School Programme – Doon Public School, New Delhi

34- Use of Technology For Engineering Institutes (Jury Choice): Virtual 3-D Simulations A Sustainable Approach – Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre, Jaipur, Rajasthan

35- Innovation in Pre-School (Public Choice): Multiple Intelligence Learning Strategies – Delhi Public School, Bopal, Gujarat

36- Interface between Academia-Industry (Public Choice): Shadow Engineering – VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

37- eCampus Initiative (Public Choice): Activ(e)-Learning – Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

38- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Public Choice): Making No Bones about It – Mahatma Gandhi International School, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

39- Innovation in Open and Distance Learning (Jury Choice): Virtual Labs Universalizing Education NMEICT Project – Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam, Kerela

40- Use of Technology For Engineering Institutes (Public Choice): Microsoft India Student AppFest – Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd

41- Start-up Initiative (Public Choice): Recruitment Assisstance – Substance

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42- Innovation By Management Institute (Jury Choice): Abhyudaya – S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra

43- Global Collaborative Learning Initiative (Jury Choice): Competence Development in Product Lifecycle Management – JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

44- Innovation in Teaching Pedagogy (Jury Choice): iKen Design & Technology

Lab Hands-on-Learning – Mexus Education Pvt Ltd

45- Innovation in Pre-School (Jury Choice): Towards Making of Holistic Global Citizens – Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd

Fostering Excellence Transformative Practices towards Ensuring Quality

To bring about excel-lence, commercialisa-tion of education needs to be stopped first. Edu-cationists and education aid providers need to work together on areas of improvement through deliberations and in-novations. Enrolments need to be increased, while dropout rates have to be minimised. Language barriers play a vital role too.

Dr G James Pitchai, Vice Chancellor,

Bhararhiar University, Coimbatore

The biggest factor that correlates good quality education is a good quality teacher. How do we improve the quality of teachers is a major concern. Secondly, we need to understand why our institutions don’t figure in global rankings, as much as we are proud of them and have invested billions of dollars into them. If we are to become a knowledge economy, we need the insight and experience to take the Indian higher education to a completely different level.

Dr Amir Ullah Khan, Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India

A lot of transformational practices can come into examinations that will im-prove the overall quality of the education system. Maybe five years down the line, we shall be talking more about the best practices in computer-based mode of examination, instead of just talking about switching over to online system. Crucial aspects such as quality guidance, candidate convenience, and multiple service providers shall have to be considered.

Nagendran S, Executive Vice President, MeritTrac Services Pvt Ltd

The issue of ensuring quality in education is inherently tied to the scalabil-ity and accessibility of education. We need larger number of classrooms, books, study materials, labs, equipments, and good teachers, etc. However, human resources cannot be guaranteed to scale, and that’s where blended learning can help through models such as flipped classrooms and distance education. It enables students to get a mix of face-to-face type interaction with teachers and computer-mediated learning technologies, hence offering them best of both the worlds.

Jaya Jha, Head, Product & Marketing, Aurus Network

We need to create a framework where a student’s self-learning process gets much better. Technology is not about taking the teacher out of the system, but enabling the teacher. We need to change the mindset and see technology as an enabler. For any transformation to happen, we need corporates to provide us technology that would take us to the next level, academicians for bringing in re-search and innovation, and parents to keep faith in us.

Ullas Sathyanarayana, Co-Founder & Director, Cogknit Semantics Pvt Ltd

The classroom should focus on how we can learn together. This is the age of diminishing IP. The idea of patents is

going to be over, because everything is going to be open. We are talking about ethical hacking. We really need to open up.

Supreet Kaur, Head, Marketing and Alliances, Harness Handitouch

WES 2013 REPORT HIGHER EDUCATION

Over the years, foreign presence may increase in the management institutes and programme offer-ings will be changed. Less than two years or executive MBA pro-grammes will gain popularity.

Prof P Rameshan, Director, Indian Institute of Management

Rohtak, Haryana

Management EducationThe Current Scenario and the Way Forward

Only three percent of India’s total R&D is conducted by educational institutions, and we have not done well in ap-plied research in engineering and management as well. So, that is a matter of concern. Also, teaching is usually done through the case study method that focuses on companies who have performed in terms of profit and strategy. But this method has become obsolete abroad, as it talks about past practices. But today, the future lies in building socially responsible companies and inno-vative practices.

Dr M P Jaiswal, Chairman, Centre for Smart Innovation

& Governance; Chairman, Process Rennovation

Projects, MDI, Gurgaon

There was a time when MBA provoked a lot of craze among people. However, over the last few

years, not only in India but even in the US, placements have been very bad in MBA institutes.

The cost of tuition has risen manifold. The two-year MBA has lost its relevance, and it should

be converted into a combined four-year programme. In fact, specialisation programmes of 14-

18 months on business analytics, financial engineering, multimedia, e-commerce, and digital

marketing will do well in future. M J Xavier, Director, Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, Jharkhand

There has been a dearth of serious people in education. I feel the faculty and students are the heart of any in-stitute. We should invest in delivering quality knowledge and more value for all stakeholders. For instance, we have a structured mentorship pro-gramme for students at our institute, where faculty and industry leaders

come together to guide our students. We also have academy quality assurance system, and academic audit at both internal and external level.

Prof Pankaj Gupta, Director General, Jaipuria Institutes of Management

There is a common concern among universi-ties of management education world-over on how to build socially sensitive business lead-ers for tomorrow. Our institute undertakes many pedagogic innovations in this regard. For example, the programme called ‘Abyu-daya’, where our students mentor underprivi-leged students from neighbouring slums.

Rukaiya Joshi, Professor, S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai

Private Universities in India Innovation in Education

Innovative curriculum, including contemporary subjects, is going to be the most important thing in the coming years. Experiential learning is also very important and students need to take up projects with the industry. Technology transfer and collabo-rations between government, research institutions, and industry are going to play a pivotal role.Padmakali Banerjee, Pro Vice Chancellor, Amity

University, Gurgaon

Quality is the hallmark of education. It can be attained by aligning global partnerships




be given challenging assignments and be evaluated on an innovative grading system.Dr Francis C Peter, Vice Chancellor & President, Dr K N Modi University, Rajasthan

Innovation in EducationQuality is the hallmark of education. It can be attained by aligning global partnerships




be given challenging assignments and be evaluated on an innovative grading system. Vice Chancellor & President, Dr K N Modi University, Rajasthan

For education we need only one thing, which is a great mind and enabling environment. We know that India has great minds, but where is the enabling environment? There is a lack of freedom for private institutions. The hope is that they can differentiate them-selves by focusing on students, who should be treated as the centre of all the activities. Another hope is in engaging the industry, as employability of students depends on the in-dustry. But it has to be two-sided interaction wherein teachers and students also contrib-ute to the industry. Also, private universities should have other models of revenue gen-


to remain s u s t a i n -able in the long-run.

Dr Anup K Singh, Director

General & Chairman,


We believe in innovations through entrepreneurship whether it is technology or management or business schools. The motive should now be to produce employers rather than employees, because an employer can feed and assist four other people. We encourage our students to take up entrepreneurial projects.

Prof Satish C Sharma, CMD & Professor in Management, Maharaja Group of Colleges

Though the private sector has contributed a lot towards the success of technical education, priority structures have to be maintained across institutions. The most important thing on the list is the quality of the faculty that you acquire. It has to be followed by teaching-learning processes, quality of academic leadership, quality

of admission, alumni relations, sports and cultural activities. But most of these segments have been misplaced in the priority list. It is time to stop distinguishing between public and private colleges, rather making both of them deliverable.

Prof Prem Vrat, Vice Chancellor, ITM University, Gurgaon


to remain s u s t a i nable in the

Dr Anup K Singh,Director

General & Chairman,



India has become one of the major hubs for knowledge outsourcing and skill development. The quality of skill enhancement programmes, their variety and delivery has become major advantage for the world. It is only in India that you can find skill development enhancement solution for any need. One of the most sought after course is the algorithm training programme. Another emerging area of skill development is that of cyber security, given the rising cyber criminal activities.

Amit Kumar, Managing Director, Dr A Kumar Institute of Education; President, CYBERFORT Technologies

delivery has become major advantage for the world. It is only in India that you can find skill development enhancement solution for any need. One of the most sought after course is the algorithm training programme. Another emerging area of skill development is that of cyber security, given the rising cyber criminal activities.

Managing Director, Dr A Kumar Institute of

Vocational TrainingEnhancing Employability Skills

In India only 10 percent of fresh grad-

uates are employable, as the majority

lacks industry specific skills. We need

to emphasise on vocational training

for target groups like school drop-

outs, women and socially backward

groups of our society. Also, we have

to do away with the stigma attached

with vocational education to attract the

best talent.Dr U C Pandey, Regional Director,

IGNOU Regional Centre

Our education system is more theoretical leaning on getting good grades, but we do not create professionals. We have to build linkages between all sections of education to enable skill development along with knowledge generation.

Dr Aarti Srivastava, Associate Professor, National University

of Educational Planning and Administration

We have been working for the last 27 years in the unorganised sector in the backward districts of the country. We provide short-term and entry-level courses in regional languages. Our focus is on providing skills development in areas that are relevant to that particular



Abhishek Pandit, Director, Business Services, AISECT

Recently, the Government of Andhra Pradesh started Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu scheme. It aims to build job specific skills among the unemployed, and place them in appropriate private job sectors like construction. However, it is essential to make people aware about the different vocational skills and their learning centres.

Prof B Venkat Rathnam, Vice Chancellor, Kakatiya University



The sectoral approach is that we need to scale quality ca-pacity among the faculty, infrastructure, students, and the ecosystem, at large. Employability at the entry-level, and research and development at the higher level, both are re-quired. While the industry has gone on its own journey, we have not made our efforts to bridge the misconception of supply and demand requirement. So the supply side has ac-

tually perceived the industry re-quirement and moved on its own journey.

Dr Sandhya Chintala, Executive Director, Sector Skills Council, NASSCOM

Industry-Academia Bridge

Channelising Collaborative Models

The government is not solely responsible for doing everything. There are many examples across the world where education, health, transport and many important sectors are into private domains. It is good to involve private sector, both at the school level and higher education level in education, as it increases the competitiveness. When we say that education is the backbone, it is about inculcating democratic and secular values among the citizens.

Capt H A Arfi, IAS, (Retd) Director AICC & AIESR, Amity University, Noida

Graduates now require skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity that are documented in the approach paper of the plan document in the 12th Plan. Special emphasis on verbal communication skills, especially English, will help in bringing employability. We need an interactive and collective arrangement between academic institutions and the business cooperation, for the achievement of certain mutually inclusive goals and objectives. There is a growing need of industry in making new recruits productive with right

skill and knowledge, and thereby reducing the cost.Shakila Shamsu, Officer on Special Duty, Department of Higher

Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India


Industry and academia are not working together. We are facing this issue that after four years of engineering, the companies come to us and say that their mindset is different, and they want something else from the students. We made industry-specific learning as a part of our curriculum. There are some industry relevant curriculums, which we have designed in consultation with major companies.

Dr Madhu Chitkara, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University

We have kept the concept of corporate mentor at our institute, whereby we as-sign 15 students to a corporate and the mentors groom students. They take all the responsibility, starting from the academ-ics to placements and teach business etiquette to students. We are also provid-ing vocational courses to our students as corporates need students with basic knowledge of a particular industry. We must emphasise on practical knowledge and then the theory.

Prof (Dr) Sandip P Solanki, Director, MBA Dept, M H Gardi School of Management, Gardi

Vidyapith, Rajkot

Gujarat Knowledge Society (GKS) is a revolutionary measure of the Gujarat Government, undertaken in 2008, to bridge the gap between the industry and academia. GKS believes in empowering the youth. We incorporate training centres with the help of various industries, where quality education is imparted to the candidates. GKS has already registered with some of the finest public and private institutions in the country like NIIT, HCL, etc. The students get great employment opportunities along with enhancement of the skills and knowledge.

Ritesh Maheta, Accounts Officer, Gujrat Knowledge Society

During the second year of MBA course, we talk to the industry people, and they give curriculum to us, which has to be added to the syllabus. Retail giant, Shoppers Stop, approached us and said that they need 900 employees every year. Attrition rate is high, but we have to give extensive training to graduates for one year to make them employable. They suggested us to give six-month training in the last year of graduation for students who want to join the retail industry.

Dr Deepak Shah, Secretary, Kamala Education Society (KES)

New Financing and Business Models in Education

India’s private education market is estimated to reach USD 103 billion from USD 71 bil-lion currently. New models of PPP in the skill development sector are assisting the vo-cational education sector. We see expansion in education with participation of private and foreign players. For that, the sector should be turned into for profit. Government can allow long-term lease on land and infrastructure. It may cap profitability, but allow a rate of return to the investor.

Melwin Braggs, Business Lead, Develop Schools

Most of the companies think that investment happens on top line. The new set of investment that is happening in the country, which is particularly in education is happening on PACT (Profit After Tax). Even if you have `1 pact there are investors who are ready to give you 20 times of that. But if you have a top line of 50 crores and you are not profitable means the execution is a big problem inside the company and we as Indians are far better in giving ideas, chalking out strategies, but lack in the execution side. If you are running a company, or a business and, if you have `1 of profit, it is more valuable than `100 of top line.

Naveen Jha, CEO, Deshpande Foundation; and Managing Trustee, Deshpande Education Trust;

President-TiE-Hubli

There are lots of challenges in finding investors in educa-tion. In India, education is considered as a non-profit making sector. For profit entities like partners firm, cooperatives, pri-vate limited companies, investments is not a challenge. But with education, which is formed under entities like societ-

ies, trusts and Section 25 companies, finding investor is a real chal-lenge. Investor or VC funds cannot invest in trust or society because they cannot reap benefits out of them.

Seema Jhingan, Partner, LexCounsel Law Offices, New Delhi

I think private players like us are looking to invest in innovations so that we can play a meaningful role in the education sector. For instance, we support an organisation called ‘Agastya’ that designs low-cost science equipment. So there is a huge opportunity lying in the philanthropy and innovation format that can be used to supplement the education system. Various sectors require very specific skills. I think India’s demographic dividend has to be converted into human capital else it will

become a liability.Ujjawal Singh, Partner, Indus Balaji
